Defence and Military Veterans Minister Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula and her deputy Kebby Maphatsoe leads a military delegation to France to honour the lives of South African troops who died and were buried in Arque-la-Bataille, near Dieppe and Delville Wood in Longueval.
A memorial service will be held in Arque-la-Bataille in remembrance of all those South African troops, who for many years, have gone unrecognised for their participation of the 1st World War, also known as the Great War.
Not many people are aware that South Africa lost seven Test cricketers in the war and 13 first-class players. There were also three Springbok rugby players that died. The Times report Reggie Schwarz, Gordon White, Henry Stricker and Charles Handfield are among the SA’s Test crackers who died. White died of wounds suffered while leading coloured South African soldiers in a bayonet charge against Turks in Gaza, where he is buried.
Among the Test rugby players who died were Jan Willem Hurter (Jacky) Morkel, whose individual brilliance at centre enabled the Boks to narrowly beat the powerhouse Welsh club Llanelli on the 1912-13 tour of Britain. Morkel was a mounted scout during the campaign in East Africa. Cut off from his headquarters during the rainy season, he fell ill and died of dysentery in 1916. He is buried in the Dar es Salaam military cemetery near Tommy Thompson, a teammate from the 1912-1913 tour.
The commemoration in France this week coincides with the State visit to France by President Jacob Zuma.
Accompanying President Zuma on the State visit, Minister Mapisa-Nqakula will officiate at the memorial service in Arque-la-Bataille, where about 260 black South African soldiers perished and were laid to rest. The other mainly white South African soldiers are buried in Delville Wood. Black soldiers were also enlisted and formed the South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC). The SA government said in a statement this week this black soldiers received almost no attention in South African history. Its members did not receive any medals for their participation in the war.
This omission of black soldiers is evident at the South African Museum in Delville Wood. The South African National Memorial was inaugurated in 1926 in Deville Wood. The memorial is on a 63-hectare piece of land, which is South African property acquired in 1920 by the South African government.
Delville Wood was chosen as a site to erect a national memorial because it is at Delville Wood that the First South African Infantry Brigade got engaged in one of the bloodiest battles of World War I.
The memorial commemorates South African soldiers who died in Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The Ministry of Defence and Military Veterans said the representation of Africans during the war is very minimal and it distorts the important role they played in various theatres of war.
“In the spirit of democracy, reconciliation, restitution and integration, the transformation of this national heritage is imperative, so as to ensure the rewriting of an objective, just and authentic South African military history.
“As part of our efforts to correct our history, the first member of the South African Native Labour Corps to perish in the Great War, Private Nyweba Beleza, has been [reinterred] to the museum, which now proudly marks his final resting place,” said the ministry.
It said the reinterment of Private Beleza has given further impetus in consolidating diversity and it will also “solidify efforts to bring the various South African groupings together”.
“It will further greatly assist in helping to remove the negative stigma attached to the Delville Wood Memorial that has been for a very long time seen as a dedication to a very small segment of the South African population,” the ministry said.
