Chris Boonzaier

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Someone split up an album from the 99. R.I.R. on ebay. I bid on all, but was left behind in the feeding frenzy. Did manage to get some shots of some senior NCOs, I assume mid 1915- mid 1916. The wounded guy is August 1916, after the regt was hit so hard by the men of the Ulster division-...

Fantastic rifle in every respect and maybe the one I would be the most eager to own of all Boer rifles as i have the medals of a friend of his..... To make this more fun for me... :-) Read the writeup about Cloete (2nd group on this thread...) to set the scene.... it is indeed a very, very, very interesting period... http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3093&hl=Cloete Many (in fact probably most) Boers were using Enfields in this area. Regter (Judge) H.J. Hugo was one of the raiders in the Cape Colony and they relied on what they could steal from the British as far as weapons, ammunition etc went. Shortened stocks was not unusual, the famous photo of De Wet with the reconditioned Mauser also shows a shortened stock. Hugo was an ex member of "THE" elite of Boer units, Danie Therons Reconnaissance section with Cloete (Medals above). He led one of the groups of Raiders in the Cape and was with Malan (once again, see above) in the fight where he was wounded. (See the parallels to the Cloete group who was also standing next to Malan) On the 17th of Feb Malan, Hugo and 13 Boers were attacked at Oorlogsfontein (Near the Drie-Susters railway station). Malan was wounded and they defended themselves until the rest of the Malan kommando arrived to break them out. Regter Hugo was seriously wounded and they had to leave him behind at a farm. A few days later the Brits arrived and captured him, he died (of his wounds) as they transported him to the nearby village. I have an account of the action somewhere...... I assume the guy who captured the rifle actually took it from Hugo a couple of days after te actual fight. PM me your email address for a larger version of the picture...

I would say a broken family group. issued sooooo long after the fact for some actions it is sure that many medals are looong gone. I imagine evaluation by conflict, faking the engraving etc. are going o be a huuuuge can of worms. hopefully they will be named?

Nope, it was indeed a healthy dose of DEAT6H, mix it with H2O and it is deadly, instant kidney failure. Only thing more dangerous is the newer DEAT-7H ;-)

Harry is in East Africa this time and more is added to the German Machine Gunner Photo Album... http://www.kaiserscross.com/152301.html

very interesting, STRB is not what I would have expected as an abreviation, you learn something every day. (Am also surprised they were using tags like this taht late in the war, I always think of these as very early). Good find.

Hi, has anyone else got an example of the can without the text "Feuer Kurbel Hoch"?

you mean the o8/15 ;-)))))

Somewhere I have copies of the papers of the SA mint, very interesting as they show how many medlas were engraved to each SA unit. I was sure I had posted them here somewhere...

Was very lucky to get this as well. I am assuming the ones without the text are the earlier ones... This one has it and is in nice shape :-)

I wonder who carried the costs? The British or South African Govts?

In WW1 South Africa anything was possible, simply because the army, and its general staff were just a couple of years old. In 1914 some of the cream of the army went into rebellion and added to that, volunteering to take up the fight against germany were Boers who had been officers and men fighting against the Brits 14 years earlier. Some officers served for a year and had a DSO at the end of it... A prime example are these 2 groups... http://gmic.co.uk/index.php?showtopic=3093&hl=cloete The DSO is to a man who wore british uniform for a year or two. The DCM is to one who was regular Union Defence Force... The Following quote from 1916 seems to be very funny... (it is from something I am transcribing...) "I am a brigadier General in the Union Defence Force. I have been in the Government Service for some years. In 1914 I was in the department of Agriculture, holding the position of Chief of the Sheep Division. " but in fact the man had been an officer in the boer forces during the Boer War and had volunteered for WW1 service, starting as a Colonel. Best Chris

Agreed, no excuse for the way its done. the mark up is obscene, the controls minimal, but I think his errors are due to ignorance as opposed to bad intent.

The dealer in question is supplied by "pickers" in germany. I sometimes have the feeling he relies on their descriptions and may be getting screwed by them.

Germans had almost the same axe, in a section some guys had entrenching tools and some had these. I have 2 or 3 from Verdun.

a fantastic group, I hope to find something similar. There was (up until the 70s?) often cases where "coloureds" petitioned to be reclassified as "white" and if memory serves me correctly, cases where whites requested reclassification as coloureds so they could marry coloureds. The lines between white and coloured in the cape province were sometimes rather blured. In the 80s there was a book that caused some furour about mixed blood in old afrikaaner names, in fact, there is a branch of my family tree that is classified as coloured.

So far... 15: 15 16: 17 17: 14 18: 28

What gets me with the German condoms is the "Only for use by the German Wehrmacht"... One would have thought they would be allowed to use it on the ladies.......

Not pictured are the remains of a cloth ammo belt that were in the drum.... and get this... so were 90 of the original 100 bullets. All dated June and July 1918... and in the drum since then. Drum came from Belgium. With a reloaders hammer I emptied out the powder, and paid a fortune for a new cloth belt (Dated January 1917).... And here we have a drum with its ORIGINAL bullets!!! How great is that!!!!

Inside the lid you can see the original derusted, untreated condition.... 3 letter maker mark, very hard to read....

Very careful rust removal showed a very solid piece indeed.... I painted and sanded it 3 times to hide the small bit of pitting, but I would say the condition ws very good. all hinges and catches work perfectly....