An African Adventure
Quote from DavidFullard on March 8, 2024, 1:22 am“Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won” Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington.
Continuing a historical replay of my personal military career high/low lights, this post is about my exploits in Zimbabwe in 1981 as a member of the British Military Advisory And Training Team [ BMATT] Readers I find it strangely cathartic to set these matters down in writing albeit some 54 pages into the autobiography I was previously writing ( a warts and all very frank expose’ of myself) I ‘lost my bottle and scrapped it. Too many demons and home truths!
I am encouraged to write of my African adventure by assuming the lack of contributions from other members [other than ‘the famous 5’] means folk enjoy reading what we write. Happy if you prove me wrong!
April 1981 I was ‘between jobs’. I had just handed over the Families S/Sgt role to Andy Foote and had answered a M&RO trawl to join BMATT in Zimbabwe for a 6 month detachment. The qualifying criteria included inter alia WO2 rank, pref infantry trained, fit, COs personal recommendation. I managed the last 2 requirements and on a whim volunteered. I was surprised my name was even forwarded to Manning and Records, I was staggered when it was accepted. I went home one day and said to my wife ‘there’s good news and bad news’. Veronika sighed and told me to tell her both. ‘The good news is it’s only 6 months…the bad news is I fly to Zimbabwe in a week’s time” I explained. The direct approach always worked best I thought.
A week later, promoted to Acting WO2 for the duration of the tour, I was boarding a BA flight to Harare [ formerly Salisbury] the capital of Zimbabwe. I have to be honest, sat at 35000 feet for 10 hours I had time to reflect on what might lay ahead! I had no idea, had somebody told me I would not have believed them.
Unknown to me on that flight were another 7 British Army personnel, 4 Majors and 3 other WOs2. I was met at the airport by a BMATT admin guy and he gathered the 8 of us together. We were driven to a 5 star hotel in the city told to relax for the day, (food and drink to be charged to the room) and we would be collected at 0830 next morning for an induction briefing. The 4 officers were badged RM, Coldstream Guards, Para Regt and RHA. The other 3 WOs were all Infanteers! I began to think I was a fish out of water here. This wasn’t some course I could RTU myself from this was freaking Zimbabwe, a country until the previous year or 2 that was embroiled in a bitter bush war against its colonialist government.Zimbabwe gained independence in April 1980. Ian Smith’s UDI Government stepped down in 1978 and Bishop Abel Muzerewa was installed as temporary PM until post independence elections were held. Muzerewa, as the supposed most moderate of the candidates up for election, was the British Government’s preferred choice. He lost decisively to Robert Mugabe a known communist sympathiser and a man with an abject hatred of all things colonialist! Mugabe became PM and Canaan Banana was elected President. Muzerewa faded into obscurity.
I won’t bore readers with a long history of Rhodesia and its transformation to Zimbabwe but it is important to know there are 2 hugely dominant tribes in Zimbabwe. The Ndbele from Matebeland and the Shona from Mashonaland. The former, a warrior race with ancestral ties to the Zulus,the latter, traditional farmers.The tribes were not ‘best buddies’. They had huseparate political parties and separate military arms. They spoke different languages, the Ndbele using the distinct Zulu tongue ‘click’. Some of both tribe’s armed forces had been trained in Russia, others in China and North Korea. The Nbele armed wing was entitled Zipra, the Shona equivalent Zanla!I knew none of this of course before my arrival. I DID learn that some months before we arrived a fledgling Zimbabwe National Army ( ZNA) Battalion had revolted in what became known as the ‘Battle of Bulawayo’. A Rhodesian African Rifles ( RAR) Battalion quickly quelled the revolt on a hill overlooking Bulawayo hence the title. The tanks the renegade battalion had taken ran out of fuel, the soldiers couldn’t operate the guns and the rather lame revolt quickly fizzled out. Little did I know then how that matter would come back to haunt me some months down the line.
We listened intently to the BMATT SO2 who gave us our induction brief. It was a lot to digest. We were paired off Major/WO2 into 4 teams. Each team would ‘inherit’ a ZNA battalion from the induction centre where the 2 former armies had been held post cessation of hostilities under the ‘management’ of BMATT Officers and SNCOs. I was paired with the RHA Major. We would see our battalions through basic training and then oversee their relocation into military bush camps in the Tribal Trust Lands. After that we would help them become self sufficient as a cohesive infantry battalion of the ZNA. A daunting brief! And nobody told us the bush camps would be built by our battalions on arrival at the designated locations.
2 days after induction I was sat outside in the searing African sun, at a table in a former Rhodesian Army barracks, taking roll call of ZNA3. Our battalion! Before me were circa 1200 former ‘freedom fighters’ dressed in scruffy camouflage uniforms wearing boots they were mostly unaccustomed to, sat on the tarmac.’My Major’ was elsewhere dealing with the ZNA Bn officers who only held temporary rank at that time. The BMATT team had assessed potential officers based on their previous status in their respective tribal armies and some leadership skills tests. It was all very ‘Heath Robinson. My roll call took 5 hours. The African names, particularly the Ndbele ones, tested my linguistic skills but we managed eventually.
The next day all 1200 of these soldiers were to be loaded into ‘Crocodile’ armoured troop carriers (with their kit) and, under command of the Major and I, be driven the almost 4 hours to Bala Bala, on the Bulawayo to Beitbridge Road, where their training was to take place by former Rhodesian Army instructors. The convoy was long, the troop carriers were designed for circa 30 troops but were jam packed with 40 soldiers in each vehicle. The heat in those vehicles was indescribably hot and we had to make 2 en route ‘oxygen’ stops or risk losing soldiers. Sat in the front passenger seat of the lead Crocodile, no radio, no comms whatsoever, travelling through Bulawayo city and trying to keep the convoy together, I sweated buckets!
Against the odds we arrived at Bala Bala intact where a former RAR barracks was to be ‘home for the next 4 weeks. We reported to RHQ and the convoy was immediately taken under the wing of the camp instructors. The Major and I were taken to meet the Adjutant. He was an erstwhile 16th/5th Lancer LE Officer. He was seeing out his last few months before retiring to his farm and was surprisingly distant. Not even my SCOTS DG beret and badge invoked any semblance of camaraderie in him. I should explain a small number of erstwhile ( mainly white) Rhodesian army members had stayed on to help the formation of the ZNA, most who did stay on had ulterior financial motives! The Adjt took us to meet the CO. Colonel Dan turned out to be a public school educated Rhodesian with a huge chip on his shoulder. He HATED what had happened to his barracks. He HATED the demise of his beloved RARs. His surname clearly had Dutch origins, his clipped, slightly accented speech had Boer undertones, his attitude to black Zimbabweans was 100% old school Boer! He had a huge, fierce looking Rhodesian Ridgeback dog that suddenly jumped up and approached me. The Colonel told me I was fine the dog only bit blacks! The Adjt explained I had been allocated a room in one of the admin blocks and the Major a room in the Officers Mess. The Colonel said that wasn’t to happen I was also to live in the Officers’ Mess. The CO and the Adjt were clearly not friends!
