The Cape Garrison Artillery Pipe Band performing at the VE Day Memorial celebrations at the Castle of Good Hope.
“Lest We Forget.” Since 1918, these three words have echoed across time-honored memorial services, a solemn warning against the historical amnesia that threatens to erase the harsh realities of war. On Sunday, May 31, 2026, those words carried a distinct, heavy resonance at the Castle of Good Hope.
Gathered under the Cape sky, military veterans, sea cadets, and citizens marked the 81st commemoration of Victory in Europe (VE) Day with a poignant focus: honoring the millions of individuals taken as prisoners of war (POWs) during World War II, specifically the thousands of volunteer South African soldiers who faced captivity.
The service commenced with the solemn cadence of flag bearers and veterans marching onto the grounds, accompanied by the stirring notes of the Cape Garrison Artillery band, led by Pipe Major Tony Reis. Yet, behind the traditional military pomp lay a raw, localized history of immense human sacrifice, political fracturing, and psychological scars that persist to this day.
Delivering the central memorial address, Dr. Karen Horn, historian and author of In Enemy Hands: South Africa’s POWs in WWII, peeled back the sanitized layers of wartime narrative. By the spring of 1945, South African POWs numbered some 17,303. The vast majority had been captured during the bitter, compounding defeats of Sidi Rezegh and Tobruk in the North African desert between 1941 and 1942, where Allied forces were overwhelmed by German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel, the "Desert Fox."
