Honour our heroes

THIS morning just before 5am 100 years ago, the SS Mendi was struck a fatal blow on her starboard side. The SS Darro rammed into her at full speed. The force was such that the Mendi’s bow was almost sheered off. As the Darro reversed, the water flooded in. 140 South Africans, all black, drowned immediately. Within 25 minutes the ship would sink.

By the time the rescue had been completed, 616 South African soldiers – 609 of them black – would be dead. It was South Africa’s second-greatest loss of life, after Delville Wood, and our worst maritime disaster to date.

Those who didn’t drown immediately were sucked in by the vacuum caused by the ship plunging to the seabed. The balance would die of exposure. Their heroism, though, would have passed into legend, the way these volunteers stared death in the eye, never panicking or wavering. They were appallingly treated. Those who survived received neither pension nor counselling, those who were rendered unfit for duty were merely sent home and told to give their chiefs thanks from the government. Not one member of the SA Native Labour Corps received the campaign medals given to their white officers and NCOs. As for the master of the Darro, whose negligence had caused this catastrophic loss of life, he merely lost his licence for a year.

It was a remarkable travesty of justice, seen as much by the official sealing of the hearing’s records for the next 50 years. The men of the Mendi were remembered by their comrades of all colours every February 21 until the National Party came to power and their exploits were airbrushed from the history books.

That and so much else has been redressed since the advent of democracy, but much more needs to be done, particularly with regard to the plight of South African war veterans. We must honour our heroes so that when the call comes, we too, in the words of Isaac Wauchope Dyobha, answer it as one nation, united in purpose. Every time we fail to do that, we dishonour the memory of the men on the Mendi.