I galloped through this tale of an Operator’s perspective of multiple external missions in Zambia and Mozambique. Like a handful of other servicemen who served in both the Rhodesian SAS and the Selous Scouts, the author was also in another small group of foreign fighters most of whom had previous military service, and in his case with 21 SAS in the United Kingdom. It was interesting to read about the what seemed to be a significant number of desertions from the Rhodesian army by many of these foreign fighters. A large number of them disappeared with regularity or “took the gap" as Rhodesians called it, including five who had previous service in Australian SAS. Those who stayed, did the job and they thrived in that environment. After serving with the Rhodesian SAS from 1974 to 1976, Paul French fought with the Selous Scouts for a few years before switching back to the SAS for the final three years of the war.
He begins his tale with a comparison of all of the selection courses that he had been on, concluding that the operational approach taken by the Selous Scouts had been the most appropriate. He describes his first kill, and of the death of Clive Mason who had fought with the Australian SAS in Vietnam. His story is very much a personal tale with descriptions of Fire Force operations, life in a Pseudo Troop, many parachute insertions, successful and unsuccessful missions, and amusing anecdotes. I was not aware that bonuses were paid for kills based upon the weapons that they collected.
I particularly liked his accounts of the vehicle mounted, cross-border and urban raid into the town Lusaka in April 1979, and the river borne raid to interdict two trade-strategic bridges some 750 kilometres deep into Zambia in October 1979 as the end of war talks were underway in London. In the latter raid he was in a freefall pathfinder team that inserted by civilian aircraft, that was then followed up by a raid force with a huge amount of explosives and super glue and who static lined from an unmarked South African Air Force C130. Paul French went to a library to photocopy a map from an atlas that he could use for evasion if it had come to that. Luckily for the raid force they stopped a large truck and drove back to a helicopter rendezvous, much closer to Rhodesia. Crikey! The Rhodesian SAS re-wrote the text book with this daunting mission profile. I wish that I had known about this classic evolution when I was teaching raiding to Australian commandos, thirty years ago.
As a sideline he describes the fascinating story of a fellow Portuguese SAS Operator who went AWOL after most missions and his equally interesting multi-lingual wife who pioneered Signals Intelligence. Paul French also describes his protracted time working with the resistance inside Mozambique, and their eventual handover over of these guerrillas to South African Special Forces.
There was little that this Operator did not experience, including the workup for the planned coup in Salisbury at the end of the war. He was then one of the 50 SAS Operators who joined 6 Recce Commando in the South African army before moving onto contractor work in Somalia, Angola and Iraq. Just as I got to the end of the book, I felt like I wanted to read more. The imagery is great as well. Who dares does not always win wars, but daring-do makes for enjoyable arm chair soldiering.
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This is the story of Schalk W Fourie’s ten years in the elite South African Army Special Forces, commonly known as the “Recces.”SW started his military career as a national serviceman at 1 Special Service Battalion, in Bloemfontein, South Africa. He volunteered for Special Forces and a year later, after completing the hardest Special Forces Selection in the world, and...
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This is the concise (738 pages split into two volumes) story of the final phase of the Buccaneer aircraft operated by 24 Squadron of the South African Air Force during the period 1985 to 1991 when the squadron closed down. Included are the H2 TV Guided bomb project as well as the participation in the last major operations of the...
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The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale has been a source of fierce contestation and emotion for decades, but up to now little was known about the Recces’ presence and impact during this controversial battle. In the last book of the nail-biting trilogy about 1 Recce, the award-winning author Alexander Strachan, himself an ex-Recce, reveals more on the Recces’ involvement there. Packed...
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Die Slag van Cuito Cuanavale is al dekades lank 'n bron van hewige konflik en emosie, maar tot nou toe was min bekend oor die Recces se teenwoordigheid en impak tydens dié omstrede gevegte. In hierdie laaste boek van die spanningsvolle trilogie oor 1 Recce onthul Alexander Strachan, bekroonde skrywer en self 'n oud-Recce, meer oor die Recces se betrokkenheid...
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AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 54 WAR OF INTERVENTION IN ANGOLA VOLUME 4: Angolan and Cuban Air Forces, 1985-1987 - Tom Cooper, Adrien Fontanellaz, Jose Augusto Matos War of Intervention in Angola, Volume 4, continues the coverage of the operational history of the Angolan Air Force and Air Defence Force (FAPA/DAA) as told by Angolan and Cuban sources, in the period 1985-1987. Many accounts...
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It is May 1983. The UMR is celebrating the 100th anniversary of its Headquarters, the UMR Hall, in Greytown. A medal parade, civic dinner and a number of other events are on the programme. The members of the Unit are upbeat and enthusiastic and look forward to all the activities. There is an officers meeting in the old UMR Hall. On...
