Verkykerskop car chase
My late
grandfather was once the Postmaster of the Turfontein Post office. He told this story.
Just four
years after the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, when South
Africa finally became an independent country, although still a member of the
British Commonwealth, the Country found itself embroiled in what became known
as the “Great War”. Britain and Germany went to war in what was to be the
biggest conflict in human history. It was the first war ever to involve every
continent in the World, and in the end millions of lives were lost.
South Africa
was a vitally important part of the British war effort, and as part of the
Empire it was automatically on England’s side. The value to Britain was the
enormous resources of raw material South Africa could supply to feed the ever
increasing demands of the war effort.
However,
this country’s support for Britain was not unanimously popular with South
African’s. By far the largest section of
the white population were Afrikaners, and many of them had been part of the
Boer forces facing Britain during the awful Anglo Boer War. Memories of
concentration camps where four times more South African women and children died
than soldiers in the field, and the shocking “scorched earth tactics” used by
the British to force the Boer fighters into submission were still fresh. It is
no surprise that there were many South African and other dissidents active in
the country at the time. It was extremely difficult to find these underground
activists, because many of the secret police and other agencies charged with
finding them were actually also sympathetic to Britain’s enemies. It was an
incredibly complicated situation.
Back to my
grandfathers’ part in this tale. A team of investigators unearthed a trio of
secret agents, or spy’s, who had been engaged in sending information to
Germany, through contacts in South West
Africa, concerning the shipment of men, arms, ammunition, gold bullion and the
movements of Britons. For instance British pilots were being trained in South
Africa. For a while it seemed that
nothing could be kept secret. Every move was monitored and reported. Ships carrying vital supplies were attacked
soon after leaving Cape Town, often by vessels based in South West Africa. To
counter this South African forces entered South West Africa, drove out the
German forces based there and took over running that country. Despite this
there was still the problem of undercover agents in South Africa. During the
South West African operation the names of many agents and their methods were
seized, and thus three South African citizens were identified as ringleaders.
Two of them, both of German decent, were caught, tried and executed in Pretoria
as traitors. The third, Johannes Oosthuisen, a 30 year old Afrikaner living at Aasvoelkop on the northern outskirts of Johannesburg (now Northcliff), was
identified as the head of a sophisticated spy-ring. Oosthuisen was a young boy
growing up on his family farm in Broederstroom, near what is now Hartbeespoort
Dam, when British soldiers arrived and ordered his mother, himself and two
sisters to take what they could carry out of their farmhouse and burned it to
the ground. After driving off their cattle and other livestock the soldiers rode
away laughing, leaving them sitting in their smouldering farmyard. Little
wonder Johannes Oosthuisen took sides against them.
It was by
chance he had evaded capture when his fellow agents had been arrested. He had
stopped at the Aasvoelkop Dutch Reformed church on his way to Johannesburg to
tell his wife, who put new flowers in the church every day, that he would be
home late that night. Little did he know that he would never return home, or
see her again.
From
Northcliff he drove past the farm Emmarentia on his way to the Drill Hall in
Johannesburg, where he had a source who kept him up to date with the movements
of British Officers and their allies in the South African army. His car was his
pride and joy which he kept in perfect condition. On his way he stopped near
Johannesburg station to fill it, preparing for any eventuality. As he
approached the Drill Hall, on the eastern side of the city he was instantly
alerted when both the guards on duty looked his way, and one of them turned and
ran across the parade ground towards the main building. Instinctively he drove
on, noting the concentrated attention the remaining guard gave him as he drove
past. His usual habit was to drive past the army base and on to Doornfontein,
the next suburb. Here he would normally park and have lunch at the
Doornforntein Hotel, for all the world
like a regular businessman meeting a few friends to discuss the progress of the
war, as did everyone in Johannesburg. What he was actually doing was collecting
information gleaned through a network of soldiers, policemen, workers, servants
and other talkative people. Despite the seriousness of the situation, in
reality South Africa seemed far from any action. Once he had analysed this
information he would set the system of reporting it into motion. Mostly it was
passed on through a complicated network of coded phone calls, letters and
verbal messages carried by regular South Africans who had no love for their
English allies. The past was still too recent to forget, and Afrikaans South
Africans in particular were only a generation or two away from their European
forebears, many of them Austrian and German.
Ever
vigilant, Oosthuisen parked and went to his usual table in the hotel, thinking
it strange for his two closest aides not to be there already. They both lived
in nearby Bez Valley, and were generally there before him. As he sat down
Marie, the pretty young Afrikaans day receptionist walked casually past his
table, and seeming to stop for a brief greeting said in Afrikaans, “Johannes,
only twenty minutes ago four policemen took Piet and Gerhardt (his fellow
agents) away after asking if you would be here today. They told them no, you
had church business at Aasvoelkop, and would not be here until tomorrow…and in
fact here they are now..” with that she walked on back to the entrance hall.
Quick as a flash Oosthuisen fled out through the kitchen, through a hedge and
into his car. He knew the game was up, and he needed to get as far as he could
from Johannesburg. They had prepared for this emergency, and later the police
revealed they knew about the planned escape route from Durban by coastal
steamer to South West Africa. At the beginning of the war this was German
occupied territory, and a safe haven for agents like Oosthuisen and his
colleagues.
