The three books discussed here can all be classified as memoirs or even as auto-ethnographies. The two authors relate how they experienced the recent armed conflict in Iraq. The narratives of both authors include detailed ...

Based largely on a study of official archives and private papers held in South Africa and the United Kingdom, this article sketches the political-strategic landscape on which the armed forces of South Africa operated between ...

South Africa’s entry into the Second World War in 1939 was complex. The Smuts government lacked nation-wide support and experienced hostile reactions from opponents of its war policy. It was also subjected to Nazi propaganda ...

Writing about the Namibian Border War and South African involvement in the Angolan Civil War is difficult. Many South Africans have been conscripted or willingly served in the military at the time and find it difficult to ...

During the Great War, aircraft were used primarily for reconnaissance and artillery spotting. The Union of South Africa's First World War campaign in German South West Africa (GSWA) allowed for South Africa's first employment ...

The South African Military Academy was established in 1950 as a branch of the SA Military College, under the academic auspices of the University of Pretoria. A mere three years later, in 1953, the Union Defence Force ...

By the latter half of 1942, the High Command of the German U-boats (BdU) realised that the ‘sinking results’ of the North Atlantic had decreased immensely. The successes of the Allied anti-submarine operations in the North ...

The Union of South Africa’s military involvement in the Korean War was an exercise in political maneuvering as opposed to one of any great military significance.[i] South Africa’s new right wing Nationalist Afrikaner ...

The First World War marked a revolt against the traditional mode of official history as conceived and written by the General Staffs and taught at the Staff Colleges. After 1918, the publics in various countries, having ...

From historical writings to current day, morale has always been regarded as a major determinant of success on the battlefield. The management of morale is thus also important in the South African National Defence Force ...