The Major and I were pretty superfluous at Bala Bala. The training team there were consummate professionals and we were expected allow them free rein. We did!
Our first breakfast had barely finished when an apoplectic CO came storming in and demanded we follow him. We grabbed our berets and raced after him and his dog as he strode off towards to the accommodation huts. Neither the Major or I had any clue what had upset the CO but he was swearing and ranting non stop. We arrived at one of the huts. ‘Take a look in the ablutions’ he instructed us. We went into the lavatories/ washrooms. The stench was indescribable. There were faeces and grass everywhere.Every loo was blocked and overflowing. ‘Dirty bastards’ the Colonel repeated time after time then addressing me rather than the Major he said ‘sort this fu#king mess out by sundown, get the whole fu#king battalion together and sort this’ he then turned on his heels and left. A friendly ( Black) former RAR instructor explained what had happened. The troops had never used European lavatories before. They had never seen loo paper or porcelain loos, consequently they stood on top of the lavatories and then cleaned themselves with grass afterwards. They had no concept of flushing lavatories.
The Battalion CO Lt Col Kajesi was a university educated man who spoke perfect English and was charming. We sought him out and showed him the chaos in the troops accommodation. He spoke for some time with his Battalion Adjt who then scurried off somewhere, ‘Sgt Major I have arranged for a demonstration of how to use the toilets and I would invite you and the Major to accompany me please to the parade square’. Off we went. On arrival the entire battalion was formed up in company order, officers front and centre.There was a thunder box in the centre of the square. The Battalion RSM was stood beside it with a roll of loo paper in his hand. I saw where this was going! ‘Sgt Major the stage is yours, the RSM speaks English, Ndbele and Shona, he is your interpreter and demonstrator. You teach my soldiers how to use the toilet please’ Readers this may all sound far fetched but fact really can be stranger than fiction. The RHA Major clearly recognised that teaching soldiers how to defecate fell within an ORs realm of duties and told me to ‘carry on’. As far as any TP in defecation could go it went well! The RSM was brilliant, I shouted out each stage in English, he translated it into Ndbele and Shona and then enacted what I said. With a theatrical flourish he finished the demo hitching his pants up as he rose from the thunder box pulling an imaginary loo chain afterwards. The battalion returned to training. The RSM called 2 of the soldiers to carry the thunder box off the square. As they lifted the box a small pile of poo and some used loo paper reposed proudly in the middle of the square. The RSM had followed my instructions a tad too literally! I quickly learned in Africa nothing can be taken for granted…common sense was really NOT common.
In Part 2 we deploy into the bush and the ‘fun’ begins.
“Nothing except a battle lost can be half as melancholy as a battle won” Arthur Wellesley 1st Duke of Wellington.
Continuing a historical replay of my personal military career high/low lights, this post is about my exploits in Zimbabwe in 1981 as a member of the British Military Advisory And Training Team [ BMATT] Readers I find it strangely cathartic to set these matters down in writing albeit some 54 pages into the autobiography I was previously writing ( a warts and all very frank expose’ of myself) I ‘lost my bottle and scrapped it. Too many demons and home truths!
I am encouraged to write of my African adventure by assuming the lack of contributions from other members [other than ‘the famous 5’] means folk enjoy reading what we write. Happy if you prove me wrong!
April 1981 I was ‘between jobs’. I had just handed over the Families S/Sgt role to Andy Foote and had answered a M&RO trawl to join BMATT in Zimbabwe for a 6 month detachment. The qualifying criteria included inter alia WO2 rank, pref infantry trained, fit, COs personal recommendation. I managed the last 2 requirements and on a whim volunteered. I was surprised my name was even forwarded to Manning and Records, I was staggered when it was accepted. I went home one day and said to my wife ‘there’s good news and bad news’. Veronika sighed and told me to tell her both. ‘The good news is it’s only 6 months…the bad news is I fly to Zimbabwe in a week’s time” I explained. The direct approach always worked best I thought.
A week later, promoted to Acting WO2 for the duration of the tour, I was boarding a BA flight to Harare [ formerly Salisbury] the capital of Zimbabwe. I have to be honest, sat at 35000 feet for 10 hours I had time to reflect on what might lay ahead! I had no idea, had somebody told me I would not have believed them.
Unknown to me on that flight were another 7 British Army personnel, 4 Majors and 3 other WOs2. I was met at the airport by a BMATT admin guy and he gathered the 8 of us together. We were driven to a 5 star hotel in the city told to relax for the day, (food and drink to be charged to the room) and we would be collected at 0830 next morning for an induction briefing. The 4 officers were badged RM, Coldstream Guards, Para Regt and RHA. The other 3 WOs were all Infanteers! I began to think I was a fish out of water here. This wasn’t some course I could RTU myself from this was freaking Zimbabwe, a country until the previous year or 2 that was embroiled in a bitter bush war against its colonialist government.
Zimbabwe gained independence in April 1980. Ian Smith’s UDI Government stepped down in 1978 and Bishop Abel Muzerewa was installed as temporary PM until post independence elections were held. Muzerewa, as the supposed most moderate of the candidates up for election, was the British Government’s preferred choice. He lost decisively to Robert Mugabe a known communist sympathiser and a man with an abject hatred of all things colonialist! Mugabe became PM and Canaan Banana was elected President. Muzerewa faded into obscurity.
I won’t bore readers with a long history of Rhodesia and its transformation to Zimbabwe but it is important to know there are 2 hugely dominant tribes in Zimbabwe. The Ndbele from Matebeland and the Shona from Mashonaland. The former, a warrior race with ancestral ties to the Zulus,the latter, traditional farmers.The tribes were not ‘best buddies’. They had huseparate political parties and separate military arms. They spoke different languages, the Ndbele using the distinct Zulu tongue ‘click’. Some of both tribe’s armed forces had been trained in Russia, others in China and North Korea. The Nbele armed wing was entitled Zipra, the Shona equivalent Zanla!
I knew none of this of course before my arrival. I DID learn that some months before we arrived a fledgling Zimbabwe National Army ( ZNA) Battalion had revolted in what became known as the ‘Battle of Bulawayo’. A Rhodesian African Rifles ( RAR) Battalion quickly quelled the revolt on a hill overlooking Bulawayo hence the title. The tanks the renegade battalion had taken ran out of fuel, the soldiers couldn’t operate the guns and the rather lame revolt quickly fizzled out. Little did I know then how that matter would come back to haunt me some months down the line.
We listened intently to the BMATT SO2 who gave us our induction brief. It was a lot to digest. We were paired off Major/WO2 into 4 teams. Each team would ‘inherit’ a ZNA battalion from the induction centre where the 2 former armies had been held post cessation of hostilities under the ‘management’ of BMATT Officers and SNCOs. I was paired with the RHA Major. We would see our battalions through basic training and then oversee their relocation into military bush camps in the Tribal Trust Lands. After that we would help them become self sufficient as a cohesive infantry battalion of the ZNA. A daunting brief! And nobody told us the bush camps would be built by our battalions on arrival at the designated locations.
