Son of Mr. and Mrs. A. B. Whitaker, of White River
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post 12 Sep 2026 / Bushwar Books Lest We Forget 12 September (https://www.warbooks.co.za/posts/lest-we-forget-12-september/ 83508903BG Pte Ricky Grant Whitaker, 5 Maintenance Unit, accidentally blasted in the face with a fire extinguisher at the Base in Ondangwa Town, age 18. ServiceNo +BG. Cause already matched; Graham adds "Ondangwa Town".
14 Sep 2026: Pro Patria Medal added -- database-wide sweep for SADF Border War operational-area deaths within the medal's gazetted window (25 Jun 1976 - 27 Apr 2003), per the warrant's died-before-qualifying-period provision. See PersonAward.Citation for the gazette references.
14 Sep 2026: Pro Patria Medal added earlier today REVERTED -- John obtained the actual Government Gazette (GG 5171/5575); the "died before completing the qualifying period" provision relied on does not exist in the primary text (it was a secondary-source claim). Actual Rule 5 requires (a) combat/enemy-caused incident, (b) a Ministerially-acknowledged operation (clasp), or (c) 55+ continuous/90+ non-continuous days in an operational area -- none of which this record's cause of death clearly demonstrates.
25 Sep 2026, Unit2 service-branch sweep: the stored Secondary Unit "Army" was CLEARED as a duplicate. It was not a sub-unit, it was a service-branch word repeating what the Branch column already says. Secondary Unit is for sub-units -- a company, a squadron, a commando -- and this record's branch of service is unchanged at "Army".
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Bushwar Books - Lest We Forget
open source ↗
Lest We Forget 12 September
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Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post
Graham Last Post 12 Sep 2026
- South African War Graves Project open source ↗
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The War in Angola
open source ↗
War In Angola Roll of Honour (warinangola.com, tabid=1175), page 21 of 143: gives SN suffix BG (ROH: no suffix) — confirmed match otherwise, not overwritten.
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