When Holocaust survivors speak, we ought to listen!

Finally! This famous old gritty black and white photo has been colourised to bring this human tragedy into a modern context. This photo is one of the most published images of the Holocaust, the surviving children. So what’s in this iconic photograph taken during the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau extermination camp by Soviet soldiers on 27 January 1945, what does it actually tell us?

There is a lot more to this than just a photo, it carries with it one of the greatest human failings, it also has a remarkable eye-witness testimony of what actually happened at Auschwitz – from both a survivor and a tormentor, and it even has a South African back story.

To answer, what’s in a photo! just for starters, there are two sisters in this photo, 10-year-old Eva Mozes and her twin sister Miriam Mozes. Miriam is on the extreme right and Eva is next to her sister slightly behind the boy with the cap.

Zwillinge, Zwillinge!

Eva Mozes is still alive and gracefully with us and she has time and again provided a living testimony to horror – the fact is the Holocaust is still in living memory. She has recalled that her parents Alexander and Jaffa Mozes, together with their four daughters (her sisters) Edit, Aliz and her twin sister Miriam were among thousands of jews who were collected in the regional ghetto of Cehei and transported to their final destination – Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Upon their arrival, the Mozes family was immediately separated for extermination ―her father and Mother together with her sisters Edit and Aliz and twin Miriam were all taken aside to be taken to the gas chambers.

The twins survived the death camp thanks to a single trait, being ‘twins’. Eva revisited Auschwitz on several occasions after the war and stood at the same place where she saw her mother, father, Edit, and Aliz for the last time. She recalled;

“The SS was running from that direction, yelling in German, ‘Zwillinge, Zwillinge!’ which means ‘twins.’ We did not volunteer any information. He approached us, looked at Miriam and me, we were dressed alike, looked very much alike, and he demanded to know if we were twins.”

After this was confirmed, the two girls were taken away from their family, none of whom were ever seen again.

Eva (right) and Miriam (left), in 1949.

Another fate awaited the twins ―they were both subjected to gruesome experiments conducted by Dr. Josef Mengele himself.

The Angel of Death

Dr. Mengele was known to the inmates at Auschwitz as Todesenge (English; Angel of Death). He was given a free hand in experimenting on human subjects, an approach unthinkable by any ethical standards in modern medicine. He was especially interested in twins, for his genetic research which revolved around improving the birth-rate of German ‘Aryan’ people.

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Josef Mengele pictured outside Auschwitz in 1944

Twins were subjected to weekly examinations and measurements of their physical attributes by Mengele or one of his assistants. The experiments he performed on twins included unnecessary amputation of limbs, intentionally infecting one twin with typhus or some other disease, and transfusing the blood of one twin into the other. Many of the victims died while undergoing these procedures, and those who survived the experiments were sometimes killed and their bodies dissected once Mengele had no further use for them.

A witness named Miklós Nyiszli recalled one occasion on which Mengele personally killed fourteen twins in one night by injecting their hearts with chloroform. If one twin died from disease, he would kill the other twin to allow comparative post-mortem reports to be produced for research purposes.

Eva and Miriam, who were 10 years old at the time, were injected with various substances and they were constantly compared and tested while living the harsh reality of the concentration camp.

Eva concentrated on how to survive the camp, despite all odds. She said “at Auschwitz dying was so easy. Surviving was a full-time job.” Her first memory of the children’s barracks in which she was placed was the latrine, in which several dead children were piled up on the floor.

On one occasion, Eva said; “I was given five injections. That evening I developed extremely high fever. I was trembling. My arms and my legs were swollen, huge size. Mengele and Dr. Konig and three other doctors came in the next morning. They looked at my fever chart, and Dr. Mengele said, laughingly, ‘Too bad, she is so young. She has only two weeks to live ..”

Eva knew that the moment she died, her sister Miriam would become useless for experiments. She would be murdered with a lethal injection and sent for a comparative autopsy. This left no other option for Eva but to survive her illness, and after the two weeks that she wasn’t supposed to survive, she got better and started to heal.

What’s in a ‘hug’?

The Soviet Army liberated Auschwitz on January 27, 1945, finding around 180 children among the survivors, most of them being twins. Eva and Miriam were captured on film that day, exiting the barbed wire corridor together with other children. On seeing the Russian liberators Eva recalled

A photograph of the liberation of the Auschwitz camp by Soviet soldiers in January 1945. Eva and her sister Miriam are seen holding hands

“We ran up to them and they gave us hugs, cookies and chocolate. Being so alone, a hug meant more than anybody could imagine because that replaced the human warmth that we were starving for. We were not only starved for food, but we were starved for human kindness. And the Soviet Army did provide some of that.”

The photographs and films taken at Auschwitz-Birkenau by the Allied forces shocked the world, but oddly enough they knew exactly where the extermination camp was and exactly what was going on in there – and that is thanks to another photograph – and this one was taken by a South African aircrew who discovered the Nazi extermination camp and exposed it to Allied intelligence.

In the spring of 1944 a South African Air Force Mosquito XVI aircraft of SAAF No. 60 Squadron piloted by Lt. C.H.H Barry and his navigator Lt. I McIntyre discovered and photographed the Auschwitz concentration camp whilst reconnoitring a nearby rubber plant which was earmarked for bombing by the USAAF (USA Air Force)..

This image is an enlargement of part of a photo of Auschwitz-Birkenau taken by the SAAF on Sortie no. 60PR/694.

For more on this remarkable intelligence gathering by the South Africans – click on this link: The South African Air Force discovered Auschwitz extermination camp

Candles

The Mozes twins made it, they had survived a holocaust, even though their parents and sisters perished in the gas chambers. The twins returned to Romania for a while, and in 1950, they both moved to Israel. Eva recalls that only after reaching Israel did she stop feeling the fear of being persecuted for her ethnicity. For the first time in a decade, she slept through the night.

Eva Mozes-Kor

In 1960, Eva married Michael Kor, who was also a concentration camp survivor. The pair moved to the U.S. and had two children, while Miriam remained and founded her family in Israel. While in the U.S., Eva established the Children of Auschwitz Nazi Deadly Lab Experiments Survivors (CANDLES) in 1984. The main purpose of this institution remains the education of young people about the horrors of the Holocaust. It also served as a place to reconnect the survivors of the infamous Mengele twins experiments.

The scars left by the 10 months spent in Auschwitz were not gone. In 1993, Miriam died from a kidney related cancer. Miriam’s kidneys stopped growing in Auschwitz, caused by an unknown substance that was injected into her as a child. She spent her life living with kidneys of a 10-year-old. Doctors were helpless in determining the true cause of the defect.

“A human being in a SS uniform”

Hans Wilhelm Münch at the time of his arrest

After Miriam’s death, Eva made contact with an unusual person – a former SS physician who worked in Auschwitz by the name of SS-Untersturmführer Hans Wilhelm Münch.

In addition to other duties SS physicians at Auschwitz were required to be present at the line selections of arriving Jews (and other ‘non Aryan’) to select (or deselect for that matter) Jews healthy enough to be kept for labour and those destined to go straight into the gas chambers. Most of the SS doctors viewed selections as one of their most stressful and unpleasant duties, unlike their colleague Dr Josef Mengele who undertook the task with a flamboyant air, often smiling or whistling a tune.

In addition SS physicians were also required to oversee the administration of Zyklon B, the cyanide-based pesticide that was used for the mass killings in the Auschwitz-Birkenau gas chambers.

Dr. Hans Münch was present at various exterminations at Auschwitz, but he was very different to the rest of his colleagues. He was so against going ‘selections’ which he viewed as “disgusting and inhuman” that he formerly applied to be removed from this duty (which although the application was dimly viewed by his colleagues in the SS he was given exemption). Then he did something completely at odds to the SS doctrine, but perfectly in line with his medical oath and his conscience – he started to save lives and filed ‘false’ experiments to by-pass the system and save people destined to be executed or maimed.

“Selection” of Hungarian Jews on the ramp at Birkenau, May/June 1944

In 1945, after evacuating from Auschwitz, Münch spent about three months in the Dachau concentration camp. After the end of the war he was arrested in a United States internment camp after being identified by another Auschwitz physician.

Münch was extradited to Poland in 1946 to stand trial in Kraków with 41 other Auschwitz staff. However, quite remarkably, although accused of performing inhumane experiments injecting inmates, the inmates stood up for him – one after another testified in his favour calling him the “Good Man of Auschwitz” and referring to him as “a human being in a SS uniform”.

The court acquitted Dr. Hans Münch on 22 December 1947 with this statement; “not only because he did not commit any crime of harm against the camp prisoners, but because he had a benevolent attitude toward them and helped them, while he had to carry the responsibility. He did this independently from the nationality, race-and-religious origin and political conviction of the prisoners.” The court’s acquittal was based, among other things, on his strict refusal to participate in the selections.

No small matter, of the 41 Auschwitz staff tried in Kraków, 23 of them (including the Auschwitz commandant, Arthur Liebehenschel, the Political Department head Maximilian Grabner, and Women’s Camp Director Maria Mandel) were sentenced to death, the rest received heavy prison sentences. It was only Hans Münch who was acquitted and who walked away from the trial a free man.

“Silence helps the oppressors”

Eva Mozes-Kor and Hans Münch, two eye-witnesses to horror – one the Jewish victim and one the SS tormentor, both survivors of the Holocaust in their own way, met and agreed to attend the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz in 1995 arm in arm.

In an act of mutual catharsis Eva formally forgave Münch and her Nazi tormentors and Münch in turn formally apologised and attested the fact that he was part of the SS run systematic genocide machine at the same time also confirming the existence and use of gas chambers to fulfil this end. His document was intended to put to bed once and for all a growing revisionist lobby who try to deny that the Holocaust ever happened.

As living witnesses Hans Münch and Eva Mozes-Kor signed their respective public declarations regarding what had happened there and declared that such a thing should never be allowed to happen again.

Eva is a woman of substance, she has every reason to hate and demand retribution, but she refuses to be a labelled a victim, she is a survivor. In her journey she has realised that to purge herself of demons and monsters she would forgive them – and only in the act of forgiveness could she move on, she believes that; “Getting even has never healed a single person” and would go on to say “forgiveness is free. It does not cost anything to let go of grievances and remove the victim label from oneself”.

As to another Holocaust survivor, Leslie Meisels who said “silence helps the oppressors”, Dr. Hans Münch later felt compelled to further comment on Holocaust denial. During an interview Münch was asked about the claim that Auschwitz was a hoax, he wearily responded:

“When someone says that Auschwitz is a lie, that it is a hoax, I feel hesitation to say much to him. I say, the facts are so firmly determined, that one cannot have any doubt at all, and I stop talking to that person because there is no use. One knows that anyone who clings to such things, which are published somewhere, is a malevolent person who has some personal interest to want to bury in silence things that cannot be buried in silence”

Eva Mozes-Kor,and Hans Münch at the 50th Anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau

In Conclusion

Although Eva’s views stress we should never forget the Holocaust her views on forgiving the perpetrators of the Holocaust sits at odds with many in our modern-day who view the Holocaust differently and demand continual retribution and compensation for it. In many respects her view echoes in modern-day South Africa – where Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and others (the principal victims of Apartheid) who whilst never forgetting Apartheid also sought reconciliation and peace through the act of forgiveness, and it was in this way they sought to remove the label of ‘victim’ which so crushes the human spirit – and not surprisingly their view is also at odds with modern South Africans who are still seeking continual retribution and compensation for Apartheid victimisation.

It’s a very sensitive subject and there are grounded issues on both sides of the argument, but a lot of learnings must be taken from the people who were ‘there’ and experienced a human failing like the Holocaust (or even Apartheid) at its very worst – first hand. Eva Mozes-Kor founded CANDLES to shine light on the both the dark and bright side of history, because the ‘human spirit’ must always prevail and as Charles Dickens once wrote many years before;

“There are dark shadows on earth, but the lights are always brighter.”

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

References and extracts: Lessons from a Holocaust survivor by Tyler Tucky. The Jewish Virtual Libuary – article on Hans Münch. War History on-line article – SS Dr. Hans Munch, called the “Good Man Of Auschwitz”, How is That Possible? The Vintage NewsEva Mozes Kor, a Holocaust survivor and a Mengele twin, chose to forgive the Nazis. Oct 6, 2017 Nikola Budanovic.

Photo Color by Mikołaj Kaczmarek
https://www.facebook.com/KolorHistorii/

A red helmet that spelt ‘afkak’

Posted by Peter Dickens

One piece of kit all the SADF veterans will instantly recognise – and it will send instant shivers down their collective spines. The infamous ‘Rooi Doiby’ or ‘Rooi Staaldak’ was a bright red helmet and it meant the member wearing it was in deep trouble.

This headgear was usually a M1963 SADF steel helmet, known as a ‘staaldak’ painted red or the helmet’s plastic detachable ‘inner’ called a ‘doiby’ or ‘dooibie’ also painted red. It was issued to anyone whose behaviour or actions were deemed undisciplined in the old South African Defence Force (SADF) system and they were ‘Confined to Barracks’ (CB) or given ‘CB Drills’.

CB drills was a sort of mini prison sentence, the member been confined to the barracks perimeter and not allowed to leave the base. Whilst confined they were subject to intense military drills and exercises designed to break anyones spirit.

During training all SADF recruits received ‘corrective physical training’ known as a ‘Oppie’ meaning Opfok (literally to get ‘fucked up’), the British Armed forces would know it as ‘Beasting’. This form of training is common to many militaries world over and usually involves a lot of running, push-ups, stress exercises etc but it has a relatively manageable beginning and end. In effect it’s an ‘add-on’ to physical training (PT) and very intense.

Being ‘confined to barracks’ ramped the simple ‘Oppie’ onto an entirely new level and it meant these intense physical exercises became extremely punitive, in effect the person was subjected to an endless cycle of one Oppie on top of another – morning to night until the end of the specified CB punishment period. Punishment would also often involve ‘water’ PT were offenders wearing the red helmet were pushed to physical excess and vomiting.

For anyone receiving this item of kit i.e the ‘Rooi Doiby’ and subject to CB Drills, then this Afrikaans term seemed apt … “dit was nag” (darkness would descend) and you would simply ‘Afkak’ (to have your spirit relentlessly broken).

SADF Troops on a full kit march show two members who are also on ‘CB’ drills wearing ‘rooi staaldaks’

As said ‘Confined to Barracks’ drills are a sort of prison sentence, the difference been that it was designed for minor infractions like going AWOL (absence without leave), ‘indiscipline’ or ‘insubordination’ which if elevated into the strict definitions of military law and a military tribunal would carry an actual prison sentence which often did not really fit the ‘crime’ (the SADF would have had a heck of time if every case of a conscript going AWOL landed up in court and subsequently in a Detention Barracks (DB) – a military jail).

CB sentences were solved ‘internally’ at a Regiment or Unit level, sometimes by the Commanding Officer and his leader element, but often also by the Regimental Sergeant Major and his leader element – or both.

A CB sentence sometimes meant been handed over to the Regimental Police known as RP’s for the period of sentance. The RP’s are a sub-strata of Military Policing made up of specially trained members of the regiment or unit itself and not members of the Military Police (provost) corps. Sometimes it meant that the offender was incarcerated in the Regimental Police holding cells (usually located at or near the guardroom), and when taken out given repeated ‘Oppies’ (punishment exercises) overseen by RP non-commissioned officers (NCO’s).

Sometimes a CB sentence simply meant been confined to the barracks, issued a red helmet and given repeated punishment PT by the Regiment or Unit’s instructors, usually instructor NCO’s were given the task. Where ‘instructor’ qualified NCO’s did not exist, company or platoon leaders NCO’s were sometimes allocated the task of dishing out the PT punishment to the poor sod/s issued with this infamous ‘red helmet’.

There was however a flaw to the CB system, whilst many offenders subjected to it were a little relieved they had been excluded a formal legal case and sentence and just had to ‘vastbyt’ (hang in there) during the intense Oppies until it was all over. Others found themselves at the disadvantage of subjectivity and ‘interpretation’ of the law by regiment or unit leader elements. A CB sentence could be given to a troop who simply arrived late from leave (deemed as AWOL), or having mistakenly broken an expensive bit of kit.

The CB sentence was also a ‘punitive’ system used to bring ‘subversion’ under control and very often this was targeted to specific individuals who repeatedly questioned SADF policy, methods or even the politics of the day – regarded as the ‘Communists’ or ‘Liberals’ in opposition to the Nationalist cause. In the military veteran community today there are many who would say that this system was frequently abused by over zealous PTI corporals with defined political views and quite a number of these SADF conscript veterans were very traumatised by it.

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SADF Troop boarding a transport, his ‘Rooi Staaldak’ in his right hand – he was likely to be subjected to extra drilling and PT – the wry mile shows he’s taking it in his stride.

Some who were often given the ‘Rooi Doiby’ were just habitually ‘naughty’ or ‘stoutgat’ (hard arse) conscript troops and wore the helmet as a ‘badge of honour’ to their insubordination of the system and giving it the middle finger. Some even kept their own personalised ‘rooi doiby’ or ‘rooi staaldak’ having been issued it so often.

In either event, this distinctive helmet brings about mixed feelings, usually dread and many veterans would enjoy a wry and knowing smile remembering a tough time when they were super fit and could handle just about anything life could throw at them.

Written by Peter Dickens

Photo source – internet search, should the owners come forward please accept my thanks and we will credit accordingly.

Soviet made Libyan tanks seized by South Africa and gifted to Rhodesia

Posted by Peter Dickens

For the most part of the Rhodesian Bush War (July 1964 to December 1979), Rhodesia did not have any battle tanks. As far as armour went they had armoured reconnaissance vehicles and armoured personnel carriers (APC) but did not have an armoured battle tank to speak of. Prior to the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in November 1965 the Bush War which waged in Rhodesia was very low-key, small insurgency groups were relatively easily dealt with by Police and Army personnel in ‘soft skinned’ trucks and Land Rovers to ferry troops to the contact zones. Britain, as Rhodesia’s primary military partner, saw no reason to send tanks to Rhodesia, the conflict at that stage simply did not demand such a vehicle.

After UDI, the Bush War gradually escalated and Rhodesia was simply left with no battle tanks and had to make do with small Ferret and Eland 90 armoured cars and a home-grown industry adapting and making all sorts of V-shaped hull armoured vehicles to protect troops from landmines and any sort of small arms assault. Innovative as ever during the war the Rhodesians literally made do with using anything they had at their disposal.

Big punching battle tank armour in support of these operations the Rhodesians did not have. Untill the South Africans gave them an unexpected gift, and it was not South African ‘Elephant’ battle tanks (adapted British Centurion tanks with Israeli tech), nope, this gift was the property of Libya.

If you have not declared war on that country it’s a brazen step to give that country’s battle tanks to another country without even paying for them in the first place – so let’s have a look at how Rhodesia landed up with some of Libya’s Polish built Soviet T-55 Tanks originally destined for Uganda and re-directed to Rhodesia courtesy of South Africa.

Libya’s Polish built Soviet T-55 Tanks in Rhodesia, seen here still in their Libyan Army camouflage scheme.

This one reads as an International who’s who in the world of ‘terrorism’ and the world of ‘international intrigue’ surrounding it. It also leaves a big ‘what if’ question.

Confiscated

In late 1979, a French flagged cargo ship, the ‘Astor’ rounded South Africa’s cape transporting a heavy weapons consignment from Libya, destined to support Idi Amin’s regime in Uganda.

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Field Marshal Idi Amin

Earlier in 1978, Idi Amin’s support had waned, Uganda’s economy and infrastructure had started to collapse, by November 1978 this general demise of Amin’s authority came to a head when a contingent of Ugandan troops and officers mutinied. True to form for a dictator Amin sent troops against the mutineers, some of whom had fled across the Tanzanian border. No problem to Amin, he had vengeance in mind and had to stamp his absolute authority, so he promptly accused Tanzania of waging war against Uganda, and he then invaded and annexed a section of Tanzania.

Tanzania counterattacked alongside rebel elements of Uganda’s army not happy with Amin. Uganda found itself in a war with a neighbouring state and in need of as much military armour and equipment it could lay his hands on.

As dictators go, a fellow ‘Muslim’ African dictator, ‘Colonel’ Muammar Gaddafi of Libya was right behind ‘Field Marshal’ Idi Amin and elected to support Uganda with military equipment including ten of Libya’s surplus stock Polish built (made in 1975) Soviet T-55LD tanks. The tanks, which including assorted ammunition and spare parts for them were to be offloaded at Mombasa, Kenya, and from there transported overland to Uganda.

Colonel Muammar Gaddafi

The tanks would never get to Uganda, whilst docked in Mombasa the crew of the Astor received the belated news of Uganda’s defeat in the Uganda-Tanzanian War and received new orders for their cargo. Instead of Uganda, Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya, now well-known for its support of international terrorism and destabilising African states in countenance to its ideology, felt that the next best use for their tanks would be the Angolan War in support of the Communist and Cuban aligned MPLA.

The freighter with its cargo of Libyan owned T-55 Soviet tanks turned around and re-entered South African waters on its way to Angola. The Astor’s unexpected return to South African waters on its way to Angola with the same manifesto and its subsequent call into Durban port in October 1979 aroused suspicion from the South African Navy and Port Authority.

South African port authorities then boarded and seized the French freighter and its cargo of Libyan T-55 tanks.

Total Onslaught

By late 1979 P.W. Botha’s position on maintaining Apartheid South Africa had started to take shape and in particular his ideas of ‘Total Onslaught’ of Communism to bring about ‘Total War’ against it. South Africa had never officially declared war against Angola, yet it was at war with Angola – and even fighting in Angola. It was also at war with ‘terrorism’ and ‘communism’ and saw itself as aligned to the ‘west’ in the Cold War against Communism. In this respect, like the USA, it also regarded itself at war with ‘terrorist states’ – Muammar Gaddafi not only sponsored all sorts of communist insurgency (anti Colonial) in Africa, he also backed the African Nation Congress (ANC).

The tanks were now headed to Angola, and therefore posed a significant threat to the South African Defence Force fighting a proxy war against the MPLA and Cuba in Angola. So as to South Africa’s position, the Libyan tanks qualified as ‘war booty’ and ‘fair game’ – and insofar as international law goes they simply broke it and confiscated all ten of Libya’s tanks.

Keen on understanding and testing Soviet armour and technology for weaknesses and advantages, two of the tanks were kept by the South African Army. The remaining eight were transported to Rhodesia, together with SADF advisers for the purpose of training Rhodesian crews. But why Rhodesia?

