Black and White SA Soldiers to be Honoured at WW1 Battle Centenary in France

On the centenary of Delville Wood, the battle where many South Africans paid the ultimate price and lost their lives in World War 1, the soldiers are to be remembered with a new memorial wall that will also include the names of black soldiers.

The new memorial wall and Garden of Remembrance, dedicated to all South African soldiers (members of both the South African Infantry brigade and the South African Native Labour Corps) buried in various regions of France (Somme, Nord, Pas-de-Calais, Normandy Aisne, and many more), will be dedicated on Tuesday.

The battle of Delville Wood started on 15 July 1916, and it was where the First South African Infantry Brigade suffered some of the biggest casualties in the war.

More than 229,000 South Africans were said to have taken part in the war against Germany and its allies between 1914 and 1919, and 21,000 were black. Because of their skin colour, however, they were not allowed to take part in battles.

These members of the South African Native Labour Corps were not allowed to carry arms. Their duties were to work in the dockyards and at railheads, to dig behind the lines and manhandle supplies and munitions and tree felling

While the oversight of South Africa’s non-white soldiers has been contentious in the past – the 63-hectare memorial (in the main picture) was created in 1926 to commemorate South African soldiers who died in Africa, Europe and the Middle East – this year’s ceremony will see the inauguration of a new memorial wall and garden with inscriptions of all South African soldiers who participated during the war.

It is estimated that 1,120 black South Africans died during the war in Europe, and 260 are buried in nearby Arques-la-Bataille, about 150 km from Delville Wood, near Dieppe.

On Friday, a service was held at Arques-la-Bataille attended by the minister of defense. Last year, the South African government re-interned the remains of Private Nyweba Beleza, the first black South African to lose his life during the war, to the Delville museum.

President Jacob Zuma will attend the Delville Wood ceremony on Tuesday.

According to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, “The South African Native Labour Corps came to France early in 1917 and No.1 General Labour Hospital was established at its camp at Arques-la-Bataille.

“Most of the burials in the cemetery are of men of the Corps, many of whom died at the hospital. The cemetery also contains a memorial to all men of the Corps who died in France.

“This is in the middle of the cemetery and is a Great War Stone of a grey colour, on the face of which is a concave bronze medallion with the head of a springbok in high relief; and inscribed on the stone, in English, Sesuto and Isixosa, are the words: ‘To the memory of those Natives of the South African Labour Corps who crossed the seas in response to the call of their great Chief, King George V, and laid down their lives in France, for the British Empire, during the Great War 1914-1918, this Memorial is erected by their comrades’.”