Dear All
I am part of a project at RAFCommands to fully document all Commonwealth Airman deaths 1939 to 1947 on CWGC
the CWGC has brief details name age ,unit date etc but not cause we are filling that a gap and as of June 2023 we have over 98.5% coverage
https://www.rafcommands.com/database/wardead/
122,433 casualty records in this database.
120,634 records (98.53%) are "Accounted for".
99,931 are aviation. 20,703 are non-aviation deaths.
1,799 are still unaccounted.
However, we have 1 Royal Indian Air Force member who remains totally unknown re cause he is
Leading Aircraftman S J DESAI (IND/25908) who died 24th Feb 1946
https://www.cwgc.org/find-records/find-war-dead/casualty-details/2815586/s-j-desai/
HONG KONG (HAPPY VALLEY) PARSEE CEMETERY
Grave 115.
China, (including Hong Kong)
Commonwealth War Graves Commission - Headstone Placeholder
Country of Service
Indian
Additional Info
Son of J. F. Desai and Shirin Bai, of Bombay, India.
We don't even know his full name. I don't suppose anyone here can provide any more information on this man ?
For reference these are all the records for Hong Kong
And as you can see this gives an example of a fully accounted airman
https://www.rafcommands.com/database/wardead/details.php?qnum=45476
Hope you can help
Many Thanks Paul McMillan
I had a quick skim through…
I had a quick skim through the local newspaper The China Mail for dates 24-28 Feb 1946 but didn't see any mention of Mr Desai. If you have access to the online archived copy of the South China Morning Post it would be worth searching that.
findagrave.com gives his full name as Soli Jehangir Desai, see https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/14626957/soli-jehangir-desai
Hong Kong Lantau Plane crash
If Mr. Desai's date of death is indeed March 24, 1946, is it possible that he died in the Hong Kong Lantau Plane crash?
Thanks for the info on Soli…
Thanks for the info on Soli Jehangir Desai fullname and I looked in the newspapers on https://mmis.hkpl.gov.hk/web/guest/old-hk-collection here without finding anything....
re: Hong Kong Lantau Plane crash
Mr Desai was not on that flight, which crashed on 26 Mar 1946. Instead there were three RAF men (see https://gwulo.com/media/30820) and one policeman: https://gwulo.com/comment/45559#comment-45559
Thanks for looking at this…
Thanks for looking at this and checking - but I agree Desai not a casualty on this aircraft - good idea though