KWAZULU-NATAL BRANCH

Newsletter no. 418
December 2010

The chairman Bill Brady being unavailable due to knee surgery, the meeting was chaired by Charles Whiteing.

The Darrell Hall Memorial Lecture was presented by vice chairman Dr. John Cooke entitled "The Conquest of the Incas." Here is Dr Cooke's personal appraisal of this remarkable period of military history:

Following a visit to South America last year, I became very interested in the Incan Empire and its rise and fall. In fact, the whole history of the previous Andean civilizations is absolutely fascinating, with amazing cultures flourishing in the two thousand years prior to the Incas. All these developments took place without any contact whatsoever with the rest of the world, and many inventions which had been present in Europe and Asia for millennia did not exist. The Peruvians did not have the wheel or pulleys, iron or steel, any written language or numbers, and only primitive weapons, with rudimentary protective armour. From the agricultural aspect, they had no cattle or horses, and had only the llama as a beast of burden, which was not strong enough to pull a plough. Despite this, they grew crops on steep hillsides, on skillfully engineered earthquake- proof terraces, and became superlative stonemasons. The stage was therefore set for a disastrous clash of contrasting civilizations, when colonists from Europe, with superior technology, arrived at the beginning of the sixteenth century, driven by two powerful motives, greed for gold, and arrogant religious fervour. With his superior weapons, and the help of local tribes, Hernan Cortez subjugated the Aztecs of Central America in 1519, and as the Pacific Ocean had been discovered a few years earlier, the Spaniards were then lured down the west coast by tales of a fabulous land of gold to the south, the Empire of the Incas. This had modest beginnings with a small tribe in the central Andes, led by the legendary Manco Capac who took over and settled his followers in the fertile Cuzco valley, early in the 13th century. Over the next 200 years they gradually began to acquire more territory by conquering the surrounding tribes, and continually building their strength, both militarily, and economically. The turning point came when the Incas were attacked by the Chancas in 1438, and their brilliant leader at that time, Pachacuti, scored a great victory. He rapidly went on to expand his kingdom by first subduing all the smaller tribes in the north, and then turned south to conquer, and assimilate the 400 year old Aymara Empire around Lake Titicaca. The Aymarans had already established the idea of political and cultural unity, which Pachacuti embraced and developed further.

Expansion of the Incan Empire was then achieved by battles when necessary, but more often by bloodless diplomacy and negotiation, when the advantages of becoming part of the Empire were compared with the consequences of resistance. If they refused to surrender, the local leaders and their families were slaughtered, but, if they co-operated, they were allowed to stay in power, their own customs and religions were respected, and allowed to remain intact.

A major unifying device was the teaching of the local Cuzco language, Quechua to the chiefs and young people throughout the conquered areas, and so it became the " lingua franca" of the whole Inca Empire, rather like Latin in the Roman Empire. Offspring of the local rulers were also brought back to Cuzco for indoctrination. The quality of life, and the nutritional well-being of the subjugated peoples were greatly enhanced by the introduction of new agricultural technology, such as the terracing of steep hillsides, and extensive irrigation systems. Again, like the Romans, a magnificent road system was engineered, to link the cities and towns, and thus provide communication and transport of goods over thousands of kilometres of often very difficult terrain.

At last, when Pachacuti became tired of campaigning, and decided to develop Cuzco into a magnificent city, his able son Topa Inca took over the expansion of the Empire with enthusiasm. In 1525, Huayna Capac was residing in his northern province of Quito, when he heard the disturbing news that white sailed ships had been sighted exploring the coast further north. He was not to know that the ships were carrying a dangerous cargo of avaricious Europeans, led by a soldier of fortune called Francisco Pizarro. In 1524, Pizarro got together a small expedition, and sailed down the west coast to the San Juan River some 500 Km. south, but only encountered jungle, and returned empty handed. A second voyage 2 years later was much more successful, and literally struck gold a lot further south Pizarro returned to Spain in 1528, and after showing King Charles V solid gold drinking vessels, a live llama, and two Peruvians, was given a Royal Charter to conquer the land of gold. Two years later he returned to Panama with a small ill-equipped expedition, which eventually set sail in January 1531 with 3 ships, 180 men, and 27 horses, surely the smallest invasion fleet in history. The Spaniards began by plundering coastal towns north of Tumbez. Pizarro was then reinforced by another 130 men from Panama, and, leaving a garrison at the coast, he marched inland to conquer the Incas.

It would seem to be the only time in history when a band of some 200 soldiers, commanded by a determined, avaricious, illiterate, but able commander overthrew a mighty empire of several million, plundered its' riches and destroyed its' magnificent cities. The only Incan city to survive destruction was Machu Picchu, never found by the Spaniards, lost for centuries and discovered in1911 by the American explorer Hyram Bingham. The rest of the empire gradually succumbed to Christianity, but some of the early artists exercised Peruvian interpretation when depicting holy events.

The main talk was presented by fellow member Ian Sutherland entitled "The salvaging of the German High Seas Fleet."

On 21st June 1919, seven months after the end of WW1, a group of touring schoolchildren at Scapa Flow were witness to the the greatest act of destruction in maritime history - the scuttling of a fleet of 74 warships from Destroyers to Battleships on the orders of Rear Admiral von Reuter.

