M.O.T.H.’s proudly celebrate 95 years of Comradeship
An article in the WITBANK NUUS Friday 12th June,1987 is headed “M.O.T,H.’s proudly celebrate 60 years of Comradeship.”
36 Years later on Sunday 5th February, 2023, members of MOTH Crater Shellhole celebrated their shellholes’ Charter date, 3 February, 1928, signed then by the Founder of the Memorial Order of Tin Hats, the late Moth Charles Alfred Eviden, better known as Moth “0” also fondly referred to a Moth “Evo” who was wounded in WWI where he served in the Allied Forces, still merely a boy.
He settled in Durban after the war and was particularly saddened and concerned about the abandonment of the ex WWI soldiers who arrived back in their country, most of them not finding jobs, no respect or compassion shown to them. In fact they became the “Forgotten Soldiers”, Moth Evo founded the Order on the 7th May 1927. Crater Shellhole was founded less than a year later.
During WWII, Crater survived as Shellhole with only 4 members. Crater Shellhole remains the only surviving Shellhole of 5 Shellholes founded in Witbank in the 1927 -1928 timeline. The Shellhole was founded by a group of mining men who also did service during WWI. They decided on the word CRATER as the Shellhole name referring to a “Large Bowl-shaped cavity in the ground caused by bomb-explosion impact.” The Crater logo consist of the background colours; navy blue, red and sky blue depicting the sea, land and air forces. It sports a mine safety lamp referring to the coal mining industry and the Cosmos flowers showing the geographic location of this proud shellhole.
Members of the MOTH Lowveld District joined their fellow MOTH brothers for the birthday bash
