TOPIC:

Thanks Elmarie. Based on the sailing records for the Britannic ( www.norwayheritage.com/p_ship.asp?sh=brit1 ) the Waihora would have picked up the NZ troopers from Melbourne, so Hugh would have died somewhere between East London SA 7Jul and Adelaide 27Jul.

Hi hjo,
I was planning to work backwards with information sourced from this site using the sidebar menu,  Miscellaneous information - Boer prisoners of war . I realise that with over 31000 records listed here, it's still probably not an accurate and complete account of information of those who were captured. This information is only as good as the person recording it and the accuracy of the person disclosing it in the first place.

With the mentioning of Trooper Hugh O'Hagan being wounded at Naauwpoort and the Boer being wounded at the same site, I have used this location as the place of capture and had 51 records of persons captured at this location. Unfortunately, none of them matched the dates of either 5th and/or 6th January 1901 or even come close.

Using the two above dates displayed, I was able to find over 30 results of Boers captured, but again none that fall into the category that we are looking for. Looks like that it might be a harder task than I first thought.

Trev

Hmm... I wonder about the starting assumption:
"Assume he was taken prisoner..."
Is it correct that the British military would imprison an amputee? He could have given his word (parole) not to fight again.
This was sometimes done, and David posted an example of this here: www.angloboerwar.com/forum/19-ephemera/2...nes-nicholas-le-roux

Perhaps Elmarie can tell us whether seriously wounded and/or disabled Boers, like this burgher, were generally taken prisoner?

Rob

Hi Rob,
Thanks for the above link. A Letter of Parole or something similar would make more sense as a disabled Boer as in this case would surely be seen as a lesser threat to the British Empire and the need to send him overseas to become a Prisoner of War unnecessary.

I, likewise, am interested in what Elmarie can dig up about the Boers who were either deemed too seriously injured to be sent overseas to concentration camps.

Trev

Disabled men were sent to the concentration camps where their families were in South Africa and not overseas to prisoner of war camps. If anyone has a name of the Boer I can see if I can locate him in a concentration camp.

Elmarie

Hi Elmarie,
The main issue is that we don't have a name. Are you able to research Boers held in concentration camps by the location and date of capture?

The information we have thus far is a location of Naauwpoort on either the 5/6 January 1901 and the Boer in question has had a leg amputated. I was wondering if there is a way in searching the Vorm C for the LvW (Wound Riband). If there was a chance that this Boer has made an application for this ribbon it would surely give us all the details that we are chasing.

Trev