The unsung war hero who should’ve received the Victoria Cross
A stirring story about Job Maseko, writes Carlo Mercorio
THERE are different types of war heroes. The ones we normally label as such are the “fall-on-the-grenade-to-save-his-comrades” or the “storm-the-enemy-pillbox-single-handedly” types.
But what about a hero who, as a prisoner of war, quietly, coolly, with utter disregard for his own safety, sinks an enemy ship all by himself ?
Job Maseko was such a hero. He was a World War II black South African soldier who was captured, along with tens of thousands of other British, Indian and South African troops by the Germans and Italians at Tobruk, Libya, in 1942.
Maseko won the Military Medal but he should have joined his compatriots John Nettleton, Edwin Swales, Quentin Smythe and Gerard Norton in winning the Victoria Cross.
The fact that he was a black man put paid to that. Poor recompense for a man who blew up a German ship – a steamer or “F-boat” used for transporting ammunition and/or fuel – in Tobruk harbour with a bomb made out of scavenged gunpowder from 20 bullets, pieces of fuses and a condensed milk can.
Maseko was working aboard the ship as a PoW stevadore when his opportunity came. There was no loss of life because the fuse Maseko had fashioned and lit was slow-burning so that it went off only at night when the labourers were back in the PoW camp. There were no crew on board.
When Tobruk was retaken by the Allies, divers found a shipwreck where he said he had sunk it.
After sinking the ship, Maseko escaped from the camp in which he was being held. He survived in the desert for weeks before being found by an Allied patrol.
The author has taken this stirring story and woven it into a narrative that uses fictional elements to make it accessible to younger readers as well.
I won’t give away how she does that – that is part of the charm of the book.
Sadly, Maseko returned to South Africa where he was treated with contempt by his white compatriots. The freedom that he fought for was a chimera. He died after being struck by a train in 1952. A government comprised of many men who had supported the Nazis in the global conflict was not about to honour a black man who fought them.
He is buried in Payneville Cemetery, near Springs, and the public had to pay for the funeral as he was broke.
Maseko was all but forgotten until 1994. Almost, but not entirely.
In the late 1960s, his story was included in a book called Heroes of South Africa by Ken Anderson. I received the book as a Christmas present from my grandmother in 1968. I was moved by Maseko’s heroism and for years harboured a desire to write a book about him.
Being the indolent soul that I am, it never happened.
Now someone else has done it, and a fine effort it is, too. In fact, it should be a setwork for our high schools and studied alongside Vincent Moloi’s 2007 documentary A Pair of Boots and a Bicycle.
South Africans need to know about their heroes and Maseko is a largely unsung hero – although post-1994 a primary school and a road have been named after him, as has an SA Navy vessel.
In the year in which we remember the brave soldiers of the SS Mendi, who died 100 years ago, let us also remember Maseko. I thank Marilyn Honikman for reminding us of him.