Identity
Person No.
33040
Old ROH no.
1331
Service No.
73503294BA
Last Name
First Name
Pieter Willem Marais
Initials
P W M
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
18
Death Record
Date of Death
Cause code
DOW 2,734
Died of wounds
Cause of Death
Died of wounds, received in a contact with the enemy. He was part of Battle Group Orange and was wounded by hand grenade shrapnel in a contact with Cuban and MPLA forces. He was evacuated by helicopter with other wounded, to Silva Porta, but he died en route
Military Service
Branch
Army
Rank
Rifleman
Unit
Unknown
Secondary Unit
Unknown
Defence Force
SADF 3,848
South African Defence Force
Location
Country
Locality
Grave Reference
Coordinates
Operation
Operation
Dates
1975-10-14 to 1976-03-27
About
SADF intervention in the Angolan Civil War following Portugal's withdrawal, in support of UNITA and the FNLA against the Soviet/Cuban-backed MPLA. South African armoured columns (Task Force Zulu and others) advanced deep into Angola, reaching within striking distance of Luanda, before withdrawing by late March 1976 amid international and domestic political fallout. South Africa's first large post-WWII conventional deployment and the opening chapter of the Border War's Angola phase.
Unit History
Awards
South Africa · awarded 1976-01-04
Pro Patria Medal (original 1974 warrant, Government Gazette No. 4490, 8 Nov 1974, as amended by GG No. 4932, 19 Dec 1975) -- confirmed as one of the first 48 posthumous Pro Patria recipients on the official 1976 Roll of Honour, reproduced in P.F. Roos, "Pro Patria Medal: Types, Variants, Ribbon Accoutrements and Selected Recipients of Interest" (Section II, Part One). Gazette extracts: https://rohsa.co.za/award.php?id=24
Notes
Son of Mr. W. H. Snyman, of Pretoria.
Research notes
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post 04 Jan 2024: 73503294BA Rifleman Pieter Willem Marais Snyman, 5 SAI, Killed in Action during Ops Savannah; enemy hand grenade thrown into his defensive trench near Dondo, Central Angola, killing him instantly, age 18. ROH records died of wounds en route to Silva Porta after grenade shrapnel (Battle Group Orange) — cause/instant death not overwritten.
Citations
Unknown
External References
-
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post 04 Jan 2024: 73503294BA Rifleman Pieter Willem Marais Snyman, 5 SAI, Killed in Action during Ops Savannah; enemy hand grenade thrown into his defensive trench near Dondo, Central Angola, killing him instantly, age 18. ROH records died of wounds en route to Silva Porta after grenade shrapnel (Battle Group Orange) — cause/instant death not overwritten.
-
SADF.info Border Roll of Honour
open source ↗
SADF.info Border RoH
- South African War Graves Project open source ↗
-
The War in Angola
open source ↗
War In Angola Roll of Honour (warinangola.com, tabid=1175), pages 26-28 of 143: confirmed, no changes.
Stories 2
4 January 1976, killed in Angola, outside Dondo. Hand grenade thrown into his trench. Was a member of 5SAI. Unknown Unknown
I collected RFN Snyman after he had been wounded, with a medic we took him to a point where we would meet a helicopter. He died in the helicopter. I often think about him and his parents. We had another Unimog with a Sgt Major and 10 troops as a guard for us, they left us and did not return, the medic and I had to spend the night in the bush by ourselves with our Unimog.
Dedications
No dedications have been added yet.