P.W. Botha and his Cabinet

As to Botha’s fears of total onslaught, by October 1979 the Rhodesian bush war had entered its final phases of negotiated settlement. As early as March 1978, The Rhodesia Agreement put the now ‘Zimbabwe-Rhodesia’ into a transitional power-sharing state. On 1 June 1979, Josiah Zion Gumede became President. The internal settlement left control of the military, police, civil service, and judiciary in white hands, and assured whites about one-third of the seats in parliament. It was essentially a power-sharing arrangement between whites and blacks. However ZANLA (ZANU) and ZIPRA (ZAPU) factions led by Robert Mugabe and Josuha Nkomo respectively denounced the new government as a puppet of ‘white’ Rhodesians and fighting continued. Later in 1979, the British, and Margaret Thatcher’s government called a peace conference in London to which all nationalist leaders including ZANU and ZAPU were invited to find a solution.

This led to an unsettled state of affairs, and to Apartheid South Africa and PW Botha it was imperative that Zimbabwe-Rhodesia remained a ‘friendly’ state and not another hostile neighbour from which insurgencies into South Africa could be launched. It was in South Africa’s interests that the Rhodesian Army maintained an operational readiness to see off ZIPRA and ZANLA attempts at military overthrow. ZIPRA’s intentions had all along been to roll into Rhodesia using some sort of conventional warfare – including their Soviet donated T-34 tanks, Mugabe’s ZANLA focused primarily insurgency warfare (terrorism) with the land-mine as their primary weapon.

Bolstering the Rhodesian Army with eight of Libya’s tanks was in South African interests, and it was not just tanks, prior to 1979 the South African Air Force and South African Army had been conducting joint operations and sharing all sorts of weaponry, technical advancement and training with the Rhodesians. In fact in September 1979 Operation Uric had just taken place, and that was a joint operation with South African Air Force Puma helicopters covertly in support of the Rhodesian ground and air forces.

Operation Uric, note SAAF Puma’s in support of the Rhodesian Army

However the South African’s were very secretive as to any of their military involvement in Rhodesia and did not want the international spotlight on Rhodesia drawn to them in any way, and a lot had to do with the National Party generally not wishing to have anything to do with the British and a wish to have the ‘friendly’ ‘Black’ neighbouring states like Botswana and Zambia leaving them alone. South Africa’s ‘official’ policies towards Rhodesia had blown hot and cold from 1975 onwards, whereas covertly they maintained involvement in the Rhodesian Bush War, mainly in the form of South African Police personnel and later with South African Air Force aircraft and personnel. As part of their ‘sanctions-busting necessities the Rhodesian Armed Forces also acquired South African military hardware and ‘advisors’ on its use from South Africa.

To the above need to keep out the spotlight, the movement of Gaddafi’s Libyan tanks from South Africa to Zimbabwe-Rhodesia needed a cover story, so a rumour was concocted and spread to the effect that the tanks had been captured in Mozambique by Rhodesian forces.

Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment

At the on-set of the Rhodesian Bush War after UDI, the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment consisted of a handful of aging British ‘Aden Crisis’ surplus ‘Ferret’ armoured reconnaissance vehicles and even fewer very unserviceable World War 2 era American T17 Staghounds.

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As the Bush War progressed, although aging, the Ferrets remained operational in a counter insurgency role, equipped with a single heavy machine gun, Browning medium machine guns, or a 20mm Hispano-Suiza HS.820 anti-aircraft gun, In addition the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment used MAP-45 and MAP-75 armoured personnel carriers (APC), for infantry support.

As the Ferret’s were aging and their firepower was limited, Eland Mk4 armoured cars were also imported in quantity from South Africa (the Eland was a South African variant of the French Panchard AML) and it was utilised for fire support and anti-tank duties when operating over the border into Mozambique and Zambia (both of whom had Soviet era battle tanks). The Eland was armed with a 90mm cannon capable of destroying a T-34 at medium range, enabling the smaller armoured cars to punch well above their weight, but the Rhodesian Army remained woefully short of battle tanks.

Rhodesian Eland Armoured Car

The remaining eight Libyan T-55 tanks offered as aid to the Rhodesian Army by South Africa, as well as a small contingent of South African Army technical advisors and armour specialists from the SADF School of Armour sent along with them were happily received by the Rhodesians, and they were assigned to a newly designated “E” Squadron in a now re-defined Rhodesian Armoured Corps.

The first intake of T-55 crews were recruited only from Rhodesian Army regulars, mainly from ‘D’ Squadron RhACR and assigned to a German Army veteran, Captain Kaufeldt, who was well versed in tank warfare. More recruits arrived from the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) and Selous Scouts to fill the gaps.

To create the impression that Rhodesia suddenly possessed a large contingent of heavy tanks, the Rhodesians used a ‘revolving door ruse’, and E Squadron drove them all around Zimbabwe-Rhodesia on tank transporters for several months in order to give the impression to ZANLA (ZANU) and ZIPRA (ZAPU) intelligence that there were many of them.

Improvements and adaptations made to the Libyan T-55’s

Personnel assigned to “E” Squadron were trained by South African tank crews, who also modified each T-55 with an improved communications system adopted from the South African Eland Mk7. The South African headset system used a throat-activated microphone system and were far superior to the Soviet models.

Rhodesian T-55 in American camouflage scheme

Oddly, the Soviet manufactured radios on the T-55 were positioned near the gun-loader’s position and operated by the gun-loader and not the tank commander. Figuring the gun loader was not the right person to co-ordinate radio communications and already had his hands full operating the gun, the Rhodesians and South Africans removed the radio from the loader’s position and reinstalled it near the tank commander for his control and use.

On arrival the T-55’s also sported their original Libyan desert camouflage scheme. The Rhodesian’s repainted them in an American tank camouflage scheme, which was completely unsuitable to the African bush environment and finally the South African instructors had them painted again in anti-infra-red South African camouflage, which proved perfect for Rhodesian conditions.

Rhodesian T55 in the South African camouflage scheme

In a unique ‘battlefield tradition’ the Rhodesian T-55 crews kept up with their Soviet DNA irony and they were all given brand-new Soviet made AKMS assault rifles (most likely part of captured stashes of soviet armaments).

Operation’s Quartz and Hectic

The incorporation of heavy tanks into the Rhodesian Armoured Corps came a little too and too late to effect a change the Bush War, political circumstances were to over-take them, but they very nearly changed history altogether in a planned operation called ‘Operation Quartz’ along with a parallel operation called ‘Hectic’. If these two particular operations had gone ahead Zimbabwe may well have been a very different place to what we know it to be now.

The Lancaster House Agreement was already in its final phase by the time Zimbabwe-Rhodesia received its battle tanks, both Mugabe and Nkomo had already agreed to end the war in exchange for new elections in which they could participate. This General Election was scheduled in a couple of months – February 1980, and the guerilla insurgents had all ‘come in’ from the bush during the cease-fire arrangement and were at designated ‘assembly points’ under a British led commonwealth military team (acting in a transitional and oversight role – called Operation Agila) and awaiting demobilization or integration with conventional forces.

Major General John Acland, Commander of the Monitoring Force (CMF), with guerrilla fighters at an Assembly Area during the seven day ceasefire at the start of the peace process. During the ceasefire, 22,000 communist guerrilla fighters of Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe National Liberation Army (ZANLA) and Joshua Nkomo’s Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) as well as regular soldiers of the Rhodesian Security Forces gathered at sixteen assembly areas scattered throughout the country. General Ackland acted as Military Advisor to the Governor of Rhodesia and Chairman of the Ceasefire Commission. Imperial War Museum

Operation Quartz is still shrouded in a little secrecy, but consensus amongst veterans and documents was that it was based on two slightly different assumptions, the first assumption; Mugabe would be defeated in the elections and ZANU would revert to their insurgency campaign and the war would simply continue. therefore it would be necessary for conventional Zimbabwe-Rhodesia forces to carry out a strike against ZANU irregulars and wipe them out en-masse whilst at their assembly points, so as to prevent its forces from ever attempting a coup and taking over the country by force.

The second assumption; It was obvious to all political players at the time, it would be very unlikely that Mugabe and ZANU would be defeated in the elections and if anything would still win significant seats and even if in coalition would find themselves in power anyway. In this respect, if there was sufficient electoral fraud and intimidation Operation Quartz would be given a GO and would effectively be a military Coup d’état of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia. In this scenario, the ZANU guerillas now stationed at the various assembly points would be targeted by conventional Zimbabwe-Rhodesia forces and literally wiped out en-masse.

In either event, this plan envisaged placing Rhodesian troops located at strategic points from which they could simultaneously wipe out all guerilla insurgents at the Assembly Points, with specific attention to the ZANLA (ZANU) ones. The Rhodesian security forces had been tasked with monitoring the pre-election activities and keeping the peace during the election process, therefore most Rhodesian combat units were already in position within easy striking distance of the ‘assembly point’ camps. The plan also factored strikes by the Rhodesian Air Force on the assembly points to soften them up before the ground forces moved in.

‘Operation Hectic’ was a second plan underpinning Operation Quartz and this plan was to use Rhodesian SAS special forces to assassinate Robert Mugabe and ZANU leaders at their national and regional election campaign headquarters/offices.

Of the eight T-55 tanks, half of them were designated for Operation Hectic and half of them were allocated in support of Operation Quartz. Four tanks were sent to the Audio Visual Arts building of the University of Rhodesia to support the planned SAS assault on the ZANU leaders located there. The other four T-55 tanks were sent to Bulawayo to assist the RLI Support Commando in the attack planned for a large Assembly Point in the area.

The tanks were bombed up ready to go, the SAS fully prepared and tooled up for their task. As Zimbabwe-Rhodesia’s 1980 landmark elections drew to a close, the tankers, SAS and troops of the RLI and Selous Scouts waited patiently by their radio’s for the operation GO code-word “Quartz”, they were quietly ‘chomping at the bit’ – the ‘terrorists’ were in for a big surprise.

But the signal never came.

Three hours before the planned GO Operations Quartz and Hectic were cancelled and Mugabe was announced as the election’s victor, his men and their supporters jubilant in the streets and the various assembly points in the future Zimbabwe, all the while the Rhodesian troops watched them stoic and dismayed silence.

Monday March 04,1980 RhACR ‘E’ Sqn listen to ZRBC election result broadcast – Operation Quartz will not go ahead.

Some sources on Operation Quartz even point to South African involvement, which in the context that South Africa had provided the Rhodesians the T-55 tanks for the planned strike a couple of months ahead of the election carries some validity. To these sources the planned Operation Quartz strike also included Puma helicopters of the South African Air Force (SAAF) and would also involve the participation of elite Recce units of the South African army (nothing unusual in this, SAAF and SA Special Forces already had a close working relationship on Rhodesian Operations in 1979). An auxiliary plan was to allow a Battalion’s worth of South African troops into the country in order to protect the Beit bridge area, the main route of escape for Rhodesian whites should the situation degenerate into all-out war.

What if?

The Libyan T-55 tanks gifted to Rhodesia by South Africa never fired a shot in anger, the Rhodesian military powers deeming that Mugabe’s win in an election overseen by Britain and other international powers was legitimate, and a military Coup d’état of Zimbabwe-Rhodesia by the Rhodesian Armed Forces General’s and officer elite would not have lasted long and in all likelihood there is some truth to that. Hitting ‘cease-fire’ assembly points under British Military oversight would never have ended well. But, had it happened, it does ask the question whether a Mugabe free Zimbabwe today would have been an infinitely better place?

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Robert Mugabe at the height of his Presidency

It also asks what South Africa’s role would have been should the Rhodesian Bush War have ramped up to a whole new level or if a newly reconstituted Rhodesia remained ‘friendly’ to Apartheid South Africa with a closer relationship – could the Apartheid Nationalists have held on for longer against international pressure? The assassination of Mugabe and his team, and stumping his forces en-masse is the sort of hypothetical question along with historical hindsight many can ask, it’s up there with what would have happened to Germany should Adolph Hitler and his Nazis have been removed sooner.

In the end we’ll never know, but of the T-55 battle tanks today one of the original 10 seized by South Africa is now found at the South African War Museum in Johannesburg (in Libyan desert camouflage) and it stands as a permanent reminder to ‘what if?’

Researched and written by Peter Dickens

References include The Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment on-line. Operation Quartz – Rhodesia 1980 by R. Allport. The Mukiwa – Operation Quartz on-line. Operation Quartz: Zimbabwe/Rhodesia on the brink – Peter Baxter History.

Ballasbak with the Stars!

Posted by Peter Dickens

Many readers of The Observation Post have asked for the follow-up story by Steve De Witt of their humorous encounter with the Soviet made T34 tank in their SADF made ‘Buffel’ APC and what happened to Christo their Buffel driver?

Original story, Part 1 – Kak vraag sit (follow this link Kak vraag sit)

So here goes .. Part 2 of ‘Kak vraag sit’ … ‘Ballasbak with the Stars’

By Steve de Witt

Christo our driver – he who successfully retreated from a Russian T-34 tank – was the most reluctant soldier in the Border War. The army didn’t want him to fight as he couldn’t handle pressure, and he didn’t want to fight anyway. Why? – because Jesus said turn the other cheek.

Once we stole his Old Brown Sherry and quickly owned up. Then tried to make him open us another bottle, on religious principle. Instead he cocked his rifle and gave us some Old Testament vengeance.

The bunker after sunset was our preferred drinking hole. Here we’d open the first bottle next to the machine gun. And open the last in darkness long after the generator had killed the power.

Sherry had the effect of converting Christo to other faiths. After one bottle he suddenly believed in Buddhism, and told you so. After a second bottle he became an Atheist, and told the Dominee. Most times he couldn’t find where the Dominee was hiding.

As punishment for this wavering religiosity, fate led Christo towards that Russian tank. Later he drove our troop carrier over a landmine. Christo the pacifist survived both encounters but he’d had enough.

Back at Base, he drank himself through Atheism into a new phase, Bravery. This helped him steal ratpacks from the store, pack them in his Buffel and attempt to drive home from the Border.

He hit another landmine.

For these colourful adventures and many more, our mate Christo was much liked. When he transgressed, Christo’s older brother gave our Captain bottles of brandy to drop the disciplinary charges. So the rank looked forward to Christo’s antics.

Yes, Christo’s GrootBoet had a Milky Way of pips on his shoulders. He was so important he only moved by Helicopter. Christo said he even flew to the GoCarts on the other side of his Base. And he would swoop in regularly to haul KleinBoet out of our Kas, and then fly back to wherever again. Wherever was very far away. I know that because, where we were, I never saw GrootBoet Brigadier fighting the enemy.

I suppose that’s not unusual because Brigadiers aren’t allowed in combat. Even the enemy went to primary school. Brigadiers worry wearing so many gold stars.

Anyway, it wasn’t GrootBoet Brigadier’s job to get Kills on the Operations Board. That was our task. Problem is, we weren’t getting enough kills, as he often told us.

It wasn’t through lack of trying. These were SWAPO guerrillas we were hunting in Owamboland, real insurgency specialists. We wanted to fight them. They wanted to hide.

Mao Tse-Tung taught them that. Sleep during the day somewhere in the thick bush. It’s such a big country they’ll never find you. Then at night let the army sleep in the bush – while you drink beer and talk freedom in the kraals.

They won a country like that, those freedom fighters.

Not that we lost – don’t dare suggest that! We just had nothing more to fight for. In ’89 the Berlin Wall came down and the Communists suddenly wanted Democracy. It was such a shock that PW Botha had a stroke. And gave them one man one vote, just like that.

Or maybe he had his stroke later – after realising he’d given away the country we fought and died for. I forget which came first.

Anyhow, back to the Border War. None of us could have predicted it’s outcome. In the days of GrootBoet Brigadier, we were too busy looking for sleeping guerrillas to worry about winning or losing.

Winning was everything, for sure, but that was the Brigadiers’ problem. They saw the big picture and designed strategies for our victory. They had massive responsibility considering all the planning, logistics and execution involved.

Then they still had to criss-cross Owamboland by Chopper to wherever their brothers were in DB, or hunt ivory.

One time GrootBoet Brigadier flew in, unlocked the DB and stayed the night with us, drinking with the officers. But he had to leave early the next morning, he said. 32Bn was on Ops in Cuvelai and he needed to organise fuel columns.

I guess Zambia was far away which meant much more aviation fuel. During heavy fighting up north the elephants always fled there.

Before leaving the next morning he inspected us on Parade which was nerve-wracking for all, especially the Sergeant Major.

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Not for Christo. GrootBoet Brigadier spent a long time looking through KleinBoet’s barrel for that elusive speck of dust. Eventually Christo smirked and offered him some advice.

“You’ll see the sun come up through that barrel, Brigadier”

The Sergeant Major exploded and threw him back into DB for insubordination “and you stay there until you klaar out, Troep!”

GrootBoet Brigadier sighed and climbed into his helicopter. My faith in military discipline was restored. You can’t just chirp a Brigadier like that on the parade ground.

After supper the Captain ordered a bottle of brandy delivered to the Sergeant Major’s tent. He was so happy he reached into his kas for a short glass and downed two doubles, straight.

I always respected our Sergeant Major. You could rely on him to uphold military discipline regardless of a man’s rank or family connection. In the army you can’t let the Christo’s get away with murder.

Hell he could drink, that Sergeant Major. And get angry too, especially after downing doubles. I remember how shocked the MP Sergeant was when confronted in the bar. He stood rigidly to attention as the Sergeant Major shouted obscenities into his face.“Who the (NuweVloekerei) do you think you are, locking up the Brigadier’s brother!”

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Editor – Sometimes we get another gem of a story, and this one from the heart of a veteran SADF national serviceman who has “been there, done that and got the T shirt” fighting on the Angola/Namibia (SWA) Border, thank you Steve for this bit of “truth” and sharing your story and photos in such an amusing and interesting way with The Observation Post. Copyright – Steve De Witt, with many thanks to Dave Bosman and Steve’s brothers in arms for the use of thier images.

Other Stories by Steve De Witt

They started it! Starting a war with Zimbabwe – link: They started it!

Kak vraag sit! Encountering a T34 tank in a Buffel APC: Kak vraag sit

David vs. Goliath, SA Navy Strike-craft harassing the US Navy

Posted by Peter Dickens

Here’s a little bit of relatively unknown South African Navy history. Did you know that the colossal USS Nimitz nuclear aircraft carrier was harassed by the South African Navy using two small strike-craft in January 1980?

It is a little like a David vs. Goliath story for the relatively small South African Navy to take the wind out of the sails of the gigantic US aircraft carrier’s escort – the USS California some 15-20 nautical miles ahead of the carrier. It led to a very high tense moment on the high seas and an international outcry, and we have evidence of the incident – this remarkable photograph was taken by Joe Johnson, the Navigator on the SAS Jan Smuts, a South African Strike-craft and it shows just how ‘up close and personal’ they were with the American super carrier the USS Nimitz off South Africa’s coastline.

So what happened that found two South African strike-craft inside the Minitz’s defensive screen harassing this US task force. Well, it boils down to two things, South Africa’s 200 nautical mile (370km) economic exclusion zone (EEZ) and a very unique strike craft ‘special force’ ethos.

High Seas Harassment

On the 4th Jan 1980, the USS Nimitz sailed in response to the Iranian crisis, leading a nuclear-powered battle group including the USS California and the USS Texas from the Mediterranean to the Indian Ocean . The three ships sailed out of separate Italian ports and rendezvoused, sailing at a speed of advance of 25 knots around Africa via the Cape of Good Hope to the Indian Ocean to “Gonzo Station” (named by sailors serving there, supposedly deriving the term from Gulf of Oman Naval Zoo Operation).

On encountering this US Navy task force in South Africa’s economic exclusion zone waters – two ‘Minister Class’ South African Navy strike craft , Boat 1 (the SAS Jan Smuts) and Boat 5 (the SAS Frans Erasmus) manoeuvred right into the defensive screen of the USS flotilla – so much so the USS Nimitz’s escorts the USS Texas and USS California, both nuclear powered cruisers, had to alter course to avoid collision. In fact one of the South African strike craft – Boat 1, cut across the bow the of the USS California which was travelling ahead of the USS Nimitz. Whilst Boat 5 was able to move up the USS California undetected by all its modern radar until in visual range.

This action caused a massive diplomatic fury between the USA and South Africa, as much to the embarrassment of the US Navy, the South African Navy strike-craft had sailed unchallenged right through the flotilla’s defensive screen into lethal striking range of pride of the US Navy.

A true ‘David’ and his sling

To dismiss the South African strike craft with their Israeli DNA as no danger to a nuclear US Navy aircraft carrier and its escort would be folly. Boat 1, the SAS Jan Smuts had even started out as an Israelite, it was a modified Israeli ‘Reshef Class’ strike craft, built at the Haifa facility of Israeli Shipyards, under contract between the Israeli Military Industries as part of three strike craft sold to South Africa. The three Israeli craft were covertly sailed to South Africa and classified as ‘Minister Class’ strike (named after South African Ministers of Defence). Boat 5, the SAS Frans Erasmus was built under licence in South Africa to the Israeli modified Reshef Class design, along with five other ‘Minister Class’ strike craft.

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Five of South Africa’s ‘Minister Class’ Strike Craft Photo, SAS Jan Smuts (P1561), SAS Jim Fouche (P1564), SAS Frans Erusmus (P1565), SAS Hendrick Mentz (P1567) and SAS Magnus Malan (P1569). Photo courtesy Frank Lima

Both Boat 1 and Boat 5 (and all other Minister Class strike craft for that matter) were fitted with a leading Israeli designed ship killing missile system at the time, the ‘Gabriel’ surface to surface missile and launching system. The Gabriel Mk 2, an improved version of original Gabriel was created by Israel in 1972 and entered service in the Israeli Navy in 1976. This missile system was subsequently built under license from Israel in South Africa under the name Skerpioen (in English meaning Scorpion). This little arachnid packed a big poison punch, the scorpion, then took the pride of place in the newly formatted South African strike craft flotilla’s emblem in 1977.

No small thing, this guided missile system was designed to fire a missile which skimmed the water using an altimeter hitting its target just above the water line and designed to obliterate targets, a true ‘David’ could take on a ‘Goliath’ and like the arch angel ‘Gabriel’ (after whom it was named) could bring about a biblical hell-fire – especially if brought down on a small to medium-sized ship. Each South African strike craft had 6 such scorpions in its arsenal.

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South African Strike Craft launches a ‘Scorpion’ missile (Gabriel Mk2) – Photo thanks to Chris Miller

Can it obliterate a true ‘Goliath’, a super carrier like the USS Nimitz? It’s not been tested on a vessel this size, but in all likelihood – possibly not. It would however cause significant damage if it had hypothetically got through the anti-missile defence systems of the Nimitz in the first place.

