Paying tribute to Batswana WWII veterans

GASEBALWE SERETSE
Staff Writer | Friday May 14, 2010 00:00

 

As mentioned in previous editions of Mmegi, the efforts of Batswana soldiers that took part in this war have been inadequately recorded. Bechuanaland as Botswana was known back then, was dragged into the war by its colonial master, Britain. One of the WWII veterans interviewed by this paper perhaps rightly called the war 'White Man's War'. Hilarious stories have been told of how some Batswana men did everything in their power to avoid conscription into this war to the extent of hiding in huts reserved for nursing mothers pretending to be batsetsi!

However, there are some Batswana heroes of the war, who managed to reach the highest military rank that could be accorded Africans at the time, the rank of 'regimental sergeant major' and these are Kgosi Kgari Sechele of the Bakwena, Kgosi Molefhi Pilane of the Bakgatla, Molwa Sekgoma, a Mongwato royal, Rasebolai Kgamane, a Mongwato royal and Mookami Gaseitsiwe, a Mongwaketse royal.

Depending on what you believe, the other heroes might be the 300 soldiers who fell during the war whose names are inscribed at the War Memorial in the government enclave in the city of Gaborone.  Mmegi has also previously mentioned, that sadly this is one monument few people know about.

Old Powane of Mmathubudukwane is one of those people who claims to have voluntarily joined the war after failing to secure a job in neighbouring South Africa.

'My friends and I had spent days looking for jobs in the Rustenburg mines in vain. So one day when we were just loitering around, we saw a sign of a conscription office and we went to enlist immediately,' recalled the veteran who was 94-years-old at the time this interview was conducted in 2008.

Powane took part in the war in Egypt where he met Kgosi Molefi whom he described as a hero of the war. Interestingly, one Motswana poet likened him (Molefhi) to a black cow that clashed and overcame a red cow (Benito Mussolini of Italy). How Molefi is supposed to have overcome Mussolini is not adequately recorded.

Like most other Batswana WWII veterans, Powane claimed to have received proper training and carried firearms.

'I cannot say for sure how many foes I brought down because in war you do not have time to count bodies, but I can assure you that I killed some men in that war,' he told Mmegi.

Powane added that it is true that some of the Batswana soldiers acted as auxiliary personnel saying, 'During war, people need to eat, clean their things and move camp so it is not strange for people to do those chores.'

Another veteran, Otaata Shashane, 87, told Mmegi how he, a mere 19-year-old approached the then regent of the Bangwato, Tshekedi Khama and asked to be allowed to join the war in 1940, at a time when older men had to be literally dragged to the war.

'Kgosi Tshekedi promptly dismissed me and told me to go back to school because he felt that is where I belonged. I was so determined to join the war that I went to my father and begged him to allow me to do so. Fortunately for me, he allowed me to go,' the old man told Mmegi.

Together with fellow Bangwato conscripts, he boarded a train at Palapye to go to Pietermaritzburg, South Africa where they received military training. After training, Shashane and his fellow soldiers went to Durban and took a ship to Egypt passing through the Suez Canal.

Shashane described how his company was attacked by the enemy forces at sea and how some members of the First Division of the African Corps were mowed down by the Germans. He talked of capture in Alexandria and transfer to Italy in a battleship.

The old Mongwato said that in Italy, they were paraded in the streets and curious Italians came to feel their hair and skin before they were taken to a secluded prison 'in the middle of nowhere'. After a while, they were taken to another prison in France, which was under German occupation.

'I was told that during those trying times, Kgosi Tshekedi was a source of comfort to my parents. He was the one who personally broke the sad news of my capture to them telling them to be hopeful though warning them the worst could happen,' Shashane told Mmegi.

After the defeat of Germany at the end of the war, Shashane and fellow prisoners gained their freedom.Ninety-year-old Modisa Thebe of Kumakwane likes boasting about his gallantry in WWII, claiming to having been a brave soldier. Thebe told Mmegi that it was while working in the South African mines that he heeded the call of the Batswana dikgosi to join the war and fight alongside the Allies. Like all other Batswana during WWII, he boarded a ship in South Africa to go to North Africa.

According to Thebe, the Africans disembarked at the Suez Canal to go to Egypt and receive military training before getting into the battlefield.

The Mokwena revealed that after receiving the necessary training, a Mokwena witchdoctor was called in to use magic charms to protect the Bakwena soldiers from the enemy fire.

The old warrior asserted that during their campaigns in countries such as Lebanon, Malta, Sicily and Syria, the enemy fire could not reach them.

The Mokwena told Mmegi that he gets irritated when people suggest that Africans only did ancillary services during the war. He claimed that they carried firearms during the war though he does not remember the name of the particular gun he carried.

He begrudgingly admitted that he brought down many enemies during the war though he did not want to divulge the number.'Life is sacred and no one should take pride in mentioning the number of people he has killed,' he said with serious face.

The old man told Mmegi that he knows what it means when one is said to 'walk through the valley of the shadow of death' as they were once captured by the Germans who he said were merciless when dealing with their enemies. Luckily for the man and his company, the Allied forces rescued them.

Paying tribute to WWII veterans, Mmegi correspondent Sandy Grant wrote, 'So the 9,800 (survivors) went home to the Dikgosi who had first called them to war, and resumed their traditional, pastoral way of life. Attempts have been made to link those 10 000, with the beginnings of nationalism and political life but to me, the arguments have been overstretched.

On the other hand, I note the coincidence-can it be any more? -that for those who went and came back, the war began and ended in Lobatse where they were initially stationed and where they were eventually demobbed. It was in Lobatse too, in 1947 that King George VI met and thanked them, it was in Lobatse Peleng (and Francistown) that there was the first stirring of significant political life'.

While Mmegi is not able to interview all surviving WWII veterans, there is no doubt that there are many Powanes, Shashanes and Thebes out there.