2 days after induction I was sat outside in the searing African sun, at a table in a former Rhodesian Army barracks, taking roll call of ZNA3. Our battalion! Before me were circa 1200 former ‘freedom fighters’ dressed in scruffy camouflage uniforms wearing boots they were mostly unaccustomed to, sat on the tarmac.’My Major’ was elsewhere dealing with the ZNA Bn officers who only held temporary rank at that time. The BMATT team had assessed potential officers based on their previous status in their respective tribal armies and some leadership skills tests. It was all very ‘Heath Robinson. My roll call took 5 hours. The African names, particularly the Ndbele ones, tested my linguistic skills but we managed eventually.
The next day all 1200 of these soldiers were to be loaded into ‘Crocodile’ armoured troop carriers (with their kit) and, under command of the Major and I, be driven the almost 4 hours to Bala Bala, on the Bulawayo to Beitbridge Road, where their training was to take place by former Rhodesian Army instructors. The convoy was long, the troop carriers were designed for circa 30 troops but were jam packed with 40 soldiers in each vehicle. The heat in those vehicles was indescribably hot and we had to make 2 en route ‘oxygen’ stops or risk losing soldiers. Sat in the front passenger seat of the lead Crocodile, no radio, no comms whatsoever, travelling through Bulawayo city and trying to keep the convoy together, I sweated buckets!
Against the odds we arrived at Bala Bala intact where a former RAR barracks was to be ‘home for the next 4 weeks. We reported to RHQ and the convoy was immediately taken under the wing of the camp instructors. The Major and I were taken to meet the Adjutant. He was an erstwhile 16th/5th Lancer LE Officer. He was seeing out his last few months before retiring to his farm and was surprisingly distant. Not even my SCOTS DG beret and badge invoked any semblance of camaraderie in him. I should explain a small number of erstwhile ( mainly white) Rhodesian army members had stayed on to help the formation of the ZNA, most who did stay on had ulterior financial motives! The Adjt took us to meet the CO. Colonel Dan turned out to be a public school educated Rhodesian with a huge chip on his shoulder. He HATED what had happened to his barracks. He HATED the demise of his beloved RARs. His surname clearly had Dutch origins, his clipped, slightly accented speech had Boer undertones, his attitude to black Zimbabweans was 100% old school Boer! He had a huge, fierce looking Rhodesian Ridgeback dog that suddenly jumped up and approached me. The Colonel told me I was fine the dog only bit blacks! The Adjt explained I had been allocated a room in one of the admin blocks and the Major a room in the Officers Mess. The Colonel said that wasn’t to happen I was also to live in the Officers’ Mess. The CO and the Adjt were clearly not friends!
The Major and I were pretty superfluous at Bala Bala. The training team there were consummate professionals and we were expected allow them free rein. We did!
Our first breakfast had barely finished when an apoplectic CO came storming in and demanded we follow him. We grabbed our berets and raced after him and his dog as he strode off towards to the accommodation huts. Neither the Major or I had any clue what had upset the CO but he was swearing and ranting non stop. We arrived at one of the huts. ‘Take a look in the ablutions’ he instructed us. We went into the lavatories/ washrooms. The stench was indescribable. There were faeces and grass everywhere.Every loo was blocked and overflowing. ‘Dirty bastards’ the Colonel repeated time after time then addressing me rather than the Major he said ‘sort this fu#king mess out by sundown, get the whole fu#king battalion together and sort this’ he then turned on his heels and left. A friendly ( Black) former RAR instructor explained what had happened. The troops had never used European lavatories before. They had never seen loo paper or porcelain loos, consequently they stood on top of the lavatories and then cleaned themselves with grass afterwards. They had no concept of flushing lavatories.
The Battalion CO Lt Col Kajesi was a university educated man who spoke perfect English and was charming. We sought him out and showed him the chaos in the troops accommodation. He spoke for some time with his Battalion Adjt who then scurried off somewhere, ‘Sgt Major I have arranged for a demonstration of how to use the toilets and I would invite you and the Major to accompany me please to the parade square’. Off we went. On arrival the entire battalion was formed up in company order, officers front and centre.There was a thunder box in the centre of the square. The Battalion RSM was stood beside it with a roll of loo paper in his hand. I saw where this was going! ‘Sgt Major the stage is yours, the RSM speaks English, Ndbele and Shona, he is your interpreter and demonstrator. You teach my soldiers how to use the toilet please’ Readers this may all sound far fetched but fact really can be stranger than fiction. The RHA Major clearly recognised that teaching soldiers how to defecate fell within an ORs realm of duties and told me to ‘carry on’. As far as any TP in defecation could go it went well! The RSM was brilliant, I shouted out each stage in English, he translated it into Ndbele and Shona and then enacted what I said. With a theatrical flourish he finished the demo hitching his pants up as he rose from the thunder box pulling an imaginary loo chain afterwards. The battalion returned to training. The RSM called 2 of the soldiers to carry the thunder box off the square. As they lifted the box a small pile of poo and some used loo paper reposed proudly in the middle of the square. The RSM had followed my instructions a tad too literally! I quickly learned in Africa nothing can be taken for granted…common sense was really NOT common.
In Part 2 we deploy into the bush and the ‘fun’ begins.
Quote from Cliff_C on March 8, 2024, 8:15 amThat certainly sounds like the Africa I was in! We had a similar escapade with the toilets, it was the type of pot we had in Germany and it was piled high!! The best way to communicate was always to have a little "road show"
You should really document your military career, you and John should collaborate and right your memoirs (maybe not all of them).
All the best
Cliff
That certainly sounds like the Africa I was in! We had a similar escapade with the toilets, it was the type of pot we had in Germany and it was piled high!! The best way to communicate was always to have a little "road show"
You should really document your military career, you and John should collaborate and right your memoirs (maybe not all of them).
All the best
Cliff
Quote from DavidFullard on March 8, 2024, 11:25 pmThe battalion went on 2 weeks leave after Bala Bala training finished. I have no recollection how they left but within an hour they were all gone. Their accommodation was left immaculate…the lavatories ditto! The Major and I left for the Township of Que Que ( now Kwe Kwe) where he had rented a bungalow to accommodate his wife and 2 children who joined him for the remainder of the tour. I was invited to live with them.We were given very generous subsistence allowances and expected to sort our own food and living arrangements. The Major and his family went off on a tour of Zimbabwe. I arranged my own R&R at Lake Kariba a man made lake created by intentional flooding and later turned into a tourist haven especially for tiger fishing. Tiger fish are large voracious predators with big teeth. Friends and I hired a motor boat and driver, loaded crates of beer onboard and set off. The combination of blazing sun and alcohol took its toll after a few hours. We landed on an island to seek shade for a while. The island was home to a Rhodesian couple who owned a hotel and beer garden. We sat at a table, shaded by a huge sun umbrella 50 yards from the waters edge. My back was to the water, a friend tapped me on the shoulder and told me to turn round. I did so and my heart almost stopped. Waddling ungainly towards us from the water was a huge hippopotamus. Hippos kill more people in Africa every year than any other animal. I froze as I was told to do, the hippo waddled nonchalantly through the centre space of the tables set out and stopped at the entrance to the building. A woman emerged and hugged the hippo before feeding it. The couple had hand reared the animal from birth after it was abandoned by its mother. The feeding was a daily ritual well known to my Rhodesian friends who thought it fun not to tell me beforehand!
