Download or read book Rhodesian Soldier and Others who Fought written by Chas Lotter and published by Galago Pub.. This book was released on 1984 with total page 120 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Fighting and Writing written by Luise White and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2021-02-08 with total page 179 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Fighting and Writing Luise White brings the force of her historical insight to bear on the many war memoirs published by white soldiers who fought for Rhodesia during the 1964–1979 Zimbabwean liberation struggle. In the memoirs of white soldiers fighting to defend white minority rule in Africa long after other countries were independent, White finds a robust and contentious conversation about race, difference, and the war itself. These are writings by men who were ambivalent conscripts, generally aware of the futility of their fight—not brutal pawns flawlessly executing the orders and parroting the rhetoric of a racist regime. Moreover, most of these men insisted that the most important aspects of fighting a guerrilla war—tracking and hunting, knowledge of the land and of the ways of African society—were learned from black playmates in idealized rural childhoods. In these memoirs, African guerrillas never lost their association with the wild, even as white soldiers boasted of bringing Africans into the intimate spaces of regiment and regime.
Download or read book The Rhodesian War written by Paul L. Moorcraft and published by Stackpole Books. This book was released on 2010 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: - The vicious conflict (1964-79) that brought Robert Mugabe to power in Zimbabwe - Expert coverage of the war, its historical context, and its aftermath - Descriptions of guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency operations, and actions by units like Grey's Scouts Amid the colonial upheaval of the 1960s, Britain urged its colony in Southern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) to grant its black residents a greater role in governing the territory. The white-minority government refused and soon declared its independence, a move bitterly opposed by the black majority. The result was the Rhodesian Bush War, which pitted the government against black nationalist groups, one of which was led by Robert Mugabe. Marked by unspeakable atrocities, the war ended in favor of the nationalists.
Download or read book Fire Force written by Chris Cocks and published by Lime Tree Press. This book was released on 2020-06-01 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Fire Force is the account of Chris Cocks’s service in 3 Commando, The Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI), during Zimbabwe’s civil war of the 1970s—a war that came to be known, almost innocuously, as ‘the bush war’. Fire Force, a tactic of total airborne/airmobile envelopment, was developed by the RLI, and became the principal strike weapon of the beleaguered Rhodesian forces in their struggle against the tide of the communist-trained and -equipped ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas. “Like Reitz’s work, Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War, Fire Force, by first-time author Chris Cocks, is a personal account of close-quarter warfare. It is a unique, compelling, sometimes brutal account of a young conscript’s three years of service in the elite Rhodesian Light Infantry … Cocks’s work is one of the very few books which adequately describes the horrors of war in Africa … Fire Force is the best book on the Rhodesian War that I have read.” – Southern African Review of Books “Fire Force will be to the Rhodesian War what Remarque’s All Quiet on The Western Front was to World War I. A high claim indeed, but perhaps valid, for this moving book is a classic in any sense.” – The Star “The narrative is raw … it gives the book a veracity so complete that it will transport anyone involved in the ordeal back across the years with the force of a body blow … Rhodesia does at last have its own version of Michael Herr’s Vietnam experiences, Dispatches. A sense of regret is what really lingers, that the whole nightmare had to happen at all. The list of names of boys killed, or scarred physically and mentally, is moving beyond mere words.” – The Financial Mail
Download or read book A Handful of Hard Men written by Hannes Wessels and published by Casemate. This book was released on 2015-10-19 with total page 303 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: During the WestÕs great transition into the post-Colonial age, the country of Rhodesia refused to succumb quietly, and throughout the 1970s fought back almost alone against Communist-supported elements that it did not believe would deliver proper governance. During this long war many heroes emerged, but none more skillful and courageous than Captain Darrell Watt of the Rhodesian SAS, who placed himself at the tip of the spear in the deadly battle to resist the forces of Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. It is difficult to find another soldierÕs story to equal WattÕs in terms of time spent on the field of battle and challenges faced. Even by the lofty standards of the SAS and Special Forces, one has to look far to find anyone who can match his record of resilience and valor in the face of such daunting odds and with resources so paltry. In the fight he showed himself to be a military maestro. A bush-lore genius, blessed with uncanny instincts and an unbridled determination to close with the enemy, he had no peers as a combat-tracker (and there was plenty of competition). But the Rhodesian theater was a fluid and volatile one in which he performed in almost every imaginable fighting role; as an airborne shock-trooper leading camp attacks, long range reconnaissance operator, covert urban operator, sniper, saboteur, seek-and-strike expert, and in the final stages as a key figure in mobilizing an allied army in neighboring Mozambique. After 12 years in the cauldron of war his cause slipped from beneath him, however, and Rhodesia gave way to Zimbabwe. When the guns went quiet Watt had won all his battles but lost the war. In this fascinating biography we learn that in his twilight years he is now concerned with saving wildlife on a continent where they are in continued danger, devoting himself to both the fauna and African people he has cared so deeply about.
