Route 27 West Coast South Africa - West Coast History

Darling Airfield in World War II: 

• What could the town of Darling and a grim struggle for survival several hundred kilometres off the South African coast have in common? The former is famous for its floral excellence and idyllic country lifestyle, while the latter conjures up images of icy water and burning hulks on oil-laden seas. The link is almost inconceivable, yet for three vital years it existed as a very real relationship in the lives of thousands of men, the vast majority of whom would never even know.

• By 1942 German U-Boat activity off the South African coast was at its peak. While sixteen ships had been sunk or damaged in our waters in the preceding three years, between January and June 1942 nineteen vessels carrying war materials were engaged by the enemy and suffered the same fate. In an effort to provide greater security to the convoys plying the sea route, the South African Air Force hastily constructed, or supplemented existing facilities at, six additional airfields around the coast.

• Thus did Darling go to war.

• The first SAAF flying unit to be based at Darling was 23 Squadron, arriving on the airfield at the beginning of 1943. From here the Ventura aircraft patrolled the western sea approaches to Cape Town at the height of the submarine menace. Such was the importance of their task, that the unit was strengthened by the arrival of a Ventura detachment from 27 Squadron between February and April 1943.

• Photograph right: Lockheed B-34 Ventura 6005 of 29 Operational Training Unit at Darling. The "X" serves as an individual aircraft identification letter. Photo courtesy Dave Becker Collection

• Besides flying anti-submarine patrols, the aircraft operated in a convoy escort role offering air support to the many ships rounding the coast, as well as providing an air-sea rescue capability. Surely the most curious visitors to Darling at this time were the PBY-5 Catalinas of 321 Royal Netherlands Naval Squadron from their base in the Eastern Cape. Flown by Dutch crews, these two-engined seaplanes with a boat-like hull utilised an amphibious capability to land at Darling before heading out to sea and back east on patrol.

• In November 1943 the Venturas of 29 Operational Training Unit (OTU) were relocated from Nigel to Darling. With torpedo training forming a large part of their brief, where the OTU was supposed to drop torpedoes in the Transvaal, while stocks of the weapons and the support structure was held at Wingfield in the Cape, has not been recorded!

• Daytime training combined with night flying from nearby Langebaanweg to ensure readiness in all conditions, while air-to-air firing was carried out over the Blaauwberg Range. On 31 January 1944 construction began on an iron hanger at Darling, the facility going a long way towards easing maintenance problems experienced in the hitherto basic conditions when completed two months later. In the interim, technical stores were transferred in from Eerste River as temporary buildings were hastily completed and lecture rooms were erected alongside administrative buildings.

• 23 Squadron aircraft from the airfield participated in the hunt for three U-boats in the South Atlantic alongside other Cape-based units in March 1944, flying continuous parallel track search patrols until the 11th when Catalinas from Langebaanweg intercepted and sank the submarine UIT-22 well south of Cape Point.

• By April 1944 the OTU had an interesting mix of Lockheed Ventura, Airspeed Oxford, Avro Anson and a singular de Havilland Hornet Moth aircraft on strength. By July, however, the unit was deemed surplus to requirements and disbanded with aircraft being passed on to a reactivated 29 Squadron under the command of Lt-Col CP Kotze. On 25 August 1944 these aircraft lifted off from Darling’s runway one final time and set course for a new home at Mtubatuba in Natal.

• Use of Darling’s airfield gradually tapered off after the war, as Langebaanweg became the epicentre of SAAF operations on the West Coast. As with so many of the sites around the country that played a vital role in those turbulent years, it would appear urban growth and fading memories will eventually consign the last remnants of this once proud camp to limited entries in a researched publication.

• On 12 April 1944 Ventura 6457 of 27 Sqn crashed into Dassenberg near Darling shortly after taking off from the nearby airfield on a training flight, killing the crew of six. On 12 April 1988 the wreckage was discovered by members of the SAAF Museum, being airlifted off the hill by Puma 145 of 22 Sqn short after. The wreckage is currently stored at the Museum. 

