My mother Hazel served at Cape Town in the Women’s Auxiliary Army Service (WAAS) in World War II as an artillery specialist. She had a tough childhood in the Great Depression of the 1930s and decided to volunteer for war service when the WAAS was created.

She did her basic training on Robben Island (then a military base) and was posted to serve on the guns and forward observation posts along the Cape Town coast. During World War II, the major shipping route from India was around Cape Town. There was a danger that the Germans would dispatch raiding ships, such as pocket battleships and cruisers, to attack merchant ships. Accordingly, Table Bay and False Bay were protected by gun batteries generally mounted with 9.2-inch guns on hillsides such as Signal Hill and Red Hill. There were difficulties staffing these batteries; so, instead of ‘manning’ them, it was decided to ‘woman’ them with women volunteers, who included my mother.

The gun batteries in Cape Town Central were Docks Battery and Signal Hill. Signal Hill had a forward observation post (FOP).

My mother told me stories of that time, and, for the sake of posterity, here is one (and, oh, yes, all names have been changed). The young WAAS women (aged 20 to 23) had to serve at the Signal Hill FOP for a week at a time. They reported to a nasty sergeant who, once they refused to go on dates with him, made life difficult. One item was the matter of rations. Rations would be delivered by truck but the sergeant decided that the women had to collect them from Docks Battery and carry them up the hill to the FOP. It was no easy walk. The women took turns to collect the rations every other day. Thus, it was that Brigadier Thwakes-Smith decided to inspect all the posts under his command. He was walking down to Docks Battery from the Signal Hill FOP when he met my mother climbing up the hill. Seeing him, my mother set down her basket of potatoes, took off her satchel (containing tins of bully beef, corn, beans, cheese, biscuits and butter), set down the milk churn she was carrying and saluted the brigadier, who saluted back. He asked her what she was doing. She told him she was carrying rations to the FOP and that the women there did this every other day. He asked why the duty truck could not deliver them. She said the sergeant said it was a waste of petrol. He told her to report at the Docks Battery stores in two days and say she had been sent by the brigadier. Two days later, she duly reported and noted two very burly men who, said the storeman, were to help carry the rations. They were prisoners from Roeland Street jail. My mother was very fit and no fool. She kept the prisoners trudging up and down with load after load for the whole of that day and the next. The following week, the same. She dispensed with the milk churn and substituted milk powder. After two weeks, the women at the FOP had enough tinned rations for a year. Expanding on this, my mother arranged for the convicts to transport other items.

A month later, the prison warden arranged to meet the brigadier. He said he was sorry, but he would have to withhold the services of the convicts carrying rations. It was, he said, a cruel and unusual duty. Severe punishment, in fact. The brigadier went red in the face and shouted (so loud that the duty officer heard it, told his batman, who told my mother): “Cruel? Unusual? Blast your eyes, man! I’ve seen a woman, barely 20 years old, carry those rations up the hill! I don’t hear them complain, now do I? Total blasted poppycock! Ridiculous! What you need, warden, is a better class of tough criminal!”

The sergeant was reassigned to the boats, which were very uncomfortable. The young women got on with their duties. The phrase ‘better class of tough criminal’ passed into folklore.