Remembering today

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On the night 25/26 April 1915, the Germans attacked the railhead at Trekkopies. Out on reconnaissance when a force was detected marching towards his camp, Col Skinner left two troops to shadow the enemy while he returned to camp and ordered the Rhodesian Regiment and two heavy guns to be brought forward from Swakopmund. At 05.45 the Germans blew up the railway line to the north of Skinner’s camp, but failed to cut the South Africans' line of communications. At 07.40, the Germans launched an attack with artillery and mounted infantry, advancing on foot from the north and west, but were repulsed by the infantry and the Royal Navy’s armoured cars. Skinner began a counter-attack at 10.30, but, owing to a lack of artillery, it failed to make much of an impression. The South Africans suffered nine killed and 32 wounded to seven Germans killed, fourteen wounded and thirteen unwounded prisoners left on the battlefield.

More information on the Namibia campaign can be found at http://samilitaryhistory.org/vol132hp.html