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GALLERY
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An Imprint <>l VV. H Smilh Publisher*. ln<

1 12 Madison Avenue
Nev\ York Citv 10016
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%* This book was devised and produced by
Multimedia Publications (UK) Ltd

Editors: Andie Oppenheimer

Production: Karen Bromley
Picture Research: The Research House

Copyright © Multimedia Publications (UK) Ltd 1986

All rightsreserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any
f means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying
and recording, or by any information storage retrieval
system, without permission in writing from the
publisher and the copyright holders.

First published in the United States of America 1986 by

Gallery Books, an imprint of W. H. Smith Publishers Inc.,
112 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016

ISBN 8317 8884 4

Typeset by Rapidset and Design

Origination by Wace Group PLC
Printed in Italy by Sagdos, Milan

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Contents
1 Introduction: What is a mercenary? 6 7 The war of Unilateral Independence 106

2 The French Foreign Legion 14 8 Subversion in Southeast Asia 130

%
3 Soldiers from Nepal 26 9 The fight for Afghanistan 154

4 Germany's multiracial SS 34 10 America's "backyard" 166

5 Britain's "small wars" 42 11 The making of a mercenary 178 i

6 The "wind of change" wars 70 Index 190

'
Introduction:
What is a mercenary?
andthree
Basically, there are three types of fighting forces,
reasons for fighting.
There are standing armies (recruited by a state to protect
its interests) which are formally written into the law of the
land, are paid at agreed rates and are sustained by a
national code of military law that em powers the officers in
command to maintain discipline. Nationals may be
conscripted into such forces or they may volunteer.
Non-nationals may be recruited to bolster the size of
national forces, such as the Gurkhas who are part of the
British army, and the Foreign Legionnaires who belong to
the French army.
There are irregular forces: partisans, gathered together
in time of war to defend their homeland against
occupation or invasion; and guerrillas, whofightto destroy
an existing government. Partisans are not raised by the
state, since it would have been absorbed by the occupiers
orwould haveceasedto beabletoexercise control overall
territories. Guerrillas, likewise, are unofficial groups of
its
people who band together voluntarily to try to oust a
regime they oppose. Neither partisans nor guerrillas have
any legal status.They are paid (if at all or at irregular
intervals) in kind - by looting or from the financial
proceeds of looting - and have no formal code of law that
can be invoked to maintain discipline. But they are
fervently opposed to their enemy, and hence have a
natural cohesion and willingness to obey orders.
Finally, there are mercenary forces, raised to act on
behalf of others. They may be men of one nationality
serving another country's standing army, who are paid
in
regularly and subject to the
military law of that country; or
they may be irregulars with no direct connection with the
country. More often it is the latter, because mercenaries
usually fight on the side of the opposition to the
government and have no formal status of their own. (There
are exceptions, such as when the British engaged
Hanoverians to fight for them in the 1750s, or the
Congolese hired assorted nationals in the 1960s. In both
cases they had a contract under a recognized
government.) Generally, they are paid by people or
agencies who obtain their funds from clandestine and
probably unreliablesources,and are likely to receivetheir
Left Palestinian soldiers giving the
victory salute. Deprived of a homeland,
and with the common bond of Islam, the
Palestine Liberation Organization has
fought a long and bitter war of attrition
against Israel.
Right Most nations have accepted the
need to maintain standing armies to
meet any potential military threat. Some
rely on conscription while others such as
the US Army, shown here, have switched
to an all-volunteer force.
money late or not at all. Moreover, there is no code of law
to which persons in charge can appeal in order to ensure
compliance with orders. Forthese reasons, and becauseof
the nature of the men who engage in such activity,
mercenary forces are liable to be ill-disciplined.
Sometimes men will hi re themselves out as individuals,
soldiers of fortune out for a quick buck and a bit of fun and
adventure, but more often they are collected in groups and
fight for a specific end, even if the motivation of money and
adventure remains predominant.
An old profession
Such forces have a long history. Around 500 BC the
Persians hired "hoplites", heavy infantry dressed and
equipped almost identically, to stiffen up their medley of
soldiers who vaunted their individualism of dress and
weaponry. Nearly a hundred years later the Greeks hired
3,000 hoplite mercenaries to help them try to take Sicily,
while Cyrus of Persia enlisted more than 10,000 Greek
soldiers under false pretences, to overthrow his brother.
When Alexander the Great crossed the Dardanelles in
334 BC, his force included mercenaries, and so did the
Persianarmy they engaged. A hundred years later in
Carthage mercenaries were fighting in the civil war, and
when Roman domination of the known world was on the
wane they too had recourse to the hiring of "barbarian"
mercenaries in an attempt to fight off other barbarians.
Even when they were in the ascendant the Romans hired
local auxiliaries to guard their foreign outposts under the
eye of the legions, and as an incentive to faithful service
rewarded them with Roman citizenship, and all the
privileges that went with it, when they retired.
Overthecenturies, mercenaries have been recruited for
many causes and many different reasons. Historically, a
particular nation may gain a reputation for producing
efficientand reliablesoldiers,from which may stem years
of recruitment; as was the case with the Greeks of old and,
later, the Swiss, who were brought for their fighting
qualities first by the Italians and then by other European
states. The Papal Guard inthe Vatican are continued living
evidence of their renown.
» I"' ffl
ENTRANCE-REGISTRATION
»_>^«*
v
r^a^ «esB^v
Above The victory of the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War owed
much heavy commitment of Germany, who practiced the
to the
tactics that were to prove so successful in World War II, such as
the dive-bombing of the Condor Legion's Stukas.

Left Locally recruited assistants help screen Ryukynan natives

for the US Army's Counterintelligence Corps during the fighting
on Okinawa in 1945.

Right Members of the British Battalion of the International

Brigade who fought in Spain in 1937. The emotion generated by
the civil war in Spain probably produced more volunteers from
abroad than any other modern conflict.
Left Two members of the PLO, a classic example of a partisan
force, meet the elements of the United Nations
first
peacekeeping contingent who had come to Lebanon after the
Israeli invasion of 1982.

Below Members of the Karen National Liberation Army

marching through the early morning mist. Their political
objective is independence for their state in Burma but their
finances are more closely linked to the drug trade of the "Golden
Triangle ".
:

m
 the 14th century, English soldiers banded together
In

with Frenchmen to plunder where and when they could,

themselves out to whoever would pay the most. The
hi ring
British hiredmercenaries, mostly Germans, to fight the
Americans during the American Revolution. Nearly
always, wherever there is war there are mercenaries. The
French had Zouaves and Spahis in World War I,

recruited from their North African possessions; the British

had Indians and Chinese and Nepalese; the Germans had
East Africans. In World War there was another crop of
II

mercenaries, fighting for a flag or just for money. Since

then, the world's trouble spots have seen the phenomenon
appear repeatedly, especially in Africa.
There is, it seems, a type of man who hankers after
change, new scenes, new ways of life, adventure and risk,
who prefers to throw dice for his pay -and his life -rather
than pass the years in routine living. As long as such
people exist -and there is nothing to indicate that they are
a dying breed -the mercenary will be found playing his
fleeting part in the world's trouble spots.

' .-/ V- HV. .- :,.<,

SSsiifc^KC

Inset In Britain's "darkesthour" volunteers from across the

world flocked to give their services. Seen here are Americans of
the Royal Air Force's Eagle Squadron who fought with such
distinction during the Battle of Britain.

Right As the Japanese swept through the Far East, the Chinese
Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, ill-equipped and poorly
trained, were reinforced with volunteers led by Claire Chennault.
They became known as the Flying Tigers.
%

12
25
The French Foreign Legion
The French Foreign Legion is a legendary unit which has
always been shrouded in mystery. One of the traditional
elite units and one of the best-known mercenary armies in
the world, the Legion conjures up romantic scenes of P.C.
Wren's Beau Geste, of brave deeds and heroic deaths in
the sweltering hot desert, surrounded by murderous
"Riffs". In part, the Legion gained its reputation because
often attracted men who had run away from their
problems, or their crimes, who had something to hide and
thereforewelcomed itsanonymity. The Legion maintained
secrecy aboutthem and itself, and astime passed cameto
be thought of as a tough, sometimes brutal organization,
which harbored the scum of the earth but was a formidable
fighting machine.
Today, this is no longer so. Interpol computers screen
out hardened criminals, and only petty offenders who are
thought to be capable of reform are admitted into the
Legion. It is no longer a haven for drop-outs: many men
are rejected during the first interview, many cannot take
thephysical and mental pressuresandquitduring thefirst
few weeks of training, and even after six months' service
when a man has qualified as a fully trained recruit, the
14
Legion still reserves the right to reject anyone they
consider to be unsuitable.
The Legion's history
The French Foreign Legion was formed in 1831 with the
aim of creating a force to police French territory in Algeria.
it Itwas to be composed of foreign soldiers rather than
Frenchmen, but was and still is officered by the cream of
the French Army. Besides its campaigns in Algeria, the
Legion has seen action in a number of other conflicts
around the world. In 1835 it deployed about 5,000 men in
Spain. By 1838, 4,500 of these men had become casualties
and this Legion was disbanded. A second Legion, formed
in 1835, continued to serve in Algeria and elsewhere in
Africa. Legionnaires fought in the Crimean War (1854-58)
where they were involved in two notable actions, at Alma
and at Inkerman. They went to Italy in 1859, and to Mexico
between 1863 and 1867; served in the Franco-Prussian
War in 1870, and between 1883 and 1895 were deployed in
what was then French IndoChina.
During World War over 45,000 legionnaires fought in
I
Europe, where they suffered 5,250 dead. In World War II
1 1.4,
Left Legionnaire paras of the 2nd REP are
briefed on the next phase of their mission
to liberate the white hostages held by the
Congolese rebels in Kolwezi.
Right Legionnaire seen during a lull in
the fighting prior to the fateful siege of
Dien Bien Phu in 1954 that was to seal
France's departure from Vietnam.
15
the 13th Demi-Brigade was formed from men who had protect him: he has proved his worth and is worth
escaped from Vichy France, and from volunteers from protecting. This family concept is one of the most
North Africa. The 13th DB fought throughout North Africa important aspects, andthetiesformed between the Legion
and the Middle East. At one time it even found itself and the men who have served together are often
fighting another Foreign Legion unit under the command unbreakable. It is this esprit de corps that has made the
French Foreign Legion the elite fighting force
oftheVichy French! After the capture of Syria, many Vichy
it is.

French legionnaires joined the 13th DB and fought with

them during the Allied campaigns in Italy and Germany. The elite regiments
Untilthe 1960sanyone with an almost suicidal desireto Even within the Legion there are a number of elite groups.
forgetthe past wasquite likely to be killed in action before Two of the more specialized units are the 1 st Regiment-
his five-year contract had ended. The Legion was
EtrangerdeCavalrie(REC)andthe2ndRegimentEtranger
renowned for its self-destructive ethic, its dedication to de Parachutistes (REP).
The REC was formed in 1921 in Tunisia and was
"thefinal sacrifice". This is no longerthe case, and today 1st

the chances of seeing active service are rare - though still recruited from three sources: from the 2nd Legion
better than in most armies. This is one of the reasons why Regiment of Infantry, from French Army cavalry
the Legion still attracts many more recruits than it needs; regiments, and from a group of Russian emigres many of
only a third gain admission. But the Legion's main whom had fought with the White armies against the
attraction still, is that it offers a chance to start life again, Bolsheviks. The 1st was soon to prove itself in two
with honour, that it is tough - and therefore elitist - and dramatic actions which are still perhaps the most famous
that once enlisted a man belongs to a group that will in its valorous history.

16
Above A welcome sight to the besieged
troops Dien Bien Phu, the 2nd REP
in
parachute into a violent, bitter battle to
save the base and the almost certain
annihilation of the regiment at the hands
of the Viet Minh.

Left In 1961, as the troubles in Algeria

came to a head, various units of the
French Army, including the paras,
mutinied in protest against government
policy. It was from their ranks that many
of the mercenaries who found their way
into the Congo and other wars came.

Right A jubilant group of Free French

legionnaires of World War II. Caught on
both sides of the war, elements of the
Legion, consisting of men from over 40
countries, fought for both Vichy France
and with the Free French and the Allies.

17
k* P
A soldier in the French-supported army
of Chad. France maintains a greater
interest in her former colonies in Africa
than the other European powers and has
always been prepared to intervene
militarily in support of friendly
governments.
 Deployed to Syria almost immediately to pacify a Druze
insurrection, Captain Landrail's squadron found itself
under attack in town of Messifre, the last defensible
the
position before Damascus. The enemy managed to kill
nearly all the squadron's horses while they were hobbled
at their pickets and, on September 16 and 17, launched a
series of violent assaults on the legionnaires. Although
vastly outnumbered, the squadron held out until relief
came, thus denying the Druze access to Damascus and
saving the day.
This action earned the regiment's first citation, to be
followed soon after by another when the same squadron
came under siege in the town of Rachaya,tothe west of the
Djebel mountains. Once again, many horses were slain at
their pickets, while the legionnaires were under constant
attack for four days. On the evening of the third day,
November 23, 1921, Captain Landrail sent off his last
carrier pigeon with news that the situation was critical in
the extreme: ammunition was being rationed and they
could not hold out much longer. Fortunately, there was a
quick response and the town, now almost totally
destroyed, was relieved by the 6th Regiment of Spahis.
During the next thirteen years the 1st REC took part in the
w ^
pacification of Morocco and Algeria, fighting bands of
rebels and conducting security patrols along the
developing Saharan highways. From 1939 until the French
Armistice of 1940 the regiment, together with a newly
formed 2nd Regiment, fought on French soil as part of the
97th Divisional Reconnaissance Group. Then, in 1943,
survivors of bitter battles against Hitler's armies, they
fought first in Tunisia and, in 1944, landed in southern
France as part of the liberating forces. The 1st REC led
French armored units into Germany as the war came to an
end, and after a short interval was posted to Southeast
Asia.
The Vietnamese campaign
The war in Indo-China (today Vietnam) was to become the
most costly in which the Legion had ever been involved.
Since before World War the Vietnamese Communist
II
Party had been working towards independence from the
French, butthecampaign had been suspended because of
the war. In 1944 the newly formed Vietnamese People's
Army (VPA) began operations against the Japanese
occupation forces and, after the Japanese surrender,
continued their operations against the French.
»
 August 1 945 the VPA entered Hanoi and the Viet Minh
In

was established under the leadership of Ho Chi Minh. Ho ID I.

Chi Minh's army was commanded by General Vo Nguyen
Giap, who was to prove one of the finest military
commanders of this century. Giap was a follower of Mao
Tse Tung's doctrine on guerrilla warfare, namely the
three-stage process: first a clandestine preparatory
period, moving towards a second, open guerrilla-warfare
stage; and then the third and final stage, the transition to
open warfare with the use of conventional forces by both
sides.
Initially the Viet Minh gained the advantage, but Giap
made the mistake of moving into the third stage too early
and was defeated. However, despite heavy losses, he
managed successfully to revert to the second low-intensity
guerrillawarfare phase and began to build up his badly
mauled The climax came in 1954 when Viet Minh
forces.
troops defeated the French at Dien Bien Phu.
The 1st REC was given an amphibious section for
operations in French Indo-China and was equipped with
Alligators (amphibious armored personnel carriers) and
M29C cargo carriers known as Crabs. As the armored
spearhead of French forces in Indo-China, the regiment
Top right An officer of the 3rd REP is
given a traditional farewell as he leaves
for a tour of duty elsewhere. According to
custom he is given a shoulder bag
containing bread, sausages and wine to
see him on his way.

Right The Kolwezi Campaign. Paras stop

for a moment during their systematic
sweep of Kolwezi looking for pockets of
rebel resistance, to check on progress
over the radio.

LeftA troop of legionnaires, discipline

etched on their faces, march across a
parade ground at their distinctive slow
pace singing traditional martial songs.
Legionnaires are among the toughest
soldiers in the world and are loyal to the
Legion unto death.

21
22
 saw much fierce fighting throughout.
Paratroops
In 1948 the need for airborne troops Indo-China became
in
apparent. It seemed that parachutists would be able to
reach Viet M in h bases which ground forces could not, and
inject an element of surprise into military operations which
were usually compromised by the jungle telegraph within
hours of their commencement. A parachute unit was
formed in Hanoi from elements of the 2nd and 3rd REI
(infantry) and the 13th DB. Meanwhile, a parachute
training school was set up in French North Africa to train
two newly formed parachute battalions, the 1st and 2nd
Battalion Stranger de Parachutistes (BEPs) which later
became regiments (REPs). Many of the volunteers for
these two units had previous experience of operations in
Indo-China, and a high proportion of legionnaire officers
and NCOs had served with French metropolitan and
colonial para units. The 1st and 2nd BEPs had hardly
formed before they were posted to Indo-China in early
1949. In November of the same yearthe 3rd BEP was
formed from volunteers from the 1st REI.
In the autumn of 1950, Giap inflicted a major defeat on
the French forces, killing nearly 5,000 men, and then for the
next four years kept up the pressure. By then, French
public opinion was beg inning to go against the conduct of
the war and it was vital to achieve a major victory to show
that the end -a victorious end -was in sight. General
Navarre, the French commander, decided to establish a
major military base in the valley at Dien Bien Phu, in the
high lands, from which his troops could dominate the area,
cut away the influence of the Viet Minh, who asserted it by
Left An African suspect being
interrogated by paras after their drop into
the vicinity of Kolwezi. The success of the
operation illustrated the flexibility of the
Legion to respond to the urgent need for
military intervenion overseas.
Right A motley crew of legionnaires relax
before moving out on a night patrol to
reconnoitre enemy positions in North
Africa during 1942.
intimidation of the local population, and win the hearts and
minds of the people. That was the theory, but in the event
Giap encircled Dien Bien Phu with five divisions backed by
ground and antiaircraft artillery.
Within a short time, Navarre's men were unable to hold
the heights and had to retreat into a compound. Cut off,
they had to rely on air supply, at first by air landing but then
as the situation got worse by air drop. On March 13, 1954
Giap's troops began the battle to wipe out the French
forces.By far the majority of these were not Frenchmen:
they were Vietnamese, analogous to the South Korean and
South Vietnamese troops who later fought alongside the
Americans, or legionnaires of many nationalities. From
concealed positions the Viet Minh artillery pounded the
French, who retreated into trench warfare as a defense
against the constant barrage of shells. In particular the
airstripcame under fire, making casualty evacuation and
resupply perilous even if the planes managed to run the
gauntlet of antiaircraft fire on their way in.
On April 10, as the situation worsened, the 2nd REP was
parachuted into Dien Bien Phu. From then until the end, on
May 7, the legionnaires fought with incredible courage and
determination, making one counterattack after another to
regain so-called trenches which had collapsed into mud
holes under the incessant monsoon rains. But despite their
extraordinary efforts - and the parachuting in of 384
legionnaires of the 2nd Regiment of Infantry who knew
they were going to almost certain death - the Viet Minh
closed in inexorably, and with half the base in enemy
hands the French had to accept defeat.
Nearly 10,000 men went into captivity, of whom most
were never seen again, and of the 2nd REP only some 50
survived. During the battle, the Regiment had taken
horrific casualties fighting for a cause which was of no
direct concern to most of its soldiers but was seen through
to the bitter end for the honour of the Legion. In all,during
the course of the war, the Legion lost 7,000 men out of a
maximum of 65,000 deployed at its height. Later in the
year, Vietnam was partitioned.
After Vietnam
Reconstituted, the 2nd REP went on to fight in Algeria,
together with the 1 st REP, six Legion infantry regiments
andtwo cavalry regiments, including the 1st REC. In 1963,
after the war in Algeria was over, the 2nd REP became a
paracommando unit capable of fighting on any terrain. Its
1,300 men were trained to be snipers, to climb mountains,
to make beach assaults from the sea, to survive in all
conditions and to fight by night. Today, its six companies
specialize in specific roles: in night and urban combat; in
mountain and arduous combat; in amphibious warfare;
and in behind-the-lines operations, demolitions and
sniping. They carry the FAMAS 5.56-mm caliber rifle and
the FRFI 7.5-mm orthe FML 7.5-mm machine-gun.
In 1969 and 1970 the 2nd Regiment saw action against
rebel troops in Chad, and in 1976 was sent to Djibouti to
free hostages who were being held by Somali guerrillas.
Then came the second major battle to capture world
headlines and add to their reputation.
On May 17, 1978 the regiment was put on full alert to fly
from Corsica (the new home of the Legion after French
withdrawal from North Africa) to Kolwezi, a mining town in
the south of Zaire, formerly in the Belgian Congo. Units of
the Congolese National Liberation Front had captured the
24
town and begun a series of atrocities, at first against the
local population,and then against the 2,000 or so whites
who were and working in the area. The local Zairean
living
army was unable to intervene and the Belgians, who had
retained some residual interest in the place because of
their huge mining company, Union Miniere, could offer
help only "in a humanitarian role".
In this dire situation the 2nd REP was flown to Kinshasa,
Zaire's capital, in five DC-8s, arriving within 25 hours of
having been alerted. There, three companies and part of
the Headquarters were issued with American parachutes,
which did not properly fit their harnesses, and packed into
four C-130 Hercules -five were needed -and one C-160,
which was to be used by the pathfinder company to mark
an unreconnoitred drop zone (DZ). At midday on May 19
they took off for Kolwezi on a flight which took four hours,
giving the legionnaires times for a short rest after having
had no sleep for two nights. In the late afternoon they
parachuted onto the DZ, which was covered with long
elephant grass and anthills several feet high.
After regrouping, the three companies of the 2nd split up
and moved off, against sporadic resistance, to take over
the key places in the town, but during the night were
heavily counterattacked. At dawn the next morning the
fourth company jumped on to a second DZ to the east of
the town, were immediately pinned down by rebel fire, but
were eventually extricated by another company after a
fierce fire fight. The support platoons and the remainder of
the Headquarters jumped on to the original DZ and then
linked up with the rest of the regiment, who had by then
rescued many of the hostages and broughtthem to safety.
The same day they were flown out of the airport under the
careof the Belgian para commandos, who had been sentin
LeftTasked with opening up the remote
and more inaccessible regions of the
country, members of the Legion patrol
deep in the jungles of former French
Guiana - where the greatest dangers can
be presented by snakes and insects.
Top right Tasked with protecting the
nearby launching station of the European
Space Agency, a detachment of the 3rd
REP patrols the waters of a river in French
Guiana, supported by a helicopter.
Right Legionnaires stand guard over
three African youths who have been
rounded up after a skirmish with
dissidents in the arid wastes of northern
Chad.
in a defensive role. Ten days later the Regiment was back
in Corsica, having cleared the area around Kolwezi of
rebels and earned its seventh citation.

