Now this is a unique and rather sad photograph. Three of South Africa’s most legendary fighter pilots in the North African theatre of operations during WW2, all of which were ultimately killed in action. Major J E “Jack” Frost, Commanding Officer of No. 5 Squadron SAAF sits between two of his most experienced pilots, Lieutenant Robin Pare (left) and Captain Andrew Duncan, at LG 121, Egypt.
“Jack” Frost joined No. 3 Squadron SAAF as a flight commander in 1940, having been a member of the South African Permanent Force for five years. He saw considerable action in Somaliland and Ethiopia, scoring a number of victories over Italian aircraft, before he was evacuated in May 1941 with acute appendicitis.
On his recovery he was appointed to command 5 Squadron, leading them to Egypt in early 1942 and through the heavy air fighting during the Battle of Gazala in May and June. Although Frost was posted to the staff of No. 233 Wing on 31 May, he resumed command the Squadron when his successor, Captain (now Major) Andrew Duncan, was killed that same day. Jack Frost in turn was shot down and killed over El Adem by German fighters on 16 June.
He was an outstanding pilot and leader, and remains the SAAF’s top scorer with 16 aerial victories.
Robin Pare, also a member of the South African Permanent Force, was commissioned in the SAAF in April 1940 and posted to No. 1 Squadron SAAF, seeing action over East Africa until April 1941. After a period as an instructor in the Union, he joined 5 Squadron in December 1941. He was promoted commander of ‘B’ Flight on 31 May 1942, but was shot down and killed by Oberleutnant Hans-Joachim Marseille of I/JG27 near Bir Hacheim on 3 June, just after scoring his sixth victory.
Andrew Duncan was the son of the Governor-General of South Africa, Sir Patrick Duncan. After qualifying as a pilot with the Active Citizen Force in December 1939, he was posted to No. 1 Squadron SAAF and fought in East Africa. He returned to the Union in April 1941 as a Captain, and joined 5 Squadron in June as commander of ‘A’ Flight. Duncan succeeded “Jack” Frost as the Squadron Commander on 31 May, only to be shot down and killed that evening, south of Acroma, after shooting down his sixth victim earlier.
Image copyright – Imperial War Museum Collection Copyright.
Take a few minutes out of your day today to remember the 1st August 1944 and watch “The Men Who Went to Warsaw”: The Warsaw Uprising Airlift 1944 – a short dramatisation and interviews of the brave South African men who actually went on this mission.
Produced by Tinus le Roux as a non commercial historical archive, this film and others he has produced, all aim to capture the stories of South African Airmen in WW2 before they are lost.
70 Years ago, 13 August 1944; the first South African Air Force Liberators took off on a suicidal mission to Warsaw. This was the start of arguably one of the most daring and tragic series of missions ever flown by heavy bombers as they had to fly at night only 450 feet high at landing speed over the enemy infested city.
South Africans in special forces units in the Second World War. The Advance on Rangoon March – May 1945 and here Gurkha paratroops check their equipment before being dropped around Rangoon during the Burma campaign. Now, what have these legendary Gurkhas and South Africans in combat have in common?
Involved in this drop and attached to the Gurkhas for their attack on Elephant Hill against the Japanese was one of South Africa’s most remarkable soldiers, a man who subsequently went on to command 5 South African Infantry Battalion after the war and become the SADF’s Director of Infantry.
“Pik” van Noorden served in North Africa during World War 2 as an artillery officer, firing at German tanks over open sights at Tobruk, escaping as the garrison fell, fighting at Alamein and then volunteering for the Royal Marines.
Trained as a commando, he led his platoon ashore on D-Day with 47 (Royal Marine) Commando and was involved in some heavy fighting as they executed an independent task. Later withdrawn to undergo parachute training, he was dropped behind German lines to carry out a secret mission.
Next he was posted to 42 (RM) Commando in India and participated in the amphibious assault on the Japanese at Myebon in Burma, as well as the subsequent bitter battle for Hill 170 near Kangaw.
Later, van Noorden was attached to the Ghurka parachute battalion that jumped at Elephant Point during the capture of Rangoon (see picture of the said Ghurka airborne which accompanies this article). During the battle the Gurhka battalion reached Elephant Point, and close-quarters fighting then took place, with flame-throwers being used against several Japanese bunkers guarding the battery. About forty Japanese soldiers and gunners were killed during the assault, and the battalion also sustained several casualties. After the battery had been secured the battalion dug in around Elephant Point and awaited the arrival of the relief force.
