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A new memorial is being constructed to commemorate the forgotten sacrifice of 1,700 black South African servicemen who died during the First World War.
The monument, funded by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC), will be known as the Cape Town Labour Corps Memorial. It is due to be completed later this year.
The men commemorated served in non-combat roles with the Cape Coloured Labour Regiment and the Cape Auxiliary Horse Transport, as well as the Military Labour Bureau and the Military Labour Corps of South Africa. Most perished with no known grave.
Construction began in March this year, with a ceremony marked by Cape Town Mayor Geordin Hill-Lewis in the city’s Company’s Garden, following a consultation on its location with local authorities, heritage groups, and military veterans in South Africa.
Each of the 1,700 lives commemorated will be represented by an African hardwood post, with the name, service number, and date of death recorded. The design, by Dean Jay Architects of Durban, was selected from 58 entries in a CWGC competition.
Speaking at the ceremony, Mayor Hill-Lewis said: ‘Once completed, this memorial will be a wonderful tribute to black South African servicemen who perished in the First World War, and whose stories were often overlooked in the telling of that history.’
The memorial is the first to be created by the CWGC to address previous inequalities in First World War commemorations. As the organisation’s representative Charles Garrett said: ‘The new memorial honours by name a group of individuals who, for far too long, have been overlooked in history, and in doing so seeks to tell the most complete story of global conflict.’
Funded by six Commonwealth member governments, including South Africa and the United Kingdom, the CWGC is responsible for maintaining the cemeteries, memorials, graves, and records of the 1.7 million men and women from the Commonwealth who lost their lives in the two World Wars.
