Light Horse Regiment Ladysmith. After the successful raising of the siege of Ladysmith the Light horse join the Mafeking Relief Column and were the first to enter the town on the night of 16/17 May 1900. In late 1900 a second battalion – the 2nd Imperial Light Horse was raised and embodied. Both battalions then went on to fight in the Transvaal and the Orange Free State Republic until the end of the war. In total the members of the Regiment won four Victoria Crosses during the war: After the Boer War the regiment was reorganised into two wings and in 1904 its
Siege of Mafeking ordered to simulate avoiding barbed wire (non-existent) when moving between trenches; guns and a searchlight (improvised from an acetylene lamp and biscuit tin) were moved around the town to increase their apparent number. (See Jon Latimer, "Deception in War", London: John Murray, 2001, pp. 32–5.) A howitzer was built in Mafeking's railway workshops, and even an old cannon (dated 1770, it coincidentally had "B.P. & Co." engraved on the barrel) was pressed into service. Noticing the Boers had failed to remove any of the rails, the British commanders had an armoured train from the Mafeking railyard loaded with sharpshooters, armed