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AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 53 THE CIA AND BRITISH MERCENARIES IN ANGOLA, 1975-1976 - Stephen Rookes The 1974 Carnation Revolution came as a blessing for independence movements in Portugal's African colonies: Angola, Mozambique and Portuguese Guinea. As had been the case in a number of sub-Saharan countries suddenly finding themselves free of the colonial yoke, the political vacuum left behind by a...
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This book tells the story of the author’s three contracts as a mercenary in the ‘64-‘65 Congo conflict. It is a vivid account of his personal experiences, from his first contract as a raw recruit to his last contract, when he was involved in the formation of the navy on Lake Tanganyika and was the first C.O. Hugh started writing...
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General Georg Meiring is the last of the BIG FIVE GENERALS of the Border War era – consisting of names that were commonly heard in South African households and often on the lips of many a young national serviceman of that time, Magnus Malan, Constand Viljoen, Jannie Geldenhuys, Kat Liebenberg, Georg Meiring. These were the leaders of the most powerful...
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AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 52 FOR GOD AND THE CIA: Cuban Exile Forces in the Congo and Beyond c.1961-1967 - Stephen Rookes As the United Nations armed forces found themselves struggling to quell a series of armed rebellions, towards the end of 1962 the United States increased its military role in the Congo Crisis by providing the Congolese government with a small air...
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Until now little has been known about the Rhodesian contribution to the history of the SAS. Now at last the men themselves tell their own stories of the exploits of that Special Forces unit during the Bush War and the years before. SAS Rhodesia provides a comprehensive account of the origins and history of this famous Special Forces unit, as told...
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AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 50 War of Intervention in Angola - Volume 3: Angolan and Cuban Air Forces 1975-1985 - Tom Cooper, Adrian Fontanellaz, Jose Augusto Matos Most accounts of the conflict known in the West as the ‘Border War’ barely mention the operations by the FAPA/DAA. A handful of published histories mention two MiG-21s claimed as shot down by Dassault Mirage F.1...
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Designed in response to a 1951 requirement, the C-130 Hercules is the most successful military airlifter ever built. Since it first flew in prototype form on 23 August 1954, more than 2,100 have been produced in over eighty different versions. Across its variants, the Hercules serves more than sixty air forces, as well as many civilian cargo operators, in a...
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AFRICA@WAR SERIES: VOLUME 51 RIPE FOR REBELLION: Political and Military Insurgency in the Congo, 1946-1964 - Stephen Rookes After many years of political struggle, the Belgian Congo was finally granted its independence in June 1960. Becoming the Republic of the Congo (and later the Democratic Republic of the Congo), what was supposed to be a momentous occasion in the country's history...
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By August 1974 the Portuguese had all but abandoned Angola, its erstwhile colony, and there was a fear in both the Intelligence services of South Africa and America that the country was likely to fall the hands of the MPLA, generally regarded as a Soviet surrogate. It was that fear that triggered the training by South Africa of guerrilla groups...
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This work is a serious, non-fictional autobiography, which inter alia is an expose of the times and personalities involved during the thirty years the author spent in covert operations with the Nationalist Party government of South Africa from 1966. The author’s targets during this period included Soviet and Cuban political and military activity in Southern Africa and those of the...
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Al Venter's latest book on South Africa's 23-year Border War along the Angolan frontier offers a host of new perspectives. These include details about units like the South African Air Force 44 Squadron which converted Dakota aircraft into flying gun platforms similar to those used in America's war in South-East Asia. He also has American nuclear specialist David Albright -...
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Executive Outcomes was already well known to several governments and private corporations before it exploded into controversy in 1993 after entering into a contract with Angola’s FAA to train a brigade-level force to decisively end their decades-old conflict with UNITA. It was also well known to those involved in fermenting conflicts in order to topple African governments with a view...
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Paratroopers or Fallschirmjäger as they are known in German, were the elite parachute troops (Fallschirmtruppe) of the Luftwaffe during the Second World War. Although the Americans and Italians, and to a greater extent, the Russians had experimented with airborne troops, it was the Germans who pioneered vertical envelopment using parachute, glider-borne and air-landed troops to conduct successful airborne operations in...
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Operation Savannah – the Troops’ Diaries Vol 1 & 2 Bookset Much has been written about Operation Savannah by politicians, historians, academics, generals, and senior officers. Those perspectives were not always shared by the very young men who were involved at the front. Many of Operation Savannah’s veterans have struggled to share their experience, even with family and friends. Most...
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