War Stories from South Africa

There's a great archived website with one man's adventures in the 7 South African Infantry Battalion.

My family has quite a long history of warfare, my mother’s father was a Major in the Springbok’s during WW2. He was an Engineer. My other Grandfather and his before him were in the Royal Highlanders. My father fought in Kenya and again in Rhodesia. He never spoke about it so I have no idea which units etc. I was 19 when I went. I will never forget the feeling of loneliness and abandonment I felt that day. The time had come even though I knew it, I still was not very happy to be leaving my comfy Zone. While we were waiting on the grass, at least 3 Police vans arrived, dropping off some of my soon to be comrades in arms, one of them Desmond or "Irishman" as he became known, was dropped off at the police station by some of his buddies after a going away celebration, he could not even remember his name. I don’t know what the others did, but judging from later actions, it could have been anything. After that our kit was searched for drugs, weapons (not very well I might add ) etc. and we got aboard the trains. We spent most of the +- 12 hrs on the trains, trying to make friends, etc. My hair was very long at that time 43 cm to be exact, despite warnings, I did not cut it before I went. One of the guy’s, Dick, from Natal, had longer hair than myself, but cut it on the train up, leaving me with the longest hair there.

By: Brant