We left Kariba for Victoria Falls and the Rain Forest and stayed at the famous Elephant Hills Hotel. We drove deep into the bush and saw ( close up) large herds of elephants kept safe from hunters by the thousands of land mines buried around the edge of the national park during the war. Spying a lone elephant calf I foolishly ventured too close and was chased off by a furious cow elephant losing one of my flip flops in my haste to get back to the safety of the car.My flip flop was stamped on by the raging elephant and tossed into the bush never to be seen again. The wildlife was staggering to see, the ‘Big Five’ lion, hippo, buffalo, leopard and rhino were in abundance. R& R came to a close and I headed bak to Que Que. I lasted a whole week in the Major’s bungalow. ‘ Mrs Major’ was odd and very rank conscious…much more than her husband. Matters came to a head when she berated me for eating something out of the refrigerator. Despite them being a family of 4 I voluntarily contributed 1/3rd of the rent and food costs. I left and moved into a nice bungalow in town with a swimming pool, gardener and ‘houseboy’ called ‘Waistcoat’. Don’t ask! It was idyllic.Qus Que was the nearest town to where the battalion were to be based post leave. The base was in the nearby Tribal Trust Lands ( TTLs) near the Tiger Reef Mine. It was a 90 minute drive along corrugated dirt roads to get there. We were given an ancient diesel land-rover . The Major and I drove into the TTLs, him with an SLR me with an SMG and 9m Pistol. Our battalion was still unarmed. We had no comms. We arrived at the base camp to find the whole battalion in situ, minus circa 50 soldiers who decided the ZNA wasn’t their cup of tea and stayed in their villages. How they all arrived back to that bush base is still a mystery to me. The battalion comprised 50% Shona Tribe and 50% Ndbele Tribe.The CO was Shona, the 2iC Ndbele, the Adjt Shona, the RSM Ndbele. 2 company commanders were Shona 3 were Ndbele. The ranks throughout the battalion were evenly distributed between the two tribes. The idea was to enhance integration between the 2 tribes It worked up to a point. The battalion was digging deep trench latrines on our arrival under the direction of 2 ZNA engineers. In 2 days they dug a 400 meter trench, 5 feet deep working in 2s, one with a pick the other with a shovel alternating in the trench in unison and all in temperatures exceeding 40 degrees. Their accommodation comprised huge marquees, erected seamlessly with 100 or so soldiers to each marquee being erected.There were 6 huts already placed in situ by the engineers. 1 was the officers mess, 1 the SNCOs mess. 1 the radio room with comms back to Army HQ in Salisbury, I was battalion HQ and 1 the medical centre. There were 4 small huts that housed gas burning refrigerators where the frozen meat for the cook tent was stored. It was delivered weekly. The medics had acquired amazing skills during the long bush war, Trained in China or North Korea they performed minor surgery with alacrity even treating gunshot wounds.
Venereal Disease was rife in the battalion and Zimbabwe generally. Each month the battalion ( less officers ) was paraded for VD checks. The RSM and a medic would walk through the ranks who, when approached, dropped their trousers to expose themselves for inspection.I participated in one of the inspections….as an inspector!! I wished I hadn’t. I saw young men in advanced states of VD with genitalia tied with string around their tummies to stop the organs falling off. The medic told me the penicillen he gave the soldiers wan’t trusted, it was white mans’ medicine. The local witch doctor convinced some of them to ditch the penicillin and drink his magic potions which turned their urine green. They could see something happening with the potions so stopped taking the penicillin. Some of them died. Many of them stuck with the penicillin but reinfected themselves before being cured of the disease. It was a nightmare.
Dead bodies were not a wholly uncommon occurrence in the battalion. On a few occasions I dropped corpses off at the Que Que police HQ after tribal machete fights in the Chibuku Tent. Chibuka is a potent local maize beer. At the police HQ, George, a huge, red bearded, Irish, Force Medical officer ( FME) would lift the canopy covering the corpses in my land- rover, feel for a pulse in the neck and declare them dead. George loved his beer and always invited me into the police bar afterwards. Readers if you are wondering what happened to the killers of the corpses I have no idea!
Each day brought a new experience. One morning we arrived at base camp and as we entered the HQ hut the Adjt, Capt Maputo, told me I had to see something inside.That something was a very scruffy, bloody soldier sat on a chair with a machete embedded longways in his skull. The machete was held in place by a field dressing tied under the man’s chin. The Adjt explained the machete had fallen off the man’s head and he had instructed the medic to replace it in the victim’s head and bind it in place. Why? So the Major and I could see it in situ as evidence! Words and logic failed us. That afternoon I saw 3 soldiers being mercilessly beaten with long thin sticks, retribution was sometimes swift and consequential.
Another morning we were met by the Adjt and the local village headman. A young girl aged 12 was also there with a tear stained face. She had been raped. The rapist was dragged into the hut, he had been badly beaten and his hands were tied behind his back, Through the Adjt I assured the girl and her father the rapist would go to prison. The father became very angry, shouting and gesticulating, pointing at me and clearly not happy. The Adjt explained the girl was no longer a virgin and her ‘bride price’ had been severely diminished as a result. Father wanted recompense nothing more. The rape of his 12 year old daughter was secondary to the loss of her bride price. Life was hard but cheap in Zimbabwe, western morals were not recognised, the brutal rape of a child was just a passing event.
The battalion was to be visited by the Deputy Commander of the Army, Lt Gen Lookout Masuku. Yes that really was his name.The 40 year old Ndbele General had masterminded the Ndbele Zipra Forces’ campaign during the war. He hated white people. He landed on a nearby bush airstrip in an aircraft full of bullet holes and emerged with a newspaper tucked under his arm! He kept it there for the whole 1 hour visit. The Major and I stayed out of the way!
