[2] Following the outbreak of the Second Boer War, Milbank was posted to South Africa as Aide-de-camp to Lieutenant-General Sir John French from October 1899.

[3] Milbanke was 27 years old, serving as a lieutenant in the 10th Hussars during the Second Boer War, when the following deed took place near Colesberg for which he was awarded the VC: On the 5th January, 1900, during a reconnaissance near Colesberg, Sir John Milbanke, when retiring under fire with a small patrol of the 10th Hussars, notwithstanding the fact that he had just been severely wounded in the thigh, rode back to the assistance of one of the men whose pony was exhausted, and who was under fire from some Boers who had dismounted.

Sir John Milbanke took the man up on his own horse under a most galling fire and brought him safely back to camp.

[5] Promoted to captain on 17 April 1900, he served in South Africa until the end of hostilities when peace was declared in June 1902.

He left Cape Town on board the SS Walmer Castle in late June 1902,[6] and arrived at Southampton the following month.