The CWGC produced an educational pack highlighting the part played by black soldiers in WW1. It particularly focuses on the SS Mendi tragedy: :: CWGC :: SS Mendi - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia The words of the soldiers' chaplain on the Mendi is very moving: "Be quiet and calm, my countrymen. What is happening now is what you came to do...you are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers...Swazis, Pondos, Basotho...so let us die like brothers. We are the sons of Africa. Raise your war-cries, brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais in the kraal, our voices are left with our bodies."
There are many legends of the troops' bravery as the ship sank. One is that of the Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha, who is said to have calmed the panicked men by crying out the prayer Another legend is that of the "death dance", as the men of the labour contingent performed one last, barefooted, dance on the tilting deck of the Mendi before she plunged beneath the ocean Then there was Joseph Tshite, a schoolmaster from near Pretoria, who encouraged the drowning men in the waters around him with hymns and prayers until he, too, succumbed. A white sergeant is said to have been supported by two black compatriots, who swam with him and found place for him on a piece of flotsam. The Mendi disaster was one of South Africa's worst tragedies of World War I, second perhaps only to the Battle of Delville Wood. Among the South Africans lost were some prominent men such as the Pondoland chiefs Henry Bokleni, Dokoda Richard Ndamase, Mxonywa Bangani and the Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha. When the news of the tragedy was announced to Parliament on 9 March 1917, all the members of the South African House of Assembly, led by celebrated Boer War hero and Prime Minister Louis Botha, rose in their seats as a token of respect Disasters at Sea: The Loss of the Troopship Mendi Thought you might like to see this ... In Memory of Private ISAAC WAUCHOPE DYOBHA 3276, Medical Section., South African Native Labour Corps who died on 21 February 1917 Remembered with honour HOLLYBROOK MEMORIAL, SOUTHAMPTON
I haven't sorted out this list but these are the names on the Hollybrook Memorial Southampton ... the South African Native Labour Corps are included CWGC :: Cemetery Reports
Memorial to Chief Henry Bokleni Ndamase:: OS grid TQ2713 :: Geograph British Isles - photograph every grid square!