The Legion today

The 2nd REP and the 1 st REC are now part of the Force

d'Action Rapide (FAR), a newly constituted group of

French troops formed with the express purpose of reacting
immediately to any threat to their foreign territories or
countries friendly to France overseas.
The spread of international terrorism, the continuing
unrest in the Middle East and Africa, the possibility of
limited war in the defence of French interests in various
parts of the world, and the long-standing threat of a
European war leading to a nuclear exchange have
convinced the French government of the need to be able to
respond quickly to any situation. To this end they have
developed a massive rapid-reaction capability of up to five
divisions, in all some 47,000 troops, whocan be committed
to battle in anything from immediate response to
conventional brushfire wars; to, at the other end of the
scale, thefirstdeployment of force in responsetoan overt
threat in Europe. Small, specially trained elements can
also be used in antiterrorist operations.
Equipped with the latest weapons and the most
advanced communications systems, all or parts of the
FAR, depending on how big is the threat, can be moved
quickly anywhere in the world and fight under most
conditions. Two of its divisions have a preponderance of
antiarmor capability, which would most likely be used in
Central Europe, while the others have specialized roles to
meet almost any eventuality. Each of the five divisions is
carefully structured to enable it to react immediately to a
specific threat, but may also be reinforced should the first
containment not succeed. Within the FAR the Foreign
Legion has key roles, as would be expected from troops
specially trained for arduous duty wherever they may be
needed.
The French Foreign Legion of today is one of the best
equipped, most experienced fighting forces inthe world. It
now consists of the 1st Regiment Etranger, based in
Aubagne and responsible for the administration and
training doctrine of the Legion; the 2nd REI, a 1 ,500-strong
infantry regiment based in Corsica which has companies
trained as commandos; the 3rd REI, at present based in
French Guiana; the 4th REI, which is responsible for the
NCO-training school at Castelnaudary, France; the 1st
REC, based at Orange, and the 2nd REP, based in Corsica,
which are both an essential part of the Force d'Action
Rapide. There are also a number of smaller infantry and
engineerLegion detachments stationed in various isolated
outposts across the world, including the Pacific and Indian
Ocean.
The legionnaires in all these units keep alive the proud
Legion traditions which, combined with their unique
military virtues and their loyalty to each other and to the
Legion's ideals, make the French Foreign Legion the most
independent, highly trained and well coordinated
mercenary force in the world.
Soldiers from Nepal
The Gurkhas are probably the best known and most
respected of all hired soldiers in foreign service, and are
undoubtedly the most loyal. These tough Nepalese
tribesmen, recruited from the foothills of the Himalayas,
have served with the British Army for more than 150
years. Throughout they have maintained a strong
relationship with the British, though no formal agreement
exists between the two countries. Today there are two
nationsemploying Gurkha soldiers, the UKand India. Each
has its own brigade of Gurkhas, the British brigade
consisting of four regiments while the Indian Army has
seven.
History of the Gurkhas
Until the 18th century, Nepal consisted of dozens of
different tribes divided into the clans and a number of
small kingdoms. In 1742, Prithwi Narayan became king of
the tiny state of Gorkha, situated in the hills to the
northwest of the Katmandu Valley, and laid the
foundations of the present state by systematically
conquering his neighboring tribes with ruthless efficiency.
This policy was carried on by his successors until, by the
26
end of the century, their troops had reached the
boundaries held bythe British. Undeterred, they continued
their expansionist policy, trying to influence tribes which
had allegiance to the they attacked three police
Raj. In 181 4
stations in the poorly-defined border area, killing a number
of Indian policemen and an Englishman.
Unable to ignore this situation any longer, the British
quickly organized and equipped an invasion force of
20,000 men divided into four columns, each commanded
by a general. But when they invaded Nepal, only one of
these columns managed to inflict any real damage on the
Gurkhas, who greatly impressed the British with their
courage and stubborn resistance. A second campaign
mounted in 1815 fared little better, and it was not until a
third invasion the following year that the Gurkhas were
finally defeated, at the battle of Malaun. The British were
so full of admiration for their adversaries that the treaty
signed between the two countries in 1816 included a
clause that allowed the British to recruit Nepalese subjects
for their army. Interestingly, the British had already raised
four battalions of Gurkhas in 1815 during the second
campaign, three of which are still in existence today.
LeftBrought up in the foothills and
mountains beneath the Himalayan
peaks, shown here, Gurkhas face an
arduous life that prepares them well for
any future life in the British or Indian
armies.
Right A Young Gurkha
soldier waits to
moveout onto a major exercise held by
NATO in Western Germany during 1984.
Right inset This drum lists just a few of
the battle honors won by the Gurkhas in
a long and glorious association with the
British Army lasting more than two
centuries.
27
 , r*
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 Over the years, the Gurkhas have consistently and
repeatedly proved their worth. As part of the British Army
in India, they were soon involved in a number of small
campaigns on the northern frontiers. Then, in 1857, they
played a significant part in suppressing the great Indian
Mutiny. The mutiny began inthe Presidency of Bengal and
spread to include the Punjab. At the time of the outbreak
there were about 150,000 Indian troops serving in the area,
most of whom were involved in the mutiny, compared
with only 23,000 British, mostly serving in the Western
Punjab and not available to reinforce the small number of
British in Bengal. The area that saw most of the action
during the mutiny was a 900-mile (1,450-km) stretch
between Meerut and Calcutta. Here 5,000 European
soldiers faced more than 40,000 Indian sepoys. However,
the 1,000 or so Gurkhas serving with the British remained
loyal and fought valiantly, in spite of many attempts on the
part of the mutineers to coerce them
into changing sides.
This loyalty has never been forgotten, and as a mark of
recognition by the British the Gurkhas, from that time
onwards, were known as riflemen instead of sepoys.
Two World Wars
It not until World War that the Gurkhas left the
was I wounded or injured. But, as usual, the Gurkhas had
East. Having served on the northwest and northeast
frontiers of India, Gurkhas were sent to France in 1914 as
part of the Indian Army Corps, which consisted of the 3rd
(Lahore) Division and the 7th (Meerut) Division, both
LeftA Gurkha in Brunei. As part of an
agreement with the Sultan, Britain
maintains a battalion of Gurkhas in this
small, vulnerable, oil-rich kingdom at its
own expense.
Right Men of the 1st Gurkha Battalion of
the Indian Army with their commanding
officer move into Elizabethville in
December 1961, as part of the United
Nations Congo peace-keeping force.
divisions containing Gurkha battalions. For the next 13
months the Gurkhas fought on the Western Front before
being withdrawn with the remainder of the Indian Corps,
who, by this time, had suffered more than 21,000
casualties. The Gurkhas distinguished themselves greatly,
winning a total of eight Victoria Crosses, Britain's highest
award for bravery.
The Gurkhas also took part in the disastrous campaign
against the Turks at Gallipoli, between April and
November 1915, taking more than 1,450 casualties out of a
total of 2,400 officers and men involved. During the World
War Gurkha
I battalions also saw action at Suez and in
Mesopotamia, winning the respect both of their allies and
their enemies and proving beyond doubt that they were
indeed a corps d'elite.
World War offered yet another opportunity for the
II
Gurkhas to prove themselves in battle. They fought in
North Africa, Southeast Asia and Burma, and up through
Italy.Again, the people of Nepal paid a high price for their
end of the war more than 7,500
loyalty to the British: by the
Gurkhas had been killed in combat or had died from their
wounds or disease. A further 1,400 were listed as missing
in action, presumed dead, and 23,600 had been severely
acquitted themselves well, and ended the war having
received 2,734 honours, including gallantry awards and
mentions in despatches.
29
Left Catering for all tastes, Gurkha cooks on exercise in Germany
prepare a mix of rice and chapatis, British compo rations and
locally purchased sausages.

Top right Two Gurkhas setting up a radar in a listening post on

the island of Cyprus 1974. An integral part of the British Army,
Gurkhas are found wherever the British Army is found.

Bottom Always favorites with both the Queen and the

right
Gurkha Rifles (Princess Mary's Own) change the
tourists, 10th
guard at Buckingham Palace.

Below Carrying his load in the traditional way with a headband

across the forehead, a Gurkha infanteer follows a colleague as
they come off a bridge in an English training area.
31
The 40 years
last
Since then the tribes of Nepal have continued to supply
Britain, or from 1948 an independent India, with soldiers
for their Gurkha battalions. With the British they served in a
number of "small wars", including the campaigns in
Malaya, Borneo and more recently the Falkland Islands.
The Gurkha battalions who remained with the new Indian
Armyfound themselves fighting almost immediately after
the partition of the country, and were also involved in both
the 1965 and 1971 wars between India and Pakistan.
The strong bond that has formed between the British
Army and the soldiers from Nepal has not diminished over
the years. Competition to join the British Brigade of
Gurkhas is still fierce, and volunteers often walk vast
distances to take a series of stringent physical, medical and
educational tests. Those who pass the final two-week
processing period in Nepal are attested and swear an oath
of allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, before
flying to Hong Kong for basic training.
The training received by the Gurkha soldiers is the
as that given to their British counterparts, but takes into
account among other things the Gurkhas' primary role in
the Far East. Training normally lasts nine months, after
which the soldier is posted to his regiment. All Gurkhas
serve an initial enlistment period of four years but many
signon again for periods of 7, 10, 12or 15years.Theirfirst
Top right Gurkha soldiers of the Indian Army man a
machine-gun during the war against Pakistan over the
independence of East Pakistan, which later became Bangladesh.
Right Men of the British 7th Duke of Edinburgh's Own Gurkha
regiment patrol a river in Northern Borneo in a flat-bottomed
assault boat during the emergency of 1965.
32
home leave comes after three years, when many return
home and some get married, leaving their wife behind
when they go back to their unit for another three years.
After the next leave, wives are allowed to join their
husbands in married quarters where the battalion is
serving, whether in the UK, Hong Kong or Brunei. After 15
years' service, a Gurkha soldierqualifiesfora pension and
can return to Nepal, where he will probably invest the
money he has saved overthe years in a house and land and
live off his army pension. This is enough to give him a good
standard of living in comparison with his neighbors.
One of the main factors affecting the Gurkha's length of
service isthe rank he achieves. Many become members of
the sergeant's mess, some are commissioned from the
ranks and become Gurkha officers, while others who are
better educated go through the Royal Military Academy at
Sandhurst and are commissioned in the same way as their
British colleagues. The longest a man can serve is 32 years,
and a number do. For those who leave their homes
same between the ages of 1 8 and 20 the process of readjustment
can be difficult and some obv'rously cope better than
others. But whatever the years of retirement bring there
are no regrets. Men from the hills of Nepal continue
proudly to volunteer and serve as some of the finest
infantry soldiers in the world.
 nr
rl

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w., '4
Germany's multiracial SS
During World War Nazi Germany, more than any
II
other country involved, made extensive use of foreign
soldiers, many of them enlisted in the occupied countries.
Most served in fighting units of the Waffen SS, which was
formed in 1940. This was the army, as distinct from the
political, bodyguard and special service, branch of the
Schutzstaffel, the dreaded SS, the strong-arm wing of the
Nazi party.
Germany had used specially trained stormtroopers, the
Sturmabteilung or SA, during the latter stages of World
War These shock troops operated in small groups, their
I.
primary role being to infiltrate enemy lines and mount
devastating assaults on targets of tactical or strategic
importance. After the war the spirit of the SA continued
with the formation of an elite paramilitary force of
volunteers independent of the German army, the
Reichswehr.
©l6gion FrA
des
caiS
Volo»tajrE S hN
i o
34
Enter the SS
By the mid-1930s the SA had grown into a
formidable political force, but it was virtually destroyed
during the "Night of the long knives" on July 30, 1934,
when the SA was massacred by the SS. Its leaders
executed, the SA drifted into insignificance and history,
but its role was assumed by the SS. This neopolitical,
paramilitary organization had come into being in April
1925, initially as a bodyguard formed to protect the person
of Adolf Hitler. It took the name Schutzstaffel, (SS) when
Heinrich Himmlertook over as Reichsfuhrer in 1929, and
gradually grew in size from a small force of 300 men to a
total of over 50,000 by 1939.
Towards the end of the 1930s the SS was divided into
two distinct elements, the Verfugungstruppe SS, which
consisted of the Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler, Hitler's
personal bodyguard, and the Totenkopfverbande SS -
sme
Left Volunteers are cheered as they move
into a recruitingdepot to join the Legion
of French Volunteers (LVF) in the fight
"against Bolshevism ".
Right To Nazi Germany the threat of
communism was seen as a force that
could be exploited to unite Europe in its
cause, and so required the mobilization
of all of the conquered countries to defeat
the common enemy on the Eastern Front.
Death's Head SS - who were used for political operations
and became responsible for running the infamous
concentration camps. The Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler were
fuljy trained combat troops and by 1938 numbered four
complete infantry regiments. By that time the
Totenkopfverbande had also grown to the same size. Both
these formations were part of the general AllegemeineSS.
In 1939 the Leibstandarte and the Totenkopf SS
regiments took part in the invasion of Poland, the
Totenkopf having previously been used in assaults on
Czechoslovakia and Austria. Its regiments were to become
the nucleus of the SS Totenkopfverbande division while, in
1940, the Waffen SS was formed from the Leibstandarte
Adolf Hitler (LAH) and SS Verfugungs divisions. When
fully organized, the Waffen SS comprised three motorized
infantry divisions with integral reconnaissance, and
antitank and light artillery. In was one
addition, there
horse-drawn division formed from Death's Head security
troops and known as SS Polizei (Police).
Originally the Nazi concept of "racial purity" was a
determining factor in recruiting into the SS. Volunteers
had their family backgrounds investigated going back at
35
 ^H Rn^ ;

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A- MHHi

Left Spanish Falangist soldier. Having received substantial
assistance during the Civil War, General Franco encouraged
volunteers from his Falangist troops to go to Germany to help in
the struggle against the Allies.
Below Two LVF volunteers with the tricolor flash holding a
picture of the Head of State o f Vichy France, Marshal Retain,
pictured at a parade after training.
least three generations. Any "impurity" discovered, such
as non-Aryan blood, resulted in rejection and possibly a
further in-depth investigation into their antecedents. If
Jewish or another non-acceptable blood background was
revealed, the consequences were usually deportation to
the death camps and subsequent extinction.
As the Waffen SS continued to evolve and grow, the
German army, and indeed Hitler himself, began to worry
that they were drawing off too many potentially good
soldiers, and a number of restrictions were imposed on SS
recruitment. However, in order to maintain the numbers
needed to supervise the "final solution" to the "Jewish
problem" - the extermination of Jews - Himmler was
permitted to go on recruiting men for Death's Head units.
This he did, using these units as staging posts before
transferring personnel from them into Waffen SS units,
thus keeping all SS units up to strength. In this way, he
contrived to increase the number of SS combat units
despitethe misgivingsof the German High Command and
the Fuhrer himself.
Foreign nationals
Soon after the blitzkrieg occupation of western Europe, a
number of attempts were made to raise national legions
composed entirely of national troops, but by 1942 this idea
had to be dropped. One of the reasons given was the "lack
of Nazi ideals"among the officers, which is
understandable considering the background of most of
them. By 1943 all the national legion volunteers had been
assimilated into other units, most notably the SS
Freiwillige (Free Will) Panzer grenadier division
"Nordland". This consisted of a number of "ethnic"
Germans from Hungary and Romania as well as
volunteers from Denmark and Norway. A number of units
from the low countries originally included in the Nordland
Division were later formed into their own "Nederland"
division, making the Dutch one of the biggest contributors
numerically to the German war machine. Paradoxically,
they were also one of the nations which resisted Nazi
occupation most tenaciously. Not surprisingly, this
situation led to much recrimination and bitterness long
after hostilities had ended.
As the war continued, and pressure to recruit more
volunteers increased, more and more foreigners were
accepted into SS fighting units. Most came from western
Europe and formed Freiwillige units, in many cases
wearing their national insignia on their SS uniforms. When
these divisions suffered casualties and were given ad hoc
reinforcements, their organization and content changed,
giving rise to problems when units became so diluted of
their original nationalities that orders could no longer
efficiently be communicated.
Some of the SS units that included foreign nationals
were used primarily as fighting units, while others - the
Death's Heads - were virtually terrorists in uniform. Two
such fighting units were the Wiking (Viking) motorized
division, composed of mainly Scandinavian volunteers
drawn in the first instance from the SS Germania division
(which had itself been recruited largely from
"Volksdeutsche" volunteers from the low countries), and
the Nederland and Wallonien divisions, composed of
volunteers from Holland and Belgium. The latter also
included a number of Spanish and French volunteers.
These units fought throughout the war in various theaters
and earned a reputation for being excellent combattroops.
Eastern Europe
Volunteers for SS Friewillige divisions were not only
Western European. After Germany invaded the USSR, a
number of units were formed from volunteers from
Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. They were often used as
security troops or in antipartisan operations, and became
notorious for their atrocities. One such battalion, formed in
1940 from former convicts, military prisoners and
concentration camp inmates, was responsible for the
deaths of thousands of civilians. Known as the Waffen
Grenadier Division SS, this penal unit expanded until it had
more than 4,000 men, and saw much action in Eastern
Europe. It played a significant part in putting down the
Warsaw Uprising, using methods so horrific that even SS
37
38
Left In the fight against the Russian Above French volunteers march towards
partisans who waged an effective war battle on the Eastern Front, where they
against the rear echelons of the German took many casualties alongside the Nazi
Army, the Germans recruited Cossacks forces during the bitter retreat into
(shown here) and from the Baltic States. Germany.

39
commanders were shocked and managed successfully to
have the withdrawn.
unit
Some Waffen SS units were composed of refugees from
Eastern Europe and some from Soviet prisoners of war,
who were given the option of either fighting for the Nazis
or being sent to the camps. Many of the latter chose, not
surprisingly, to fight. Between 1943 and 1945 the number
of personnel in the Waffen SS doubled, reaching a total of
40 divisions, and although some of these were little more
than regiments a high proportion were of non-German
origin. Two of them were "Cossacks", composed entirely
of Russians, and these, together with three "Baltic"
divisions, fought the Soviets with desperate bravery and
tenacity during the final stages of the war.
One result of the "lowering of racial standards" to
increase recruitment into the Waffen SS was the formation
of the Waffengebirgs division SS "Handschar" in 1943.
This mountain division was mostly composed of Moslem
Croats from Herzegovina and Bosnia. Recruiting Moslems
was a novel idea that appealed to Himmler, who believed
that the followers of this martial religion would make good
soldiers. This division was used extensively in
40
Yugoslavian counter-partisan operations, which were
exceptionally bloody. Its final strength was just over
21,000.
In common with many Freiwillige units, the men of the
Handschar division wore SS uniform with national
insignia. Moslems also wore a fez. Distinctive headdress
however was not unique to the Moslems. Sikhs, among
the Indian Army POWs captured in North Africa and
recruited by the Wehrmacht (regular German army) and
Waffen SS for their foreign legions, wore pagris, or
turbans, as well as the uniform of their respective arm.
(The "Free India" Legion eventually numbered around
2,000 men.)
By the end of World War there were over 600,000 men
II
in the Waffen SS, many of whom were foreign volunteers.
Some of those who had served in security and penal units
were convicted of war crimes at the end of the war. Many
of them, left to their own devices and having fought for the
enemy against their own people, found themselves
stateless. Some ended up in foreign armies, notably the
French Foreign Legion, and continued to fight in various
campaigns across the world.
LeftTo volunteers like this man, who served with the Germans
from parts of the USSR that were overrun by the advancing
armies of the Reich, the enemy was seen as the communists in
Moscow, not the fascists in Berlin.
Right Dressed in the uniform of the Wehrmacht, but with French
flashes on the sleeve, two soldiers stand guard at the entrance to
a headquarters.
WT
X
Britain's "small wars"

Mercenaries, though almost by definition hired by

foreigners and motivated by money, may nevertheless
find themselves fighting for what they believe is the good
of their national cause. During Britain's small conflicts,
which began after World War II and went on through
the next two decades and into the 1 970s, many men were
paid by the UK to assist them in containing or beating their
enemies, who were sometimes of the same race or
nationality as the mercenaries themselves.
As a result of national service conscription, the United
Kingdom had, in the years following the end of the war in

1945, the use of a bout 400,000 soldiers from the homeland,

and could call on troops from Nepal, East Africa andtheFar
East. Even so, there were times when it was very difficult to
find troops enough to meet the many commitments that
arose one after another over the next two decades. The
British, much weakened by heavy expenditure in money
and lives, and tired of conflict and the many hardships it
brought, found themselves faced with successive colonial
problems, the most pressing of which was Palestine.

Withdrawal from Palestine

The defeat of the Turks in World War had resulted
I in
Britain, in 1922,being given responsibility for the
administration of Palestine under the authority of the
League of Nations. In the 1920s clandestine armed forces
came into existence dedicated to the creation of a Jewish
state in Palestine and tasked with protecting from Arab
attacks the settlement to which Jews had migrated from
other parts of the world. For the next two decades these
forces, small in number and lightly armed, worked to
discredit British authority.
During World War fighting died down, but almost as
II

soon as ended there was a spate of explosions and

it

rioting. By January 1946, British troop strength was raised

to 80,000, in addition to which there was a large police
force, led by British policemen and augmented by
locally-enlisted constables. However, this massive
presence was unable to stop the Jewish underground Above Arab legionary. Now part of the Jordanian armed forces,
from perpetrating acts of sabotage and subversion. In the Arab Legion, officered by the British, gained a well-deserved
July, a gigantic explosion demolished part of the King reputation for being the best disciplined and best-trained unit in
the Middle East.
David hotel, which housed the Army headquarters and
part of the British administration: 91 people died and 45
Right Even after Cyprus's independence, the British soldier has
were injured. In January 1947 another British division was been involved as part of various peacekeeping forces trying to
sent to Palestine, bringing the troop strength to 100,000. keep the Greek and Turkish factions apart.

42
44
 In November 1947 the General Assembly of the United
Nations voted to establish a Jewish state of Israel, and on
May 15, 1948 the British withdrew. From then until the
April 3, 1949 Jews and Arabs fought a bloody conflict to
decide the future of Palestinian territory. The Jews
managed to increase the area allotted to them by the
United Nations - already, in the eyes of the Arabs, a
grossly unfair division of land, with two-thirds of Palestine
being allocated to only one-third of the population.
In the years that followed, there were five more
Arab-Israeli conflicts which flared up out of a perpetually
smouldering hatred. Israel has enlarged itself and
absorbed the city of Jerusalem, but at the cost of unending
vigilance, huge expenditure on weapons of war and
almost uncontrollable economic inflation of 300 percent.
Crisis in Malaya
On June 16, 1948, a state of emergency was declared in
Malaya. Before the war, Malaya consisted of a loose
federation of states ruled by hereditary sultans who had a
joint treaty of relationship with Britain. Only a small
province in the south of the country was ruled directly by
Britain, as were the adjacent territories of Singapore,
Mallaca and the Straits Settlements of Penang. The
emergency lasted, altogether, until 1960.
The British had developed the tin and rubber production
which was the basis of the economy in Malaya and had
imported Chinese and Indian labor to work the
plantationsand mines. By the 1940sthese peopleformed a
significant proportion of the population, especially on the

LeftTroops stand guard as colleagues

and civilians search for victims pinned
under the rubble of the ruined wing of the
King David hotel in Jerusalem after the
attack by Jewish terrorists in 1946.

Top Members of the Palestine

right
who were often British
Police Force, or
Commonwealth nationals, stand
amongst the wreck of a truck carrying
explosives that was used to attack the
Police HQ in Haifa, Israel in 1947.

Right An M-60 tank returning to the

border after the invasion of the
Israeli
Lebanon, the latest phase in the conflict
between Arab and Jew that has
dominated the Middle East for over
half-a-century.

45
*l*-!
 Gurkhas board a Wessex helicopter on
the deck of the British aircraft carrier
HMS Bulwark supporting operations in
the Far East.

*O.V.AL. NAV

3
•

m -
i n
west coast, but had no rights as citizens. When the
Japanese invaded, they pursued a strongly anti-Chinese
policy, forcing many Chinese whose livelihoods had
been destroyed to resort to personal food-growing in
order to survive and to move, in small communities, to
unclaimed land hacked out of clearings in the jungle.
During the war, Chinese communists were actively
supported by the British as a resistance movement against
Japanese occupation. When the war ended, the
communist Malayan People's Anti-Japanese Army
(MPAJA) infiltrated the trade unions with the aim of
subverting the economy through strikes in the rubber
plantations and the mines. Their plan was to take over the
government when Malayan and British authority
collapsed and the country was plunged into chaos. But as
time passed, these methods proved unsuccessful, and
they resorted to direct use of force. The Malayan
Communist Party, which consisted almost entirely of
Chinese, mobilized men from the MPAJA'sOld Comrades
Association, armed them with weaponsgiventhem bythe
British in their fight against the Japanese, renamed them
the Malayan Races' Liberation Army (MRLA), and moved
them into pre-prepared locations ajacent to Chinese
squatter camps in the jungle. From there, they began a
campaign which soon attained a level of about 200
terrorist incidents a month.
Atthistimethere wereeleven British infantry battalions
in Malaya, six of which were Gurkhas, and three more in
mm
Singapore. The majority of the soldiers in the British
battalions were national-servicemen. Many of the Gurkhas
were new recruits. The British Army's first priority was
guarding the Far East against a possible threat from a
Soviet-Chinese alliance. It was unwilling to allot troops to
guard mines and plantations, which would be needed in
order to keep the economy going, and so a decision was
taken to raise a force of Special Constables to do the job. At
the peak of the insurgency, its strength was 41 ,000 men,
nearly all of whom were Malays. In addition, an auxiliary
police force was formed, again almost entirely Malay,
which eventually numbered 100,000 men.
This enormous expansion of the police was largely
carried by Britons who were former members of the
Palestine Police, quite fortuitously available since the
British withdrawal. It was these key men, very experienced
in counterinsurgency, who spearheaded expansions of the
police forces in Kenya, Cyprus, Aden and Borneo when
they, in their turn, became trouble spots.
By mid- 1950 the number of terrorist incidents in Malaya
had doubled, to around 400 a month, against which there
were 26 battalions allocated, including three Marine
Commandos. addition to these, quite early on, "Ferret
In
Force" had been raised, which used Dyak trackers from
Borneo. However, though the military presence had
increased very significantly, it became clear that it alone
would not solve the problem. Accordingly, a large-scale
"hearts and minds" campaign was begun, with the aim of
'"^Vv
 MLRA from the jungle-based Chinese on
cutting off the
whom they depended for their supplies and recruits.
Squattercommunities were resettled in protected villages
- 410 of them were created. Curfews were imposed,
in all,
the movement of people, food and material was strictly
controlled, and there was an intensive public relations
campaign aimed at convincing the Chinese and the Malays
that the government would win the battle and produce a
prosperous multiracial future for the country.
By 1951 the number of incidents had risen to around 500
a month, but the MRLA, only about 8,000 strong in
hard-core members, had taken heavy casualties - some
2,000intheyear-plustherewasan increasing numberof
defections. They were soon obliged to settle in seven areas
which were cut off from each other by the jungle and by
distance. Without radio, the groups had to rely on couriers
for communication, though they sometimes used normal
post and telephone links. On the security forces' side, the
wartime SAS was resuscitated and deployed as special
squads who worked in close collaboration with jungle
troops and, when not directly employed against the
terrorists, were used to train all the battalions in
jungle-fighting techniques. The Gurkhas especially proved
themselves to be very good at this type of warfare.
Starting in the south of the country the security forces
worked progressively northwards, isolating the armed
bands, first in the urban areas and then in the countryside.
Systematically, the peninsula was cleared area by area.
Left One of nine captured Indonesians is
led away by police for interrogation after
trying to infiltrate into Singapore armed
with sten and sterling sub-machine guns.
Right Led by their Iban tracker from
Sarawak, members of the New Zealand
Special Air Service patrol the Malayan
jungle in the fight against Communist
guerrillas of the Malayan Races'
Liberation Army.
The plan employed was to start with intensive
intelligence-gathering, follow this by the denial of food,
which forced the enemy to come out of hiding, and end
with in-depth jungle patrolling from secure bases for a
distance of about five hours' marching time. Once the
armed bands had been confronted, often by ambushing,
they were split up into smaller and smaller groups.
By the end of 1953 the total amount of terrorist activity
had declined by two-thirds and major incidents by more
than three-quarters. Security forces' casualties had been
reduced by even more. By 1954 the army's strength was
45,000, of which 25,000 came from Britain and the rest
from Nepal, East Africa and Malaya. Later, these were
joined by contingents from Fiji, New Zealand and
Australia. The sheer pressure of numbers virtually
eliminated the insurgent threat.
In 1955 federal elections resulted in an overwhelming
victory for the Alliance Party, an amalgam
of the three
main racial groups
the country: Malay, Chinese and
in
Indian. Since the basis on which the insurgency had been
fought, namely the taking over of the nation by Chinese
Communists, was totally undermined by this, was only ait
matter of time before the campaign petered out. In August
1957, by which time more than 300,000 men, mostly
Malays but also many Chinese, were serving in the
security forces, Malaya became independent and the
MRLA retreated over the border into Thailand, where
remnants of them have remained ever since.
jKHi'JUm am Ht*^ wl>