Download or read book Ragtime Soldiers written by Peter McLaughlin and published by . This book was released on 1980 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Soldier Blue written by Paul Andrew Williams and published by . This book was released on 2008 with total page 420 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sometimes you can't choose your own battles. A memoir of coming of age in Rhodesia explores the author's experiences as a young conscript caught up in the bush war of the late 1970s.
Download or read book We Dared to Win written by Hannes Wessels and published by Casemate Publishers. This book was released on 2018-04-19 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A memoir from a Special Forces fighter about his experiences in the Rhodesian War and how combat has shaped his life. Andre Scheepers grew up on a farm in Rhodesia, learning about the bush from his African childhood friends, before joining the army. A quiet, introspective thinker, Andre started out as a trooper in the SAS before being commissioned into the Rhodesian Light Infantry Commandos, where he was engaged in fireforce combat operations. He then rejoined the SAS. Wounded thirteen times, his operational record is exceptional, even by the tough standards that existed at the time. He emerged as the SAS officer par excellence—beloved by his men, displaying extraordinary calm, courage, and audacious cunning during a host of extremely dangerous operations. Here, Andre writes vividly about his experiences, his emotions, and his state of mind during the war, and reflects candidly on what he learned and how war has shaped his life since. In addition to Andre’s personal story, this book reveals more about some of the other men who were distinguished operators in SAS operations during the Rhodesian War. “Andre was the best of the best and the bravest of the brave.” —Capt. Darrell Watt, ex-SAS and subject of A Handful of Hard Men
Download or read book The Trials and Tribulations of a ZIPRA Soldier written by Mpiyesizwe Guduza and published by African Books Collective. This book was released on 2021-01-04 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Trials and Tribulations of a ZIPRA Soldier is a riveting spider web story of courage, determination, pursuit of justice and survival against all odds. The reader is taken on a path of unparalleled heroism and determination of a young Zimbabwe People's Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) soldier, Churchill Mpiyesizwe Guduza. Churchill was born in Johannesburg to a Rhodesian father, Makhathini Bhekisizwe Guduza and Amy Poppy Lottering, a South African. After attending Fatima Secondary School in Rhodesia, with his father in continued political detention and his mother merely scrapping a living in the rural hinterlands of Rhodesia, he was compelled to leave for Johannesburg in early 1973 where his already shaped political consciousness led him to participate in the June 1976 Soweto student uprisings. At just under 20 years of age, Churchill escaped South Africa to join ZIPRA in Zambia, just in time before the apartheid net rapidly closed in on him. No sooner had Churchill joined ZIPRA than he experienced similar injustices which he immediately opposed with resolute bravery. Upon completion of military training in Angola, he was immediately deployed to the battlefields of Rhodesia where his unit gallantly fought against the Rhodesian security forces. Churchill's nom de guerre was Taffy Carlos. From Rhodesia, Churchill returned to Zambia to face off ZIPRA's High Command, from where he fled to Angola. After his incarceration in Angola, he returned to independent Zimbabwe, from where he again escaped to the United Kingdom via Botswana and Zambia. Today, he leads the Mthwakazi Liberation Front (MLF), which seeks to EXIT Zimbabwe, and establish the Federal Republic of Mthwakazi.
Download or read book Dingo Firestorm written by Ian Pringle and published by Penguin Random House South Africa. This book was released on 2012-06-05 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On 23 November 1977, an armada of helicopters and aeroplanes took off from Rhodesian airbases and crossed the border into Mozambique. Their objective: to attack the headquarters of the Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army, where thousands of enemy forces were concentrated. Codenamed Operation Dingo, the raid was planned to coincide with a meeting of Robert Mugabe and his war council at the targeted HQ. It would be the biggest conflict of the Rhodesian Bush War. In this fascinating account, Ian Pringle describes the political and military backdrop leading up to the operation, and he tells the story of the battle through the eyes of key personalities who planned, led and participated in it. Using his own experience as a jet and helicopter pilot and skydiver, he recreates the battle in detail, explaining the performance of men and machines in the unfolding drama of events. Dingo Firestorm is a fresh, gripping recreation of a major battle in southern African military history.
