The Lomba 100 Club

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THE LOMBA 100 CLUB

This was the name originally given to the unit bar at Omuthiya and was retained by later generations. The name derived from an exercise of ancient tradition of numerology, and was arrived at by adding the dates of the battle – three, eight and 87, which came to a round 100. The then commanding officer, Commandant Kobus Smit, drew up the plans for a building that was erected to commemorate the battle. The building had to be left behind when 61 Mech vacated Omuthiya, but in 1996, by which time 61 Mech had moved to its final home at Lohatla, Lieutenant-Colonel Danie Laas decided to rebuild the original Lomba 100 facility. He approached Colonel Andre Smit, then Chief of Staff at the renamed Combat Training Centre, to assist in the reconstruction.

Colonel Smit was only too glad to help, to the extent that he visited the remains of Omuthiya, measured the original Lomba 100 building and came back to draw up new plans. No time was wasted in putting them in hand, and on 6 August 1996 he officially opened the resurrected Lomba 100 Club.