Why we wear the Purple Poppy!
“Have you ever gotten exactly what you wanted? It’s hard to imagine that any PlayStation 5 on Christmas morning could beat a pack of cigarettes showing up when you’re stuck in the trenches, but add to it that it’s delivered by an adorable dog. That’s what the soldiers of the 11th Engineers were treated to […]
Pipe Major Alexander (Sandy) Grieve D.C.M and the Lament of Deville Wood
Alexander “Sandy” Grieve was a South African soldier of the great war. He was born in Scotland at Largo in Fife, in 1869.As a young man he joined the British army as a professional soldier and served in the Royal Highlanders, the Scottish Regiment, better know as the Black Watch. It was as a British […]
Operation Savannah – a Rifleman’s View: January to April 1976
by Ray Matthews As part of the continuous military training in the South African Defence Force (SADF) which was required of white, male South African citizens in terms of the Defence Act of 1957 I had, prior to 1975, been on two three-week camps. A member of the 1st Battalion, the Transvaal Scottish Regiment, my […]
Buller Cockcroft MBE – A Biography
Buller Redvers Mark “Snakebite” Cockcroft MBE ~ A Biography by Stewart Cant (Grandson-In-Law)Assisted by Noel Thain (Daughter) 1. Introduction Regimental Sergeant Major Cockcroft “filled me and many others there [prisoner of war camp at Laterina in Italy] with undying admiration as the finest soldier we have ever known.” (Mr. S.G. Wolhuter in the Cape Times, […]
Nancy, the Springbok mascot
Pictured above, Nancy, the Springbok mascot of the fourth South African regiment, pictured in Delville Wood in February 1918, almost two years after the battle. A mascot of a South African regiment is the only animal in military history to be accorded full funeral honours and to be buried in an Allied war cemetery.She was […]
‘Just Nuisance’ – 1939
Just Nuisance was a dog, but not just any dog — an oversized Great Dane who amassed a fortune in fame on two continents and went on to become a legend, inspiring tongue-in-cheek headlines such as “The Royal Navy has gone to the Dogs”. This is his story. And, the story of the sailors who […]
