The Speaker of Council in the City of Johannesburg, Cllr Colleen Makhubele, remembered more than 300 men on Saturday, 18 February 2023, who drowned in icy sea over 100 years ago on 21 February 1917. Cllr Makhubele was paying tribute to the South African heroes during the annual SS Mendi Memorial Service commemoration service at Avalon Cemetery in Soweto. “It is an honour to pay tribute to the men of SS Mendi who paid the ultimate sacrifice in service of our country. 

Today, we remember South African Native Labour Contingent, South African Veterans from all wars and liberation struggle. We salute and thank you for your service,” said Cllr Makhubele.

Representatives of more than 20 embassies and South African military attachments, veterans associations as well as the next of kin of those who perished in the sea on that fateful day 106 years ago observed a moment of silence before laying wreaths around a monument inscribed with the names of all the fallen heroes.

Represented at the ceremony were the embassies of the US, Australia, Canada, France, Britain and the Central African Republic, as well as the South African National Defence Force and the South African Defence Force Association, Department of Military Veterans, World Veterans Organisation, South African Legion, South African Air Force Association, Naval Force of Southern Africa, South African Service of Jewish League, South African Careers War Association, Royal Navy Association and the Military Association of Gauteng.

The SS Mendi was a passenger steamship built in 1905 and requisitioned by the Royal Navy in 1916 as a troopship.

It had set sail from Cape Town on January 16, carrying 823 men of the 5th Battalion of the South African Native Labour Contingent.

The men came from all over Southern Africa, with most of them from South Africa.

The Mendi sank 25 minutes later after its take off, just 16km south of St Catherine’s Point on the Isle of Wight.