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Just checked my info. The following happened this week, 78 years ago.
Also on the 11th April, No.1 Squadron SAAF started moving from East Africa to Egypt after the Italian forces in Eritrea were defeated with the fall of Asmara to the Commonwealth forces. On that day, four Hurricanes were flown from Khartoum to Abu Sueir, a RAF base in Egypt, by Captain Ken Driver and three RAF ferry pilots. On the 12th, The CO major Tommy Ross-Theron led Lt's Ernest "Tuppy" Jarvis, John "Jock" White and AJ "Atiie" Botha along the same 7 -hour route. The squadron flew the SAAF's first operational sorties in the desert on the 17th when Lts Burger and Townsend-Smith took off from Amriya, south of Alexandria to patrol over the harbour. They had to land at Abu Kir on the coast when a sand storm blew up while they were airborne.
Adriaan Botha was a 19-year old pilot who had two months to live, by which time he'd become the SAAF's leading scorer against the Luftwaffe with 5 kills in three weeks. He was shot down and killed by an experienced Luftwaffe ace Oberleutnant Karl-Wolfgang Redlich, who at the time was the leader of 1 Staffel of 1 Gruppe of JG 27. A Jagdgeschwader (JG) was the equivalent of a RAF Group, which consisted of 3 or 4 Wings (equivalent to a Gruppe), each of which typically consisted of 3 or 4 Squadrons (almost equivalent to a Staffel, which was usually 12 aircraft, a RAF squadron 16). Redlich was, in SAAF or RAF terms, the squadron commander of 1 Staffel.
On 14 June 1941 1 SAAF's Hurricanes flew patrols over the British army all day, which was massing southwest of Mersa Matruh in preparation for the next morning's attack named Operation Battleaxe, the first British offensive since Germany got involved in North Africa. The last patrol of the day took off at 1910, Lt Botha led Lt's Atholl Webb and Ralph Christie - both newcomers to the squadron - on a patrol over the Sofafi area, about 60 miles from the Libyan border. They were jumped out of the blinding evening sun by two Me 109's flown by Lt Bernd Schneider, himself a newcomer to 1 Staffel of 1/JG27, and the CO Redlich. Ralph Christie was shot down immediately, and Webb landed at base just west of Mersa Matruh at 2035 and reported that he'd lost contact with Botha.
On the 17th No.1 Squadron received news that Lt Botha's aircraft had been found, and he'd been buried on the spot. A grid reference was given. However, when the British grave registration units went looking for him later, they couldn't find the grave and it was recorded as "lost". Attie's name therefore appears on the El Alamein Memorial, with many others who never "returned to base" as they were recorded in War Diaries.
This is where things get interesting. Through a contact at the SAAF Museum I met Attie Botha's youngest brother Phillip, then 81, in 2010. He'd lived a distinguished life, with the artistic streak that runs in the family he had started and ran the Art Department at Johannesburg Technikon, dunno what they call it now......something non-colonial, I suppose. One of his daughters is a concert pianist in Germany today. He told me for almost 70 years not a day went by that he didn't think of his brother, whom he'd idolised as an 11-year old boy. What bothered him the most was not knowing where he was buried.
Well, due to time and travel benefits I have, I started researching the case. After many weeks and months in archives in SA but mostly in Kew, England I determined where Lt Botha had been buried. It was 200 km from where the wartime grid reference put him, due to, I discovered, finger trouble on an old typewriter back then.
On my second expedition to the area in Egypt in June 2014 we searched the area of the grid reference thoroughly - aided by GPS, which of course they didn't have in 1941. I was really scratching my head until it dawned on me to use the local resources. I asked the local Bedouin we had along as a guide - as well as an Egyptian Army 2nd Lootie, for "security" - if he knew of any aircraft wrecks in the vicinity. Oh yes, he says.....2 km south of here, it was only removed in 2004. So we drive there at high speed, as it was getting late in the day and we had to be off the plateau (look at a relief map of the Western Desert, it's a narrow coastal strip with a 100-200m high plateau inland all the way along it) by sundown. One km from the site we ran into an Egyptian army camp. They were doing excercises out there and our 2nd loot watcher, who by this time had caught the spirit of the trip, reluctantly said we couldn't go closer. REALLY disappointed, we had to turn back.
Long story short, I know exactly where Lt AJ Botha of 1 Squadron is buried and will return to the spot when the political situation cools down a bit, to hopefully find his remains and have it moved to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission cemetery in Sollum where several of his mates lie, including his good friend 21 year old Jock White who outlived him by three days. I hope to also find some bits and pieces of the wreck to confirm its identity. On the first expedition, my friend from SAAF museum picked up a piece of metal near El Alamein which he later identified as a bit off a Wellington bomber, down to serial no. and squadron.
Back to Phillip. When I first met him, he was living with relatives at Hartbeespoort Dam, but soon moved back to the Roodepoort area where he'd lived for decades. When we started talking, it turned out he had lived literally three blocks from my parents' house where I grew up, for 30 years. I'd spent my childhood 500m away and neither of us knew it.
Fate.
Phillip was overwhelmed when I figured out where his brother was actually buried and got extremely emotional when I showed him photos of the area where the grid reference put him, as well as where the grave is. I had to go make tea and leave the old man to relive his loss after 73 years, this time with the knowledge of where his brother was. I wasn't satisfied with the outcome yet but he told me he finally had closure and another expedition wasn't necessary. He died in June 2015 of heart failure. One day when I made my monthly call to his cel - I live overseas - he was in hospital and said he wasn't doing well. I called again two days later but never got a reply again. My dad went to his flat in the old age home, where they told him Phillip had died.
Every clinical statement about "aircraft did not return" and every name on every memorial - Swartkops, El Alamein, Malta, Runnymede - has a story like this attached to it. Sadly, most will never be known. I've done ten years of research into WW2 SAAF history so far and know many relatives and knew a number of old pilots before they died over the last 10 years. When you get to know people like Phillip and others, names and numbers in books become personal and it's hard at times..…….. but it preserves the stories of those brave men. Boys, really.
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