SOUTH AFRICAN TROOPS.

Otago Witness, Issue 3783, 14 September 1926, Page 26

SOUTH AFRICAN TROOPS.

MEMORIAL IN FRANCE. ERECTED IN DELVILLE WOOD. (From Our Own Correspondent.) PIETERMARITZBURG, July 30. The magnificent memorial to the South African troops who fell in France during the Great War, and which has been erected at Delyille Wood, is to be unveiled on October 10 next by the Prime Minister of the Union, General Hertzog. The widow of the late General Botha is also going to France to attend this solemn function. Indeed, it was first proposed that Mrs Botha should have the honour of unveiling the memorial, and it was through her inability to then go to Europe that the present Prime Minister was approached. General Hertzog will be, to use a colloquial expression, killing two birds with one stone, for he is to attend the Imperial Conference in London early in October. He and his colleague, Mr Havenga, the Minister of Finance, will leave Table Bay on September 17, and, travelling by the Balmoral Castle, will arrive in London on October 4. When the late General Lukin received orders at midnight on July 14, 1916, that the South African Brigade was to capture and consolidate the outer edge of Delville Wood, the brigade numbered 121 officers and 3032 men. When LieutenantColonel Thackeray marched out of Delville Wood on the 20th he had a remnant of 143; and the total ultimately assembled in the Happy Valley was about 750. The casualties were: for the Ist Infantry Regiment, 558; for the 2nd, 482; for the 3rd, 771; and for the 4th, 509. All the commissioned ranks of the 2nd and 3rd South African Infantry who were in the wood became casualties, as did all the officers of the Machine Gun Company attached to the brigade. The total casualties of the brigade from July 1 was 2815—made up of 502 killed, 1735 wounded, and 578 missing. The 76th Brigade of the 3rd Division took over on the evening of the 20th what was left in Delville Wood of the gallant South African Brigade.