A South African was buried in a common grave at Arlington National Cemetery, Virginia, USA, and unbeknownst to his family for 30 years.
Lieutenant Victor POTGIETER was born on 30 November 1914 and grew up in Carolina, South Africa, the son of Marthinus Philippus Gerhardus POTGIETER (1888 - 1965) and Susanna Catharina MINNIE (1892 - 1977).
He had 3 siblings:
Amalia POTGIETER (1916 - ). She married Folkers Johannes Petrus SWART.
Benjamin (Ben) POTGIETER (1918 - 2012).
Minnie POTGIETER (1930 - 2017). She married Gerhardus Jacobus LAUBSCHER (1925 - 1981) and Lucas Barry Hertzog LINDEQUE (1918 - 2009). Minnie was named as the sole beneficiary in Victor's Last Will and inherited £1159 from his estate.
Victor graduated from the University of the Witwatersrand where he earned a B.Sc Civil Engineering degree, before volunteering for active service in 1940. He went missing in September 1944 on a secretive mission during World War II. He remained a mystery, until his family found out about his last resting place in 1981 in a newspaper report.
His last recorded posting was in May 1943, at 104 Water Sections, South African Engineering Corps (service number: 131877V). There are only two movement orders recorded for him after this date, and they don't give up any clues. He was posted as missing in 1944, and his date of death was recorded as 09 September 1944 (age 30 years and 3 months). Because individual remains could not be identified, he was buried in a common grave with 11 other men. All that the American authorities knew about him was his name, and they assumed he was a British national.
Victor was home on leave from Egypt two months before his death, according to his brother Ben. He had told his brother that he had volunteered for a mission and he would be photographing bridges to be bombed.
By 1944, the war in North Africa started winding down and the South African units moved to Italy to take part in the push north. In Cairo, Lt. POTGIETER volunteered to do more than building bridges and digging wells. This led him to flying into enemy territory at night with British and American servicemen, often parachuting to liaise with Tito's partisans in Yugoslavia and the Balkans. Lt. POTGIETER became part of an Allied team tasked with supporting Yugoslavian opposition to the Wehrmacht, which had invaded the Balkan, in defeating the Soviet Union. The leader was an American engineer and pilot, Major Linn Markley Farish (aka Lawrence of Yugoslavia), of the 2677 Special Reconnaissance Regiment, who was posthumously awarded the American Distinguished Service Cross and Purple Heart. Farish was the US Army Office of Strategic Services (OSS) Liaison Officer with the Yugoslav Resistance Movement in Yugoslavia. The OSS was the precursor of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). Farish's initial role was to map out landing strips for US aircraft to rescue downed US airmen, but he also took part in rescue operations, rescuing airmen shot down over Yugoslavia, by parachuting into territory controlled by the Yugoslav Resistance Movement.
Lt. POTGIETER was killed when the aircraft, a Dakota C-47 (43-48314) of the 12th Troop Carrier Squadron based in Brindisi, crashed on the night of 09 September 1944. They were flying in bad weather and the aircraft suffered dual engine failure whilst on a mission. The aircraft crashed into the side of a mountain near the village of Stevenikon. The resulting fire made individual identification impossible. The drop zone was to have been to two areas, about 10 km apart, controlled by the Lillian Mission. The first drop was for Stores and the other one for Personnel. An eye witness statement stated that the first drop was successful. The aircraft circled for its second drop, and as it circled the engines cut out and a parachute flare was fired before the aircraft crashed. Lillian personnel recovered the bodies and buried them in a common grave at Levadhia, Greece. On 05 September 1945, the remains were reburied in Phaleron War Cemetery in Athens. On 22 May 1951, the bodies were re-interred in Arlington National Cemetery in Section 2, Site 3434-F. The South African Embassy in Washington began to pay an annual Remembrance Day tribute at his grave from 1993.
The 9th September was also the first day of operations that culminated in the 2nd British Expedition to Greece on 12-16 October. Most of the preparation work was undertaken by Special Forces and SOE Force 133.
The deceased were:
United States:
Capt. Paul E Davison jr. Pilot and OC of 12th TCS
2ndLt. Joseph C Volk. Co-Pilot
Capt. Edward L Quegan. Navigator
Lt.-Col. Linn Markley Farish. OSS
S/Sgt. Peter Gingeresky. Radio Operator
Cpl. Theron E Hoxsie. Engineer
Great Britain:
Maj. Clifford Roy Forbes-Harris. SOE Force 133. Royal Engineers
Lt.-Col. Edgar Herbert Hiscocks. SOE Force 133. Royal Armoured Corps
Cpl. Kenneth William Clarence Thomas. SOE Force 133. Royal Corps of Signals
Capt. Geoffrey Watson. SOE Force 133. Royal Artillery.