'J*
Kenya's Mau Mau
The insurgency in Kenya began in 1952, four years after the
Malayan crisis blew up, but though it overlapped the
troubles in Malaya it never reached the same scale of
activity.
There were a 1.25 million Kikuyu in Kenya and 42,000
Europeans, mostly British. The Kikuyu tribe's secret
society, Mau Mau, had been banned in 1950 but
nevertheless succeeded, under the leadership of Jomo
Kenyatta, in convincing most of the tribe, the largest in the
nation, that all Europeans and Asians should be expelled.
Based in the important central area of the country, Mau
Mau was a paramilitary organization which drew its
strength from age-old tribal superstitions and a belief in
witchcraft. It played on resentmentaboutthetaking of land
by Europeans, and on local superstitions and contrived to
bring about a situation of great unrest. Fortunately, its
aims were not shared by other African tribes, which were
more warlike and provided most of the recruits for the
Kenya Police.
At 5 am on October 20, 1952 a state of emergency was
declared and 183 members of Mau Mau, including
Kenyatta, were arrested. At 7 am the First Battalion of the
Lancashire Fusiliers arrived by air and then drove through
Nairobi as a show of force: up till then, the only combat
troops in Kenya were three battalions of British-officered
black infantry of the King's African Rifles (KAR)- additional
battalions recently raised before had been sent to Malaya
and a part-time white volunteer battalion known as the
Kenya Regiment.
It was decided that a Kikuyu Home Guard should be
Left Parachuting Long-range
in supplies.
patrols, operating in thedepths of the
jungle and away from bases for long
periods, could rely on airdrops by the
RAF to resupply water, rations and
ammunition as necessary.
Right Members of the Kenyan security
forces, black and white, with the body of
a terrorist killed during a attack on a
police outpost.
recruited as a force around whom local Kikuyu could rally.
However, because of an almost total lack of intelligence
about the strength and dispositions of Mau Mau, the
security forces made no headway against the insurgents,
who increased their scale of operations, killing more and
more of their own people- 177 in six months -and many
white settlers living on isolated farms. On March 26, 1 ,000
Mau Mau surrounded a village when its 150-strong Home
Guard were away patrolling a local forest. By the time help
arrived, 84 people had been killed - most of them women
andchildren-another31 wounded, 200 houses destroyed
and more than a thousand cattle slaughtered.
In April 1953 two more British battalions arrived, and by
June the force available was three British plus five KAR
battalions and the Kenya Regiment; in all, around 7,000
soldiers. The strength of the constabulary had risen to
21,000 and there were 25,000 Kikuyu Home Guard. These
wereopposedto 12,000 Mau Mau, of whom only 1,500 had
firearms. It was a classic example, to be seen in many parts
of the world in the 1950s and '60s, of a fanatically
determined minority creating mayhem out of all
proportion to their numbers, against the background of a
generally apathetic and complacent majority.
In April 1954 a large-scale Operation, "Anvil", was
carried out in Nairobi: by May 8, 30,000 out of 65,000
Kikuyu in the city had been screened, of whom more than
16,000 were detained in specially built camps. It was the
turning point of the insurgency. From then on, the real
troublemakers were behind bars, intimidation was
reduced enormously and the Home Guard was able to
grow in strength as Kenyans saw that, in the end, the
51
government and nottheMau Mau would come out on top.
In January 1955 attention was switched to the
countryside where Forest Operating Companies, each
consisting of three tracker/combat teams, were deployed.
Each team was led by a British officer or NCO and
consisted of eight soldiers (KAR Africans), a radio
operator, an interpreter, three African trackers, a tracker
dog and a patrol dog. Operation "Hammer", supplied by
started above the treeline in the Aberdare Mountains
air,

and worked systematically downwards, sweeping and

searching for terrorists. Butthe results were not good and
theoperation was transferred to Mount Kenya. There, they
were more successful, contributing to the total of 5,500
Mau Mau accounted for during the year. Of these, some
were arrested, and some killed, so that, together with
defections the total of active Mau Mau fell to about 5,000.
When, bythe end of 1955, 24 out of the 51 gang leaders had
been killed, most of the Kikuyu turned against their
tormentors, who had,theythought, made them "sell their
souls to the devil " by witchcraft. The Mau Mau gangs, ever
smaller in number, retreated further and further into the
forests until, by November 1 956, the British army was able
to withdraw from operations.
10,527 Mau Mau were killed during the four years
In all,
of the emergency. They had been responsible for 2,484
deaths, and the deployment of 55,000 men in the security
forces, which cost the British and Kenyan governments
dearly. Most importantly of all, they were instrumental in
persuading British politicians to bow to "the wind of
change" said to be blowing through Africa and give way to
nationalist aspirations. Kenyatta, himself, was released
from prison in 1961 and became the first leader of an
independent Kenya.

Right Unconventional wars require unconventional solutions.

Here, a witch doctor counteracts the oaths taken by the Mau Mau
to bind themselves to their bloody cause.

52
Above Irregular police volunteers, raised
to assist the stretched resources of the
regular Kenyan Police, hand over a Mau
Mau suspect during a search of a village.

Right A patrol of British infantry rely on

the nose of a tracker dog and the
experience and sharp eyes of locally
recruited natives to carry the campaign
against the Mau Mau into the Kenyan
jungle.

53
Greek nationalists
Overlapping with the Mau Mau uprising was the crisis
concerning British involvement in Cyprus. Union with
Greece, "Enosis", had been the political aim of many
Greek Cypriots ever since the British acquired the island
from the Turks in 1878. In 1931 an insurrection on Cyprus
led by the Archbishop of the Greek Orthodox church had
been quelled by a company of the British Black Watch (the
only troops on the island, on detachment from the
hideout to hideout, the other setting off bombs and
shooting down policemen, soldiers and informers
nothing decisive was achieved. On the diplomatic front,
endless talks were equally nugatory.
On March 9, 1 956 Makarios was deported and the
situation worsened, with continuing acts of terrorism and
constant cordons, searches and sweeps by the security
forces. In November 1956, with the British heavily involved
in the joint Franco-British invasion of the Suez Canal,

battalion in Egypt) by the short sharp expedient of opening
fire after the reading of the Riot Act. The Archbishop was
deported.
For about 30 years little more was heard about the union,
but in the 1950s a new man at the top, Michael Mouskos,
known as Archbishop Makarios III, decided that he would
try to lead Greek Cypriots away from British rule. The fact
that a quarter of the population were Turkish Moslems was
ignored by the Archbishop.
In support of Makarios was George Grivas, also a
Cypriot, who had fought the Communists in Greece during
World War II. As a self-styled colonel he went to Cyprus to
organize EOKA, the National Organization of Cypriot
Fighters, and on March 31, 1955 began the insurrection by
Grivas stepped up activity, recording 416 incidents in
which 40 people were killed, 21 of them British. However,
the breaking up of two major terrorist groups in
the mountains in January 1957, the seizure of EOKA
leaders in the capital Nicosia, and the smothering of an
arms-smuggling ring, led to a change of heart on the part
of Grivas and his men. Thus, when political discussions
finally resulted in the presentation of proposals for the
future of the island whichwere acceptable to the major
parties concerned, Grivas offered to suspend operations if
Makarios was released. At the end of March 1957 Makarios
was allowed to go to Athens and an uneasy peace came to
the island.
In the first two years of the insurgency EOKA killed 203

exploding a number of bombs near government and people and exploded 1 ,382 bombs, for a loss of 51 killed.
military targets. At this stage Grivas's aim was to fatigue However, the action did not end there; violence erupted off
and irritatethe British and bring about a change of heart by and on until March 1959, when a new form of
October, when the future of the island was to be debated administration, which purported to give the Turks a say in
by the United Nations. There were only two British the running of the island, came into being. Makarios
battalions on the island at the time, and a small police force returned to Cyprus and a hero's welcome, and Grivas was
with low morale. In September two Marine Commandos flown to Greece and promoted to the rank of General.
and two more battalions arrived but they were not at first
effective because of a lack of Intelligence. Grivas therefore
decided to carry on the campaign in order to bring more
pressure to bear on the UN, who had shelved the issue in
order notto create greatertension between the Greeks and
Turks, who had totally opposing views about the island's
future.
In Octoberthree more battalionsarrived,to be followed
in January by another five. They, with a regiment of
armored cars, brought the troop strength to 17,000. The
police too were greatly reinforced with men brought from
British constabularies to back-up the local Greeks and
Turks and their British officers. Many auxiliaries, mostly
Turks, were also recruited: Blue Caps, who guarded key
points with heavy-pellet weapons known as Greenerguns.
All these men of the security forces were committed to the
containment of an EOKA force of not more than 1,000,
nearly all of whom were untrained and who mostly had

only shotguns. However, as is often the case in such

situations, they were supported by the majority of the
population and snuffed out any resistance from the
minority by intimidation.
The British plan was to secure the towns and the
communications between them. Grivas's plan was to use
sabotage and intelligence groups in the towns, to
intimidate the Greek inhabitants and to keep himself and
hiskey men out of the way, in the hills. Though each side
indulged in a great deal of activity during the ensuing
months -the one harassing Grivas and his band from

54
Bottom left Athens airport 1959. General
Grivas, wearing the uniform in which he
led EOKA against the British, and
promoted from colonel on his arrival,
addresses those who welcomed him on
his return to Greece.

Right Ever vulnerable to ambush a patrol

of British soldiers in a Land Rover warily
drives through the center of a small
Cypriot village, as the locals go about
their everyday business.

Below A Beaver aircraft of the Army Air

Corps overflies an armored column
consisting of Ferret scout-cars and
Saracen APCs patrolling the arid
countryside.

55
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 Laden with equipment and ammunition,
members of the Parachute Regiment in Aden
cross the arid and forbidding terrain of
the Radfan in a search-and-kill operation
to take the fight into the enemy's
homelands.

iee# l\i
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v ;o

sw^ *«fc»"L *sw f

NT #.
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ac*
Rebellion in Aden
In main base for the British Middle East
1962, after the
Headquarters Cyprus had become untenable because of
in

theEOKAcampaign,and withtheone being builtin Kenya

inoperable, it was decided to make Aden the center for the
support of the UK policy in the Persian Gulf.
Aden, ruled by Arab emirs, sheikhs and sultans, had
come under the administration of British India in 1839, and
of the British Colonial Office in 1937. Three local forces
were raised to help the British exercise control over the
warring tribesmen in the hinterland: the Aden Protectorate
Levies, theHadrami Bedouin Legion and 500 armed police
in the Government Guards. In Aden itself there was
another small force, which imposed law and order on a
population of nearly 250,000 who lived in its 30 square
miles (78 km 2 of territory.
)

In the general Arab unrest that followed - from an

upsurge of nationalism in Iran and from the European

intervention to open the Suez Canal, which had been
nationalized by President Nasser of Egypt in contravention
of an international treaty - Aden came under pressure,
especially from Radio Cairo, to cast out the British
"infidels". In 1960, in an attempt to avert this, the British
formed the 17 states of the Western Protectorate into a
Federation. The Levies were allotted to the new Federation
and renamed the Federal Regular Army (FRA), while the
Government Guard and the rulers' own tribal guards
became the Federal National Guard. In 1962 the Aden
People's Socialist Party demanded union with a new
regime in Yemen, to the North. The British government
decided not to recognize the new regime and to merge
Aden Colony with the Federation, which they did in 1963.
By the end of the year another revolutionary struggle had
erupted.
Throughout the year, the tribesmen in the area north of
Aden known as the Radfan had been harassing any
intruders, including British-led patrols. In January 1964
Operation "Nutcracker" was mounted, to gain control of
some high ground and enable the building of a road which
would open up the region for development. But as soon as
the FRA withdrew, the tribesmen reoccupiedtheirterritory
and destroyed the new road. In April another, bigger,
force, known as Radforce and composed of two battalions
oftheFRA,a Marine Commando and a company of the 3rd
Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, returned to the area,
followed soon after by another British battalion. In May,
another brigade arrived, bringing the available force to
seven battalions. These succeeded in showing theflag and
provoking the dissidents into action which made them
suffer casualties/For the next two-and-a-half years, 24
Brigade, from Little Aden, became responsible for
controlling the Radfan approach to Aden from the Yemen.
July 1964, Britain announced that it would retain its
In
base in Aden but would grant independence to South
Arabia in 1968. The Adenis, fearful that they would be
dominated by the rulers of the Federation, formed a
number of anti-British organizations. Among them were
I
the NLF, National Liberation Front (which aimed at the
establishment of a Marxist state having close links with
t **>

58
59
Left Sheltered by stone walls, members
of the locally-recruited Aden Protectorate
Levie rest during a break in a policing
operation in 1958, directed against
dissident tribesmen.

Bottom right Members of the East

Anglian Regiment retaliate against
sniper fire from Yemeni supported
tribesmen, the self-styled "Wolves of
Radfan", in the Federation of South
Arabia during 1964.

Below After a battle du ring 1967 between

British troops and nationalist guerrillas in
the Crater district, fusiliers attend to the
injuries of a wounded Arab caught in the
crossfire.
Yemen and Egypt) and FLOSY, the Front for the Liberation
of Occupied South Yemen. In early 1965, Special Branch,
the police department responsible for secret
intelligence-gathering and the surveillance of threats to
internal security, became the object of an intense murder
campaign. Its aim was to intimidate the Branch's Arab
officers and so reduce its effectiveness. By the end of the
year there had been 286 terrorist incidents in Aden,
causing 237 casualties, and the FRA had been called in to
assist the British Army. The local government was
suspended.
In February 1966 a British government announcement
that Britain would not retain defense forces in Southern
Arabia after it was given independence caused even
greater instability. Throughout 1966 there was an
intensification of terrorist activity. The many
mutually-opposed factions acted in concert when it suited
them, but at the end of the year the NLF and FLOSY went
their separate ways, fighting each other as well as the
British, each of them intent on gaining ultimate control.
Egypt now had 60,000 troops in the Yemen and there
was a real threat of invasion from the North. By the end of
1966 there had been 480 incidents in Aden and the nearby
areas, causing 573 casualties, a total which took no
account of the unreported deaths and injuries resulting
from fiercely fought battles between the various Arab
groups. Clearly, the British plan fora solutiontothetrouble
based on a merger between Aden and the Federation in an
independent South Arabia was not going to come about. In
April 1967 a UN mission went to Aden to assess the
situation, and were greeted by strikes, 280 incidents and a
gunfight in one of Aden's outlying villages. After three
days, the baffled mission departed, having achieved
nothing.
InJune, soldiers of the South Arabian Army mutinied,
and shooting into the air. Order
setting fire to buildings
was restored by their Arab officers and NCOs, but nearby
police, thinking that their comrades had been fired on by
the British, went on the rampage, seized weapons and
fired on a passing British truck, killing eight soldiers. They
then opened fire on another vehicle, killing two Adeni
policemen and a civilian, and fired shots into a
neighboring camp, killing a British officer. The mutiny
spread to the barracks of the Aden armed police in Crater,
who in their turn killed several British soldiers. It was
decided to evacuate Crater and let the situation cool.
Though Crater was reoccupied two weeks later, the
British servicemen remained in their enclaves until the
withdrawal in November, watching the Federation slowly
collapse as the NLF and FLOSY fought it out, with the NLF
in control when the last troops pulled out. Between 1963
andthefinal withdrawal in 1967, 57 British servicemen had
been and 651 wounded.
killed
Aden was one of several places that was regarded by
British governments as being vital totheiroverseas policy
but was then abandoned with hardly a backward glance
when the going became tough. During the time of the
British presence, thousands of Arabs faithfully served in
the police and in other British employment. They had a
hard time explaining their loyalty in the months and years
that followed Britain's withdrawal.
 Above A combined armored and foot
patrol pass through the narrow and
dangerous streets of the Crater district of
Aden, which was very vulnerable to
attack.

Left A local policeman and British

scout car guarding the remains of a car
bomb exploded shortly after the
that
British High Commissioner had driven
past.

Top left Part of a British training team, a

sergeant from the Welsh Guards teaches
members of the Aden Federal Guard in
the use of a rifle, the .303 Lee Enfield.

Right Displaying his unit's romantic

heritage, a member of the Aden
Protectorate Levie sports traditional
ceremonial uniform as he sits astride his
camel.

IV
Confrontation in Borneo react to what was an escalation of the conflict.
Running parallel to the conflict in Aden, was another of During 1965 Australian and New Zealand forces from
Britain's small wars, in Indonesia. In the north of Borneo, 28th Commonwealth Brigade, based in Malaya, were also
one dozens of islands forming Indonesia, there are
of the used, in their case in Sarawak. In August 1965 Singapore
three areas which, after the World War II, were opted out of the Malaysian Federation, but two months
administered by Britain as colonies: Sabah (North laterthere was a coup in Indonesia which resulted in
Borneo), Sarawak and the Sultanate of Brunei. months of political confusion as Communists and their
The confrontation in Borneo came about as a result of opponents fought for supremacy. The outcome was that
Indonesian President Sukarno's opposition to a plan, Sukarno was ousted by Suharto as the new President and a
conceived by Britain and Malaya, to merge North Borneo, peace agreement was signed in August 1966.
Singapore and Malaya into Malaysia. This would have At the peak of the conflict, 1 7,000 soldiers were on active
given the new state a great increase in natural resources service in Borneo of whom 114, many of them Gurkhas,
and a larger Malay population, to counter the influence of were killed, compared with an estimated 590 Indonesians.
the Chinese in Malaya and Singapore. However, this Because the three principals involved wanted to keep the
concept threatened Indonesian ambitions to merge war low key, and because the troops involved came from
Malaya, Singapore. Borneo and the Philippines into a so many different places but were few in number, the true
greater Indonesia. scale of the struggle was never really apparent. The
A secret force, the TNKU, was formed to combat British Borneo "confrontation" was one of the least publicized but
and Malay influence in Borneo. On the morning of most difficult and lengthy operations carried out by British
December 8, 1962 it started its operations in Brunei by troops since the World War II. It was also one of the most
attacking police stations, the Sultan of Brunei's residence, successful.
the houses of the prime minister and the British Resident
and the power station. By 11 am, half of the 1st and 2nd
Gurkha Rifles had been flown in from Singapore and by
nine o'clock the next morning the rest of the battalion, and
a joint service headquarters, had arrived. A day later, the
Queen's Own Highlanders were in action and the day after
that, 42 Commando Royal Marines had recaptured a town
from the rebels. Within a few days, the initial rebellion had
been defeated but the confrontation, as it was called in
order not to escalate it into a major conflict in the eyes of
the UN and world opinion, was to continue for another
three years, as Indonesian-backed forces spread the fight
into Sarawak and Sabah along a 1,000-mile (1,400-km)
frontier.
Apart from the coastal strip, the area of operations was
almost entirely jungle, with the tree canopy about 200 feet
(60 m) high. Movement was mostly by water, along the
thousands of rivers and streams. With only five battalions
available to cover a vast area in Western Sarawak, the key
to success was the employment of local scouts, Gurkhas
andSASto patrol the border with Indonesia. As was usual
in these postwar, postcolonial disputes, there was a great
deal of behind-the-scenes political activity, including a
visit by a UN team in the summer of 1963 to ascertain
whether the local population wanted to be in the
Malaysian Federation or Indonesia. Theteam reported that
the majority wanted to be part of Malaysia, and on
September 16 that nation came into existence.
By theend of 1964, 18 British battalions were involved in

the "confrontation" (eight of them Gurkha) plus three

Malayan battalions. With supporting arms, there were
some 14,000 soldiers, who when deployed were
maintained largely by air supply, thus needing fewer
non-combat troops than in most operations. During that
year, clandestine cross-border operations were carried out
up to 20,000 yards (18,000 m) across the Indonesian
frontier, both the British and the Indonesians keeping the
matter secret in order that world public opinion did not \
64
Above Under the protection of the Union
Jack, loyal Iban tribesmen bring in rebels
who have abandoned their fight against
the Malaysian Federation.

Left Winning the hearts and minds of the

people - a vital key in the campaign
against terrorism - an army doctor -
gives medical help where none was
- -
v.- -
* - \
easily available before.

Right British Royal Marines, border

scouts and local home guards display a
varied and formidable array of weapons
with which to protect their village in
Sarawak near to the Indonesian border.

65
 «> • *^' • r-

. . I

.
-

I.

sb
*
^
 » i

I Tk*** I
* v" \ ' #

Above Gurkha infantry guard an airstrip

in Borneo as a Pioneer aircraft comes in
to land after dropping supplies to troops
operating deep in the jungle.

Left Carrying the war into the jungle by

using local trackers such as the Iban
tribesmen, together with the specialist
skills of the SAS on long-range patrols,
helped defeat the enemy on their own
ground.

Right From a well-protected fire base, a

British 105-mm howitzer is used to
support operations in the Borneo jungle.
Such a weight of firepower was not
available to the insurgents.

67
Omani rebels of Oman. Here a rebel force, the Dhofar Liberation Front,
Equally successful was the eventual outcome of the was formed in 1962 to modernize the feudal system of
sporadic troubles in Oman. Oman, the largest state in the government operated by the Sultan. In 1970 he was
Persian Gulf, with an area about the size of Scotland and deposed by his 29-year-old son who began to bring the
England together, has a population of about 500,000. nation into the 20th century, though not quickly enough for
Dominating the Hormuz Strait in the Gulf, it can control the the rebels. Supported by the Yemen, they fought to take
channel through which much of the oil from the Gulf is over the country and align it with the Soviet Union, but this
taken by ship to the West, and is therefore very important was averted, with the assistance of the British, and at some
strategically. time troops from Iran, Jordan, India and Pakistan.
The Sultanate Muscat and Oman has long had treaty
of But the greatest contribution to the defeat of the rebels
relations with the UK, and when the Saudis occupied the was made by the "firqats", paramilitary groups of
Buraimi oasis in 1952 they began what was to be a long tribesmen who were mostly ex-rebels who had deserted
wrangle for the control of Oman. By 1956 the the Communist cause. By 1974 the Sultan had 15,000
British-officered Muscat and Oman Field Force had been troops, and by 1 975 these were supported by 21 firqats
badly mauled by Saudi-trained guerrillas, at which point a with a total of about 1,600 soldiers, commanded by a
company of the Cameronians, plus the Trucial Oman British lieutenant colonel.
Scouts and assisted by the Royal Air Force, drove the At the end df 1975 it was announced by the Sultan that
rebels into the Jebel Akhdar, the highest peak of which is the war had ended, brought about by the growing lack of
8,000 feet (2,400 m). At 6,000 feet (1 ,800 m) there is a large support from the Saudis, and the local population, for the
fertile plain, with villages who supported the 600 or so rebel cause. Throughout this long, ragged conflict the
rebels who hadfled there. It wasthis rocky, crevassed, hot SAS, the British officered Sultan's Armed Forces and the
by day and freezing by nightareathat wasto bethecentre firqats fought a commendable series of campaigns and
of operations by "A" and "D" Squadrons of the SAS small battles against the rebels.
between November 1958 and the end of January 1959
when the rebels were defeated. Britain's use of mercenaries
From 1970 until 1976 another protracted series of Mercenaries took part, to greater or lesser extent, in all of
operations was conducted in Dhofar, in the southern part Britain's small wars during the period 1947 to 1975. In
 Malaya there were the Gurkhas and the Dyak trackers
from and there too the Gurkhas fought for the nation who paid
Borneo, who, though small in number, played a
significant them. In the Oman, tribesmen who had begun their battles
part in the early days of the campaign. Later,
they were in the pay of Saudi Arabia or the
withdrawn as British special forces became trained
Yemen ended up being
and paid by the British.
adept the tasks they had earlier performed. In Cyprus
at
Mercenaries can be recruited everywhere: men from the
there were the Blue Cap auxiliaries, paramilitary,
mostly sophisticated West fighting for an ideal, for personal pride,
Turkish Cypriots (and to that extent fighting for
their own or, at the most basic level, for what they
can get out of it in
future) who generally did what they did because it was a cash or loot; men from more primitive places who
form of paid employment, which was otherwise denied
willingly put their services at the disposal of
them. In Kenya the Kikuyu Home Guard too were largely anyone who
in willpay - and thus offer a means of bettering their
it for the money, though, as is usually the case, the number poverty-stricken way of life - or who regard fighting
of recruits increased when as a
it became clear which side was matter of masculine pride.
going to win. Around Aden, Arab mercenaries fought
on Throughout the long withdrawal from Empire the British
both sides: in the Radfan on the side of the Yemenis,
who used indigenous peoples to assist them, not only for
offered gold and weapons; in Aden itself in
support of the political or military reasons but because they
British, who to begin with assured them were there
of long-term and could offer special knowledge and skills that the
stability under British rule. In Borneo too,
local tribesmen British lacked.
who had no clear allegiance were employed by the British,

Above A British officer of the Trucial Oman Scouts directs the

crew of a dhow patrolling the inshore waters of the Arabian Sea
in search of guerrillas.

Top right Guarded by local troops, British sappers work on

opening up the country to enable the rapid deployment of forces
to counter enemy attacks.

Right Officered and trained by the British, the Sultan of

Muscat's
and Oman's Armed Forces could call upon fire support from the
artillery equipped with the classic 25-pounder
howitzer.