There were still dissidents in the bush. Former freedom fighters who had refused to lay down their arms at the ceasefire and join the new ZNA. My land rover was fired at one afternoon on my way back to Que Que. I was alone that day for some reason and the experience was not pleasant. I went to Brigade HQ in Gwelo to report the attack. The white Brigadier I spoke to listened intently and told his COS to send some troops to the area to investigate. He asked for a favour in return. There was a battalion in Guinea Fowl [ close to Que Que] that had no BMATT team and was in need of some moral support. Could I pay them a quick visit. I did. Unbeknown to me but well known to the Brigadier the Battalion was the one that had rioted in 1980. They had been ‘dumped’ in this base, disarmed and left to fend for themselves other than weekly food deliveries. Worst of all they hadn’t been paid for 3 months. The soldiers needed the money to support their families back in their primitive villages. My visit was initially cordial but the CO told me his men were very angry. As I exited the Bn HQ I was met by hundreds of soldiers who began chanting. The CO shouted at them telling them to stop I guessed. He told me to leave quickly. Easier said than done. The chanting increased in volume. As I walked towards my land-rover the mob of soldiers closed in on me. I was jostled and punched, being the sole white man in the midst of hundreds of angry black former terrorists was more than frightening. I fumbled for my pistol and managed to cock it and fire into the air. The chanting stopped dead, The mob parted and, pistol in hand, I walked slowly to my vehicle. I got in,started the engine and put my foot on the accelerator. My leg refused to function. It was shaking violently and uncontrollably…fear works in funny ways. I drove off in kangeroo hops as my foot pressed and released the accelerator. It didn’t matter, I got away. I drove back to Gwelo to confront the Brigadier… I was advised to leave by the COS who told me the Brigadier had resigned from the ZNA and was joining, the South African Army the next week. Another Rhodie’ who hated us Brits.In all of this I should explain our only real interaction with BMATT HQ in Salisbury (Harare) was when we visited to collect our subsistence money once monthly. We had landline comms from the Que Que Hotel whilst there but once we moved into our bungalows we had to go to the PO to ring if we needed to. The only telephone call I remember during our deployment was when the Chief Clerk arrived unannounced one late afternoon and told me I was ‘wanted’ at HQ to see the General. His car then broke down so he arranged a telephone call in the Que Que Hotel. General Palmer rang me to tell me of my BEM award
In Part 3 we are ordered to arm the Battalion!
The battalion went on 2 weeks leave after Bala Bala training finished. I have no recollection how they left but within an hour they were all gone. Their accommodation was left immaculate…the lavatories ditto! The Major and I left for the Township of Que Que ( now Kwe Kwe) where he had rented a bungalow to accommodate his wife and 2 children who joined him for the remainder of the tour. I was invited to live with them.We were given very generous subsistence allowances and expected to sort our own food and living arrangements. The Major and his family went off on a tour of Zimbabwe. I arranged my own R&R at Lake Kariba a man made lake created by intentional flooding and later turned into a tourist haven especially for tiger fishing. Tiger fish are large voracious predators with big teeth. Friends and I hired a motor boat and driver, loaded crates of beer onboard and set off. The combination of blazing sun and alcohol took its toll after a few hours. We landed on an island to seek shade for a while. The island was home to a Rhodesian couple who owned a hotel and beer garden. We sat at a table, shaded by a huge sun umbrella 50 yards from the waters edge. My back was to the water, a friend tapped me on the shoulder and told me to turn round. I did so and my heart almost stopped. Waddling ungainly towards us from the water was a huge hippopotamus. Hippos kill more people in Africa every year than any other animal. I froze as I was told to do, the hippo waddled nonchalantly through the centre space of the tables set out and stopped at the entrance to the building. A woman emerged and hugged the hippo before feeding it. The couple had hand reared the animal from birth after it was abandoned by its mother. The feeding was a daily ritual well known to my Rhodesian friends who thought it fun not to tell me beforehand!
We left Kariba for Victoria Falls and the Rain Forest and stayed at the famous Elephant Hills Hotel. We drove deep into the bush and saw ( close up) large herds of elephants kept safe from hunters by the thousands of land mines buried around the edge of the national park during the war. Spying a lone elephant calf I foolishly ventured too close and was chased off by a furious cow elephant losing one of my flip flops in my haste to get back to the safety of the car.My flip flop was stamped on by the raging elephant and tossed into the bush never to be seen again. The wildlife was staggering to see, the ‘Big Five’ lion, hippo, buffalo, leopard and rhino were in abundance. R& R came to a close and I headed bak to Que Que. I lasted a whole week in the Major’s bungalow. ‘ Mrs Major’ was odd and very rank conscious…much more than her husband. Matters came to a head when she berated me for eating something out of the refrigerator. Despite them being a family of 4 I voluntarily contributed 1/3rd of the rent and food costs. I left and moved into a nice bungalow in town with a swimming pool, gardener and ‘houseboy’ called ‘Waistcoat’. Don’t ask! It was idyllic.
Qus Que was the nearest town to where the battalion were to be based post leave. The base was in the nearby Tribal Trust Lands ( TTLs) near the Tiger Reef Mine. It was a 90 minute drive along corrugated dirt roads to get there. We were given an ancient diesel land-rover . The Major and I drove into the TTLs, him with an SLR me with an SMG and 9m Pistol. Our battalion was still unarmed. We had no comms. We arrived at the base camp to find the whole battalion in situ, minus circa 50 soldiers who decided the ZNA wasn’t their cup of tea and stayed in their villages. How they all arrived back to that bush base is still a mystery to me. The battalion comprised 50% Shona Tribe and 50% Ndbele Tribe.The CO was Shona, the 2iC Ndbele, the Adjt Shona, the RSM Ndbele. 2 company commanders were Shona 3 were Ndbele. The ranks throughout the battalion were evenly distributed between the two tribes. The idea was to enhance integration between the 2 tribes It worked up to a point. The battalion was digging deep trench latrines on our arrival under the direction of 2 ZNA engineers. In 2 days they dug a 400 meter trench, 5 feet deep working in 2s, one with a pick the other with a shovel alternating in the trench in unison and all in temperatures exceeding 40 degrees. Their accommodation comprised huge marquees, erected seamlessly with 100 or so soldiers to each marquee being erected.There were 6 huts already placed in situ by the engineers. 1 was the officers mess, 1 the SNCOs mess. 1 the radio room with comms back to Army HQ in Salisbury, I was battalion HQ and 1 the medical centre. There were 4 small huts that housed gas burning refrigerators where the frozen meat for the cook tent was stored. It was delivered weekly. The medics had acquired amazing skills during the long bush war, Trained in China or North Korea they performed minor surgery with alacrity even treating gunshot wounds.
Venereal Disease was rife in the battalion and Zimbabwe generally. Each month the battalion ( less officers ) was paraded for VD checks. The RSM and a medic would walk through the ranks who, when approached, dropped their trousers to expose themselves for inspection.I participated in one of the inspections….as an inspector!! I wished I hadn’t. I saw young men in advanced states of VD with genitalia tied with string around their tummies to stop the organs falling off. The medic told me the penicillen he gave the soldiers wan’t trusted, it was white mans’ medicine. The local witch doctor convinced some of them to ditch the penicillin and drink his magic potions which turned their urine green. They could see something happening with the potions so stopped taking the penicillin. Some of them died. Many of them stuck with the penicillin but reinfected themselves before being cured of the disease. It was a nightmare.
Dead bodies were not a wholly uncommon occurrence in the battalion. On a few occasions I dropped corpses off at the Que Que police HQ after tribal machete fights in the Chibuku Tent. Chibuka is a potent local maize beer. At the police HQ, George, a huge, red bearded, Irish, Force Medical officer ( FME) would lift the canopy covering the corpses in my land- rover, feel for a pulse in the neck and declare them dead. George loved his beer and always invited me into the police bar afterwards. Readers if you are wondering what happened to the killers of the corpses I have no idea!