As he drove
away the secret police and an army officer watched him leave. He was now one of
the most wanted men in the country. They knew he had an extensive network of
informants, and an effective system to get information out of the country. A team had already raided his house, and
another the church where his wife worked. It was time to put out the 1914
version of an all points bulletin to track him down and catch him. The fastest method of communication at the
time was the telephone and the telegraph, both operated by the post office. Every police station and army base in the
country was connected by a telephone linked to the nearest post office
telephone exchange. So the message was immediately sent out and Johannes Oosthuisen became every
policeman’s number one priority. In addition to this, the network of post
offices and the telegraph system was even more extensive than police stations,
and it wasn’t unusual for the police to enlist the aid of every post master
around the country, and so a telegraph went to every post master to look out
for him. A description of his car was included as well.
The escape
route though Durban and other ports was well known to the authorities, and
extra vigilance was urged from all post offices and police stations on the
routes to the coast. The shortest was via Nelspruit to the port of Lourenco
Marques, (now Maputo), or Durban. To get to LM meant he would have to go
through the border post, so Durban seemed much safer. A special watch was
placed on all trains on those routes as well.
Oosthuisen
decided to escape though Durban. Everything was set up for this eventuality. All
he had to do was get there. He knew he had no time to waste, and planned to
drive straight to Durban as soon as he got into his car. He knew if he was caught he could expect no mercy from
the British authorities, so time was of the essence. He also knew that the road
out of Johannesburg to Durban would be watched, so he headed straight for
Benoni on the east of the city. From there he headed south through Springs to
Greylingstad, hoping to avoid the patrols on the obvious route.
My
Grandfather, being a postmaster, had a grandstand view of all the activity. As
no one knew where Oosthuisen was headed, telegraphic messages flew fast and
furiously around the country. Every post master got the same messages. Then
messages started coming back from all parts of the country, Oosthuisen was
sighted all over the place. A very positive trail seemed to be towards the
Western Transvaal, a strong farming area, and the theory was that he was
heading into the Platteland where German sympathisers would hide him. Other
theories were that he would hide out in the older suburbs of Johannesburg,
where my Grandfather was stationed. There was lots of excitement everywhere. In
army headquarters in Johannesburg a special task team tried to co-ordinate the
hunt, and make sense of all the incoming information.
In those days there was no tarred highway down to Durban. The road was unpaved, and wandered through farmland and open bush on its’ way down to the coast. Fuel was usually only available at petrol stations in the larger towns, and stored in cans in smaller ones. Also it was July, midwinter, and the countryside along the edge of the Drakensberg mountains gets bitterly cold. Snow falls in the area are common.
Toward late
afternoon a call came in from the town of Balfour. The postmaster reported a
car driven by a lone driver had stopped for fuel at the local farm co-op, and
had driven on. The timing was right for someone having left Johannesburg just
before lunch time. The driver was wearing a city suit, also unusual for the
weather conditions where he had to stop often and open farm gates on the road.
The hunters began to concentrate on the area. The next town could be
Standerton, or perhaps Vrede, both routes to Newcastle, on the main road to
Durban. Police and army units in both towns were ordered out to intercept him.
Oosthuisen
must have passed though Standerton just as these pursuers were getting
organised, and drove through without stopping. He must have guessed that they
would be lying in wait for him on the road outside Newcastle or Ladysmith
(ironically the site of one of the worst British military defeats ever at
Spionkop during the Boer war) He decided to take an alternative, and more
difficult route through the town of Vrede. As he got to there once again he
couldn’t stop as the police were arriving at the only petrol store as he got
there. They were just too late to stop him, but they did get onto the telegraph
to confirm a positive sighting. Telegraphs clattered throughout the country,
and excitement built in every town in the area. Policemen and volunteers donned
warm clothing and formed up on the dirt main streets. The last action any of
them had seen was during the Boer war fourteen years earlier.
Oosthuisen
now had to change his plans. His biggest problem was fuel. Cars of the day were
not really made for long distance touring, and he hadn’t been able to stop in
either Balfour or Vrede. The next stop on the road to Durban was Newcastle. He
knew that would be a problem. It was a larger and more organised town with an
efficient police force and a nearby army base. He decided to head for
Verkykerskop. This little outpost was
nothing more than a trading store, a few houses and the post office. He knew
the local farmers would have fuel, and probably no policemen. Perhaps he hoped
to hole up with a sympathetic farmer, we’ll never know. He drove on through the winter night. It had
been raining earlier, and the road was a mud bath, reducing his speed sometimes
to a walking pace. Then it started to snow, as it often does in the area. The
white mantle may have helped him find his way, reflecting some light form his
modest headlights. Not long before midnight he was only a few hundred meters
from the little town when he ran out of fuel. He didn’t even bother to pull
onto the side of the road…what traffic would possibly come this way? The post
master and one policeman heard the approaching car, and as the policeman got up
from the fire, un-holstering his pistol, the postmaster sent out a simple
message…he’s here!
The two men
warily stepped out into the night. Looking down the road they could see the
car…the moon had peeped out from behind the cloud, the snow had stopped and the
countryside was lit with a strange brightness.
In the time it had taken them to send their message and prepare to go
outside Oosthuisen had broken into the store and had carried two twenty liter jerry
cans of fuel to the car, and was pouring
one of them into the tank.
“Hey”,
shouted the policeman nervously, as he pointed his pistol waveringly at the
most wanted man in the country, “Oosthuisen, put your hands up and come
here!” Oosthuisen kept on pouring.
Afterwards the postmaster said he looked terrified or frozen with cold, maybe
both.
Just after
midnight my grandfather read the same telegraph which flashed around the
country….Oosthuisen is dead!
To this day,
every time it snows in mid July in vicinity of Verkykerskop the locals swear
they hear the sound of that old hooter just after midnight….
(Story written by Clive as narrated to him by his grandfather, Charles Strugnall.)
No comments:
Post a Comment