After the war van Noorden commanded 5 SA Infantry Battalion and the Infantry School, became Director of Infantry and retired as a Major General. His medal group is also of great interest because it includes the France & Germany Star and the Burma Star, as well as the Union Medal and the Pro Patria.
Article reference – The South African Military History Society – Eastern Cape Newsletter – primary contributor and with thanks to McGill Alexander, supplementary information – Wikipedia. Image copyright and caption reference -The Imperial War Museum.
Looking into South Africa’s more recent involvement in Peacekeeping Missions in Africa. Here, on 2 August 2010. South African National Defence Force (SANDF) Lieutenant Justin Heath, from Boksburg (greater Johannesburg), forms part of the UN peacekeeping mission to the Sudan for 7 months.
He is seen here patrolling in Tiksas, a village abandoned by the population some years ago due to the war in Darfur.
The War in Darfur is a major armed conflict in the Darfur region of Sudan, that began in February 2003 when the Sudan Liberation Movement (SLM) and Justice and Equality Movement (JEM) rebel groups began fighting the government of Sudan, which they accused of oppressing Darfur’s non-Arab population. The government responded to attacks by carrying out a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Darfur’s non-Arabs. This resulted in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians and the indictment of Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir for genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity by the International Criminal Court.
Estimates of the number of human casualties range up to several hundred thousand dead, from either combat or starvation and disease. Mass displacements and coercive migrations forced millions into refugee camps or across the border, creating a humanitarian crisis.
The Sudanese government and the JEM signed a ceasefire agreement in February 2010, with a tentative agreement to pursue peace. However, talks were disrupted by accusations that the Sudanese army launched raids and air strikes against a village, violating the Tolu agreement. The current situation is that the JEM, the largest rebel group in Darfur, vowed to boycott future negotiations.
Operation Cordite in Sudan began in July 2004 with the deployment of South African National Defence Force staff officers and observers to Darfur, Sudan, in support of the African Union Mission in Sudan (AMIS) It was an African Union (AU) peacekeeping force operating primarily in the country’s western region of Darfur with the aim of performing peacekeeping operations related to the conflict in Darfur.
The AU mission was terminated in December 2007 when it was integrated into the United Nations mission to form the UN African Mission in Darfur (UNAMID) in January 2008. it was the first African Union-United Nations hybrid mission. An Infantry Protection Company and an Explosive Ordinance Disposal Unit were added to the deployment, which was increased further in February 2005.
Operation Cordite made an immense contribution to the successful referendum on the future of Sudan, which resulted in the relatively peaceful division of the country into two: Sudan and South Sudan. Additional South African soldiers were sent to Juba, the capital of the new country, South Sudan, to assist with security for the independence celebrations in July 2011. In addition to this, South Africa also helped secure the air space for the duration of the celebrations. South Africa also trained police, prison officials and air traffic controllers: currently stationed at Juba International Airport
However typically, successful military operations are so often undermined by political antics of governments and Operation Cordite is no different.
In April 2016, South Africa withdrew it UN forces from Sudan, ending Operation Cordite after a short and unspecific Presidential statement – coincidentally and unsurprisingly it was marred with controversy and against a backdrop of political scandal which started in June 2015 when President Omar Al Bashir – who was visiting South Africa to attend an African Union summit, was allowed to escape South Africa in a private jet.
His escape, allegedly with the connivance of President Jacob Zuma, came in defiance of an order by the South African High Court, pending a decision on whether to hand Al Bashir over to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague in accordance with international arrest warrants for genocide and crimes against humanity.
The decision remains highly controversial in South Africa today, so too South Africa’s strained relationship with the ICC (South Africa taking the standpoint that the ICC should not interfere in South Africa’s legitimate obligations to African Union AU).
The repercussions on how South Africa sees its compete military role in United Nations Peacekeeping remains to be seen, hopefully in future it will positively underpin the great work of the majority of good South African men and women who enter the armed services and have the privilege of wearing the United Nation’s “Blue Beret”.
Extremely rare colour image of a South African artillery crew in North Africa during World War 2. Here South African gunners are seen in action with their 25 pounder in the desert.
