Mendi (ship)
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The Mendi was a 1905 passenger ship of the British shipping company Elder Dempster & Company , which was used in passenger and freight traffic between Great Britain and West Africa .
During the First World War she served as a troop transport until she sank eleven nautical miles south of St. Catherine's Point , the southern tip of the Isle of Wight , on February 21, 1917 , in thick fog after the collision with the cargo steamer Darro . 636 almost exclusively African crew members and soldiers were killed. Although a British ship and happened in British waters, this calamity is largely unknown in Britain . However, it made a big impression in South Africa , as almost all of the men on board came from there.
The ship
The 4,230-ton steamship Mendi was at the shipyard Alexander Stephen and Sons in Linthouse ( Glasgow built) and ran on 18 June 1905 by the stack . In the same year the Mendi began her service to West Africa . The ship was 112.8 meters long and 14.1 meters wide and had a chimney , two masts and a propeller . The maximum speed was 11.5 knots. The steamer was registered in Liverpool .
As the First World War progressed, volunteers, mostly simple workers, from distant parts of the British Empire , including Africa, India, and the Caribbean, turned up. This formed the Foreign Labor Corps, led by British officers. In the autumn of 1916, the Mendi was requested by the British government for military service and converted into a troop transport. Three of the holds were converted into troop accommodation.
On January 25, 1917, the Mendi cast off under the command of Captain Henry Arthur Yardley in Simon's Town ( South Africa ) with destination Le Havre . On board were 88 crew members and 806 men of the 5th Battalion South African Native Labor Corps as passengers . During the crossing, the ship made three stopovers, first in Lagos (Nigeria) and in Sierra Leone and most recently in Plymouth on February 19. During the last part of the voyage, the Mendi was escorted by the British destroyer HMS Brisk . On February 20, 1917, she ran from Plymouth to Le Havre.
The sea was calm during the day, but fog set in thick after midnight and the speed had to be reduced. This was not without risk because of the existing submarine danger . At 4:57 in the morning, when the Mendi was eleven nautical miles south of St. Catherine's Point, the southern tip of the Isle of Wight , the cargo steamer Darro suddenly emerged from the fog , with a tonnage of 11,484 GRT more than twice the size who was Mendi . The Darro was under the command of Captain Henry Winchester Stump on the way to Argentina . Despite the fog showed neither of the two ships navigation lights . The collision occurred, with the bow of the Darro penetrating deep into the starboard side of the Mendi and killing many of the workers below deck in their sleep.
Because of the rapidly increasing list to starboard none were on this side lifeboats are launched. Only on port side did a few boats clear the ship. The Mendi sank 25 minutes after the collision . 29 crew members and 607 South Africans drowned or died as a result of hypothermia . The darro offered no help for fear of submarines and steamed away; the survivors were instead picked up by the Brisk . They were the last men of the South African Native Labor Corps to be shipped from South Africa to Europe.
The wreck of the Mendi was found in 1945, but only in 1974 than that of the Mendi identified. The bow and stern are well preserved, but the middle part has partially collapsed. It is located on position 50 ° 28 ' N , 1 ° 33' W .
memory
Several monuments were erected in England and South Africa. The 2003 South African Order of Mendi for Bravery , which is awarded for bravery in the military and civilian areas, is named after the accident. In 2012, President Jacob Zuma declared February 21 a memorial day for the role of the military in South Africa.
Web links
- Vessel in the Clydebuilt Ships Database (English)
- Information about the wreck on wrecksite.eu (English)
- Description of the accident (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b SS Mendi: A 100-year voyage to peace. ( Memento from February 22, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) sanews.gov.za (English)