Left Along with the horse the camel remains an efficient method
of patrolling the inhospitable desert. Camel troops
form a continuing part of Arab armies such as these of the
Trucial Oman Scouts.
The "wind of change" wars
AfterWorld War the European powers were faced with a
II
series of colonial confrontations as the countries they had
colonized between the 16th and 19th centuries (mostly in
the 19th) sought independence.
The Europeans, who had imposed control over vast
areas of Africa, Asia and Central and South America
through their superior organization and technology, were
shown to be vulnerable when the Japanese conquered the
Pacific in 1941. Subject peoples, encouraged to see the
colonialists beaten, took the lesson to heart and put
pressure on the British, Belgian, Dutch, Portuguese and
Spanish, who had created the first colonial empires, to quit
and go home. (The Germans, who had been late to enter
the race, lost their possessions after World War I; the
who
Italians, started in the 20th century, lost theirs after
World War II.)
The European powers lacked the will to fight for the
retention of their empires.They were exhausted
financially and emotionally by years of conflict, and could
not, after defeating the Nazis, face the prospect of
controlling the colonial population by force. Nor did they
want a long battle of attrition to subjugate people who had
the conviction that they should govern themselves. They
were, in any case, doubtful that any battle, however
protracted, could in the end be won.
The "wind of change" that was said to be blowing
through Africa in the 1960s was preceded by other
murmurs of dissent, as a result of which Britain granted
independence to Burma and India, and the Dutch withdrew
from South East Asia. By the time the 1950s dawned,
Kenya was ready to set things in train in Africa, in an
insurrection which lasted for three years. Africa was to
become the arena for a whole series of confrontations
between black and white which continue to this day.
The upheavals created by the withdrawal of colonial
government left many parts of Africa in a state of
confusion, for when the land was being carved up between
the European powers scant attention had been paid to
traditional tribal areas. Rather, the boundaries of new
nations were drawn along rivers and lines of latitude and
longitude, imposing a totally artificial demarcation. The
Masai, for example, were -and still a re -split between two
national authorities, Kenya and Tanzania, neither of which
isrecognized when tribal matters are considered among
the tribes themselves. The Nigerian civil war (1967-70)
70
came about because the Ibo attempted to secede from an
artificial, European-imposed union with several other
tribes.
As was the case in Asia and Arabia, where mercenaries
fought both for and against the colonial powers, so in
Africa they sold their skills to the highest bidder. In some
parts of the world mercenaries, like the Dyaks jn Malaya,
were used because they had exceptional skills. In Africa
those determined to try to take over a government have
recruited experienced white soldiers to lead and train men
many of whom had little soldiering or administrative
experience.
Rebellion in the Congo
Zaire, previouslyknown as the Congo, was perhaps the
classicexample of a nation imposed geographically on
hundreds of tribes with no common background or
language. Situated in the centre of Africa, and bigger than
the whole of Europe, the area was loosely ruled by the
Belgians for 75 years until, in 1960, it was granted
independence. Five days later, the 30,000-strong Force
Publique, newly renamed the National Congolese Army
(ANC), mutinied against its Belgian officers. Belgian troops
who were still in the country moved quickly to suppress
the mutiny and in Katanga in the south, which announced
its secession from the rest of the Congo, they disbanded
most of the ANC. However, the Belgians had no authority
to stay, and within two weeks of independence United
Nations forces had been deployed, ostensibly to keep the
peace but in fact to prevent Katanga from seceding. The
Belgians withdrew, as UN troopstookoverstrategic places
throughout the province.
The Balubas in the north attempted to oust Moise
Tshombe, who had seized the opportunity of
independence to set up his own nation in Katanga. By the
end of 1960, troops from the north, serving under General
Mobutu-whose ANC had deposed Patrice Lamumba.the
original leader of the new Congo - had invaded Katanga
and were assisting the Balubas. With only a small force of
gendarmes at his disposal, Tshombe quickly began to
Right CIA-funded Cuban mercenaries arm one of the aircraft
they piloted in support of the Congo government in its fight
against the Simba rebels.
71
72
 recruit mercenaries, from what was then Southern
Rhodesia. When, however, the threat from the north grew,
he turned to the French for help. At first, the French were
keen to extend their influence into the biggest
French-speaking area in Africa, but they changed their
minds after the murder of Lamumba.

A mercenary band
Captain Robert Faulques, of the First Parachute Regiment
of the French Foreign Legion remained in the country
when France withdrew its short-lived support, and began
to recruit a mercenary force. When the 1st Paras were
disbanded in Algeria for having sided with the generals
who attempted to oust de Gaulle, manyof them made their
way south to joinhim, as did other bitter and disillusioned
French soldiers.
In Katanga there were now a Belgian-led gendarmerie,

French ex-Legion mercenaries and also a group of British,

Rhodesian and South African "soldiers of fortune", some
ofwhom had been recruited with the helpof the American
CIA and Rhodesian Intelligence. This band not only took on
the UN for the control of the nation, they also took on each
other from time to time, as rivalries flared. Generally fit,
soldierly, and disciplined, they were formidable
opponents in battle, but they were also guilty of looting
and rapine.
They were a very mixed bunch: the brother of a
right-wing member of the British Parliament, an
old-Harrovian, a London chartered accountant, the son of a
Belgian lawyer, the jailbird son of a French peasant, and
Above The personal effects and church vestments belonging to
the disaffected ragtag and bobtail of many of the armies of
20 Catholic priests who had been murdered in January 1962 by
the rebels in Katanga had been ransacked and dumped, before the world. Since the French Foreign Legion had recruited
they were discovered later that year. many ex-Wehrmacht soldiers after the end of the World
War there were also, in the 1960s, many Germans in
II

Top After putting down a mutiny by African troops, and

left
mercenary forces.
following the arrival of the UN peace-keeping force, Belgian
For a time, this motley crew was of some consequence in
paras board their aircraft at Elizabethville airport in Katanga.
the chaotic Congo, but on August 28, 1961 an Irish Army
Left Four white mercenaries with other black Katangan troops contingent from the UN under the command of an Irish UN
rest after the successful capture of Luena in early 1961. politician began a sweep of Katanga aimed at clearing it of
all the 512 mercenaries estimated to be there. As a result,
Following pages Three of President Tshombe's mercenaries most of the Belgian officers were thrown out of the country
pose with their guns at their base in Kamina, after the failure of
and the Katangese gendarmerie were left under the
an attempt to capture Albertville by two separate forces in
August 1964.
control of French ex-Paras, English-speaking
ex-policemen and These 100 or so
local Belgian settlers.
men, in five were to become the
different military zones,
hard core of future military activity in the Congo.
On three different occasions there were face-to-face
confrontations between UN troops and Katangese
gendarmerie led by Europeans: at Jadotville in
September, at Elizabethville in December, and a year later,
in 1962, at the same place, when UN troops decisively

defeated the Katangese troops and ended the secession.

On June 30, 1964 the UN troops withdrew and Moise
Tshombe was appointed Prime Minister of the entire
Congo.

The Simbas
The next stage of mercenary involvement in Africa started
virtually the same day, this time as a defense against the

73

-.
Simbas, the "Lions", raised by a man called Mulele who
baptized his followers in the name of the Roman Catholic
faith toconvince them that they were protected against
ii
their enemies' bullets. Support for the Simbas spread
rapidly, including support from the Chinese, who sought
to gain a foothold on the continent. They were opposed by
the United States, who formed a Congolese air force,
mostly from anti-Castro Cuban exiles, and provided
transport aircraft and a lot of CIA support. Meanwhile
European officers acted as advisers to the ANC battalions
who fought the Simbas.
The spearhead of the mercenary force was Number 5

Commando, led by Lieutenant-Colonel Thomas Michael

Bernard Hoare, from Dublin in the Republic of Ireland.
Many of its recruits were Germans from South West Africa,
now Namibia, which, until after World War I, had been
a German colony. The others were a very mixed bunch an :

old-Etonian ex-Coldstream Guardsman, a South African

who had served in the Life Guards, an ex sergeant-major of
British infantry. Butthere were also many drunkards, dope
addicts and other disreputable elements. In all, there were
about 300 of them, though it had been hoped to recruit
1,000.
Such were the men who became mercenaries, but who,
nevertheless, succeeded in routing the Simbas.
Employing the expedient of vehicle-mounted surprise
attacks, they took their targets apart before the enemy
knew what had hit them. In a panic, the enemy grabbed
whites as hostages, most of them Christian missionaries,
and a highly charged situation developed. At the end of
November the Belgians, with the agreement of the British
and American governments, dropped paratroopers into
Stanleyville, captured the town, but were too late to stop
the massacre of many of the hostages.
It seemed as if the fall of Stanleyville
meant the end of
the conflict, but with the help of Egyptian and Algerian
weaponry the Simbas managed to reorganize, and it was
not until October 1965 that they were finally crushed. The
mercenaries suffered many casualties, including several
of their best officers. One month later, Tshombe was
deposed and Mobutu, on becoming President, dismissed
Hoare from his command. Commandant Peters, an
ex-NCO of the West Yorkshire Regiment, was appointed to
take over 5 Commando, which he led for two years of
garrison duties interspersed with action against mutinous
«
gendarmes.
At the end of May 1967, the 5th was disbanded without
incident. Such was not the case, however, when it came to
the demobilization of "Black Jack" Schramme's No 10
Commando.

Mercenaries in revolt
Mercenaries have three motives for revolt: fear, avarice
and ambition. Theyfearthattheiremployers will kill them
off ratherthan pay them off; they thinkthey may be better
paid by a rival to their employer; their leader thinks he has
a chance of taking over the leadership of the nation from
his employer.
In December 1966, Schramme, the son of a Belgian

74
 *f*'v*'f

ttamk. -mix- Vk
J-.«*J

w"
*p,
t,fi
colonial, was summoned to see the new President
Mobutu. He told Schramme that his Kansimbas from
Northern Katanga would be replaced by ANC recruits but
that white officers would remain in command. Schramme
replied that, while he agreed in principle, he would not
allow his men to be disarmed -they must surrender their
weapons voluntarily. Mobutu appeared to agree and the
two parted amicably, but in April of the next year Denard's
6th Commando was ordered to disarm Schramme's 10th.
Denard was 32 years old, an ex-marine NCOand the son
of a French peasant. Put in a very difficult situation, with
every possibility that hisown troops would mutiny if they
were ordered on fellow mercenaries, he told
to fire
Schramme about his orders but said he had no intention of
obeying them. A month later, Schramme was visited by a
man called Quintin, a Belgian planter, who proposed a
pro-Tshombe revolt. When Schramme declined to have
anything to do with it, Quintin threatened to tell Mobutu
that Schramme was in fact a party to it. Schramme
him.
Meanwhile Mobutu had appalled people locally and
abroad by hanging four politicians who opposed him,
putting three mercenaries in jail for 12 years for looting a
bank for the money they were owed, and by having the
ears and fingers of a Belgian cut off for alleged sabotage.
When Denard returned to see Schramme at the end of
June they decided on a coordinated revolt against
Mobutu. Schramme was to seize Stanleyville, where he
would be joined by Denard, with his 100 whites and 800
blacks, and between them they would take over the Congo.
The next day Jeremiah Puren, who had commanded the
country's air force after independence, arrived with nine
South African mercenaries and some arms and
ammunition. Now based in Angola, Puren's arrival implied
the connivance of the local Portugese authorities in the
proposed plot. However, the deep-laid plans were thrown
into disarray by the kidnapping, a week later, of Moise
shot Ts horn be by his own bodyguard, on a flight between Ibiza

Top left Having secured their positions

around Elizabethville, Irish troops and
armored vehicles of the UN Force move
up the road towards Kipushi during the
early part of 1963.

LeftHands held high, their faces showing

the mixed emotions of relief and
anguish, black nuns emerge from the
Asangi Mission after being rescued by 5
Commando.

Right Indian troops remove more than

four tons of high-explosive, planted by
mercenaries, from a bridge over the
Lualaba River, during the UN advance
into Kolwezi.
 Above Congo mercenaries. A
combination of speed and firepower was
used very effectively to overcome the
lack of manpower in operations against
Simba rebels.

Far left The face of a mercenary. The

notorious "Mad" Mike Hoare,
commander of 5 Commando in the
Congo, and leader of the abortive coup in
the Seychelles 20 years later.

LeftCommander of 10 Commando, the

Belgian Colonel Schramme led his
troops in revolt against the Congo
government after an attempt to disarm
his men by President Mobutu.

78
Right A patrol including white
mercenaries and African soldiers
prepares to move out for another
hit-and-run raid against the Simbas.
and Majorca. This was probably done in collusion with the
CIA, whose aim was to keep Mobutu in power. Tshombe
was flown to Algeria, where he was imprisoned, and
where he died in jail, allegedly due to natural causes. His
death was announced exactly two years after his
kidnapping, five years after his appointment as Prime
Minister and nine years to the day after independence had
been granted to the strife-torn Congo.
Without a figurehead Schramme's plan for revolt was
undermined, but the trigger for it to go ahead anyway was
the news that the 3rd Parachute Regiment of the ANC,
trained by the Israelis, was to arrive in the Congo in two
days' time and would be ordered to disarm Schramme's
10th Commando. Denard and Schramme decided to put
their revolt into action before that could happen. On the
morning of July 5 the 10th went into action.
Insurrection and defeat
At first, as was so often the case with mercenary
operations, surprise gave them success, but only a week
later the insurrection was near to disaster. Thirty
mercenaries who were in their barracks in the capital were
taken out and summarily slaughtered by Mobutu's men.
Denard and 12 other wounded mercenaries fled to
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) in a stolen plane, and
Schramme's troops were obliged to evacuate Stanleyville,
which earlier they had captured without difficulty.
However, all was not lost.
By August 9, they had regrouped, made a long march
across country and had captured Bukavu, in the
difficult
east. Schramme held a
press conference in which he gave
Mobutu 10 days to negotiate, while simultaneously a
Katangese colonel announced the setting up of a new state
based on Bukavu. Together, 150 white and 800 or so black
mercenaries had succeeded in putting the government of
the richest and biggest country in black Africa with its back
to the wall.
For 12 weeks Schramme's men held Bukavu. During that
time they received two lots of air supply -organized by the
wounded Denard, who was now in Angola - but were
strafed frequently by T-28 aircraft, three of which were
shot down by a small German who became known as
'mini-Schmidt'. Mobutu then replaced his inexperienced
pilots with expatriate Cubans employed by the CIA, but
they were half-hearted in their attacks, not least because if
they succeeded too well and brought about the surrender
of Schramme's forces there would be no reason for
Mobutu to go on paying them!
The phoney warended on October 29 when 15,000 ANC
troops, including elements of the 7th and 9th Commandos
who had changed sides, launched an attack. Fortwo long,
hot days Schramme's men held off a force 15 times its size.
Then, on November 1, Denard and a small force of
mercenaries invaded the country from Angola with the
object of splitting Mobutu's forces and, by creating more
chaos, diverting attention from Bukavu. Many Katangese
joined his band and in a few days he had 3,000
"gendarmes" assisting him. But they had hardly any
79
weapons, and after some heavy skirmishing Denard'smen
abandoned the invasion and, in the face of a threatened
attack by Mobutu's 1st Parachute Regiment, fled back
towards the border.
On November 4 the American-backed ANC launched a
massive assault on Bukavu and, after a day of combat, the
mercenaries fell back to the bridge which would take them
out of the Congo into Rwanda. Schramme and 130
surviving white mercenaries, plus about 800 Katangese,
were disarmed and interned.
According to the Congolese, there had been 189
mercenaries in action when the revolt began. About 20 had
deserted, another 30 had been massacred in Leopoldville,
and another20orso had been killed. Asoften happened in
the Africa of the 1960s, a handful of trained, armed men
created mayhem out of all proportion to their numbers.
But as was seen repeatedly, the chaotic circumstances of
their existence meant that in the end they achieved little.
The Belgian and French press attributed thefailureofthe
revolt to the Americans; the British press called the
mercenaries symbols of chaos; the Belgian mercenaries
blamed their French comrades and the French blamed the
Belgians. In reality, thefailureofthe venture wasduetothe
fact that a mercenary revolt is doomed from the outset.
The people of a nation prefer one of their own to be in
power, rather than a foreigner.
After five months' internment, the mercenaries were
deported, their passports stamped with the words "Not to
be permitted to enter any part of Africa". Schramme was
charged with murder by the Belgian authorities but the
charge was later dropped, and in the spring of 1969 he
disappeared and has never been heard of since.
Secession in West Africa
The men who had made their names leading the Congo
mercenaries were scattered about the world when Colonel
Ojukwu announced that Biafra's 14 million people were
going to secede from the rest of Nigeria's 41 million. In
Johannesburg George Schroeder was running a travel
agency, and on his books were the names of about 1 ,500
mercenaries. 'Mad' Mike Hoare offered hisservicesfirstto
Biafra and then to General Gowon in Nigeria, but without
success: both sides were accusing each other of
employing whites and neither wanted to be caught at it.
Alastair Wicks, the old-Harrovian, asked the Officers'
Association in London to advertise for "responsible
ex-officers up to 35 years of age who had administrative
experience". Wicks wanted to recruit for the Biafrans but
was warned off by Peters, who was recruiting for the
Nigerians. Peters had secured a contract to hire pilots at
£1,000 a month, exclusive of entertainments and all living
expenses, which would be paid for by the Nigerian
government.
General de Gaulle sided with the Biafrans,
In Paris,
saying it was high time something was done to
help them.
Whether as a direct result of this or not, by January 1968
Top right UN Force members take cover behind their armored
car as they come under fire from the dissident gendarmerie
during operations to flush them out in December 1961.
Right A soldier of the UN Force examines a Fouga fighter of the
Katanga Air Force which had been shot down during fighting for
control of the area. The planes were flown by Europeans.
Left A moment of light relief during the advance on Stanleyville
in 1964. A German mercenary, proudly wearing his Iron Cross,
brandishes a spear and shield.
Following pages The body of a Belgian mercenary being
brought back across a river by Biafran colleagues after an attack
on a Federal position.
82
83
 Top After their escapeinto Rwanda, Colonel Schramme's
mercenaries are searched by Rwandan troops before being
made to sign a pledge never to fight again in Africa in order to

secure their release.

Above After the rebels' resistance had been broken by air-raids,

the Congolese army and mercenary troops advanced without
opposition into Boende. Here a mercenary passes the mutilated
corpse of a rebel.

LeftA South African mercenary on the left conferring with his

English colleague, a former corporal of the British army who
Wml saw action at Dunkirk and Normandy during World War II.

84
Top Katangese gendarmes hand over the arms to UN officers in
return for a token payment for pocket expenses after the
successful return of the Katanga Province to the Republic of
Congo.

Above White mercenaries with government troops present

arms over the fresh grave of a South African colleague killed
during the fight for Boende.

Right Two French mercenaries in the Congo, wearing the berets

and badges of the French paras with whom they formerly
served.

85
86
 Robert Faulques had arrived in Biafra with his
mercenaries, his task being to form a black army equipped
and trained by Europeans. However, of the 100 he was
supposed to recruit, only
47 combatants turned up and, by
the time February came - during which
a handful of
mercenaries were routed by a Nigerian force - the whole
thing had faded out. Those who wanted to go were
allowed to leave the country. Faulques collected six
months' pay for non-existent soldiers (about £90,000),
disappeared and has never been heard of again. Like
Schramme, he may be living on his loot or may be dead,
the victim of revenge. Of the four who had decided to
stay,
by May only Rolf Steiner was left, and it was he who was
appointed by Ojukwu to command 4th Commando
Brigade, a mercenary-led force of black troops.

The French connection

After a year of civil war the Biafrans were beginning
to
crumble before the superior forces deployed against them.
Then, as had happened in the Congo, the French decided
to exert their influence to save the situation, this
time
through the president of nearby Gabon, another ex-French
colony. The president was 32-year-old Omar Bongo, who
was kept in power by his personal guard - a formidable
force of 1,200 armed with modern weapons, tanks and
helicopters, manned by ex-legionnaires and commanded
by Colonel Le Braz, so many of his kind a former
like
member of the 1st Parachute Battalion of the Foreign
Legion. As the situation worsened and famine began to
strike, large quantities of food and war supplies were flown
from Libreville, the capital of
Gabon, to Biafra's one
airstrip, at Uli.By October, 20 tons were being delivered
every night. According to the Swedish leader of the pilots.
Count von Rosen, "Every priest, every doctor, every black
and every white man in Biafra was praying for arms and
ammunition before food, because the feeding of children
only to have them massacred later by cannon fire did not
make sense."
On September 4, 1968 Aba, the only large city remaining
in Biafran hands, fell after a bloody battle in which
three-quarters of Steiner's 4th Commando were wounded
or killed. There followed a second French intervention, in
the shape of a small force of mercenaries led by Captain
Maurice Lucien-Brun, a former French cavalry officer who
had served with Hoare in the Congo. But this was
short-lived. Lucien-Brun, afterarguing about pay departed
again on the October having drawn two months' money
2,
for one week's presence in Biafra. Steiner had fled to
Gabon where he obtained $25,000 to purchase some
canoes for a seaborne assault on Nigeria but then decided
that the plan was a non-starter and instead recruited a
dozen white mercenaries and returned to Biafra. There,
thisforce wasgrandly named the4th Commando Brigade
and soon after raised to the status of a division. The whole
thing went to Steiner's head.

A Portuguese soldier standing in front of a MPLA poster, before

the army's withdrawal which left Angola to the warring factions
who claimed power.

87
 Above South African armored column in
Angola. With its continuing interest in
Namibia, South Africa has invaded
Angola on a number of occasions,
deploying a variety of levels of
operations.

LeftCuban soldiers in Angola. While

UNITA in the south relied on South
African support, the MPLA was
supported by the Soviets and their Cuban
allies.

Right With the active support of South

Africa,UNITA in the south of Angola has
managed to continue its fight against the
well equipped and armored forces of the
MPLA government. Here, an MPLA tank
stands abandoned, after having been put
out of action.

Following pages Colonel Callan and his

mercenaries on trial. Any
romantic image left of the mercenary was
rapidly dispelled as the catalogue of
atrocities of their Angolan exploits was
revealed. Four of the mercenaries were
sentenced to death.

88
 "I command 8,500 men," he told a French journalist,
"but we have only 1,000 riflesfor 10,000 men, so my plan is
to ambush Nigerian troops and seize their weapons. We
have only one choice: to defend ourselves or to die. They
don't take prisoners and nor do we." Steiner was driven
around in a big white Mercedes flying a Death's Head
pennant - shades of the Hitler Youth in which he had
served as a boy. Yet, despite all the bravado, when his
troops went into action they were once again decimated,
principally by theSaladin and Ferret armored vehicles the
Nigerians had bought from Britain.
On November 10, Steiner, brandishing a beer bottle,
burst into the State House at Umuahia and insulted
Ojukwu. He was immediately clapped into irons and then
deported, arriving in Libreville in handcuffs and
accompanied by all but six of his mercenaries. Two days
later, what was leftofthe4th Commando triedto recapture
a Biafran town but they were routed, despite their
commander, Taffy Williams, shooting six or more of his
men who refused to go forward into the attack. It was the
end of the story as far as land-force mercenaries were
concerned.
Airborne mercenaries
In the air, Egyptian-piloted llyushin bombers of the
Nigerian air force had had it all their own way until in
1969 Von Rosen managed, with five light MCI-9Bs, to
destroy seven Nigerian planes on the ground at Port
Harcourt and raid three towns and some oil installations.
But it was only from the advance of the
a brief respite
richer, better-ledand better-equipped Nigerians. Though
von Rosen's pilots made other sorties and in November
again raided Port Harcourt and destroyed another eight
planes, theirs was a puny effort in comparison to what the
Nigerians could muster with their East German-piloted
MiG-19s. Under the pressures of famine and military
superiority, in mid-January 1970 the Biafran secession
ended. The Biafrans laid down their arms after three
bloody years of civil war, and Ojukwu flew off to exile in the
Ivory Coast.
Steiner and von Rosen
After Steinerwas kicked out of Biafra he became involved
in another war, in the Sudan, where rebels from the south
were trying to overthrow the central government. But as
had happened before, he was fighting against much
stronger opposition. In October 1970 he was wounded,
flown out to Kampala and then extradited to the Sudan to
face trial. He was convicted of waging war and sentenced
to death, but the sentence was commuted to 20 years'
imprisonment. Three years later he was released,
ostensibly on the grounds of ill-health, and went back to
West Germany where, after writing a book about his
experiences, he too disappeared from the scene.
May Count von Rosen, who had five children by three
marriages, was one of the many who, having been bitten
by the mercenary bug, could not leave that strangely
exciting way of life. He was a remarkable man, whose
89
90
 conduct and motives had always been exemplary, and the
complete opposite to most of the men who took up the
profession of paid warrior. An aristocrat brought up in a
castle, and educated at one of the finest Swedish schools
(but expelled for his excess of high spirits), he was the first
man to fly a Red Cross plane- in Ethopia during the Italian
invasion of 1935 36.
In 1940 he was arrested by the Gestapo on
suspicion of
being a spy and released only on the personal intervention
of Hermann Goering, who was his uncle. For the
remainder of World War he flew a courier service from
II

Sweden to Germany - some say helping the Dutch

Resistance now and then - before returning to Ethopia.
Then, his humanitarian feelings took him to Biafra in an
attempt to allay the effects of famine on that stricken
country. When the conflict ended, he went back to his
home Ethopia, but on July 12, 1977 the house he was
in
staying in while planning to air-drop sacks of wheat to the
starving was attacked by Somali guerrillas and he was
killed. He was 68 years old.

War in Angola
Angola, on the western seaboard of southern Africa, was
granted independence on November 11, 1970 after 400
years of Portuguese rule. As had happened in other parts of
Africa, rival groups immediately began to fight to gain
control in the wake of the departing colonialists; in this
case, the FNLA (the National Front for the Liberation of
Angola) from the north, the MPLA (the Marxist-based
liberation organization) centered near Luanda the capital,
and UNITA (another nationalist group) in the south led by
Jonas Savimbi. The MPLAand UNITA were heavily backed
by foreign support (the MPLA by the Soviet Union, UNITA
by the South Africans), but the FNLA from the
under-populated north had little going for them except a
safe base across the border in Zaire. In 1975 the first
Cubans arrived, soon to be followed by many thousands
more to support the MPLA. With the arrival of the Cubans,
trained to use the mass of modern weaponry supplied by
the Russians, the die was cast for a long, protracted
struggle.
The presence of Cubans not only frightened the South
African government, who thought it heralded a Marxist
takeover of Angolathat would spread into their country, it
also alarmed the Americans. The US allocated S32 million
to keep Angola in the Western camp, and in July 1975 the
CIA established a task force to control the use of these
funds to best advantage.

