Matthias Schneider asks if anyone knows whether there was a black officer or NCO in the German Schutztruppe who was awarded the Iron Cross for his participation during the Great War in East Africa? As far as he knows the answer is no, but he is not certain.
If anyone knows of a German researcher with an interest in the novels/literature of the First World War in Africa, please could you let me or Sérgio Neto know asap.
For anyone interested in men from Africa who served as pilots in the First World War, the medals belonging to Thomas Sinclair Harrison were recently auctioned. You can read about him at https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/the-superb-great-war-22-victory-fighter-ace-d-f-c-200-c-7d34d728ac.
Wendy Urban-Mead has compiled a teaching resource on the First World War in Africa linking with the USA African diaspora – it can be found at https://www.history21.com/owit-module/africans-and-the-african-diaspora-in-the-first-world-war-new/
Thanks to Gerry van Tonder, there is now a fairly complete list of Rhodesian Native Regiment names on the List of Names of Survived and Died. One of the records gave insight to ethnic groupings (see Identity column) and where they enlisted. Unfortunately this information was not available for all men. This information has been integrated into the main list.
The beady eyed among you might notice a new list of SANLC men on the same speadsheet. Treat the spellings of most with caution until further notice as the handwritten lists these are taken from are not the best. Once the information on this list has been verified against other sources still to be included, the information will also be incorporated into the main list. This will take some time – there are 190 odd pages of names.
And a reminder that the next conference will be in London on 2 November 2024. If you would like to present a paper, please get in touch sooner rather than later. More information will be posted in September.
Articles for There Came a Time 3, should be emailed to me by the end of the year. Get in touch if you require submission guidelines etc.
Sadly Ian Uys died on 28 June 2024. He wrote numerous books on South African involvement at Delville Wood and awards to South Africans.
Finally, another two editions of the RWAFF Journal have been added to the site. They can be found at https://gweaa.com/royal-west-african-frontier-force-journals-contents/