CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Names etched into sturdy African hardwood poles stand tall, reaching skyward, representing men whose burial places remain unknown. For over a century, these names lay forgotten, but they have recently been resurrected in the annals of history.
A memorial honoring Black South African servicemen, who perished in non-combat roles while fighting for the Allies during World War I, now features 1,772 names of those with no known graves. A granite block at the memorial site in Cape Town bears the inscription: “Your legacies are preserved here.”
Due to racial policies, these men were denied the ability to bear arms during the war. They served in the Cape Town Labor Corps, responsible for transporting essential supplies and constructing vital infrastructure such as roads and bridges. Their service was predominantly within Africa, contributing to the Allied efforts against German forces in what was then known as German South West Africa (now Namibia) and German East Africa (now Tanzania, Rwanda, and Burundi).
The sacrifice made by these black servicemen parallels that of around 10 million others who lost their lives during the conflict from 1914 to 1918. Unfortunately, post-war recognition was elusive due to the prevailing racial biases from British colonial policies and the subsequent apartheid regime in South Africa.
The unveiling of this memorial is seen as a crucial rectification of historical neglect, according to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, the British body responsible for maintaining war graves and overseeing the new memorial erected in one of Cape Town’s oldest public gardens.
Britain’s Princess Anne, who serves as the commission’s president, inaugurated the memorial on Wednesday. She remarked, “It ensures the names and stories of those who died will echo in history for future generations. It is important to recognize that those we have come to pay tribute to have gone unacknowledged for too long. We will remember them.”
Following her address, a solitary soldier performed “The Last Post” on a bugle, paying tribute to the Black servicemen as war casualties, precisely 106 years, two months, and 11 days post-World War I.
While numerous memorials exist across South Africa honoring white soldiers from both world wars, the contributions of Black servicemen had been overlooked for far too long. Their story risked vanishing into obscurity until a decade ago when a researcher uncovered documentation of their service within South African military records. David McDonald, the operational manager for the Commonwealth War Graves Commission, who led the project in South Africa, noted that more than 1,700 Black servicemen were identified and that families of six of these fallen soldiers were located, mainly from rural communities.
During the ceremony, four of these family representatives honored their lost relatives by laying wreaths at the memorial’s base and touching the individual poles inscribed with their names. Elliot Malunga Delihlazo, who honored his great-grandfather Bhesengile, among those recognized, expressed the sentiment felt by many, stating, “It made us very proud. It made us very happy.”
Delihlazo shared that his family had long known only that Bhesengile went to war and never returned. “Although it pains us … that we can’t find the remains, at last we know that he died in 1917,” he reflected. “Now the family knows. Now, at last, we know.”
