The May meeting started off on a most interesting note when newly-introduced security regulations at the Museum resulted in all arriving cars having to be "signed in" at the gate. This resulted in a severe traffic jam which was resolved only by the timely intervention of the new Chairman, Marjorie Dean, and Hamish Paterson, the Museum representative.
Although the jam was cleared, the subsequent search for parking resulted in a slightly late start to the meeting, to allow the record number of 108 members and guests time to find their seats.
Marjorie commenced by issuing the usual notices, the most important being the appointment of a new Director at the Museum. This is Mr. Themba Ndebele-Monyela and the Society is pleased to both welcome him and to wish him well during his coming term of office. Marjorie also paid tribute to the web-master, Mr Mike Marsh, citing the phenomenal number of "hits" the website has generated over the past quarter. She also asked for a show of hands of those in favour of a renewal of the sale of second-hand military history books at the meetings. The response was overwhelmingly in favour of this proposal.
She then moved on to the main business of the evening, which was the showing of the video "For Which I Am Prepared to Die". This is the story of Roger Bushell, the man who master-minded "The Great Escape" of World War II, and the video was produced by his niece, Lindy Wilson, as a tribute to this remarkable man. It has been bought by the BBC and was broadcast in the UK on 19 April 2012.
The audience was treated to the full story of Bushell's dare-devil life of escapes and captivity. He was a champion skier, pilot and London barrister and very much a rich London playboy. With the outbreak of World War II his pre-war Royal Air Force Auxiliary status resulted in his immediate call-up as a Squadron Leader in a Blenheim squadron, which soon converted to Spitfires. He was shot down over France in 1940 and imprisoned. He escaped and got to within 100 yards of the Swiss border before being re-captured and sent to Stalag Luft 2, near Danzig. He escaped again, this time reaching Prague, in occupied Czechoslovakia. There he became romantically involved with a local girl who betrayed him to the Gestapo when he declined to marry her. This arrest coincided with the assassination of the German Protector, Reinhard Heydrich, and Bushell was interrogated at great length by the Gestapo as being a suspect in the assassination. He was released as a result of the intervention of the Luftwaffe and sent to Stalag Luft 3, near Zagan.
There he became "Big X", the leader of one of the biggest escapes of World War II, the "Great Escape" in fact, in which 76 men tunnelled 25 feet (8m) under the wire of the camp digging several hundred yards (m) outwards and escaped into the surrounding forest. An estimated 5 million Germans were deployed to re-capture them.
The escape so enraged Hitler that he ordered all of those re-captured to be shot, later reducing the number to 50, as a result of protests from the Luftwaffe. Bushell and a companion got as far as occupied France before being re-captured but as one of the designated 50 he was executed by the Gestapo. His ashes were returned to Stalag Luft 3 and interred there, but were lost because of bombing later in the War.
Our audience found two things of great interest in this video. Roger Bushell was a South African from Springs and Hermanus and his childhood, before going to boarding school at Wellington in England touched a chord with many, as did the change from playboy to military hero. Truly a remarkable story. This was commented upon by Vice Chairman, John Parkinson, who did the summing up after the screening. John Murray then added an unusual bit of information when he read out an obituary from the UK "Daily Telegraph". This was for one Alex Cessie, also a South African, and the forger at Stalag Luft 3 who produced the necessary fake papers for escaping. He recently died at the age of 92.
Marjorie then called Lyn Mantle to come forward and draw the winning ticket for the evening's "lucky draw", a three DVD set entitled "The Great Ships", donated by Mr Jan-Willem Hoorweg. The lucky ticket was number 151 and the prize was claimed by a Mr Slade, one of the 50 visitors for the evening.
Marjorie then declared the meeting closed and all present were invited to adjourn for the customary refreshments.
Ivor Little
Chairman and Scribe.
ivorandanne@mweb.co.za
Books
Members who wish to receive book announcements, please let Joan have an e-mail with the subject "Books" to scribe@samilitaryhistory.org
Nick Kinsey
Founding member H.W. "Nick" Kinsey passed away on Sunday 27 May 2012 at age 93.
Nick was part of the "Old Guard" who, together with Maurice Gough-Palmer and later Darrell Hall would go and search for military graves in remote places. He served on the War Graves Board which looked after British war graves (and was funded by the British government) after South Africa left the Commonwealth in 1961.
He seldom pushed himself forward but, if questioned, displayed vast knowledge of most of the battles and skirmishes which were visited by Society members on battlefield tours, especially in the 1970s and 1980s. He was an expert on the Brandwater Basin and Sekhukuniland areas and well-acquainted with the battle sites between Pretoria and the lowveld.
. He was a keen supporter of Bagpipe music and the braais which the Society hosted at the Museum were duly graced by a piper each time.
His entire career saw him at the Chamber of Mines from which he retired as secretary of the Technical Activities committee. Society archives show an elegance of phrase in the letters he wrote to welcome Life Members and to thank speakers - he organised the lecture program in Johannesburg for longer than a decade.
Almost a dozen of Nick's articles appeared in the Journal, of which he was deputy editor from 1978 to 1994. He served as Society Chairman from 1981-1983 and on the occasion of the Society's 40thAnniversary in 2006 was awarded Honorary Life Membership in recognition of his outstanding contribution.
The Society extends deepest sympathy to Meryl, to his daughter Pamela, his grandchildren and great-grandchildren.
Contact details
For Cape Town details contact Ray Hattingh 021-592-1279(am) ray@saarp.co.za
For Eastern Cape details contact Malcolm Kinghorn 041-373-4469 culturev@lantic.net
For KwaZulu-Natal details contact Ken Gillings 031-702-4828 ken.gillings@mweb.co.za
For Gauteng details contact Joan Marsh 010-237-0676 scribe@samilitaryhistory.org
FORTHCOMING LECTURES
14th June
CR Charles Ross The work of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission
ML Ken Gillings The Art of War; Lt.Col. J.N. Crealock's Anglo-Zulu War watercolours: then and now
12th July
CR John Bleloch Milner : Hero or Villain
ML Ivor Little Snippets from the Life of a Military Attache
KZN in Durban:
14th June
DDH Jean Beater Heritage and Environmental Assessments
Main Prof Philip Everitt Maj Gen Sir Charles Warren in Northern Natal
12th July
DDH Jayne Moir The lonely Boer graves of St. Helena
Main Colin Dean Nazis on Ice
Cape Town:
14th June
Derek Stuart-Findlay Col Jack Rose DSO, Pioneer of Military Transportation in two World Wars
SAMHSEC:
SAMHSEC's annual Grahamstown meeting is at 1400 on 9 June 2012 in the Education Faculty of
Rhodes University. Speakers will be Rick van Heerden on:
'The Extraordinary Case of Mikhail Petrovich Devyataev' and
Olenka de Sas Kropiwnicka on her experiences during the Warsaw Uprising and subsequent
incarceration in Sachsenhausen and Ravensbruck concentration camps.
The meeting will be preceded by morning visits to the Great Trek Bible Monument, the WW2 44 Air School signalling devices, the trenches manned by St Andrew's College cadets during the ABW and the Royal Engineers' building on the Rhodes University campus, followed by a bring- your-own picnic on the Education Faculty lawns.
Contact details
For Cape Town details contact Ray Hattingh 021-592-1279(am) ray@saarp.co.za
For Eastern Cape details contact Malcolm Kinghorn 041-373-4469 culturev@lantic.net
For KwaZulu-Natal details contact Ken Gillings 031-702-4828 ken.gillings@mweb.co.za
For Gauteng details contact Joan Marsh 010-237-0676 scribe@samilitaryhistory.org
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