In full colour it is easy to note the Artillery ‘flash’ on the side of their pith helmets – this practice later continued with the use of the beret ‘balkie’ (bar) worn on the beret by the Army to signify corps. The origin of these pith helmet flashes goes back to the Boer War.
Left – Royal Artillery Pith helmet – British Army – Boer War era
Middle – Artillery Pith helmet cloth “flash” of South African Forces in WW2
Right – SADF Artillery School beret during the 1980’s – note the “balkie” or the Beret bar which carries on with the tradition of corps identification on head gear.
Unfortunately the tradition of “beret bars” (balkies) has been discontinued in The South African National Defence Force (across all Corps and not just Artillery) – which is a little sad as a fine and uniquely South African military tradition is no longer followed
Vlamgat – the term the South African Air Force personnel affectionally called their Mirage fighter jets. Vlamgat means ‘flaming arse’ in direct translation – and for good reason.
Here two Mirage III D2Zs, numbers 843 and 849 at the weapons camp in Langebaan in 1985 – one of which is having a ‘wet start’ – where excess fuel in the combustion chamber and tail pipe is burnt off in a phenomenon called ‘torching’ .. a flaming arse indeed.
Photo copyright, thanks and courtesy to Allan Southern
Few (if any) World War One images are available which show the unique bond shared by South African and Australian/New Zealand troops, celebrating our common camaraderie during the World War but this in one – Paris, France. September 1918. A group of Anzac “Diggers” and South African “Springboks” enjoying eating fresh fruit.
The South African soldiers where known universally as “Springboks” because of their cap badges which featured a Springbok and the motto “Union is Strength” and in Dutch “Eendracht Maakt Macht”.
The motto was that of the newly formed Union of South Africa and referred to the strength that can be obtained by combining the Boer Republics (Transvaal and Orange Free State) with the two British Colonies (Cape and Natal) – it also signified the Union of Afrikaans and English speaking South Africans in a common South African identity. The nickname “Springboks” stayed with South African servicemen and women throughout the First and Second World Wars.
This tradition was however gradually discouraged when the SADF was formed in the 1950’s and the affectionate name for South African soldiers was changed to “Troopies” (Afrikaans for Trooper) instead – the prevailing Afrikaner Nationalist politics of the day wanted to downplay South African service to the British crown in WW1 and WW2 due to prevailing anger felt by nationalists over harsh British tactics used during the Boer War.
Funnily, the Australian soldiers (called “Diggers”), using typical army humour, dubbed the South African cap badge – “Goat in a Porthole”. The Australian nickname – “Diggers” also comes from the First World War and stems from their reputation of digging trenches – General William Birdwood, the commander of the ANZAC Corps adding in postscript: “You have got through the difficult business, now you have only to dig, dig, dig, until you are safe” – and the nickname stuck.
“Digger” remains the nickname of an Australian and New Zealand (ANZAC) soldier to this day and Australians have adopted it as part of their national value system to mean “mateship” and “pride”.
However due to more political changes in South Africa, the erosion of the nickname in the SADF was one thing – the use of the “Springbok” in sport and other institutions was quite another and many South Africans came to associate it to Apartheid.
For this reason it’s very unlikely that modern South African soldiers will carry the nickname ever again – which is quite sad when you really think about it – as it was never intended to turn out that way and we’ve lost a nugget of heritage forged in camaraderie and war.
With the commemorations of the Battle of the Somme offensive and the Battle of Delville Wood coming around every year, we remind ourselves once again of the hell endured by the South Africans fighting in the wood, known at the time as “Springboks” – and nothing says it more than seeing the mountainous piles of artillery shells fired at them. In all during the battle 400 shells per minute were being fired into the South African positions no more than a square mile in size – and that went on day after day, hour after hour, minute after minute 400 explosions at a time – now imagine that sort of ‘hellfire’ and ‘sheer terror’ for a moment, and you’ll be in the mind of a Springbok soldier at Delville Wood witnessing it in 1916.
This World War 1 feature photo from the Herr Woerner Eugen Collection, shows the German side opposite the South African offensive at Delville Wood, this German soldier is overseeing the shell case dump nearby the wood. That’s just the spent ammunition, so let’s have a look at the South Africans who took the brunt of this intense barrage and how they came to be there.
