Description
Title: Selous Scouts – Top Secret War
Author: Reid-Daly, Ron
Condition: Very Good
Edition: 1st Edition
Publication Date: 1983
ISBN: 0620066741
Cover: Soft Cover without Dust Jacket – 449 pages
Comments: The Selous Scouts was the name given to a special forces regiment of the Rhodesian Army, which operated from 1973 until the introduction of majority rule in 1980. It was named after British explorer Frederick Courteney Selous (1851–1917), and their motto was pamwe chete, which, in the Shona, roughly means “all together”, “together only” or “forward together”. The charter of the Selous Scouts directed them to “the clandestine elimination of terrorists/terrorism both within and without the country.
The period during which the Selous Scouts were most relevant was known as the Rhodesian Bush War or Second Chimurenga. This was a civil war fought between black nationalist guerrillas (ZANLA/ZANU and ZIPRA/ZAPU) and the white minority government of Ian Smith. Unlike the Rhodesian Light Infantry, the Rhodesian Special Air Service, (SAS),and the African Rhodesian Rifles, the Selous Scouts, under the command of Lt. Col. Ron Reid-Daly, pressed that they had to be a mixed race unit, consisting of recruits of both African and European descent. The Selous Scouts had many black Rhodesians in their ranks, and may have been up to 80% African in racial makeup, including the first African commissioned officers in the Rhodesian Army.
Now scarce.
