My Father

Pieter, my father, was born near Elliot in the Eastern Cape in about 1898. His father, the son of a Catholic Irish immigrant and his mother from a Protestant Huguenot family that dates back to the original European settlers in the Cape Colony. 

At about 17 years old, he worked on a railway line being built past their farm. Later, Pieter was involved in the German East African campaign during WWI. He joined the 3rd South African Mounted Rifles (S.A.M.R) on 16 June 1917 and was deployed in German East Africa. The army led by General Smuts was composed mainly of South Africans. 

 

He returned to South Africa to recoup in 1918 after contracting malaria and, and upon his return, discovered that his father had followed him from the Eastern Cape to Durban, where he had died. In 1919 he was discharged from the army, and he joined the South African Police in April 1920. 

At the commencement of WWII, from 2 May 1941 until 29 September 1945, he was transferred to Port Shepstone. Upon returning to Durban from Port Shepstone, he served as a First Class Detective Sergeant. During this time, he investigated 443 reported murders. He also investigated a wide variety of other crimes. 

One of his last duties was to persuade African inhabitants of the Cato Manor slum in Durban to relocate to Kwa Mashu, where housing was being prepared. At the time, the South African government was forcing residents to move by demolishing their shacks; it led to a great deal of conflict culminating in nine police officers being brutally murdered. Pieter subsequently met with the leaders of the remaining families and persuaded them to leave peacefully. Pieter was likely to have been instrumental in conveying this understanding to them; he was an outstanding Zulu linguist.