“Hold it at all costs”
As part of the initial Somme offensive, the British under Major-General Furse of the 9th Division, had to secure the advance on Longueval, but to do this, Delville Wood (a small wood directly next to Longuval) had to be taken first. Major General Furse had no option but to commit his last reserve—the 1st South African Brigade to do it.
The 1st South African Brigade under Brigadier General Henry Lukin was ordered to advance and to capture Delville Wood on the 14th July 1916 and “hold it at all costs”.
The first attack progressed smoothly and by 07:00 the South Africans had secured the southern half of the wood, by 14:40 the whole wood had been secured, with the exception of a strong German position in the north west adjoining Longueval. The South African troops where now spread along the entire perimeter in groups forming strong–points supported by machine–guns.
But, rather than having “secured” the wood, the brigade was now in a trap, occupying a salient with only the south-western base being in contact with the 26th Brigade in Longueval. All troops were equipped with spades but digging within the perimeter of the wood was made difficult by roots and remnants of tree trunks from the previous day’s artillery fire, making the preparation of proper trenches impossible, with the South Africans having to make do with shallow shell-holes and burrows. With unprepared trenches, a narrow base to their salient and facing over 7,000 German troops, holding the wood was going to be extremely difficult!
The Germans launched one of the heaviest artillery bombardments of the war in an effort to dislodge the South Africans in the wood. It has been estimated that at its peak the rate of firing exceeded 500 shells per minute – even at one stage some references say 600 shells per minute were fired at the South African positions. To think this relentless volley of shelling was into a wood no bigger than a square kilometre in size.
The South Africans began to dig in beating off counter attacks as they did so. The roots and remnants of tree trunks made the preparation of proper trenches impossible and the South Africans had to make do with shallow ones.
The bloodiest battle hell of 1916
Of the 121 officers and 3,032 men of the South African Brigade who launched the initial attack in the wood, only 29 officers and 751 men eventually walked out. These men held their objective at a massive cost, even reverting to hand to hand combat to hold the wood – the depth of bravery required to do this under this fire power is simply staggering to contemplate. The losses sustained by the South Africans were one of the greatest sacrifices of the war.
“…Delville Wood had disintegrated into a shattered wasteland of shattered trees, charred and burning stumps, craters thick with mud and blood, and corpses, corpses everywhere. In places they were piled four deep. Worst of all was the lowing of the wounded. It sounded like a cattle ring at the spring fair….”
The battle is of particular importance to South Africa, as it was the first major engagement entered into by the South African 1st Infantry Brigade on the Western Front. The casualties sustained by this Brigade were of catastrophic proportions, comparable to those encountered by Allied battalions on the first day of the Somme. On the Western Front, units were normally considered to be incapable of combat if their casualties had reached 30% and they were withdrawn once this level had been attained. The South African Brigade suffered losses of 80%, yet they managed to hold the Wood as ordered. This feat has been described as “…the bloodiest battle hell of 1916.”
It was this horrific baptism of fire, of South Africans from across ethnic and cultural divides – fighting as one in union and strength, that the newly formed Union of South Africa’s national identity was forged for the years come.
Image copyright: Herr Woerner Eugen Collection – Imperial War Museum, Images of the wood copyright to the Imperial War Museum. Feature Illustration – The Battle of Delville Wood Illustrated London News Lithograph by the Spanish artist – José Simont Guillén (1875-1968). Block images copyright Imperial War Museum.
Lisa Shearin in ‘Bewitched and Betrayed’ said “It’s not treason if you win” and this rings very true to South African traitors from the past and now the present. How history repeating itself in South Africa can be ironic at the best of times, the country’s ethnic diversity will always ensure that one community’s freedom fighter is another community’s terrorist.
This was as true of the Afrikaner Nationalists during the Second World War, as much as it was true to the African Nationalists during the political and armed “struggle” in the more recent past. Both produced ‘traitors’, both had leaders incarcerated, both went on to ultimately govern South Africa and both produced Presidents who were themselves imprisoned as “traitors to the state”. Ironically – both went on to pardon their fellow activists and make heroes of them. The issue of ‘treachery’ set aside by the ‘winner’.
Robey Leibbrandt
This is the story of one such South African national – Sidney Robey Leibbrandt, who was led by the German military intelligence (Abwehr) during the Second World War under the pseudonym ‘Robert Leibbrand’.
