Griqualand-East Commando
military unit
Griqualand East Commando was a light infantry regiment of the South African Army. It formed part of the South African Army Infantry Formation as well as the South African Territorial Reserve.
History
Origins
Rifle Association
Griqualand East Commando can trace its origin to a Defence Rifle Association formed by a Captain Woods of the Cape Mounted Rifles around 1884. Its primary aim was for the farming community to be able to defend themselves against hostile tribes that stole their cattle.
Operations
With the UDF
By 1948, the Griqualand East Rifle Association was formed to manage local area defence. In 1953, Mount Currie Rifle Association in Kokstad amalgamated with the Grqiualand East Rifle Association which saw the formation of the Commando in Kokstad.
With the SADF
By 1984 however the commando moved to Cedarville as a disused school had become available for accommodation.
Area of responsibility
Griqualand East Commando was responsible for the magisterial district of Mount Currie.
Higher headquarters
The commando was under the command of Natal Command from 1930 to 1950 but then placed under Eastern Province Command, this situation reverted again in 1960 due to the establishment of the Transkei.
Freedom of entry
The Freedom of the town of Kokstad was granted to the commando in 1993.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Griqualand-East Commando” as military unit. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Dec 31, 2020. The linked authority identifier is Q19563072. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1884, 1948, 1953 and 1984.
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This entry incorporates text from “Griqualand-East Commando” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.