Nerves of steel

Did the South African Navy pose a threat to the US Navy? The obvious answer is not really. In 1980 the South African Navy did not have an aircraft carrier (it still does not), on the sharp fighting end of the assegai. South Africa had 3 relatively small Daphné-class diesel submarines, 3 ageing Frigates and 9 fast coastal protection strike craft (who were the new focus of the South African Navy in 1980, the Nationalists deeming that since Apartheid isolation there was no real need for frigates to act as ‘grey ambassadors’ on international flag showing missions).

To the commanders of the Nimitz and its escort ships, South Africa was not regarded as hostile nation in 1980, sailing within a 200nm EEZ is perfectly legal if the vessels are not involved in fishing or drilling for energy which may be deemed as in economic competition to the country to which the zone belongs. In effect a EEZ is classified as ‘International Waters’ and it must be noted that there is a big difference in maritime law between South African ‘territorial’ waters to which they have sovereignty which extend only 12nm from the coast – unlike South Africa’s 200nm EEZ. There’s also nothing to really prohibit a ‘non-hostile’ nation’s naval vessels from operating near a Nimitz Class aircraft carrier and its escort’s in their own EEZ – within reason.

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USS Nimitz in 1979

The US navy normally anticipates Russian, Iranian and Chinese naval vessels which they deem as ‘hostile’ from cutting across bows of their vessels in their EEZ waters, so a ‘friendly’ South African Naval vessel risking such a manoeuvre by cutting across the bow of an US Navy vessel would have been deemed as rather usual, so too two strike craft sneaking up on them and it most certainly would have led to surprise and a tense moment on the bridge. Cutting across the bow of a ship is contrary to maritime ‘rules of the road’ and a violation of maritime standards. By not reacting to such a maneuver by a rather deadly South African ‘strike’ craft and escalating the situation the Commander of the US task force flotilla most certainly demonstrated the patience of a Saint and some nerves of steel.

Here you have to also consider that the USS Nimitz’s defensive screen would not have consisted of just the USS Texas and USS California, but also the ‘silent’ and unseen service of the US Navy’s Nuclear submarines, which are almost always nearby a aircraft carrier task force and the unseen US Navy fighter/bombers routinely launched from the Nimitz for protection and patrolling in the area.

To the Commanders of the South African Strike Craft it was a different matter entirely. As South Africa was ‘at war’ in Angola and politically at odds with United Nations and ‘the outside world’ in general over Apartheid – any foreign military shipping in South Africa’s 200nm EEZ attracted the attention of the South African Navy and the South African Air Force. This heightened state of readiness and intelligence gathering against any potential military adversity was not only directed to US Naval vessels, it was especially directed at Soviet vessels in addition – in fact as aircraft carriers go South African strike craft had already got very ‘up close and personal’ when the mighty Soviet Kiev Class ‘Minsk’ and her escorts ventured around South Africa and its 200nm EEZ in 1978.

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Boat 3 (P1563) the SAS Frederick Creswell ‘shadowing’ the Soviet aircraft carrier ‘Minsk’ at extremely close range.

It’s this part, ‘shadowing’ any military shipping for intelligence and demonstrating fearless and bullish ‘David versus Goliath’ testing of the defence capability of the world’s naval super-powers, which had come to define this strike craft fraternity – the ability and skill to punch well above their weight. It took special mental conditioning and discipline – and a bucket load of ‘nerves of steel’ – as a fraternity they even define themselves as a ‘iron fist from the sea’ when it came to conducting special forces operations from sea to land – and this why they saw themselves as a unique ‘special force’ in a naval context – not to be taken lightly and to be reckoned with in every respect, it’s an attitude they had to have to be as successful as they were.

Diplomatic ‘Ballyhoo’

Diplomatic demands from the USA for an answer from the South African government over their strike craft venturing undetected into the Nimitz’s defensive screen, cutting across the bow of the USS California and forcing both the USS Nimitz’s escorts to alter their course fell on the usual stoic National Party government to answer to – so much fuss and hot air was made of it for political appeasement, with little result.

Such diplomatic protesting fell on deaf ears within the South African Navy strike-craft circles as they saw intelligence gathering in South African waters and demonstrations of fighting prowess as their job to do, and all the diplomatic ‘ballyhoo’ simply reinforced their legacy as an elitist naval force and in fact another reason to hold up their heads in pride. So all in all, given the political circumstances of the time, the South African Navy strike personnel felt they did a great job.

To the Americans the USS Nimitz and her escorts journey from the Mediterranean around South Africa was well publicised and no secret, also sailing in 200nm exclusion zones was perfectly legal according to international maritime law and South African naval intervention was unwarranted and qualified as harassment and nothing more.

Because of the political and diplomatic fallout, the strike-craft Commanders of P1561 the ‘SAS Jan Smuts’ and P1565 the ‘SAS Frans Erasmus’ were called onto the ‘carpet’ by the top Navy brass and reprimanded, but rumour has it they where then promptly taken out to lunch to celebrate. Nobody lost their jobs and nothing more was said of it.

Operation Eagle Claw

The US Navy would also have considered this a minor incident as they had much bigger issues on their plate to deal with than maritime regulations and harassment experienced around South Africa’s coast. The USS Nimitz was rounding South Africa on its way to Iran to take part in Operation Eagle Claw (Operation Evening Light). In 1980, the Iranian Hostage crisis, a diplomatic standoff between Iran and the United States of America was in full swing with fifty-two American diplomats and citizens were held hostage in the American embassy in Tehran for nearly a year starting on the 4th November 1979, something had to be done. The American President, Jimmy Carter, elected for a special forces military operation to rescue the hostages and end the crisis.

On the 24th April 1980, this special forces operation to rescue the hostages was launched from the flight deck of the USS Nimitz in eight Sikorsky RH-53D Sea Stallion helicopters containing Navy Seal special forces personnel to much cheering and thumbs up from the Nimitz crew, but disaster loomed.

Repainted RH-53Ds in sand camouflage and without markings aboard USS Nimitz prior to the launch of Operation Eagle Claw.

From the get go the Operation encountered many obstacles and was eventually aborted. The eight helicopters from the Nimitz were sent to the first staging area, ‘Desert One’, but only five arrived in operational condition. One encountered hydraulic problems, another was caught in a ‘Haboob’ (a sand storm) and another showed signs of a cracked rotor blade.

During planning it was decided that the mission would be aborted if fewer than six helicopters remained, despite only four being absolutely necessary. In a move that is still discussed in military circles, the field commanders advised mission abort, which President Carter accepted and confirmed. As the US rescue mission prepared to leave, they were plagued by another ‘haboob’ sandstorm and one of the helicopters crashed into a transport aircraft which contained both American servicemen and jet fuel. The resulting fire destroyed both aircraft and killed eight US servicemen.

The failed operation took on a legendary aspect in revolutionary Iran, with Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khomeini, describing the sandstorms causing the failure of the mission as “angels of Allah” who foiled the US conspiracy in order to protect Iran. They then promptly erected a mosque (the Mosque of Thanks) at the crash site.

The failure of Operation Eagle Claw was a humiliating blow for the United States Presidency and its Armed Forces on the international stage. The hostages were scattered all over Iran to prevent a second rescue attempt. The Ayatollah Khomeini milked Carter’s embarrassment for all it was worth declaring;

“Who crushed Mr. Carter’s helicopters? We did? The sands did! They were God’s agents. Wind is God’s agent … These sands are agents of God. They can try again”

Iranian officials investigate the crash site.

Then, literally minutes after President Jimmy Carter’s Presidential term ended on the 20th January 1981 the Iranians ended their humiliation of Carter by releasing the 52 US captives held in Iran, promptly ending the 444-day Iran hostage crisis.

In conclusion

These bigger events over shadowed the SA Navy ‘harassment’ of the US Navy issue somewhat and the story is lessor known to annuals of history, but to South Africa’s strike craft community it remains a time when they stood up as David as did and fearlessly challenged a Goliath. For all the political hot air and statements of grandeur they found weakness in the US Navy task force in 1980, and all the ‘blustering’ about US Naval size and fighting prowess aside, lessons on protecting such a flotilla from small and very lethal Israeli developed and South African perfected strike craft would hopefully have been learned.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

This great snippet of history is courtesy of Johnny Steenkamp and Joe Johnson – with deep thanks. Photo copyright of the Nimitz – Joe Johnson.

Reference: Seaforces on-line, Naval information. The South African Naval Fraternity on-line.

The Red Baron’s South African & Rhodesian prey

Posted by Peter Dickens

The ‘Red Baron’ was a legend, his iconic red Fokker tri-plane (three wings) is now ingrained into World War 1 history. Manfred von Richthofen remains one of the most fascinating and colourful characters of the war, as the ‘Red Baron’ he epitomised the gentleman huntsman, the idolised “Jäger” (the German hunter) – a marksman, calculating, skillful and highly proficient with a dash of cunning needed to outwit an intelligent foe. His ability as the classic ‘German Jäger’ made him dangerous to an entire class of gentlemen pilot officers because he slaughtered them in droves – in fact Manfred von Richthofen was a ‘hunter killer’ and he killed on an epic level, in all 81 Allied airman of this hunting class found themselves in an early grave thanks to the Baron’s marksmanship.

It was not just the British pilots who fancied themselves as pretty proficient pilots, marksmen and huntsmen themselves who were out foxed by the Red Baron, his victims included range of different nation’s officer class best – French, American, Canadian, Australian, South African and even Rhodesian.

Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen

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Manfred von Richthofen wearing the “Blue Max”

Born on the 2nd May 1892, Manfred von Richthofen was a ‘Friherr’ (literally a ‘Free Lord’) often translated to ‘Baron’. He is considered the ‘ace of aces’, the highest scoring fighter pilot of World War 1. As a young lad he excelled in riding horses, gymnastics (parallel bars) and especially hunting and with his brothers hunted wild boar, elk, birds, and deer. These skills, especially hunting were to pay dividends in his ability as a fighter pilot.

At the start of the war he was a cavalryman and transferred to the newly formed German Air Force as air-combat started to take shape as a new method of waging war in 1915, he was .one of the first members of fighter squadron Jagdstaffel 2 in 1916. He quickly distinguished himself as a fighter pilot, and during 1917 became leader of jasta 11 and then the larger fighter wing unit Jagdgeschwader 1 better known as ‘The Flying Circus’ because of the bright colours of its aircraft, and because its bases moved around the western front like a travelling circus.

Whilst in The Flying Circus he painted his aircraft red, and this combined with his title led to him being called ‘The Red Baron’. Here’s something as to his calculating proficiency, he taught his pilots the one basic rule which he wanted them to fight by: “Aim for the man and don’t miss him. If you are fighting a two-seater, get the observer first; until you have silenced the gun, don’t bother about the pilot”.

It was this deadly rule that saw so many Allied aircraft shot down by The Red Baron himself, in all he shot down 80 Allied Aircraft, killing 81 airmen and wounding 18 in action. Many who survived usually ended up as Prisoners of War and only a handful of lucky airman walked away from a mix-up with the Red Baron unhurt.

So who were the two South Africans and the Rhodesian on this tally who mixed it up with the Red Baron and came off second best

2nd Lieutenant D.P. McDonald (South African)

The first of these southern African men to fall to Manfred von Richthofen’s guns was 2nd Lieutenant Donald Peter MacDonald of No 25 Squadron, Royal Flying Corps (RFC). Born in London, United Kingdom, his family was to immigrate and take residence in Somerset West, Cape province, South Africa. At the onset of WW1, Donald McDonald initially served with the South African Union forces in the German South West African (GSWA) campaign under General Louis Botha and General Jan Smuts.

After the GSWA campaign concluded, McDonald moved to Britain where he first joined the 2/1 Lovat’s Scouts before being attached to the Cameron Highlanders. Whilst in the Cameron Highlanders he transferred to the Royal Flying Corps (RFC), on qualifying as a pilot McDonald joined No 25 Squadron on the western front in France on the 23rd March 1917,

No 25 flew a Royal Aircraft Factory FE2, highly effective but by March 1917 was somewhat outdated, it was a two-seat pusher biplane that operated as both a fighter and bomber aircraft. On the other hand the “Red Baron” in March 1917 was flying the first of the Albatross “V-Strutters”, the DIII, and which was the most effective of the Albatross fighter designs produced during the war.

German Albatros D.IIIs of Jagdstaffel 11 and Jagdstaffel 4 parked up at Roucourt, near Douai, France April 1917. The Red Baron’s Albatros D.III is second from the front.

Barely a week after arriving in France on 3 April 1917, 2nd Lieutenant Donald P. McDonald and his observer, 2nd Lieutenant John Ingram M. O’Beirne, flew a volunteer ‘Photo Sortie’ (air reconnaissance mission) to Vimy Ridge. 2Lt McDonald piloted FE2d “Fees“ (No. A6382) along with two other crews in FE2ds from RFC 25 Squadron flying in a formation of three.

Whist on the sortie they were attacked by Manfred Von Richthofen, Lothar Von Richthofen and Emil Schaefer from Von Richthofen’s Jasta 11 Squadron at approximately 16:15 hours. The “Red Baron” himself flying Albatross DIII (No. 2253/17) engaged them and 2nd Lt McDonald’s aircraft engine and controls were hit. His observer (and gunner), 2nd Lieutenant John Ingram put up a valiant fight, even downing one of the German aircraft, however he was hit in the head and died of his wounds shortly afterwards.

2nd Lt McDonald was uninjured and of the attack said; “The Hun followed me right down to the ground, firing all the time…”

He was forced to land somewhere near Lieven, in the vicinity of Lens, Belgium. His FE2d overturned in some wire and MacDonald was thrown out and subsequently taken prisoner. He was incarcerated at Karlsruhe, and later at Saarbrucken. Repatriated in December 1918, McDonald was to return to South Africa and was killed in a car accident in South West Africa (now Namibia) in 1946.

2nd Lieutenant F.S. Andrews (South African)

Barely two weeks after 2nd Lt McDonald was shot down, on the 16 April 1917 Baron Von Richthofen claimed his next South African, his 45th victory, and its one which included 2nd Lieutenant Frederick Seymour Andrews, the son of Thomas Frederick and Louisa G. Andrews, of Warden Street, Harrismith, in the Orange Free State, South Africa.

Andrews was born in 1889, and was educated at Mercheston College, Pietermaritzburg, and at school in Harrismith. He was also one of approximately 3,000 South Africans who were to serve in the Royal Flying Corps, and later the Royal Air Force. during World War 1

Andrews joined the RFC and initially served with No 1 Squadron , before being commissioned as a 2nd Lieutenant. He was then posted to No 53 Squadron as an observer with Lieutenant Alphonso Pascoe (who hailed from Cornwall) as his pilot. Andrews and Pascoe were subsequently transferred, in tandem, to No 13 Squadron on the 18 March 1917, the squadron helping to pioneer formation bombing during the war.

April 1917 is known as “Bloody April” as the Royal Flying Corps was to suffer a disproportionate amount of casualties in relation to German losses. It was also the Red Baron’s must successful hunting season with the Albatros DII and DIII outclassing the British and French fighters charged with protecting the exceptionally vulnerable Allied two-seater reconnaissance and bomber machines.

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Sanke card 511 showing the star performers of Jasta 11 taken at Roucourt, in mid-April 1917, Pictured are (L-R) Sebastian Festner (12 victories), Karl-Emil Schaefer (30 victories), Manfred von Richthofen (80 victories), Lothar von Richthofen (40 victories) and Kurt Wolff (33 victories). This photo was taken in the heyday of Jasta 11. The jovial expressions on their faces is indicative of the fertile hunting grounds they found in their operating area over the Western Front and the vast superiority of their Albatros D.III fighters over the majority of their adversaries machines. These men accounted for 83 enemy aircraft in April 1917 alone.

On the 9th April 1917 the Battle of Arras kicked off with the Royal Flying Corps in support, the results were grizzly for the Allied airmen involved in the battle, roughly 245 Allied aircraft, and 211 aircrew were killed or listed missing in action, with a further 108 taken prisoner. ‘Bloody April’ had earned its name.

2nd Lt Andrews’ No 13 squadron was equipped with the Royal Aircraft Factory BE2 single engine two-seat biplane, it was a versatile aircraft and used as fighters, interceptors, light bombers, trainers and reconnaissance aircraft. However it had a serious flaw, the BE2 was underpowered and unreliable.

On the 16th April 1917, in poor weather, 2nd Lt Pascoe and 2nd Lt Andrews were despatched in their BE2e (No. 3156) aircraft on an Artillery Observation sortie. According to Von Richthofen (flying DIII, No 2253/17), the British BE2e was flying at an altitude of 800 metres when he approached unseen from behind and made his attack. Pascoe momentarily lost control of the plane, managed to steady it and then lost control again. The plane plummeted the last 100 metres to the ground. coming down between Bailleul and Gavrelle

Both officers, Pascoe and Andrews, were badly wounded. Pascoe was lucky, he survived the crash, but his “Springbok” observer was not so fortunate. 2nd Lt Andrew’s was lifted from the smashed wreckage and casavaced to Tocquet Hospital. Here he sadly succumbed to his wounds on the 29 April 1917.

2nd Lt Frederick Andrews, just 28 years old, lies buried to this day in the Etaples Cemetery, France. His epitaph reads “Duty dared and won”.

2nd Lieutenant D.G. Lewis (Southern Rhodesian)

A year later, almost to the day, on the 20 April 1918, Baron Von Richthofen claimed his third Southern African, this time a Southern Rhodesian (now Zimbabwe), 2nd Lt. David Greswolde Lewis. He was also to be Manfred Von Richtofen’s last victory.

Known as “Tommy” Lewis, David Lewis was born in Bulawayo, Rhodesia, in October 1898. After his schooling in Rhodesia, ‘Tommy’ Lewis attended the Royal Flying Corps School in the United Kingdom in April 1917, and was commissioned as an officer in June later that year. He served with No 78 (Home Defence) Squadron before transferring to No. 3 Squadron in March 1918.

No 3 Squadron was equipped with the Sopwith Camel fighter, a highly successful fighter with a formidable record of shooting down 1.300 enemy aircraft it was the Allied’s most successful figher. The Sopwith Camel sported a short-coupled fuselage, heavy, powerful rotary engine and concentrated fire from twin synchronized machine guns.

2nd Lt David ‘Tommy’ Lewis next to a Sopwith Camel, note ‘Rhodesia’ marking.

David Lewis took off on the 20th April 1918 in Sopwith Camel (No. B7393) on an offensive patrol led by Captain Douglas Bell of his flight (C Flight), although the Commanding Officer, Major Raymond Barker, accompanied them. Captain Bell was a fellow Southern African and David Lewis’ friend.

When climbing above the clouds to avoid German anti-aircraft fire, Lewis’ Flight lost touch with the rest and they continued the patrol only six strong. The flight was subsequently attacked and Lewis years later related the attack in a letter written on his farm “near Gwanda, in Southern Rhodesia” :

“About four miles over the German lines, we met approximately fifteen German triplanes, which endeavoured to attack us from behind, but Bell frustrated this attempt by turning to meet them, so the flight started with the two patrols firing at each other head on.” Lewis goes “A few seconds after the fight began, Major Barker’s petrol-tank was hit by an incendiary bullet which caused the tank to explode and shatter his machine.”

David Lewis further recalled: “I was attacking a bright blue machine , which was on a level with me, and was just about to finish this adversary off when I heard the rat-tat-tat of machine-guns coming from behind me and saw the splintering of struts just above my head.”

Lewis wheeled round and surprisingly found himself face to face with the Bright Red Triplane of Baron Von Richtofen. To get away from the Red Baron he recalled “I twisted and turned in the endeavour to avoid his line of fire, but he (Baron von Richtofen) was too experienced a fighter , and only once did I manage to have him at a disadvantage, and then only for a few seconds, but in those few ticks of a clock I shot a number of bullets into his machine and thought I would have the honour of bringing him down, but in a trice the positions were reversed and he had set my emergency petrol-tank alight, and I was hurtling earthward in flames.”

Lewis goes on to relate how he hit the ground just north-east of Villers-Bretonneux “at a speed of sixty miles an hour” and was thrown clear of the wreckage, and except for minor burns was completely unhurt.

Lewis’s compass, his goggles, the elbow of his coat, and one trouser leg were hit by Richtofen’s bullets, but it is truly miraculous how this young Rhodesian beat all odds to survive a duel with The Red Baron.

2nd Lt David Greswolde Lewis

The rest of his flight had escaped complete annihilation through the timely arrival of a squadron of S.E.5s. Manfred Von Richtofen then commenced his pass, coming to within one hundred feet of the ground and waved to the Rhodesian, and a column of German Infantry. Taken prisoner he was incarcerated at Graudenz .

After the war Lewis later returned to Rhodesia. He is to be forever known as the Baron’s last “Victory” and was even invited to Germany in 1938 to attend the parade and dedication of the Richtofen Geschwader (wing) of the German Lufwaffe (Air Force) before World War 2 began. He farmed in Rhodesia and died at the capital, Salisbury (now Harare), in 1978.

“kaputt”

Rhodesian, David Lewis’ unsuccessful brush with Von Richthofen on 20th April 1918 was a precursor to a bigger event to come, as only hours later, on the very next day, 21st April 1918, The Red Baron – Manfred Von Richthofen was killed in action.

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The remains of Manfred von Richthofen and his ‘Red’ Fokker Triplane were retrieved from the landing site and bought to the aerodrome of No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corps.

While flying over Morlancourt Ridge near the Somme River, the Red Baron was pursuing a Sopwith Camel at low altitude piloted by a novice Canadian pilot Lieutenant Wilfrid May. May had just fired on the Red Baron’s cousin Lt. Wolfram van Richthofen and attracted the attention of Manfred who flew to his rescue and fired on May and then pursued him across the Somme. The Baron was spotted and briefly attacked by a Camel piloted by May’s school friend and flight commander, Canadian Captain Arhur ‘Roy’ Brown who had to dive steeply at very high-speed to intervene and then had to climb steeply to avoid hitting the ground. Manfed von Richthofen turned to avoid this attack, and then resumed his pursuit of May.

It was almost certainly during this final stage in his pursuit of May that a single .303 bullet hit Richthofen, damaging his heart and lungs so severely that death was unavoidable. Where that bullet came from and who fired it is still a controversy, some attribute it to Australian anti-aircraft ground fire and others to Captain Roy Brown DSC (modern research points to gun-fire from the ground).

In the last seconds of his life, the Red Baron managed to retain sufficient control to make a rough landing in a nearby field defended by the Australian Imperial Force. The witnesses who arrived at the downed aircraft all agree on one thing, Richthofen’s last words, generally including the word “kaputt” (finished), following which this famous and rather deadly ‘German Jäger’ died.

