SS Mendi - Memorials

Memorials

This event is commemorated by a number of memorials in South Africa, Britain, France and Holland, as well as in the names of two South African Navy ships:

• SAS Isaac Dyobha, a Warrior class strike craft.
• SAS Mendi, a Valour class frigate.

Memorials, ceremonies and other ways, such as artworks, in which the loss of men of the SS Mendi has been commemorated include:

• Hollybrook Memorial in Southampton, bearing the names of the men of the SS Mendi who had no known graves.

• Thirteen men rest in cemeteries in England, one in France and five are commemorated by memorials in Holland.

• Mendi Memorial in Avalon Cemetery in Soweto. Unveiled by Queen Elizabeth II on 23 March 1995. http://www.allatsea.co.za/cems3/mendiavalon.htm

• Mendi Memorial in New Brighton, Port Elizabeth, South Africa.

• Mendi memorial at the Gamothaga Resort in Atteridgeville, South Africa.

• Mendi Memorial on an embankment at the Mowbray campus of the University of Cape Town, at the site where men of the South African Native Labour Contingent were billeted before embarking on the ill-fated SS Mendi. This is a sculpture, by Cape Town artist Madi Phala, and represents a mock ship's prow cast in heavy metal, sinking into the ground. In front of it are helmets, hats and discs, symbolising the men, officers and crew of the SS Mendi. A plaque simply reads "SS Mendi, S. African troopship, sank next to the Isle of Wight 1917 02 21". The artist Madi Phala was murdered outside his house in March 2007.

• Delville Wood Commemorative Museum bronze fresco and panel bearing names of men lost in the SS Mendi disaster.

• The bridge telegraph from the SS Mendi is to be seen at the Maritime Museum, Bembridge, on the Isle of Wight.

• The Order of Mendi for Bravery, bestowed by the President of South Africa on citizens who have performed extraordinary acts of bravery.

• A wreath laying ceremony was held on 23 August 2004 when the SAS Mendi and HMS Nottingham, a Type 42 destroyer, met at the site where the SS Mendi sank.

• In 2006, The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and History Channel released a 20-minute film, Let Us Die Like Brothers, about the SS Mendi disaster and the involvement of Black South Africans in World War I in Europe.

• On 21 July 2007, a ceremony took place at the Hollybrook Memorial, Southampton, followed by a wreath-laying ceremony at the site of the tragedy by the SAS Mendi.

• In March 2009, recognition by the UK Ministry of Defence that the site of the sunken SS Mendi be an official war grave – thanks to a campaign by retired Major Ned Middleton.

• A painted triptych, The loss of the Mendi, by Hilary Graham, at the Nelson Mandela Metropolitan Museum of Art, Port Elizabeth.

• An animated short film Off the record by Wendy Morris, 2008 Artist in Residence, In Flanders Fields Museum.

• A radio documentary The Lament of the SS Mendi was broadcast on BBC Radio Four on 19 November 2008. Scottish poet Jackie Kay looked into the history of the sinking and recited her own memorial poem.

• Several websites including that of Disasters at sea: the loss of the troopship Mendi; SS Mendi at Wessex Archaeology; the Commonwealth War Graves Commission document: 90 Years On: The Legacy of the SS Mendi; and Delville Wood: Sinking of the Mendi.