AC2 Alojz Poberaj. Air Dispatcher. RAFVR. Yugoslav.
South Africa:
Lt. Victor POTGIETER. SOE Force 133. South African Engineer Corps.
References:
Flights of the Forgotten Special Duties Operations in World War Two. By K.A. Merrick. London: Arms & Armour,1989.
The C-47: Flying Workhorse of WW II. By Richard Harvey.
Beacons in the Night: With the OSS and Tito's Partisans in Wartime Yugoslavia. By Franklin Lindsay.
A visit to Arlington, by Lyonel Capstickdale, published in the Jock Column, Magazine of the Transvaal Scottish Regimental Association, June 1994.
The second South African buried at Arlington National Cemetery was Athelstan Frederick SPILHAUS.
He was born on 25 November 1911 in Cape Town and spent his early years on a farm near Natal. Spilly, as he was known, attended schools in the United Kingdom before returning to South Africa and being admitted to the University of Cape Town. He graduated with a B.Sc. in 1931 and a Doctorate in Oceanography in 1948. He moved to the USA in 1931, where he earned a Master's degree in Aeronautical Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1933, and a D.Sc. from Coe College in 1961.
He was a research assistant at MIT from 1934 to 1935, and then became Assistant Director of Technical Services for the Union of South Africa Defence Force until 1936. In 1947, he served as meteorological advisor for the Union of South Africa. He became an American citizen in 1946.
By a special Act of Congress in 1943, he became a temporary officer in the US Army Air Corps. In 1944 and 1945 he ran weather stations in northern China, living in caves near Mao Tse-Tung's headquarters behind Japanese lines, supplying weather reports critical to US bombers out of Guam and Saipan.
He was awarded 11 honorary degrees and received many honours, including the French Legion of Merit and Sweden's Berzelius Medal. His awards also included a Decorated Legion of Merit Exceptional Civilian Service Medal from the U.S. Air Force, and a Patriotic Civilian Service Award from the US Army.
A man of many talents, he was also a sculptor and collected antique mechanical toys. He wrote 11 books and published more than 300 articles. He is credited with the research and development of meteorological equipment, radar and radio upper wind finding, and the development of meteorological instruments for measurements from aircraft in flight.
He died of chronic pulmonary disease on 30 March 1998 at his home in Middleburg, Virginia, USA. He was buried at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honours in Columbarium 4 PP-16-2. He was survived by his wife, Kathleen Ann Fitzgerald, two sons, A.F. Jr., of Potomac, and Karl Henry of Needham, Mass., a daughter, Margaret Ann Morse of Richmond, 13 grandchildren, and five great-grandchildren. His wife died in 2011.
The third South African buried at Arlington National Cemetery is PFC Christopher Warren LOTTER. He was born on 16 March 1988 in George, South Africa. He was known by his middle name, and had last lived in Chester Heights, Pennsylvania.
He died on 31 December 2008, at 20 years of age. He was buried at Section 60, Site 8766.
He grew up in Mossel Bay and after matriculating in 2006, immigrated to the U.S. where he became a U.S. citizen before joining the U.S. Army in January 2008.
He trained as a cannon crew member at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. In June 2008 he was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, based at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii, and deployed to Iraq in October 2008. He died in Balad, Iraq, of wounds suffered when he was shot by a sniper in Tikrit while standing in the gunner's hatch of an armored vehicle helping to secure an area around the city's water plant at the Khadasia General Hospital.
During January 2009, Private Lotter’s family travelled to the U.S. for the funeral and internment service at the Arlington National Cemetery. U.S. Congressman Joe Sestak (D-PA), who served as the elected representative for the district in which Private Lotter’s father lives in Pennsylvania, met with the family at the U.S. Capitol Building and attended the funeral service at Arlington together with the U.S. Secretary of the Army. Private Lotter was awarded a Bronze Star and Purple Heart posthumously.
On 15 September 2009, in a ceremony at the U.S. Embassy in South Africa, his mother received the State of Hawaii’s Medal of Honor on behalf of her late son who was based at Schofield Barracks, Hawaii. The Hawaii Medal of Honor was established to express the deep appreciation and gratitude from the people of Hawaii to the loved ones of members of the military with connections to Hawaii who sacrificed their lives in defence of the United States of America.
He is survived by his father Barry of Chester Heights, mother Marlene Coertze in South Africa, sister Michelle, and brother Justin.
