The day the Springboks played ‘The Rest’ – and won!
I first met Mervyn Moore at his trading store in the Eastern Cape’s Qumbu district in 1961. A great sportsman, he had represented Border at rugby against the British touring side in 1938, and he related to me the remarkable story of South Africa’s rugby success in a German prisoner-of-war (POW) camp during the Second World War.
Stalag IV-B was one of the largest POW camps in Nazi Germany and housed many South Africans. One spring afternoon in 1944, a scuffle on the parade ground between some of the occupants of the two South African huts sent up a swirl of dust. A newly arrived German guard blew his whistle and fired a
