Identity
Person No.
33200
Old ROH no.
1391
Service No.
01575109PE
Last Name
First Name
Daniel Jakob (tallies)
Initials
D J
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
30
Military Service
Death Record
Date of Death
Cause code
KIA 14,310
Killed in action
Cause of Death
Killed in action, took off from Cela to do a recce over the Massaba River, in Cessna 185D #739. Presumed shot down over town of Ebo Central Angola. Presumed buried next to wreck
Grave Reference
Location
Country
Locality
Notes
Son of Mr. D. J. Taljaard. On Tuesday July 11 2006 Mr. Henk van Zyl was physically taken to the gravesite, was able, through an interpreter and in the presence of about five Angolan government officials, able to speak to two headmen. One who assisted in burying Capt DJ (Tallies) Taljaard and 2nd Lieutenants Keith Williamson and Eric Thompson He was shown what remained of the aircraft after 31 years and where the grave was. It is slightly still recognizable as a grave and someone had stuck a little wooden cross on the grave as if someone still cared about the three men. They are in a communal grave next to where the plane came down. He says that the occasion was very solemn in that while he was there, the Angolans all bowed their heads in pray and very little was said on the way back to the vehicles.
Citations
Unknown
External References
-
SADF.info Border Roll of Honour
SADF.info Border RoH
- South African War Graves Project
Stories 2
I served in 7 SAI in 1974 at Bourke's Luck and Wenela in the Caprivi. I'm pretty sure that our border Coy OC was this Capt. Taljaard. I was a Bn signaller and had quite a lot of contact with him, mainly intelligence related matters (I even lent him a book called "Diary Of A Desert Rat). He was really "An Officer And A Gentleman".
"An eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind:" Ghandi On November 25 1975 a light unarmed Cessna 180D aircraft of the South African Air Force took off from an airstrip near a Catholic missionary station by the name of Cela in the heart of central Angola and only about 250 kilometers from Luanda. On board was an Infantry officer, a Captain JD (Tallies) Taljaard and two Air Force pilots, both young and newly qualified but excellent pilots. They were 2nd Lieutenant Keith Williamson and 2nd Lieutenant Eric Thompson. They were on an authorized reconnaissance mission with very open-ended instructions. Captain Taljaard, who was one of the Brigade?s Operational Staff Officers, was ?to conduct a visual air reconnaissance of the brigade?s operational area? while the pilot, Lieutenant Williamson had ?to assist him on this reconnaissance, but if the weather tuned bad, he was to return.? Due to the fact that Lieutenant Williamson was unfamiliar with one of the areas they would be flying over, he requested that his friend, Lieutenant Thompson accompany them. The air liaison officer acceded to this request. The three men were taken to the airfield at Cela constructed by the now departed Portuguese where the plane was refueled, taking on board a full load of fuel which, depending on how and at what height they were to fly at, would give the plane a flying time of four and a half to maximum of six hours flying time. They took of at 11:05. Due to the flight being ?a mission? no flight plan was lodged and neither was radio communications established and maintained between the plane and the Headquarters at Cela. Therefore throughout the day, no one at the Headquarters had any knowledge of where the reconnaissance plane was at any given time. It was only when the fuel time became critical that the liaison officer became worried and tried to establish communications. When this failed, he requested the ground forces to report if anyone had seen the plane during the day and to ask amongst the local inhabitants if they knew or had heard anything of the plane. On November 27th The SA Defence Force? intelligence, monitoring all enemy radio frequencies, intercepted a message from the Cuban Brigade Headquarters at Quibala to the Supreme Headquarters of the Cuban Military Mission in Angola, situated in Luanda, that Cuban anti-aircraft guns had shot down a light aircraft over the Ebo district, killing the three occ
Dedications
No dedications have been added yet.