In 1941, Gunner William Loubser from Elsies River, a Cape Corps volunteer, was captured by Axis forces at the battle of Sidi Rezegh in North Africa. He was taken with other prisoners of war on an Italian cargo ship across the Mediterranean Sea to a prisoner of war camp in Italy when the ship was torpedoed by a British submarine, within a few miles from the Italian coast.
William Loubser swam ashore and ended up in a POW camp outside Rome from where he escaped twice and later joined the Italian resistance movement against Facism. He fought by their side for a while, helping to sabotage Nazi convoys, until he eventually fought his way to Allied lines where he rejoined Allied forces in time to defeat the Germans at El Alamein in November 1942.
He returned to Elsies River after the war and was awarded a Military Medal ‘in recognition of gallant and distinguished services in the field’. Later he was honoured as one of the soldiers who were part of the South African Victory Contingent in London in 1946.
However, despite all this, Gunner William Loubser died in the same unfree Elsies River he had left before the war. If ever there is a book to be written about an unknown soldier, then this is the story that must be told.
Jeremy Vearey het grootgeword in Elsiesrivier. Hy was ’n lid van MK en ’n lyfwag vir oud-president Nelson Mandela. Hy is ’n vorige majoor-generaal in die SAPD en was tot onlangs adjunk-provinsiale-kommisaris in die Wes-Kaap SAPD. Vearey se biografie Jeremy vannie Elsies het in 2018 by Tafelberg verskyn. Sy book Into Dark Water: A Police Memoir (Tafelberg 2021) is benoem op die 2022 Sunday Times Literary Awards langlys.
