MyPE

Community Business Directory, Event Listings, News and Views from Gqeberha, Nelson Mandela Bay

Horse Memorial Defacing – ‘What a bunch of 1/6th’s!’

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At the risk of being labelled arrogant or pasted with any of the many ‘ist labels allow me to express my knee jerk reaction to reports that 8 one sixths have gone and defaced Port Elizabeth’s Horse Memorial:

WTF?

Horse Memorial
Image from the Twitter account of “I am an African” – https://twitter.com/Clint_ZA

Why didn’t the purported EFF vandals rather go and vandalise the statue of Queen Victoria? Is it because then Afrikaners would have sympathised!

BUT, I do have a suggestion for the next random act of vandalism for the EFF’s 1/6th’s – pop down to Mendi Road and vandalise the memorial to all those brave soldiers who went down with the Mendi!

On 21 February 1917, during the First World War, Mendi was transporting 823 personnel of the 5th Battalion the South African Native Labour Corps to France. She had sailed from Cape Town to Lagos in Nigeria, where a gun was fitted to her stern, then on to Plymouth, before proceeding towards Le Havre in northern France. At 5:00 am, while being escorted by the destroyer HMS Brisk, Mendi was struck amidships and cut almost in half by the SS Darro (11,000 BRT), an empty meat ship bound for Argentina.

616 South Africans (607 of them black troops) plus thirty crew members, mostly British, died in the disaster.

https://twitter.com/thelouisart/status/585108986048962560

https://twitter.com/AuthorJans/status/585109257990905856

https://twitter.com/EricJWest/status/585105513664372736

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Alan Straton

Chief Cook, Bottle Washer and Broom Mechanic at MyPE
Passionate about Port Elizabeth and definitely NOT packing for Perth. Alan's ethos is epitomised in the words of Nelson Mandela; "I have fought against white domination and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the idea of a democratic and free society. If need be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." See more articles by Alan.