Description

Offered is a British Army General Service Medal (1918 – 62), with clasp Palestine 1945 – 48, impressed named AS .28996. SJT. M. MATSOETLANE. A.P.C. Comes with copy medal roll and history of the African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps.

Sergeant Matsoetlane would have also served in North Africa and Italy during WW2.

The African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps (A.A.P.C.) was a unit of the British Army consisting of High Commission Territories (H.C.T.) natives. The A.A.P.C. was established in July 1941, after the paramount chiefs of the H.C.T. managed to convince the colonial authorities to create an independent force consisting of their subjects. During its service it provided crucial logistical support to the Allied war effort during the North African, Dodecanese and Italian campaigns. Initially a labor unit, A.A.P.C’s duties were gradually expanded to include anti-aircraft artillery operation and other combat duties. It numbered 36,000 men, 1,216 of whom died in the war. The last A.A.P.C. soldiers were repatriated in spring 1946 and the unit was disbanded in 1949.

The unit had no problems with recruiting the initial contingent, however the 2^nd one was not so popular and various unscrupulous steps were conducted to achieve the numbers such as:

The Transvaal Gold Producers Committee agreed to bar job seekers from the H..T.Cs from applying, to curb the flow of people using the mines to evade conscription. Chiefs who collaborated with the British set up bogus tribal assemblies and men who attended were conscripted. A similar procedure was set at mines, whereby men seeking employment were taken through the back door to army trucks which immediately took them to military installations. When those methods failed to produce results, army recruiters relaxed their medical requirements and began raiding the countryside and abducting able-bodied men they came across.