Born in Potchefstroom Leibbrandt was an Afrikaner Nationalist of both German and Irish decent. He was also a South African Olympic boxer, however his political ideology drove him to become a German secret agent and ‘freedom fighter’ – primarily against the British influence and political power within South Africa.
Leibbrandt went to Germany in 1938 to study at the Reich Academy for Gymnastics, and stayed on when war broke out. He joined the German Army, where he became the first South African to be trained as a Fallschirmjäger (paratrooper) and glider pilot. Leibbrandt was trained with the Comrades of the Brandenburgers at a sabotage training course of Abwehr II (Abwehrschool “Quenzgut”) near Brandenburg an der Havel, west of Berlin.
Operation Weissdorn
Admiral Wilhelm Canaris
The German Admiral Wilhelm Canaris ordered “Operation Weissdorn” a plan for a coup d’état to overthrow the South African government of General Jan Smuts and assassinate Smuts. Central to the plan was Leibbrandt, who left Germany on 5 April 1941 to lead and execute it.
In June 1941, under the code name Walter Kempf, Leibbrandt was dropped on the Namaqualand coast north of Cape Town (Mitchell’s Bay) by a confiscated French sailboat (the Kyloe). His mission was to make contact with the South African pro-Nazi movement, the Ossewabrandwag, and expand his ranks of ‘freedom fighters’.
In the 1930’s the chief vehicle of Afrikaner nationalism was the Purified National Party of Dr D.F. Malan, (which went on to become the National Party as we know it today) and in 1938 the National Party celebrated the centennial anniversary of the Great Trek – the Ossewabrandwag was established in commemoration of the Trek, it was led by Dr Johannes Van Rensburg who was a lawyer and also a dedicated admirer of Nazi Germany.
Afrikaner Nationalist Resistance
The role of the Ossewabrandwag (OB) evolved to become a militant one – the nationalist members were unsympathetic to Britain because of the Boer War and became increasingly hostile when South Africa declared war on Germany in 1939. As sympathizers with Nazi Germany they felt their only solution was armed struggle.
Within the ranks of the Ossewabrandwag was a formation of Stormjaers (Assault troops). The nature of the Stormjaers was evidenced by the oath sworn by new recruits: “If I retreat, kill me. If I die, avenge me. If I advance, follow me”
The Stormjaers engaged in sabotage against the South African government. They dynamited electrical power lines and railroads, and cut telegraph and telephone lines (These types of acts were going too far for most Afrikaners and Malan later ordered the National Party to break with the Ossewabranwag in 1942)
Robey Leibbrandt, on landing in Mitchell’s Bay hoped to tap into this large resource of Afrikaner ‘Stormjaers’ in his plan to assassinate Smuts and overthrow the government. He made his way to Cape Town to meet and make arrangements with Dr van Rensburg in Pretoria. However, rather disappointingly he found van Rensburg unsympathetic to his plan. Nothing came of the negotiations. Leibbrandt’s megalomania was enough to deter anyone from cooperating with him, and Dr van Rensburg refused to be drawn. Some sources even point to a physical alternation between van Rensburg and Leibbrandt in their final meeting.
Undeterred Leibbrandt continued in his attempts to drum up support from the Afrikaaner Nationalists winning converts from the Ossewabrandwag and the National Party to support his cause with fiery speeches at meetings held in the Orange Free State and in the Transvaal. These converts to Liebbrandt’s band of ‘Stormjaers’ called ‘The National Socialist Rebels’ took a specific Nazi Blood Oath, and trained in bomb making and sabotage. Their blood oath partly read:
“All my fight and striving is for the freedom and independence of the Afrikaner people of South Africa and for the building up of a National Socialist State in accordance with the ideas of Adolf Hitler.”
Leibbrandt was fully determined in his plot to overthrow the government by force of arms and assassinate Jan Smuts, he famously said the following before leaving for South Africa.
“The signal for the coup d’ etat will shake South Africa to its very foundations. The whole world will understand it. The gigantic leading figure of General Smuts will be felled like a heavy oak tree at the psychological moment. I will commit this deed on my own. It will happen without help or support.” Sydney Robey Leibbrandt (Berlin, March 20, 1941)
Capture
Leibbrandt’s small group of National Socialist Rebels kept the South African government on high alert by committing various sabotage acts. However, the quiet truce between Leibbrandt and van Rensburg quickly developed into open hostility. Leibbrandt, disappointed that the OB did not officially support his mission and its resultant failure began to openly attack Dr van Rensburg as an ‘agent’ of Smuts. This sealed his fate. The OB felt Leibbrandt a liability to their cause.
