Forgotten no more: The Black South Africans who died in WWI Africa

Some of the iroko posts engraved with the names of previously unrecognised Black non-combatant servicemen who died in Africa during World War I [Courtesy of Commonwealth War Graves Commission]

Cape Town, South Africa – On January 23, 1915, two boatmen named Dolly Jenniker and Zulu Madhliwa drowned in the Orange River in South Africa. They were ferrying supplies to Union of South Africa forces which had invaded German South West Africa (GSWA, now Namibia) as part of the Allied campaign against Germany in World War I. When the Allies declared war on Germany, both sides’ colonies had been automatically included: South Africa was part of the British Commonwealth and Germany had colonies in GSWA and German East Africa (now Tanzania).

The river was flooded, and the heavily laden vessel was no match for the rapids now popular among white water rafters who take them on for fun. Jenniker’s wife, Molly, who was waiting for him at their home in Port Elizabeth, never got to see him again. And, back in Amanzimtoti, near Durban, Madhliwa’s father, Ngobongwana, only learned of his son’s death when he received his son’s £3 of unpaid wages in the mail.