One of the lesser known, but by far not lesser in importance, monuments in Port Elizabeth is the Mendi Memorial in New Brighton. The SS Mendi was transporting 823 members of the 5th Battalion, South African Native Labour Corps to France during the First World War and was struck by the SS Darro in think fog off the coast of Plymouth. 616 South Africans, 607 of them black troops, plus 30 British crew members died in the disaster. The majority of the men of the South African Labour Corps were from the rural areas of the Pondo Kingdom in the Eastern Cape and this memorial remembers them. I did a more extensive post on the SS Mendi a little while ago on The Firefly Photo Files. Please click the link and read the whole story.
what a fascinating story. The stuff of movies.
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