• Because the raison d’etre for the establishment of the Dutch settlement at the Cape was the servicing of the great East Indiamen that plied the long passage between Europe and the East, these vessels and their stories have tended to dominate the maritime history of South Africa. Generally forgotten are the many small, locally based coasting vessels that explored the South African coast, sourcing and transporting the supplies that made it possible for the fledgling Dutch settlement to fulfil its mandate and supply the trading fleets.

• During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries many of these Cape-based vessels were small VOC or ex-VOC craft - yachts, hoekers, sloops and galiots - and most plied the west coast between the Cape and Saldanha Bay.                                                                                                    The Dutch presence at Saldanha

• From the time of Van Riebeeck, Saldanha Bay had been seen as a fine anchorage and a safe haven for vessels in need, and had proved itself to be a pantry for the settlement, a rich source of fish, seal and penguin meat and oil, birds' eggs and salt, and a source of stock bartered from the indigenous Khoi Khoi population.

• The first VOC settlement of Saldanha occurred as early as December 1666 when a detachment of soldiers was despatched from the Castle with orders to establish an outpost in the bay, this after a French fleet had anchored in the Bay, under orders to investigate the feasibility of claiming the area for France. This occupation by the VOC lasted all of one month, the troops being recalled to the Cape on 13 January once the French fleet had sailed for the east.

• Three years later, on 22 April 1669, based on further reports of French designs on the bay, troops were again despatched to Saldanha with instructions to occupy the two best fresh water sources in the area. This time occupation lasted somewhat longer, but ended in October 1670 when the VOC troops were captured by a French fleet, the commander of which removed the VOC flag from the buitepost, replacing it with the French flag. The Dutch soldiers managed to escape back to the Cape, leaving the bay in French hands. The French departed on 8 October, but left their flag flying over the buitepost, and a plate engraved with the name of Louis XIV nailed to a pole nearby. The Dutch made no attempt to reoccupy the buitepost until four months later when it was decided to keep a permanent presence at Saldanha to deter foreign interests in the area.

• In March 1671, a new post holder, Pieter Siegfriedt and five soldiers sailed for the bay in the sloop Bruijdegom, but two years later the buitepost was again abandoned, this time as a result of an attack by local Khoi herders in which the post holder, a soldiers and two free burghers - known at the Cape as Saldanhavaarders - were killed. Two soldiers survived the attack by swimming to the fishing boats anchored nearby.

• During the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries these small coasters ran almost constantly between Table Bay and Saldanha, the largest portion of their cargo being fish - salted or dried - which was used at the Cape as rations for the slaves and prisoners. During this period too, many of the vessels used as coasters were of a type known as galiots. Generally about 60 feet in length and 16 or so feet across the beam, galiots usually carried a main and mizzen mast, a tiller arm that worked over the top of the rounded stern and because of their shallow draught they carried lee-boards, which served as their keel. Known for their speed and sailing ability, galiots could easily make the 80km trip to or from Saldanha to the Cape in a day’s sailing, although records indicate that most skippers chose to break the voyage by overnighting on Dassen Island.

• The galiot Nagel - or Naald - was one of these vessels and served on the Saldanha run between 1708 and 1709. Built and owned by the Amsterdam Chamber of the VOC, the Nagel sailed for the Cape from Texel on 28 December 1707, arriving there on 10 May 1708. For the next year entries in the 'Dagregister' at the Cape indicate that she was employed as a coaster, before being lost while on a fishing expedition to Saldanha.

• The loss of the Nagel

• On 27 May 1709, the Nagel was at anchor in front of the posthuis at the Saldanha buitepost. At about 2pm the skipper and four crewmen rowed to the shore to repair their fishing net in their tent on the beach. Still aboard were the 'stuurman' (or first officer) and the 'meester', who were quartered in the fo'c'sle.