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The Funeral and Burial of Manfred von Richthofen at Bertangles, Somme department in Picardie on the 22nd of April 1918. No. 3 Squadron, Australian Flying Corp’s officers and other ranks formed the ‘official’ party- pallbearers, firing party, motor transport, funeral procession. Note the Chinese Labour Corps man on the right, behind the hedge.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens.

References

References and large extracts from: The Militarian – The Red Barons last victim. The Red Baron’s Southern African ‘Victories’ (1917-1918) by Ross Dix-Peek.Vrystaat Confessions The Bloody Red Baron Shot A Harrismith Oke! The Swine! The British At War in the Air 1914-1918, 25 Squadron archives.

Painting on the header unsourced, awaiting artist details. Manfred Albrecht Freiherr von Richthofen (2 May 1892 – 21 April 1918) wearing the “Blue Max”, Colorised by Olga Shirnina from Russia. Remains of Manfred von Richthofen ‘Red’ Fokker Triplane Australian War Memorial picture Colourised by Royston Leonard from the UK. German Albatros D.IIIs of Jagdstaffel 11 and Jagdstaffel 4 parked up at Roucourt, near Douai, France April 1917 Colourised by Irootoko Jr. from Japan. The Funeral and Burial of Rittmeister Manfred von Richthofen Colourised by Benjamin Thomas from Australia.

Understanding ‘isms’- Nazism is Left Wing, Libertarianism is Right Wing!

Posted by Peter Dickens

Huh! Since when are Nazis ‘left wing’? – they are almost always associated with the ‘Right’ or ‘Far Right’ as a form of totalitarianism in opposition to socialism and liberalism, and as to ideals of Libertarianism – that’s a ‘Left Wing’ concept in opposition to some form of conservatism on the right – right? – Wrong!

“You’re nuts” comes the universal chorus from the ‘Snowflake’ Liberals on the ‘left’ of me and the ‘Wingnut’ conservatives on the ‘right’ of me, but bear with me on this one, this comes from my Economic History university dissertation on ‘Communism versus Capitalism’ and the argument will become clear.

Modern politics likes to shoe in ‘isms’ in an ideal of ‘left or right’ continuum to make for ease of political thought – so in the United Kingdom for example you get ‘Tory’ Conservatives on the ‘Right’ and ‘Labour’ socialists on the ‘Left’, Tory Conservatives lean towards a Capitalism model and Labour Socialists lean towards a Communism model. Same Parliamentary model exists in South Africa – the ANC is ‘left’ leaning to Communism and the DA is ‘right’ leaning to Capitalism. Done – all clear, no debate. It’s an easy continuum, here it is:

So why socialism in the middle? Simple answer is the ‘role of state’ and in the case of political parties leaning towards Communism they see more involvement of the state in economic, individual and community affairs, whereas parties leaning to Capitalism see less role of the state in these affairs. In modern politics both ‘left’ leaning and ‘right’ leaning political parties see some sort of state (government) involvement in the socio-economic well-being of its citizens to a lessor or greater degree – depending on where they sit on the continuum.

Capitalism versus Communism

Lets pause and understand exactly what we are talking about between Capitalism and Communism and what the big differences are. Historically on the ‘far left’ sits the father of Communism – Karl Marx, and his book ‘Das Kapital’ and on the ‘far right’ sits the father of Capitalism – Adam Smith and his book ‘Wealth of Nations’.

Adam Smith and libertarianism

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Adam Smith

In a nutshell, Adam Smith believed in the natural economic forces of demand and supply setting a point at which people freely trade with one another and some sort of barter or price will be agreed. His idea of state (government) involvement in this transaction between individuals or group of individuals is that it should be absolutely ‘invisible’.

Smith coined a term called the ‘invisible hand’ in which he outlines that natural economic forces will always guide a free market and it is the role of the state to provide the most fruitful environment to allow these natural economic forces to come together and trade, and nothing more really. The state is a referee in a game of economic rugby, that’s it – other than implementing law and order there should be minimal interference in socio-economic affairs and even individual liberties.

In this sense Adam Smith was a ‘classic’ Libertarian. The Libertarian concept begins with a conception of ‘Personal autonomy’ from which civil liberties are derived and a reduction or elimination of the state in those liberties is outlined. This is why libertarianism (epitomised by the statue of ‘lady liberty’) is so strongly associated with The United States of America and its enshrined ‘Capitalist’ model as originally outlined by Adam Smith.

Therefore ‘libertarianism’ is for the most part a ‘right-wing’ concept on the ‘left/right continuum’. The ideals in the USA on Gun Laws and the freedom of the citizen to own guns and resist government or state oppression is very much based on the American definitions of Liberty and central to their Bill of Rights.

It’s all Libertarian thinking, so next time some gun-toting conservative ‘Merican’ calls a liberal a ‘Libtard’ or a ‘snowflake’ – he is, most ironically, a liberal himself – in fact he’s exercising a supreme sense of Liberalism – in both free speech and his right to bear arms without state interference – which are all key concepts of ‘classic’ libertarianism.

Central to Adam Smith’s philosophy on the human condition is that it recognises that man is naturally competitive, the economic forces will aways strive to wealth creation and the advancement of the individual and therefore the society as a whole – man is naturally ‘greedy’, there will always be a natural sense of one-upmanship to drive a profit in the trading process and this in turn drives prosperity and wealth.

In the memorable words of Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street, “that greed — for lack of a better word — is good.” lies at the heart of capitalist society. The downside of this also results in social skews in capital ownership as more astute human beings in the negotiation process have an advantage over less astute human beings – this causes a wealth gap in an environment not fully controlled by the state and this is an intrinsic and at times fatal flaw of capitalism – and here is where Karl Marx kicks in.

Karl Marx and Labour

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Karl Marx

In a nutshell, Karl Marx proposed that the ‘means of production’ should not be owned by the wealthy but by the labour that creates it. The idea is that people own their own Labour and should take out of the ‘means of production’ what they are owed to an equal value of the Labour they have put in to it. In this way profiteering and ‘class conflict’ is eliminated as wealth is simply redistributed back to the labourers in equal value to their labour input, the profit equally shared in effect.

It’s a utopian ideal where Karl Marx maintains that rich people and poor people want to work together for the greater good of society i.e. the community (hence communism) and in so eliminate ‘class conflict’. For his model to work Marx asserts that human beings are at their essence ‘honest’ and ‘earnest’ and in this state at all times, and by equalising everyone no individual person will be in a position to be corrupt or exercise any sort of one-upmanship over another (thus eliminating the basic premise of capitalism).

You can now easily see why ‘Communism’ has such romanticism to it, it’s a utopian ideal that assumes human beings are not greedy. It is also for this reason that Communism is intrinsically flawed, as reality and history have shown that man is greedy, and been ‘triumphal’ its as much part of the human emotional condition as joy, love and sadness.

The ‘state’ also plays a supreme role in dictating this ‘value’ outcome of labour relationship in Communism and individual rights are suppressed against those of the broader communal need. It is for this reason that modern societies which have driven towards Marx’s utopian ideal have so far failed – nobody is really prepared to give up their ‘Personal Autonomy’ as dictated by the rather ‘right wing’ classical ideal of Libertarianism and Capitalism.

So, the utopian ideal is really just that, and in reality its unattainable, but what of those societies who have had a crack at it, how did they fare? Here comes a raft of ‘isms’ including Bolshevism, Leninism, Stalinism, National Socialism (Nazism) and even African Nationalist socialism.

Nazism versus Bolshevism

Let’s look at National Socialism (Nazim) and Bolshevism (the Communist ‘Reds’) and Lenin, a Bolshevik (in fact he founded it) – where do they sit? Central to both these concepts is the ‘social hive’ and the ‘role of state’. Both Bolsheviks and Nazis believed in the concept of a ‘centralised’ authority to govern a socialist state.

Upfront, here’s the shocking news (to some) considering the degree of hatred between the two ‘isms’, they both complement each other on the continuum, they are ‘left wing’ and they sit here:

Central to both Nazism and Bolshevism is the idea of the communal hive. Think of this as a Bee Hive, everyone is equal to a degree except for the Queen Bee, who is not equal to anyone at all and is the ‘supreme leader’ in every respect. Injected with the ideals of ‘Nationalism’ whether Soviet or German, each hive is left with a unique species identity. The hive has a social structure and in both hives there are worker bees and drone bees, drone bees serve the supreme leader only – this would be the ‘the party’ elite. The worker bees are all equal and ‘honey’ is the ‘means of production’.

National Socialism (Nazism)

Both Nazism and Bolshevism have as their root – a utopian sence of ‘community’, so let’s have a look at why Nazim is at it’s very core a ‘labour’ and ‘community’ movement, and its all found in the name.

The full name of the party was Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, in English it means National-Socialist German Workers’ Party.

So what of this ‘workers party’ bit? The Nazi Party started out in 1919 as the German Worker’s Party i.e. Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or DAP with Anton Drexler as Chairman and Karl Harrer as the Reich Chairman. The party essence and cause in bringing a workers voice to disgruntled World War 1 veterans, especially as to their exploitation of their ‘labour’ by a capitalist elite which they believed sent them to war in the first place – in this respect the DAP was no different to that of Bolshevist Communists. The only area they really differed with Bolshevism on was over their central ideals of German ‘nationalism’ – known at the time as the völkisch movement.

Adolph Hitler joined the German Worker’s Party as its 55th member when it was a fledgling in 1920 and quickly became most active orator and chief of propaganda. Hitler preferred that role as he saw himself as the drummer for the ‘völkisch’ nationalism part of labour politics in Germany.

The ‘völkisch movement’ was the German interpretation of the ‘proletariat’ (middle class volk) and it had a romantic focus on German folklore and was defined as a ‘naturally grown community in unity’. It was characterised by a one-body-metaphor ‘Volkskörper’ encompassing the entire population.

In February 1920, Adolph Hitler proposed broadening the appeal of what was basically a Labour Party representing a disgruntled working class, to now appeal to the middle class by incorporating völkisch nationalism’ as a central theme to its socialist model. As a fire-brand Hitler initially wanted to re-name the party to ‘The Social Revolutionary Party’ but he was persuaded to add ‘National Socialism’ as a prefix to the ”German Worker’s Party’ and the National Socialist German Workers Party was born – Nazism for short. It was not plain sailing to incorporate völkisch nationalism into was in essence a Labour Party – the party Riech Chairman and founder Karl Harrer resigned in disgust.

So whats with ‘the ‘völkisch movement’ that it created such disunity in the original German Worker’s Party? Simply it also included the idea of ‘Pure’ Germans in its definition of the proletariat and this bit Hitler loved, he was later to write ‘Mein Kampf’ “the basic ideas of the National-Socialist movement are populist (völkisch) and the populist (völkisch) ideas are National-Socialist.” The ‘völkisch movement’ spun off a short-lived organisation called the ‘Thule Society’ and it was a member of this society Friedrich Krohn who designed the original Nazi Swastika.

Putting völkisch nationalism aside for a minute, as it is the key differentiator between the Bolsheviks idea of ‘Marx’s utopian idea of communism to those of Nazism. Let’s have a look at why Nazism has Communist leanings on the Communism/Capitalism continuum.

Arbeit macht frei

Adolph Hitler

The Nazis would never admit it as Karl Marx was Jewish, but at essence their idea of socialism carries all the hallmarks of Marx’s utopian communism. Like Marx, the Nazi’s saw ‘Labour’ as the path to Liberty – a grizzly reminder of this is the sign above Auschwitz concentration camp “Arbeit macht frei.”

Central to Nazi philosophy (and Communist philosophy) was their demand to “break the shackles of finance capital.” Expanding on this demand, the Nazis outlined that every citizen must productively work and their labour must benefit the whole community. In addition to this they demanded the abolition of ‘debt slavery’ brought on by capitalist ideals of ‘interest’. They demanded the nationalisation of key industries and trusts and that profits from heavy industries were equitably divided amongst the workers and they demanded expropriation of capitalist land without compensation for the ‘people’ and in addition the state take over all aspects of education. You may well agree that this is all very ‘Marxist’ in thinking.

As to their ‘utopian’ projects for good labour once the Nazis came to power, they implemented ‘Strength Though Joy’ which saw the German working class and middle class ‘people’ enjoy holiday and leisure opportunities which had previously been exclusive to the rich upper classes – these included sport and cultural activities, Alpine ski trips and even ‘Beach’ holidays on the Riviera. They famously came up with the ‘Peoples’ car for the masses to provide a state-supported car to people previously denied such an opportunity. This is now the famous Volkswagen Beetle.

They even built a gigantic holiday resort on the island of Rügen in the Baltic Sea – exclusively for the masses. It was designed to house 20,000 holidaymakers in simple 2-bed rooms but was stopped when WW2 started. So, happy worker bees all round.

Bolshevism (and Stalinism)

So how are the Bolsheviks the same as the Nazis? Like the Nazi’s their form of socialism is similar along economic principles and principles of governance. Where Bolshevism and Nazism both converge is on the principle of totalitarianism. With Karl Marx’s principles of Labour, Vladimir Lenin went further and proposed the idea of a one party state under a singular leader.

The ‘Marxist Russian Social Democratic Party’ which united various revolutionary organisations in Russia including the Bolsheviks (and Lenin), however it morphed and split to become The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In this process Lenin was to play a key role.

Like Adolph Hitler, Vladimir Lenin was autocratic, narrow-minded and unbending in his views. Like Hitler had a utopian vision of a socialist German Reich, Lenin had a similar utopian vision for Russian socialism, and neither wavered in their belief of it, in fact Lenin (like Hitler) divided people into two categories, friend and enemy – those who followed him and the rest. Lenin (like Hitler) then went about forming a ‘cadre’ of loyalists around him – a political party elite.

Vladimir Lenin

One of the main points of Lenin’s writings was that a revolution can only be achieved by the strong leadership of one person over the masses. Lenin agreed with the Marxist idea of eliminating social classes, but in his utopian society there would still be visible distinctions between those in politics (the party elite) and the common worker. Here their ‘hive’ looks very similar to the German one.

When Joseph Stalin became the supreme leader of the Communist Party he was to build on Lenin’s ideals of absolute leadership. Stalin’s policy – Stalinism was to consolidate the concept of totalitarianism with Russian governance when he was elected as General Secretary in 1927 (as Hitler also consolidated totalitarianism with German governance when he was elected Chancellor in 1933).

Joseph Stalin

Stalin and Hitler start to look very similar when you review Stalin’s published work ‘Socialism in One Country’ and Stalin’s policies in relation to ‘Mein Kamph’ and Hitler’s published work and policies. In Stalin’s ‘Socialism in One Country’ the focus was on the implementation of a totalitarian state, rapid industrialisation, collectivisation of agriculture, elimination of enemies of the state and building a ‘cult of personality’.

Totalitarian policy, enemies of the state and the ‘cult of personality’ concept was extremely central to Hitler as well, so to the large industrial projects initiated by the Nazi to bring in productive labour from the masses. Nazism flirted with industrialists and private capital as a necessary means to building industry (and a war machine eventually) most notably BMW, IBM, Bayer, Kodac, Heinkel, Boshe – even Hugo Boss designed their uniforms, they were only picky as to which industrialists they used – choosing what they believed to be non-Jewish capital instead.

Stalinism was the same, Stalin flirted with industrialists and private capital to further his socialist goal – in the policy to accelerate the development of industrialization, Stalin imported materials, ideas, expertise and workers from Western Europe (and even the United States). Stalin even set up joint ventures with American private enterprises (most notably the Ford Motor Company), which under state supervision assisted in developing the basis of the industry of the Soviet economy from 1927 to the 1930s. After the American private enterprises had completed their tasks, Soviet state enterprises took over.

Nazism differed a little on collective agriculture and focused instead on expansion of agriculture to the ‘East’ to allow for more ‘living space’ and to feed the industrialised ‘volk’ of the Reich.

Enemy of the ‘People’

For Stalinism class conflict is key, the ‘enemy’ consisted of two broad kinds of class ‘the bourgeois’ (the intelligentsia and the owners of ‘capital’) and members of the working class with counter-revolutionary sympathies.

Both forms of socialism, Stalinism and Nazim dealt with their enemies of the ‘people’ in much the same way.

As head of the Politburo Stalin consolidated absolute power in the 1930s with a ‘Great Purge’ of the party that claimed to expel “opportunists” and “counter-revolutionary infiltrators”. Those targeted by the purge were expelled from the party, some were banished to Gulags (labour and re-education ‘concentration camps’) and some were subject to execution on trumped-up charges. Stalin passed a new law on “terrorist organizations and terrorist acts” which inevitably resulted in execution. Hitler’s ‘night of the long knives’ or Röhm Purge and subsequent policies were no different to Stalin’s.

Under the legislation many alleged anti-Soviet pretexts were used to brand someone a ‘enemy of the people’ starting the cycle of public persecution, often proceeding to interrogation, torture, deportation to a gulag or execution.

As with Hitler’s purge of Ernst Röhm and the Sturmabteilung (SA) the Nazi’s own mass paramilitary organisation, consider this; Stalin in his purge – with the exception of Vladimir Milyutin (who died in prison in 1937) and Stalin himself, all of the members of Lenin’s original cabinet who had not succumbed to death from natural causes before the purge were executed.

Socialist systems driven on various ideological difference whether German Nazi or Russian Communism all have in them this phenomenon to re-educate (and if necessary exterminate) anyone in their society not conforming to their idea of the ‘social hive’ or ‘community’. The Soviet system of ‘Gulag’ re-education/labour camps are no different to the early German Nazi concentration camps in their purpose (and as deadly).

Bourgeois capital under Stalinism and Nazism

Stalin’s Great Purge was extended to include all enemies of the Stalinist doctrine and this included the targeting his idea of the owners of capital i.e. the bourgeois and to settle Stalin’s idea of ‘class conflict’ between the ‘proletarian’ (worker) class and the ‘bourgeois’ (middle and upper) class.

Historians now estimate that nearly 700,000 people (353,074 in 1937 and 328,612 in 1938) were executed in the course of Stalin’s Great Purge’ with the great mass of victims merely “ordinary” Soviet citizens: workers, peasants, homemakers, teachers, priests, musicians, soldiers, pensioners, ballerinas and beggars. Many of the executed were interred in mass graves all over Russia.

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Political satire of the time sees Hitler and Stalin in perfect step, tied at the hip politically their uniforms are those of impoverished proletariat and their militaristic totalitarian ‘isms’ in synch.

It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949 nearly 3.3 million people were deported to Gulags in Siberia and the Central Asian republics. By some estimates, up to 43% of the resettled population died of disease and malnutrition – that’s 1,400,000 ‘non believers’ in the glories of Communism – dead!

Hitler’s purge was also extended to include all enemies of the nazism doctrine and this also included the owners of Capital i.e the bourgeois – only with one very big difference, the targeted bourgeois and industrialists under Nazism were almost exclusively Jewish, as noted earlier Hitler had swung the ‘Pure German’ middle class (‘Pure’ German Bourgeois) to his side by building the ideology of ‘völkisch nationalism’ into his socialist worker’s party.

This meant that to German Nazism and Hitler all suffering of the working class (meaning the non-jewish German proletariat) was the fault of the Jews, the Jewish industrialists and capitalists had caused World War 1, Jewish Bankers had enslaved “good” Germans to poverty with finance ‘interest’, and Hitler would warn that World War 2 if it was to break out was solely the fault of Jewish Capitalists (and nothing to do with his Reich’s expansionist aims).

So when Nazi’s spoke of expropriation of capital and land without compensation, they really meant Jewish owned capital and land (think of this ideal as ‘Jewish’ Monopoly Capital similar to the modern-day South African derived ideal of ‘White’ Monopoly Capital as concocted up by a UK-based spin doctoring agency – Bell Pottinger). Under Nazism ‘the Jewish problem’ would see at least 6,000,000 Jews murdered and all their capital, wealth and land duly ‘expropriated’ for the ‘communal’ good.

Herein lies the key difference of Nazism and Stalinism, the Stalinists saw the ‘communal’ bee hive as a Broad Church, as long as people fell in line with the authoritarian’s ideal of a communist utopia they were let into the hive and could participate in the sharing of wealth and equal labour. If not, death awaited. The Nazi ideal the same, you could enjoy an equitable distribution of wealth in the hive if you were good in your labour towards it and followed the authoritarian’s ideal of the utopian community (the Reich), the only really big difference; No Jews allowed. Death awaited those not buying into the scheme, and this meant normal people not deemed ‘Aryan’ enough in the ‘völkisch’ ideology and Jews as an entire population without exception.

So, Nazism and Stalinism are basically the same at root values – economic policy, utopian ideal and political policy, the only BIG difference, the Bolsheviks allowed Jews into their social hive, in fact Jews played an active role in Communist sciences, technological advancement and industrialisation. To the Nazi’s this was unpalatable and it stood in stark opposition to their ‘völkisch philosophy – this is why they hated the idea of Bolshevism to the degree that they did, the Bolshevist socialist ideology threatened the Nazi socialist ideology at its very core – the advancement of soviet communism had to be stopped if Germany’s economic Reich and Aryan ‘white’ people where to remain ‘Pure’ and free of Jews.

Left or Right?

The Nazi war with the Soviet union was less about where they stood on the Communism/Capitalism continuum and more about race politics. In fact on the continuum they stand in the same place – socialists with leanings towards a utopian sense of communism. They are both LEFT WING.

So why the confusion? In essence the confusion as to Nazism as ‘right wing’ lies in a political continuum and not the great capitalism/Communism Left/Right debate. It lies with the idea of a dictatorship – which is ‘right’ to the ideals of a popular democracy on the ‘left’. Here is the political continuum as it stood before WW2, and America and the United Kingdom’s systems are placed on it for measure;

However, if you consider that Stalinism also subscribed to totalitarianism for its socialist state, then an argument can be made that one-party, supreme leader communism is also a ‘right wing’ ideology.

This gets even more complicated and confusing when you try to apply the ‘Democracy Index’ as outlined by the UK-based Economic Intelligence Unit (EIU) which builds their continuum from left to right starting with ‘full democracy’ on the far left to ‘flawed democracy’ to ‘hybrid regime’ to ‘authoritarian regime’ on the far right. The EIU is confusing as it ranks Sweden, the United Kingdom, Denmark and Norway as the top full ‘democracies and they all have constitutional monarchs.

In the end both Stalinism and Nazism socialist systems left a wake of millions of dead and these ‘isms’ are inherently ‘evil’ in this very respect, yet there is a still a need to modern socialists to romanticise with Communism, Nazism given the outcome of WW2 is a modern-day non-starter – yet some of these socialist romantics are hidden Nazis – here’s why.