Each day brought a new experience. One morning we arrived at base camp and as we entered the HQ hut the Adjt, Capt Maputo, told me I had to see something inside.That something was a very scruffy, bloody soldier sat on a chair with a machete embedded longways in his skull. The machete was held in place by a field dressing tied under the man’s chin. The Adjt explained the machete had fallen off the man’s head and he had instructed the medic to replace it in the victim’s head and bind it in place. Why? So the Major and I could see it in situ as evidence! Words and logic failed us. That afternoon I saw 3 soldiers being mercilessly beaten with long thin sticks, retribution was sometimes swift and consequential.
Another morning we were met by the Adjt and the local village headman. A young girl aged 12 was also there with a tear stained face. She had been raped. The rapist was dragged into the hut, he had been badly beaten and his hands were tied behind his back, Through the Adjt I assured the girl and her father the rapist would go to prison. The father became very angry, shouting and gesticulating, pointing at me and clearly not happy. The Adjt explained the girl was no longer a virgin and her ‘bride price’ had been severely diminished as a result. Father wanted recompense nothing more. The rape of his 12 year old daughter was secondary to the loss of her bride price. Life was hard but cheap in Zimbabwe, western morals were not recognised, the brutal rape of a child was just a passing event.
The battalion was to be visited by the Deputy Commander of the Army, Lt Gen Lookout Masuku. Yes that really was his name.The 40 year old Ndbele General had masterminded the Ndbele Zipra Forces’ campaign during the war. He hated white people. He landed on a nearby bush airstrip in an aircraft full of bullet holes and emerged with a newspaper tucked under his arm! He kept it there for the whole 1 hour visit. The Major and I stayed out of the way!
There were still dissidents in the bush. Former freedom fighters who had refused to lay down their arms at the ceasefire and join the new ZNA. My land rover was fired at one afternoon on my way back to Que Que. I was alone that day for some reason and the experience was not pleasant. I went to Brigade HQ in Gwelo to report the attack. The white Brigadier I spoke to listened intently and told his COS to send some troops to the area to investigate. He asked for a favour in return. There was a battalion in Guinea Fowl [ close to Que Que] that had no BMATT team and was in need of some moral support. Could I pay them a quick visit. I did. Unbeknown to me but well known to the Brigadier the Battalion was the one that had rioted in 1980. They had been ‘dumped’ in this base, disarmed and left to fend for themselves other than weekly food deliveries. Worst of all they hadn’t been paid for 3 months. The soldiers needed the money to support their families back in their primitive villages. My visit was initially cordial but the CO told me his men were very angry. As I exited the Bn HQ I was met by hundreds of soldiers who began chanting. The CO shouted at them telling them to stop I guessed. He told me to leave quickly. Easier said than done. The chanting increased in volume. As I walked towards my land-rover the mob of soldiers closed in on me. I was jostled and punched, being the sole white man in the midst of hundreds of angry black former terrorists was more than frightening. I fumbled for my pistol and managed to cock it and fire into the air. The chanting stopped dead, The mob parted and, pistol in hand, I walked slowly to my vehicle. I got in,started the engine and put my foot on the accelerator. My leg refused to function. It was shaking violently and uncontrollably…fear works in funny ways. I drove off in kangeroo hops as my foot pressed and released the accelerator. It didn’t matter, I got away. I drove back to Gwelo to confront the Brigadier… I was advised to leave by the COS who told me the Brigadier had resigned from the ZNA and was joining, the South African Army the next week. Another Rhodie’ who hated us Brits.
In all of this I should explain our only real interaction with BMATT HQ in Salisbury (Harare) was when we visited to collect our subsistence money once monthly. We had landline comms from the Que Que Hotel whilst there but once we moved into our bungalows we had to go to the PO to ring if we needed to. The only telephone call I remember during our deployment was when the Chief Clerk arrived unannounced one late afternoon and told me I was ‘wanted’ at HQ to see the General. His car then broke down so he arranged a telephone call in the Que Que Hotel. General Palmer rang me to tell me of my BEM award
In Part 3 we are ordered to arm the Battalion!
Quote from DavidFullard on March 9, 2024, 6:06 pmLife in Que Que and with the Battalion in 1981 was a microcosm of the almost dystopian world we lived in whilst in Zimbabwe. A strange world where the erstwhile century long masters became the slaves almost overnight. Role reversal at its starkest. The white population of Zimbabwe decreased significantly post independence, Mugabe was hated by the white Rhodesians…and with some justification. Zimbabwe had long been known as the ‘bread basket’ of Africa. The almost exclusively owned white farms produced huge yields of maize and other cash crops. The Zimbabwe ‘Land Reclamation Act’ saw hundreds of those farms given over to Government supporting black Zimbabweans. Overnight white farmers whose families had farmed the soil for many decades were disenfranchised and made to leave their farms with what they could carry in a car. Others were simply burnt out and killed when resisting. The Government did nothing. The richest, biggest farms were ‘requisitioned’ by Mugabe’s henchmen including his Ministers and senior army officers. Grace Mugabe ( his wife) claimed 2 of the richest farms! The ineptitude of the new black farm owners with zero talent for agricultural matters soon became apparent, already planted crops rotted in the field, new crops failed or simply weren’t planted. Thousands of acres of erstwhile rich arable soil went unirrigated and untended and turned to dust. Zimbabwe went from producing enough cereal grain to feed half of Africa to importing it to avoid starvation! Inflation was reminiscent of post war Germany where barrowloads of Reichmarks were needed to buy a loaf of bread. The in joke amongst the white population was ‘Mickey Mouse owned a Robert Mugabe watch’.
Walking through Que Que one day in uniform a car coming up behind me honked its horn annd pulled in just ahead of me. I was naturally wary but the driver was James Maberley a former Lt in SCOTS DG. No longer serving, he lived in Que Que had seen my grey beret and pulled in to see who the wearer was. I hadn’t seen him for a good while. James insisted I come home with him and we drove off, I noticed a loaded 9mm pistol in the tray between the seats..times were turbulent. Once at his house we caught up on life and he told me life in Rhodesia was becoming difficult for white folk. I told him of my experience in Guinea Fowl and being shot at in the TTLs. He in turn showed me some alarming photos of decapitated white heads mounted on the AE bases of green army land-rovers belonging to Former Zipra forces. I shuddered and thought back to my attack in the bush. I went back to his house a few days later for an evening BBQ with James and his brothers, it was a great evening.
