The battalion has performed many active operations in battle – producing many highly decorated soldiers – in the South African Border War from 1966 to 1989.

[citation needed] In 1960 fifteen volunteers from the SADF were sent to England at RAF Abingdon, the majority to train as parachute instructors, some as parachute-packers and one SAAF pilot in the dropping of paratroopers.

These men together with an older unit called 2 Mobile Watch formed the nucleus of 1 Parachute Battalion at Tempe in Bloemfontein in April 1961.

[3] In 1966, members of 1 Parachute Battalion participated in the first action in the war in South West Africa during a heliborne assault on an insurgent base.

On the night of 4 June 1974 40 paratroopers from 1 Parachute Battalion B Company jumped into Angola as support for a group of Recce's on a counter insurgency mission against SWAPO in southern Zambia.

The two platoons withdrew in February/March Operation Savannah during the Angolan Civil War in July 1975 when 1 string of 1 Parachute Battalion were flown to Ondangwa and travelled by Unimog to Ruancana on the northern border of SWA at Ruacana and Santa Clara in Angola to relieve two Portuguese communities trapped by the MPLA.

The first large airborne exercise of the Parachute Battalion Group took place in 1987 in the Northwestern Transvaal (now North West Province).

[6] In 2013, the battalion contributed one company, under command of Major Vic Vrolik, to the FIB which fought a number of engagements in the DRC.

To give would-be members the endurance and the fitness they will need for operations in the harsh African conditions, the instructors of 44 Parachute Brigade place particular emphasis on basic physical training.

Soldiers volunteering for service with the parachute forces first undergo a battery of medical tests – similar to that for flying personnel – before setting off on a 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) timed run.

The real ordeal will then start: for four long months, the recruits Bats will endure forced marches, physical exercises, shooting sessions and inspections – all this barracked by the screams of their eagle-eyed instructors.

For example, trainees always take their grooming kit along with them on 30 kilometres (19 mi) marches and at dawn, when back at the base with aching bones, devote whatever little time is left they have to rest to 'spit and polish'.

This phase is followed by some advanced individual training, during which such subjects as advanced driving, demolitions, tactics and patrolling, unarmed combat, survival skills, escape and evasion, aspects of guerrilla warfare, tracking, raiding, counterinsurgency operations, fast rope skills, ambush and anti-ambush techniques and foreign weapons and techniques are covered.