African Socialism

Prior to the collapse of Stalin’s Soviet Socialism in 1990, their ‘broad church’ beehive ideal extended into African communities as the continent started to break with its colonial legacy after World War 2. To African nationalists, the ideals of traditional 17th Century African monarchism and their communal agricultural economies fall in line with Lennist/Stalinist communism and to some degree with Marxism when the ideal of exploited African Labour is applied in the modern industrialist context.

The socialist ‘hive’ as practiced by the Soviets was exactly what was needed for many African socialists in their struggle against colonisation and ‘colonial’ agriculture, capital and industry after World War 2. The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (Soviet Union) pact with African socialism even saw the Soviets train African ‘liberation’ groups in both ideological implementation and military overthrow.

All consistent with soviet styled communism, many examples in Africa since 1945 of one party states, leaders for life, dictatorships, nationalisation of capital, land appropriation without compensation and socialism, all with varying degrees of success, failure and war.

But what happens when you apply ‘race’ exclusion and ‘race capital’ to the concept of the African Socialist worker’s bee-hive as the Nazi’s applied it to their socialist bee hive? Enter, the Economic Freedom Front (EFF), a classic example of modern black nationalist socialist party which upfront have more in common with Nazism than anyone else and they sit on the continuum here:

So why is the EFF the same as the Nazis, they have self-proclaimed themselves as Marxist-Leninist?

Consider this in their socialist bee-hive, they are a populist ‘workers’ party (as the Deutsche Arbeiterpartei was), they have a ‘Commander in Chief’ in the form of Julias Malema as a supreme leader, and they have a cabal of party elite working towards the supreme commander’s utopian vision (exactly along the lines of both Leninism and Nazism thinking – queen and drones in effect), the marginalised ‘workers’ are promised equal ownership of capital and land – and if that capital is not freely handed over for the community good it will be expropriated and that there be universal land reform – these are the same ‘demands’ outlined the Nazis in their proclamation.

In addition the EFF match both the Stalinists and the Nazis on the militarisation of their party, like the Nazi’s had their own para-military force, the Schutzstaffel (SS), so to the Stalin with his party para-military force the People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD) – the EFF’s inner circle ‘security’ team have now also started to closely resemble original Nazi Sturmabteilung (SA) style ‘strong-men’ wearing combat fatigues, abiding military styled rank structures and openly carrying weapons.

Like the Nazi’s ‘völkisch philosophy, central to the EFF is a philosophy of ‘Sankarism’ – named after the black nationalist revolutionary who promoted black empowerment through wealth re-distribution of French capital in Burkina Faso during the 1980’s. Sankarism makes for some interesting and rather scary reading when parallels to Nazism and Stalinism are drawn, especially in Thomas Sankara’s ‘Popular Revolutionary Tribunals’ which included extrajudicial executions, arbitrary detentions and torture of political opponents (mainly those in competing labour movements and trade unions).

Yet the EFF has announced itself a “proudly Sankarist formation” according to EFF member Jackie Shandu, so if a lesson from history is be learned, it is a good idea to familiarise ourselves with Thomas Sankara, known as ‘Africa’s ‘Che Guevara’ and his ‘single authoritarian’ leader and one party state ideals, along with his ‘radical transformation’ of capital into impoverished black hands.

Thomas Sankara

Within Sankarism’s ‘radical transformation’ of capital lies the key point of departure of the EFF’s ideology from Stalinist, Marxist or Leninist Communism ideology, as it’s this point the EFF matches perfectly Nazism and National Socialism, and it’s simply because the capital in question is defined by ‘race’.

To the EFF, ‘white’ South African people are the source of all miserly to black people, whites are blamed for all war in South Africa, whites are ‘foreign’, they are ‘invaders’ and not of ‘pure’ African stock. ‘White’ owned capital serves only to oppress the black african proletariat, and therefore has to be redistributed – without any form of compensation to the owners or the financiers of that capital.

To the EFF, it is only by the expropriation of ‘white monopoly capital’ that the economy will be properly healed and the worker given equality for his labour. If ‘white’ South Africans object to this they must be annihilated – but not “just yet” whilst they still serve a means to economic transformation and only if they behave like ‘good South Africans’ in that transformation – and let’s face it, there is not really any tolerance or real place for ‘whites’ in the EFF socialist bee-hive.

Replaced the word ‘white’ and the words ‘white monopoly capital’ with the words ‘Jew’ and ‘Jewish monopoly capital’ and you have Nazism as outlined in Hitler’s Mein Kamph – pure and applied by the EFF.

In Conclusion

But … but … but … Liberals and libertarianism is also left-wing! – yes it is, but it is right-wing too, consider that the Communists sought to liberate people from the yolk of Capital (in general), the Nazi’s sought to liberate Aryan (pure white) people from Jewish Monopoly Capital and the EFF aims to liberate Black people from White Monopoly Capital – they are all ‘liberals’. Then consider the ‘classical’ Libertarianism of the likes of Adam Smith and subsequently his greatest disciple – John Maynard Keynes, whose Keynesian Economics takes the capitalist model into the 21st Century – the guiding principle here is Libertarianism – the ‘Lady Liberty’ which has seen in some great and very workable capitalist democracies. This is all very ‘Right Wing’.

On the great struggle between Marx’s ‘honest man’ needed for a Communist model to work and Smith’s ‘greedy man’ needed for the Capitalist model to work, it is the concept of striving for individual wealth enhancement which in the end has always won out in any economic barter – this basic human truth cannot be removed or overlooked.

The British government recently declared that the free market economy is “the greatest agent of collective human progress ever created” at the same time acknowledging that socialism had a place in welfare, education, health care and decent living standards for all its citizens – in the ‘Pure Democracy’ models like the United Kingdom, Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland the free market economy drives the wealth necessary to sustain socialist welfare and most do it on the 80/20 principle, the 80% feed the 20% in need of state welfare via taxation.

Whenever socialist economic have been tried in the reverse of the 80/20 principle i.e. that the free market is capped by communist principles and capital ‘expropriated’ for universal use, then the 20% of the economy feeds the 80% in need of socialist welfare, and here we have historically seen abject failure in all economic markers and eventually economic (and political) collapse – and time and again Margaret Thatcher’s truism comes around “the problem with socialism is that you eventually run out of other people’s money.”

The idea of ‘reappropriation’ (stealing in effect) other people money (capital) to feed a socialist model whose welfare proposal exceeds free market income is as old as Nazism, Leninism and Stalinism and all these particular ‘leftist’ ‘isms’ stand on the left of the Communist/Capitalist continuum. Also, in every respect these ‘isms’ have left millions of dead innocent people in their wake trying to either implement them or sustain them – which on the whole is a compete failure of the human condition.

As to this particular lesson from history, it is bewildering that ‘Communism’ as practiced by Lenin remains appealing, but completely jaw-dropping that veiled ‘Nazism’ is even allowed in any modern democracy, Nazism is despised in every single G20 country, except South Africa were its even represented openly in Parliament in the form of the EFF. True, its been skillfully covered over with the need to address ‘historical wrongs’ under a ‘Left Wing’ Communist banner, but I do wonder when that ruse will start to wear off and the truth exposed – with any luck without too much blood been spilled before we get there.

Written by Peter Dickens

Images: General Public space wiki search

Debunking the myth that the British invented the ‘concentration camp’

Posted by Peter Dickens

It’s an almost ingrained idea in South Africa that ‘concentration camps’ were invented by the British during the 2nd Anglo Boer War (1899 – 1902) and there is an equally ingrained idea in some circles in South Africa which holds that the Nazi holocaust styled concentration camp simply followed on the lead set by the British in South Africa.

However, both of these ingrained concepts are untrue – they are myths.

This is not to say the concentration camps did not happen, they did. It’s also not to say the concentration camp system in South Africa visited death to a civilian population on an unacceptably large and traumatic scale – they did. It’s also not to ‘Boer Bash’ by way of any sort of ‘deniability’, the Boer nation suffered greatly under the concentration camp policy – no doubt about that at all.

It is to say that historic perspective and facts need to come to the fore to debunk myths and in the ‘concentration camps’ legacy in South Africa there are certainly a couple of myths – and they arose because of political expediency and the cognitive bias generated by the National party’s ‘Christian Nationalism’ education policy over five very long decades – so they are strongly rooted and tough to challenge.

There are three basic myths at play surrounding the 2nd Anglo Boer War (1899 – 1902) concentration camps.

That Concentration Camps first came into existence during the 2nd Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) and the British invented them.
That Hitler modelled the Nazi concentration camp system on the British system used in the 2nd Anglo-Boer War.
That it was the Boer women and children in South Africa who experienced the indignity and tragedy of a concentration camp system, with no thanks to the British.

That’s a lot to take in for someone with an ingrained belief, so let’s start with each of these myths:

Did the British invent the ‘Concentration Camp’?

The straight answer is; No.

The actual term ‘concentration camp’ was invented by the Spanish (as campo de concentración or campo de reconcentración) in 1896 – three years before the 2nd Anglo-Boer War (1899 – 1904) started. It originated during The Cuban War of Independence (Guerra de Independencia cubana, 1895–98) was the last of three liberation wars that Cuba fought against Spain.

A rebellion had broken out in Cuba, then a Spanish colony in 1895. The rebels, outnumbered by Spanish government troops, turned to guerrilla warfare (and here another myth which says the Boer’s invented ‘guerrilla warfare’ is debunked).

Colon Cemetery, Havana, Cuba, 1898

In response to guerilla warfare the Spanish commander Valeriano Weyler ordered the civilians of Cuba to be ‘concentrated’ in concentration camps under guard so they could not provide the rebels with food, supplies or new recruits.

Initial rebel military actions against the Spanish had been very successful and it forced Spain to re-think how to conduct the war. The first thing they did was replace their commander on the ground in Cuba, Arsenio Martinez Campos, who had for all intents and purposes failed to pacify the Cuban rebellion. The Conservative Spanish government of Antonio Canovas del Castillo sent Valeriano Weyler out to Cuba to replace him. This change in command met the approval of most Spaniards back home in Spain, who thought him the proper man to crush the rebellion.

Valeriano Weyler reacted to the rebels’ guerilla tactics successes by introducing terror methods: periodic executions, mass exile of residents, forced concentration of civilians in certain cities or areas and the destruction of their farms and crops. Weyler’s methods reached their height on October 21, 1896, when he ordered all countryside residents and their livestock to gather within eight days in various fortified areas and towns occupied by his troops.

Hundreds of thousands of people had to leave their homes and were subjected to appalling and inhumane conditions in the crowded towns and cities.

Civilians interned into these concentration camps were in a perilous situation as poor sanitation quickly lead to deadly disease and combined with the lack of food an estimated 25 to 30 percent of the civilian population subjected to these concentration camps died during the three years of warfare.

Patients in San Carlo Hospital, Matanzas, in the last stages of starvation

In the end 225,000 ‘non combatant’ Cuban civilians died in just 18 months between 1896 and 1897. That is some number, nearly a quarter of a million Cubans, and its a stain of blood which sits with modern Spain and one for which there has been little by way of reparation or apologies.

It also means Spain holds the rather dishonourable mantle of inventing the concentration camp system and even the term itself, not the British.

Then was South Africa the 2nd place where Concentration Camps were used?

The straight answer is again – No.

The second country to operate concentration camps was the United States of America in September 1899 in the Philippines. At this point in the historic time-line the British had not yet engaged the ‘Concentration Camp’ system in its full-blown manifestation in South Africa (which started in earnest at the beginning of 1901).

By 1899, the United States of America had recently acquired the Philippines from Spain, only to be confronted by a rebellion by Filipinos who wanted independence rather than American rule. Known as the Philippine–American War or the Tagalog Insurgency 1899 – 1902 (same timing as the 2nd Anglo-Boer war more or less).

The Filipinos turned to guerrilla warfare and in response the Americans copied the Spanish solution used in Cuba earlier.

In September 1899, American military strategy shifted to suppression of the resistance, in coordination with the future president, William Howard Taft, then the U.S. civil administrator of the islands changed course. Tactics now became focused on the control of key areas with ‘Internment’ and ‘segregation’ of the civilian population in “zones of protection” from the guerrilla population which became defined as ‘concentration camps’.

Government issuing rice to civilians in a Bauan concentration camp

Concentration camps were set up on the islands of Marinduque and Mindanao, and civilians from rebel-sympathising districts were forced to reside there. As in Cuba, the death rate in these concentration camps from disease was horrendous.

These “reconcentrados,” or concentration camps, were crowded and filled with disease; as the frustrations of guerrilla warfare grew, many U.S. fighters resorted to brutal retaliatory measures, one U.S. camp commandant referred to the concentration camps as the “suburbs of hell.”

The U.S. State Department estimates that around 20,000 Filipino and 4,000 U.S. combatants died in the fighting in the Philippines, and as many as 200,000 Filipino civilians died as a result of violence, famine and disease, with most losses attributable to cholera. Stanley Karnow observers that the American treatment of Filipino citizens “as cruel as any conflict in the annals of imperialism.”

The concentration camps policy was highly effective to the American War effort , As historian John M. Gates noted, “the policy kept the guerillas off-balance, short of supplies and in continuous flight from the U.S. army, As a result many guerrilla bands, suffering from sickness, hunger and decreasing popular support, lost their will to fight.” America had won, but at what cost?

A concentration camp in Tanauan, Batangas

As with the Spanish in Cuba, the United States of America generally also does not view their use of concentration camps as a crime against humanity, but rather as an extreme measure to stop ‘guerrilla warfare’ by cutting off the civilian support of the guerrilla fighters.

So, no apology from the United States for their status as the second country to use a concentration camp system, it also is not the last time they would use a ‘concentration camp’ system – they would use it again during the Vietnam War (more of that later).

Then was South Africa the 3rd place where Concentration Camps were used?

This time, sadly – the straight answer is – Yes.

The third country to set up concentration camps was Britain, but they did not initially call them concentration camps, they called them ‘Government Laagers” and ‘Refugee Camps’.

The reasons were similar to that of Spain in Cuba and the USA in the Philippines; Britain was at war with the two Boer Republics of South Africa, which had turned to guerrilla warfare once their conventional field armies were defeated. This stage is known as ‘Stage 3’ – The Guerrilla Phase of the South African War 1899-1902.

Stage 1 (Boer Success) and Stage 2 (British Response) end the ‘Conventional Phase’ of the war in late 1900 with the capture of Pretoria – Stage 3 – the Guerrilla Phase starts in earnest from the start of 1901 and lasts a year and a half ending May 1902.

The decision taken by the British was to hasten the end of the Guerrilla Phase, in essence the policy was to concentrate civilians located in conflict zones into government run camps (concentration camps) and destroy stock, crops, implements and farm buildings so the Boer guerrilla forces would run out of supplies and their support network would be crushed. As with the two previous situations perpetuated by Spain and the USA before, these British camps soon became rife with disease and thousands of people died, mostly from measles, pneumonia, typhoid and dysentery.

Why do the British refer to their ‘Concentration Camps’ as ‘Refugee Camps’ when they are clearly not?

The reason for the British sticking to the use of the term ‘Refugee Camps’ instead of ‘Concentration Camps’ is because these camps in South Africa actually started out as ‘refugee camps’: The first two of these camps (refugee camps) were established by the British to house the families of burghers who had surrendered voluntarily.

On the 22nd September 1900, Major-Gen J.G. Maxwell signalled that “… camps for burghers who voluntarily surrender are being formed at Pretoria and Bloemfontein.” As result of this military notice the first two ‘refugee’ camps were indeed established at Pretoria and Bloemfontein respectively.

Imperial War Museum caption “A refugee Boer family, the wife in traditional black and white costume, surrounded by their possessions, at a railway station”.

The aim outlined by the British for these two refugee camps was supposedly to protect those families of Boers who had surrendered voluntarily. A proclamation was even issued by Lord Kitchener by 20th December 1900 which states that all burghers surrendering voluntarily, will be allowed to live with their families in ‘Government Laagers’ until the end of the war and their stock and property will be respected and paid for.

But (and its a big BUT), by 21st December 1900 (the very next day) Lord Kitchener comes up with a different intention completely, and this one does not the safe-keeping of people, property and stock in mind. In a stated memorandum to general officers Lord Kitchener outlined the advantages of interning all women, children and men unfit for military services, also Blacks living on Boer farms, as this will be;

“the most effective method of limiting the endurance of the guerrillas … The women and children brought in should be divided in two categories, viz.: 1st. Refugees, and the families of Neutrals, non-combatants, and surrendered Burghers. 2nd. Those whose husbands, fathers and sons are on Commando. The preference in accommodation, etc. should of course be given to the first class. With regard to Natives, it is not intended to clear (Native) locations, but only such and their stock as are on Boer farms.”.

A group of Boer children with a native African woman at a ‘refugee’ camp. Imperial War Museum image.

With that memorandum now writ, effectively by January 1901, the camps stopped becoming ‘Refugee Camps’ and became ‘Concentration Camps’ governed by forced removal, in effect – displacement camps of civilians forcibly removed from their farmsteads.

The British, for the sake of politically sanitizing this policy from a public opinion perspective, continued to call these camps as ‘Refugee Camps’ and in many circles in the United Kingdom they are still referred as such even today, a good example of this is the Imperial War Museum – when they any publish picture showing Boer families being rounded up on their way to a concentration camp they are almost always (and incorrectly) tagged as ‘refugees’ in the caption.

So how is it that Nazi German Concentration Camps are linked to the ‘British’ Concentration Camps?

The answer is simply, because of Hermann Göring.

During a press interview Hermann Goring (the then spokesperson on behalf of Adolph Hitler), served to deflect a challenge from a British ambassador who protested about the Nazi concentration camps, and by using a ‘press stunt’ when he dramatically sprung up and quoted from a reference book that the British invented them in the first place (when in fact this is factually incorrect) and it just served as a skillful stroke of political deflection of which Hermann Göring was a past master.

Why a deflection? Because the German ‘Concentration Camps’ were fundamentally different from those initiated by the Spanish, and then the Americans and finally the British, their camps were all tactical responses to guerrilla warfare, whereas the Nazi ‘concentration camps’ started out for camps for political dissent in opposition to National Socialism (Nazism) as ‘re-education’ camps, as a central theme to them.

Socialist systems driven on nationalist lines, whether German Nazi or Russian/Chinese Communism all have in them this phenomenon to re-educate (and if necessary exterminate) anyone in their society not conforming to their idea of the ‘social hive’ or ‘community’. The Soviet system of ‘Gulag’ re-education camps are no different to the early German Nazi concentration camps in their purpose (and as deadly).

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German Nazi Concentration Camp for Political Prisioners

That the German ‘concentration camps’ later evolved into systematic pre-meditated murder with the idea of exterminating entire populations of specific races to solve an ideological problem, and it is an entirely different objective to those objectives behind the British concentration camps in South Africa.

In Nazi Germany and their occupied countries the ‘concentration camp’ evolved into the ‘extermination camp’ for people following the Jewish faith – primarily but not exclusive to Jews – the system also included other people not deemed Aryan enough within the confines of Nazi philosophy or conformist enough to their idea of socialism – gypsies (travellers), free-masons, homosexuals, communists and even the mentally ill all found themselves on the wrong side of Nazism.

Auschwitz concentration camp for the extermination of Jews and other Nazi undesirables.

But, for some reason, certainly in some circles in South Africa, Hermann Göring’s master class in deflecting a press junket is held up as Gospel, now, in the hindsight of history who would really believe anything Hermann Göring came up with?

What’s the big difference between a Nazi concentration camp and a British concentration camp?

The fundamental differences between a Nazi concentration camp (re-education/extermination camp) and a British concentration camp (forced removal/refugee camp) are massive.

Himmler’s report to Hitler detailing the executions of civilian prisoners – especially Jews.

For starters, unlike Nazi Germany, there is no historical document or any supporting record that the British embarked on the extermination of the Boer nation using systematic pre-meditated murder. Not one document or letter whatsoever, whereas in the case of Nazi extermination camps there is an entire undeniable record of premeditated murder.

Secondly, the concentration camps in South Africa were isolated and relatively unguarded, mostly unfenced and they were relatively porous affairs where people came in and out and aid workers came in and out – very different to the Nazi German idea of lining people up on a train platform under armed escort without a suitable aid worker in sight and marching them straight into gas chambers and/or mass graves in their tens of thousands.

The fundamental difference however is in the core thinking behind the military objective requiring concentration camps, for the British the military objective was to bring a quick end to a guerrilla campaign initiated in the final phase of the South African war, They did this by rounding up civilians in support of Boer guerrillas, placing them into camps and cutting off these ‘commando’ guerilla groups from their supply of food, feed, ammunition and recruits.

On the other hand, the objective of the German concentration camps of WW2 was not to put an end to any form of guerrilla warfare whatsoever, it was to systematic exploit and exterminate entire populations along ideological lines of race superiority.

What is common in respect of both forms of concentration camp is that many people died, and in both respects that single act qualifies a tragedy and a failure of the human condition.

Did the deaths in the camps come about because of a hatred for the Boer race?

The answer simply to this question is – No.

The argument that the British concentration camps were designed to systematically wipe the Boer population from the planet by way of extermination because of race hate for Boers falls apart when you consider the British did not target only the ‘Boers’ for deportation to concentration camps.

The truth is the British targeted everybody who they perceived to be involved in the supply of horse feed, ammunition, weapons and food to guerrilla Boer commandos. This included Black Africans in addition to the Boers themselves.

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Medical inspection inside a Black concentration camp as administered by the Native Refugee Department. Orange Free State, 1901. Photo research by Dr Garth Benneyworth.

The unfortunate truth that central to the concept of concentration camps to South Africa is simply railway supply.

When the British marched into Pretoria, raising the union jack in victory of the conventional war – they found themselves stretched deep into ‘hostile’ territory with extended and vulnerable supply lines stretching over hundreds of kilometres.

On losing their capital cities, the Boer strategy switched and they moved their government ‘into the field’ to embark on a ‘Guerrilla Warfare’ phase – with the intention to disrupt supply to the British now based in Bloemfontein and Pretoria and isolate the British into pockets (mainly along the railway lines).

To do this they would need food, ammunition and feed supplied directly from their own farmsteads or supporters surrounding their chosen targets. The relatively easy targets were trains and train lines (due to isolation and expanse), and after many a locomotive steamed into Pretoria riddled with bullet holes or didn’t make it all, Lord Kitchener got fed up at the arrogance of Boer resistance after the war had been effectively ‘won’ in his eyes and he acted decisively.

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Locomotive No. 99 “KOMAAS” destroyed by the Boers near Middelburg.

Kitchener concentrated on restricting the freedom of movement of the Boer commandos and depriving them of local support. The railway lines and supply routes were critical, so he established 8000 fortified blockhouses along them and subdivided the land surrounding each of them into a protective radius.