Back at the bush base we received orders to arm the Battalion! The Major and I had always felt we had a bit of an edge on the 1200 black soldiers we looked after as we were armed and they weren’t. Lt Col Charles Kajesi, the Bn CO was hospitable, friendly and warm with the 2 of us and I trusted him. I didn’t trust all of the officers…and none of the soldiers! The Bn 2iC and Adjt had both been arrested for reasons we were told were secret! I knew the fact we were British rather than Rhodesian was a far greater protection than our weapons given we were outnumbered 600-1!I was to travel to the arsenal in Harare to collect the weapons. We still only had a single land-rover as transport. The Battalion had no vehicles whatsoever. We managed to borrow a trailer from Gwelo and I set off ( alone again) to drive the 120 miles or so to Harare. On arrival at the arsenal I was disarmed and searched by ZNA security before being escorted to a huge hut patrolled by yet more armed guards. I showed the ZNA Army Order releasing the Battalions weapons and my long wheel base and trailer were loaded ( overloaded) with rifles, magazines and cleaning kits. I can’t remember how many weapons I signed for but it was a good few hundred, clearly not the whole Battalion consignment but who cared…not me. I just wanted to leave that arsenal, the ZNA staff there were distinctly hostile and unhelpful towards me AND they had confiscated my personal weapons! The trailer canopy was secured I signed for the weapons and left, I collected my SMG and pistol at the guard box on exiting. Halfway home the land-rover got a puncture. I had no spare tyre, no jack or wheel brace, no radio nothing! Such was everyday life in Zimbabwe, stuck on the side of a busy road with hundreds of rifles and a flat tyre. After about 20 minutes a pick up truck pulled in behind me and 2 white Rhodesians alighted and asked me if I needed help…I absolutely did. They jacked my LR up took the wheel off and said they would get the tyre sorted and be back soon. They drove off, I waited almost 3 hours and began to think I had been duped; now I was stranded with a missing wheel as well. But then the pick-up pulled in again and they produced my LR wheel repaired AND a couple of cold beers from their cool box! They had to drive 25 miles to the next township to get the tyre repaired. They refused all offers of payment and told me they were leaving for South Africa that weekend. I asked them why and they pointed to the rifle laden LR and asked me if I was serious! I got the point they were making and wondered why they had helped me in the first place.
I arrived back at the Battalion at circa 1700 hours, tired and very hot. I took the weapons to an empty hut next to where the refrigerators were stored. These huts were all securely locked and windowless. The Major and I had the only keys to this particular hut. I unloaded the rifles into the hut, it took me 2 hours of back breaking work to do so. I locked up and drove the half mile into base camp. The Major and I had decided we would disclose the location of the arms on the day we finished duty with the Battalion. Sometimes in life you have to make your own luck; giving a load of AK47s to a bunch of ex terrorists who had dedicated the previous 10 years of their lives to to killing every white person they came across was seriously chancing our arm with Fortuna! We had a several former Zipra soldiers in the Bn who had participated in appalling acts of rape and murder of while farmers during the bush war.
Yes of course we were asked by the CO where his Battalion’s arms were. We only had 10 more days with them so I blagged a story that the LR had broken down and I had temporarily safety stored the rifles in the arms store in Gwelo. We would collect them in a few days time. In fact I handed the keys and location of the weapons to the CO on our final day in the bush. He took the keys and asked me to come and watch his soldiers drilling one final time. We stood next to the dirt square they had constructed and I watched 2 companies marching …..proudly carrying new rifles …to my clear astonishment. Kajesi smiled and proffered his hand in a farewell gesture. He said ‘ Sgt Major, I understand why, tell the Major on your way home ‘. I did.
There followed an exit debrief with General Palmer who told me ‘ the biggest drawback when we all get home is getting folk to believe our experiences’ I thought briefly about asking him if he had been beaten up by a riotous battalion, been shot at in the bush or untaken a battalion VD inspection but decided not to. He was kind and complimentary about me and he gave me an outstanding report so I’m glad I didn’t.There are so many other stories to tell some of which are briefly annotated below.
My first day back at RD is remembered mainly for the RSM’s words of greeting ‘ you have until tomorrow to get rid of that face fuzz Staff’ ( Beastie Savage)Highlights.
Lake Kariba, Vic Falls, and the Rain Forest, Hwange National Park, Sundowners.
The wildlife. The African sunsets. Discovering and playing Polo Crosse.
The amazing subsistence we received which allowed for extremely good living.
Friends I made. The generosity of most Rhodesians despite what had happened to their country.
The incredible latitude of freedom we were afforded by BMATT HQ. The order of the day was contact us if you need to.
African music. Coming second at the Bareback ( on horses) wrestling competition at the Rosedale County Club!
Meeting Ian Smith.Downlights
Witnessing the incredible poverty amongst black Zimbabweans
The undercurrent of hatred towards everything British from some white Zimbabweans.
The colonial culture attitude that prevailed between whites and blacks and the cheapness of life ….mostly black life.
Bumping into Mugabe in Que Que…well his security detail really…I was carrying my personal weapons …they were not amused.
Dealing with the prolific everyday corruption.
The lack of comms home, the Zimbabwean telephone system was horrendously bad.Conclusion.
My almost 7 months in Zimbabwe provided probably THE greatest adventure of my life. I paddled canoes in rivers home to crocs and hippos, I saw an African country at its rawest after decades of war. A country riven with corruption and the ever present remnants of a colonial past tearing it asunder in everyday life. I saw sights I had only ever dreamed of. I was privileged to have been given the chance of a lifetime. I experienced thrills and fears in equal measures.
I witnessed a Zimbabwe before it later became the victim of a despot’s tyrannical rule. In usurping the colonial rule that made indigenous black Zimbabweans second class citizens beholden to their white masters, the new rulers forgot it was that same colonial culture that built a prosperous, self sufficient Rhodesia. The newly elected black leaders would quickly oversee the destruction of all that once made the country so prosperous.
My Rhodesian friends kept in touch for several years, 3 left for South Africa and we lost touch and the last of them returned to England and died soon after.
Life in Que Que and with the Battalion in 1981 was a microcosm of the almost dystopian world we lived in whilst in Zimbabwe. A strange world where the erstwhile century long masters became the slaves almost overnight. Role reversal at its starkest. The white population of Zimbabwe decreased significantly post independence, Mugabe was hated by the white Rhodesians…and with some justification. Zimbabwe had long been known as the ‘bread basket’ of Africa. The almost exclusively owned white farms produced huge yields of maize and other cash crops. The Zimbabwe ‘Land Reclamation Act’ saw hundreds of those farms given over to Government supporting black Zimbabweans. Overnight white farmers whose families had farmed the soil for many decades were disenfranchised and made to leave their farms with what they could carry in a car. Others were simply burnt out and killed when resisting. The Government did nothing. The richest, biggest farms were ‘requisitioned’ by Mugabe’s henchmen including his Ministers and senior army officers. Grace Mugabe ( his wife) claimed 2 of the richest farms! The ineptitude of the new black farm owners with zero talent for agricultural matters soon became apparent, already planted crops rotted in the field, new crops failed or simply weren’t planted. Thousands of acres of erstwhile rich arable soil went unirrigated and untended and turned to dust. Zimbabwe went from producing enough cereal grain to feed half of Africa to importing it to avoid starvation! Inflation was reminiscent of post war Germany where barrowloads of Reichmarks were needed to buy a loaf of bread. The in joke amongst the white population was ‘Mickey Mouse owned a Robert Mugabe watch’.
