Harold Rosofsky
Pilot Officer, 9 Sqdn, Royal Air Force 

​Son of Bertha and the late Abraham Rosofsky of Killarney, Hohannesburg, South Africa
Died 8 September 1939
​26 years old
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Row A, Grave 4

P/O Harold Rosofsky was educated at King Edward School, Johannesburg and had been a member of the school's Cadet Corp.  On 9 August 1937 he was granted a short service commission as Acting Pilot Officer (per London Gazette 24 August 1937).  On 21 August 1937 Acting Pilot Officer Rosofsky was posted to the No 8 Flying School, Montrose.  While at Montrose P/O Rosofsky was involved in a flying accident while trying to land Hawker Audax Mk1 K5131 the wing hit the ground causing the aircraft to swing and tip up.  Acting P/O Rosofsky was posted to 9 Squadron at Stradishall on the 13 June 1938 after completing a short Navigation course.  On 31 May 1938 Acting Pilot Officer Rosofsky was confirmed in his appointment as Pilot Officer (as per London Gazette 14 June 1938).  On 10 July 1939 P/O Rosofsky was returning to Honington after a flight to Marseilles, France , when he had to make a forced landing at Lyons, France owing to a opened pilot hatch.  Harold Rosofsky returned to base the following day.

P/O Harold Rosofsky and crew took off from RAF Honington for an air firing practice over Berners Heath.  The cause of the accident is not known, but the aircraft flew into trees and crashed near Elveden, Suffolk.  Berners Heath was a high-altitude bombing range that became available to the RAF on 13 December 1936 for training exercises.
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P/O Harold Rosofsky was the first South African to be killed in the war and is remembered on the King Edward VII School, Johannesburg Roll of Honour and the Jewish South African War Memorial Ditsong, Pertoria. 

P/O Harold Rosofsky was the first Jewish military casualty of WW2 and his death had also been written about in the South African Jewish Times, The Zionist Record, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, the American Jewish Year Book of 1940, South African Jewry Book of Honour 1950, UK Jewish Chronicle newspaper September 1939.

Rosofsky's Original Headstone and the replacement with the Star of David

The entire crew were killed:-
​Pilot: P/O Harold Rosofsky
Obs: P/O Bruce Innes Clifford-Jones
W/Op/Air/Gnr: AC1 Hugh M McGreevy
W/Op/Air/Gnr: AC1 Thomas Purdie
Air/Gnr: AC2 William Charles Hilsdon - (buried in Cowley, Oxon.)

​Harold was the first South African casualty of the war. Buried in Honington and with no response to official communications, given the conventional CWGC headstone with a cross, it was not until 2012 when the Jewish community and Harold's family realised this fact and requested a change of headstone. This caused some controversy as no non Christian devices are allowed in Anglican graveyards. In 2017 David Etherington, Q.C, Chancellor of the Diocese of St Edmundsbury & Ipswich, said that an exception should be made to the general rule that non-Christian images on monuments should not be allowed in churchyards. It was not known how much it would have meant to PO Rosofsky to have had the Star of David on his monument. But the Chancellor accepted that he was of the clearest Jewish descent, and, doubtless, had been brought up in the Jewish faith, and that the placing of the Star of David on his monument mattered to his family. Another way of looking at it, the Chancellor said, was that if anyone were to ask why one monument in this particular churchyard bore the Star of David, he or she could be told PO Rosofsky's story: how he was one of the first Jewish airmen in the RAF, and might even be the first to have died in the Second World War, and how he came to be buried there. The listener would, no doubt, understand why that exception had been made.

He is also commemorated on the roll of honour of King Edward VII School, Johannesburg and the South African War Memorial, Ditsong, Pretoria

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