Badge 21 Battalion South West Africa

21 South African Infantry Battalion is an infantry battalion of the South African Army. The unit has its origin as 21 Battalion, an apartheid era unit used to train black South African men as soldiers. In 1973 the apartheid government decided to train black soldiers. On 21 January 1974, the Army Bantu Training Centre was established at Baviaanspoort, north of Pretoria  Sixteen recruits began basic training in March 1974 with another 38 men joining in August, now trained by the sixteen initial recruits.  In April 1975, authority was given for blacks to attest in the then-Permanent Force.  On 1 December 1975, the Army Bantu Training Centre became a self-accounting unit and moved to Lenz, south of Johannesburg.  The centre was then renamed 21 Battalion on the 21st birthday of the South African Infantry Corps in 1975. Press releases during 1977 emphasised that these black soldiers would not be trained for South African combat roles. By 1978, the Chief of the South African Army begun to implement plans to establish 21 Battalion as the training school for black soldiers of different ethnic groups