After Liebbrandt and his group of Stormjaers got into a confrontation and gunfight with UDF soldiers in the autumn of 1942, Leibbrandt went on the run and evaded the police. He was betrayed by fellow nationalists in the Ossewabrandwag who disclosed his location and he was eventually arrested in Pretoria in December 1942. Ironically the arresting officer was Claude Sterley, a fellow Springbok boxer and friend.
To get on top of all the wartime dissent and armed resistance from the nationalists, the South African government also cracked down very heavily on the Ossewabrandwag and the Stormjaers, placing thousands of them in internment camps for the duration of the war. Among the internees was future Prime Minister B. J. Vorster, who was a regional leader (General) of the Ossewabrandwag.
Field Marshal Jan Smuts
On 11 March 1943 Leibbrandt was sentenced to death for high treason. Although Leibbrandt refused to give evidence at any stage in the trial, he claimed that he had acted “for Volk and Führer” and gave the German Salute (Hitler Salute) when he first entered the court, to which several spectators responded and calling “Sieg Heil”. After being sentenced to death, Leibbrandt shouted loudly and clearly “I greet death”.
General Jan Smuts however later commuted his sentence to life imprisonment, confiding that he did not want the blood of another Jopie Fourie on his hands. In this respect Smuts, as an Afrikaner throughout his career usually bowed to a policy of appeasement politics when it came to Afrikaner issues and his ‘Volk’.
This can clearly be seen in the treatment of both ‘traitors’ and enemies of the state – Smuts took a heavy hand to executing the ring leaders of the Rand Revolt who were mainly ‘English’ Communists, but when it came to the Boer Revolt everyone involved was freed, except Jopie Fourie (who had not resigned from the Union Defence Force as an officer when becoming a rebel and therefore had a different case of treason and was court marshalled by the military instead – whereas all the other rebels had resigned). Smuts took the same relatively ‘light handed’ approach to the Ossewabrandwag and clear cases of sedition and treason as was the case with Leibbrandt and chose not to execute them.
It’s not treason if you win
When the National Party was elected to rule in South Africa in 1948, D. F. Malan issued an amnesty over all their fellow war offenders, including the likes of Liebbrandt and the future President BJ Vorster. The National Party then folded the Ossewabrandwag and absorbed their members and structures into the party.
Leibbrandt left the prison and was greeted by crowds of Afrikaner right-wingers and Nationalists as a “folk hero”. The returning servicemen from World War felt it a slap in the face, a blatant political statement as to how much the Afrikaner Nationalists disregarded those who had gone to war against Nazism. To them it was an affront to the sacrifice and loss of thousands of their compatriot South Africans in the war.
Leibbrandt remained politically active in his later life, founding the organisation Anti-Kommunistiese Beskermingsfront (Anti-Communist Protection Front) in 1962, and producing a series of pamphlets titled Ontwaak Suid-Afrika (Wake up South Africa). He was also a passionate sportsman and hunter. Robey Leibbrandt, “Der treue Gefolgsmann” (the loyal follower) died on 1 August 1966 from a heart attack.
The irony is that once in power the rise of African Nationalism (ANC) and their decision to embark on armed resistance mirrors that of the Afrikaner Nationalism. Like the armed wing of the Afrikaner Nationalists – the Ossewabrandwag ‘terrorists’ and ‘traitors’ were imprisoned as enemies of the state, so too were the armed wing of the ANC – Umkhonto we Sizwe. Once in power the Afrikaner Nationalists – the NP – behaved no different to the African Nationalists – the ANC – they built heroes and legacies around their military ‘heroes’, issued pardons and amnesties – and also renamed streets and institutions after them.
In Conclusion
But most ironic is that from the ranks of imprisoned ANC leaders emerged Nelson Mandela, and from the ranks of imprisoned National Party members emerged BJ Vorster – both of whom went on to become President. Strange how history turns and repeats itself.
