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Updated: June 19, 2025
Weddingen's wonderful prowess off the Hoek of Holland, on September 22, 1914, will never be forgotten. In the space of an hour he sunk the three English armored cruisers, "Cressy," "Hague," and "Aboukir," and shortly afterwards dispatched their comrade "Hawke" to keep them company at the bottom of the North Sea.
A base may be drawn a few miles below Ladysmith say, from Oliver's Hoek Pass in the Drakensberg to the union of the Tugela River with the Buffalo. Newcastle will then lie about thirty miles from the apex of the triangle, nearly equi-distant from both sides. Dundee is about twelve miles from the middle point of the right side, and Ladysmith about the same distance from the middle point of the base.
In his own account of the affair he says that there was a sort of a race, which was won by the British column, for a ridge near Reddersburg, named Mostert's Hoek. He had with him 2,000 men with four guns, but an invitation to surrender was promptly declined by the defenders, who all that day were beaten on by bullet and by shell. After sunset the last drop of water was served out.
De Wet did his best to add Wepener to the scalps of Sannah's Post and Mostert's Hoek; but when two columns detailed for the relief by Lord Roberts under the command of Brabant and Hart, who had come round from Natal with his brigade, reached Wepener from Aliwal North on April 25, they found that the siege had been raised, and that De Wet had trekked away to the north.
The towns, however, kept jogging past at frequent intervals, Red Hook being first on the list, the first mention of which is in 1751, when certain baptisms are recorded as occurring in Roode Hoek. The place is said to have its name from the fact that a marsh covered with ripe cranberries was the first thing that caught the Dutch eye in this spot.
One by one they slew his men: still the chief their chase evaded. He had vanished from their ken, by the Fiend or Fortune aided Either fled to Powles Hoek, where the Briton yet commanded, Or his stamping-ground forsook, waiting till the hunt disbanded; So they checked pursuit at length, and returned to toil securely: It was useless wasting strength on a purpose baffled surely.
A relieving force appeared at the close of the action, but no vigorous pursuit was attempted, although the weather was wet and the Boers had actually carried away sixty loaded wagons, which could only go very slowly. It must be confessed that from its feckless start to its spiritless finish the story of the Buffel's Hoek convoy is not a pleasant one to tell.
That night part of the crew were wakened out of their sleep by an earthquake. They immediately ran upon deck, supposing that the ship had struck. On heaving the lead, however, there was no bottom to be found. We had afterwards several shocks, but none of them so violent as the first. We had then doubled the Struis Hoek, and were at that time in the Bay of Good Hope.
I have known three men killed by them in one harvest on a farm in Oliphant's Hoek. There is an immense variety of them, the deadliest being the puff-adder, a thick and comparatively short snake. Its bite will kill occasionally within an hour. One of my friends lost a favourite and valuable horse by its bite, in less than two hours after the attack.
When General Christian De Wet began his campaign in the eastern part of the Free State there were hardly enough men left in the laagers to guard them properly when battles were in progress, and in the battles at Sannaspost, Moester's Hoek, and Wepener probably ninety-nine per cent. of his men took part in every battle.
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