The mercenary agency

In Angola, the mercenaries were
dominated by another
generation of soldiers of fortune. John Banks was an
ex-member of the 2nd Battalion of the British Parachute
Regiment who had been dishonorably discharged after
serving a year in prison for civil offences. In May 1975,
Banks and one of his friends, Dave Tomkins, who had
served eight years in prison (but unlike nearly all
mercenaries had never served in any army) set up a
mercenary recruiting agency. Their advertisement read:

91
"Ex-Commandos, Paratroopers, SAS troopers wanted for
interesting work abroad. Ring Camberley 33451." They
were deluged with applicants and within a few days had
registered their new company as the International Security
Organisation Limited.
While they were processing the hundreds of
applications, they were approached by ex-SAS officers
who told them there was a possibility of two contracts, one
to attack Southern Rhodesia from Zambia, the other to
oust General Gowon in Nigeria. Banks was to raise three
squadrons of 110 men to be ready within a month. The
sum of £2 million, so it was said, had been banked to pay
for the operation, including £500 a week for officers and
£1 50 a week for troopers.
Mike Johnson, an ex-warrant officer of the Foreign
Legion was selected to command one of the squadrons
and Pete McAleese and Barry Maddisonas the other two.
On May 27 this group met other mercenaries and were told
by Banks that anyone who had scruples about fighting
white settlers or white soldiers on the side of black
guerrillas should leave the room. Very few did, only around
a dozen, or about one-tenth ofthe numberassembled who
had been screened as potential recruits.
By mid-June the first squadron had been formed with an
ex-Para sergeant called Copeland as its sergeant-major. A
month later, Banks received instructions for 14 officers to
fly to Zambia in advance of their men and set about
establishing a working relationship with Joshua Nkomo's
guerrillas. On July 25 this group checked in at the Skyline
Hotel at Heathrow Airport. The next day, when the
so-called paymaster who was supposed to make
arrangements for their departure had not arrived, they
became unruly, smashed up the place, fought with each
other and ran up a bill for £4,000 for drinks and damages.
When the paymaster arrived from Scotland his instant
response was to cancel the mission and dismiss the men.
Banks was now left with dozens of "recruits" waiting for
something to do, but it was not until mid-January of the
next year, 1976, that he was approached by a "Major" Hall
with an offer of employment in Angola.
Hall and Callan
Hall too was dishonorably discharged ex-para but his
a After being
crimes, for which he had served two years in jail, had been
much more serious than Banks': he had sold weapons to
the banned Ulster Volunteer Force in Northern Ireland.
While with 1st Para he had met a Greek Cypriot called
Georgiou who had also served time; in his case for
Above A Frelimo column passes through the Mozambique bush
prior to attaining power after the withdrawal of Portugal - a far
less brutal experience than that of Angola.
Right An MPLA gun crew poses beside its mortar during fighting
against UNITA and FNLA forces during the civil war that
followed Angola's independence.
Top left RolfSteiner, one of the principal whites involved in the
Biafran's fight for independence leans against his Land Rover,
attended by his young guard.
LeftA Portuguese Air Force sergeant on loan to the Biafrans leans
against his crashed aircraft under armed guard by Nigerian
police.
carrying out an armed raid on a post office in company
with a man named Wainhouse. These three, with another
ex-Para Cypriot named Christodoulou, became a
notorious quartet who teamed up with Banks' 2nd Paras
but never really trusted them. was Georgiou who was to
It
become known as Colonel Callan when, in December, he
flew to join the FN LA. Meanwhile in Paris Denard, one-time
leader of 6th Commando in the Congo, was given $350,000
by the CIA to recruit 20 Frenchmen on contract for five
months Savimba's UNITAs in the south.
to join
Angola for a few days Callan formed an ad
in
hoc group of about 30 Portugese soldiers who confronted
an MPLA column 600-strong while they were off guard in
camp and inflicted heavy casualties, including the
disablement of four T-34 tanks. Callan himself had picked
off a number of armored vehicles with a 66-mm antitank
93
rocket launcher. In consequence of this startling and
daring act of valor, Callan was appointed Field
Commander of the FNLA.
In comparison with most mercenary ventures in Africa
his was a phenomenally successful operation, which acted
as a spur to the arrival of other Europeans, though not in
the flood the sponsors had hoped for. Not a single British
Army officer volunteered to go, the result of which was
that all the commissioned ranks of Callan's Commandos
were promoted rankers. This fact resulted in their military
operations ending in debacle, not from lack of leadership
and bravery but because they lacked the administrative
experience needed to organize their units, keep them in
disciplined order and prepare for the next battle. When
they left the battlefield they vanished into the fleshpots,
emerging drunk and debauched when the next call came.
To complicate matters, they could not speak Portugese,
Some of the few sad belongings of a
former British Army officer who, while
serving with the South Africans, was
blown up in an attempt to destroy a
railway line deep inside Mozambique.
94
and could not therefore communicate with the black
troops of the FNLA whom they were supposed to lead.
On Friday January 16, 1976 Hall returnedto London and
was put in touch with Banks by Tony Geraghty the defence
correspondent of the Sunday Times. Banks immediately
started to find 25 men who were ready to go to Africa at a
moment's notice. Geraghty asked to be allowed to
accompany them in return for not printing the story, but
when the story was blown by another newspaper, he let
the matter drop. On the Sunday, Hall and 19menflewfrom
Brussels to Leopoldville in the Congo, while back in
England Banks went on at speed with the recruitment of
more men.
Callan's excesses
The first 20 recruits arrived in Sao Salvador in Angola the
following Tuesday and were pitched into the chaotic
situation that existed there, with hardly time to draw
breath. "Colonel" Callan was in the middle of putting
down a mutiny by black troops. The day after their arrival
they were present when Callan and Christodoulou (known
as Shotgun Charlie) personally executed 20 of the
ringleaders and a suspected spy. The shock of seeing what
sort of an affair they had let themselves in for was so great
that some of Banks' men decided to kill Callan and go back
to the Congo - a case of dog eat dog, with a vengeance.
Aware that some of these new arrivals constituted a threat
to his authority, Callandespatched them upcountry,
allegedly to secure his right flank. But onewho remained
with him, and quickly established a rapport, was Copeland,
who became his sergeant-major and executioner. The
misgivings of most of the new group persisted, but the
newsthatan MPLA Cuban group wereadvancing on them
made them close ranks for mutual protection. On the
Saturday morning Callan and a bunch of desperadoes set
off for the town of Maquela. It had been a busy week.
The next Monday morning, five of the mercenaries
ambushed a tank-led column on the Damba road and killed
21 of them. Shaken, the greatly superior MPLA stayed
where they were while Callan went about his favorite
pastime- killing at whim. On one occasion he called on an
FN LA soldier to step out of the ranks, put Charlie's shotgun
barrel in his mouth and blew his head off, to encourage the
others, presumably. That morning he had already
executed six men for allegedly planning to desert. For a
time, this psychotic killer - who nonetheless had
considerable leadership qualities and was professionally a
good soldier - was in a position where he could do
anything he liked and get away with it.
By January 19, Banks and 96 new recruits had arrived in
Leopoldville and the mercenary army was beginning to
Above Angolan members of the MPLA
and Cuban troops get together for
weapons' practice at a training camp
near Cabina in the northernmost part of
the country.

LeftPortuguese mercenary in Angola,

wearing the uniform of the South African
Defence Force and clutching a grenade.

Right Hind helicopter gunship brought

down by the UNITA rebels in the
continuing war in Angola.
look as if it really existed, rather than being a figment of
people's imagination. Though it included men who were
not ex-Commandos, Paras or SAS, as most mercenaries
were, they were physically there, all the same.
Since the first group had arrived, most of them had
changed allegiance from being Banks's men to being
Callan's, but perhaps too much has been made of their
loyalties. They were, after all, in it for the money and would
support whoever had the bankroll, and in this case it was
Callan who was on the spot and in control whereas Banks
was the man at base. Moreover, Callan had charisma, even
if it was of the most barbaric sort, and the men who, only a
couple of weeks before, had been going about their normal
lives in Britain, were now taking as a matter of course the
fact that life here in Angola was as cheap as dirt. After the
sudden shock of seeing blood spilled violently, many of
them had taken to it with a will: killing could be a pleasure,
something to boast and swagger about.
However, it did not to last. The events of the following
days happened one upon the other with astonishing and
confusing speed and some of the men's euphoria soon
disappeared when two of their number were killed in an
ambush. Banks decided, fortunately for him, that it was
time to go, and quickly returned to the Congo and then to
England. He was never to set foot in either the Congo or
Angola again. His forte was in administration and
recruiting, not in being a front-line leader like Callan.
A sentence of death
On July 31 the 96 men of the second contingent
paraded in Maquela in front of their new commander, who
gavethemapeptalk: they were ex-British soldiers (in fact,
some of them were not), they knew their job and how to
behave. Discipline would be as strict as it had been in the
British Army - with one big difference: that serious
offences would be punished by death. There was, it seems,
a startled look of unease on many faces when this was
announced, but having already heard from those who had
seen Callan at work what he was like, they had no reason to
doubt that he meant what he said. Their first operational
task, they were told, was to ambush Cuban troops in
Russian tanks "behind the enemy lines".
When they heard that, unease turned to mutiny and they
broke ranks. Beside himself with rage Callan went
amongstthem and ordered 23 men who hethought had no
military experience to strip to their underwear, the usual
preliminary to being shot. But for some reason -
presumably because weight of numbers was against him
Callan instead had them issued with working clothes and
putto menial tasks. The remainder were divided into three
groups, one under Callan's command, another under
Copeland's and the other under Shotgun Charlie.
Suddenly, news was received that Cuban troops were
advancing, had taken a nearby town and were threatening
them. Callan went off with his own "killer group" to
engage the enemy, leaving Copeland in charge in
Maquela. In tears, some of the new recruits went off to
learn how to fire 66-mm rocket launchers while, with one
of those unpredictable sudden changes of direction, the
spud-bashing squaddies were ordered to change into
combatclothesand be ready for action. When it came, they
committed the worst possible blunder.
At about 10 pm a vehicle came round a bend in the road
towards the camp at Maquela and the men opened fire.
They destroyed a Land Rover, mistakenly believing it to be
the advance guard of the Cuban force. Twenty-five of them
then fled towards the Congolese border in three vehicles
into which they had loaded all available food, ammunition,
arms and petrol. At Cuimbata on the frontier they
encountered a group of FNLA soldiers who had been
posted there that morning by Callan under the command
of an ex-SAStrooper named Wilson. They told Wilson they
had been attacked, had given a good account of
themselves and then retreated in the face of 20 Russian
tanks. Wilson sent them back to Maquela, except for one
man who was detailed off as Shotgun Charlie's driver.
There, they were met by Callan and were put to digging a
defensive position.
It was not long after that the four men who had
miraculously escaped the bazooka attack on the Land
Rover came upon Callan and told him the true story. In a
blind rage, he ordered the 20 to be disarmed (four had
slipped away) and arrested. A day after their first parade
they were back on the same "barrack square" but this time
facing the remainder of their group and surrounded by
Portuguese soldiers armed with guns. After berating them,
Callan asked who had fired the rocket the previous night. A
man called Davies replied, "I did, sir," Callan shot him in
the head three times. When one of Callan's cronies
98
pleaded for the men to be given a last chance to fight, six of
them stepped forward to volunteer. The rest were stripped
to their underwear, bundled into a vehicle, taken three
miles out of Maquela, ordered to run for it and then shot
dead.
The end of a campaign
The next day Callan had put the whole thing behind him,
engaging on a manic act of military aggression. With
nearly 50 men crammed into five Land Rovers he attacked
an MPLA ambush position, destroying four tanks and
killing 200 of the enemy. On his side, 11 men were
wounded, addition to another eight already badly hurt
in
earlier in theday when one of the vehicles had been blown
upon a mine. The next day, Tuesday February 3, Callan led
a group of 24 mercenaries in an attack against a column of
Cuban/Soviet-led MPLA on the Damba road. Three times
they attacked the column, creating chaos and inflicting
dozens of casualties. With complete disregard for his own
safety - a sort of demented kamikaze warrior out of touch
with the real world - Callan went from place to place
leading his bewildered band in what must, to them, have
been an unbelievable nightmare. When dusk came, they
went backtothe head of the column, buta rocket, probably
fired by Callan himself, blew up an enemy ammunition
vehicle. A shell casing hit Callan below the knee and badly
lamed him. As night came on, he was delirious with fever.
On Thursday the 5th, McAleese at San Antonio heard
about the massacre of the mercenaries and decided that
Left Captured mercenaries being put on
display in Mozambique in 1983 after a
cross-bomber raid from South Africa.
Right Callan, having at first refused to
speak, steps forward to accept
responsibility for all that had happened,
so sealing his fate in front of a firing
squad.
J
Callan should be court-martialled. He flew to Maquela,
confronted Shotgun Charlie, hit him with the butt of his
own shotgun, disarmed him, then dealt with Sammy
Copeland in a similar way. The two were arraigned, tried,
and, in the case of Copeland, found guilty of murder. When
Copeland heard the verdict, he made a run for it, but was
fired on by the firing squad, brought down, and finished off
by Wainhouse with a bullet in the head. McAleese then
announced that if Callan reappeared he was to be shot on
sight.
The next day MPLA troops entered Maquela. Mike
Johnson, the ex-Legionary and Marine Commando, was
killed as he ran towards a boat moored at a nearby jetty.
Three mercenaries reached the boat in safetv, arriving in
Leopoldville to recount the whole appalling episode to a
BBC correspondent.
In England, yet another group had been recruited, by
Banks to begin with, but then, when money ran short, by
another set of "headhunters". On February 8, 50 more
mercenaries were on their way to Angola via the Congo.
100
Half were turned back in mid-flight on the insistence of the
British Foreign Office, but the other 24 landed in the
Congo, where, because of the news from Angola, the
Congolese authorities decided that they should be held,
rather than allowed to go on to their destination. They
were detained in a hut but broke out, hired taxis and drove
in style to Angola, where they reported to the new Field
Commander, McAleese, appointed in place of the fugitive
Callan.
On February 14, in the usual circumstances of rumor,
confusion, bravado and chaos, the last mercenary action
was fought out. Charlie, with several other mercenaries,
was killed when his Land Rover was ambushed. Within a
few days, 13 mercenaries including Callan, lying on a
stretcher, were captured by the MPLA. On the morning of
Friday, June 13 the thirteen, in handcuffs, were put on trial
in the Palace of Commerce in Launda. After eight days of
talk, and more talk, of western legal practice against
African, of accusation and excuses, Callan, having
declined to answer any questions, at last got to his feet and
Left Having escaped the massacre of his
colleagues by Callan, Andrew Black, a
young Britishmercenary who had never
fired a rifle in his life, faced the press, and
then Special Branch, on his arrival back at
Heathrow.
Right Gustavo Grillo, an American of
Argentinian origin, gives evidence
during the trial of 13 mercenaries in
Luanda.
Right inset John Banks, whose agency
Security Advisory Services had recruited
many of the British mercenaries, holds
up their payment documents after news
of their execution for refusing to fight had
broken.
in a monologue accepted the consequences of
repetitious
all had happened. He was to blame for everything, he
that
said. Those who saw him realized that by now he was a
mental wreck.
Some days later, on June 28, the sentences were
announced. Several ofthe mercenaries were committed to
prison for between 16 and 30 years. Four, including Callan,
were sentenced to death. On July 10, in a military camp
outside Luanda, the four were executed by firing squad.
Other mercenaries in Africa
There were other mercenary interventions in Africa at that
time. In July 1970 an organization called Watchguard, led
by Colonel David Stirling, the founder of the SAS, was
briefly involved in a plotto raid thejail in Tripoli Libya, and
release the prisoners. They would then attack Colonel
Gaddafi and bring about a coup in favour ofthe relatives of
the deposed King Idris. The operation was banned by the
British Foreign Office and never got off the ground.
In the 1970s, the Frenchman Denard led several small
mercenary groups. InJanuary 1977 he attacked Benin
(previously known as Dahomey), and in 1978 led an attack
in the Comores. In 1981 Hoare led an abortive coup in the
Seychelles (see following Postscript), which like the
mercenary involvement in Angola ended in a trial -this
time of the 45 who failed in their coup and were sent to
preventive exile on Platte Island. Nowhere did the
mercenaries in Africa, usually a motley crew, ill-led, badly
administered, ill-disciplined, braggartand brutal, haveany
significant effect on the outcome of the enterprises in
which they became involved. There was bravery and guts,
true, but also often treachery and inhumanity.
Postscript: the coup that never was
The Seychelles consist of 93 islands in the Indian Ocean,
about 700 miles (1,100 km) east of Mombasa. Formed by
the tips of underwater mountains, covered with lush
101
vegetation and surrounded by white beaches and crystal
clear water under sparkling blue skies, the Seychelles are
often thought to be the nearest thing to paradise on earth.
First colonized by the French, they became a British
possession in the 18th century and remained an unknown
backwater for decades, until a modern airport was built
there in the early 1970s, opening up the islands to tourism.
One of the rich islanders who had become wealthy
before the tourist boom was the father of Jimmy Mancham
a London-trained barrister. At about the same time as the
airport was opened, Mancham the younger became the
Seychelles' first Chief Minister, his party having won 10
out of the 15 seats in the little parliament. He and his
followers were content to stay under British rule, but his
main opponent, France-Albert Rene, also a Middle Temple
barrister, wanted independence for the Seychelles. The
majority of the Seychellois were happy to stay British, but
Britain decided to opt out, and on June 29, 1976 the
Seychelles became an independent republic.
The first coup
Mancham became the President and Rene became the
new Prime because the British had insisted on a
Minister,
coalition government, in the hope that this would assure a
peaceful future for the island. A year later, on June 5 1977,
the flamboyant Mancham, while attending the
Commonwealth Conference in London, was woken from
his bed to be told he had been ousted by Rene. Though
easy-going, the Seychellois had had enough of
Mancham's extravagant style of living, especially as he
102
had sold off several outlying islands to Arab businessmen
and members of the Shah of Iran's family. Rene recovered
the islands without compensation, introduced social
security, improved education and established health
clinics, all of which pleased the Seychellois- but he also
imposed a one-party state and created an army.
Five days after the coup, Rene accused Mancham of
recruiting mercenaries for a counter-coup (an allegation
that Mancham denied vigorously), but less than a year
later, in May 1978, Mike Hoare of Congo notoriety was
planning to take over the island on behalf of right-wing
exiled politicians and, indirectly, of Mancham. In
November 1979 President Rene announced thatthere had
been a plot to overthrow him which had been nipped in the
bud. More than 80 Seychellois were imprisoned and then
deported - and Rene relied more than ever on the
protection of his Tanzanian-led and -trained army of 600
men. The foiled plot was probably French-inspired and
nothing to do with Hoare, but in due course Hoare made
contact with the exiles through a man called Paul Singh. He
had once run a bookshop in the Seychelles and was a
leading light in a resistance movement that had been
formed to get rid of Rene.
Mancham, living in Putney, a fashionable suburb of
London, kept his distance from the resistance organizers,
though his name was vital to the success of any
counter-plot against Rene. By July 1980 Hoare was
authorized to draw up a plan for a mercenary force to
overthrow Rene's regime, with the connivance of the
Kenyan government, which did not want an
Left A grim-faced Mike Hoare
photographed in the Congo in his heyday
as a mercenary commander.
Right A family gathering. Mike Hoare and
members of his family gather round to
celebrate his release from a South
African jail after he had served time for
his part in the abortive coup in the
Seychelles and the subsequent hijack of
an aircraft. He made the model boat while
inside.
administration with Marxist leanings off its shores. Hoare
was to lead a coup while Kenya kept troops and police
standing by in case there was serious internal resistance
or even a direct intervention by the Tanzanians or the
Russians, who had 100 or so people there at the embassy.
The Kenyans were not, however, prepared to act as a base
from which to launch the coup.
In June 1981 Hoare wenttotheSeychellesasa touristto
do a reconnaissance, timing his visit to coincide with the
Independence Day celebrations so that he could see the
army on parade and its weapons. Returning to South
Africa, he was told that the South African intelligence
service was not interested in backing the coup, but that
military intelligence might be. He went to London, met
Mancham in September, returned to the Seychelles again,
and the end of the month was summoned to meet two
at
brigadiers of the South African Army in Pretoria. To them
he outlined his plans.
Counter-plot
With about $500,000 dollars, put up by the exiles, to pay for
expenses (including paying the mercenaries), and with
weapons supplied by South Africa, his 75 men would enter
the country as tourists while their weapons were brought
in by sea in the hold of a motorized yacht. While Rene was
out of the country the force would take it over, though all
evidence would point to an internal uprising.
On October 6 at his suburban house near Durban, Hoare
took delivery of 60 new Romanian AK-47 assault rifles, 1
used Hungarian ones, 28,000 rounds of ammunition, 10
RPG rocket launchers with 102 rockets, 40 Chinese hand
grenades and 15 two-way radios. As for men, Hoare
recruited mainly from three groups: old hands from the
Congo days who were personally known to him, men who
had served with the South African Recce Commandos
(their equivalent to the British SAS, many of whom were
ex-SASorex-Rhodesian SAS) and civilians living in South
Africa who were ex-Rhodesian SAS, ex-Rhodesia n Selous
Scouts, ex-Rhodesian Light Infantry or ex-Rhodesian
Police. There were others too, including British ex-paras
and Americans. It was a motley collection and very varied
in age.
The plans werefar advanced, when the South Africans
vetoed the idea of using a yacht from a South African port.
Hoare had to think of another way, and sent his
brother-in-law, and his wife, to the capital, Mahe, charged
with reconnoitering the place and with smuggling in a
weapon. It worked.
The new cover plan was that the mercenaries would
the island posing as three teams of football
trickle into
players called "Ye Ancient Order of Frothblowers" on a
beer-drinking package holiday. On November 21 the first
three men flew into Mahe carrying cricket bags in which
were hidden weapons. As before, there was no problem
with the customs officials, who waved the visitors past
without looking at their luggage. On November 23 Hoare
briefed the remainder of the force. At zero hour - noon, in
the heat of the appointed day - they would take over the
key points on the island: the airport, the radio station, the
main army barracks, the houses where the Tanzanian
103
104
soldiers were billeted, and the State House, where they
hoped to seize the entire Cabinet. When it was all
"President" Mancham would arrive from Kenya, his
supporters would form a new government and the
mercenaries would revert to being tourists, flying out to
South Africa afterthe airport had been reopened to normal
There, they would receive a minimum of £5,000for
traffic.
much more if they were in charge of any of
their trouble, or
the teams responsible for carrying out the various stages
of the plan.
Failure
On November 25, 40 men flew in from Swaziland, carrying
Hoare got off the plane and was met by
their cricket bags.
his brother-in-law. In good spirits, the Frothblowers
started to load their bags onto a minibus. But then
disaster. One of the party, Kevin Beck, a South African,
inexplicably went to the red channel instead of the green
"nothing to declare" channel, where the customs official
found the weapon and took him to the guard room. There,
the woman police constable thought it was a spear gun
and started to give him a receipt for it - but when her
sergeant, already suspicious, asked what it was. Beck
replied (incredibly): "I don't know what it is, but there are
44 more of them in the bags outside". The sergeant came
running out, calling for the minibus to be stopped, and was
almost instantly shot by Puren, of Congo notoriety, one of
the old hands Hoare had recruited. As the situation
collapsed into chaos, one of the mercenaries was shot
dead by another.
The mercenaries herded the locals into the bar and
disconnected the telephones, but one customs official
managed to slip away, stopped a passing car and rushed to
the police station to inform them of what had happened.
Hoare meanwhilesentfourmen off in a hired carto "take"
the nearby barracks, and put the rest into commandeered
minibuses to follow them. At the barracks they began a fire
fight with the occupants, who were in a state of total
disarray.
But not for long. The soldiers organized themselves
quickly, and in a matter of minutes the mercenaries came
under heavy fire and fled, scattering into the hills or back to
the airport. Soon a Soviet-made armored personnel carrier
arrived, came under heavy fire, but remained unscathed
the AK-47 bullets bouncing off its armor plating. Without
the South African yacht, Hoare's men had been unable to
bring in the antitank launchers and the rockets. The APC
then tried to burst through a roadblock the mercenaries
had hurriedly set up, but became stuck in a ditch. The
mercenaries surrounded it and threatened to pour petrol
down the gun barrel and set it alight. When the
commander of the APC refused to surrender, his crew shot
LeftMercenary recruits, some of them shielding their faces from
waiting cameramen, head towards Heathrow at the start of their
abortive trip to Angola.
him dead and gave themselves up. The mercenaries then
done, divided into two groups.
Capture and trial
At 10.45 pm that evening, an Air India
Boeing with 65
passengers en route to Bombay touched down in the
Seychelles. About two hours later ittook off again, having
refuelled, but this time carrying the larger group of 45
mercenaries and one dead one. At 4.57 am it landed at
Durban airport, where, more than six hours later, the
mercenaries, now in handcuffs, were taken off to the local
The Seychelles coup was over. On December 2 the
jail.
mercenaries were allowed out on bail.
A couple of days later, in Mahe, the seven mercenaries
who had been on the island but who had melted away
came when the firing started were captured by the Seychellois.
On March 10, 1982 the mercenaries in South Africa were
put on trial. At the end of July the findings of the court were
announced. Hoare and six others were found guilty of
endangering good order at Durban airport; all werefound
not guilty of bringing weapons onto the plane without
permission; but seven, including Hoare, werefound guilty
of seizing and controlling the plane. Hoare, 63 years old at
the time, was given a 20-year sentence, half-suspended
because of his age. The remainder received between one
and five years.
Back on Mahe the trial of the seven -one of them the
gray-haired wife of Hoare's brother-in-law- began on
June 16. It lasted just three weeks, the court sitting for only
13 actual days of hearing. The "elderly mercenary lady"
was immediately released. Her husband evaded the risk of
a death-sentence by pleading guilty to having illegally
imported arms into the country. Four of the others were
defended by Nicholas Fairbairn, a member of the British
parliament and one-time Solicitor-General for Scotland,
who shrewdly entered a plea of guilty on behalf of his
clients. Deprived of a showtrial, the judge would hardly be
able to pronounce sentence of death for treason on people
whose misdeeds would never be revealed. However, the
fifth man, Dolinchek, declined to be represented by a
lawyer, pleaded rtot guilty and was tried. Thus, all the
evidence that Fairbairn sought to hide by gambling on a
plea of guilty came out in open court.
On July 6 the Chief Justice sentenced the first four to
death, including the elderly Puren. Dolinchek was given 20
years. But the death sentences were commuted, and in
October of that year all six were sent into imprisoned
"exile" on one of the Seychelles islands, Platte, where they
were guarded by the sharks which swam off shore, and
locked in a hut every night by their jailers.
So ended an incident which typified mercenary
intervention in Africa between the 1950s and the 1980s:
beguiled by promises of big pay checks, the prospect of
adventure and the opportunity to use military skills
acquired in many places, men of different backgrounds
came togetherto bring about a violent end to a regime. As
before, not properly coordinated or trained and without
the backing of formal law needed to bring cohesion to any
military undertaking, they bungled itand paidthe penalty.
105
The war of Unilateral
Independence
It was perhaps the counterterrorist war in Zimbabwe
(formerly Rhodesia) between 1965 and 1980 that offered
the mercenary soldier the most interesting opportunity to
practice his skills in modern warfare.
Rhodesia, as it was then, is situated in central southern
Africa between the Limpopo and Zambezi rivers. Bordered
by Zambia to the north and northwest, by Mozambique to
the east and northeast, by South Africa to the south, and by
Botswana to the southwest, the country covers over
150,650 square miles (390,000 km 2 of land, mostly on the
) black political groups who were committed to a rapid
great plateau that is a major geographical feature of
southern Africa.
The first permanent white settlement was established in
Rhodesia in 1 859, but it was not until the discovery of gold
in Mashonoland in 1867 that there was a positive interest
in the area. In 1890 the British South Africa Company was
formed by Royal Charter, its aim being to promote trade
and commerce and to "civilize" the country. At first a local
truce prevailed between the early white pioneers and the
local Ndebele tribe, but this was broken by a punitive
Ndebele raid on a Shona settlement in the Fort Victoria
area in 1893. This led to the Matabele War, in which the
Ndebeles were defeated by the BSA Company's forces,
who subsequently occupied Matabeleland in 1896.
Fighting again broke out between the two tribes the
Ndebele and the Shona, in 1896, and although peace was
finally restored in 1897 the fundamental differences
between the tribes remained, leading to a continuing
uneasy situation.
Events leading to UDI
The first period of the Company's rule of the area officially
ended in 1915, but was extended for a further ten years.
Then, in 1923, Rhodesia became formally annexed from
the Crown to become a self-governing nation within the
BritishEmpire, but with its own Parliament. In 1953
Southern Rhodesia, Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland
formed the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and in
1963, after negotiations with the British government,
Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland were granted full
independence and becameZambia and Malawi, with black
governments. The Rhodesian government wanted
independence but refused to concede black majority rule.
Britain would not grant independence on these terms, and
in 1965 Rhodesia made a unilateral declaration of
106
independence (UDI), and broke legal ties with Britain.
Rhodesia under pressure
The British tookthis "initiative" badly, and before long the
Rhodesians found themselves fighting a political battle
with the United Nations Organization and the African
National Congress as well as the British. Under increasing
pressure from economic sanctions introduced by the
United Nations, the Rhodesians also faced attacks from
transfer of power to the black majority. With strong
opposition from the more militant groups, notably ZIPRA
and ZANLA, the Rhodesians found themselves alone and
fighting what they branded a "terrorist war".
In 1973 the border with Zambia was closed, pending
assurances that anti-Rhodesian guerrillas would not be
allowed to operate from Zambian territory. Then, in 1976,
the border with Mozambique was also closed because
terrorists were using that country as a base for operations.
Following a warning by the Rhodesian government that it
would conduct "hot pursuit" operations if attacks across
the border continued, Rhodesia mounted its first major
cross-border operation: in August 1976, Rhodesian
Security Forces attacked a guerrilla base inside
Mozambique, killing 300 guerrillas. Prior to the raid, four
Umtali Territorial soldiers had been killed in a mortar
attack launched from the Mozambique side of the border
and the Rhodesian attack was essentially a retaliatory
action for this assault. (It is also worth noting that during
the attack into Mozambique about 30 Mozambican troops
and 10 civilians were also killed by Rhodesian Security
Forces, who, incidentally, suffered no casualties
themselves.) The war started to escalate.
Right A temporary defensive position is set up on the banks of
the Nuanetzi River, near the border with Mozambique, to watch
for possible enemy incursions.
Inset White troops search an abandoned village hut in their hunt
for evidence of terrorist occupation during a routine sweep.
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 Guerrilla attacks increased, especially in the outlying
rural areas. The primary targets were the black inhabitants
of the Tribal Trust Lands (TTLs) and the white farmers who
lived in remote areas, of whom the Africans living in the
TTLs were the more vulnerable. Over three-fifths of
Rhodesia's six million blacks resided there and, because of
the difficulties in policing these areas, they were the
people most at risk to intimidation, attack and, in some
cases, to forced conscription into guerrilla forces. The
white farmers in remote areas were also at risk, especially
from road-mining and vehicle ambushes. The Rhodesians
reacted to these attacks in a number of ways, employing
many of the lessons learnt in other counterinsurgency
operations, such as in Malaya.
Rhodesia was divided into six main military operational
areas: "Hurricane" on the northeast border, "Tangent" in
Matabeleland, "Repulse" on the southeast border,
"Splinter" in the Kariba area, "Grapple" in the midlands,
and "Thrasher" on the eastern border. Each operational
area was under the command of a Joint Operational
Command, known as a JOC (pronounced "jock") and a
number of sub-JOCs. JOCs consisted of a combined
headquarters which represented the various security
forces involved, including the British South Africa Police
(BSAP), the Army and the Air Force, as well as elements
such as Internal Affairs (known as IntAff), Psychological
Operations (PsyOps) and various other special-to-territory
groups. A number of these forces used foreign nationals
108
who were, in effect, mercenaries.
In most cases the operational areas largely comprised
TTLs, which came under the control of the police. The
police in Rhodesia had been formed prior to the arrival of
the first Pioneer Column in 1890 and were Rhodesia's
senior force. In the early days and up until the early 1960s,
the BSAP had been responsible for the various provinces,
which it had patrolled extensively, usually on horseback.
It was a good life for a white patrol officer (PO) and an
African constable, riding acrossthe rural areas and visiting
small tribal communities; they would cover several miles
in the morning before resting up for a siesta, and perhaps
doing a bit of fishing, before mounting up and continuing
the patrol. Many of the senior BSAP officers serving in the
force after UDI had settled in Rhodesia after leaving the
British Army atthe end of World WarII. They had spent
their earlydays patrolling these areas and consequently
knew them and the tribes living there intimately, a factor
that was to have much bearing on the way the war was
fought.
Over the years, the BSAP developed into a highly
sophisticated organization, and not only maintained
civilian lawand order but also became heavily involved in
counterguerrilla warfare. Two branches of the BSAP in
particular, the Police Anti-Terrorist Unit (PATU) and the
Support Unit, were formed with the primary aim of
countering guerrillas operating within the borders of
Rhodesia.
Left Rhodesian troops operating in the
bush. Against an enemy adept at living
and operating in this environment, the
conventionally trained white soldier had
to learn new skills and tactics to regain
the initiative.
Top Rhodesian recruits with
right Black
their white officerstand at ease during
their passing-out parade at Inkomo
Barracks after a period of intense basic
training.
Right As in other similar wars,
helicopters like this Alouette III proved
their worth in the rapid insertion of
troops, evacuation of casualties
(casevac) and reconnaissance.
Following pages A jubilant group of
Rhodesian Auxiliaries celebrate the
completion of their 12 weeks of basic
training before returning home to protect
theirown villages and land.
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Volunteers for Additional Training
After agroup of guerrillas had infiltrated the Sinoia area
and intimidated the local population, a police
Superintendent by the name of Bill Bailey formed what
became known as the "Sinoia Commandos", or VATs
(Volunteers for Additional Training). As small units, they
were made up of regular and reserve police officers who
received additional training, and were formed into small,
self-contained teams that were capable of reacting quickly
to guerrilla attacks and of operating independently for long
periods in the bush. Bill Bailey got his inspiration from his
wartime service with the British Eighth Army's Long Range
Desert Group (LRDG) in the western desert of Libya. He
had experience of behind-the-lines operations in which
small parties of highly-trained soldiers carried out
reconnaissance missions and attacked enemy lines of
Inspector who had served with the British SAS, starting to
select the men who were to form the patrols. Initially the
entire police force underwent a four-day selection course
designed to find those men suitable for counterterrorist
operations. Bailey and Seekings were looking for a
particular type of man with self-discipline and respect for
other people, who had a responsible attitude to life, and
who was both physically and mentally tough. To quote
Seekings: "He has to be physically strong so that he can
cover long distances under difficult conditions in the bush,
carrying supplies for eight days on his back". Those who
passed the initial selection went on to an advanced
selection screening which lasted eight days. It was only
after this that the final teams were accepted for training.
PATU "sticks" were made up of four men, each trained
in bushcraft, tracking, land navigation, first aid,