• As night fell they lit a lamp in the main cabin in the stern of the vessel, and then returned to their quarters. A short time later the Nagel’s skipper and the post holder noticed that the vessel was ablaze, and hurriedly rowed out to the vessel. It soon became clear that the fire was out of control and could not be extinguished. The only way to put the fire out was by scuttling the ship, which they did by using axes to smash holes below the waterline in her hull. Despite these efforts, the vessel burned down to the waterline and the crew and captain lost everything. The blackened hulk floated ashore where it lay exposed at low tide.

• While the 'stuurman' and 'meester' were sent to the Castle with the news of the loss - and were promptly clapped in irons by Governor van Walsenburg - the remainder of the crew stayed at the posthuis waiting for orders. These soon came from the Cape. Everything usable was to be salvaged - the rudder, anchors, some guns and iron and lead ballast were collected - and kept at the posthuis until the brig Amy could be sent to fetch it.

• So ended the short career of the Nagel and with her passing her story sank into obscurity, just as the stories of many of the other tireless coasters of the South African coast have been forgotten. The story of the Nagel and the other coasters is very much part of the broad and dramatic sweep of South African maritime history, in which these sadly neglected vessels ultimately played a far greater and central role than the passing trading fleets they were employed to serve.

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• The Grave in the Dunes:

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• In November 1991 contractors digging foundation trenches for a new building at the public recreation site at Ganzekraal, about 60 km north of Cape Town, made a gruesome discovery - an unmarked grave containing two clothed human skeletons. So began a fascinating detective story, which brought to light the story of a forgotten West Coast wreck.

• The discovery of the grave was made as workers were clearing a section of dune and noticed boots and bones protruding from the sand. As required in situations when human remains are found, the contractor stopped work and immediately notified the police in Darling. After a visit to the site they in turn contacted the South African Museum's archaeologists for help in investigating the remains and determining their age, origin and whether their being there was the result of foul play.

• Although the skeletons had both been slightly damaged by the construction work, they were nevertheless still in remarkably good condition. So good was the preservation that it was immediately clear that they were wrapped together in a cloth burial shroud, that much of their clothing survived, as did some skin and hair. They were to some extent naturally mummified.

• After careful, limited excavation they were transferred to the South African Museum in Cape Town, where further excavation and a rigorous investigation of the remains could be carried out. The investigation was as non-intrusive as possible and the remains were not fully excavated, nor was their clothing disturbed. Instead, both skeletons were x-rayed, an exercise which yielded a good deal of information and clues as to their origin and identity.

• The investigation of the remains revealed that the skeletons were those of men, both of roughly the same stature and height - probably about 1.82m tall. One was estimated to have been between forty and forty-five years old when he died, and the other probably 5-10 years older. The older man had short curly hair and a full beard, and exhibited severe damage to the right side of his skull and upper right arm suggesting a possibly violent death. The younger individual also wore a beard and from the wear on his teeth may have been a pipe-smoker. He was better dressed than his grave partner, but also displayed pathologies suggestive of a violent death.

• It was, however, the clothing that had survived on the skeletons that provided the best evidence of the age and possible origin of these remains. Some of the buttons carried makers' names, which were traced. The style of boots worn by both men and the style and fabric of the clothing itself also gave a clue as to its age, indicating that these men had died some time during the last decade of the nineteenth century.

• Who were they and why did they share a grave in this remote spot on the west coast? The fact that the grave had been found on the seaward side of a dune, only about 50 metres from the shoreline raised the fairly obvious possibility that these men were shipwreck victims and the investigation turned to a search for a potential wreck.

• A number of possibilities presented themselves - the brig Cottager was lost in the area in 1845, and the iron schooner British Settler was lost in 1851. While both of these wrecks were accompanied by loss of life, they were too early for the evidence of the bodies themselves.

• It wasn’t long, however, before a local farmer read the initial newspaper reports of the discovery of the graves and contacted the archaeologists with information about the iron sailing ship British Peer, wrecked in December 1896 only a couple of kilometres north of where the bodies were found. This was definitely a likely candidate, and archival research revealed the following about the vessel.

