Weather. Geography. Naval Role.
Heroes Remember
Weather. Geography. Naval Role.
Transcript
Picture of six soldiers standing or on a fence.
Interviewer: Now what's South African Country like? What's, what's the weather like and what's the land like? Well the weather in South Africa an ideal climate, I think, its its pretty warm, but its (inaudible) like it is now, just at present. And the country itself in places you can, its quite flat but in other places its rugged and full of poppies there, and poppies there and dongas down in, ya know, little valleys they they call them, dongas? And scroots, that's the little brooks, and a.... and then were lot of rivers, the Digila RiverSoldier holding his rifle on horseback.
the Madder River and the Val River the.. Interviewer: Are these rivers navigable by fairly big ships? (Oh well, not very) Did they lead inland? Not very big boat, not very big boats, the Digila you might, well you might go up with a fairly sized boat, but not, oh small tugboat. On the Orange River and the Val River and the... Digila River and... the Mooey River. There's a lot of rivers I could name. I can't think of them all just in a minute. Interviewer: Well, does that, does that mean that since there was a lot of rivers, even though they weren't navigable inland ah,Soldier posing with rifle slung.
did the navy, did the British Navy play a great part in the war? Except, except for Conway. No, no the British Navy, the battleships was outside Capetown and outside Durban. Thems the only places that, that I know where there was any battleships standing offshore. Interviewer: Were they doing any good, or were they just sitting they just sitting there? Well they had no right to do any good, because the hadn't any object to work on. They might have done more damage then what they'd do good. Now if they'd have fired from the battleship inland, say up towards Fiancopper or Majubihill or anywhere up around there, that a, I don't know whether their guns would carry that far. But anyway, they might have done more damage then what they'd do good. But no there was no use for, for the warships to take any, any action. I don't think that there was any action ever taken.Description
Mr. Weaver recalls the weather, geography and naval role in South Africa.
Frank Weaver
Frank Weaver was born in England, April 7th, 1881 and moved to Canada following his service in the South African War. At the time of this interview Mr. Weaver was 97-years-old. This interview was recorded in Saint John, New Brunswick on August 13, 1971 as part of the Living History Project completed by students and faculty of Military and Strategic Studies, Department of History, University of New Brunswick. This interview is used with permission of the Provincial Archives of New Brunswick. Mr. Weaver's interview was taped outdoors. VAC apologizes for the sometimes poor audio quality of these clips.
Meta Data
- Medium:
- Video
- Owner:
- Veterans Affairs Canada
- Duration:
- 02:55
- Person Interviewed:
- Frank Weaver
- War, Conflict or Mission:
- South African War
- Branch:
- Army
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