Both entirely different now, history now looks favourably on Mandela and the African Nationalists (ANC) and its cabal and dismisses their acts of treason in light of a ‘honourable cause’ (liberation from oppression) and history now views Vorster, the Afrikaner Nationalists (NP) and their cabal, like Robey Liebrand and their various acts of treason very unfavourably and point to a ‘dishonourable cause’ (suppression of liberation by oppression).
This brings another famous quote on what qualifies and defines treason, it’s from T.S. Elliot and is very applicable and rings true to the above statement;
“The last temptation is the greatest treason: to do the right deed for the wrong reason”.
Written and Researched by Peter Dickens. Reference: Wikipedia and extracts from “Volk and Fuhrer” by Hans Strydom. Colourised images of Robey Leibbrandt with thanks to Frans Bedford-Visser. Colourised image of Jan Smuts thanks to Photo Redux.
Today we profile another one of those South African heroes who served with the Royal Navy Commandos on D Day and who went on to win a Military Cross for Bravery – Lieutenant D.C. “Tommy” Thomas MC from Maclear in the Transkei.
His most painful recollection of D-Day was the stormy passage he and his contingent had to undergo in crossing the Channel in their landing craft.The seas were running high, and hardly a man escaped sea sickness. They landed in the second wave at first light, their boat receiving a direct hit as they approached the shore, half-a-dozen men being killed, and Thomas found himself up to his neck in water after having jumped form the landing craft as it struck the beach.
The Commandos, having “dumped” their steel helmets, promptly donned their green berets as they went ashore, it being “more comfortable”. They had a specific job to do which was to connect up as soon as possible with the paratroops who had dropped further inland, and encountered fire, but “did not wait to deal with the resistance at the coast, pushing inland instead with all speed”.
Royal Marine Commandos attached to 3rd Division move inland from Sword Beach on the Normandy coast, 6 June 1944.
It was “tough going through the minefields but they got there”. “And were the paratroops glad to see us!” remarked Lt. Thomas, who further remarked that for the next few days none of them knew much of what was happening, and could not be sure whether the invasion was a success or not.
All they knew was “that in their own sector on the left flank of the beach-head they were kept hard at it”, and the toughening they had had in advance was to prove more than useful.
According to plan, they kept on the move all the time -”frigging about” as it was called in Commando terminology, snatching some much-needed sleep in slit-trenches during the day, while at night they were patrols or raids to be carried out. It was while returning from one of these ”nocturnal excursions” that Lieutenant Thomas shared with his sergeant and another man “the benefit of a German hand-grenade”, and was to later return to England with several “little shrapnel souvenirs still in his leg”, but otherwise was “none the worse for wear”.
Commenting on how the Normandy landings compared to his time in North Africa, Lt. Thomas was to say that “it was worse”, elaborating that “for one thing, in the Desert, you could see whom you were fighting, but in Normandy most of the time you couldn’t.”
Lt. Thomas was also to add that he was wondering how he would “be able to settle down on the family farm in the Maclear district of the Transkei after all this excitement”.
Lt Thomas won the Military Cross (MC) for his actions in World War 2. A significant decoration, it is awarded for gallantry in combat. The MC is granted in recognition of “an act or acts of exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy on land to all members, of any rank in Our Armed Forces”.
The unfortunate truth is that it was highly likely that his participation in D Day ultimately killed him years later. After the war but he developed an alcohol dependency problem whilst suffering with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), very sick he eventually shot himself when he was also diagnosed with cancer. A real tragedy and the end of a fine South African hero, close family and fiends described him as an AMAZING man, brave, humble and very caring.
People who knew him well said he was never the same after the war, and today we honour his extreme sacrifice and we will remember him.
Related Links and Work of South Africans during D Day:
His most painful recollection of D-Day was the stormy passage he and his contingent had to undergo in crossing the Channel in their landing craft.The seas were running high, and hardly a man escaped sea sickness. They landed in the second wave at first light, their boat receiving a direct hit as they approached the shore, half-a-dozen men being killed, and Thomas found himself up to his neck in water after having jumped form the landing craft as it struck the beach.
Lt Thomas won the Military Cross (MC) for his actions in World War 2. A significant decoration, it is awarded for gallantry in combat. The MC is granted in recognition of “an act or acts of exemplary gallantry during active operations against the enemy on land to all members, of any rank in Our Armed Forces”.
The Observation Post 