Never Quite a Soldier

Paperback. English. Galago. 2006. In fair condition.

The author was a policeman during the Rhodesian bush war days. His first involvement came when ZANLA guerrillas moved into his police area and embarked on a murderous campaign targeting black and white civilians. The war throughout the country escalated and indiscriminate acts of terror like ZANLA's massacre of nine white missionaries, the shooting down of a Viscount airliner and the subsequent massacre of survivors and countless other terrible incidents decided him to join the elite Police Support Unit which comprised 12 companies of fighting policemen, most of them black. He fought through numerous engagements and contacts until the war ended with elections in 1980 that brought Robert Mugabe to power and to Rhodesia becoming the new state of Zimbabwe. But for him the war was far from over and in November 1980 and again in February 1981 his fighting Charlie Company was engaged in serious fighting in Bulawayo, in attempts to keep ZIPRA and ZANLA guerrillas away from each others throats. Meanwhile, Mugabe had formed his 5-Brigade (the Gukuruhundi) - comprising ex-ZANLA guerrillas trained by the North Koreans - which embarked on a campaign of murderous genocide against Ndebele civilians in Matabeleland when they killed an estimated 15 000 to 30 000 people. Appalled by this the author resigned from the police and left the country in 1983. Rhodesiana