communication. Although theterrain and the enemy were close-quarter combat and advanced weapons handling.
different, the principles were the same: there was a need The men benefited from SAS and LRDG experience, with
for small self-contained forces capable of rapid movement obvious results. Tracking was an essential skill and many
without detection. white policemen became as skilled as rural Africans.
Although their original role was reconnaissance and
PATU intelligence, especially in the border areas, they became
After VAT unitshad successfully pursued small terrorist more involved in combat operations as the guerrilla war
groups in the Senoia area, Bill Bailey was authorized to escalated, carrying out search-and-destroy missions and
train such units on a national scale. In August 1966 PATU becoming fighters as well as trackers. PATU sticks
came into being, with Bailey and Reg Seekings, a BSAP operated throughout Rhodesia with considerable success,

112
and before long, other sticks had been formed - not only
from regular policemen but also from reservists. As the
war went on, conscripted policemen were also used.
Black Boots
The Support Unit was another BSAP formation that was
deployed in the bush for long periods of time. Armed and
equipped on the same scale as infantry units, with light
machine-guns as well as FN rifles, each troop had its own
transport. Known as Black Boots because of their
distinctive footwear, the Support Unit's patrols would
spend six weeks in the bush followed by ten days in their
depot, before going back into the bush for another patrol.
During operations the Black Boots received no outside
support and were even responsible for their own rations,
usually buying food from local villagers.
The majority of the Support Unit's men were African,
who outnumbered Europeans by around nine to one. The
average age was early twenties - lower than that of PATU -
but like PATU all the men were volunteers who had been
specially selected and had passed through an intensive
training course. As with most Rhodesian units, whether
police or military, Support Unit had ex-British Army
instructors, who insisted on high standards. The Black
Boots were involved in a numberof successful encounters
and were a valuable asset to the Rhodesian
Left Rhodesia's rail links with South
Africa became vital for the supply of
desperately needed commodities such
as fuel. Severing the links and
ambushing the trains was equally vital to
the guerrillas.
Rig ht An injured Selous Scout resting in a
makeshift camp near the Zambian
border.
Security Forces.
The leadership of Peter Walls
Rhodesia's Army was the largest employer of foreign
nationals within the Rhodesian Security Forces. Many of
its senior officers, like the Army Commander,
Lieutenant-General Peter Walls, had previously served
with the British Army. Walls, although born and raised in
Rhodesia, had been commissioned into the Black Watch
World War II, but when the
shortly after the end of
Rhodesian Army was raised in 1948, he joined with the
rank of corporal. Walls was commissioned shortly
afterwards and posted to the Rhodesian African Rifles.
During the Malayan crisis he was responsible for the
formation of the Rhodesian element of the Malayan
Scouts, taking over the command of this unit, which
became "C" Squadron of the Special Air Service, shortly
after its arrival in Malaya.
As well as being responsible for the Rhodesian Special
Air Service, Walls also reorganized the 1st Battalion
Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) into the commando system
that proved to be most successful. In 1 972, at the age of 46,
he became General Officer Commanding the Rhodesian
Army. His gifts of leadership and the ability to foresee
future trends in the guerrilla war had far-reaching effects
on the success of the Rhodesian Army, which was made up
113
from regulars, conscripts and overseas volunteers. In the
strong cadre of regulars, many had served with the British
Army - both before and after UDI. In addition, there were
conscripts serving their national service, and reservists
serving their annual call-up. All able-bodied Rhodesian
males were liable for national service in either the army, air
force or police. National service lasted for at least 18
months, but this was extended by the government when
the situation demanded.
Apart from Rhodesian citizens, there were a large
number of foreign volunteers in the Rhodesian Security
Forces. Although the government did not actively recruit
abroad, volunteers who made their own way to Rhodesia
were, if considered suitable, allowed to join the Armed
Forces. Many had previous military experience and, apart
from the large number of Britons, there were South
Africans, Americans and Western Europeans. These men
joined the Forces as volunteers with a minimum two-year
term of service and were treated in exactly the same way
as Rhodesian volunteers. As with most armies, most men
joined because they enjoyed the life, the comradeship and
the excitement, ratherthan because of the money- which
was little more than that paid by the British Army and a lot

less than the Americans paid.

Training
All new previous military
recruits, regardless of
experience other armies, had to undergo basic military
in
training. The majority were young Rhodesians who,
having just left school, had been conscripted to do their
national service. A few were slightly older, with some
experience of civilian life, and some were what a number
of independent African states referred to as "the foreign
white soldiers who kept the settlers' war effort alive".
The first phase of basic military training lasted eight
weeks and took place at The Depot, Rhodesia Regiment, at
Llewellyn Barracks, Bulawayo. Recruits were instructed in
basic weapon training, drill and fieldcraft, with emphasis
on building up the recruits' physical fitness through Above Well motivated, and often well equipped and well
physical training, route marches, runs, and circuits of the trained, the guerrillas who
fought against the white regime in

assault course. At the end of this period a number of Rhodesia were often formidable opponents.
recruits would be chosen to go before the officers'
Above right Utilizing the experience of many disaffected
selection board-and if successful, would go on forfurther
Rhodesians, the South African Defence Force recruited them to
training as potential officers - while others would be
help in bush-war operations against South West African
chosen to train with the RLI or the SAS. The remainder People's Organization (SWAPO) and the African National
stayed at the depot for a further six to eight weeks, during Congress (ANC).
which they underwent advanced training, including
signalling. Some then went on to the Leader Training Wing Right Under the supervision of British troops, ZANLA guerrillas
fill out documents as part of their integration
into the new army
for individual NCO training or were chosen for one of the
of independent Zimbabwe.
specialist or supporting arms of the Rhodesian Army.
The phase of training for what was left of the
third
Following pages A Rhodesian patrol trekking along the river
original cadre consisted ofadvanced fieldcraft and tactics. bank in the northern part of the country.
Both conventional and counterinsurgency warfare were
taught by experienced instructors who had served in
combat units, usually with the RLI or SAS, and recruits
spent most of the final phase in the bush practicing their
new-found and exceptional skills. The training they
received was among the most thorough of any army in the
world, and by the time they were posted to their

114
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independent companies in operational areas they were
potentially deadly combat soldiers.
Infantry and air force
The Rhodesian Light Infantry saw much of the fighting
during the counterinsurgency operations between 1965
and 1980. Formed in 1961, the 1st Battalion RLI was
reorganized along commando lines in 1964, and from then
on was involved in all major antiterrorist campaigns, soon
building up a reputation as a fighting force second to none.
The Battalion was divided into three company-sized
Commandos and a Support Group. While the latter
formation was responsible for the Commandos' support,
providing mortar, reconnaissance and tracking elements,
it often operated as a Commando on its own account and
carried out independent patrols and counterinsurgency
operations. It had elements, known as Fire Force, on
24-hour standby, ready to back up the Commandos. Fire
Force could deploy immediately to take out any suspected
guerrilla presence or to support Security Force contacts.
Many members were para-trained and could jump into
action from the air force's aging DC-3 Dakotas while other,
smaller, elements, such as medical teams or engineers,
could be deployed by Alouette helicopters.
The Rhodesian Air Force played a vital role in supporting
the Army throughout the insurgency, especially the pilots
118
of Number 3 Squadron's "Daks" and Numbers 7 and 8
Squadrons' Sud-Aviation Alouette Mark Ills. (There werea
number of foreign nationals serving with these and other
airsquadrons, including pilots who hadflown in Vietnam.)
Forexample, withinthree minutesof an alert the entire Fire
Force could be airborne and on their way to the contact
area. Able to deploy virtually at will, the force could
immediately take the tactical advantage, and once on the
ground and receiving up-to-date information from the air
could converge on the enemy - a concept which worked
most effectively and contributed to the number of
terrorists killed during the later stages of the war.
The helicopter, a vital asset to an army in modern
warfare, especially counterinsurgency operations, was
in
able to operate without having to depend on airfields. It
was also vital for delivering or extracting troops and for
speedily evacuating casualties (casevac) to hospitals in the
cities, thus avoiding lengthy ambulance rides. Helicopters
were fitted with door-mounted 1 2.7-mm or 20-mm
machine-guns to provide direct fire support for ground
troops. Known in the Rhodesian Forces as "K-Cars", these
Alouette helicopters were used to great effect, while
towards the end of the war the Rhodesians acquired eight
VH-1 Hueysfrom Israel (despite economicsanctions). With
their larger troop-carrying capacity, they greatly increased
Rhodesian ability to conduct heliborne operations, and
Above In the low-key operations
conducted in southern Africa, the horse
has repeatedly shown itself to be an
invaluable form of transport.

LeftWhite Rhodesian troops fording a

river.With sanctions against Rhodesia
being half-hearted, and often
circumvented, the Rhodesians managed
to obtain enough modern weapons and
ammunition to sustain a long and bitter
war.

Right Roads and dirt tracks have always

proved an attractive, low-risk target for
terrorist attacts. Consequently Rhodesia
developed a number of specialist
vehicles to give protection against
mines.
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 were used extensively in cross-border operations.

The Rhodesian SAS

Another unit that was supported by the Rhodesian Air
Force was "C" Squadron, which was redesignated
the
Rhodesian Special Air Service Regiment after UDI -
although it continued to be referred to as C Squadron
by a
number of people associated with it. The Rhodesian SAS,
together with squadronsfrom Australia and New Zealand,
had undertaken counterinsurgency operations with the
British against CTs (communist terrorists)
during the
Malayan Emergency in the 1950s. After Malaya the
Rhodesian government formed a parachute-evaluation
detachment (PED) at New Sarum near Salisbury, the
capital (today, Harare).
In 1960a numberof men underwent
parachute training,
completed their eight qualifying jumps and were awarded
It was then decided to raise
their wings. a regular
Rhodesian SAS Squadron, and in 1961 a small party of
senior NCOs and officers attended the British SAS
selection course.Those who passed returned to Bulawayo
and conducted a similar selection course for volunteers
from the then Federal Army. Six men were also sent on the
BritishParachute Jumping Instructors course at RAF
Abingdon in Oxfordshire, England. On their return
the
now-qualified instructors began to train the others in the
newly-formed No. 1 Training Unit. Within two years of the
original concept, nine courses had qualified and the
Rhodesian SAS were all para-trained.
In early 1963 the Squadron joined the British SAS for
exercises in Aden. This was its first major exercise, and it

learned much. When the Federation of Rhodesia and

Nyasaland was dissolved later that year, the unit moved
from Ndola in Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) south to
Salisbury. Based at Cranborne Barracks, it took the
Above The Police Anti Terrorist Unit (PATU), with their Squadron some time to get up to strength following the
distinctive leopard's paw shoulder flash were declaration of UDI, one of the reasons being the high
primarily tasked
with intelligence gathering and reconnaissance standard of selection and training. In 1964 the Rhodesian
but took on a
more aggressive role as the Rhodesian war expanded. SAS became an integral part of the Rhodesian Army, with
a total strength of 31 officers and men. Over the years
Top left Ever alert for danger as it
moves forward, a patrol the
approaches a native kraal, the suspected location for a nationalist Squadron expanded, by 1978 becoming the 1st
base. (Rhodesian) Special Air Service Regiment.
The Rhodesian SAS, like its British counterpart, looked
LeftContact on the Nuanetsi River; Rhodesian troops return fire for a particular kind of man with exceptional physical and
during an engagement with rebels. mental stamina, with the mental aspect regarded as the
most important. A man has to have the ability to carry on
regardless of the physical hardships and push his body
when he thinks he can go no further. Mental stamina is a
personal quality, epitomized by the SAS saying: "skills are
acquired but qualities are inborn". Whereas training can
produce a high level of physical fitness, no amount of
training can instil the mental drive to keep going in the sort
of situations an SAS trooper might have to face on
operations. Initiative and strength of character are two
other essential qualities; the trooper will often have to rely
on his own judgement as well as being capable of
operating as part of a team.
Training lasted a total of three years, for once he was
badged the newly-qualified SAS trooper had to go on a

121
Above Rhodesian government troops. As was often the case in
colonial wars, local troops found themselves fighting their own
people and were probably sympathetic to their views.

Left A Selous Scout on a long-range patrol discovers a small trap

laid by nationalist guerrillas to capture fresh food.

Right With farms and villages spread thinly over the

countryside, constant patrolling was carried out to offer some
degree of protection and to harass insurgents.
number of specialist courses, each lasting five weeks.
Preventive medicine and minor surgery were taught, as
was advanced signalling (including morse and cypher),
free-fallparachuting (HALO), and demolition techniques.
Tracking and bushcraft were also taught, and each trooper
had to attend thethree-month diving and languagecourse.
(The ability to communicate fluently in at least one of the
local dialects was an operational requirement.) By the end
of his three years the SAS trooper was able to cope with
anything the enemy or the environment in which he
operated could throw at him.
Having mastered a wide range of skills, the men in the
Regiment became the most effective and diversely trained
men in the Rhodesian Security Forces. Their primary role
was strategic rather than tactical. Capable of operating
independently for extended periods, these patrols were
ideally suited for cross-border operations, or "externals"
as they were known. Self-supporting and living off the
land, these small four-man groups would relay
information on enemy movements in Mozambique and
Zambia, and carry out strategic raids on vulnerable points
behind enemy lines.
On one such raid, groups were tasked with the
assassination of the Zl PR A leader Joshua Nkomo. A small
strike force infiltrated across the river which marked the
border between Rhodesia and Zambia. Complete with
Landrovers painted in Zambian colours, and wearing
appropriate disguises, the troop made its way deep into
Zambia and carried out a target attack on the building in
which the guerrilla leader was supposed to be staying.
Unfortunately for the SAS, but fortunately for Mr Nkomo,
the head of ZIPRA happened to be out at the time of the
attack. Everyone who was not, died in the subsequent
assault - including a large number of guerrillas who were
spending the night camped in the grounds outside the
headquarters building.
The Rhodesian SAS played an invaluable role in the
counterinsurgency war against the combined Patriotic
Front forces of Nkomo and Mugabe. There were a number
of former British soldiers who fought with the Rhodesian
SAS between 1965 and 1980, including some who had
served with 22nd SAS, the British regular regiment. (These
men were not automatically allowed in, and indeed some
failed the lengthy Rhodesian selection process.)
The Selous Scouts
Another unit in which foreigners served was the Selous
Scouts, a multiracial unit formed in 1973 with the aim of
conducting a clandestine war against ZANLA and ZIPRA,
both inside and, later on, outside Rhodesia. The Selous
Scouts operated as pseudoterrorist groups, collecting
intelligence on the enemy and then, at the right moment,
destroying him. This was not a new idea, it having been
used with some success by Special Branch against
Communist guerrillas in the Malayan crisis and later in
Kenya against Jomo Kenyatta's Mau Mau. As the war in
Rhodesia escalated, General Walls decided to form such a
force and chose for its commander the somewhat
123
 .•*'?, ^ifln

Left An African tracker with a patrol of

Rhodesian Light Infantry checks the
ground for evidence of terrorist
movement.

Right A patrolling mercenary in the

BritishSouth African Police Support
Unit, watches from the edge of the bush,
armed with a sterling sub-machine gun.

Below Five nationalist guerrillas posing

with their assault rifles. The differences
in their dress perhaps reflect the
differences between the various
nationalist movements.

