In Memory Of

SMUTS, WILLEM STEPHANUS

Service Details
Age:
 19
Date of Birth:
 1959-06-01
Service No:
 75477661BG
Rank:
 Trooper
Unit:
 1 Special Service Battalion
Regiment:
 South African Armoured Corps
Date of Death:
 1978-08-23
Cause of Death:
 Killed in action, during the early hours of the morning when the bungalow in which they were sleeping at Katima Mulilo received a direct hit from a Soviet GRAD-P 122mm High Explosive Katyusha Rocket. SWAPO/PLAN insurgents operating from Zambia fired 20 x 122mm GRAD-P Katyusha Rockets into the town. 18 rockets exploded harmlessly in the veld, one struck a school in the Katima Mulilo Township and the other demolished the Bungalow in which the soldiers were sleeping
Commemoration
Grave Reference:
 Mil. Sec. Grave 560.
Cemetery:
 JOHANNESBURG (WEST PARK) CEMETERY
Localitly:
 Gauteng
Country:
 South Africa
Additional Information
Son of Mrs. A. C. F. Grundling, of Fontainebleau, Johannesburg.