Download or read book Contact 1 written by John Lovett and published by . This book was released on 2013-09 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Contact 1 has been out of print since the late 1970s, despite the constant demand to reprint it. Now there is the chance for a new generation to read this iconic book. Contact 1 was conceived by College Press, in what was then Salisbury, Rhodesia, the rebel British colony. John Lovett was an expert medal collector who had served in the Royal Air Force, and later in the 'A' Reserve of the British South Africa Police. Contact 1 covers the war from its beginnings when UDI - the Unilateral Declaration of Independence - was announced on 11 November 1965. But no government ever recognized Rhodesia, not even South Africa, then under apartheid rule. Initially, the war consisted of relatively minor skirmishes. In 1972, the conflict began in earnest. From 1972 to 1976, the war was largely a stalemate. After 1976, the conflict became much more widespread and intense, until by the end of 1979 the whole country was engulfed in fighting. 'Contact 1' considers the period 1965-1976. The sequel, Contact 2, by Paul Moorcraft, describes the most intense period of the war, the last three years. Together they provide an unrivalled photographic history of the war, as well as the complete record of decorations and the roll of honor from 1965-1980. Over seventy-five percent of those who fought in the Rhodesian security forces were blacks - the struggle was then couched largely in Cold-War terms as a battle against Soviet- and Chinese-inspired communism, not African nationalism. Both those surviving from the war and their sons, daughters and grandchildren, as well as military experts and enthusiasts who did not experience the war, will enjoy re-living those tumultuous times. 'Contact 1' is written in a confident style, in the middle of a war, which white Rhodesians believed they could not lose. In retrospect, it might appear naïve propaganda, but that is a perspective from the hindsight of over three decades. Setting aside moral issues - and there were many atrocities on both sides - the Rhodesian military fought with great skill, bravery and determination - against heavy odds. Military staff colleges throughout the world study the campaign for lessons in counter-insurgency at the tactical and operational levels. Strategically, the war could not have been won without massive intervention from the West and South Africa. By 1979, the war was lost. And by accident the most conservative prime minister in recent British history, Margaret Thatcher, contributed to the first electoral success of a Marxist leader in Africa: Robert Mugabe. Zimbabwe was born. 'Contact 1' provides an enthralling insight into a British colony that rebelled against the Crown and tried to preserve white rule in a country in which it was outnumbered 25:1. It was an argument with history as well as arithmetic. At the time, however, many whites believed that Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith would find a way out of the diplomatic and military impasse. This is a passionate study of a lost war, and yet to many Rhodesians it was the time of their lives, despite the tragedies. It was a time of madness but almost all fought for what they believed was right - to defend their families, their culture, their muscular Christianity and their country. Now that country is but a memory.
Download or read book Bitter Harvest written by Ian Douglas Smith and published by Kings Road Publishing. This book was released on 2008 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For more than a decade, Ian Smith served as Rhodesia's Prime Minister during the era of white minority rule. Following his death in 2007, he is still a man with the ability to excite powerful emotions. To some he is anbsp;leader whose formidable integrity led him into head-to-head confrontation with the Labor government of Britain in the 1960s. To others he is a demon best known for stating "I don't believe in black majority rule ever, not in a thousand years," for staunchly opposing Britain's insistence that majority rule be implemented before the nation’s independence, and for imprisoning the leadershipnbsp;of the newly emergednbsp;black nationalist movement.nbsp;In this revealing autobiography, Smith tells his own side of the story and reveals how he sought to keep Rhodesia on a path to full democracy during the West's decolonization of Africa. He tells the remarkable story behind the signing of the country’s Unilateral Declaration of Independence and addresses the excesses of power that the current president, Robert Mugabe, has used to create the virtual dictatorship which exists in Zimbabwe today. This is a revealing and prescient historical document from a controversial figure charting the rise and fall of a once-great nation.
Download or read book The Fighting Doc written by John Alan Coey and published by Helion. This book was released on 2015 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It is Saturday afternoon, 19 July 1975, next to a dry riverbed in Rhodesia's northeastern operational area, in a war against communist-backed guerrillas. A Rhodesian combat medic receives an order to descend into the riverbed to attend to two critically wounded troopers, their figures seemingly lifeless on the sand. The whereabouts of the insurgents is not known. As the medic, displaying a red cross, moves in, shots ring out and he sustains a fatal head wound. That medic is 24-year-old American John Alan Coey. Driven by his Christian faith and an ardent belief in the threat of global communist hegemony, Coey had come to Rhodesia to fulfill an overriding passion to help the beleaguered southern African country in its fight against what he perceived to be a communist bid to secure the subcontinent. John was a very complex individual who, right until his death, was in a permanent state of internal conflict as to his mission in life: he wishes he had a wife; he tells young American girls that they must produce strong sons who will fight the good fight; he is disillusioned by his failures; he admits he is a weak leader, virtually offering an apology for his own shortcomings; he vacillates endlessly; he admits to being unable to identify the path he needs to take to achieve his mission. But, finally, as a combat medic-a pioneer in this concept-he finds his much sought-after destiny.
