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Joyce , Harold Theodore Retief (H T R)

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Photo of Joyce
Identity
Person No.
30945
Old ROH no.
2136
Service No.
P1/40843
Last Name
Joyce 4
First Name
Harold Theodore Retief
Initials
H T R
Date of Birth
Unknown
Est. Birth Year
1927 (±1 yr) 102
Age at Death
24
Death Record
Date of Death
29 September 1951 112
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 #340. 2Lt Joyce was flying as No.2 to Lt Pretorius, on a rail interdiction mission. About 20 miles north of the bomb line the No.3, Lt Beamish, reported that he had a coolant leak and he and the No.4 Mustang were ordered to return to their base at K-46. Not long after this, Joyce reported that his engine was smoking, and Lt Pretorius decided to also return to K-46. While en route, 2Lt Joyce reported that his engine was now alright, and Lt Pretorius decided that the two of them would bomb Inchon instead, as this was directly on their route home. He ordered 2Lt Joyce to arm his bombs, which instructions were acknowledged, and they went in for the attack. After Lt Pretorius had climbed away he observed a brilliant flash on a hillside south of Inchon, and despite repeated attempts he was unable to raise 2Lt Joyce on his radio. He concluded that 2Lt Joyce had flown into the hillside while making his attack. Lt Pretorius returned later that day with another flight of aircraft, but although they were able to find the crash site, there was no sign of 2Lt Joyce
Military Service
Branch
Air Force
Rank
Second 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

Son of Major H. V. Joyce, of Voortrekkerhoogte. 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 19 June 2001 · via source
2Lt Joyce was flying as No.2 to Lt Pretorius, on a rail interdiction mission. About 20 miles north of the bomb line the No.3, Lt Beamish, reported that he had a coolant leak and he and the No.4 Mustang were ordered to return to their base at K-46. Not long after this, Joyce reported that his engine was smoking, and Lt Pretorius decided to also return to K-46. While en route, 2Lt Joyce reported that his engine was now alright, and Lt Pretorius decided that the two of them would bomb Inchon instead, as this was directly on their route home. He ordered 2Lt Joyce to arm his bombs, which instructions were acknowledged, and they went in for the attack. After Lt Pretorius had climbed away he observed a brilliant flash on a hillside south of Inchon, and despite repeated attempts he was unable to raise 2Lt Joyce on his radio. He concluded that 2Lt Joyce had flown into the hillside while making his attack. Lt Pretorius returned later that day with another flight of aircraft, but although they were able to find the crash site, there was no sign of 2Lt Joyce.
Dedications

No dedications have been added yet.