124
unorthodox Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid Daly.
Reid Daly, who had served with Walls during the
Malayan campaign and was later regimental
sergeant-major when Walls commanded the Rhodesian
Light Infantry, was the driving force behind the Selous
Scouts. Learning from the experiences of BSAP Special
Branch, who had operated a small number of
"pseudo-teams" on a limited basis, Reid Daly recruited his
officers and NCOsfrom the Army, mostly from the RLI and
the SAS. Captain Jeremy Strong, one of the first to be
recruited, was a former British Army officer who had
resigned and returned to Rhodesia after UDI. Most of the
others were either soldiers from the Rhodesian African
Rifles (RAR), or "tame terrs", as ex-guerrillas recruited by
the Security Forces were called. These ex-members of
ZANLA and ZIPRA, together with the RAR and white
Rhodesian soldiers, formed one of the most successful
counterinsurgency units in the Rhodesian Army.
It is interesting to note that Reid Daly had never before
commanded African troops, and that many of the whites
came from all-white units such as the RLI or the SAS.
Nevertheless this multiracial, multinational unit was
responsible, either directly or indirectly, for over 60 per
cent of all enemy killed within Rhodesia during the war,
and won a total of 85 awards for bravery. They lost less
than 40 of their own men.
The Selous Scouts had the toughest selection and
training of any unit in the Rhodesian Security Forces,
including the SAS. Operating in small groups, the men,
mostly Africans, dressed in nondescript clothing such as
thatworn by ZANLA and ZIPRA and carried Soviet-made
weapons. The Selous Scouts were undoubtedly the most
feared and perhaps effective unit in southern Africa.
Special Branch and its auxiliaries
The BSAP Special Branch also played a vital role in all
aspects of the Security Forces counterinsurgency
operations. Like the British SB in similar campaigns
against Communist-backed insurgents in Malaya, and
other nationalist guerrilla forces in countries such as
Palestine, Cyprus, Aden and Kenya, the Rhodesian SB
worked behind the scenes. Many Special Branch officers
had served in Commonwealth police forces before UDI
and had a wealth of experience in counterinsurgency
warfare. Unsuspected by the public, and indeed by many
members of the armed forces, SB was involved in setting
up special forces units as well as in collecting, collating and
disseminating intelligence. (One of the units they set up
wasthe original pseudo-group on which the Selous Scouts
was based.)
Another, much larger unit formed by Special Branch,
one with which they were to become increasingly involved
towards the end of the war, was known as the auxiliaries.
Composed almost entirely of Africans from the TTLs, these
troops were trained by Rhodesian and European
instructors together with NCOs from the Rhodesian
African Rifles (RAR) and BSAP. There were also a number
of ex-ZANLA and ex-ZIPRA guerrillas, who having come
125
1 Vi
flKfl

.Aai '1
I «£s
•

v*

;«
\-

:%
across to the Security Forces for one reason or another
were used to help in the training of the Africans from the
TTLs. The "ex-terrs" were, like those in the Selous Scouts,
considered reliable and had been generally well trained
themselves in neighboring Black African countries, often
by Russian, East German or, in some cases, Chinese and
North Korean instructors.
The auxiliary forces were formed with the aim of having
trained men from the TTLs who were capable of local
defense and patrolling their own area, and at the same
time were loyal to the government. During basic training,
which lasted for about 42 weeks, the Auxiliaries received a
certain amount of political indoctrination from Bishop
Muzorewa's nationalist party. (Prior to the end of the war
and before the combined Patriotic Front movement of
Mugabe and Nkomo took over, Muzorewa's party had
been introduced into the government.)
White instructors for these groups came from various
backgrounds, and although all of them came under the
auspices of Special Branch, they were divided into two
main groups. First and foremost were the regular and
reserve members of the BSAP who were attached to SB.
These men, mostly young-to-middle-aged Rhodesians,
were all PATU-trained and had experience in guerrilla
warfare. The second group was composed of foreign
nationals-mercenaries-many of whom had served a tour
with the RLI or Rhodesian SAS, but there were also men
who had served in foreign armies and had been recruited
directly by SB on their arrival in Rhodesia. The majority of
LeftThe man in the middle holds a Soviet
SKS carbine taken from the dead terrorist
lying at his feet, who was killed in an
ambush by security forces.
Right Selous Scouts keeping their
powder dry as they cross a river. The
Scouts rapidly gained a reputation for
being one of the toughest of the
Rhodesian Army's units involved in the
fight against the nationalists.
this lattergroup were British, with a lesser number of
South Africans, Americans and Western Europeans.
Unlike the first group, these "ex-pats", as they were
known, were employed on a contract basis. Contracts were
usually from one to three months long and extendable by
mutual agreement. Pay for private soldiers in the latter
group was around 600 Rhodesian dollars per month,
which was better than that carried by the regular and
reservists with whom they worked ($Rh 600 was roughly
equivalent to a Rhodesian Army major's monthly salary).
Furthermore, contract money could be supplemented: the
Rhodesian government paid $Rh 1,000 for every terrorist
killed or captured, and lesser amounts for weapons and
ammunition recovered - a bounty which was also paid to
members of the Security Forces.
civilians but not to
Ex-pats usually worked in the operational areas with
small groups of better-trained auxiliaries, usually in
four-or-five-man teams. Often dressed like guerrillas, they
would move through an area in the hope of getting
information on real guerrilla groups; having located the
enemy they would then liaise with Security Force units to
arrange an attack. The risks were higher for these men than
most. Their support was less than that received by other
units,and consequently their chances of surviving an
extended engagement with a larger force were indeed
very limited.
The end of the war
Partly because of external political pressures (especially
127
White Rhodesian troops move along
the Nuantetzi River in southeast
Rhodesia.

128

4
 by Britain), and the effects of the economic sanctions
imposed by the United Nations, the war in Rhodesia ended
in 1980 with the creation of Zimbabwe and
a handover of
power to black majority rule. Even before this, a number of
social changes had been made by the white government
and it was claimed that the standard of living for
Rhodesian blacks had for years been higher than those in
any other part of Africa.
Although there were fewer Africans in the Rhodesian
Security Forces than there were whites, this was mainly
due to the fact that whites were conscripted while Africans
were not. This also goes some way to explain the African
nationalist argument that Rhodesian Security Forces were
composed of large numbers of white "mercenaries".
There were probably around only 1,500 non-Rhodesian
whites in the Security Forces, including British,
Australians, Canadians, Dutch, French, Germans, Greeks
and Scandinavians. Little official recruiting went on
outside the country; recruitment took the form of personal
letters and word-of-mouth invitation. The Rhodesian
Information Office also would advise applicants how to go
about joining the armed forces, and men who made their
own way to Rhodesia to join up had their air fare
reimbursed.
At the end of the war a number of units, especially those
who had seen the most action, were disbanded -including
the RLI and the SAS. The Selous Scouts too were
abolished. Many men from these units then moved south,
a number joining the South African Defence Forces. It is
believed that at least one unit took their entire armory with
them and drove across the border in their vehicles. A
number of helicopters also reappeared in other countries.
(The one-time commander of No. 8 Squadron now
commands the Sultan of Oman's helicopter force, which
includes some ex-Rhodesian Air Force helicopters.)
Special Branch destroyed theirfiles before the changeover
of government and many of their operators left the
country. The Auxiliaries were not so lucky; hundreds may
have been executed being disarmed by guerrillas
after
loyal to the Patriotic Front. In spite of all this,
many whites
stayed on, though not usually those who had played an
active part in the war.
Within three years of the creation of Zimbabwe a
sabotage raid destroyed a large number of the
Zimbabwean Air Force's airplanes on the ground. The
raiders' identities have never been discovered butthe new
government arrested some senior Air Force officers (who,
it is generally believed, had nothing to
do with the
sabotage of their own planes) and tortured them in an
attemptto make them confess. This caused much concern
among those whites who had remained in the armed
forces, as well as amongst white civilians who had stayed
on. The release of officers was eventually secured with the
help of the Brtish government.
Since this incident, the Zimbabwean armed forces have
found themselves lacking technical expertise in a number
of vital fields, and over the past two years have been
advertising in military magazines and newspapers for
military technicians to serve on a contract basis.

129
Subversion in Southeast Asia
The clandestine Studies and Observation Group (SOG)
was deployed for many years in Vietnam but its activities
are one of the most carefully-guarded secrets of that war.
The mystery surrounding this unit has been fostered by
the United States National Security Act, which protects the
release of sensitive information, and by the various
acronyms used by US Army planners. "In" terms were
known to few people and baffled those not in the know.
The term SOG was condensed from Military Assistance
Command Vietnam Studies and Observation Group
(MACVSOG), but to its operators itwas known as the
Special Observation Group, which was a better description
of its function. This was the widely-used name of the
organization and SOG was
acronym. its
SOG was an amalgamation of army, air force and navy
Special Forces, local mercenaries and professional
intelligence officers. It provided a new interface between
them and American intelligence agencies such as the CIA
and the National Security Agency. Traditionally,
professional intelligence services collect intelligence by
many means, but primarily through agents run by case
officers. In wartime, however, their mandate is often
enlarged to include subversion, sabotage and the training
of indigenous resistance groups. In the UK during World
War these functions were split between MI6, who
II
controlled espionage and subversion, and a temporary
organization known as the Special Operations Executive
(SOE), who supervised sabotage and the work of
resistance groups. In the United States these tasks were
carried out by the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) which
- unlike SOE, which withered away - was to pave the way
for the Central Intelligence Agency.
At the end of World War American capability to act in
I!
a subversive and paramilitary capacity was lost, a function
which was sorely missed by many professional officers in
the CIA. Hence the creation of SOG was welcomed by
these officers because it filled this gap. The concept was
not new; it had existed in France during the Algerian war,
>n units or small numbers of paratroopers operating
under the control of professional intelligence officers had
formed the famous Action Service. In Britain, such a
relationship exists today between military and civilian
Intelligence branches and the Special Air Service regiment
of the army.
This new relationship between Special Forces and
130
Intelligence at the beginning of US involvement in the
Vietnam war allowed the CIA to bring some of their most
daring and ambitious intelligence operations into play. In
the past the CIA had relied upon mercenaries and foreign
nationals to organize the military component of their
paramilitary operations. This was far from ideal, as the Bay
of Pigs fiasco in Cuba demonstrated. Now, paramilitary
operations designed by the CIA could be professionally
controlled and executed under their supervision.
SOG's mercenaries
The use of mercenaries became necessary because of the
political situation in Vietnam in the mid-1960s, where the
Geneva Accords and other agreements had prevented
American troops from operating in Laos and Cambodia.
The mercenary components of SOG consisted of local
factions living in the territory which was demarcated
but not ethnically, by the intersection on the
politically,
map of three nations, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia. This
denied and contested area contained Communist supply
routes to the south -the so-called Ho Chi Minh Trail. The
fierce independence of the indigenous population was at
odds with the expansionist policies of North Vietnam, who
had infiltrated into their mountainous territory, and the
Montagnards and their neighbors welcomed the
encouragement to resist and the physical support offered
by SOG.
SOG was created in February 1964 by General Paul B.
Harkins,who had been given command of MACV (Military
Assistance Command Vietnam). SOG's basic task was to
conduct covert missions in the denied areas of Vietnam,
Laos and Cambodia -operations which were to include
guerrilla warfare, subversion, sabotage, the rescue of US
personnel shot down or missing in the jungle, and also
direct-actionanti-Communist missions. These would
and 'gray' psychological warfare,
entail so-called 'black' in
addition to some highly unorthodox operations well
outside the guidance of military textbooks.
The structure of SOG
SOG drew most of its instructors from the US Army and
Right Well-loadedlUS Army personnel move ashore at the start of
a sweep of suspected enemy positions.
:-
the US Marine Corps, but though many were US Army
Special Forces Green Berets and Force Reconnaissance
Marines, there were also US Navy "Seals" and specially
trained Air Force crews. The headquarters staff was drawn
from all four services, and given the designation Joint
Unconventional Warfare Task Force. This also had
Vietnamese soldiers and members of their Special Branch
-which in 1964 was known as the Luc Long Dae Biet (LLDB)
and was later to become the Special Exploitation Service.
There were, of course, some intelligence officers from the
CIA and the National Security Agency there too, and
representatives of the Australian and New Zealand Secret
Intelligence Services. Many of these people operated
under cover- in the case of the Americans usually under
the name of the United States Information Agency. At the
height of its activity, SOG had under its control, including
headquarters staff, between 2,000 and 2,500 Americans,
7,000 to 8,000 Vietnamese and an unknown number of
other nationals. The headquarters was originally in
Cholon, a suburb of Saigon, but later, in 1967, moved to
Pasteur Street in Saigon.
The CIA in Vietnam
The CIA had been in Vietnam at the time of the French
&
r<SL,.
J*t£*±. -
colonial government, which was reimposed after the
Japanese withdrew at the end of World War and during
II
the long and protracted French withdrawal. After the
partition of the country, it stepped up its activity in orderto
support the new, weak and corrupt- but anti-Communist
South Vietnamese administration. When that showed
signs of failing, the American military commitment was
increased, and so was the covert presence of the CIA.
In 1960 President Kennedy authorized the CIA to conduct
an operation in Laos, codenamed White Star. Its aim was
to improve the military capability of Laotian
anti-Communist forces. Under CIA field officers, this
operation failed to have any effect on Pathet Lao and
Vietcong (VC) guerrillas operating in Laos. The job was
then handed over to a US Army colonel, Arthur D.
Simmonds. When Sim monds arrived to take over he found
that he had no Laotian army to train, as these personnel,
such as they were, had been allowed by the CIA to
disperse. In an attemptto redress the situation, hetook 107
Special Forces men into the jungles of Laos and there
forced (sometimes by kidnapping) a large number of Mu
Ong to go into fortified encampments. There, they were
fed, clothed and taught basic infantry skills, and those who
showed promise were given further training in covert
.
I
*&;•*,
•
>
W£
\
RightA US Navy Seal team descends
from a hovering helicopter by rappeling
down ropes, in order to set up an ambush
in the jungle.

Bottomleft A Vietnamese trainee and his

US Navy counterpart hand out
"psychological operations materials" to
from their PBR, part of the
a local village
"hearts-and-minds" battle.

Below Members of a MACV-SOG patrol,

including native troops, move warily
through "Charlie Country" while on a
covert mission into enemy territory to
gather intelligence.

133
134
 operations. It is said that Simmonds created 12 battalions
Two river patrol boats (h'tfHs/ move of such troops. They were so successful that the Pathet Lao
downstream on a Vietnamese river. They retreated across the border into Vietnam or Cambodia and
were vital not only for carrying out the North Vietnamese and Vietcong guerrillas backed off
offensive operations, but also in the from further cross-border operations. Direct American
insertionand recovery of special forces
involvement developed into Project 404 and lasted until
patrols.
1962, when the Geneva Accords closed off that theater of
operations. But, though officially "off limits", the fact that
the situation was quickly capitalized upon by the VC and
their PathetLao allies resulted in there being a secret
presence of South Vietnamese and CIA instructors in Laos
after that date.
In 1961 President Kennedy authorized a
so-called
Combined Studies Group to assist the South Vietnamese
in conducting covert operations in North
Vietnam, Laos
and Cambodia-activities which included the infiltration of
agents into North Vietnam to act as spies and saboteurs -
and cross-border operations against VC and North
Vietnamese Army (NVA) base camps and supply lines in
Laos and Cambodia.

Oplan 34A
In 1964 President Johnson implemented an operation

codenamed Oplan 34A. This directly involved SOG as the

coordinator of a strategic intelligence-gathering operation
in which US personnel would be used as instructors-
and
occasionally as observers - but would not become
involved in direct conflict with the enemy. Oplan 34A was a
the LLDB South Vietnamese Special
tripartite relationship:
Branch were to supply the men, SOG the training sites,
physical assets and instructors, and the CIA would provide
funds and training. As many of these missions involved
long-range reconnaissance patrols to denied areas, the
aim of which were to identify enemy supply lines and
bases, SOG drew on its Loatian experience and recruited
Nongs, Mu Ongs and Montagnards.
These 20th-century mercenaries were people of
indigenous Chinese and Thai extraction, had always had
little sympathy with the Vietnamese generally and
even
less with North Vietnamese Communists. These men were
persuadedtovolunteerfortraining in basicsoldiering and
a whole range of Special Forces and covert operation
techniques, which often involved whole villages moving to
a US
training camp or fire base. Potential soldiers took
theirwives and children and elderly dependents with
them. Well-equipped, well-paid and eager, they provided
their American instructors with that most valuable of
commodities, motivation. They were to make excellent
Special Forces soldiers, as evidenced by the many
successful missions run by SOG.
Although the original SOG mandate did not encompass
direct action by the American personnel running it, this
policy changed as a result of US participation in two
classified cross-border operations into Laos. Authorized
by President Johnson in 1964, and designated Projects
Delta and Shining Brass, these were organized by the 5th
Special Forces Group operating in the tri-border area and
produced so much high-grade intelligence that General
Westmorland, the Commander in Chief in Vietnam, had

135
136
Above A group ofMontagnard tribesmen
receive training with the help of an
American instructor and two
interpreters: one to translate from
English into Vietnamese, the other from
Vietnamese into one of the many
Montagnard dialects.

Left A pilot of a newly-arrived UH-1B

adjusts an Emerson Squad machine-gun.
The gun is operated by remote control by
the co-pilot.

Right A US adviser (with radio)

accompanies Vietnamese Rangers and a
captured Viet Cong suspect after a
successful sweep in the Mekong River
Delta area, in 1962.

137
:*•&
MM
M»
MM
 two other similar projects formed, Sigma and Omega. (The
strategic intelligence-gathering operations in these areas
were concerned with determining long-term VC and NVA
intentions, and should not be confused with tactical
battlefield intelligence-gathering long-range
reconnaissance patrols run by the Rangers as a
preliminary to "seek and destroy" operations.)
When Colonel Donald Blackburn became commander of
the MACVSOG in May 1965, he quickly asserted SOG's
control over all operations in Laos, Cambodia and North
Vietnam, concentrating theiractivities into five operational
classes: Ops 31 (Maritime), Ops 32 (Air Ops), Ops 33
(Psyops - "gray", indirect and "black", direct), Ops 34
(Resistance and Intelligence operations) and Ops 35
(Direct Action and LRRPs).
Prior to Blackburn taking over, operational
demarcations had not been clearly defined, but even so,
earlier SOG activities may have had a totally unexpected
effect on the course of the Vietnam war. For example, on
August 2 1964, North Vietnamese PT boats attacked the
American destroyer USS Maddox in international waters
off the Gulf of Tonkin. A shock-wave ran through the
pro-American communities of Southeast Asia and through
the United States, where the attack was greeted with
almost as much indignation as had accompanied the
Japanese assault on Pearl Harbor. However, it was
certainly not an unprovoked attack. The North Vietnamese
had good grounds for believing that US ships were
directing and protecting South Vietnamese PT boats which
were constantly raiding their shipping and coastal
installations. Quite a part from this, the SOG had launched
Operation Fascination teams into North Vietnam as part of
Oplan 34A's intelligence gathering in the north.
Operation Fascination
One facet of this operation involved intimidating
LeftAboard a UH-1D helicopter, a Ranger
waits his return toDa Lat Airfield after
being picked up at the end of a patrol.
Right Built for parents, wives and
children of the recruits, these
Montagnard camps formed a base for
training and operations against the Viet
Cong, as well as a secure home.
.
fishermen in an attempt to kill off the North Vietnamese
fishing industry. Fishermen were picked up along the coast
by motorized junks and taken to an improvized Special
Forces camp on Phoenix Island, near Da Nang. There they
were well treated, but it was explained to them that as
fishing boats were being used to ship arms to the South, it
might become necessary to sink some boats and in
consequence innocent fishermen might be killed. Would it
not be better for them not to fish too enthusiastically, but to
confine their fishing to their immediate needs?
The fishermen were held for six to eight weeks and
politically indoctrinated. While this activity probably had
little effect on them, the PX goods and food they were
given before they departed is likely to have had a more
profound and long-lasting influence. The operation was
terminated when it was realized that the same faces were
appearing repeatedly at the indoctrination sessions, and
that hordes of North Vietnamese fishermen were pursuing
the SOG junks whenever they appeared along the coast in
the hope of being "captured" - and unwillingly having to
accept the gifts forced on their crews. On the credit side,
subsequent intelligence revealed that there had been
some shortages of fish in the North.
Ops 33
Part of Oplan 34A involved giving captured fishermen
fixed-frequency transistor radiostuned in to SOG's "Voice
of Freedom" propaganda station, which transmitted in the
Vietnamese and Chinese languages. This psychological
warfare "gray" operation later came under the aegis of
Ops 33. Another Ops 33 "black" radio operation had
Fascination teams (Vietnamese deep-penetration agents
operating inside North Vietnam) broadcasting over a
range of frequencies and claiming to be a National
Liberation Front.
Clandestine warfare, electronic and subversive, came of
139
Above AVRN Special Forces are put
ashore from a US Navy patrol boat to set
up positions for a night-time ambush of
Viet Cong guerrillas operating in the
Mekong Delta.

LeftAn Army engineer stands amongst

captured stores in "The City", sited in
Cambodia. Cambodia was drawn
inexorably into the conflict as it provided
a safe haven for the communists, thus
inviting attack by special forces,
conventional forces and from the air.

RightA master sergeant demonstrates

grenade throwing techniques to a
member of the Self Defense Corps in
1962.
141
Above Not only did captured Viet Cong prove a valuable source
of intelligence, but also could be persuaded to change sides.

Left Local inhabitants are given gifts of food and other

necessities. A key element of the war in South East Asia was the
need to win over their hearts and minds away from the
communists to the side of the government and USA.

Above right As well as the human input provided by sources

such as SOG, there was also a need for intelligence from aircraft
capable of operating close to North Vietnam airspace, such as
this Lockheed Constellation EC-121R of the USAF.

RightOne of the most hardworked and versatile aircraft of the

Vietnamese war, the Douglas Skyraider was ideal for the
support of covert operations with its 8,000 lb (3,600kg) payload
and good range.
age in Vietnam under SOG. For example, a US Navy C-121
Constellation carrying radio equipment and trailing a
mile-long antenna flew missions off the coast of Hanoi,
"snowing out" North Vietnamese government
frequencies. False documents were distributed in VC
organizations in South Vietnam; these were "flagged"
documents that would later betray their bearers during
routine searches by the Security Forces.
Operation Eldest Son involved introducing
American-manufactured sabotaged ammunition into
communist stockpiles, usually mortar rounds or grenades
in which instantaneous fuze had been substituted for
delayed action fuze. The outcome was a nasty surprise for
whoever fired the mortar or threw the grenade. Once
Vietcong ammunition stockpiles were identified by LRRPs
or aerial photography, "A" Teams composed of SOG
mercenaries and led by Special Forces instructors inserted
the tainted ammunition. Ops 33 quickly followed this up by
starting rumors amongst the VC to the effect that their
comrades in China were having great difficulty in
maintaining proper quality control of production.
Ops 31
Ops 31 (Maritime) operated from Da Nang under the
euphemism of Naval Advisory Detachment. The American
component of this unit included Force Reconnaissance
Marines and Navy Seals. The Vietnamese component
operated under the title of the South Vietnamese Coastal
Survey Service. Under the designation White Elephant,
mixed Vietnamese and American teams ranged from
north of Hanoi to the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), gathering
intelligence and raiding shipping, coastal installations,
railways and road traffic. Teams were inserted and
extracted by armed PT boats, although the actual beach
landings were often completed by scuba or small boat.
144
Ops 32
Ops 32 had its headquarters in Nha Trang and supplied
transport and intelligence through the six air units
supplied to them. These included unmarked C-123
Blackbirds which had USAF crews as well as Nationalist
Chinese Air Force pilots, who traveled without identifying
documents as part of SOG's mercenary component.
(Nationalist Chinese soldiers, trained in Taiwan, also
fought in Vietnam, often in a guerrilla role, butthesetroops
were not part of the SOG organization.)
Some SOG aircraft were equipped for sophisticated
recovery techniques. Airborne troops were usually
inserted by static line or HALO parachute drops, but
extraction could be more difficult. In the later stages of the
war some patrols carried recovery systems consisting of a
helium-filled balloon which was attached to a recovery
harness by 500 feet (150 m) of line. This enabled a
low-flying plane to capture the inflated balloon with a
trailing hook and then reel in the attached soldier or
captured prisoner. Blackbirds were rigged to deliver
heavy-drop materials and vehicles by parachute. SOG
could also call on A-IE strike aircraft, which were designed
to give maximum support to covert operations. These
could carry more weapons and stay on station longerthan
any other type of fixed-wing plane in the theater. The
helicopter most used was the UH-IF flown by the USAF
20th Helicopter Squadron, the Green Hornets. (Some
helicopters were converted into gunships carrying
miniguns capable of firing 4,000 7.62-mm rounds per
second.) SOG also had call on the services of a Vietnamese
helicopter squadron which flew the H-34.
Ops 34 were responsible for all agent insertions into
North Vietnam, and for teams or individuals infiltrating
into the North via Laos. In 1968 Americans were involved
in "Kit-Cat" ground operations which sent agents deep
Left Faced with kidnapping, tax
collections and terrorism from
communist guerrillas, villagers were
encouraged toform their own village
militias, known as People Self Defense
Forces, to protect themselves.
Right Chinese Nung fighter with
MACV-SOG carries a Colt Commando, a
shortened variant of the ubiquitous Ml 6,
widely adopted by the special forces in
Vietnam and fitted here with a M-203
grenade launcher.
 - **

\
% B^^"
Left One of a number of specialist
fixed-wing and helicopter gunships
available for close air support-to-ground
operations, a Douglas AC-47
Dragonship delivers a massive
amount of firepower from its miniguns
onto targets in South Vietnam.

