Identity
Person No.
29516
Old ROH no.
123
Service No.
71417653N
Last Name
First Name
Daniel Petrus
Initials
D P
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
Age at Death
18
Death Record
Date of Death
Cause code
MVA 2,660
Motor vehicle accident
Cause of Death
Died in Military Vehicle Accident, at Gen De Wet Training Area. While standing guard, they were fooling around on an Eland armoured car. Boshoff was sitting on the front mudguard and jumped off to try and catch a wild rabbit. The vehicle ran over him
Military Service
Location
Country
Locality
Cemetery
Grave Reference
Unit History
Role at time of death
Armour (Armoured Car)
Status
Permanent Force (Regular)
Part of
Resuscitated as a Permanent Force unit in 1946, when the South African Armoured Corps was officially proclaimed and the Special Service Battalion was included in it as the corps's only full-time unit, its symbols and colours being incorporated. Same lineage as the Special Service Battalion (OrgEntityID 5278); "1 Special Service Battalion" is the specific numbered battalion within that Permanent Force unit.
SOURCE CONFLICT, recorded rather than resolved: the 1 SSB article says the post-war reorganisation produced "1 Special Service Battalion and 1 South African Infantry Battalion", which would make 1 SAI the other battalion from the start. The Special Service Battalion and 2 SSB articles instead have the second battalion carrying the name 2 SSB until 26 January 1951, when it was renamed 1 SAI. The two accounts cannot both be right about when the name 1 SAI appeared. NO OrgEntityAlias is recorded for 2221 on the strength of either.
Border War service falls in this era: South West Africa and Angola, with squadrons detached to battlegroups rather than the regiment deploying whole -- among them 63 Mechanised Battalion Group, on Operations Merlyn and Agree in 1989. Equipped with the Eland 60 and Eland 90. All but three of the men on this roll who point at 2221 died in this period.
The Union Defence Force became the South African Defence Force in 1957, part-way through this era; no man on this roll attached to 2221 died before 1964, so the change affects none of them.
Notes
Son of Mr. D. P. Boshoff, of Welkom.
Research notes
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".
Citations
Unknown
External References
-
Col (rt) Graham du Toit Last Post
Graham Last Post 5 Oct 2026
-
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 85-87 of 143: confirmed, no changes.
Stories 1
'Bossie' was a member of my Squadron (A Squadron - 1973 : 1SSB Bloem). In October 1973, we had come back from the border and were spending our last days as 'ou manne', before 'klaring out', at De Brug, on random manouveres with Citizen Forces members on course. It was weekend and the PF's at the time left De Brug for Bloem for the weekend - we stayed at De Brug for a 'slow' weekend and to look after the verhicles. When night fell, Bossie, Flip, Ernst, and one more guy - I don't remember his name -, took a 60 (Armoured Car) to go and hunt for rabbits - 'hase jag' on the open plains of De Brug. It was not long before some guys from another unit arrived in a 'garry' with the news that there was an accident - Bossie had fallen off the armoured car on full speed, and landed under the wheels. He was killed. For men who had done border duty in the Caprivi and Southern Angola / Zambia, and had gone through a tough year in die armoured corps, it was a devastating blow. For the driver, Flip, and Ernst, who were also my school friends in Zeerust for five years, this was an incident that we would never forget as long as we lived. Bossie was burried in Welkom in full military hounors and we marched proudly that day - not for the miserable accident that claimed his life, but for what he stood for and what he contributed during 1973 at 1SSB. I will always remember Bossie as one of the most jovial and outgoing positive souls, I had the honour to serve with and be friends with. I heard from friends many years later that Flip died in a car crash - I could never get that confirmed though. The men I served with at 1SSB A Squadron in Bloem during 1973 (our corporals then were Mike Muller, Killer Steinberg and the like) were tough and good guys, going on to serve their country with pride and honour in their Citizen Force units.
Dedications
No dedications have been added yet.