Rhodesian COIN (consolidated thread, inc original RLI)

[davidbfpo]

Found via a BSAP History Group email as his medals are due for auction next month, a fascinating and rare account of a black African member of the Selous Scouts. The account opens with:

An extremely rare and important Silver Cross of Rhodesia group of four awarded to Sergeant, later Major, Martin Chikondo, a ‘Selous Scouts legend in the art of close-in reconnaissance,’ who was one of the early pioneers of the Selous Scouts and pseudo-warfare. He helped Reid-Daly implement his initial training programme and selection course for the Selous Scouts, prior to being one of the original members of the Recce Troop, Selous Scouts, with his mentor Chris Schulenburg.

Chikondo ‘had carried out countless missions deep in enemy territory with the master of close recce Captain Chris Schulenburg’, and accounted for innumerable terrorists during those missions and earlier operations for the Selous Scouts. Well versed in ‘long-range external reconnaissance operations in the form of two-man call signs, covering approximately 200 kilometres into enemy territory; introducing and executing last-light as well as night free-fall operations, using a separate provisions box under its own parachute; using World War II techniques for train derailments by command detonation, with slab as well as plastic explosives; external enemy telephone-line tapping; enemy target marking by the use of flares for off-set night bombing; and waterborne operations’, Chikondo went on to gain a commission and make the crossover into the army of Zimbabwe after the change of government in 1980.

Once again a pioneer, Chikondo was one of the first officers of the newly formed Zimbabwe Parachute Battalion. Subsequently serving with those he had fought against, despite most of the Selous Scouts moving en masse to South Africa with the change of regime, he went on to serve with distinction until his retirement from the Army in 1991.

Link: https://www.dnw.co.uk/auction-archive/past-catalogues/lot.php?auction_id=476&lot_id=311388

The account refers to the original Scouts formation:

The course commenced with about 120 African volunteers and eight Europeans....Psuedo operations and close-in recce...

Plus him visiting the UK in 1980, to explain what had happened to the Parachute Brigade; "kith & kin" at work.