It’s been a quiet month, relatively speaking…
In case you haven’t seen the CWGC report into the Inequalities of Commemoration, this was released on 23 April. If you’ve only read the press reports on the issue, it is worth reading the report and especially the CWGC response regarding future action. The report shows the diversity of Africa and decisions made at the time and is grounded on documentary evidence.
Natal military sites of interest – some cover World War 1
Where are the guns?
This question seems to be doing the rounds again. Here is some a posting on a Konigsberg gun (there’s more in April 2019), The May Jackson, a screw-gun in Northern Rhodesia (The Northern Rhodesia Journal has an article and Tim Wright has also written about it – you can sign up for a free account if you don’t have one. There are numerous articles available on the First World War in Africa.) the May Jackson’s current location in Zambia needs confirming. If you have an idea please let us know.
The team in Tsavo are doing more trips. Dates are: The dates are as follows (all Fri, Sat and Sun):
• June (25th, 26th and 27th).
• July (23rd, 24th & 25th)
• Aug (27th, 28th & 29th) -provisional.
For further details, contact
The list of names of people involved in WW1 in Africa has been tidied up and renamed to better reflect its contents. It now contains over 38,500 names from all theatres with more being added. Belgian and German details still need to be finalised while Portuguese names are starting to feature. A couple of legacy sheets remain under In Memory – these names are slowly being added to the main database which covers the whole of Africa.
If you have names which are not on the list and are happy to share the info, please email me.
Similarly regarding the Bibliography of books, articles, chapters etc. These lists are in the process of being checked and tidied still.