1st South African Brigade

1st South African Brigade

The 1st South African Brigade Group was and infantry unit formed in Pretoria, South Africa under the command of Colonel John Daniel in early May 1940. The brigade was a second formation of a South African Brigade that served on the Western Front during the First World War.

On formation it included three infantry battalions, the 1st Transvaal Scottish battalion, the 1st Battalion, Duke of Edinburgh’s Own Rifles (Lieutenant Colonel G.T. Senescall) and the 1st Battalion of the Royal Natal Carabiniers (Lieutenant Colonel Len Hay, M.C.). Soon after its formation, the brigade received transport for equipping one motorised battalion, and this was assigned to the 1st Transvaal Scottish.

The Brigade assembled at Sonderwater, located east of Cullinan, and took part in a pre-departure parade attended by General J.C. Smuts, the Chief of South African General Staff on 13 July 1940. [D.D. Form 293] The date also celebrated the Delville Wood Day, as the anniversary of a battle on the Western Front in July 1916 when the South African Brigade of 3,032 men had advanced into the Delville Wood, to suffer 2,815 casualties. The next day the Brigade entrained for Durban, and on the 16 July embarked on ships for Mombasa, Kenya where it commenced training not far from Nairobi in the Kenyan Highlands, between Lake Naivasha and Lake Elmenteita. [D.D. Form 293] On 6 September 1940, the 1st Transvaal Scottish was transferred to the 2nd East African Brigade under British command, and took part in the first action involving South African ground troops in the Second World War near Liboi when a column was attacked by a force of Banda and Italian Colonial infantry.

References and notes

ources

* D.D. Form 293. Record of Service of Horace Thomas Malcolm.

Further reading

# HARTSHORN, Brigadier E.P. "Avenge Tobruk". Purnell & Sons (S.A.) Pty.Ltd., Cape Town, 1960
# Oren, N. "South African Forces in World War II: East African and Abyssinian Campaigns". Volume I. Purnell, Cape Town, 1968
# Orpen, N. & Martin, H.J. "South African Forces in World War II: Salute the Sappers". Volume 8 - Part 2. Sappers Association, Johannesburg, 1982
# Uys, I., "Delville Wood". Uys Publishers, Rensburg,1983


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