A Grave Too Many

In the spring of 1917, at the height of World War I, a young South African was recruited by the Royal Flying Corps to be trained as a fighter pilot on the Western Front. His name was Andrew Weatherby Beauchamp-Proctor. A tiny man, who needed cushions in the cockpit of his SE 5A in order to reach the controls, Beauchamp-Proctor proved so proficient, that by the end of the war, he had become the fifth-ranking ace on the Allied side with 54 kills. After recovering from wounds sustained in September 1918, Beauchamp-Proctor attended an investiture at Buckingham Palace at which he was awarded the VC, DSO, MC and DFC--which made him the most highly-decorated South African of all time. Also present on this occasion was Winston Churchill, then Secretary of State for War and Air. Beauchamp-Proctor then disappeared from sight until 1922, when he returned to England and rejoined the Royal Air Force. Because of his special flying skills, he was appointed to the RAF aerobatic squadron, then based at Upavon, Wiltshire. Then, while practising for an air display, he lost control of his SE 5A and was killed in the resultant crash. He was buried in the village churchyard. On hearing of the war hero's death, Jan Smuts, then Prime Minister of South Africa, cabled Churchill and asked that the remains be shipped to South Africa for a state funeral. The coffin was duly delivered some six weeks later, and finally interred in Beauchamp-Proctor's hometown of Mafeking. All this is recorded fact. But in 1983 a South African tourist who happened to be visiting Upavon noticed a gravestone in the village churchyard bearing the name of Beauchamp-Proctor. It so happened that he was a native of Mafeking and clearlyremembered seeing the pilot's tomb there. Intrigued, he talked to the local vicar, who in turn contacted his Bishop. It transpired that no diocesan authority had ever been given for the exhumation of the remains, nor had there been any order from the Home Office. Which grave is the true