Her Royal Highness Princess Anne will be visiting Southampton’s Hollybrook cemetery to mark the 100th anniversary of the loss of the SS Mendi, a navy ship which sank accidentally and claimed more than 600 South African lives.

The SS Mendi a South African steamship, which departed Plymouth on the morning of 21 February 1917 travelling to Le Havre in France, was accidentally hit by the cargo ship SS Darro 10 nautical miles south of St Catherine’s point on the Isle of Wight.

A much larger ship than the Mendi, the SS Darro survived the collision but the SS Mendi sank in 25 minutes, killing 616 South Africans and 30 crew.

It is widely regarded as one of the worst nautical disasters ever in British waters.

HRH Princess Anne will pay tribute to the lives lost at Southampton’s Hollybrook memorial on February 20, which commemorates by name almost 1,900 servicemen and women of the Commonwealth whose graves are not known or who lost their lives at sea.

Some men were killed outright in the collision, while others were trapped below decks. Oral history records that the men met their fate with great dignity and comforted each other, suffering from hypothermia in the water.

Three events will be taking place across Hampshire and the Isle of Wight between February 17 and 21 to commemorate the loss of the ship.

On Friday 17, a ceremony will be taking place at Portsmouth Milton Cemetery, with nine of the Mendi men killed, buried there.

HRH Princess Anne will then visit the county as part of the major commemoration ceremony at Southampton’s Hollybrook memorial from 2pm on Monday 20.

Despite the day marking the 100th anniversary being Tuesday 21, the larger ceremony will take place the day prior.

On the anniversary itself, the South African High Commission, who are organising the commemorations, have arranged for a ship to leave Southampton to the Isle of Wight in order to lay a wreath at the site of the wreckage.

The ship, weighing 4,230 tons, left on January 16, 1917, sailing from Cape Town to Le Havre, carrying more than 800 navy personnel as well as 33 crew members.

Lifeboats from the SS Mendi’s escorting destroyer, HMS Brisk, rowed among the survivors, trying to rescue them after the collision.

The Reverend Isaac Wauchope Dyobha is reported to have calmed the men by crying out for everyone to die like brothers, with the dignity of the men’s death going down in South African history.