Simon Eliastam

Simon embarked on a routine training flight, together with his three crew-mates, from an airfield apparently in Kenya, East Africa. The date was July 23, 1942. Shortly thereafter, all contact was lost with their Blenheim light bomber aircraft, and after exhaustive air-searches, the bomber, with all four crew-members, was declared officially missing in action, with no knowledge of cause or whereabouts. Due to lack of any wreckage or other signs of disaster, the assumption was that the accident had taken place over the Indian ocean. The Egyptian desert was also suggested.

This inexplicable mystery remained thus, until word was received from official SAAF sources during August 2016, that unidentified aircraft wreckage had been discovered by an itinerant poacher or logger, as long ago as 2002, on the slopes of Mount Kenya, in Kenya, East Africa.

In 2003, a British military search expedition visited the accident site, buried under dense forest and brush, and it was confirmed that the wreckage was indeed that of the Blenheim bomber. Positive identification of the crew members was established -- probably from their dog-tags (ID necklaces) -- as being Simon Eliastam and his three compatriots! The remains were collected, packaged and stored onsite, pending extrication.

It has not yet been explained why it had taken a further 13 years to make this information public, but by the end of 2016, it is planned to despatch a British training group in order to recover these remains for interment.

Since there was apparently a wartime convention, signed by six Commonwealth governments in the forties, precluding repatriation of the remains of members of armed forces, it has been decided to lay these airmen to rest in Nanyuki Cemetery in Nairobi, Kenya, probably in January, 2017, pending responses from their next-of-kin. Individual headstones, reflecting identity and religion, will be erected in memory of each airman.

Closure, after seventy-four resoundingly silent years, has finally been achieved.

Yehi zichro baruch...

Surviving members of the family are just beginning to gather information to answer the obvious questions about the past 13-14 years of silence. At least one of us -- Michael, late Simon's nephew -- will attend any burial or memorial service in Kenya, once details are clarified.