My home town, U-Boats and the 2 World Wars

[Von Tonner]

Hermanus is situated on the south coast of the Western Cape approx 115km from Cape Town and is reputed to be the best place in the world for watching whales from land. The Southern Right whales visit the bay for approx 5 to 6 months – arriving around May/June. On the other side of the bay is “Shark Alley” where the Great Whites are – the Great White Shark capital of the world.



What I found interesting however is the town’s history in the two world wars. In World War 1 Hermanus had the highest number of volunteers per capita in the Brittish Empire. After that war a War Memorial was erected overlooking the Old Whaling Harbour to commemorate the 11 volunteers who never returned.

At the end of World War 2 another 15 volunteer names were added. One of them being Squadron Leader Roger Bushell - “Big X” in the story of what became known as The Great Escape. After his execution by the Gestapo his parents made two presentations to the Hermanus High School in rememberance of their son. The two coveted Roger Bushell prizes for character are still awarded annually at the prize-giving of the school and his name and the story of his great courage live on. One prize is awarded annually to the student who has shown the most exemplary signs of character during the year and the other one is awarded to the school boy chosen by his fellow students as the best leader. As an aside, I attended Selbourne College in my school years which is a little further up the coast in East London and we were extremely privileged to have Group Captain Sir Douglas Bader visit our school in the 60’s to address us.



The hotels in the town were used during the wars for soldiers, airman and sailors who were recuperating from injuries as the air in Hermanus is oftened referred to as “Champagne air” given its purity and crispness. There are no heavy industries or railway lines running through the town. A railway station was built in anticipation of a railroad but the powers that be vetoed it. So we have a railway station but no rails and no trains. One of the reasons why the National Space Agency moved from Cape Town to Hermanus.
I never realized however at just how active German U-boats were off our coast. They operated from Walvis Bay all the way up to Lourenco Marques and took a terrible toll on Allied shipping. All in all 156 vessels were sunk or damaged. 15 were sunk between Simons town and Cape Agulhas. It became of such concern that a squadron of RAF pilots was stationed just outside Hermanus with Catalina flying boats. These planes had a cruising time of 17 hours and were fitted with depth charges. Hermanus itself was placed under blackout every night – even the light in the Danger Point light house was dimmed.