PDF
« Previous

Van Blommestein , William Ross

Next »
No photograph available — remembrance poppy
Identity
Person No.
33391
Service No.
Unknown
First Name
William Ross
Initials
Unknown
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
42
Death Record
Cause code
DOAS 7,467
Died on active service
Cause of Death
Died on active service
Military Service
Branch
Army
Rank
Major
Regiment
Unknown
Secondary Unit
Army
Defence Force
UDF 24,808
Union Defence Force
Memorial
Memorial
Location
On a koppie at the Voortrekker Monument, overlooking Pretoria
Address
Coordinates
Panel
Not listed against a numbered panel
On the panel
Position on the panel will be added with photographs
Notes

Son of Mr. W. H. S. van Blerk, of Johannesburg.

Research notes


4 Sep 2026: Regiment leftover "SA Army" cleared -- that's the service branch (Army, as distinct from Navy/Air Force), not a specific regiment; the actual unit ("4 South African Infantry Battalion") is already captured in Unit. Per John's decision, the 52 records with no better Unit info were left as-is.
Mike Sandham's research log ("List 1"), imported 16 Sep 2026, credited to The South Africa War Graves Project unless his entry says otherwise: gives Age 47 against this record's 42. This record has no date of birth, so there is nothing to adjudicate with. Flagged, not changed.
16 Sep 2026, ServiceNo contamination sweep: the stored ServiceNo '85462034' was CLEARED. It was not a reading of this man's record. PersonNumbers 33389 to 33391 -- 3 consecutive records -- all carried the identical number, which belongs to the record at the head of that run (33389, Van Biljon, Ernst (E)). A value repeated down an unbroken block of PersonNumbers is a forward-fill import artefact, not men who shared a service number; the pattern holds across 850 such runs on this roll and is independently confirmed by Mike Sandham's research log, which attaches such numbers to the head of the run 167 times against 6 contradictions (all examined). No replacement is guessed: this man's real service number is simply not known, and a blank field says so honestly where another man's number did not.

Citations
Unknown
Stories

No stories have been added yet.

Dedications

No dedications have been added yet.