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101 Battalion (South Africa)
101 Battalion (pronounced as ''one-o-one Battalion'') was a quick-reaction unit of the South West African Territorial Force, composed of black and white commissioned and enlisted personnel. History Origin The unit was formed in January 1976 as ''1 Owambo Battalion'', renamed to 35 Battalion in January 1978, 35 Battalion recruited exclusively among the Owambo. and were only given basic training, but this changed after 1978 when the training intensified with an emphasis on rural counterinsurgency operations. Renaming The South West Africa Territory Force, SWATF renumbered battalion numbers according to their geographical positioning on the border. The prefix 10 pertained to battalions operating to the west of the Kavango River, 20 to the Kavango or central region and 70 to the eastern region. Under this system, 35 Battalion was renamed 101 Battalion in 1980. Tracking Until 1980 101 battalion was used as small teams attached to SADF units as trackers and interpreters. Light I ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
South West African Territorial Force
The South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF) was an auxiliary arm of the South African Defence Force (SADF) and comprised the armed forces of South West Africa (now Namibia) from 1977 to 1989. It emerged as a product of South Africa's political control of the territory which was granted to the former as a League of Nations mandate following World War I. History and background From 1966 until 1989, South African security forces waged a long and bitter counterinsurgency conflict against indigenous nationalists in what was then South West Africa, represented by the Marxist South West African People's Organisation (SWAPO) and its military wing, the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN). As the guerrilla war intensified, however, it became clear that the local civilian police alone were not enough to cope with SWAPO/PLAN incursions and escalating unrest. Consequently, military units were deployed for the first time; 60,000 South African combat troops were engaged in South W ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
