TODAY the poignant sound of the Last Post echoed out across Southampton in remembrance of more than 600 men who have no known grave but the sea.

As the last notes faded away, a group of politicians and diplomats bowed their heads in a two minute silence and recalled the contingent of South African warriors who died 90 years ago in the ice cold waters off the Isle of Wight.

The traditional reveille was sounded and one by one representatives of the government of South Africa came forward to lay wreaths at the memorial in the city's Hollybrook Cemetery.

The story of SS Mendi and the huge death toll that followed the ship foundering, has slipped, rather obscurely, into Britain's history books but in South Africa the name proudly lives on and the memory of those who lost their lives has never been forgotten.

Later a wreath, from the deck of the South African naval ship, Amatola, was laid on the sea, at the spot 11 miles south of the Isle of Wight where SS Mendi went down.

In one of the worst maritime losses of the 20th century, a total of 615 black South Africans were drowned far from their homeland on the way to fight in a foreign war in a foreign country.

On January 16, 1917, more than 800 members of the 5th Battalion,South African Native Labour Corps (SANLC) paraded on the dockside at Cape Town.

For many, who came from the hot, dry arid lands deep in the interior, it was the first time that they had ever seen the sea.

So it was, amongst these strange and unfamiliar surroundings, that the men waited for orders to embark on the ship, SS Mendi, for a voyage of many thousands of miles that the majority would not survive.

If all this was unfamiliar and, perhaps, unsettling for these volunteers, it was nothing compared to the anguish and terror that would eventually engulf the ship and her passengers.

It is not widely recognised in this country that 21,000 black South Africans, in the two years between 1916 and 1918, served in the First World War. They joined a force made up of French, Chinese, Indian, Egyptian and Canadian labourers, as well as German prisoners-of-war.

After stopping in Plymouth, SS Mendi's final destination was Le Havre, in France, from where the call had come for men to man the trenches and help fight on the increasingly bloody Western Front.

Fighting force The men from the SANLC were mostly from the rural areas of the Pondo Kingdom in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. They were not to be used as a fighting force and were forbidden to bear arms as there was a fear, at the time, they might revolt against military or civilian authority. Instead they were to be used in digging trenches and performing other manual labour as well as forming stretcher bearer parties.

On the morning of February 21, 1917, SS Mendi, carrying the SANLC contingent comprising 805 black privates, five white officers and 17 non-commissioned officers as well as 33 ship's crew, found herself in thick fog a few miles off St. Catherine's Point, Isle of Wight.

Unseen until the last minute, another ship, SS Darro travelling at full speed and emitting no warning signals, rammed the troop carrier which would then only take 20 minutes to plunge to the bottom of the sea.

According to the history books, no steps were taken by Darro to lower boats or rescue any survivors. Instead she stood off and floated nearby while lifecraft from Mendi's escorting destroyer, HMS Brisk, rowed among the survivors, plucking them to safety.

There are many stories about the men's bravery as the ship went down. One is of the Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha, who cried words of encouragement to the dying men who were ordered to parade on the open deck of the sinking vessel and remove their boots.

The chaplain adressed the formal ranks of men: "Be quiet and calm, my countrymen, for what is taking place is exactly what you came to do.

"You are going to die, but that is what you came to do. Brothers, we are drilling the death drill. I, a Xhosa, say you are my brothers. Zulus, Swazis, Pondos, Basothos and all others, let us die like warriors.

"We are sons of Africa. Raise your war cries my brothers, for though they made us leave our assegais back in the kraals, our voices are left with our bodies.'' Regardless of clan or tribe the men faced death as South Africans. As Mendi slipped beneath the waves she took with her 607 black troops along with nine of their fellow white countrymen and all 33 crew.

By the time the unit was disbanded in 1918, the SANLC had dug quarries, laid and repaired roads and railway lines, and cut tons of timber. Others were employed in the French harbours of Le Havre, Rouen and Dieppe, where they unloaded supply ships and loaded trains with supplies for the battlefront.

Three hundred and thirty-three of these men gave their lives in France during the First World War World.

The memory of the Mendi disaster is honoured by the modern South African Navy, which has among its fleet the SAS Isaac Dyobha, a Warrior-class fast attack craft and, probably, one of the few naval warships in the world named after a cleric, toghether with the SAS Mendi, a Valour-class frigate.

The Mendi has also given its name to South Africa's highest award for courage, the Order of the Mendi Decoration for Bravery, bestowed by the country's president on citizens who have performed extraordinary acts of bravery.