SOUTH AFRICAN MILITARY HISTORY SOCIETY EASTERN CAPE BRANCH
SUID-AFRIKAANSE KRYGSHISTORIESE VERENIGING OOS-KAAP TAK

Newsletter/Nuusbrief 139

March/Maart 2016

The Members’ slot was taken by Franco Cilliers on the subject of Die Engelsman se Graf. Walter Oliphant Arnot was born on 9th September 1860 in Essex in the United Kingdom and was educated at the Royal Naval School at New Cross. He emigrated to Australia in 1879, where he worked on various ranches as a stockman and was commended for this work. He moved to Adelaide in 1888, where he married and had four children with his wife Nellie. He later joined the 3rd South Australian contingent of the South Australian Bushmen Corps as a sergeant. This force was primarily concerned with intelligence gathering and scouting. Shortly after his arrival in South Africa during the Anglo-Boer War he was promoted to lieutenant.

While on an intelligence gathering mission from Laingsburg, in the direction of Beaufort West, Arnot committed suicide and was buried near Merweville. He had left the soldiers who were accompanying him during the mission and started to walk towards a hill with his rifle. This was regarded as being normal for in the past he had shot birds with his rifle. Before he reached the hill, he shot himself. The troops with him tried to intervene, but were too late. Written in theBible that was found on his body was the following:

I swear before God, whom I am going to meet, that I am innocent. I was never in any concern with a Boer or Boer Agent by all we ever had between us God held me and you my darling – goodbye, Walter.

He died at age 42 leaving behind a wife and four children. At the time, there seem to have been rumours circulating that he was supporting or assisting the Boer forces in his district as he had become friendly with the farmers in the area due to his frequent visits to their farms. These rumours may have led to his suicide.  The town of Merweville undertook to look after his grave and has done so ever since.

Photographs courtesy of Franco Cilliers.

SAMHSEC’s Annual General Meeting took place in lieu of the curtain raiser. The Chairman’s and Treasurer’s reports (see attachments to Newsletter 138) were adopted. There was some discussion on the format and content of monthly meetings, opinion being unanimously in favour of continuing as we are. The following committee was elected for 2015/16:

The main lecture, titled Under wraps: the story of a top secret British military undertaking in 1915 (Part 2), was presented by John Stevens.

In view of a complex presentation layout he decided to summarise it by order of presentation points:

* In August 23, 1914, the visionary French Colonel Jean Baptiste Eugène Estienne stated Gentlemen, the victory will belong, in this war, to the one of the two belligerents who will be the first to succeed in mounting a 75 mm gun on a vehicle capable of moving in all types of terrain.
* The armoured vehicle idea was not new – it had been developed through the ages as far back as Leonardo da Vinci.
* HG Wells’ book The Land Ironclads influenced thinking in the early 1900s.
* The armoured car already existed, but was not viable on the Western Front due to the muddy conditions and the trenches.
* Colonel Swinton’s Anglo-Boer War passion of finding a way to eliminate machine gun dominance in siege war lead him to seeing a specialised vehicle as a solution. A protégé of Colonel Maurice Hankey (Secretary to the Imperial War Committee), he lead the way by proposing the American Holts caterpillar as a solution in Army circles.
* Some bizarre ideas resulted, such as the Pedrail tracked truck.



A Pedrail tracked truck, loaded with half-a-ton-of bricks,
of the type examined and tested by Winston Churchill
on Horse Guards Parade.

* Colonel Hankey promoted the idea to members of the Committee via memos and persuasion. Winston Churchill (1st Lord of the Admiralty at the time) supported it in a letter to the Prime Minister, who established a commission to investigate Swinton’s ideas. Kitchener was reluctantly coerced to participate. Trials of the Holts tractor failed and the Army dropped its interest in the idea.
* Churchill, after a conversation with the OC of an RNAS (Royal Navy Air Service) armoured car squadron, decided to take the concept further via the Admiralty and established the Landships Committee. He kept this under wraps, withholding it from the Board of the Admiralty, War Department and the Treasury, by using some discretionary funds at his disposal.
* The Landships Committee was chaired by Eustace D’Eyncourt Director of Naval Construction and consisted of:

Flight Commander Hetherington RNAS
Colonel Wilfred Dumble RNAS, a City of London Transport expert
They were soon joined by:
Colonel Crompton, an electrical engineer and inventor
Lt Stern RNAS (Secretary)
Lt Walter Wilson RNAS, an automotive engineer
William Tritton, a mechanical engineer and managing director of Foster and Sons Engineering
Associates were:
Lt Robert Macfie RNAS, a pilot and engineer
Commodore Murray Sueter, Director of Naval Aviation
* Ideas and trials and tribulations: There were two trains of thought i.e. Hetherington’s Big Wheel concept and the tracked vehicle concept. The Big Wheel tests were not successful,but the tracked vehicle concept was developed further. After some personality clashes and disagreement, it was decided that Tritton should develop a serious prototype that eventually became Little Willy. Wilson refined this to produce the first real tank prototype, Mother, from which all production tanks were to evolve.

* As Little Willie was undergoing first trials it was decided to form a Joint Committee involving the War Office and the Army, and Colonel Swinton became a member. The Admiralty agreed to maintain responsibility until a viable prototype had been produced.
* Once Mother was accepted, a Tank Supply Committee was formed under the auspices of the Ministry of Munitions which speedily masterminded getting the tank into production.
* Tank crews were urgently required and needed to be trained. Rather than start from scratch the then dormant Motor Machine Gun Section of the Machine Gun Corps provided the first trainees commanded by Colonel Swinton.

The next SAMHSEC meeting will be on Monday 11th April 2016 at 19h30 at the Eastern Cape Veteran Car Club in Conynham Road, Port Elizabeth. The members’ slot will be taken by Franco Cilliers with a brief talk on The Infantry School Memorial at Oudtshoorn. The curtain raiser by Mac Alexander will be on Airborne Operations in the First World War, while the main lecture, titled Sir Roger Casement and his South African connections, will be presented by Alec Grant. As usual there will be a video shown at 18h30 for those able to attend.

Matters of general interest / Sake van algemene belang

New member /Nuwe lid

We welcome Anton de Wit of Port Elizabethas a member of the South African Military History Society and SAMHSEC. We hope you will enjoy a happy association with the East Cape Branch and look forward to having you join us at meetings and field trips when you have the opportunity to do so.

Members’ forum/Lede se forum

Within the context of animals in war, Tiaan Jacobs reminded us of the story of Able Seacat Simon who served on HMS Amethyst at the time of the ‘Yangtse Incident’ in 1949, and was awarded the Dicken Medal for bravery. The full story can be seen at
http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/415080/Officers-tribute-to-hero-cat.html
See also the report on Donna Cilliers’ lecture in SAMHSEC Newsletter 91, March 2012.

May 2016 meeting in Grahamstown

The May meeting will take place in Grahamstown on Saturday 7th. Unless there are unforeseen circumstances, the arrangements are as follows: we will meet at Fort Selwyn at 09h30. The morning will be taken up by a field trip to the Clay Pits, a site of some significance during the Frontier Wars, and, if time permits, to the barracks and signal tower at Fraser’s Camp. As in the past, a bring-your-own picnic lunch will be in the precincts of the Department of Education at Rhodes University. There are a number of places to eat nearby in town for those who prefer to do so. At 14h00 we will convene at the Department of Education for the following lecture programme: Curtain Raiser; Lt.Col. Dudley Fletcher, former OC of Witwatersrand Rifles, will talk about his father’s participation in the First World War. The Main Lecture will be by Margaret Snodgrass of the Lower Albany Historical Society on the Eighth Frontier War and the attacks upon the villages of Juanasberg, Auckland and Woburn. A relative, Sgt. Snodgrass was one of those who managed to escape.

Military History Conference in July

A national Military History conference, facilitated by the Military History Society, will be held at Talana Museum Battlefield and Heritage Park, Dundee (Northern KwaZulu-Natal) between the 18th and 20th July 2016. July 2016 sees the centenary of the Battle of Delville Wood – a name synonymous with South African military valour.