Walking through Que Que one day in uniform a car coming up behind me honked its horn annd pulled in just ahead of me. I was naturally wary but the driver was James Maberley a former Lt in SCOTS DG. No longer serving, he lived in Que Que had seen my grey beret and pulled in to see who the wearer was. I hadn’t seen him for a good while. James insisted I come home with him and we drove off, I noticed a loaded 9mm pistol in the tray between the seats..times were turbulent. Once at his house we caught up on life and he told me life in Rhodesia was becoming difficult for white folk. I told him of my experience in Guinea Fowl and being shot at in the TTLs. He in turn showed me some alarming photos of decapitated white heads mounted on the AE bases of green army land-rovers belonging to Former Zipra forces. I shuddered and thought back to my attack in the bush. I went back to his house a few days later for an evening BBQ with James and his brothers, it was a great evening.
Back at the bush base we received orders to arm the Battalion! The Major and I had always felt we had a bit of an edge on the 1200 black soldiers we looked after as we were armed and they weren’t. Lt Col Charles Kajesi, the Bn CO was hospitable, friendly and warm with the 2 of us and I trusted him. I didn’t trust all of the officers…and none of the soldiers! The Bn 2iC and Adjt had both been arrested for reasons we were told were secret! I knew the fact we were British rather than Rhodesian was a far greater protection than our weapons given we were outnumbered 600-1!
I was to travel to the arsenal in Harare to collect the weapons. We still only had a single land-rover as transport. The Battalion had no vehicles whatsoever. We managed to borrow a trailer from Gwelo and I set off ( alone again) to drive the 120 miles or so to Harare. On arrival at the arsenal I was disarmed and searched by ZNA security before being escorted to a huge hut patrolled by yet more armed guards. I showed the ZNA Army Order releasing the Battalions weapons and my long wheel base and trailer were loaded ( overloaded) with rifles, magazines and cleaning kits. I can’t remember how many weapons I signed for but it was a good few hundred, clearly not the whole Battalion consignment but who cared…not me. I just wanted to leave that arsenal, the ZNA staff there were distinctly hostile and unhelpful towards me AND they had confiscated my personal weapons! The trailer canopy was secured I signed for the weapons and left, I collected my SMG and pistol at the guard box on exiting. Halfway home the land-rover got a puncture. I had no spare tyre, no jack or wheel brace, no radio nothing! Such was everyday life in Zimbabwe, stuck on the side of a busy road with hundreds of rifles and a flat tyre. After about 20 minutes a pick up truck pulled in behind me and 2 white Rhodesians alighted and asked me if I needed help…I absolutely did. They jacked my LR up took the wheel off and said they would get the tyre sorted and be back soon. They drove off, I waited almost 3 hours and began to think I had been duped; now I was stranded with a missing wheel as well. But then the pick-up pulled in again and they produced my LR wheel repaired AND a couple of cold beers from their cool box! They had to drive 25 miles to the next township to get the tyre repaired. They refused all offers of payment and told me they were leaving for South Africa that weekend. I asked them why and they pointed to the rifle laden LR and asked me if I was serious! I got the point they were making and wondered why they had helped me in the first place.
I arrived back at the Battalion at circa 1700 hours, tired and very hot. I took the weapons to an empty hut next to where the refrigerators were stored. These huts were all securely locked and windowless. The Major and I had the only keys to this particular hut. I unloaded the rifles into the hut, it took me 2 hours of back breaking work to do so. I locked up and drove the half mile into base camp. The Major and I had decided we would disclose the location of the arms on the day we finished duty with the Battalion. Sometimes in life you have to make your own luck; giving a load of AK47s to a bunch of ex terrorists who had dedicated the previous 10 years of their lives to to killing every white person they came across was seriously chancing our arm with Fortuna! We had a several former Zipra soldiers in the Bn who had participated in appalling acts of rape and murder of while farmers during the bush war.
Yes of course we were asked by the CO where his Battalion’s arms were. We only had 10 more days with them so I blagged a story that the LR had broken down and I had temporarily safety stored the rifles in the arms store in Gwelo. We would collect them in a few days time. In fact I handed the keys and location of the weapons to the CO on our final day in the bush. He took the keys and asked me to come and watch his soldiers drilling one final time. We stood next to the dirt square they had constructed and I watched 2 companies marching …..proudly carrying new rifles …to my clear astonishment. Kajesi smiled and proffered his hand in a farewell gesture. He said ‘ Sgt Major, I understand why, tell the Major on your way home ‘. I did.
There followed an exit debrief with General Palmer who told me ‘ the biggest drawback when we all get home is getting folk to believe our experiences’ I thought briefly about asking him if he had been beaten up by a riotous battalion, been shot at in the bush or untaken a battalion VD inspection but decided not to. He was kind and complimentary about me and he gave me an outstanding report so I’m glad I didn’t.
There are so many other stories to tell some of which are briefly annotated below.
My first day back at RD is remembered mainly for the RSM’s words of greeting ‘ you have until tomorrow to get rid of that face fuzz Staff’ ( Beastie Savage)
Highlights.
Lake Kariba, Vic Falls, and the Rain Forest, Hwange National Park, Sundowners.
The wildlife. The African sunsets. Discovering and playing Polo Crosse.
The amazing subsistence we received which allowed for extremely good living.
Friends I made. The generosity of most Rhodesians despite what had happened to their country.
The incredible latitude of freedom we were afforded by BMATT HQ. The order of the day was contact us if you need to.
African music. Coming second at the Bareback ( on horses) wrestling competition at the Rosedale County Club!
Meeting Ian Smith.
Downlights
Witnessing the incredible poverty amongst black Zimbabweans
The undercurrent of hatred towards everything British from some white Zimbabweans.
The colonial culture attitude that prevailed between whites and blacks and the cheapness of life ….mostly black life.
Bumping into Mugabe in Que Que…well his security detail really…I was carrying my personal weapons …they were not amused.
Dealing with the prolific everyday corruption.
The lack of comms home, the Zimbabwean telephone system was horrendously bad.
Conclusion.
My almost 7 months in Zimbabwe provided probably THE greatest adventure of my life. I paddled canoes in rivers home to crocs and hippos, I saw an African country at its rawest after decades of war. A country riven with corruption and the ever present remnants of a colonial past tearing it asunder in everyday life. I saw sights I had only ever dreamed of. I was privileged to have been given the chance of a lifetime. I experienced thrills and fears in equal measures.
I witnessed a Zimbabwe before it later became the victim of a despot’s tyrannical rule. In usurping the colonial rule that made indigenous black Zimbabweans second class citizens beholden to their white masters, the new rulers forgot it was that same colonial culture that built a prosperous, self sufficient Rhodesia. The newly elected black leaders would quickly oversee the destruction of all that once made the country so prosperous.
My Rhodesian friends kept in touch for several years, 3 left for South Africa and we lost touch and the last of them returned to England and died soon after.