Page 105 - KBHA BULLETIN 6

Billeting

Board and Lodging had to be found for nearly 1 000 sailors each week. The Muizenberg
S.A.W.A.S. took over the Park Hotel in Muizenberg during 1943. (Fig. 3.17). Previously

the St. John Ambulance Association had used it as a troop convalescent home. Here
S.A.W.A.S. billeted the sailors for the remainder of the war, whereafter the hotel was

demolished and the Muizenberg Junior School was built on the site in 1948.

The task of billeting the sailors was in itself a considerable undertaking, especially as the

Muizenberg S.A.W.A.S. had also taken over “Carisbrooke” No. 2 Main Road, St. James as
a hostel for nurses and officers in the women’s service. “Carisbrooke” was a holiday home

of the Suzman family in Johannesburg and they had made it available to S.A.W.A.S. during

the war. Max Sonnenberg, MP for the South Peninsula (whose wife was Commandant of
the Muizenberg branch), was a man of wide interests and a most generous godfather to

S.A.W.A.S. He bought “Sorrento” a big boarding-house on the seafront at Muizenberg
which was fully furnished and equipped. He donated it as a hostel for sailors and besides

the boarding aspect (extra beds were placed in the large rooms) meals for as many as 60
sailors a sitting were served.

Katherine Hickman of Muizenberg S.A.W.A.S. put all of these duties into rhyme. (Fig.
3.18).

Post-war activities and disbandment

The S.A.W.A.S. took part in the VE Day parade in Cape Town. (Fig. 3. 19). After the war

it was agreed that S.A.W.A.S. should attend to the domestic problems following

demobilization, dispose of surplus military clothing to the needy, raise a “Thank you
Britain” Fund, inaugurate memorial schemes if they so wished, and then ask General

Smuts’s permission to stand down.

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