Department of Military History

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Browsing Department of Military History by browse.metadata.advisor "Van der Waag, Ian"

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    The human transformation of the South African Navy between 1957 and 1993
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2023-03) Steyn, Leon; Van der Waag, Ian; Monama, Fankie; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Military Science. School for Security and Africa Studies: Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The South African Naval Forces became a permanent arm of the Union Defence Force (UDF) after the Second World War – on 1 April 1946 – and was named the South African Navy from 1 January 1951. Like other military forces of this period, the Navy remained a typical male-dominated organisation for the first decades of its existence. Furthermore, in South Africa, the policy of the National Party government, which came to power in 1948, shaped the permanent force component of the UDF as a White male Afrikaner dominated organisation. Two world wars were however notable deviations in this pattern. In order to solve its dire need for more manpower, African, Coloured and Asian men were recruited to serve in the UDF during both World Wars. Their contribution was significant – during the Second World War alone, 36% of whole-time volunteers were non-White. Gender restrictions were also relaxed as more than 21 000 women were recruited to serve in the UDF during the 1939-45 conflict. Their utilisation was mostly in auxiliary capacity, but their service in uniform nevertheless left an important, post-war, military legacy. The constant need for more “manpower” by the military, in a country that was racially segregated, was at the heart of this dichotomy. “Non-White” soldiers and women were needed by the military during times of conflict; yet were not considered for similar employment during the periods of peace in the inter- and post-war years. The nationalist military build-up of the SADF, which included the rapid expansion of the SA Navy from the late 1950s, again forced the defence authorities to consider suitable alternatives in order to meet the growing demand for manpower. They looked to the marginalised groups who had served, albeit in small numbers, during the world wars. The first group of Coloured soldiers was recruited for the South African Army from 1963 and for the Navy from 1965. Women were recruited for the Permanent Force from 1972 while Indian male recruits first joined in 1974. African men were mostly utilised in the Auxiliary Services of the SADF, but also employment with the SA Army in a permanent capacity from 1975. The first purposeful recruitment of Africans for the Navy however only followed in the early 1990s. This thesis aims to provide a better understanding of these human transformational events that unfolded – in a staged pattern – in the South African Navy amidst and as a result of the changing South African political and strategic landscape between 1957 and 1993. It is as much a history of the South African Navy as it is of the people that served the organisation during this time – and more widely of the political and socio-economic condition of South Africa itself. Previous historical studies on the Navy focussed exclusively on its development as an organisation, its equipment (ships) and naval operations. The Navy’s social history, especially as it relates to the groups under discussion, has been grossly neglected. This thesis therefore examines the enlistment of Coloureds, Indians, women and Africans into the South African Navy and their experience of military service during the period 1957 to 1993. This was a critical time in the history of country, witnessing the rise of the apartheid state and beefing up of the SADF. It investigates the events and circumstances that initiated the decision to recruit and integrate formerly marginalised sectors of the population into the Navy from the mid-1960s and the mid-1970s respectively and using prosopography to analyse their career progression by the early-1990s. The reintroduction of women to the Navy in 1972 and their particular utilisation and specific challenges to integrate into the organisation with emphasis on gender in the military; and the relative late recruitment of Africans to the Navy during the early 1990s, in contrast to the recruitment and appointment of Africans in the Army during the early 1970s comprise the various aspects investigated. The measure and nature of integration and how de-segregation was implemented on board ships and ashore are also examined. This allows a more nuanced understanding of the mutually reciprocal impacts that these appointments had on the service personnel and the organisation as a whole.
