Membership
Welcome aboard to new member Mark Mengel from Cape Town.
SAMHSEC stalwart Jaco Pretorius won’t be renewing his membership due to professional commitments. Thanks for your contribution, Jaco. You know where to find us when the dust settles.
Reminder that membership details for 1 January to 31 December 2026 (R340 single and R360 family) are on the SAMHS website www.samilitaryhistory.org
Military History Journal December 2025
The December 2025 Military History Journal is being distributed. It includes articles by SAMHSEC members Anne Irwin and Dylan Fourie. Thanks to Anne and Dylan for keeping SAMHSEC’s light shining and to Joan and her editorial team.
SAMHSEC meeting 12 January 2026
Nick Cowley told us about Petrus Jacobus Nieuwenhuizen, always known as Piet, who was a Boer who emigrated to German East Africa (GEA) and became a scout for the German side in the World War I campaign waged in GEA.
Nieuwenhuizen was born in Humansdorp in 1877. He moved as a boy with his family to Dundee in the then Natal, left home as a teenager and did transport riding, first in the ZAR and later Rhodesia. By 1905 he had moved to the north of GEA, joining a community of Boers who had trekked there after the Anglo-Boer War. He married into the Visser family, prominent in this community. For the next nine years, he farmed and also became a hunter with a formidable reputation. A German author who met Nieuwenhuizen even wrote a book about his hunting exploits.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Nieuwenhuizen was interned by the German authorities along with the other GEA Boers. After an absence from the internment camp without permission, he faced execution and only avoided it by volunteering to join the German colonial protection force, the Schutztruppe. They used him mainly as a scout, aware of his exceptional bush and hunting skills.
Nieuwenhuizen fought throughout the East African campaign. He was initially part of a mounted unit, but served alongside the famous German commander, General von Lettow Vorbeck, for the last part of the campaign from early 1917.
Nieuwenhuzen distinguished himself in a number of exploits. Among them:
-He led a daring raid in which a reported 80 horses were captured from a British unit.
-He charged an Allied machine-gun nest during an unnamed battle, killing two of its crew and wounding the other.
-As the retreating German force crossed into Portuguese East Africa (Mozambique) in November 1917, desperately short of supplies, Nieuwenhuizen detected a Portuguese column, which the Germans overwhelmed. The Germans were thus able to replenish their supplies and prolong the campaign for another year.
Nieuwenhuizen was with Von Lettow Vorbeck when he finally surrendered at Abercorn in Northern Rhodesia on 14 November 1918, only after hearing of the Armistice in Europe.
The rest of Nieuwenhuizen’s life was blighted by long spells of exile or detention in Germany and his native South Africa. He was back in what was now the British colony of Tanganyika in 1939 when World War II broke out. He was regarded as pro-German and the British authorities deported him to South Africa, where he was interned at Baviaanspoort outside Pretoria for the duration of the war. He later went to live with his daughter in Rhodesia, where he died in 1960 without ever seeing East Africa again.
There are several parallels between Nieuwenhuizen and Major Philip ‘Jungle Man’ Pretorius, also a Boer and an exceptional hunter who served as a scout in the East African campaign - but on the other side. Pretorius’ part in the campaign is well known through his own memoirs, published under the title ‘Jungle Man’, and many other sources. Nieuwenhuizen’s eventful and often tragic life needs to be rescued from obscurity by a full biography.
Nick’s presentation is in the SAMHS Zoom library.
SAMHSEC Requested the Pleasure of your Company to talk about military history on 26 January 2026
In session 1, Anne Irwin reported on SAMHSEC’s 21 words competition held at the end of last year to celebrate the Branch’s twenty-first anniversary. Several members entered the competition – and there were a few anonymous contributions as well. The entries covered a variety of topics and people connected to the military history of the Eastern Cape. Having announced the winners in December, Anne was able to read a selection of the entries for the enjoyment of the members who were present.
Dennis Hibberd’s winning entry was
For background to Dennis’ entry, see Pat Irwin’s presentation “The Elizabeth Salt Saga 1819-2021: Myth and Reality” in the video library
In session 2, we discussed safeguarding physical heritage as tangible symbols of community identity. In a country as diverse as ours where we have never all been on the same side in past conflicts, much of our physical heritage is vulnerable, contested and impossible to secure. Safeguarding is essential for it to become a platform for inclusivity rather than erasure.
Our discussion was based on a report dated December 1958 by Professor Raymond Burrows on the Fort Hare Military Cemetery.
The Fort Hare Military Cemetery is on the Campus of the University of Fort Hare.
