Quote Originally Posted by davidbfpo View Post
History Today is a popular UK magazine and I caught this article today via Twitter. The title 'A Secret History of African Decolonisation' is misleading, the article is just about the French role in Rhodesia and is minus any footnotes:http://www.historytoday.com/joanna-w...decolonisation

The author is at Portsmouth University, her bio:http://www.port.ac.uk/centre-for-eur...na-warson.html



I found this odd. The Mirages were South African planes, I'd expect the Maxtra rocket launchers were too. IIRC the Alouettes came via commercial contacts, although Rhodesia did have some in 1965; I don't recall them being South African owned. In all my contacts with ex-Rhodesian military officers not one has mentioned the French.


According to Petter-Bowyers "Winds of Destruction" (30 degrees South - 2005) the Rhodesian AF owned 8 Alouette III helicopters by late 1960-early 1970;

"We had only eight helicopters and could ill afford a slow turn around and the physical stresses that repeated refueling induced during intense operations." (P.102).

On page 107 of the same book Petter-Bower states that the Sud Aviation of France provided 3 more Alouette hellicopters after UDI in 1965 (to compliment the 5 in service at the time of UDI) in exchange for the RhAF newly designed and developed "pressure-refueling pump".

The SAAF provided men and equipment (Op Polo) from the mid-1970's in order to provide their aircrews with operational experience. A SAAF liason officer posting was permanently attached to RhAF HQ (P.239).

Through this relationship Rhodesia was able to employ South African aircrew and aircraft in the Bush War effectively sidestepping international sanctions that were in place against the country since UDI in 1965.

In 1976 a shipment of 18 Cessna 337's were flown directly from Reims in France to Rhodesia in two ferry moves...the planes were disguised as Malagasy fisheries aircraft and registered to a false company in Spain. The Rhodesian pilots were accompanied by a French pilot who handled all the communications and logistics involved in the move. (P.253-259)

Operation Sand involved the training of RhAF pilots and aircrew via attachment to the SAAF on all SAAF aircraft which included RhAF pilots manning a squadron of Mirage III aircraft (p.266).