Wherever and whenever an attack took place, or where sufficient threat existed to this system, Kitchener took to the policy of depopulating the radius area, burning down the farmsteads, killing the livestock and moving all the people – both Black and White (it mattered not to the British what colour they were) into their ‘Government Laagers’ which were in effect – concentration camps.

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British burning of Boer farmsteads as a tactic to cut the supplies to and support of Boer Commando’s food, feed, recruits and ammunition.

Two different systems of concentration camps existed in South Africa, one specifically for Blacks only and one mainly for Whites (these also contained Black servants and staff to Boer families). Both were run very differently. The outcome was however tragically the same for both. Disease, mainly water-bourne ones took hold and in the Boer civilian’s camps the official death toll is 26 370 people, whereas in the Black camps it is estimated that 20,000 people died (the official records here were not accurately kept by the British – as they were in the Boer camps).

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African women in a Black concentration camp in Klerksdorp,

For a deeper history on the Black concentration camps of The South African War (1899 – 1902) click on this link; To fully reconcile The Boer War is to fully understand the ‘BLACK’ Concentration Camps

Another point to consider as to the tragedy of the British Concentration camps in South Africa, is that some of the British staff working in the camps died from the same diseases that the killed Boer inhabitants of these camps – a sure sign of poor management and lack of proper medical understanding, medicine and aid – rather than a premeditated intention to murder. The sad truth here, disease is indiscriminate.

Did we learn the lesson not to use concentration camps again?

The answer to that sadly is … No.

As said earlier, the Spanish and the Americans found the Concentration Camp system highly effective in bringing guerrilla warfare to an end – a grisly, painful, barbaric end yes, but and end none the same. The British, rather sadly found the same – that despite the unacceptable damage to a civilian population, the tactic of concentration camps proved very succesful in bringing about a prompt end to what was proving to be a protracted war with an equally protracted affair of all round misery to civilian and combatant alike.

But at what price? Such a tactic of rounding up civilian groupings and containing them so they cannot supply guerrilla fighters in the field has time and again brought unacceptable death rates to civilians – along with fundamental setbacks in a culture or population’s wellbeing and evolution. The consequences of concentration camps, whether they are culturally, politically, economically or emotionally considered are far-reaching, highly negative and very deep.

Which brings us back to the United States of America, the second country to use a concentration camp system at the end of the 1800’s, because they were back at it again as late as the 1960’s – not even forty years ago – during the Vietnam War.

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US troops Burning villages in Vietnam

In Vietnam they would engage exactly the same system – create ‘firebases’ in ‘protected zones, whenever there was a ‘flashpoint’ of guerrilla activity they would starve the guerrillas of their means to fight by cutting off their supplies (food and weapons), and they would do this by burning suspected villages and homesteads to the ground and moving all the affected civilian population into government-run ‘Strategic Hamlet’ camps – concentration camps in effect.

The only saving grace in all of this is that by the mid 1960’s medicine had moved on and diseases which had killed civilians in their droves in concentration camps at the end of the 1800’s could now be easily cured and even stopped in the 1960’s – as simply put better medical understanding, vaccination, antibiotics and penicillin had all come a long way by the end of the 1960’s – so too had government agencies handling civilian affairs during wartime.

Villages in a ‘Strategic Hamlet’ – Vietnam War

So instead of getting any form of admission to running ‘concentration camps’ and wholesale displacement and civilian death in the Philippines and even later in Vietnam – what we get from modern-day America are bland, soulless American military definitions outlining incidents when they the accidentally kill a bunch of citizens – and they now call it unavoidable “collateral damage.”

From a military strategic and tactical perspective, in many respects, the techniques used by the Americans for fighting ‘guerrilla warfare’ in the Vietnam War during the 1960’s and early 1970’s is almost no different to the techniques used by the British fighting the same type of guerrilla warfare in 1901 and early 1902. The Americans built ‘fire-bases’ to protect strategic points and fan out from to find Vietcong guerrillas, the British built ‘blockhouses’ next to protected strategic points and fanned out to find Boer guerrillas. The Americans rounded up Vietnamese civilians around flashpoints and burnt the farmsteads … the British did the same and burnt the farmsteads. During the Vietnam War the Americans and their proxy state ran camps for displaced civilians under the strange alias of ‘The Strategic Hamlet Program’ – in effect concentration camps, the British ran camps for displaced civilians under the strange alias of ‘Government Laagers’ – in effect also concentration camps.

Vietnam War ‘Strategic Hamlet’ – note the containment and defensive perimeter

So what’s the difference? It’s the concept of ‘Total War’ that has blurred the lines, it starts to become almost impossible to separate the idea of combatants and non combatants from soldier and civilian – when civilians aid the soldiers by maintaining their combat readiness. The ANC used the same excuse to bomb Southern Cross Aid offices, a civilian charity supplying the SADF with gift aid and the SADF even used the same excuse when a whole bunch of civilians came into the cross-fire at Cassinga in Angola during the Angolan Border War.

In conclusion

The impact of the British concentration camp policy in South Africa is far-reaching, deeply traumatic and still has bearing today as it’s an issue that requires national healing and international recognition. It is not a light matter. However, we have to be true to pursuing the facts and discarding the propaganda and politically motivated miss-truths.

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Boer women and children in a British Concentration Camp

So, we stand by the myth now debunked – the British did not invent the ‘concentration camp’, and certainly not the ‘concentration camp’ as we have come to know the system employed by the Nazis.

History however does show us that a policy to counter-act Guerrilla Warfare by herding civilians into concentration camps is generally a very bad idea from a purely humanitarian perspective, nothing of any good has come from it, its morally corrupt and the British (like the Americans and the Spanish before them) are complicit and guilty of using this policy, and it is to their eternal shame.

As to guerrilla warfare bringing on ‘total war’ and the consequences thereof it’s an American General, William Tecumseh Sherman whose comment rings so tragically true in this respect

“War is cruelty. There is no use trying to reform it. The crueller it is, the sooner it will be over”.

Written by Peter Dickens

A road to democracy called ‘the egg’!

Posted by Peter Dickens

Colin Eglin, the long-time anti-apartheid campaigner and long-time leader of the opposition Democrats in South Africa has recently had a road named after him … but so what! Many streets and roads are named after various politicians in South Africa, especially the anti-apartheid campaigners in recent times … however, this one is different, very different.

Why? Because Colin Eglin Road is not in South Africa, it’s in Italy.

Most modern South Africans who can even recall him, just know him as part of the last vestige of ‘white liberals’ in a ‘whites only’ Parliament trying to hold the juggernaut of the National Party and its Apartheid policy to account. A tiny voice calling for full democracy in a sea of National Party (NP) rural ‘afrikaner-bloc’ gerrymandering which overtook him and pushed the ‘official opposition’ i.e. the PFP (now the DA) and the more liberal ‘english-bloc’ urban voters calling for an end to Apartheid into complete political irrelevance.

Note – this gerrymandering (the weighting and re-drawing of constituency boundaries to create a favourable political bias) which the NP used to destroy Colin Eglin and the PFP using the ‘rural bias’ is now happily used by the ANC and this last significant footprint of Apartheid has been put to good effect keeping the DA’s ‘urban’ vote ineffectual.

So, gerrymandering has resulted in well-regarded South African politicians been side-lined – what it did to the ‘democrat’ opposition bench then, it also does to them now. You may now even have to ask ‘Who is Colin Eglin anyway?’ and how is it that Colin Eglin became so revered that the Italians have named one of their roads after him?

That bit has a lot to do with Colin Eglin’s status as a military veteran and his tireless campaigning for South African military veteran recognition and the causes they fought so hard for in the mountains of Italy.

Now, who even knew Colin Eglin was a 2nd World War veteran? Let’s examine what drove this most complex war veteran turned political campaigner.

Background

Colin Wells Eglin was born on 14th April 1925 in Sea Point, Cape Town, at a young age he moved to live with his aunt, outside Hobhouse, Eastern Free State when his father died after a long illness. Colin attended the Hobhouse School where he was the only English–speaking pupil – “I found myself the only rooinek (red neck, or English-speaker) in the village school.” he later lamented and he very quickly came to learn of the ‘Afrikaner politics’ and tension between the National Party supporters of DF Malan and those of Barry Hertzog – politics which began to deeply affect him. It also him the rare advantage of being fully fluent in both English and Afrikaans.

Colin was a bright and highly intelligent pupil and he left the Orange Free State and attended the De Villiers Graaf High School in Villiersdorp where he matriculated in 1939 at the very young age for a matriculant – only 14 years old.

Colin Eglin during WW2

South Africa had gone to war when Colin matriculated, at 14 years old he was too young to join the army, so in 1940 (now aged just 15) Colin Eglin registered for a Bachelor of Science degree in quantity surveying at the University of Cape Town (UCT). In 1943, now finally at the recruitment age of 18 he interrupted his studies at UCT to fulfil Jan Smuts’ call to go to war, and he voluntarily joined the army.

World War 2

Colin initially became a full-time instructor in the anti-aircraft unit in Cape Town. He was then sent to a similar unit in Egypt and transferred to Italy in 1944 joining the 6th South African Armoured Division fighting in the Italian Apennines around Florence. Now a 19-year-old ‘rookie’ soldier, he was to be baptised in the last significant combat operations of the war and was front and forward in the South African assault on Monte Sole.

Colin Eglin had joined ‘D Company’ of an amalgamated Cape Town Highlanders (CTH) and First City (FC) from Grahamstown unit which had formed a combined regiment for service in the 6th South African Armoured Division.

The Cape Town Highlanders (CTH) and First City (FC), known collectively as ‘FC/CTH’ had just previously acquitted themselves very well under the command of Lt Col. Angus Duncan in the taking of Monte Stanco from strong German positions and at this stage the war had entered a static winter period before the next big push onto Monte Sole.

As Colin had completed four years university study at UCT in quantity surveying it was felt that he had sufficient qualification for ‘Battlefield Intelligence’ and he was put on a course to become ‘D’ Company’s intelligence corporal (the military – then and now – often displays this odd logic for placing individuals civilian qualifications for military needs).

Colin was taken to the ‘Pink House’ near Grizzana, a farm building that was also the operational HQ of ‘C’ Company for a crash course of two weeks training in ‘Battlefield Intelligence’ and then back to D Company.

‘D’ Company had its headquarters in a cluster of farmhouses, named the ‘Foxhole’, on the slopes of the mountain overlooking Grizzana. As it was in the line of fire of enemy positions, ‘Foxhole’ was a tough, cold and miserable posting. Colin found himself in a forward observation post (OP) located at the cemetery at Campiaro. The OP overlooked the town of Vergato which was the centre of the German defences in the area.

In the freezing weather, snow and mud guard duty and patrols by D company in the area were a miserable affair. Patrols were sent out at night, and they almost always hit fierce and lethal contacts with the German defenders. In these patrols and observations Cpl Colin Elgin became adept at map reading and at recognising, and noting, the sounds and sights of warfare.

Much needed ‘Rest and Recuperation’ (R&R) came around every two weeks when ‘D Company’ members would go to nearby Castiglione dei Pepoli, the South African 6th Division HQ was located there and they could shower, get fresh supplies and spend some time relaxing. Known to the South African soldiers as ‘Castig’ the town of Castiglione dei Pepoli was to become a central feature in Colin Eglin’s life for years to come.

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The South African 6th Division in the town square of Castiglione dei Pepoli – 1945.

In the valleys around Monte Sole, between the 29th September and 5 October 1944 the Italian resistance kicked into action, this then spurred the defending German forces into an extreme action to control the area. They embarked on massacre, and proceeded to try to wipe out all Italian civilians around Monte Sole – resistance, men, women and children (all of them – it mattered not a jot). The town of Marzabotto alone commemorates the massacre of 770 individuals, mostly the elderly, women and children.

With the static winter period over, by the spring of 1945 the South African 6th Division could advance on Monte Sole. In April 1945 Colin Eglin joined a CTH/FC forward party for a briefing on the assault on Monte Sole by Colonel Angus Duncan.

Colin noted “In a few weeks’ time the Allied spring offensive would commence. The Sixth Armoured Division had been given the task of opening the road to Bologna. To do this, the Twelfth Brigade would have to capture the mountain massif formed by Monte Sole, Caprara and Abelle. The Highlanders had been assigned to capture Monte Sole. Suddenly that mountain we had gazed at all winter from a safe distance was in front of us. Forbidding, frightening, challenging. Casualties were likely to be heavy. Yet there was a sense of pride that our regiment had been chosen for this pivotal battle task, and quiet determination to show we could do it”.

The South African 6th Division attack in Spring 1945 was a two-pronged affair, the Cape Town Highlanders and First City (FC/CTH) were to take Monte Sole – regarded as the most formidable of the German Army defences, and Witwatersrand Rifles/Regiment de la Rey (another amalgamated unit) i.e. WR/DLR were to take Monte Caprara. The idea was to eventually push through and capture the crossings of the River Po and break out into the vallies and plains beyond the mountains.

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Looking more like partisans than regulars, a First City/Cape Town Highlanders patrol sets out in the italian Apennines – 1945. SANDF Archive

To prepare for the attack on 15th April 1945, the German defensive positions were bombed from the air and shelled by artillery. In taking Caprara, the WR/DLR suffered heavy casualties right from the start and in desperate fighting which at time even involved hand-to-hand combat, they took the mountain. Counter-attacks by German forces were effectively fought off by the South African tenaciously holding on to their win.

Colin Eglin was assembled at the start-line for FC/CTH attack on Monte Sole at Casa Belvedere (two kilometers from the peak of Monte Sole). He had just celebrated his 20th birthday the day before.

Both ‘C’ and ‘D’ companies of FC/CTH advanced along two farm tracks leading up to the summit on Monte Sole. They re-assembled 800 meters from the crest of Monte Sole. The area was heavily mined by Germans, but despite this the South Africans of C and D company advanced under the command a 20-year-old rookie officer with only 12 days front line combat exposure. 2nd Lt. Gordon Mollett led the charge up the approach with only five men and ‘with total disregard for his life’ wiped out the machine gun posts on the crest of Monte Sole with the loss of one of his men.

So swift was the assault on the German’s position that they were completely unprepared for proper defence or the bayonet charge, and with that 2nd Lt Mollett walked into South African history with a DSO (Distinguished Service Order) for his actions and the rest of C and D companies of the FC/CTH took the crest and won the day.

Preceding the final attack on Monte Sole, Colin Eglin had been tasked to install telephone lines as far up the route as possible. Highly dangerous work, on his way up to Monte Sole the soldier walking just behind him stood on a German anti-personnel Schützenmine 42 mine. Also known as a Schuh mine (shoe mine) it is a simple wooden box with a hinged lid containing a 200-gram block of cast TNT and a ZZ-42 type detonator, and it blew off part of the South African soldiers foot.

Colin applied an emergency field dressing to his wounded comrades foot, administered first aid and called for a stretcher-bearer. Even with the threat of mines now highly apparent Colin and couple of ‘D’ Company platoons continued to press forward to the summit. Colin was able to get to the top and rigged up his field radio under fire, only to have its aerial cut in two by all the shrapnel and bullets flying around, thus rendering it useless. So he scrambled down the mountain to the HQ, it was here that he took in the news of the tragic death of his Commander – Lt Col Angus Duncan. He was killed the foot of Monte Sole when his jeep was blown up.

It is thought that the jeep carrying Lt. Col Duncan hit a mine, while other witness accounts suggest an artillery round fired from a German 88 mm anti-aircraft and anti-tank artillery gun across the valley hit the vehicle.

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Officer Commanding First City/Cape Town Highlanders, Lt Col Angus Duncan, addressing his men before the assault on Monte Sole. He was killed shortly after this photograph was taken, while driving to his brigade’s position. SANDF Archive

Many years later in Peter Elliott’s interview with Colin Eglin (then Colin was 88 years old and this was his last visit to Italy), whilst the two of them re-traced the steps of FC/CTH at Monte Sole, Colin recalled how the strain of war impacted two completely different soldiers and comrades, Jan and Peter. Jan was a tough outdoors man, an extrovert and he relished army life prior to the battle. Peter was a indoors man, an introvert who just endured army life out of a sense of duty. During the battle for Monte Sole it was Jan, the extrovert whose nerves snapped, and he had to be withdrawn from battlefield. Colin found Peter, the introvert some time later still in his slit trench. He had been under intense mortar fire during a number of German counter-attacks, but remained resolute. He was exhausted but even cheerful and shouted across at Colin triumphantly, ‘Corporal, we made it!’

Even though the taking of the crest had been swift, the Battle for Monte Sole was heavy and hard going, in all FC/CTH suffered heavy losses – a total of 31 men killed and 78 men wounded. The extent of contribution of the two Regiments to the battle and victory can be seen in the bravery – in all twelve gallantry medals and awards were won.

The capture of Monte Sole by FC/CTH opened up the road to Bologna and beyond the Po Valley, within two short weeks on 2 May 1945, the Germans formally surrendered in Italy. For the South Africans it was effectively war over!

‘D’ Company FC/CTH HQ Melzo, Italy, a week after war ended in May 1945. Colin Eglin is fourth from right, back row.

But a new struggle was emerging for these newly minted war veterans, certainly for Colin Eglin. After the War Colin remained in Italy for nine months, he was stationed at Castiglione dei Pepoli, the town located near Monte Sole remained the South African 6th Armoured Division’s headquarters and it now became a depot and clearing station for the entire division (in fact the main South African military burial ground in Italy is located there). During this period, whilst waiting to be demobilised he undertook extra-mural courses in Archaeology and Town Planning.

The entire event had made an indelible impression on Colin’s soul, it was the Italian Campaign that was to deepen his commitment to democracy and liberty. Monte Sole was a shrine for him as he returned there on many occasions during the next sixty-eight years to stand gazing at the mountain where, as a young man, he quickly became an adult. During these trips he was also to build a lasting relationship with the towns-people of Castiglione dei Pepoli.

A military veteran’s legacy

In his autobiography, “Crossing the Borders of Power – The Memoirs of Colin Eglin,” Colin mentions the discussions that took place among the South African soldiers in 1945, whilst in Italy waiting to be repatriated to South Africa. Colin noted:

“The dominant view was that there should be a memorial, but that this should be a ‘living’ one that served the community, not merely a monumental structure. The servicemen, in overwhelming numbers, volunteered to donate two days’ pay towards what was to become the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital.”

For more on the Red Cross War Memorial Children Hospital follow this link to the related Observation Post; A war memorial in Cape Town which saves children’s lives

The children’s hospital was to be built as a memorial to those who had contributed by sacrifice, suffering and service in the Second World War, the soldiers felt that children had been the innocent victims of the war and the Red Cross War Memorial Children’s Hospital was devoted to the relief of the suffering of children.

The building of the Children’s Hospital in Cape Town commenced in 1953 under the guidance of the South African Red Cross Society and remains a ‘living war memorial’ helping the most vulnerable of the community – our children – and Colin Eglin was to play a leading role in making it happen.

Colin Eglin speaking at the Red Cross Children’s Hospital in Cape Town on Remembrance Day

During his life-time Colin returned to the Italian Apennines and Castiglione dei Pepoli over ten times. For his work on Remembrance and maintaining the links of this part of Italy with their liberators – South Africa – he was even made an honorary citizen of the town of Grizzana Morandi.

But why was an opposition party leader elevated to such a significant position in Italy and not a government one? We all know the answer to that, as the Nationalist Party had no really sincere intentions on commemorating South Africa’s war against Nazism and Fascism in Italy, before and during the war they had supported the ideals of Nazism and Fascism. They were not going to change their stance on Britain, British Allies, Smuts, World War 2 or even Fascism. So this key task on building on the South African sacrifice in Europe, lest it all be in vain, was left to that part of the South African mainstream party political spectrum which supported Smuts and all the ‘liberals’ who went to war against Nazi Germany – and that part of the party political spectrum in 60’s, 70’s and 80’s was Colin Eglin’s turf.

The political path for Post War veterans

In 1946 Colin returned from the Italian theatre of Military Operations to South Africa, here he picked up where he left off and continued with his studies, graduating the same year with a B.Sc in Quantity Surveying from UCT.

He became involved in civic affairs and started the Pinelands Young People’s Club which helped set up a sister organization in the neighbouring Coloured village of Maitland. In 1951 he became chairman of the Pinelands Civic Association and was elected to the Pinelands town council.

The electoral loss of the Jan Smuts’ United Party in 1948 to the National Party and their Apartheid proposals sent shock waves into South Africa’s war veteran community. The war for liberty and democracy they had conducted overseas in places like Italy, against the same forces of fascism which had now come home to roost in South Africa. This spurred The Torch Commando in the early 1950’s led by Sailor Malan and Colin Eglin as a returning war veteran joined The Torch Commando and started to become very politicised.

The Torch Commando was the first anti-Apartheid mass protest movement, and it was made up of returning war veterans. It was primarily a ‘pro-democracy’ movement and was crushed by the National Party because of the military threat it posed – and it was done by using ‘anti-communist’ legislation designed to curtail any ideology in opposition to Apartheid.

The Torch Commando was linked to the United Party, who tried to leverage it for the ‘service vote’ and wrestle power back from the National Party. In 1953 Colin decided to enter in formal political party opposition to Apartheid in addition to protesting with The Torch Commando – and he joined Smuts’ United Party (Smuts had just passed away in 1950). Almost immediately he became the political campaign manager for his friend Zach de Beer who was the United Party (UP) candidate for the parliamentary seat of Maitland. Colin Eglin and Zach de Beer were to form a friendship and political bond which would transform itself into what is now the modern “Democratic Alliance’, of the two Helen Suzman would say “Zach was clever, but Colin was sounder”.

In 1954 Colin himself was elected unopposed as the UP provincial councillor for Pinelands. In addition to that, he became chairman of the UP’s Cape Peninsula Council and then in 1958 Eglin became the Peninsula MP.

By August 1959, following the United Party’s congress in Bloemfontein, Colin broke from the UP ranks, the new guard in the UP instead of following Smuts’ vision of universal suffrage and holistic reconciliation in South Africa, still humoured the more conservative elements of the party who wanted a limited franchise and some restrictive movements for South Africa’s black migrant working population – a sort of ‘Apartheid Lite’ if you will.

In 1959 this was clearly no longer the direction needed or in any way relevant for liberal and democratic opposition parties in South Africa. Colin was one of UP rebels who issued a declaration of dissent (the others included Zach de Beer and Helen Suzman).

Helen Suzman at a Progressive Party meeting

In November that year he was one of the 11 members of parliament who formed the nucleus of the new Progressive Party (PP). It was a bold move, it would ultimately spell the end of the United Party and the conservative element within it, also by fractionating the official opposition (the UP) it certainly bolstered the National Party. What it did however also do was draw the line in the sand of ‘white politics’ – on the one side, the whites who supported Apartheid and a whites only vote and on the other side whites who did not support Apartheid and wanted a democratic vote for all.