Fort Hare played prominent roles in the 7th Frontier War in 1846-47 and the 8th Frontier War in 1850-53. Prof Burrows was the principal of Fort Hare University College as it then was, from 1957 to 1959.
In December 1958, Prof Burrows reported that the Cemetery had been rededicated during a BESL Delville Wood Service in the late 1920s. Mary Brown of Lovedale and an ex-Army Chaplain, the Rev George Howe of Kei Road had raised funds by public subscription to erect a fence around the Cemetery. By 1954 the fence had been broken down and the Cemetery again invaded by cattle and bush.
Early in 1955 on the initiative of JD Cullen, an ex-WO1 and a member of the local MOTHs, the University College paid for the erection of new fence. In 1958 it was necessary to clean up the Cemetery and remove the bush and weeds growing
through the slabs and repair the headstones.
Prof Burrow’s report highlighted the requirement for ongoing maintenance which is still an issue. Physical heritage needs to be safeguarded in perpetuity.
The Backup Ukraine project (https://poly.cam/ukraine) uses modern technology to store recordings of physical heritage taken by citizens on their cell phones in an open, secure, online archive.
Several South African organisations, including the Heritage Association of South Africa, the Genealogical Society of South Africa, the Heritage Portal newsletter (their tagline “Our goal is to get South Africans excited about the past” says it all), local historical societies and military veterans’ associations have websites which contribute to safeguarding physical heritage.
The SAMHS website (see http://samilitaryhistory.org) is an archive of Military History Journals articles, newsletters and recordings of Zoom presentations which contributes to safeguarding military physical heritage.
The inclusion of records of South African military physical heritage in the website is currently being considered. Watch this space.
SAMHSEC meeting 9 February 2026
Arnold v Dyk is to tell us about The Battle of Zuurvlakte on 14 July 1901.
Arnold’s talk will include an introduction on the context and background of the guerrilla war in the Cape Colony, the opposing sides (Commandants Willem Diederik Fouche and Stoffel Myburgh and Connaught Rangers under command of General Fitzroy Hart of Colenso fame), the battle and the aftermath.
SAMHSEC Requests the Pleasure of your Company to talk about military history on 23 February 2026
RPC meetings are opportunities for you to share your knowledge of a military history subject or book with fellow military historians. Presentations should last approximately 15 minutes to allow time for sharing the pleasure of one another’s company. You can do any number of RPC presentations per year. Please contact André at andrecrozier@gmail.com if you want to share your knowledge.
Received from Ian Copley: Award of Heritage Association Gold Medal
“I wish to thank the Eastern Cape Branch of SAMHS for the occasion of the presentation last month of the Gold Medal from MACH (Magaliesburg Association of Culture and Heritage). It was based on publications in our Journal concerning the South African War in the Magaliesberg region (mostly written in the nineties).
My thanks for the local presentation at the hosted lunch at Mill Park Golf Club and, in particular, our Chairman, Malcolm Kinghorn, and Andre Crozier.
Irene Small attended the presentation in Magaliesburg and kindly brought the medal down here to be presented to me as she and her husband live at Schoenmakerskop.
It was a very pleasant occasion for me and the invited guests.
Many thanks again.”
Received from Pat Irwin: The Development of Penicillin
“The Cape Medical History Group recently presented an excellent Zoom talk on 'The Development of Penicillin', which has been put on Facebook. As the development of this antibiotic has an interesting intersection with military history, it may be of interest to some of our members.
https://youtu.be/IQ2K2SPUDBk
The video as a whole is 55 minutes, the talk itself taking up 38 minutes and the rest being questions and discussion, much as our own Zoom meetings work.”
Also received from Pat Irwin: Register of Heritage Guns published
https://www.gunners.org.za/register-of-heritage-guns-published/
“To open it one must:
1. Click on the URL
2. Click on 'Register of Heritage Guns' (Green)
3. Download
The full document is 130 pages, but as it is a PDF I could not get it to send only the first 7 or 8 pages, which was what I intended.
This is the 50th iteration of the intended Register. It has been worked on and developed over the past three years, with inputs from several sources including GASA members around the country. The process over this period has been coordinated and driven by Major General Roy Andersen, a former Master Gunner, who is now retired.
You will pick up from the document that it still needs some editorial tidying up as well as probable further additions. I, in collaboration with Roy, am responsible for this.
You are invited to comment and add any further information. Such suggestions should be sent to me at p.irwin@ru.ac.za.”
SAMHSEC
Chairman: Malcolm Kinghorn culturev@lantic.net
Secretary: Stephen Bowker stephen@stephenbowker.co.za
Speaker coordinator: André Crozier andrecrozier@gmail.com
Scribe: vacant
Field trip coordinator: vacant