Sons of South Africa: Telling the stories of SA's forgotten WWI heroes
Thousands of black South Africans represented our country during World War I, but many of them never received the official recognition they deserved.
The Sons of South Africa campaign is launching this week, and Joey Monareng, Senior Operations Supervisor at Commonwealth War Graves Commission, joined Darren, Keri and Sky to ask members of the public to help them tell the stories of thousands of black South Africans who represented our country during World War I.
The first World War, also referred to as the Great War, lasted from 28 July 1914 to 11 November 1918 and was waged across the globe. Described by many as "the war to end all wars", it resulted in the deployment of 70-million military personnel making it one of the largest and deadliest wars in history, with an estimated 21-million civilian and military deaths directly attributed to the conflict.
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The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (which began its work with the building of cemeteries and memorials across the world in the wake of the First World War) is engaging with communities around the country in an effort to complete a database of as many of the men as possible who served in the Cape Coloured Labour Regiment, Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport, the Military Labour Bureau, and the Military Labour Corps during the War.
The names of the men included below enlisted in what is now known as KwaZulu-Natal – there are 100 on record for this region, but we have extracted 7 of those names. More names can be found here.
1. KUMALO LUYI
2. MAGINAYE HLOPE
3. MAHLOBO DHLOTUVU
4. MBELE MPUYAKE
5. MINYA MVUNDHLANA
6. BOKFELI MIYA
7. MIYA GOLODIL
The interview is available in the podcast below:
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IMAGE CREDIT: Pexel