Benoni High marks Poppy Day
The event included the laying wreaths to pay respect to the 37 former learners and other soldiers who died in the service of their country.
On a gloomy day fitting for the occasion, current and former Benoni High School learners commemorated their comrades that were killed in action during World War II, Korean and Border wars on November 11.
The event included laying wreaths to pay respect to the 37 former learners and other soldiers who died in the service of their country.
The BHS Pipe Band started proceedings with a performance before school principal, Dr Eugene Rooyakkers, gave his address.
This was followed by the Memorable Order of Tin Hats (MOTH) ceremony and a rendition of the Last Post by Donald Bouwer.
Two minutes moment of silence was observed.
“The first minute is to remember all those who died during the war. The second is to remember all those who survived and bare the physical and mental scars of the horror war can inflict,” said Andrew Leece of the MOTH.
Reveille was then sounded at the end of the moment of silence.
In his address, Rooyakkers opened on the devastation caused by the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 which, he said, broke out as a result of World War I.
“It originated in the trenches of World War I and held no bounds. I can only think of it as a casualty of war,” he said.
Rooyakkers paid a moving tribute to South African soldiers who died in battle during the Battle of the Somme in 1916.
“Attack and counterattacks, after seven weeks of vicious fighting, nothing was really going. Today, there’s a monument to the South African brigade that held its ground. They had the courage and sacrificed their lives. Two-thousand-five-hundred-and-thirty-six men were lost in that battle.”
He also commemorated the South African Native Labour Corps’ Fifth Battalion that died en route to France when the SS Mendi sank in 1917.
“It was a troop ship that left Cape Town in 1917. It sailed and sank in the English Channel by accident. On board, 616 people died, mostly black South African troops.
“To this day, a 100-years memorial was held in 2017 in Portsmouth in recognition of their sacrifice,” Rooyakkers said.
Rooyakkers warned against the tendency to romanticise historical events in the media.
“To all of us, be very wary of the glamour portrayed in the modern media when dealing with fighting and war,” he said.
To end his speech, he borrowed author Richard Koeningsberg’s words: “The First World War was a sacrificial ritual that shovelled warm human hearts and bodies by the millions to the furnace. Under their massive sacrifices, nations were kept alive. All I can do is aspire to that sacrifice,” he said.
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