All through this Colin Eglin never wavered from his adherence to liberal, democratic values, he aimed to reform the system from the inside; and by balancing criticism of race discrimination with political pragmatism he sometimes found himself the subject of attack from both black and white communities.

The ANC would argue that by participating in the apartheid political system, no matter what his stance, Eglin helped perpetuate it. Yet by participating Eglin was also able to work against the Apartheid government machine and make important political gestures – such as his visit to the black activist Steve Biko, or sending ‘official government opposition’ delegations to promote the dismantling of Apartheid in the so-called ‘independent’ Bantustan ‘homelands’ and promoted dialogue with urbanised black leadership.

By 1966 Colin Eglin became chairman on the National Executive of the Progressive Party (PP) and in 1971 he became the party leader succeeding Jan Steytler. In an attempt to attract Afrikaners to the PP, he initiated ‘Deurbraak’, the first journal of verligte (enlightened) opinion in South Africa. Colin Eglin also initiated a dialogue between the PP and Black homeland and urban leaders. He was also instrumental in establishing Synthesis, a non-party political study and discussion group, which became an important tool for information and contact across the colour bar. He also held a symposium of 50 Afrikaner academics in 1971, from which a non-party-political movement, Verligte Aksie, was formed.

In 1974 the PP won six seats in the general election with the seventh coming from a by-election a few months later. In 1975 Eglin negotiated the merger with members of the Reform Party, which led to the formation of the Progressive Reform Party (PRP). In 1976 he called an Extraordinary Parliamentary session to discuss the Soweto Uprising and call for the resignation of the Minister of Bantu Affairs, M.C. Botha.

A combination of gerrymandering by the National Party and totalitarian crack-down by the Apartheid State of South Africa’s liberal ‘democratic’ politicians, gagging many of them by way of banning and sending many into exile after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960, saw liberal politics in a racially segregated and conservative Afrikaner biased voting sphere become absolutely irrelevant – and the PP would eventually lose all its seats, except one – Helen Suzman – who remained a lone voice of official opposition to Apartheid in Parliament for many years.

Also for many years, while she was the Progressive’s sole MP, Colin Eglin acted as Helen Suzman’s link with extra-parliamentary activities. He travelled extensively in Africa, Europe, America and even China. During visits to 15 African countries, as official government ‘opposition’ to the National Party he met many heads of state to drive international opposition to Apartheid – and he did this using official and politically legal channels – without having to resort his party to violent opposition.

Criticism of the PRP by the National Party as they tried to brand then as a “Tool of Communist agitators.” was swiftly put in place by Suzman who said .. “it’s really a joke, isn’t it? Because, quite clearly, we are a party of real moderates. It just shows how little they understand.”

In 1977, following a merger with the Committee for United Opposition that had also broken away from the United Party the PRP became the Progressive Federal Party (PFP). By 1979 Colin stepped down as leader in favour of Dr F van Zyl Slabbert and became Shadow Foreign Minister, a post he would hold until 1986.

In 1986 Colin Eglin found himself at the reigns of his party again following the shock resignation of Van Zyl Slabbert from the PFP. Ironically van Zyl Slabbert had one crucial deficiency, which Eglin had in spades – staying power. Eglin, on one occasion described the pursuit of the liberal cause on the stony soil of South Africa as “the politics of the long haul”. And when Slabbert, despairing of making any change to the Apartheid machine quit the leadership in a fiery act of self-implosion it was again to Eglin that his shell-shocked colleagues turned to give the lead.

He remained party leader until 1988, however he didn’t have the best people skills to sustain this type of leadership. Affectionately known as ‘the Egg’, Colin Eglin had a sharp tongue and bit off many heads. His long-time colleague Helen Suzman admitted that his manner “put off a lot of people. Yet we all came back to “the Egg”, not only because he was a role model for progressives, or because of his intelligence and measured political judgment, but because he was a decent, very warm-hearted man, whom we held in great affection.

In 1988 his old UP friend, a veteran of democratic politics – Zach de Beer, took over from Colin as the newly elected party leader of the PFP. With seismic political changes on the horizon, in 1989 Colin Eglin focused on preparing his party enter into a meaningful role in South Africa’s democratic evolution, to do this he knew he needed other democratic bodies in coalition with the PFP – so he negotiated with the Independent Party and National Democratic Movement to bring together a new opposition to the National Party in parliament.

This resulted in the formation of the Democratic Party (DP) in 1989 and the dissolution of PFP. Colin was subsequently elected chairperson of the DP’s parliamentary caucus, and Zac de Beer took control of the reigns of the DP as leader.

Building Democratic opposition in a new epoch

In 1991, as the Democratic Party (DP) stalwart, Colin participated in the Convention for a Democratic South Africa (CODESA) and served in its working group. Described by Nelson Mandela as “one of the architects of (South Africa’s) democracy”, Colin Eglin played a leading role in the drafting of the country’s post-apartheid constitution.

It was in CODESA at Kempton Park that Colin came into his own. It has been said that it was as though his life to then had been preparation for just this moment. Much of South Africa’s much praised liberal constitution is due to Colin’s clear grasp of the principles of liberal democracy and the constraints and provisions of those institutions charged with protecting and advancing these.

Colin’s negotiating prowess was recognised by Joe Slovo in particular and, when an impasse was reached, the two would get together and generally find a way forward and eventually, a worthy constitution was to emerge. His intellect, presence and engaging manner were recognised and respected by all in those crafting the new democratic Constitution and Bill of Rights in the tumultuous years of 1990 to April 1994.

Colin Eglin continued to serve in the segregated House of Assembly until it was abolished in 1994 after the historic democratic transition and vote in South Africa, and Colin then served in the multi-racial National Assembly as a DP Parliamentarian.

In November 1994, at the end of the first session of South Africa’s first democratic Parliament, a small group of Democratic Party MPs had lunch in Pretoria with President Nelson Mandela to discuss some challenges affecting the new legislature.

On arrival, in the dining room at the official residence, Mandela arranged the seating with this instruction: “Colin, you sit at the head of the table – you are the senior man here in terms of service.”

Mandela was giving recognition to a veteran anti-Apartheid stalwart, a person who had first been elected to Parliament fighting Apartheid tooth and nail some 36 years before this luncheon and a person whose Parliamentarian career would even outlive Nelson Mandela’s own after the luncheon was over. It was some acknowledgement to ‘the Egg’ and South Africa’s democrats and Mandela knew it.

In 2000, the DP merged with other groups to become the Democratic Alliance (DA), which survives as the current official ‘democratic’ opposition to an African National Congress (ANC) government.

Whilst in the DA, Colin turned his attention on the new ‘Nationalists’ in Parliament, where the Afrikaner Nationalists (NP) were his previous foe, the African Nationalists (ANC) were his next. To Eglin – nationalism almost always meant one-upmanship of one nation over that of another, he had learned a bitter lesson in nationalism and all its inherent evils in the freezing hills of Italy in WW2.

His foresight to NP politics then were as applicable to his foresight on ANC politics now. Colin felt that the ANC government should focus almost entirely on decreasing the poverty gap in South Africa – and in so do two things – unleash the forces of enterprise to reduce unemployment and focus government spending on housing and education … and not on self-enrichment – here he felt the flawed ANC driven BEE ‘transformation’ programs only served to transform a ANC political elite to a ‘super-class’ and the ‘under-class’ and poverty-stricken would simply be left behind. He also fought the ANC’s bills and amendments to press freedoms believing them to be “a cover up of corruption, incompetence and nepotism”.

In one his final speeches, Colin Eglin is nothing short of pure prophesy – consider this when he said “Ironically the (ANC) government’s Black Economic Empowerment policy has contributed to the widening of the (poverty) gap, by creating a new rich elite, often of persons with strong political connections, and by leaving the millions of impoverished out of the empowerment process. These factors are having an impact, turning people away from the values that underpin our constitutional system, and eroding confidence in our democratic institutions. They are driving people towards populism as a cure for their problems. In short, they are undermining our new democracy.”

Colin Eglin retired from the DA and opposition democratic politics in 2004 and in the same year was made an Officer of the Order of the Disa, conferred on him by the Western Cape Provincial Government.

In April 2013, the South African Government conferred the Order of the Baobab, Category II (Silver) on Eglin for serving the country with excellence and for his dedication and courage in standing up for the principles of equality for all South Africans against the unjust laws of the past.

Colin died at 88 years old on the 30 November 2013, his long time wife Joyce had died some years before of cancer in 1997 and he left his new partner Raili, three daughters and five grandsons.

As a leading politician and WW2 veteran of The Cape Town Highlanders (CTH), he was afforded a military funeral with draped coffin and the Guard of Honour was provided by the CTH. This short video captures his life and death and the respect he gained in opposition to the National Party and the ANC alike.

The peaceful road to democracy

Today, there seems to exist an opinion in the new political class in South Africa, that if you did not take up arms to fight ‘the crime of humanity’ that was Apartheid you were somehow derelict in your duty as a South African and somehow complicit in upholding Apartheid instead. This rhetoric is aimed at blaming white people for all of South Africa’s ills and demanding financial reparations from them. It’s an ANC and ECC narrative devised to whip up Populism and cover up their own inadequacies, crime and corruption – and its a narrative which is entirely misplaced.

The truth is that many ‘struggle’ organisations other than the ANC alliance fought against Apartheid, and not all of them had to resort to armed conflict to do so, Desmond Tutu and the Council of Churches, The Black Sash, the Progressive Federal Party, The Torch Commando, The Liberal Party, The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS), the United Democratic Front (UDF), the End Conscription Campaign (ECC), the Council of South African Students (COSAS), Jews for Social Justice, The South African Congress of Democrats, The Federation of South African Women. Temple Israel, The Boycott Movement, The Natal Indian Congress and many many more all worked within the confines of the Republic’s constitution and the law to bring Apartheid to an end.

This included South Africa’s white progressives and democrats – starting with the United Party in 1948 and ending with the Democratic Party in 1994 who felt that the system in the long run could be changed from within if they stuck to it and fought it tooth and nail. Here’s the inconvenient truth – they were correct, in the long haul their work was as effective in removing Apartheid as any armed struggle, if not more so. Bold statement but its the real truth.

The truth of the matter is that an armed struggle did not really end Apartheid, the ballot did. There was no MK led ‘military victory parade’ over defeated SADF/SAP forces – and that’s because there was no military victory. The victory in the end was a moral one, and it was one in which democracy loving white South African’s played a key role – the first time white people were given a proper representative vote since 1948 (without National Party gerrymandering of proportional representation playing any factor whatsoever) occurred in 1992. The ‘white’ electorate calmly, with no overt pressure whatsoever voted Apartheid OUT and voted a full and representative democracy for all South Africans IN – and the did that in the Yes/No referendum of 1992 – two years before the so-called ’94 miracle’ – and they voted for Colin Eglin’s ‘democrats’ and enlightened National Party ‘progressives’ who backed the ‘Yes’ vote by a majority of 70% – that is a truth.

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Without this ‘YES’ vote the CODESA negotiations would have been scrapped and South Africa would have continued on its ‘Apartheid’ trajectory – fact. It was white people using the peaceful means of the ballot which ended Apartheid and not the ‘armed struggle’, and they used it within the Apartheid ‘whites only’ parliamentary process – fact. Colin Eglin, Zach de Beer, Helen Suzman and the DP played a key role in this referendum and their life’s work ultimately ended Apartheid – without firing a shot – fact.

Who do you think you are!

If you had to play a game of heritage along the lines of the BBC’s ‘who do you think you are’, the DA’s political pedigree starts with Smuts’ United Party and the war veterans like Colin Eglin who fought for liberty and freedom and returned to South Africa only to become politicised when the National Party came to power in 1948. This is the epicentre of the DA’s beginning, a proud cocktail of the ‘democratic’ fight against Nazism, Fascism Apartheid and Nationalism. Colin Eglin is the ‘golden thread’ that links the DA to its wartime beginning and its modern values.

In July 2018, the townspeople of four villages in the mountains Italian Apennines acknowledged Colin Eglin, for his work in keeping the sacrifice of South African in Italy alive and relevant in South Africa. For his work in creating a living war memorial to the children in South Africa, for his ties and diplomacy with the Italy authorities looking after the South African war dead and keeping their legacy alive in the years of Apartheid’s isolation and for his tireless political work to bring peace and democracy to South Africa.

The unveiling ceremony was attended by Mayors of the surrounding Italian towns in the Apennines where the South Africans fought, Italian Military and Police officials, the South African Ambassador to Italy, and the South African National Defence Force Military Attaché to Italy all attended. In addition, 73 years on, the extreme gratitude of the Italian people (including their modern-day children) to the South Africans is still palatable – and it is all in honour of South African sacrifice and the values of the men who brought liberty to this far-flung part of Italy.

In addition to the named road, the town of Castiglione dei Pepoli has a war museum dedicated to the South African 6th Armoured Division, and a special display is in the museum to Colin Eglin and his long-time association with the town’s remembrance and historical preservation of South Africa’s fight against Nazism and Fascism – in his capacity of a long time South African MP and as a veteran of the Battle of Monte Sole himself.

The South African war museum Castiglione dei Pepoli is a jewel and must visit, to see more visit this link: Castiglione dei Pepol South African war museum

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Display dedicated to Colin Eglin at the war museum in Castiglione dei Pepoli, Italy.

In conclusion

The ‘Egg’ literally epitomised the road to democracy in South Africa. A road is anything that connects two points and Colin Eglin Road in Italy connects South Africa with Castiglione dei Pepoli in Italy, and under the title ‘Colin Eglin’ is a description in Italian ‘uomo di pace’ meaning ‘a man of peace’ – and nothing could be more descriptive of Colin Eglin and his politics.

He was a man who had seen war and chose to use peaceful means to fight Afrikaner Nationalism and Apartheid and won, eventually becoming a founding father of South Africa’s democratic constitution – a true democrat in every sense. South Africa now has a strong set of multi-racial democrats in the form of the DA still holding African Nationalism (now in a state of racial reverse) in South Africa to account, and it’s all a result of the road Colin took.

It’s highly appropriate that a road is now named after him where his political journey started, in the midst of the mud, death and misery of Smuts’ war against despot nationalism and the South African sacrifice to rid the world of it – and it really is a very long road which begins in the mountains of Italy and continues to South Africa, even to this very day.

Written and Researched by Peter Dickens

The White Struggle The ‘White’ armed struggle against Apartheid

Large reference and thanks to Peter Elliott and his article and photographs in the Military History Journal, Vol 16 No 2 – December 2013 ‘FOREVER A PIECE OF SOUTH AFRICA’ A return to the area of Monte Sole in the Italian Apennines By Peter Elliott.

References also include ‘Tony Leon remembers great soldier Colin Eglin’ by Tony Leon 30 Nov 2013. “Crossing the Borders of Power – The Memoirs of Colin Eglin” by Colin Eglin. South African History Association On-line ‘Colin Eglin’. Telegraph obituary – Colin Eglin. Colin Eglin’s speech Presented to the Cape Town Press Club A TRIBUTE TO COLIN EGLIN – HELEN SUZMAN FOUNDATION – Peter Soal , December 2013

My sincere thanks to the curators of the South African Military Museum at Castiglione dei Pepoli for the personal tour, insights and assistance, especially to Mauro Fogacci.

Reclaiming half a century lost at a Centennial!

Posted by Peter Dickens

On the 11/11/2018 – exactly 100 years after the end of World War 1 on the 11/11/1918, at the exact minute the guns were silenced on the Western Front in 1918, i.e. 11 am, a group of South African veterans stood to attention in London. They were all taking part in the ‘Cenotaph Parade’ and whilst Big Ben tolled 11 times they reflected during the two minutes silence.

The minutes of reflection and silence was signalled by Artillery Guns whose shots reverberated over London as they marked the beginning of the silence period and the end. The guns had been fired from the Horse Guards Parade Ground by The King’s Troop – just opposite the South African contingent now standing in file in Whitehall with all the other arms of service, regiment, veteran and remembrance associations waiting to march past the Cenotaph.

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Guns of the King’s Troop fired from the Horse Guards Parade Ground to signal 2 minutes silence at the Cenotaph Parade 2018

The retort of the gun literally shattered the cacophony of London’s noise, bringing absolute silence and in so bringing into sharp focus why the South African veterans were there – honouring countrymen who had given their all during World War 1 and in the future wars to come – and it also put perspective on the seven-year long journey they had taken to get there. Nothing in life is simple and nothing can be taken for granted – and the representation of South Africans on this specific parade, on this specific date was no different.

The historical journey of South African veteran contingents marching past the cenotaph in London had not been a continuous one, the early footsteps left by South African First World War veterans in recognition of their comrades lost had been reaffirmed by their Springbok brothers of the Second World War. However by the 1960’s the footprints came to an abrupt end and the South African veterans were no longer seen at this parade for the next 5 full decades to come, the story of South African commitment and sacrifice to crown during World War 1 and World War 2 fading quickly in the British collective memory.

For these veterans, to stand on this parade in London on this day in 2018, represented as a South African military veteran, proudly wearing the insignia, blazer and beret of South African Legion of Military Veterans is something. Think about it, and put it fully in perspective, they finally stood to commemorate South African sacrifice at the Centenary of the end of World War 1, when for a full half Century of that Century there had been no proper annual South African contingent at this prestigious parade – at all.

Here, on the Centenary of the World War 1’s Armistice in London – the South African Legion stood proud in its rightful place as the primo (the first) South African Veteran’s Association (the SA Legion is also nearly 100 years old itself). It was also the only South African affiliated veteran association at this climax to the centennial celebrations – the Whitehall Cenotaph Parade. A lot as to representing South African sacrifice was on the shoulders of this relatively small contingent of South African Legion veterans wearing the Legion’s (and country’s) green and gold.

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South African veteran contingent in 2018 at the Whitehall Cenotaph Parade to commemorate 100 years since the guns fell silent in 1918

So what happened to the South African representation in the past – why did it stop for five decades? How and when was it re-started? Why only the Legion? Why only now and what does the future for South African representation at this parade hold?

More to that, who in South Africa should care, so what – what is the importance of London’s Cenotaph to South Africans anyway?

Why London’s Cenotaph?

So what’s so important about London’s Cenotaph in relation to the other World War 1 monuments the world over, including many in South Africa itself? Look at it this way, the Cenotaph in Whitehall is the epicentre of ‘remembrance’ of the First World War – for everyone, the world over.

Before the end of World War 1, based on the Red Cross officer Fabian Ware’s recommendation in 1917 the British government and The Imperial War Office, made an extraordinary decision, no British or Commonwealth fallen would be repatriated back to their country of origin. They would be buried in the country where they fell and their graves, honour roll and monuments would be looked after by a Graves Registration Commission – which we now know as the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC).

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A South African nurse places a wreath on her brother’s grave during the South African Brigade’s memorial service at Delville Wood, 17 February 1918.

This decision was controversial and it caused absolute consternation, the United States of America repatriated their war dead from the western front back to the USA, even the French war dead were repatriated back to their villages or towns. It was ‘back home’ that family, friends and community could look after their dead – conduct a burial, and the grave could stand as a physical presence of the loved one to pay respects and remember.

With British and Commonwealth war dead now not ‘coming home’ – how were people to remember? Where could family and friends go – not everyone could go to France, Belgium, Turkey and the myriad of countries the British and her Empire fought the war in to visit their lost loved one? There’s more, even to people who could afford to repatriate their dead to the family plot could no longer do so, let alone those who could not – and officers and men were now buried side by side, with no distinction given to rank, class or race – for a society breaking down Imperial barriers this was revolutionary thinking – but for a part of that society still bent on class differentiation it was an outrage.

A solution to tangibly meet this need and bring the entire remembrance ritual and service back to the United Kingdom was urgently needed, and it needed to be one which remembered all who were sacrified in the service to crown – Great Britain, the Dominions (Ireland, Canada, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand) and all the other British Colonies, Protectorates and Territories.

The solution came in an unintended format, a temporary cenotaph monument, made from plaster and wood had been designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and erected for the London Victory Parade on the 19th July 1919 (to commemorate the Treaty of Versailles). There would be a ‘hollow square’ formed around the structure (as would happen in the field when soldiers hold a drum head service) and the Cenotaph would then act as the ‘Drum head’ – symbolising a tomb.

Sir Edwin Lutyens’ temporary Cenotaph for the Victory Parade in 1919

The temporary structure with its words ‘The Glorious Dead’ surprisingly met with great public enthusiasm desperately seeking a place to mourn, it became an icon, a beacon – finally there was a physical structure in England itself to which they could remember all the dead, lay wreaths and flowers to lost comrades, brothers, sisters, mothers and fathers. After the parade finished and for some time to come the base of the temporary structure was continuously covered with flowers and wreaths by members of the public. Public pressure mounted to retain it, and the British War Cabinet decided on 30 July 1919 that a permanent replica memorial made of Portland stone should replace the wooden version and be designated Britain’s official national war memorial.

The permanent stone structure of the Cenotaph in Whitehall was unveiled in a ceremony by King George V on the 11th November 1920 with the arrival of gun carriage bearing the coffin of an ‘Unknown Warrior’ at 11 am. In another groundbreaking move to symbolise remembrance a grave marking an ‘unknown’ british soldier was randomly selected (and it could have been anyone, even possibly someone from the Commonweath in a British unit – who knows) and opened in France, this simple soldier, a ‘commoner’ known only unto God was repatriated to England to be buried amongst Kings at Westminster Abby and he was afforded a King’s funeral procession from the Cenotaph

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Now in the west end of the Naive at Westminster Abby, the tomb of the Unknown Warrior has two fine traditions – you cannot walk over it and at any Royal wedding that takes place in Westminster Abby, the bride’s wedding bouquet is always left by the bride on the tomb itself – it’s this lucky chap who gets to catch the royal bouquet. The text inscribed on the tomb is taken from the bible (2 Chronicles 24:16): ‘They buried him among the kings, because he had done good toward God and toward his house’.

The ‘Cenotaph’ in Whitehall is literally the epicentre of ‘Remembrance’ – it is the central grave marker that remembers all the names of British and Commonwealth fallen who were not repatriated ‘back home’ – and the central Whitehall Cenotaph was to be replicated in Canada, New Zealand, Australia and South Africa (Durban, Cape Town and Johannesburg all have their own ‘cenotaph’) as the concept fanned out.

