Cape Town - Tears flowed as the SA Navy paid tribute to three submariners who died when they were swept off their submarine, SAS Manthatis.
Family members flew in to attend the memorial service on Wednesday.
Chief of the SA Navy, Vice-Admiral Monde Lobese, also shed tears as Warrant Officer Class 1 Mokwapa Lucas Mojela, 43, Lieutenant-Commander Gillian Elizabeth Hector, 33, and Master Warrant Officer William Malesela Mathipa, 48, were remembered.
Mojela and Mathipa were from Limpopo, Hector was from Gqeberha.
Mathipa joined the submarine squadron in 1998 and started a sea-going career on the SAS Emily Hobhouse.
Hector, during her school years, was a member of the SA Sea Cadet Corp, where she developed her passion for the SA Navy. She then joined the SA Navy in 2010 and did her basic military training at SAS Saldanha.
Mojela was in college when he decided to join the SA Navy in 1999. He did basic military training for rating part 1 at SAS Saldanha, also in 1999. He then did radar tactical at SAS Simonsberg and worked at the Naval base operations room from July 2000 to 2002.
Everyone who gave eulogies shared the same view and love of the trio, with Commander Moses Mekhoe saying he was among the crew when the incident occurred.
Mekhoe consoled those who survived the incident, saying: “To the crew of SA Manthatisi, stay together, help is here. I know you fought tooth and nail to save your shipmates … This too shall pass. We’ll recover but not forget our fallen sailors.”
Chief of the Navy Monde Lobese ended his eulogy with acknowledgements of every immediate family member of all the deceased. He thanked the emergency services that attended the scene that day and thanked the woman who gave up her home to the crew when they were in need.
“The loss is too much for us to bear, but we hope that their souls will rest in peace because they died serving the South African flag and its people.
“I am renaming the Submarine School to Gillian Hector Training Centre, Submarine Battery Workshop to William Maesela Mathipa, and Submarine Squadron Offices to Mokwapha Lucas Mojela offices”.
Lobese said looking into the matter he formed a four-man board of inquiry that would investigate what occurred on the day of the tragedy.
The investigations will resume on October 11 and are expected to finish on November 10, providing a report which will detail what led to the incident and enabling them to answer all the questions currently hanging.