THE BIRKENHEAD TRADITION.—“DIE HARDS” WHO SANG IN THE FACE OF DEATH SAFE AT CAPETOWN. The men of the Middlesex Regiment who were on board the new transport Tyndareus, which struck an enemy mine at 8 p.m. on February 9, 1917, off Cape Agulhas (the southernmost point of Africa), about 105 miles south-east of Capetown, formed the guard of honour and lined the route of the procession along which the Governor-General drove on the occasion of the opening of the South African Parliament. The heroic manner in which these British soldiers stood with their lifebelts on and sang though faced with the probability of imminent death, until rescued by the timely arrival of two steamers, has revived the tradition of the Birkenhead, ever cherished in the annals of the British Army.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Issue 1419, 5 July 1917, Page 23

THE BIRKENHEAD TRADITION.—“DIE HARDS” WHO SANG IN THE FACE OF DEATH SAFE AT CAPETOWN. The men of the Middlesex Regiment who were on board the new transport Tyndareus, which struck an enemy mine at 8 p.m. on February 9, 1917, off Cape Agulhas (the southernmost point of Africa), about 105 miles south-east of Capetown, formed the guard of honour and lined the route of the procession along which the Governor-General drove on the occasion of the opening of the South African Parliament. The heroic manner in which these British soldiers stood with their lifebelts on and sang though faced with the probability of imminent death, until rescued by the timely arrival of two steamers, has revived the tradition of the Birkenhead, ever cherished in the annals of the British Army.