Wood - Counter-strike from the sky: the Rhodesian all-arms fireforce in the war in the bush 1974-1980

Praise for Counter-Strike from the Sky

Counter-Strike is more than a blow-by-blow account of Operation Dingo ... it provides the reader with a thorough understanding of how the Fireforce concept worked, with technical details for the keen militarist
John Redfern, Msasa Mail

The counter-insurgency skills refined by the Rhodesians have transformed the way that Western militaries fight guerrillas; I can speak from personal experience that those tactics have saved many lives in Afghanistan, including my own
MacKenzie, California, USA

It is an excellent survey of counter-insurgency operations in Rhodesia ... with the current interest in counter-insurgency operations it will provide useful reading
Alan Jeffreys, Military History Association Journal

Counter-Strike from the Sky will become one of those specialist military classics, such as von Mellenthins Panzer Battles 1939-1945, Lord Morans The Anatomy of Courage and Michael Herrs Dispatches
Dominic Hoole, The Star

It is fantastic and I will certainly add it to my growing collection of great books about the heroic effort that Rhodesia put forth in maintaining its independence against all odds and the world
Frank Resillez, Political Analyst, USA

I consider it to be a milestone in books about Rhodesia and it has brought to light many issues I had never known or considered
George Hall, UK

This book should be found on professional reading lists and as command and staff course texts. Woods prose, graphics, illustrations, and Cockss audio-visual presentation successfully bring the reader and viewer into the intense world of Fireforce operations. This is a fully documented work written and edited from the insights of participants. I highly recommend it as the lessons of the past have a relevance to the needs of the present
Charles D. Melson, Chief Historian,
History Division, U.S. Marine Corps

It is a must-read for any soldier anywhere in the world to learn the skills created by the masters of airborne COIN ops. The book has so much detail its like a manual but its also a must-read book for anyone interested in military history
YouTube comment

Also by J. R. T. Wood:

The Public Career of John, Second Earl of Stair, to 1720

The Welensky Papers: A History of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, 19531963 (1983)

The War Diaries of Andr Dennison (1989)

So Far and No Further! Rhodesias bid for independence during the retreat from Empire 1959-1965 (2005)

A Matter of Weeks Rather than Months: Sanctions and Abortive Settlements: 19651969 (2008)

Africa@War Vol 1: Operation DingoRhodesian Riad on Chimoio and Tembu, 1977 (2011)

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Copyright J. R. T. Wood, 2009
eBook J. R. T. Wood, 2012

ISBN 978-1920143-33-6
ISBN 978-1908916-11-2 (eBook)

Cover image by Craig Bone
Design and origination by 30 South Publishers (Pty) Ltd.

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For Carole and Andy,
my unflinching support team

Dr Richard Wood, BA (Hons) (Rhodes), PhD (Edinburgh), FRHistS, was born in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia). He was educated at St Georges College in Harare (then Salisbury), Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa, and Edinburgh University, Scotland. He was a Commonwealth scholar and is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society. He was the Ernest Oppenheimer Memorial Research Fellow at the University of Rhodesia and a Professor of History at the University of Durban-Westville, South Africa. He is undoubtedly the foremost historian and researcher on the history of Rhodesia in the decades following World War II and, with exclusive access to the hitherto closed papers of Ian Smith, has written three definitive publications and is currently working on the final volume in the series that will cover the period 19701980. He is a renowned military historian, having served as a territorial soldier in the 1st and 8th Battalions, the Rhodesia Regiment, and in the Mapping and Research Unit of the Rhodesian Intelligence Corps. He has also published numerous articles, conference papers and chapters in books, including in a chapter in the recently published Daniel Marston and Cart Malkasian, Counterinsurgency in Modern Warfare (Osprey Publishing, Oxford, 2008). Richard has a lifelong interest in matters military, rugby and fly-fishing. He lives in Durban, South Africa with his wife Carole.

Contents

The original script of this account was written in the early 1990s and eventually found its way onto my website, http://www.jrtwood.com, together with my drawings. Several people suggested that I publish it as a book. Among them were my son, Andrew, and Jeremy Hall, once Lance-Corporal Hall, J., 6 Troop, 2 Commando, 1RLI. Then earlier this year, without any prompting, my publisher, Chris Cocks (also a onetime lance-corporal), offered to publish a history of Fireforce, an offer I could not refuse.

Fireforce is an example among many of Rhodesian ingenuity. There was no textbook on which to base strategy and tactics; the Rhodesians wrote that as they went along. The young men who manned the Fireforces are examples of raw courage. Few soldiers have been asked to face jumps into the unknown every day of a deployment. My only direct experience of Fireforce was when, as an 8RR lance-corporal manning an OP, I talked a K-Car onto a line of running men. After 1976 in the company of Dr Graham Child, David Lee, Donovan Slatter, Bill Lacey and Winkie Prentice, all of the Research Section of the Rhodesian Intelligence Corps, I studied Fireforce contacts reports and produced research reports on our findings.

The long time span of the genesis of this book means that it is difficult to recall every assistance given. My family, Carole and Andrew, have had to live with the constant rebuke I have a book to write. Major Chuck Melson, the Chief Historian of the US Marine Corps has been a valued friend, collaborator and a constant source of research material. Brigadier David Heppenstall, Colonel John Redfern and lieutenant-colonels Garth Barrett and Ron Reid-Daly allowed me sight of the research material on which this book is based. Alex Binda generously passed on photocopies of contact reports. Group Captain Peter Petter-Bowyer and Wing Commander Harold Griffiths allowed me sight of their logbooks. Squadron Leader Prop Geldenhuys has not only answered numerous questions, supplied copies of his books but went to the trouble to obtain Mozambican maps for me. Paul Naish and Craig Fourie are always ready to help and have supplied me with research material, the latter also kindly making available a plethora of photographs.