Operation Husky

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: