India and Malay Corps collar badge in blackened brass, produced in the pattern worn between 1940 and 1942 by the Indian and Malay Corps of the Union Defence Force of South Africa. This South African Second World War Non-European Services corps collar badge displays the recognised corps device in clear relief, incorporating a pierced five-pointed star as the central device within a plain circular rim border, with the abbreviated corps title “I – M – C” inscribed in raised capitals around the upper interior circumference of the rim. The blackened brass finish is consistent with economy measures implemented by the Union Defence Force during the Second World War. The reverse carries horizontal attachment lugs for fixing to the collar of the service dress uniform.
The Indian and Malay Corps was formed in 1940 as one of three corps constituting the Non-European Services of South Africa’s Union Defence Force, established to provide a military contribution from the non-white population of South Africa within the constraints of the racial policies of the Union government of the period. The three corps were the Native Military Corps, recruited from the Black South African population; the Cape Corps, drawn from South Africa’s wider non-white population; and the Indian and Malay Corps, drawn specifically from the Indian and Malay communities of the Union, principally concentrated in Natal and the Cape Colony, respectively. The Indian community in South Africa had its origins in the indentured labour brought to Natal from 1860 onward to work the sugar plantations of the colony, while the Cape Malay community descended from enslaved and free Malay and Indonesian workers brought to the Cape by the Dutch East India Company from the seventeenth century onward. The Indian and Malay Corps operated as a service corps, with pioneer and transport elements, and was subsequently expanded to include motorised infantry employed in non-combatant roles, including the guarding of prisoners of war. The corps served in the East African and North African campaigns. It was absorbed into the Cape Corps on 1 January 1942, giving this collar badge a production and wear window of approximately two years, making surviving examples genuinely scarce. The Cape Corps itself was disbanded at the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945.
Manufactured in blackened brass consistent with Union Defence Force badge production of the 1940 to 1942 period, this original example provides a well-preserved representation of the Indian and Malay Corps regimental badge in its only known form. Indian and Malay Corps collar badges are collected as examples of Second World War South African Union Defence Force militaria, insignia of the Non-European Services corps of the South African Army, and rare uniform hardware of one of the shortest-lived formations raised by South Africa during the Second World War.
Dimensions Approx. 29mm in diameter
Condition Very good
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