SA's 'Little Ships' Go To War

In 1939, South Africa effectively had no navy at all. But that did not stop the brave volunteers of the South African Naval Forces from taking on the enemy. 

- Graham Jooste

When the Second World War broke out in 1939, South Africa had no navy as such, and relied on the protection of the Royal Navy (RN) based at Simon’s Town. (This arrangement had advantages for South Africa and the UK in terms of defence, bunkering, repair and victualling.)

However, South Africa did have adventurous young men from civilian life and the Royal Naval Volunteer Reserve (RNVR) who were more than willing to join up. It also had small ships in the form of trawlers, coasters and whalers.

The Southern Whaling and Sealing Company, based at Durban, for example, owned four whalers in good condition. These were taken over by what later became known as the South African Naval Forces (SANF), and named HMSAS (His Majesty’s South African Ship) Southern Maid, Southern Sea, Southern Isles and Southern Floe.

After being converted into minesweepers with a naval gun replacing the harpoon casing, they were ready for war. The four ‘little ships’, each with a complement of between 20 and 25 men, headed for the Suez Canal and the Mediterranean zone. More were to follow.  Meanwhile, the Royal Navy at Simon’s Town was kept busy supplying big warships heading eastwards to counter the Japanese threat. Many South Africans joined the cruisers HMS Dorsetshire and Cornwall, both of which were sunk by dive bombers, resulting in the deaths of 41 South African sailors. Many other RN ships had South Africans serving on them; they included the light cruiser HMS Neptune, which was sunk by a mine off the coast of Libya in December 1941 at a cost of 18 South African lives, and the battleship HMS Nelson, which accepted the surrender of Japanese forces in the Malayan Peninsula on 2 September 1945.