The theme for the conference is South Africa Remembers. Papers relating to events of the First World War – but also connections to other wars, such as the Anglo-Boer War and the Second World War – will be considered. Anyone who is interested in presenting a paper is invited to contact the organisers. For more information contact:

Ken Gillings, Tel: +27 (0)31 702 4828, Cell phone/Mobile: +27 (0)83 654 5880, e-mail: ken.gillings@mweb.co.za, Skype: kenheath1 or
Pam McFadden Tel =27 (034) 212 2654 Cell/Mobile +27 (0)79 490 5933 e-mail: info@talana.co.za
Links: www.talana.co.zawww.samilitaryhistory.org

Armed Forces Display

For those who were unable to view the recent Armed Forces displays in Port Elizabeth, the following item will be of interest: http://www.pilotspost.com/arn0000922

World War I Centenary Years / Eerste Wêreldoorlog Eeufeesjare

Part 3 of 5 of John Stevens’ ‘Road to the Somme’

One reaction of the press in Germany to Kitchener’s initial campaign read:

It is with undisguised merriment that everyone in Germany reads of this new English vote of Parliament, and we have the right to be amused!  Half a million soldiers!!  Do they realize in London the absurdity of this grant?  Is it possible there is no-one there who knows the cost of this enormous preparation that is needed to equip and train a force of 500,000 men?  Do the English imagine that all that is required is to borrow boots in Paris, gunpowder in France, clothes in Russia and Officers in Serbia?  Has England then fallen so low that she can jest in this serious hour?  For with the best will in the world we can consider anything else incredible.  Half a million soldiers require half a million rifles, 50 times that many cartridges and half a million coats, trousers and knapsacks.  Where in England to get all these?  And the new paper army requires at least 500 new barracks, rifle ranges, drill grounds etc. and, were it possible to conjure up all these things overnight, where could the recruits’ instructors be found?  Where are the necessary 20,000 officers and 60,000 non-commissioned officers?  We could ask a legion of questions on this new English statute did we not know it is not worth the paper on which it is written.Translation of an article by Herr Erzaberger, published in Germania in August 1914 on the British war effort.

Major engagements in April 1916

April 1916 was a ‘relatively quiet’ month on the Western Front. Apart from German diversionary attacks around the Ypres Salient, such as the action of St Eloi Craters from 27^th March – 16^th April, the major action was the third German offensive at Verdun which began on 9th April. It was inconclusive.

The Siege of Kut. On the Mesopotamian front, 5^thApril marked the final attempt of the British-Indian army, under General Gorringe, to relieve the Turkish siege of General Townshend's beleaguered 10 000 troops garrisoned at Kut. Its ultimate failure, after some initial minor successes, sealed the fate of this force which, at last out of supplies, surrendered unconditionally to the Turkish commander, Khalil Pasha, on 29^th April 1916. Townshend attempted to purchase parole for his 10 000 men with a £1 million offer, but this was refused by the Turks. Total Allied casualties during the relief operations amounted to 23 000. Turkish figures are unknown. While Townshend himself was well treated in captivity, the rank and file of the captured Allied POWs were appallingly badly treated, many subsequently died in captivity.

Apart from continued U-boat activity in the Atlantic, and a number of successes of both Austro-Hungarian and German U-boats in the Mediterranean, there were no individual naval actions of any significance during the month of April 1916, although the Allies continued to suffer substantial losses of merchant ships.

The U-Boat, U-73 was arguably the most successful submarine of the war. Some details of her career and a list of the ships sunk by her, including the sister ship of the Titanic, can be found at:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SM_U-73

Websites of interest/Webwerwe van belang

Obituary:

Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown: Record-breaking Royal Navy test pilot whose skill and courage changed the course of aviation
The Telegraph 19^th March 2016
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/12167611/Captain-Eric-Winkle-Brown-obituary.html

Early History

Boudica’s uprising: A challenge to the might of ancient Rome
Anon War History Online 15^th March 2016
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/ancient-history/boudicas-uprising-a-fearsome-challenge-to-the-might-of-ancient-rome. html

World War I

Discovered in a WWI bunker in 2012: 21 preserved German soldiers’ bodies
Anon War History Online 7^th July 2015
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/german-soldiers-preserved-bodies-from-wwi-discovered-in-2012-after-almost-100-years.htm

How smoking saved this soldier's life: Cigarette case blocked shrapnel ball from hitting lieutenant in the chest after shell went off above him on the Western Front 
Stephanie Linning MailOnline 22^nd February 2016
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3457822/How-smoking-saved-soldier-s-life-Cigarette-case-blocked-shrapnel-ball-hitting-lieutenant-chest-shell-went-Western-Front.html

