A five year-long Gunners’ Association of South Africa (GASA) project reached a milestone with the January publication of its first Register of Heritage Guns and Vehicles containing details of more than 500 artillery pieces of different calibres, sizes and vintages.
The Register officially harks back to 2020 when the GASA took on the task of recording all heritage guns in South Africa. The work was made easier thanks to “an about 2010 effort” by Pat Irwin of Grahamstown (now Makhanda) who researched an initial register. It was brought to publication stage by a GASA heritage gun restoration committee with “significant assistance” from, among others, the Ditsong SA National Museum of Military History, Springs Mine and Military Museum, the School of Artillery, GEM Village and the MOTHs (Memorable Order of Tin Hats).
Irwin’s draft, according to Gunner Roy Andersen, was “built on, expanded and at the time of writing contains 544 guns of which 366 (67%) have been inspected in the past three years. There are 278 (51%) photos on this register and the database kept in parallel with the register”. Irwin, Andersen added, provided invaluable additional input in 2024 and 2025.
Gun locations vary from SA National Defence Force (SANDF) “installations”, the former Defence Reserves Chief writes in his register foreword, to museums, city and town halls as well as MOTH shellholes.
On what he and his co-volunteers found when researching, Andersen has it the guns vary in importance – a subjective assessment according to him.
Five of the 6” 26cwt guns that served with the Nugent Battery on the Western Front in World War I were singled out and resprayed. They stand in the Company’s Garden in Cape Town (Gunners’ Memorial), Warriors Gate (MOTH HQ Durban), the Union Buildings, Kimberley Museum and the Johannesburg Zoo. The sixth gun is in a derelict state in Bloemfontein.
The Register is a basis for prioritising guns for restoration or at least respraying. Some work has been completed by the School of Artillery, 4 Artillery Regiment, Sandfontein Artillery Regiment, King Cetshwayo Artillery Regiment, GEM Village, Apex Base, Fort Klapperkop, the Springs Mine and Military Museum and Ditsong SA National Museum of Military History. The Gunners’ Memorial Trust ensured all eight guns at the National Gunners Memorial in Potchefstroom were resprayed.
Type-wise the largest number on the Register is the venerable 25 pounder (GV1) used by the then Union Defence Force in World War II and its successor the SA Defence Force (SADF) through to the Angolan conflict. The 25 pounders are followed by the 3.7” heavy AA gun, 40 mm QF Bofors LAA gun, 3.7” howitzer and QF 13 pounders.
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