• The British Peer

• The British Peer was a three-masted iron ship, built at the famous Harland and Wolff yards in Belfast, Ireland in 1865. Originally one of the fastest vessels in her class - she was what was termed a windjammer - alterations to increase her tonnage by lengthening her hull by 9 metres in 1877 completely spoiled her sailing powers and she was never as fast again. After these changes she measured 247.5 feet, and displaced 1478 tons.

• The vessel belonged to the London shipowner, James Nourse and was captained by a 30-year-old Welshman, Jesse Jones, on her last two voyages. Excluding her master she carried a crew of 22, which on her last fateful voyage was made up of 7 Britons, 7 Swedes, 3 Norwegians, 3 Germans and 2 Finns.

• The British Peer had previously visited Cape waters ten years earlier while on a voyage carrying indentured labourers from the East. In November 1894 she again stopped in at the Cape near the end of her penultimate voyage, under the command of Captain Jones. On that occasion she was described in the Cape Times as a “coolie ship” and was carrying a cargo of salt and 471 labourers.

• The Wreck

• On 3 October 1896 the British Peer sailed from London with a general cargo, which included liquor, cork, candles, gunpowder, pianos, baths and building materials for the Cape. By all accounts the voyage was uneventful and on 8 December the ship passed Dassen Island and had Table Mountain in sight. The sky was clear, the sea calm and the wind light. At about 8 pm all but those on watch went below and turned in for the night.

• At 11pm those below were woken by the shock of an impact and were immediately called onto the deck by the second Mate, Herbert Balfour, to find that the vessel had struck a reef. By this time Captain Jones was also on deck and ordered the crew to man the pumps and round the sails in an attempt to float her off.

• It was clear, though that the ship was doomed. As she sank rapidly by the bows the crew battled to launch the ship’s life boats. They got only one into the water, but only one man managed to get aboard before it was swept away by seas that had grown suddenly rough. The remainder of the crew gathered on the aft deck where they started burning blue lights and firing off rocket flares. The main and fore masts crashed over board, tearing up the decks. The deckhouse was washed away and cargo began spilling out of the holds, filling the sea with lethal, jostling spars and crates. Some of the crew sensibly chose to don life-jackets which were stored in the lazaretto and they were to be the ones to survive as one by one the waves picked men off the decks and swept them into the sea.

• Caught in the longshore current that runs down the west coast the sailors were dragged south. Most were dashed against the rocks that line the shore and didn’t survive. Four managed to fight their way ashore on the only stretch of beach for miles, from whence they made their way to Ganzekraal, the farm of Albert Melck. Two days later they were put aboard a train for Cape Town, where, they were put up in the Sailors Home in Dock Road.

• On 7 January 1897 a Court of Enquiry into the loss of the British Peer was held, presided over by the Resident Magistrate, Jan Cambier Faure, assisted by Captains George William Stanton of the Iolanthe, and Philip Moignard of the Garsdale. The reasons for the loss of the vessel were never ascertained as the only witnesses - the four survivors - were all below at the time she struck. However, based on the testimony of the survivors, two of whom indicated that they thought the vessel was too close to the shore, the court found that “the loss of the ship was occasioned by reckless navigation on the part of the master”.

• The Aftermath

• After the enquiry, the four survivors were discharged in Cape Town. The youngest, Joseph Olsen, made his way back to London and subsequently went on to captain his own vessel. Nothing is known of what happened to the others.

• Back near the wreck site, bodies were washing ashore and continued to do so until early in January. Most had been so badly mutilated by the rocks that they were no longer identifiable and all were in an advanced state of decay. As a result it seems that under the direction of the local Field-Cornet they were buried pretty much where they were found. Altogether a total of fourteen bodies were recovered, including that of the Captain, although only eight were positively identified. The identity of the two Ganzekraal skeletons is not certain. The age range of the younger of the two, however, taken together with the fact that he was dressed somewhat better than an ordinary sailor might be expected to suggest that these may be the remains of George James Whyte, the ship’s steward.