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    The influence of Second World War military service on prominent White South African veterans in opposition politics, 1939–1961
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2021-03) Plint, Graeme Wesley; Delport, Anri; Van der Waag, Ian; Stellenbosch University. School for Security and Africa Studies. Dept. of Military History.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: The nexus between military service and political activism is explored in this thesis. The lives of 153 politically-exposed Second World War veterans are examined. Pierre Bourdieu’s concepts of ‘Capital’ and ‘Habitus’ are used to examine the ways in which the war shaped the political views of the servicemen as well as the ways in which the ex-servicemen could leverage their war service to further their post-war political careers. An examination of the fault lines of class and culture, in pre-war, White SouthAfrica, provided crucial insight into the initial habitus and motivation of the volunteer soldier. War-time military service drew together volunteers from every part of South Africa and from each strata of the White community. This provided a common platform to develop shared notions of a common ‘South Africanism’. This shared comradery facilitated their later mobilisation against the National Party (NP) after 1948.The ex-servicemen, having fought German and Italian forces on several warfronts, had been exposed to the dangers of totalitarianism. As a result, some returned with an embedded intolerance of authoritarianism and, after the war, the Springbok Legion (SL)acted as a clarion call against rising racial intolerance in South Africa. The more affluentex-servicemen, often in line with family tradition, joined the established United Party (UP). However, the widely unexpected defeat of the UP in 1948 by the NP triggered the ex-servicemen’s entry into politics. After the NP’s victory in 1948, a cohort of increasingly-politicised ex-servicemen used the NP’s wartime dalliance with fascism to mobilise ex-servicemen en masse as the Torch Commando (the Torch). The Torch Commando brought together ex-servicemen, active in parliamentary and extra-parliamentary politics, as a front against the NP in the 1953 elections. However, the UP’s defeat in the 1953 elections soon exposed the fault lines, particularly in terms of the ex-servicemen in parliamentary politics. The subsequent implosion of the Torch Commando led to the emergence of the Union Federal Party (UFP), and Liberal Party (LPSA) after the 1953 elections, which marked the end of the ex-serviceman identity as a coherent political identity and revealed an array of diverse political views amongst voting Second World War veterans. Tensions between the conservative and more progressive and liberal ex-servicemen in the UP led to the formation of the Progressive Party (PP) in 1959. Finally, increased government repression led to the detention of the more radical ex-servicemen in 1956 and 1960. Their subsequent involvement in the formation of armed formations in the form of the African Resistance Movement and Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) provides continuity between the war against fascism and the armed struggle against apartheid.
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    Major General Sir Henry Timson Lukin (1860-1925) : the making of a South African hero
    (2005-12) Nortier, Erasmus Wentzel; Van der Waag, Ian; Scott Swart, Sandra; University of Stellenbosch. Faculty of Military Sciences. School of Security and Africa Studies. Military History.
    Henry Timson Lukin was born and educated in Britain. After completion of his schooling at the Merchant Taylor’s School in 1875 he had hoped to enter the Royal Military College, Sandhurst, but failed the entry examinations. However, seizing the moment of a war in South Africa, he left in 1879 for Natal, where he worked first as a road foreman, but soon, with the help of a cousin, Lieutenant Jack Spurgin, he was commissioned into the 77th Regiment and under the command of Major H.M. Bengough and saw service during the Anglo-Zulu War. Having distinguished himself in the field in Zululand, Lukin was commissioned as a lieutenant in the Cape Mounted Riflemen (CMR) and served with this outfit in the Basuto War (1881), the Langeberg campaign (1896-97) and the South African War (1899-1902). During the South African War he received the Distinguished Service Order (DSO) for the defence of Jammersbergdrift and played an important role in capturing key rebel commando leaders, including Commandant Johannes Lötter and Commandant Gideon Scheepers. After the war he received the Commander of the Order of St Michael & St George (CMG) and was appointed as the Commandant General of the Cape Colonial Forces. He played an important role in establishing the structures of the Union Defence Forces (UDF) and was appointed as Inspector General of the Permanent Force in 1912. He influenced the debate on colonial warfare with the writing of the maxim handbook and a training pamphlet, Savage Warfare: Hints on Tactics to be adopted and Precautions to be taken and during the First World War distinguished himself as commander of a force of the South African troops in German South-West Africa (1914-1915) and as commander of the South African Brigade in Egypt (1916) and in France (1916-17). He was promoted to Major General when he assumed the command the 9th Scottish Division in December 1916. In 1917 one of the highest honours was bestowed upon him when he was knighted. The illness of his wife, Annie Marie (Lily) necessitated a transfer to Britain, where he commanded the 64th Division until the end of the war. He retired from the military shortly after the Armistice and returned with his wife to South Africa, where he remained active in a variety of ex-servicemen’s organisations, including that of 1 South African Infantry Brigade. He was also a guest speaker at various functions, including the unveiling of monuments and memorials, and served on the Defence Commission of Enquiry (1924). Major General Sir Henry Timson Lukin died after a full, varied and distinguished military career in December 1925. Lukin and the Brigade had an enormous impact on the creation of a new South African identity during the First World War and period immediately after and played an important role in the formation of a new South African military organisation and culture.