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  2 JUNE 1901 - DEFENCE OF JAMESTOWN

  By archie777 · Posted 2 minutes ago

  The “First Occupation of Jamestown” took place on 18 November 1899. On the previous day the 30-strong garrison of Cape Police under Inspector Halse received notice to quit Jamestown and proceed to Dordrecht.  There was no Town Guard at the time and the Boers under General Olivier, flushed as they were with their capture of Aliwal North, met with no opposition in taking Jamestown.   In due course the Boers withdrew from that part of the Cape Colony, and British rule returned to Jamestown. Then, on 2 June 1901, a Boer Commando under General Kritzinger, “boldly charging the cordon, surprised the small and somnolent garrison of Jamestown.”  “History of the War in South Africa” by Grant, Vol IV, p79. By this time there was a Jamestown Town Guard, 40 strong, and they manned the trenches on the perimeter of the town. A koppie about 1000 yards from the town was defended by 16 men of the Dordrecht District Volunteer Guard and 11 more of the DDVG held a trench near the road to Aliwal North.   The Boer forces numbered some 500 men and the defenders of the koppie were the first to surrender after 4 of them were killed. The total action lasted some 3 hours. The Boers only had one casualty: a young chap who had donned the greatcoat of one of the British casualties and was mistakenly shot by his own people.
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  1-2 JUNE 1901 - ROOIBERG / PIENAAR’S RIVER

  By archie777 · Posted 9 minutes ago

  Due to the reported southward advance of Gen Beyers’ Commando from the Waterberg district in May 1901, Lt-Col Grenfell tasked two columns (the one under Lt-Col A E Wilson at Naboomspruit and the other under Maj H McMicking at Nylstroom) with the protection of the railway line to Pretoria.   Wilson’s column (540 strong, including 300 Kitchener’s Fighting Scouts) acted on intelligence reports about Boer commandos in the Warm Baths vicinity and moved down to Roodeberg to round them up.   On 1 June two of Wilson’s squadrons had a sharp engagement with 500 Boers under Commandants Uys and Pretorius. Both sides suffered significant losses but in retreating the Boers came within reach of the rest of Wilson’s column. “He fell upon them heavily on the 2nd, and after a stubborn combat which continued all day, utterly routed them, killing and wounding many and taking forty prisoners, with loss to his own force of only eleven.” “The History of the War in South Africa”, Vol IV, p441: The incident is not mentioned in the Times History of the War but is fully covered in “After Pretoria: The Guerilla War” Vol II, p608-610, albeit with highly inflated numbers of Boer casualties.  The SAFF Casualty Roll has a combined listing over the 2 days’ skirmishing “near Pienaar’s River” of 8 men from KFS as KiA or DoW with a further 23 men wounded.
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  1 JUNE 1901 - DEFENCE OF WILLOWMORE

  By archie777 · Posted 17 minutes ago

  At 4am on 1 June 1901 Commandant Gideon Scheepers with 100 men, mainly Cape Rebels, attacked Willowmore from the east, north and south-west. By 5.45 am at least 7 of the outlying defensive posts, manned by the Willowmore Native Contingent, were overrun with six of the defenders and one rebel killed.   However, the defenders in the town itself rallied: Capt Curry with the Willowmore Railway Contingent checked the attack from the east and the Town Guard succeeded in retaking 5 of the posts.  At 7.30 am Lt van der Hoven of the Town Guard led a small party of the Native Contingent down the riverbed to a position commanding the other two posts.   The Boers started faltering at the determined resistance and by 11 am Scheepers and his men had retreated towards Aberdeen Road. Gideon Scheepers: Shearing
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  Real eBay Items

  By VtwinVince · Posted 1 hour ago

  Yup, and I think that was a pretty good deal.
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  29 MAY 1901 - VLAKFONTEIN

  By archie777 · Posted 1 hour ago

  During the guerrilla phase of the War, while Lord Methuen pursued General Koos de la Rey in the southern part of the Western Transvaal, General Jan Kemp, based at Tafelkop near the Koster/ Lichtenburg road, was active in the Swartruggens area.   This threatened Brigadier General H.G. Dixon who was encamped at Naauwpoort in the Magaliesberg.    On 26 May 1901 Dixon set out with a force of some 450 men to clear farms and search for hidden guns and ammunition west of Naauwpoort on the farm Waterval near Vlakfontein, in the vicinity of present-day Derby. Dixon’s force marched in 3 columns led by Major Chance R.A. on the left, Colonel Wylly in the centre and Lt-Colonel Duff on the right.   General Jan Kemp, laagered at Waterval northeast of Krugersdorp, initially had 400 burghers, including his scouts, some members of the Staatsartillerie (without their guns) and men from the Krugersdorp, Pretoria and the Rustenburg commandos.   They had buried some of their remaining guns to have artillery available when required, but also to provide unhampered mobility to commandos.   On 29 May Dixon’s men set out to recover these guns. Their search revealed no guns, but a large cache of ammunition was discovered. In this search the British came under sniper fire on Duff’s Ridge and the heavy fire from Kemp’s burghers.   When the British attempted to arrange their defence, Kemp’s men under cover of the smoke from a fire they had started, charged Chance’s rear-guard Yeomanry with (now) 500 burghers.  The Yeomanry suffered heavy casualties and the Boers overran the 2 guns of the 28th battery.  Dixon ordered Duff to reinforce Chance, who had returned to the scene of action with men of the 1st Derbyshire Regiment.   On Chance’s Ridge the Derbys, and what remained of the Yeomanry, charged the Boers with fixed bayonets. The Boers galloped off and the British retrieved their guns. The British suffered heavy casualties (6 officers and 51 other ranks dead) while only 7 burghers died in the battle and 2 later from wounds.   Kemp’s new strategy of lightning strikes behind a smoke screen had been effective.