A synopsis of Basuto Troops on Active Service appeared in the March 1945 issue of Colonial Cinema. ‘Like their comrades in arms from Swaziland, Basutos did fine work in North Africa, Sicily and Italy’, the magazine reported. It added that ‘the first sequence shows their smartness and efficiency as firemen – very important work in any army; and the second pictures their work as muleteers supplying mountain batteries in Italy’ (Colonial Cinema, March 1945, 23). The film was intended for exhibition in Africa. Indeed, when a questionnaire sent out by the Colonial Film Unit to mobile cinema operators in Africa during 1943 asked a cinema operator in Basutoland for the most popular films in the area, he replied ‘The Basuto in the Middle East – or at least the work of the A.A.P.C. [African Auxiliary Pioneer Corps.] there, with a fairly good share of Basuto scenes’ (CO875/10/11).

The Basuto war experience began in earnest in 1941 when General Wavell, Commander-in-Chief Middle East, issued a call for African soldiers to support the fighting fronts in the Middle East. The African Pioneer Corps recruited 22,000 Basuto, and from 1943 – after initial experiments in March 1942 – these troops were used to ‘dilute’ white regiments (Jackson, 2006, 260). The troops performed a variety of roles, with thousands now trained as 3.7 inch mobile gunners and thus engaging with the enemy directly for the first time. Others trained at the Army Fire Fighting Centre in Abbassia (Jackson, 2002, 746). Brian Gray, in his 1953 account of Basuto soldiers, wrote that ‘For three years Basuto fire brigades of sixteen men each and two or three UK NCOs gave protection to vital points throughout the Middle East. Virtually every military fire brigade in the Middle East was diluted with Basuto and it may fairly be said that they were the firemen of the Middle East’ (Gray, 1953, 79).

By 1943, after the defeat of the Axis forces in Africa, the Basuto troops were increasingly deployed in Sicily and Italy. Basuto companies landed in Italy in September 1943 when the Eighth Army invaded and many were drafted into the mountain regiments of the Royal Artillery. Ashley Jackson noted that ‘560 Basotho of the 1921 and 1929 companies were trained as muleteers in autumn 1943’ (Jackson, 2002, 747). These men were ‘especially recruited because of their skill in working with the beasts in their mountainous homeland’ and as well as transporting ammunition and supplies to imperial soldiers fighting in the Italian mountains, they would also evacuate the wounded to casualty clearing stations (Jackson, 2006, 264). In many instances, given the treacherous terrain, parts of the journey would be made by the men, ‘each carrying sixty pounds of ammunition and supplies’ (Jackson, 2002, 747).

By the end of the War though there was evidence of increasing frustration and dissatisfaction amongst the Basuto troops, who had previously been told that they would return home as soon as Germany was defeated. Thousands of Basuto men were still serving in the Middle East at the end of 1945 and British reports suggested that the troops were now ‘a liability and not an asset’, with ‘mass indiscipline’ within the companies. There were increasing disputes between British officers and African other ranks, sit down protests and violent confrontations. For example, a detachment of North Staffordshires with tommy guns and tanks quelled a potential riot amongst a Basuto Company in November 1945, while a ‘notorious mutiny’ at No. 57 Military Prison and Detention Barracks at the very end of 1945, culminated in British paratroops opening fire on the rioting Basuto detainees (Jackson, 1999, 449).