In the United Kingdom the South Africans were special, a South African hospital complex existed in Richmond (west London) treating WW1 wounded, and in addition to commemorating South African sacrifice at the main Cenotaph in Whitehall, a second Cenotaph – to the design of Sir Edwin Lutyens’ one in Whitehall, with a South African UDF ‘Springbok’ emblem on the top and ‘Our Glorious Dead’ in English and Dutch written on it was erected in Richmond and unveiled by Jan Smuts.

All of this, the concept of the Whitehall cenotaph and even the South Africa’s own cenotaph in London would eventually be lost to South Africa, for half a century, and it’s still lost to many South Africans – so how did that happen?

South African Pilgrimages

After World War 1 ended, a number of various returned services i.e. veterans associations came into existence all around Britain and the Commonwealth. These were all consolidated in a historic meeting held by a newly formatted umbrella body – The British Empire Services League (BESL), and the inaugural meeting took place in Cape Town, South Africa in 1921. Two people were to play a key role in this consolidation of veteran associations and to a large degree centralising ‘remembrance’ under one guiding body – Field Marshal Earl Haig and General Jan Smuts.

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Field Marshal Haig and General Smuts at the inaugral meeting of The British Empire Services League in Cape Town 1921

This makes South Africa the epicentre of what is now the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services Leagues (RCEL) and the founding partners are the Royal British Legion, Royal Canadian Legion, Royal Legion Scotland, South African Legion, Returned Services League Australia and the Royal New Zealand Returned Services Association.

Relevance to the Cenotaph in Whitehall? Well, it’s the Royal British Legion, the brother association of The South African Legion, which manages the Whitehall Remembrance Sunday Cenotaph parade and all the key associated remembrance activities in the United Kingdom.

After the South African Legion was formed in 1921 it went about conducting annual ‘pilgrimages’ for veterans of The First World War and families of the South African fallen to go to Europe and make the ‘connection’ with their loved ones who did not come home.

The South African Legion’s pilgrimages to the United Kingdom often took place over the Remembrance period in November, this sometimes involved a parade in Portsmouth at the memorial there to the men lost on the SS Mendi. They regularly held a parade at the South African Cenotaph in Richmond London, and annually, on Remembrance Sunday they participated in the Whitehall Cenotaph Parade as guests of The Royal British Legion and laid a wreath. The pilgrimages were almost always linked up with visits to Delville Wood in France and Menin Gate in Belgium.

These SA Legion pilgrimages expanded after the Second World War somewhat, and South African veterans of both World War 1 and World War 2 in the 1950’s regularly took part in the Whitehall Cenotaph Parade on Remembrance Sunday as well as visiting the chapel and South African cenotaph in Richmond.

Half a century of wilderness

The annual laying of a South African wreath and veteran participation as a south african contingent at the Whitehall Cenotaph parade on Remembrance Sunday came to an end from 1961.

In 1960, H.F Verwoed and the Afrikaner Nationalists, now in consolidated power in South Africa having changed the constitution, pressed for a ‘Republic’ referendum which they won on the narrowest of margins by gerrymandering the vote – ensuring that whites only, and Afrikaner whites in particular, had the only decision on the future of South Africa’s status in the world, and especially its relationship with the United Kingdom – all the other communities in South Africa, the vast majority of her people – coloured, Indian and Black were excluded from the decision to change South Africa’s Dominion status – and all of them, including Nelson Mandela expressed solid opposition to it.

Opposition to the establishment of a South African Republic and subsequent removal from the Commonwealth

This was followed one year later in 1961 when as a newly minted independent Afrikaner Republic, the Afrikaner Nationalists removed South Africa from the British Commonwealth of Nations amid heavy criticism of their Apartheid policies by all the member states. The Sharpville Massacre had just taken place in 1960, opposition political groupings had been banned in the wake of Sharpville and the beginning of the 1960’s saw South Africa embarking on an internal armed struggle.

How did the British establishment react to it all in relation to their Cenotaph Parade? The answer – no differently to the way they now deal with Zimbabwe as a ‘rogue’ state outside the Commonwealth. They simply removed South Africa’s status from the Dominion and Commonwealth High Commission wreath layer line up at the beginning of parade. If you consider that they had no choice really – South Africa was no longer a Dominion and no longer part of the Commonwealth ‘club’ – so had no place, and given Apartheid South Africa could not really be afforded a special status on a world stage – such was the politics of the day.

In the end it was the Nationalist South African goverment who removed the country from the Commonwealth, not the other way round and it was the government of South Africa who paid scant regard to this sacrifice – seeing it as and act of treachery in support of the hated British instead, not the other way round.

But what about sacrifice and veterans remembrance – here the Royal British Legion came to the rescue in what was turning out to be bad news all around for South Africa and agreed that in the absence of South African representation they would lay the wreath on behalf of South Africa.

What followed was an unprecedented absence of over fifty years, in South Africa the SA Legion as the ‘national body’ for veterans and all related veteran organisations with Commonwealth and British links and shared heritage, including the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (MOTH), all went into steady decline. The newly reconfigured South African Defence Force under the ideals of Republic went on to insidiously remove or relegate to secondary status all the deeds of bravery, heroes, insignia, heritage, history, medals and any other links to the United Kingdom. In effect the South African veterans of World War 1 and World War 2 now found themselves marginalised by the government – victims of Apartheid in effect.

This short Pathé Newsreel of the time explains the gravity of the decision to leave the Commonwealth and make South Africa a Republic very well, take the time to watch it.

The removal of South Africa from the Commonwealth spurred ‘The Springbok’ magazine, the South African Legion’s mouthpiece to lead with a headline ‘What Now!’ The truthful answer – not much! Government finances were gradually squeezed off, recruits from the armed forces were squeezed off, the poppy appeal gradually losing its momentum and relevance in South Africa as catastrophic and seismic political events in South Africa over took it.

In this general decline in relevance outside the commonwealth, decline in national party government support for old ‘union defence force’ veteran affairs and decline in public finance from donations – was the decline in SA Legion’s annual Pilgrimages to Europe, and with that general decline in just about everything, eventually also went the annual laying of the South African veterans wreath by the Royal British Legion at the Whitehall cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday.

1994 is significant in many ways, South Africa rejoined the British Commonwealth of Nations and was reinstated in things like the Whitehall Cenotaph Parade – and today the South African high commissioner joins the wreath party with all the old and current dominions i.e. Canada, Australia, India and New Zealand and given first honour to lay their wreaths ahead of all other Commonwealth member states. It stands to reason – these were the key contributors to the British military advance – in World War 1 and World War 2 (missing from this line up is Zimbabwe – which continues to be controversial as they continue to remain outside the Commonwealth – as South Africa had).

But what of the South African military veterans component of the Whitehall Cenotaph Parade itself – the critical connection of this contingent to the remembrance of their brothers in arms’ sacrifices – marking the recognition of their graves on foreign soil by passing the epicentre memorial of Remembrance in London – even as late as 2011, no South African identified contingent of veterans was properly represented. The Canadians and even the USA, Czech Republic and Poland have had representation in the past 50 years – but not the South Africans.

Why?

Reconstituting South African veteran representation in the UK

I arrived in the United Kingdom in 2010 after a stint in Australia, whilst in Australia – as a South African military veteran – I had joined SAMVOA, the South African Military Veterans of Australasia and I was amazed at the camaraderie and inclusion South African veterans received from the Returned Services League of Australia (RSL), we were happily included in the annual state ANZAC Day parades and afforded all the privileges of RSL members. The historical military links between South Africa and Australia forged during WW1 and WW2 remembered and stronger than ever. The open gratitude of the Australian community expressed to all veterans – Australian and just about anyone who has served in a statute force with a link to Australia was something to behold.

On arrival in the U.K. I tried to make contact with a South African Council of Military Veteran Organisation affiliated SAMVOA equivalent to participate in the London Cenotaph Parade, only to discover that no such organisation existed. I watched the cenotaph parade on telly, gob-smacked to see visiting US Marine veterans on parade and not a South African in sight. Advances to find out the status of MOTH (Memorable Order of Tin Hats) shellholes in the UK were met with disappointment – they had no marketing and were closing down shellholes hand over foot and had even done away with the enshrined regulations behind the order – that is it was a ‘Order’ for ‘Combat/Operational statutory force military veterans’ only. However civilians and veterans alike could now join the MOTH Order in the U.K. on an equal level – a change in enshrined MOTH qualifying criteria done to try to keep the order afloat in the U.K, which in its own odd way also serves to undermine the principles of the order.

In 2011, after contacting the Royal British Legion to take part in the Cenotaph parade and been declined, I found myself as a single solitary South African veteran in a Trafalgar Square Royal British Legion (RBL) side-show for the general public laying a wreath in one of the ponds, and I noticed a single solitary MOTH member doing the same. That was the sum total of South African veteran representation in London on Remembrance Weekend.

Something had to be done, South African representation had slipped into nothing, general amnesia as to South African inclusion in any key state driven veteran or remembrance activity had set in across the entire establishment in the United Kingdom. Half a century of exclusion does that.

It also was not helped by the fact that from 1961 until that point in 2011 the South Africa embassy in the United Kingdom’s military attaché had not taken to much public Remembrance Representation work, nor had they established any significant links with The Royal British Legion or the Royal Commonwealth Ex-Services League. The old guard SADF attaché wanted nothing to do with these organisations and by the time the new guard SANDF attaché had come in they had no context or knowledge of the historical links, nor is it a current priority of theirs to reforge them (all too ‘colonial’ frankly).

As a result neither the South African military establishment or veteran associations were on the United Kingdom’s ‘remembrance Calender’ radar – at all. Not ‘recognised’ = not ‘invited’ = not ‘represented’.

In 2012 I colluded with a fellow South African veteran, Norman Sander, to address the matter, and looking at the history, links and association between The South African Legion and The Royal British Legion we felt a branch of The South African Legion in the United Kingdom was the route to go. Godfrey Giles, the then National President of The South African Legion agreed and a branch materialised in the U.K.

All good right, representation at last – not on your nilly, there was a long and hard road to come. In 2012 we approached the RCEL and received our contingent tickets for the Cenotaph parade with open arms – then a mere two days later an apology arrived from a faceless bureaucrat to say that the Royal British Legion was ahead of itself in issuing the tickets and they had to be retracted – as South African Legion we were not ‘recognised’ (their term exactly).

This ‘non-recognition’ was utter balderdash, codswallop of the highest order and It was clear to us that within the British establishment there existed concern over South African military veterans – the whole ‘Apartheid legacy’ and ‘leaving the Commonwealth’ issue had extended its tentacles into an area where it had no place whatsoever – Remembrance of the Fallen.

Highly annoying, and before it blew up out of proportion, to overcome the problem a solution was presented by The Royal British Legion themselves. Come into the fold as a Royal British Legion branch, advance the relationship and values of The South African Legion and the Royal British Legion as a brother organisations, work up the credibility as veterans after a 50 year absence, create a South African presence at the Cenotaph parade and become ‘Recognised’ from within the establishment itself.

Norman headed off to Africa to take on a new life, so the establishment of the South African Branch of the Royal British Legion and the formatting of the South African Legion in the United Kingdom fell on my shoulders. The Royal British Legion (RBL) had in effect thrown the South Africans a life-line and its a life-line the RBL would come through for the South African Legion and South African veterans time and again.

Back in the fold

Things had changed when it came to the annual Whitehall Cenotaph Parade in the past decade. It had become a well oiled institution with an unchanged parade order developed and refined over decades – and the same BBC announcer rolls off the ceremony with the same camera positions, year after year. No upstart ‘new-comer’ is going to reinvent this process in a hurry.

The parade is run in two parts by three separate institutions working together. In essence there is a ‘front part’ involving the Royal Family, Representatives of Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, Representatives of the House of Commons and House of Lords and the Representatives from all the Commonwealth states i.e. High Commissioners – including South Africa. They conduct the ceremony of wreath laying in the ‘hollow square’ around the Cenotaph i.e. in accordance with a drum head service. This bit is run by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and the Department of Culture, Media & Sport.

The second part, the ‘back part’ which is the ‘march past’ the Cenotaph is generally run by The Royal British Legion. There are four general parts to it.

Firstly – British Service Associations (Regiment Associations and the like) who have served the ‘crown’ in the past and who continue to serve ‘crown’.

Secondly – Guests of the Royal British Legion, these are associations allowed to parade from time to time because of their links to Britain – and here we find a mixed bag of Polish veteran associations and Czech contingents (because of their association to The Battle of Britain) as well as invited US Marine veterans etc (D-Day association). ‘Guests’ come and go based on ticket demand (there is a limited allocation) and changing circumstances, and as our MOTH colleagues unfortunately found out at the centennial cenotaph parade this year when their tickets were not issued – a ticket in this category is by no means an assured one for annual parading.

Thirdly, there is the Royal British Legion themselves and their branches – and as an international brotherhood it is into this category that the South African Legion veteran contingent falls (and other countries represented within the RBL’s shere of influence itself – the Canadian Legion and veterans are a case in point).

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South African Legion contingent march past the Whitehall Cenotaph in 2017

Finally there is a section open to the general public to participate, and in the case of the centennial this fell to a ‘ballot system’ to randomly select applications from members of the public for what is known as the ‘people’s march’.

The disappointment of 2012 behind us, 2013 found the South African veteran contingent represented for the first time as South African Legion when a handful of about 10 tickets were allocated to The RBL South African Branch, and this spiked a greater demand – and with that unfortunately came controversy within the South African veteran community in the U.K.

By 2014 there were 50 South African veterans represented as SA Legion at the Whitehall Cenotaph parade – a huge honour and reflection on the hard work been done to get South African representation at this parade over the line. The Royal British Legion had provided a ‘life boat’ for the South Africans towing it along in what was going to be a very troubled sea – and this RBL lifeboat would eventually even save the Delville Wood Centenary Parade in France for all South African military veteran associations in 2016.

Troubled seas ahead, and typically the South Africans were making waves in their own tub. From October 2014 to May 2015 the South African Legion in the U.K. found itself marred by a number of veterans wanting to pull the organisation in all sorts of conflicting directions. The old adage came true – put two South Africans in a room and they will come up with three political parties, and it all essentially boiled down to individual members trying to shoe horn Legion values (and even things like Legion dress code) into the values and codes of other veteran associations or even into their own individual perceptions and needs. The net outcome of this is that a few good men decided to jump out the life boat and try to swim it alone, highly regrettable and the unfortunate outcome is that they took their eyes off the ball, and none of them made it to the finish line on 11/11 at Whitehall.

Re-dedication of South Africa’s own Cenotaph in London

2014 saw more significant advances in bringing South African representation back to its rightful place in the UK – and that was the rededication of South Africa’s own Cenotaph in Richmond, London – and it was literally a case of ‘Lost and Found’.

The South African Hospital was established in Richmond Park in London in June 1916. In July 1918, it was amalgamated with the Richmond Military Hospital, to form the South African Military Hospital, in order to provide care for the large number of South African troops serving in the First World War.

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Rededication of the South African War Memorial in Richmond London by The South African Legion

The South African Hospital and Comforts Fund Committee decided to erect a memorial to commemorate thirty-nine South African soldiers who were buried in Richmond Cemetery, which was at that time known as ‘soldiers corner’. The memorial carries an inscription in both English and Dutch (which was at the time a recognised official language of SA). Called ‘The South African War Memorial’ it was designed by Sir Edwin Lutyens and derives from Lutyens’ Cenotaph in Whitehall. Yes, the same one that rises to prominence on Remembrance Day in London.

The South African War Memorial was unveiled by General Smuts in June 1921 and it became the focus of South African pilgrimage throughout the 1920’s, 1930’s and 1940’s. Since then it became neglected and lay forgotten until 1981, when the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) agreed to take on the maintenance of the memorial on behalf of the Nationalist South African Government – who had expressed no interest in it whatsoever and did not even acknowledge it on the SADF’s list of South African war memorials overseas.

In 2012 the South African War Memorial in Richmond was awarded a ‘Grade II’ status and was added to the List of Buildings of Special Architectural or Historic Interest. However, still, no South Africans in authority were even aware of its existence. To that point, the last parade held at the memorial had taken place there more than 70 years ago.

Tom Mason, a member of The South African Legion in the United Kingdom, came across this memorial whilst members of the CWGC were cleaning it. The history of it pricked Tom’s interest and he brought it back to the South African Legion.

In quick time the South African Legion U.K. arranged a rededication service for the memorial and notified General Andersen of the SANDF of the monuments existence. The monument is now proudly again listed on South Africa’s official war memorials as outlined by the SANDF. The monument is now also the central location for annual South African Pilgrimages as well as regular South African memorial parades in London. The South African Legion’s emblem was proudly unveiled at a centenary parade in the Richmond Cemetary Chapel in thanks to renewed interest in the site.

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By May 2015 the Royal British Legion – South African branch also brought the site to the attention of the RBL. The RBL SA Branch standard was officially dedicated in a ceremony held at the Richmond Cemetary Chapel and South African War Memorial Cenotaph next to it – the dedication took place with numerous branches of the RBL and other veteran organisations in attendance. This South African RBL standard now proudly carries three scrolls on it – it has twice won ‘The Churchill Cup’ as a branch for dedication, growth and reputation and it took part in GP 90 in 2018 and carries the ‘Ypres 2018’ scroll.

Throwing out a significant life-line

By November 2015, a large South African Legion veteran contingent of 40 odd veterans found themselves on parade at Whitehall during the Remembrance Sunday Cenotaph parade, the HMS RBL bravely toeing the South Africans along. However a bigger challenge was looming – much bigger, and it would be the Royal British Legion to the rescue again – not just for South African Legion veterans in the U.K, but for all South African veteran organisations and formations in South Africa itself – and it took place in France.

In the beginning of 2016 arrangements in South Africa were going on swimmingly for the marking of the centenary and the extensive South African sacrifice in The Battle of Delville Wood in France in July 1916. An entire South African pilgrimage had been arranged for this centenary event in France – consisting of family members, high school students, all South Africa’s regimental and armed forces associations which fall under the banner of the SA Council of Military Veteran Organisations and all veteran associations – including the South African Legion and Memorable Order of Tin Hats – leave, flights, hotels and busses – all booked.

Then step in the former South African President Jacob Zuma, who decided that the Centenary commemoration date of the Battle of Delville Wood itself did not suite his travel plans. So he changed it, with a couple of months to go ,then he ordered the military and high commission to toe his line, closed the site to his date only and threw everyone else’s plans out the window.

The long and short, it was impossible to move the entire South African pilgrimage to the Somme and The Battle of Delville Wood for the Centenary to suit the President’s new date. Help was needed for the hundreds of South Africans which were going to be stranded on the Somme with no commemoration to attend – and it came from The Royal British Legion working in conjunction with the Royal British Legion’s South African Branch, The South African Legion and the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to use of the Thiepval Memorial on the Somme in France as an alternate venue.

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2016 Delville Wood and Battle of the Somme Centenary Parade and Pilgrims – Thiepval memorial – France

In this way all The South African pilgrims in France could celebrate the centenary of the full commitment and sacrifice of South Africans to the Somme offensive including, but not exclusive to Delville Wood.

Thiepval was also relevant, although it’s the ‘British’ go-to memorial on the Somme it is also a South African memorial – the official designation of Thiepval is the “Memorial to the 72, 195 British and South African servicemen, who died in the Battle of the Somme of the First World War between 1915 – 1918, with no known grave”. The Thiepval Memorial records the names of 858 South Africans lost during the Somme offensive – including all the ‘missing’ from The Battle of Delville Wood.

The Royal British Legion (RBL) events division jumped in – keen to assist, and they blocked one of their daily “live broadcast” Somme Parades and dedicated the 10th July to a specific South African day.

The Delville Wood Centenary Remembrance at Thiepval parade went ahead on the proper date – and it went ahead to achieve high acclaim from all South African veteran associations and it marked a great success all round – especially to the family members of South Africans lost on the Somme and to South African High Schools and Youth Organisations attending the Somme centenary – who otherwise would have had nothing at all.

and … ‘across the line’

In 2016 and 2017 the South African Legionnaires continued their representation at the annual Whitehall Cenotaph Parade on Remembrance Sunday. In 2017 the South African Legion also formalised an annual pilgrimage parade at the Richmond South African Cenotaph on ‘Poppy Day’ which is the annual Saturday preceding Remembrance Sunday.

By the time the centenary of the end of World War One came around on the 11th November 2018 (1918-2018) at 11am – the South African Legionnaires were front and forward. Attending the parade in the South African branch lifeboat, which had come through and carried the South African contingent over the line. It had been one heck of journey, along the way the bonds and ties between the two Legion’s had been deepened and secured, the South African veterans had risen to show their true colours of leadership and determination winning both Royal British Legion accolades and respect. The presence of the South Africans now ‘recognised’ and the relationship between the two organisations stronger than ever and growing.

As to the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (MOTH), a South African veteran order with a root in both countries – the U.K. and S.A. As a combat brotherhood, many South African Legionnaires on the Cenotaph Parade in Whitehall are also members of the order, so too many Legionnaires – most representing their specific shellhole. The MOTH has benefited from the resurgence of the SA Legion in the U.K. as they now have an avenue to present themselves at Legion led South African commemorative parades – such as the Remembrance Parade now held regularly on ‘Poppy Day’ in Richmond at the South African cenotaph located there.

The future looks bright as long as the ‘special relationship’ with the Royal British Legion is kept, trying to swim it alone in a foreign country in the hopes that the British establishment will somehow bend their entire remembrance culture to suite this or that South African idiocracy is a foolish endeavour, and that unfortunately has been proved time and again, and it stood in stark proof to all present at the Centenary Cenotaph Parade in London. A better course is to stand in unity and with singular voice, demonstrating values acceptable to the host – and the Royal British Legion’s South African Branch is the ideal vessel to do this – sink this particular boat and the rest will ultimately all slip away.

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South African Legionnaires on the march during the centenary cenotaph parde 11/11/2018

You can see now why a lot was on the shoulders of the South African veteran’s at the Whitehall Cenotaph when that gun signalled the silence during the Armistice Day Centenary Parade, they stood to proud attention as the only South Africans represented there aside from the High Commissioner.

It had been a journey starting a century ago when the guns were silenced on the western front, and it had been a journey to correct half a century of silence as South Africa stood in exclusion.

Here these veterans finally stood in recognition of South African sacrifice at the very epicentre of the entire Remembrance movement started here one hundred years previously – soundly in memory of those South Africans who ‘did not come home’.

Written by Peter Dickens

Great Pilgrimage 90 South Africa was represented at the Great Pilgrimage 90

Photos of SA Legion courtesy Theo Fernandes and Karen Dickens, colourised photographs copyright Imperial War Museum and DB Colour. Pathe clip ‘South Africa Goes’, YouTube sourced. Legion marching video thanks to Catherine Dow.

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