21 South African Infantry Battalion

21 South African Infantry Battalion
SANDF 21 South African Infantry emblem
Active	1 January 1991
Country	South Africa
Branch	South African Army
Type	Internal Stability
Part of	South African Infantry Formation
Garrison/HQ	Doornkop, Johannesburg
Motto(s)	Nostro operi fideles
Insignia
Company level Inisgnia
SA Motorised Infantry beret bar circa 1992	SA Motorised Infantry beret bar

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 December 1, 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.

The plan was for these recruits to serve in ethnic units in the current regional commands with their eventual adoption into the black homeland armies. The Lenz unit would train over eight years, up to eighteen black battalions, distributing them into these regional battalions.

Initial units were the Zulu 121 Battalion at Jozini, Natal Command, the Swazi 111 Battalion at Amsterdam, Northern Transvaal Command, the Venda 112 Battalion at Madimbo and the Shangaan 113 Battalion at Impala near Phalaborwa. The size of the battalion ranged from 35 men in 1975, reaching over 400 to 515 men in 1979.

Training started with a 10-week orientation course that was used to weed out those not suited for military service and would eventually cull at least half of the recruits.

The Second Phase of Basic training took 17 weeks as opposed to 12 weeks for white recruits and was conducted by black trainers in the form of COIN training.