Germany signed the Armistice with the Allies on 11 November 1918. Article XXI of this ordered the surrender of all German U-Boats, over 200 were handed over, mostly within the next two weeks. On the morning of 21 November and were met by an Allied force of 250 ships under Beatty which included most of the Grand Fleet, an American Battleship squadron and representatives of other navies with a total of forty four capital ships. The Allied guns were trained fore and aft but the gun crews were ready for action. At 3.57 p.m. the German flag was ordered to be hauled down and was not hoisted again until the ships were scuttled. From the 22-26 November the German ships left in groups for Scapa Flow, all having arrived by 27 November. The Germans were not happy at being interned at Scapa Flow as they felt that they should have been interned in a neutral port, and that the British were breaking the spirit, if not the word of the Armistice. They were however in no position to do anything about it. During this time the peace talks had been dragging on, with several extensions to the Armistice, and the Treaty of Versailles was not ready until May 1919. The Allies were divided over the fate of the ships with many countries wanting a share, whilst the British, the major naval power at the time, were less keen to boost the strength of rival navies. The German officers planned the scuttle, the troublesome crews were not told but in many cases worked out what was going on by watching the officers making preparations, many of the crews were then told. At 10.30 am on 21 June Reuter signaled the fleet "Paragraph eleven. Confirm." - the code for immediate scuttle. Over 400,000 tons of modern warships were sunk, the largest loss of shipping in a single day in history. Publicly the British were outraged but in private there was a sense of relief that the problem of what to do with the fleet was now ended.

Ernest Cox a self made engineer was appointed by the Admiralty of salvaging the ships. He later said, "Without boasting, I do not think there is another man in the world who could have tackled the same job. Before I undertook this formidable task, I had never raised a ship in my life. Quite frankly, experts thought me crazy, but to me these vessels represented nothing more than so much scrap of brass, gunmetal, bronze, steel etc., and I was determined to recover this at all costs.

Even at the start of the salvage operation in the ships were well beyond ever seeing active service again, after some 5 years submerged in salt water. Many of the salvages were towed to Rosyth where they were broken up for scrap. Gun metal was of particular value, though some guns had mysteriously vanished when the ships were raised. Local "entrepreneurs" were suspected recall that one of the battleships, being towed upside-down, ran out of control at the Forth railway bridge and narrowly escaped demolishing it. Virtually the whole operation was fuelled from the bunkers of the Moltke which went down, fully coaled, on her side in shallow water. A hole was cut in her side, and a crane was mounted to pluck out the coal.

The salvage of the SMS Hindenburg remains one of the most complicated examples of marine salvage undertaken. The Cox & Danks Shipbreaking Co. twice attempted to salvage the Hindenburg in 1923 and 1924. The first method involved sealing the ship and patching holes with concrete and tallow, after which water was pumped out to return buoyancy to the hull. This attempt failed as the water did not displace evenly, resulting in the bow rising faster than the stern. A second attempt was made, in which the ship came dangerously close to capsizing. A tackle system was devised to hold the ship upright while pumping operations were resumed. This attempt failed when the lines parted under the strain, and the salvage was put on hold for several years. In 1930 it was tried again. As the bottom of Scapa Flow was too firm to allow the hull to dig in and stabilize itself, blocks were made from the hulls of salvaged German destroyers and filled with concrete to allow the ship more stability. The ship's superstructure and several of the gun turrets were cut away to reduce topside weight. The wreck was finally raised on 22 July 1930 after 11 years on the bottom of Scapa Flow. At approximately 30,000 tonnes, the SMS Hindenburg remains one of the largest acts of marine salvage undertaken, and certainly one of the most difficult. From preliminary attempts until the successful salvage, seven years were required to raise the ship. SMS Hindenburg was the only large warship of the High Seas Fleet to be raised upright at Scapa Flow.

Lt Col Dr Graeme Fuller delivered a vote of thanks to both speakers for well researched talks and excellent presentations. He considered both talks to be worthy of Armistice Day.

THE SOCIETY'S NEXT MEETING:

Thursday 9th December 2010 - 19h00 for 19h30. Venue: Murray Theatre, Dept of Civil Engineering, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.

The Darrell Hall (DDH) Memorial Lecture will be presented by fellow member Roy Bowman entitled USS Cassin Young DD793, a Fletcher Class Destroyer.

This will be followed by our year end cocktail party. Snacks will be supplied. Members bring own refreshments.

FUTURE SOCIETY DATES: January - March 2011.

20th Jan. (NB: Third Thurs.)
Darrell Hall Memorial Lecture - Steve versus the Kudu, by Colonel Steve Bekker
(NB This lecture has been brought forward from 14th April 2011).
Main Talk - "The Spy who disappeared", by Capt. Brian Hoffmann

10th February.(Back to the second Thursday)
Darrell Hall Memorial Lecture - Aerial Bombing of Civilian Targets, by Brian Davies
Main Talk - Operation Torch, 1942 by Bill Brady

10th March.
Darrell Hall Memorial Lecture - My Experiences in the Armed Struggle, by Mr Sunny Singh
Main Lecture - Major General Sir Charles Warren in Northern Natal, by Professor Philip Everitt

FUTURE EVENTS:
Fort Nottingham Highland Gathering - 16th April 2011
Ladysmith Battlefields Festival - Freedom of Entry to be offered to 8 Reserve Force Regiments,
one Regular Force Regiment and one UK Regiment while existing Regiments (Royal Navy, SA Navy, 5 SAI,
Natal Carbineers, Light Horse Regiment and Irish Guards) will be invited to exercise their Right to Freedom of Entry.

Society tour to the Battlefields of the Somme and Italy - 8th to 20th July 2011. Itinerary available from Ken Gillings