• Once the skeletons had been studied, they were re-interred during a simple ceremony on the nearby farm of Bokbaai. The wreck of the British Peer itself still lies in quiet obscurity in about nine metres of water off the rocky point known to local fishermen Kabeljoubank.

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  • The Wreck of the HMS Sybille - A Royal Navy loss during the South African War

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    At 10 o’clock on the evening of 17 January 1901, the sound of the recall signal being fired from the HMS Doris, flagship of the Naval Commander-in-Chief at Simon’s Town, Rear-Admiral Sir R.H. Harris, brought her crew hurrying back on board as she proceeded to put to sea. The hurried activity was in response to a report that the cruiser, HMS Sybille was aground on the rocks south of Lamberts Bay on the Cape west coast, and the Doris was rushing to her assistance.

  • The HMS Sybille was a twin screw, second-class cruiser of 3400 tons, built in 1890 by R. Stephenson of Newcastle-on-Tyne. Her 9496 horsepower triple expansion engines could produce a top speed of 20 knots. One of twenty-one Apollo class cruisers built, she was first commissioned at Devonport on 8 January 1895 for the Mediterranean Station under Captain Gerald W. Russell. There she served until returning to Devonport in 1898, where she was paid off on 18 March of that year. She remained out of commission until 3 October 1900 when she was commissioned at Portsmouth to relieve the HMS Barossa at the Cape of Good Hope Station, under the command Captain Hugh P. Williams.

  • After an uneventful voyage, the Sybille arrived in Simon’s Town from England on Saturday 12 January 1901, where she was coaled immediately and put to sea again on Monday 14 January, bound for Lamberts Bay. Upon arrival the captain, junior lieutenants and the naval brigade - about 50 men in all - went ashore. This was because Lamberts Bay was used as a military base, which necessitated the deployment of a detachment ashore. The Sybille was left under the command of the first lieutenant, Mr H.H. Holland, and navigating lieutenant, Mr H. Cayley.

  • Almost immediately, the weather, which was most unusual for January, showed signs of deteriorating. The north-wester which had prevailed on the voyage up the coast, freshened to a gale, and faced with the fact that the anchorage at Lamberts Bay offered very little protection to a vessel of the size of the Sybille, Lt. Holland as the officer in command of the vessel decided it would be prudent to put to sea. The anchor was accordingly raised and, at 10pm on the night of 15 January, the Sybille steamed out of the bay into increasingly rough seas, and heavy squalls. Sharing the anchorage that night were two other vessels, the Royal Navy Torpedo Boat No. 60 and the transport City of Cambridge (Transport No. 15), both of which opted to ride out the weather.

  • At about 2am the following morning, the weather having moderated somewhat, the Sybille put about and proceeded to steam back to Lamberts Bay. It was later found that unbeknownst to crew and the officer of the watch, Sub-Lieutenant A.G.A Street, the rough weather and the southerly set of the current had pushed the vessel some six miles south of what they believed their position to be. At 4.30 on the morning of 16 January the Sybille struck a reef near the farm at Steenboksfontein, about three miles, or five kilometres south of Lamberts Bay. The order was immediately given the reverse the engines in an attempt to get her off, but to no avail, and when it became clear that the vessel was stuck fast and filling rapidly, the watertight doors were shut, and preparations made to abandon ship.

  • Amid the heavy seas pounding the vessel, some of which were breaking above her funnels, her company made a number of attempts to get a line ashore, but without success. The outlook may have been grim indeed for the crew, who had taken refuge in the rigging and on the forebridge, had the wreck not been spotted by the HMS Tartar and the City of Cambridge, the latter having left Lamberts Bay en route to Cape Town at 4am after an uncomfortable night.

  • In the meantime, Captain Williams had learned of the loss of his ship, and within two and a half hours of the wreck had come out from Lamberts Bay in a tug. With the greatest difficulty a line was attached to the Sybille, and the two hundred and fifty odd members of the crew aboard were rescued without mishap, although the sea conditions meant that the operation took until 2pm that afternoon. The last man to leave the ship was Lt. Holland. The only casualty was a nineteen-year-old ordinary seaman, W.H. Jones, who sustained fatal internal injuries when he was swept across the deck by the heavy seas and crushed against one of the vessel’s 4.7-inch guns. He was later buried ashore, and his grave can be seen in a small cemetery in Lamberts Bay.

