It’s billed as “historic” and is in that this year’s Junior Command and Staff Course (JCSC) Army College students are the first in the SA National Defence Force (SANDF) to get up close and personal with aspects of South Africa’s military history.
The tour departed the Army College, itself a national monument, in Thaba Tshwane last Friday bound for 12 sites of military and general South African historical importance in three provinces.
First stop was the KwaZulu-Natal province with its rich history of the Anglo-Boer wars, internationally known thanks to the provincial battlefields route which lists no less than 82 sites. These range from battlefields, old fortifications to museums and places of remembrance.
The JCSC group will make six stops in KwaZulu-Natal, seeing and experiencing the Spioenkop, Colenso, Isandlwana, Ncome and Majuba battle sites as well as in Ladysmith for the site of the Ladysmith siege between November 1899 and February 1900. It is termed “a protracted engagement of the Second Boer War”.
After this the JCSC group, along with Army College Commandant Colonel Bhekisile Mathonsi and some College personnel, are off to the Eastern Cape province for a single stop – the Nelson Mandela Museum in East London – before heading inland to Oudtshoorn and the Cango Caves.
Next on the itinerary is the Western Cape province with Cape Town and environs targeted for the final four stops of the tour. Naval Base (NB) Simon’s Town, home to the SA Navy (SAN) fleet, SA Naval Museum and various historic sites is first up followed by Air Force Base (AFB) Ysterplaat before calling on South Africa’s oldest building: the Castle of Good Hope. Last stop entails a ferry trip to Robben Island, listed as a United Nations (UN) World Heritage Site.
The tour, according to Captain NP Loggenberg from the SA Army Training Formation, aims to integrate theory and practical, providing the JCSC students opportunities to analyse and discuss practical applications of the operational concepts and principles of war. This is in line with the JCSC course aim of training commanders at the tactical level.
