WW1 Did any Zulu's fight on the British side

Posts : 1862 Join date : 2009-03-25

Watched a program on Pathe news last night, some footage showed footage of African Soldiers, Indian Soldiers fighting with the British, would there have been Zulu's among them.

Posts : 947 Join date : 2011-10-21 Location : Algoa Bay

Hi 24th,
Indeed they did.
Not normally at the sharp end, but certainly in the support role.
Now, lying in English waters off the Isle of Wight is the sunken SS "Mende", a converted troopship of the the Elder Dempster Line. It was carrying at the time of the torpedoeing in 1917 by a German submarine, inter alia, 646 Zulu's from Natal. They were bound for the European front in WW1. They all lost their lives in the sinking..
In rememberance of these brave Zulu men , the South African Navy recently named one of its latest Miko type 200 missile frigates , " SAS Mende".
The Zulu's on the troopship SS Mende were mostly mulateers.

regards

barry

Hi Barry.
Thanks for sharing that , I certainly have never heard of it , see the old saying '' you learn something new every day '' still applies .
Cheers 90th.

Posts : 947 Join date : 2011-10-21 Location : Algoa Bay

Hi 90/24th,
I could go on, but will mention, for interest sake that Zulu's also fought in the Western Desert with the SA Forces in WW2 against Rommel, alias "The Desert Fox" and his very efficient panzer columns.
One Zulu in particular, whom I know about, spent his time while sojourning in the Sahara collecting lost German K98 Mauser rifles, with their ammo. Whenever the Safer's were being Stukered by the Luftwaffe, he would use the Mausers with a great amount of gusto and precision against the air attack , and is even on record as taking a Luftwaffe Stuker pilot out with a lucky head shot. This fellow, named Ndlovu, was serving with my uncle in the SA Anti Tank Corp and was a batman/cook in his fast moving anti- tank team.
As a consequence of the events in the western desert in WW2 some Zulus even ended up "in the bag" when Tobruk later fell to the Germans.

regards

barry

Posts : 1603 Join date : 2009-09-21

The road to Passchendaele - World War One 1917 (from the book "Neath a Foreign Sky" by Paul Allen)
In Remembrance of:
- Lance Corporal Arthur Graham Burnett
- Sergeant Alfred William Burnett
- Private George William Burnett
- Private Joseph Harrison Marsay
- Sergeant Lawrence Mooring
- Second Lieutenant Godfrey Ward Drake
- Private Harold Harland

Throughout June and July 1917 the B.E.F. in Flanders had prepared for the forthcoming massive offensive. Roads had been repaired, and new ones had been built, hundreds of trains had arrived at the various British railheads daily with vast supplies of ammunition and stores. Nearly three thousand artillery pieces had been assembled to take part in a preliminary bombardment which would throw over four million shells into the enemy’s positions. A hundred and thirty six Mark 4 tanks had been transported to the Ypres Sector; in addition the Royal Flying Corps had taken some five hundred aircraft. To free soldiers for the fighting front, thousands of Chinese coolies, as well as Zulu’s and other Black African labourers had been drafted in by the British to undertake the thousand and one behind the lines unloading and carrying tasks, road mending, and other non-combatant duties which had been generated by the massive build-up.

Certainly a new one on me, and thanks Barry - I think you have answered the original question in some detail! Salute

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