Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia's famed Selous Scouts by Timothy Bax

Author:Timothy Bax [Bax, Timothy]
Language: eng
Format: azw3, epub
Tags: HISTORY / Modern / General
ISBN: 9781909982444
Publisher: Helion and Company
Published: 2013-08-19T04:00:00+00:00

Early Bird Catches the Worm

After spending three weeks in the hospital recovering from my leg wound, I was posted back to Mount Darwin as the RLI’s Intelligence Officer. I had been there a week when a company of South African Police (SAP) arrived at the base, having journeyed all the way from Pretoria.

Dr Charlee Griffiths. (Dr Charlee Griffiths)

The South African Government, anxious to assist Rhodesia’s war effort and thereby avoid having to fight an insurgency war on their own border, had deployed a number of their paramilitary-trained police companies to Rhodesia to assist in border control operations. This freed Rhodesian Army units to concentrate on areas where there was a known terrorist presence and to conduct cross-border raids against terrorist base camps in neighboring countries. Sending South African ‘policemen’ to assist in Rhodesia’s war effort was seen as politically more ‘palatable’ than deploying South African Army units which might have led to international condemnation.

We always looked forward to the arrival of the SAP companies with great anticipation. This wasn’t so much for their operational contribution (although this was appreciable), but mainly because they would bring with them a tantalizing array of equipment, the likes of which we had never seen. It was so highly sought after that they had to put as much effort into guarding it from the equipment-strapped Rhodesian soldiers as they did having to defend themselves against terrorist attacks. The Company that arrived in Mount Darwin was no exception.

It was mid-afternoon when the Company arrived giving them ample time to unpack their vehicles, check stores and do an inventory of equipment. I was sitting in the Battalion Operations room with the Commanding Officer, Lt. Col. Parker, a few hours later when the SAP Company Commander walked in.

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