  • The rescued crew, most of whom had escaped with nothing more than the clothes they wore, were taken aboard the City of Cambridge, which had remained near the wreck to render assistance while the Tartar had gone on to Saldanha Bay to raise the alarm. From there the crew were taken to Lamberts Bay.

  • The Doris arrived at the site of the wreck late on the afternoon of 17 January, after leaving Simon's Town at 4.30am that morning. The seas were found to be too rough for her to get close to the Sybille, so she proceeded to Lamberts Bay from where the following day Rear-Admiral Harris disembarked and rode to the wreck on horseback. It was soon abundantly clear to Harris that the Sybille was beyond hope of salvage, and that she would be come a total wreck. He found her lying on an even keel, but broadside on to the seas and completely awash, the water in her hull rising and falling with the tides. In the two days since running aground she had been pushed two to three hundred metres closer to the shore by the force of the sea, and her bottom had been torn to pieces on the reef.

  • However, it looked likely that her two 6-inch and six 4.7-inch guns could be salvaged; along with the torpedoes she was carrying. Her Maxim guns, rifles, and pistols, and the money, which was on board, were salvaged the day she ran aground and taken back to Lamberts Bay. In the days following Admiral Harris’ visit, many of her fittings, including her anchors and cables, her torpedoes and stores, and all but one of her heavy guns were salvaged. Under the leadership of Lt. Holland a working party undertook the mammoth task of transferring the guns, some of which weighed more than seven tons, from the wreck into lighters, after which they were towed to Lamberts Bay. All of this material was placed aboard the City of Cambridge and later dispatched to Cape Town.

  • As one would expect, the loss of one of it’s vessels was viewed as a very serious matter indeed by the Royal Navy, and was the subject of a Court Martial held aboard the HMS Monarch, the port guard ship, in Simon’s Town on 26 February 1901. Facing the court, which included Captain Williams as prosecutor, were Lt. Holland, Lt. Cayley, Sub-Lt. Street, and Chief Gunner Tapper. Although the evidence led clearly showed the exemplary fashion in which the disaster was managed after the fact, the crew rescued and the vessel salvaged, the court found evidence that there had been serious lapses in navigation and the handling of the vessel after she left Lamberts Bay on the night of 15 January. There was evidence that despite the rough seas and prevailing gale, no attempt had been made to calculate the vessel’s position, and no thought given to the likelihood that a current may have been running. As it turned out, the captain of the City of Cambridge, in evidence to the court, reported that he had noted a strong southerly current of 3-4 knots running at the time of the wrecking.

  • The sentences handed down to the four men were remarkably light, and although they were all dismissed from the Sybille, and three of them forfeited some seniority, they all escaped with severe reprimands but no worse. Of the four, only Lt. Cayley resigned his commission as a result of the Court Martial, the remaining three continuing in the service of the Royal Navy.

  • At 11am on the morning of 16 January 2001, a small group of people made up of Lamberts Bay residents and South African Navy personnel assembled on the beach near the site of the wreck. They were there to witness a wreath-laying ceremony by Admiral of the South African Navy, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the loss of the Sybille.

  • Since the fateful day she ran aground one hundred years ago, the wreck of the Sybille has not fared well. The very exposed nature of the reef she came to rest on ensured that she broke up rapidly in the heavy surf. More recently, the human element intervened when despite the fact that at the time of her loss all money aboard was recovered, stories circulated that she was carrying a fortune in sovereigns. Numerous divers have also since salvaged large quantities of non-ferrous metal from the wreck, including one of her propellers, some of this work involving the use of explosives, which further destroyed the site. Most recently, divers also recovered the second and only remaining propeller of the Sybille, but it has since been donated to SAHRA who wish to see it conserved, and permanently displayed Lamberts Bay.

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