General P Van Ryneveld

Links of Long Standing

Over 220 people were killed and many more injured by two German Gotha London bombings 5. Smuts, by then a member of the Imperial War Cabinet and Prime Minister Lloyd George formed a two-man committee and by the time the “Smuts Report” was published, Lt AT Harris was flying No 45 Squadron Sopwith Camels on the Western Front under command of Major Pierre van Ryneveld.

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A 1919 Cabinet decision resulted in “Imperial Gifts” of surplus aircraft and spares to Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, and South Africa 6 enabling the 1920 formation of the South African Air Force under command of recently knighted Lt Colonel Sir HA Pierre van Ryneveld 7 who had flown from London to Cape Town with Flight Lt Quinton Brand. The two are among approximately 3 000 South African airmen identified in Michael Schoeman and Mac Eoin Bisset’s “Register of Southern African Airmen of the Great War 1914-1918”, at least 250 of whom lost their lives. The fledgling South African Air Force had 23 officers in accordance with the Defence Department’s directive, “The provision of a small but well-selected body of officers” 8, many of whom served with distinction during the First World War.

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Air Vice-Marshal Sir Quintin Brand KBE DSO MC DFC who was educated at Marist Brothers in Johannesburg and knighted in 1920 with Lt Colonel Sir HA van Ryneveld after flying a Vickers Vimy from England to Cape Town, a journey of almost seven weeks, commanded No 10 Group during the “Battle of Britain”, but retired in 1943.

A Different Kind of Enemy Flak

The weapons were very different. In power for less than a month, the new government’s machinery slipped into gear under the watchful eyes of the secret exclusively male “Broederbond”. Defence Minister FC Erasmus abolished the Deputy Chief of General Staff post and moved the incumbent, Bishops educated Major General William Henry Evered Poole CB CBE DSO, designated as successor to retiring Chief of the General Staff General Sir Pierre van Ryneveld before the elections, out of the Defence Force.