Moving ceremony honours the fallen
A service was held in Durban on Sunday to commemorate the lives of the men who died in the battle of Delville Wood.
A SPECIAL Commemoration Service took place at the Cenotaph, Farewell Square, in Dorothy Nyembe (Gardiner) Street, Durban on Sunday, 12 July, to remember the men who lost their lives in Delville Wood.
It was a colourful and moving short service with the laying of wreaths in memory of the fallen, followed by tea in the Mayor’s Parlour at City Hall.
The SANDF recalls with tremendous gratitude the supreme sacrifice of countless numbers of ordinary men and women of every racial group in South Africa who, especially in the great conflicts of war and more recently various armed conflicts on the borders of South Africa as well as within the country, laid down their lives that we might have our liberty to enjoy ours.
Many of them were still teenagers or scarcely 20 years old. Like men, they answered the call of duty and paid a heavy price, doing so with dignity.
The SANDF honours every one of them for their heroic sacrifice. Their courage, bravery and fortitude deserves to be recalled with pride and with great indebtedness to their noble gallantry. Peace was bought with a price.
Those who were honoured at the service died for an ideal and their ideal is our legacy. The ideal was a world in which justice, tolerance, freedom, mutual respect and equal opportunities for all would flourish.
