Operation Husky :: Mmegi Online

For the next two weeks we will take a short break from our “Orphan and the Ants” series to look at some snippets of Batswana participation in the Second World War, which will be the subject of an illustrated Botswana Society Golden Jubilee Lecture by this author next week Wednesday, July 23, 2016 from 6pm, at the University of Botswana.

Seventy-three years ago this month, beginning on July 10, 1943, the Batswana gunners and smokers of the African Pioneer Corps (APC), along with their Basotho compatriots were the only African combat units assigned to take part in “Operation Husky” the code name for the allied invasion of the Italian island of Sicily.

As part of General Bernard Montgomery’s British 8th Army, the “Fighting Becs” had already demonstrated their competence under fire in the final stages of the North Africa campaign, having been the first indigenous African artillery units entrusted with frontline duties:

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