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Holtzhausen , John Owen (J O)

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Photo of Holtzhausen
Identity
Person No.
30743
Old ROH no.
2147
Service No.
P1/38342
Last Name
Holtzhausen 9
First Name
John Owen
Initials
J O
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
1924 (±1 yr) 375
Age at Death
28
Death Record
Date of Death
10 April 1952 233
Cause code
KIA 14,811
Killed in action
Cause of Death
Killed in action 14,686
Killed in action, in North American F-51 Mustang #372. Major Mouton led a three aircraft flight, comprising himself, Lt J.O. Holtzhausen in the No.2 position and Capt van der Merwe in the No.3 position. Their target was a railroad at YE5004, which they attacked from 7500 feet. Visibility over the target was poor, with low cloud and haze. Prior to his attack, Major Mouton noticed that both his No.2 and No.3 were in position, and after the attack he headed for the form up point and called his flight to check in. Only No.3 did so. On calling Lt Holtzhausen again, Major Mouton received a response, to the effect that Lt Holtzhausen was joining an American flight for the return home. However, he failed to arrive with any of the American flights involved in the attack, and was not heard of again
Military Service
Branch
Air Force
Rank
Lieutenant
Regiment
2 Squadron 109
Corps
South African Air Force 3,524
Unit
Unknown
Defence Force
UDF 24,809
Union Defence Force
Location
Country
South Africa 23,879
Locality
Unknown
Cemetery
UNITED NATIONS PUSAN MEMORIAL 26
Grave Reference
Panel 13 23
Memorial
Approach walkways to the Wall of Remembrance, UNMCK, Busan. Photo: Bubbahotepblues, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons (https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wall_of_Remembrance,_UN_Memorial_Cemetery,_Busan,_South_Korea.jpg)
Names on Panel 13
Memorial
United Nations Memorial Cemetery in Korea (UNMCK)
Location
Tanggok, Nam District, Busan, South Korea
Address
woonam-ro 93beon-gil 93, Nam-gu, Busan, South Korea
Coordinates
35.12845, 129.09623 · OpenStreetMap
Panel
Panel 13
On the panel
Panel 13
Unit History
Part of
Rhodesian Air Force - Squadrons
Notes

Husband of Mrs. Sybil Dulcie Holtzhausen (born Eckstein on 20 May 1923 and married 10 December 1949), of Cape Town. ref. 85 years of SAAF

Research notes

Locality was wrongly set to "Gauteng" -- corrected 28 Aug 2026 (second pass, this time verified against Cemetery rather than AddInfo text, after the first AddInfo-based pass was found to be unreliable and reverted). This person's own Cemetery is unambiguously outside South Africa; several other people at the same cemetery already correctly show a blank Locality. Cleared rather than guessed at a specific region.
5 Sep 2026: Unit "2 Squadron" (a squadron, SAAF's regiment-equivalent) promoted to Regiment, per John's decision. Corps (South African Air Force) unchanged.
25 Sep 2026, Unit2 service-branch sweep: the stored Secondary Unit "Army" was CLEARED. It was not a sub-unit, it was a service-branch word, and it CONTRADICTED this record's own Branch, "Air Force". Across the roll 787 records carried such a contradiction; judged against Corps and Regiment -- independent of both columns -- the evidence backed Branch 744 times and Unit2 not once. Branch is therefore kept and the contradicting word removed. Nothing is guessed: this man's branch of service is already recorded, and his sub-unit, if any, is simply not known.

Citations
Unknown
External References
Stories 1
on 02 July 2001 · via source
Major Mouton led a three aircraft flight, comprising himself, Lt J.O. Holtzhausen in the No.2 position and Capt van der Merwe in the No.3 position. Their target was a railroad at YE5004, which they attacked from 7500 feet. Visibility over the target was poor, with low cloud and haze. Prior to his attack, Major Mouton noticed that both his No.2 and No.3 were in position, and after the attack he headed for the form up point and called his flight to check in. Only No.3 did so. On calling Lt Holtzhausen again, Major Mouton received a response, to the effect that Lt Holtzhausen was joining an American flight for the return home. However, he failed to arrive with any of the American flights involved in the attack, and was not heard of again.
Dedications

No dedications have been added yet.