Ref Number: 00158
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The greatest disaster to occur in Isle of Wight waters was the loss in 1917 of RMS Mendi , a steamer carrying more than 800 South African labourers to the Western Front in France, with a destroyer as escort.
Ref Number: 00158
More than 800 South African labourers were lost in 1917 when the steamship RMS Mendi sank off the Isle of Wight while being escorted by a destroyer on their way to the Western Front in France.
On January 16, 1917, the RMS Mendi left Cape Town for France with 823 members of the 5th Battalion, South African Native Labour Corps. Mendi made a pit call in Plymouth en route to her ultimate destination of Le Havre.
The men aboard were mostly sourced from Pondo countryside. They were tasked with backbreaking work like digging trenches, carrying stretchers, and repairing roads instead of fighting. Fearing that they would rise up against military or civilian authority, they were not to be employed as a fighting force and were not allowed to carry weapons.
At 5 a.m. on February 21, 1917, it was still dark and misty outside. A collision with the ship Darro, 12 miles south of St. Catherine’s, caused a hole in the RMS Mendi’s starboard side. In fewer than twenty minutes, the RMS Mendi capsized and sank. A total of 650 men were lost at sea or succumbed to exposure and hypothermia in the freezing waters of the English Channel because of the fog and darkness that impeded a successful rescue.
Darro’s Master, Henry W Stump, was found guilty of “having travelled at a dangerously high speed in thick fog, and of having failed to ensure that his ship emitted the necessary fog sound signals.” It was a one-year licence suspension for Stump.
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