A bell from the SS Mendi‚ the ship which sank 100 years ago in the English channel killing 646 men‚ has been recovered.
It is not known when the bell was removed from the wreck of the ship or by whom. It was left at a pier in Swanage on the south coast of England after BBC reporter Steve Humphrey received an anonymous phone call last Wednesday. The caller had seen recent TV coverage of the Mendi centenary.
Humphrey arranged to arrive at Swanage Pier in the early hours and found the bell in a plastic bag. There was an unsigned note addressed to him which said: “If I handed it in myself it might not go to the rightful place.
“This needs to be sorted out before I pass away as it could get lost.”
Humphrey had been looking for the bell of the Mendi for the last 30 years.
Most of those who died were members of the South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC) on their way to France to do manual labour on the Western Front during World War One.
They came from all over South Africa and the event is a key one in South African military history.
The wreck of the Mendi was only identified in 1974‚ 20km south west of St Catherine's Point‚ Isle of Wight‚ so the brass bell was probably removed since then‚ probably in the 1980s.
The BBC reports that maritime archaeologist John Gribble‚ who has surveyed the ship‚ said the bell was probably genuine.
“The bell has never been reported found‚ but given the extent to which the site was stripped of non-ferrous metals in the past I'd be very surprised if the bell was still on the wreck‚” Gribble said.
“The bell looks right. It's the right sort of size for a bell of that period‚” he was quoted saying.
The bell is to be put on display at a museum until a final decision is made about where it will be kept.
The South African government‚ which is attempting to recover Mendi artefacts‚ has been informed. Kathy Munro‚ an Honorary Associate Professor at Wits University and curator of The Heritage Portal website‚ said on the site that the story of the return of the bell strikes her as “somewhat peculiar”.
“Why did the possessor of the bell of the Mendi not walk into a local museum‚ announce himself and hand over his bell and explain how and why and he came of it? Many enthusiasts will be craving answers to these questions.”
- Sunday Times