World War II

Pegasus Bridge: Operation Deadstick
Kennedy Hickman About.com Military History 12^th August 2015
http://militaryhistory.about.com/od/WWIIEurope/fl/World-War-II-Operation-Deadstick.htm?utm_content=20160222&utm_medium=email&utm_source=exp_nl&utm_campaign=list_militaryhistory&utm_term=list_militaryhistory

Old Boeing plant has some secrets from World War Two
Anon War History Online 2^nd March 2016
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/old-boeing-plant-secrets-world-wartwo.html?utm_source=getresponse&ut m_medium=email&utm_campaign=warhistoryonline&utm_content=[War+History+Online]+Your+Daily+Dose

Vietnam War

1965-1975 Another Vietnam: Unseen images of the war from the winning side
Alex Q. ArbuckleRetronaut
http://mashable.com/2016/02/05/another-vietnam-photography/?utm_cid=mash-com-fb-main-link#trGsqVrxikqo

Historic aircraft

B-25 Mitchell bombers on a combat mission in WWII
Anon War History OnLine 7^th December 2015
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/b25-bombers-with-75mm-cannon-on-a-combat-mission-wwii.html

The last B-24 Liberator [A 4-minute video]
Anon YouTube Undated
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fMhb53pv0wk

B-24 Liberator Willow Run assembly plant
A fascinating 7 minute video produced by the Ford Motor Company
https://www.youtube.com/embed/iKlt6rNciTo?rel=0

Images of Allied bombers being attacked
Anon War History Online 3^rd March 2016
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/featured/22-gut-wrenching-images-of-bombers-that-didnt-make-it-home.html?utm_source=getresponse&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=warhistoryonline&utm_content=[War+History+Online]+Your+Daily+Dose Matters maritime

Why Naval Academy students are learning to sail by the stars for the first time in a decade
Andrea Peterson The Washington Post 17^th February 2016
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-switch/wp/2016/02/17/why-naval-academy-students-are-learning-to-sail-by-the-stars-for-the-first-time-in-a-decade/

Moving giant submarines
Anon War History Online 6th March 2016
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/military-vehicle-news/how-you-move-giant-submarines.html?utm_source=getrespons e&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=warhistoryonline&utm_content=[War+History+Online]+Your+Daily+Dose

Lego Aircraft Carrier
Anon War History Online 7^th March 2016
https://www.warhistoryonline.com/war-articles/aircaft-carrier-built-with-lego.html?utm_source=getresponse&utm_mediu m=email&utm_campaign=warhistoryonline&utm_content

Resource materials of military historical interest/
Bronmaterieel van krygsgeskiedkundigebelang

SOUTH AFRICAN BATTLES

Ken Gillings’ Blog, Bush and Battlefield Tours, is highly recommended for photographs and commentary on South African battles, battlefields and military historical events. It can be accessed either by entering the above title or using the URL: https://www.facebook.com/KenGillingsBushBattlefieldTours?pnref=story

MAPPING BATTLES AROUND THE WORLD

A Dutch company is attempting to record and map all the battles in history using Wikipedia. This is a tall order with many questions to answer before they even get near it: what, for example, constitutes a ‘battle’;Wikipedia by its very nature is not a reliable source; many military encounters from all over the world have not yet been recorded and many are inaccurate.

Source: BBC News Magazine 2^nd March 2016:
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-35685889

Members are invited to send in to the scribes, short reviews of, or comments on, books, DVDs or any other interesting resources they have come across, as well as news on individual member’s activities. In this Newsletter, there have been contributions by Richard Tomlinson, Malcolm Kinghorn, Barry Irwin, Michael Irwin, Peter Duffel-Canham and Johan van den Berg.

Chairman: Malcolm Kinghorn: culturev@lantic.net
Secretary: Franco Cilliers: Cilliers.franco@gmail.com
Scribes (Newsletter): Anne and Pat Irwin: p.irwin@ru.ac.za

TAILPIECE:

Der Feind Hört Mit! [The Enemy Listens Too!]

http://www.iwm.org.uk/collections/item/object/37345

A German First World War poster showing a British soldier eagerly listening in to (presumably) a German telephone call.  Undated.  Below the title, it reads "Vorsicht am Fernsprecher!" ("Be Careful on the Telephone!”)