Spotlight on navy’s colourful past
THE SA Naval Museum opened its Transformation Display yesterday to showcase the previously unrecognised contributions made by soldiers of colour in the past.
Important events and people who contributed to the transformation of the SA Navy were finally given a proper tribute through yesterday’s opening.
The museum’s reformed look was initiated by Vice-Admiral Johannes Mudimu in 2005, when he became Chief of the Navy.
Mudimu was the first black chief appointed and at the time felt the museum did not give a balanced perspective of race and gender of the navy.
The initiative became an onoff work in progress until Lieutenant-Commander Leon Steyn was appointed as curator at the museum.
“The museum had a mainly white-dominated historic display, and although this represented a good history, it did not represent all the races who were part of the navy’s history,” he said.
Some of the little-known his- torical facts that can now be seen at the museum’s display is that in the 1960s, there were navy members belonging to the SA Coloured Corps.
“Back then, whites and coloureds were integrated when they were at sea, sharing each other’s bunks. It was sad because once they reached shore, they would have to go back to living apart because of apartheid’s rules and regulations,” Steyn said.
Nine navy members from the Coloured Corps lost their lives at sea in 1965 in the Kalk Bay area, but Steyn said little on this had been documented.
It was during the 1970s that Indian members were part of the formation of the Indian Training Battalion. This was the same decade that women were also allowed to join the navy.
In the early 1980s, an Indian officer named Yeagan Moodley joined the navy and later became the first person of colour to command one of the navy’s warships. He died in a car accident a year after he was appointed to this position.
Steyn said the display gives a recollection of the integration of Umkhonto we Sizwe and the Azanian People’s Liberation Army into the SA Navy after 1994.
“Interwoven with these historic events are the stories of many individuals who lived and died. In the past, there was not even a tribute given for these men and women, and many of their names were not even recorded. I hope that the new display will open up healthy discussions and lively debate about our rich and varied naval history,” he said.
There was not even a tribute given for these men and women