This day in history: South Africa’s first fatality “’down south”. Joseph Daniels drowns off Marion Island in 1948

On 29 January 1948 the S.S. Gamtoos was off-loading the last of its cargo of materials to build the first weather station on Marion Island, following the island’s formal annexation only three days previously.  The modus operandi was for materials to be loaded onto or towed behind “flat boom” boats borrowed from the Department of Commerce’s Government Guano Islands which were then towed to the breaker’s edge off Boulder Beach by the ship’s motor boat Aqua.  The flat booms then passed the towing ropes to the shore while hitching up to a fixed rope running from a buoy to the shore.

A worsening sea by the afternoon caused difficulties with this procedure and before it could be unhitched a breaker capsized one of the flat booms, tipping its five boatmen into the water.  One of the men reached the shore on his own but the others struggled in their heavy clothing.  Medical Orderly Sergeant Ron Kinsella swam out from the shore with a lifebuoy and brought three of the boatmen to safety.  The fifth boatman was then noticed farther out to sea by a lookout on Gunner’s Point.  H.P. Dike, PWD Senior Works Inspector, took over the buoy and a rope and managed to get him ashore.

The boatman, Joseph Daniels, appeared lifeless when landed and despite efforts could not be resuscitated.  A bruise on his forehead suggested that he had hit his head when the boat capsized.  The Gamtoos was running low on coal so after retrieving the four surviving boatman from shore it sailed with its ensign at half-mast for Cape Town the next day without offloading the last of the hutment sections.

Joseph Daniels, a “coloured” (= mixed race) man from Cape Town with the nickname “Ironman” and still in his mid 20s, was buried the next day in the afternoon on the island near Trypot Beach with a white cross erected over his grave.  A short service was conducted by Lieutenant W.L.C. Bond of the South African Engineer Corps.  With the passage of time the original cross has had to be replaced by a second one, which by 2009 had itself fallen over from rot.  A National Department of Public Works’ carpenter made a second replacement cross which was erected over Daniels’ grave in March 2011 with a small ceremony at the time the new base was opened.

Little is known about Joseph Daniels.  No definite photograph of him is known to ALSA although he could be one of the six men pictured here with flat boom UG [Union Government) 81 from John Marsh’s book No Pathway Here opposite page 153.  However,  Lance van Sittert of the University of Cape Town’s Department of Historical Studies published a valuable (but perhaps overly politicized) paper in the journal Polar Record in 2015 that helps flesh out Daniels’ short life, starting as a fisher with his father at the age of 10 and discusses in detail the seminal role that he and his fellow boatmen paid in the establishment of South Africa’s permanent presence at the Prince Edward Islands.

Joseph Daniels was the first person to die in the service of the South African National Antarctic Programme sensu lato, but is by no means the last.  ALSA will honour the others on the anniversaries of their passing as the year progresses.’

Featured photograph: The first cross erected over the grave of Joseph Daniels, on 30 January 1948

References:

Dryden-Dymond, R.P. 1948.  Report of Proceedings of H.M.S.A.S. “Natal” from 7th January, 1948 to 2nd February, 1948.  Annexure III.  Methods employed and gear used in discharging cargo from “Gamtoos” to the island.  Pretoria: South African National Defence Force Documentation Centre.  p. 6.

Fougstedt, H.E. 1948.   Report of Proceedings: Voyage Cape Town to Prince Edward Islands; 23rd January, 1948 to 21st February 1948.  Pretoria: South African National Defence Force Documentation Centre.  7 pp.

Marsh, J.H. 1948.  No Pathway Here.  Cape Town: Howard B. Timmins.  200 pp.

van Sittert, L. 2015.   ‘Ironman’: Joseph Daniels and the white history of South Africa’s deep south.  Polar Record  51: 50-512.

John Cooper, Principal Investigator, Antarctic Legacy of South Africa, Department of Botany and Zoology, Stellenbosch University