Download or read book Zambezi Valley Insurgency written by J. R. T. Wood and published by Africa@War. This book was released on 2019-11-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Across Africa in the post-1956 era, the aspirations of African nationalists to secure power were boosted and quickly realized by the British, French and Belgian hasty retreat from empire. The Portuguese, Southern Rhodesian and South African governments, however, stood firm and would be challenged by their African nationalists. Influenced by the Communist bloc, these nationalists adopted the 'Armed Struggle'. In the case of Rhodesia, the Zimbabwe African People's Union (ZAPU), led by Joshua Nkomo, took this step in 1962 after their effort to foment rebellion in Rhodesia's urban areas in 1961-62 had been frustrated by police action and stiffened security legislation. Rhodesia's small, undermanned security forces, however, remained wary as Zambia and Tanganyika had given sanctuary to communist- supplied ZAPU and Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) guerrillas. The Rhodesians had foreseen that the northeastern frontier with Mozambique would be the most vulnerable to incursions because the African population living along it offered an immediate target for succour and subversion. The Portuguese were not seen as a bulwark as they were clearly making little progress in their counter-insurgency effort against their FRELIMO nationalist opponents. The Rhodesians were fortunate, however, that ZAPU and ZANU chose to probe across the Zambezi River from Zambia into the harsh, sparsely populated bush of the Zambezi Valley. The consequence was that the Rhodesian security forces conducted a number of successful operations in the period 1966-1972 which dented insurgent ambitions. This book describes and examines the first phase of the 'bush war' during which the Rhodesian forces honed their individual and joint skills, emerging as a formidable albeit lean fighting force.
Download or read book The Bush War In Rhodesia written by Dennis Croukamp and published by Paladin Press. This book was released on 2007-10-01 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Rhodesian Bush War. It was a ferocious guerrilla warfare campaign between the regular and elite units of the Rhodesian Army doing battle against Communist-backed terrorist groups in the valleys, jungles and bush country of Rhodesia, Mozambique and Zambia. Warrant Officer Dennis Croukamp fought in the conflict from its beginnings in the 1960s to the very end in 1979, and his combat memoir is an extraordinary chronicle of that bitter struggle from inside some of the most highly regarded elite combat units to ever take the field. In The Bush War in Rhodesia, Croukamp chronicles his eventful service with the Rhodesian Regular Army, the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) and the Selous Scouts Reconnaisance Troop as he took part in cross-border reconnaissance operations, HALO jumps behind enemy lines, urban ops in the townships of Salisbury, raids, ambushes, demolition missions, prisoner snatches and more. And through it all, Croukamp brought along a camera, providing a remarkable visual documentation of this little-known war. This searingly honest, action-packed memoir is sure to become a classic, ground-level account of the bloody "bush wars" of Africa.
Download or read book Blackjacks written by Tony Illman and published by Xlibris Corporation. This book was released on 2017-06-01 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is based on our lives. It starts very briefly in the United Kingdom and quickly moves to the Eastern Highland of Rhodesia. It moves through our childhood while were living in the eastern border areas, Umtali, Sabi Tanganda, and Chipinga. As we pass through our teenage years and become adults, it travels with us to Western Australia and then back to Chipinga. We share the lives of others as the Rhodesian Bush War escalates in what was a quiet and idyllic country town to one of the most dangerous and deadly districts in Rhodesia. Then the books deals with our final move back to Western Australia and our struggle to once again build a life for our children and ourselves. To most people, this may seem to be an unusual life, but to a Rhodesian, it would be considered pretty much the same story as many other families. Although it is our story, there are many stories told by others who have shared our way of life. It is about love, hate, and humor. It is about determination and desperation. It is about life and death and friendship and community spirit. Most of all, I hope it is a monument to those who died or were seriously injured, physically or mentally, black or white. It is also a salute to those incredible farmers, the Rhodesian armed forces, and those who worked in the rural areas during those troubled times. For me personally, writing this book has been a huge emotional journey.
Download or read book The Rhodesian Civil War 1966 1979 written by John Frame and published by . This book was released on 2018-07-04 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the most tragic wars in Southern Africa's history, the Rhodesian Civil War, raged for over a decade. This dramatic and detailed book maps out the critical events that led to war, identifying the combatants and detailing chronologically the salient events of the conflict.