Below Vietnamese troops in search

of Viet Cong rebels fan out from a US
Army helicopter. Training,
communications, logistics and transport,
but not combat support, was provided by
the Americans in the early days.
into North Vietnam. High-grade intelligence from these
teams was transmitted by them in coded, high-speed
burststotheTri Bac National Security Agency Station near
Hue Phu Bai. If considered important enough, the
intelligence was then redirected by Army Intelligence
channels to Fort Belvoir in the USA.
Ops 35 reconnaissance patrols
SOG's most famous missions - strategic reconnaissance
patrols into Laos, Cambodia and North Vietnam - were
conducted by Ops 35, the largest of all the groups and the
one which had the most men and equipment allotted to it.
Patrols consisted of eight locals and two Americans -the
patrol commander and usually the radio operator-
integrated into an "A" Team. They operated from forward
observation bases, of which there were four close to the
•-
**v
m .<**
K -
r*
denied areas. Most of these troops were para-trained. SOG
had its own para-training facility. However, experience
had taught them that this was a poor method of
deployment and the teams generally went in on foot or by
helicopter, wherever possible being extracted by
helicopter.
Normally, troops committed to reconnaissance patrols
did one five-day mission a month, but often the demands
and the prevailing combat situation,
for intelligence,
requiredthem to do more. The teams used standard SOG
equipment and weapons. They wore plain cotton-poplin
jungle fatigues of the non-rip kind, sprayed with black
paint and worn with the sleeves down -the owner's blood
group plus any antibiotic allergies embroidered over the
right pocket. On their heads they wore Boony hats or
bandanas, and at their throats triangular scarves. Outer
t
ft.
clothing consisted of survival vests, which could double as
a sleeping shirt in the colder mountainous areas, and
canvas leggings which covered the tops of jungle boots.
They used Starbo-rig, a waistcoat produced by the CIA in
Taiwan and designed to carry slung ammunition and
water bottles. It allowed the wearer much freedom of
movement and had snap-links attached so that men could
be lifted out by helicopter hanging from their harness.
Other equipment carried included first-aid kit, a
compass, signal panels, signal mirrors and mini-smoke
and mini-phosphorus grenades. Most also had a large
knife, an albumen plasma expander on the chest strap and
a small intravenous tube for the delivery of the plasma
tucked into the shirt pocket. Men also had an army-issue
Seiko watch, which was sometimes used for celestial
navigation. The standard radio was the URC-68, but there
were other transmitters which allowed operators to send
high-frequency morse. Nine-millimeter Browning pistols
were issued, also the very efficient .22 automatic pistol
with silencer, for night work. The CAR-15 rifle was
commonly carried. (When used in South Vietnam its
distinctive sound made it easy for teams to orientate
themselves, but in other areas it made them vulnerable to
the enemy, who could pinpoint SOG positions. Asa result,
in those places, SOG tended to use captured Communist
weapons.) A range of shotguns was issued and also the
sawn-off M-79 grenade launcher, the Swedish K Sten gun
(with silencer), the M-1 carbine and the M-16 rifle (with
suppressor). Rucksacks were mostly Vietnamese-made,
used by North and South.
Later in the war this custom-made uniform was thought
to be too conspicuous, and patrols into denied areas wore
VCor NVA uniforms and carried their weapons. The loads
carried by troops on patrol often exceeded 100 lbs (450 kg),
a great deal of which was ammunition, the reason being
that if a contact was made, the patrol would generally be
outnumbered and would have to fight for a long time
before they could be extricated. Most men therefore had a
minimum of 45 magazines of ammunition plus grenades,
Claymore mines and side arms. There were also pieces of
technical equipment which might be needed during their
mission: forexample, ground sensors could be planted on
the supply routes to pick up noise at a considerable
distance and relay it by radio to receivers many miles
away.
Operational areas "across the fence" were designated
target areas and were given both a name and a number.
Two examples of these were Quebec One and Hotel Nine,
both in Laos. Once they were inserted, the standard
operational procedure was to get into the jungle quickly,
and if discovered, drawthe enemy into a hunt. If theteams
hunted the North Vietnamese they risked ambush, but by
taking up positions along the trails or overlooking camps
they could ambush the NVA. The more mountainous
regions and thicker jungle areas were best suited to SOG
operations, but these places, hidden from aerial
reconnaissance, were also the most suitable for the VC and
NVA to use as hideouts for their supply depots.
Consequently, there were many cat-and-mouse
encounters between the two sides. Movement was very
difficult and an average day's travel could be as little as
500 feet (150m).
Support air strikes
When permanent VC or NVA bases or supply routes were
found, the teams called in air strikes, transmitted in
daylight by radio relay to a forward air controller flying
overhead in a single-engined spotter plane. Teams could
also contact a C-130 airborne command and control
center, codenamed Hillsborough, which flew over
southern Laos during the day, or a nighttime flight which
wascodenamed Moonbeam. Requestsforauthorityto put
in a strike were relayed on to the Da Nang Monkey
Mountain installation, which checked on aircraft
availability.
Most air strikes were made by the USAF using A1
Left Under military instruction, these
Rhades tribesmen proved loyal and able
jungle fighters against the Viet Cong in
the central highlands.
TopRight A village chief and his assistant
are questioned by a Special Forces team,
assisted by members of the Vietnamese
Special Forces Strike Team in "tiger"
suits.
Right Before the commitment of combat
troops, an American advisor inspects the
weapons of a Vietnamese platoon during
a training exercise in 1962.
Skyraiders, though occasionally strikes were made by
Marines, Navy or South Vietnamese planes. All aircraft
operating under the sweep of the radar at Da Nang came
under its control and it could also direct air assaults from
other regions. Another airborne facility used by SOG
teams was a C-130, codenamed Lamplighter, which could
illuminate targets with flares. AC-30 Spectres, armed with
a mix 7.62-mm miniguns, 20-mm Vulcan cannons and
of
40-mm Bofor cannons were a deadly means of support to
the small teams operating on the ground.
At first, casualties on these missions were very light. The
local people and the American Special Forces instructors
were well-trained, but most importantly the VC did not
expect to find American patrols in these localities. "A"
Teams met NVA patrols on the trails and exchanged
greetings in French; teams bivouacked for the night to
wake up and find that an NVA patrol was camped beside
them. However, as intelligence sources gathered enough
information to launch directly-targeted attacks, this
situation changed.
Communist response
Prisoner-snatch missions and actions against local VC or
N VA headquarters made the Communists aware of SOG's
presence. They responded by identifying the LZ (Land
Zone) extraction points from which teams were pulled out,
and when thought to be heavy use, lay in ambush. In
in
other, less-used LZs, NVA trail watchers were positioned
to alert the Communists to the presence of Americans.
150
This resulted in many teams taking heavycasualties on
insertion or extraction, and by 1968 it had become so
difficult to patrol these areas, and so many missions had to
be abruptly terminated as helicopters approached the LZs,
that SOG, as a diversion, started to send large numbers of
helicopters to a target area when only one was making a
real impact. The tremendous gains and losses associated
with these missions, for both the Americans and the
Communists, were such that action intensified as the end
of the war approached. SOG recorded that one "A" Team
inserted into Laos identified a 100-plus vehicle convoy
which was later destroyed by an air strike. These were
significant losses for the North Vietnamese, and because
of this, they devoted a large part of their energy, and large
numbers of NVA troops, to destroying or confining SOG
patrols.
After 1968, most of the known LZs had been mined. In
responsethe USAFcame up with atechnique whereby a
10,000-lb (4,500-kg) bomb was dropped intothejungleto
punch out. a helicopter-sized hole, which would
immediately be used to insert a team. While this avoided
the need to land on known LZs, it drew attention to the fact
that a team had been deployed. Such was the difficulty of
extracting teams during this phase, that the support
elements became adept at rescuing men in denied areas-
an expertise much needed when they were called uponto
help in the rescue of downed airmen. This would
sometimes be accomplished by a reconnaissance team
and patrols, but in othercases, where American prisoners
Above right After the successful
elimination of the French from their
former colony, communist troops move
through the streets to take over Haiphong
in the northern half of the divided
Vietnam. Effectively this was the start of
an escalating war of reunification.
Right American troops wade through the
surf to board a locally-built and operated
junk before being moved up the coast
during operations in the Mekong Delta.
Left Vietnam: a rear scout of a Rangers
patrol keeps watch along the Dong Nai
river, northeast ofXuan Loc. His AK-47
rifle is a weapon that has proved to be
popular because of its ruggedness and
reliability.
151
152

_
 were camps, backup teams consisting
identified in prison
of a number of "A" Teams
together with South
Vietnamese Rangers would launch a largeoperation. One
such occurred at Lem Son, where SOG and South
Vietnamese troops conducted a raid40 miles into Laosand
freed 130 prisoners. During this period it is claimed that
SOG was responsible for freeing 318 soldiers and 60
civilians.

The final offensives

SOG was in action against the NVA as late as 1972. At this
time the North had launched what was known as the Tet
Offensive, and SOG personnel were called in from all over
the world to help stem the tide. SOG's commitment in
Vietnam thus ended with a bang rather than fading with a
whimper.
The Special Operations Group was without doubt one of
the best-organized and best-run operations in Vietnam. It
contained some of the most highly-trained and committed
troops, who took heavy losses during their hard-fought,
dangerous, difficult and unsung actions, in appalling
physical conditions. Their losses are hard to enumerate.
Official casualty figures have never been released and
many are hidden in the numbers attributed to other units.
Amongst the large number of outstanding personnel
missing in action are many SOG troops from Ops 35 and
other branches who made incursions into denied areas.
Many of them captured in Laos, Cambodia and North
Vietnam never returned, and to this day there are reports
thatAmericans are still living, hiding or in custody, in
remote parts of Southeast Asia. The attitude of
governments to captured specialist troops is that, if they
operate in clandestine ways behind the enemy lines, they
cannot expect to be treated in the same way as other
troops and to have the protection of the Geneva
Convention.

JJi >^ ^ At the end of the war, SOG's American personnel had to
Top Well protected behind walls of sandbags, a ridgetop
MACV-SOG base in the Vietnam Highlands bristles with the
radio antennae erected to monitor enemy wavelengths.
Above The unglamcrous headquarters of MACV-SOG on
Pasteur Street in downtown Saigon. From here the operations of
its 10,000 staff were conducted throughout Southeast Asia from
1967.
The aftermath
try, with difficulty, to reintegrate back into civilian life. For
example, when they needed medical assistance they
frequently encountered problems, since most of the
records of their units' activities in Laos, Cambodia and
North Vietnam are still top secret. It was very difficult for
bureaucratic administrations such as the Veterans'
Administration to offer aid and assistance to members of
units involved in activities that remain undocumented.

Top left A marine machine-gunner looks down from his

SOG in the Vietnam war produced a cadre of
helicopter at a fortified village and base camp in the guerrilla highly-trained adventurous Americans who went on to
populated mountainous area of north Vietnam. apply their martial skills in numerous small wars in Central
America, either officially, semi-officially or as mercenaries.
LeftViewing each other with mutual suspicion, local villagers One can only speculate about what happened to the tens of
and a US Navy Seal team operating deep inside enemy held
thousands of Southeast Asians who operated with SOG.
territory bring their boats together.
Their special training and fierce independence would
make them particularly dangerous to the new Communist
regime and they must have had a hard time. All of these
men whether American troops or Asian mercenaries, have
left behind them a legend that will forever remain in the
annals of modern warfare.

153
The fight for Afghanistan

The Moslem hill fighters of Afghanistan, the Mujahideen,

are amongst the toughest troops in the world. Inheritors of
a fighting tradition over 2,500 years old, these proud
people have never submitted to foreign sovereignty, nor
everconceded defeat. Empire buildersfrom Alexanderthe
Great, who came to Afghanistan in 372 BC, to the Soviet
Union who invaded the country in 1979, have tried to
impose their rule without success.
Afghanistan is a country of contrasts. Covering an area
of 251, 000 square miles (650,000 km 2 ), and with a
population of nearly 20 million (in 1976), it is at once both
breathtakingly beautiful yet, for the most part,
inhospitably barren. Intolerably hot in the summer and
freezingin the winter, the climate is arid throughout.

Afghanistan's few plains are irrigated by numerous

streams and rivulets flowing from the surrounding
mountains, which are surprisingly abundant in fruit and
arable produce. Valuable iron, copper, lead and natural
gas resources remain virtually unexploited, there is no
railway and, with the exception of the military highways
builtby Soviet engineers since 1979 the country's roads
are badly maintained. Where roads do exist, they keep
steadfastly to the plains, leaving the plodding mule and the
trudging human being as the basic modes of transport in
the mountains.

The Soviet invasion

None of the country has escaped the ravages of the Soviet
invasion. Kabul, the capital, despite its outward facade of
calm, at night assumes the mantle of a city under siege.
Many villages are deserted and virtually all of them bear
the visible scars of battle. The mountains, in which the
Mujahideen try to live their frugal but not unpleasant lives
as normally as possible, are constantly strafed from the air
Above A Mujahideen soldier poses holding his Lee Enfield rifle
or by artillery, often with heavy loss of innocent lives. and wearing a long-bladed knife at his waist.
The Mujahideen are in essence a collection of
independent groups divided along tribal, ethnic and RightA Mujahideen 12. 7-mm heavy machine gun opens up on a
political lines. All are devout Moslems and the growing government army post above Puzhgur, Panthshir Valley. The
influence of pro-Khomeni fundamentalism during the last Soviet and Afghan armies have tried to push the guerrillas out of
the valley for several years without success.
few years has led to serious tensions. Although all factions
are anti-Soviet, not all are anti-communist, with the result
that every attempt to create a government in exile since
1979, has ended in total failure. Some Mujahideen freely
admit that, had the Soviet Union not given them cause to
unite, they would be just as happy fighting each other. The

154
i

i
 Left Perhaps fearful of an uncertain future
as prisoners of war, some captured Soviet
prisoners, such as these, have changed
sides and adopted the Islamic faith.

Below A Soviet MIST Hip utility

helicopter brought down by the
Mujahideen. Because of the threat of
ambush to road traffic, the Soviet and
Afghan forces make extensive use of
helicopters to resupply their forward
bases.

156
local people of the Helman province in southern
Afghanistan were so busy fighting amongst themselves
that the Kabul government did not find it necessary to
station troops in that area until June 1985.
About 15 factions have their headquarters in Peshawar,
a sprawling city of some 300,000 people, across the
Pakistani border, which dominates the northwest frontier.
In the hope of attracting foreign aid, every faction claims to
represent huge numbers of Mujahideen, though several
are completely moribund and only six or so are really
active. In early 1985, ten groups formed a loose coalition
based on religious affiliations: seven were
Fundamentalists, and three were Traditionalists. For the
first time since the invasion, a united force attacked the
Afghan government base at Khost. However, the siege
force never reached the target strength of 10,000 predicted
in Pakistan, and in consequencethegarrison at Khost was
reinforced from the air and the siege was quickly broken,
with extensive loss of life to the Mujahideen. Disillusioned,
the tribesmen returned to their villages, the alliance
dissolved and political anarchy once again prevailed.
Support for the rebels
Whereas most western countries openly sympathize with
the Mujahideen, few seem willing to translate verbal
support into positive assistance. In contrast, Peking,
judging by thequantities of Chinese weapons captured by
the Soviets, and despite government denials, is providing
arms, though they are relatively old and of small caliber.
Saudi Arabia has stated publicly that it will help to finance
and support an Islamic holy war (or "Loyal Jihad"), but
only if the quarrelsome factions within Peshawar manage
to resolve their differences and form a tangible
government in exile. Not only is it unlikely that internal
jealousies will ever allow this, but it is possible that the
Pakistani government, which is already showing signs of
uneasiness at the potentially disruptive influence of so
many refugees in the northwest, would discourage the
^Mfc
Left A Mujahideen warrior mans a captured Soviet antiaircraft
gun on the valley edge. The Mujahideen are very vulnerable to
attacks from the air.
Right A demonstration of antitank mine laying. The guerrillas
have become adept at retrieving mines laid by the Soviets, and
using them against the enemy.

Below The spoils of war. Guerrillas led by Taj Mahmad proudly

pose with the arms on a knocked out T62. Tanks are stripped of
everything so as to deny the enemy any chance of repairing
" T' -i,t "»
:

them. ;&***>• g -

">
. t 1

159
creation of a central power base for them in Pakistan.
Again, despite its protestations to the contrary, the
United States has clearly supported the rebels from the
outset. In October 1985, Congress voted a two-year
indirect aid package of $300 million, far more than it voted
the anti-Sandinista "contras" in Nicaragua. There is,
however, growing disquiet in Washington as it becomes
obvious that the US is not getting value for money, and
that much of the aid is being dissipated in wasteful
administrative overheads.
Mujahideen weapons
Most Mujahideen are armed either with old British .303
SMLE (Short Magazine Lee-Enfield) bolt-action rifles or
captured Soviet Kalashnikov AK-47s, with an increasing
number of the newand deadly small-caliber Soviet AK-74s
also falling into Afghan hands. Although on occasionsthe
Mujahideen capture supplies of antitank mines, RPG-7
antitank rockets and SAM-7 shoulder-fired antiaircraft
missiles, resupply and maintenance remain a problem,
many potentially valuable weapons being damaged and
abandoned for the want of something as basic as oiling.
The Mujahideen would appear to have little mechanical
sense, preferring to destroy captured Soviet armored
vehicles and tanks (preferably with their crew still in them)
rather than strip them of potentially useful spare parts.
Even when elements of the Afghan army defect en masse
to the rebels, as they have been doing increasingly of late,
they tend to destroy their heavy equipment first rather
than bring it with them. Radios are virtually non-existent,
but this could be a blessing in disguise as Mujahideen
voice procedure and security is as lacking as Soviet radio
direction-finding is sophisticated, and long conversations
between two positions would inevitably attract an air
attack or an artillery barrage.
Many weapons are supplied by the legendary
gunsmiths of Darra, a bustling Pathan town in the Kohat
160
Pass. For over 80 years, generations of Pathans have made
a comfortable living by reproducing often complex
machine-tooled rifles, using captured originals as models.
Asa people, the Pathans (pronounced Pa-tans) despise all
outside influence, and pay little more regard to the present
Pakistani government than they did to the British Raj which
tried, usually unsuccessfully, to control them prior to
independence in 1948. Linked to the Afghans by ethnic
background, language, the Islamic faith and hatred of
Soviet Communism, the Pathans support the guerrilla
activities of the Mujahideen and willingly supply weapons,
ammunition and food, particularly in exchange for badly
needed US dollars. (The other source of illicit Pathan
income, opium, is now under threat as Pakistan yields to
world opinion and destroys its poppy fields.)
The Mujahideen regard hardship as a normal part of
daily life. Journalists who have made clandestine journeys
into the mountains report that each tribesman carried
enormously heavy loads, between 20 and 25 rounds of
ammunition, as well as his personal weapon and anything
else needed for extended operationsfarawayfrom a home
base. Ammunition is never wasted. Cartridge cases are
often collected for reuse, and misfires saved to enable new
percussion caps to be fitted.
The Mujahideen's dress is baggy pants, a loose-fitting
shirt, sandals, and the ubiquitous turban. Spare clothing is
rarely carried and little concession is made for the
extremes of temperature. A single blanket is usually
enough to supply cover from the elements, camouflage
from ever-present Soviet air patrols and a means of storing
what little food is carried on the journey. The Mujahideen
love bright colours, and often decorate their austere dress
with wild flowers.
Food is often scarce but is shared generously, seemingly
without the need to coerce local villagers. The staple diet
consists of bread, nans and rice, supplemented where
possible by chicken or greasy mutton in the evenings. The
Left Hands clasped, Ahamadshah
Massoud, Commander of Mujahideen in
the Panjshir Valley, waits for news of an
approaching Soviet/Afghan army patrol.
Right With government troops in control
of the main routes through the country,
Afghan tribesmen make full use of the
mountain tracks. Guerrillas are seen here
loading a camel with ammunition and
supplies.

Right Soldier of Fortune staffer Galen

Geer gripping a Soviet AKM 47 assault
rifle. A number of Americans and

Europeans have served with the

Mujahideen both as fighters and
advisors.

Right Berik Bergibardi, a former Soviet

soldier, who defected to the Mujahideen
in 1981. After adopting the Islamic faith,
he changed his name to 'Taj Mahmad'
and now leads a group of fighters in
Khanabad.

161
 tr

...

2 • * ,

.••. \

•••.

**»*

v
f'l

Afghan guerrillas on a route march in the

Panjshir valley. It is this type of show of
force that has led to the Soviet
preoccupation with heavy campaigns
against the guerrilla bases in the valley.
Mujahideen rarely carry water, preferring to rely on secret are now based in the Kabul Bagrame and Shir Khan areas
and well-hidden springs rather than compromise their and playing an increasingly offensive role in taking the
maneuverability by adding to the weight of their loads. battle to the Mujahideen in their own mountain
Centuries of hill-walking have taught them to travel at a strongholds. Spetznatz (special forces) units are now
short, measured pace, which remains constant whether operating in small groups of up to 30 men and have been
climbing or descending. Although in the short term, their responsible for a growing number of ambushes and
progress may appear slow to the western eye, they expend assassinations of key Mujahideen personnel.
only minimum energy, with the result that fit men can
maintain the pace uninterrupted for periods of more than The future
four hours. When they do stop, the Mujahideen often avail Although the Soviet people would probably like to
themselves of local tea houses, drinking three or four cups withdraw from Afghanistan, there is no suggestion that,
of very sweet tea to provide them with energy for the next despite Mujahideen bravery, the war is being lost by the
trek. However, they are becoming increasingly wary of Soviets or that withdrawal is imminent. In many respects
infiltration by the KGB, and tend to avoid populated areas the Mujahideen are their own worst enemies, steadfastly
as far as possible unless local loyalty is beyond doubt. refusing to form a common front. Furthermore their
equipment is wholly inadequate to wage war effectively
The Red Army against the most powerful army in the world, especially as
The exact number of Soviet troops in Afghanistan is a the Soviets are now developing revolutionary new tactics
closely guarded secret. In February 1986 it was estimated them to take the fighting into the mountains. To
to enable
at between 80,000 and 1 1 5,000 men, supported by a badly make matters worse for the Mujahideen, agreement has
demoralized and shrinking Afghan army of often unwilling virtuallybeen reached between the Soviet Union and
conscripts. Since coming to power, the Soviet leader Pakistanthattheformerwill ceaseoffering aidtodissident
Gorbachev has demonstrated his impatience with the tribesmen in North Pakistan if the latter cease to offer a
regime of Babrak Karmal by sacking his defense minister, safe refuge to the Mujahideen. If and when this comes
General Abdul Gadir, removing the leader of the Khad about, the heyday of the Mujahideen warrior will be over
Secret Police, General Najibullah, and downgrading his and he will revert to what in many respects he was prior to
two field commanders, Brigadiers Sherjar Mazdooriyar December24, 1979-a semi-nomad, living bythegun and
and Aslam Watanjar. Clearly, the Mujahideen are having a owing little allegiance to anyone beyond his own tribe.
telling effect on the puppet Afghan government, which
might fall at any time if Soviet support were withdrawn.
Within the Soviet Union the Red Army presence in
Afghanistan is usually termed the Limited Contingent of
Soviet Forces in Afghanistan (LCSFA), and this has not
varied much in size since 1980. The original invasion force
included over 15,000 troops from the predominantly
Moslem areas of Tajikstan and Uzbekistan. Not
surprisingly, they reacted badly to the prospect of fighting
fellow Moslems, and were withdrawn as a political gesture
of goodwill on the eve of the Vienna Accords. Since then,
the majority of the Afghan garrison has been recruited
from the Soviet Republic and the Ukraine.
The Kremlin has resisted all temptation to flood
Afghanistan with troops in the hope of saturating the
Mujahideen positions, preferring a policy of containment
inthe valleys and attrition in the hills. Interestingly,
whereas the number of US troops in Vietnam during the
worst five years of that war increased from 9,000 to
449,000, the number of Soviet soldiers in Afghanistan
between early 1980 and December 1985 actually fell

slightly.
The vast majority of Soviet troops stationed in
Afghanistan are conscripts, who serve an average of one
year in the combat zone. All major units are motor-rifle
based, with minimal armored and artillery support,
although the importance of the latter has increased
considerably in the last year. Despite horrific losses
reportedly sustained by airborne troops during early
unsupported landings in the hills, the 105th Guards Air
Assault Division and an Independent Air Assault Brigade

164
Above Mujahideen guerrillas undergo
training with captured Soviet RPG 7
antitank rocket launchers.

LeftAn Afghan tribesman relaxes with a

copy of Soldier of Fortune. SoF is
probably the world's only true magazine
for the mercenary, and its writers are
often found training irregular forces

Right Weapons' drill on a Soviet-built

heavy The guerrillas are
antiaircraft gun.
armed with a variety of Lee Enfields and
AK47s.

165
America's "backyard"

It clearly stated in the US Neutrality Act that: "Whoever,

is
inthe United States . retains another ... to go beyond
. .
the jurisdiction of the United States with intent to be
enlisted in the service of any foreign prince, state, colony,
people as a soldier or as a marine
district or shall be
. . . Communism "creeping into their own backyard"
fined not or imprisoned for not more
more than $1,000
than three years, or both". Despite these obvious
intentions of Congress to deny American citizens access to
any foreign war, the statute has always been regarded
loosely - so much so that the JusticeDepartment now
states that a citizen shall not have committed a crime
unlessand until "hetakesan oath of allegiancetoaforeign
government". It is unlikely that any of the many Americans
now in Central and South America -whether there in the
capacity of regular "advisers" or as irregular mercenaries
- have taken such an oath. Therefore they, and the US
government (which either directly or indirectly finances
them), are seen as acting within American law.
Central American rebels
Although the government stops short of offering active
support to the handful of mercenaries fighting in
Nicaragua, it apparently accepts that many of these men
are not only seeking escape from the harsh realities of the
mid-1980s economic slump in the United States, but also
have a well-motivated and overriding dislike or fear of
Many of this small group of men had fought in specialist
units in South Vietnam, or on its borders, and had seen that
country fall to the Communists from the North after the US
had withdrawn. Kampuchea was then abandoned to the
vicious Khmer Rouge, while Laos came under the
dominance of Hanoi. Much closer to home, Cuba was
already a Communist country, while Nicaragua, in the neck
of land which joins North and South America, had
undergone a revolution, and El Salvador was politically
unstable.
Dozens of men felt strongly enough about this to enlist
as mercenaries with local groups who were trying to
prevent Nicaragua from establishing itself as a Communist
regime, while Washington avoided direct involvement.
Direct action would surely provoke objection from
Communist countries and the Third World and would find
public opposition in the face of any likely repetition of a

Left Honduran troops fan out from an

American Chinook transport helicopter
in a bid to repel an incursion by
Nicaraguan troops who had pursued
Contra guerrillas across the Honduran
border.

Right young Contra armed with a Soviet

/4

AK assault rifle.
In both Africa and South
America, children are recruited and then
indoctrinated in guerrilla warfare.

166
168
 Vietnam-type situation. But the American government is
nevertheless in favor of the counter-revolutionary Contras
getting all the military experience and aid possible, and so
nothing has been done to prevent them using foreign aid
to pay for mercenaries.
Despite the heavy losses sustained by CIA-financed
nationalist rebels in Nicaragua (95 were killed in 42 clashes
with their opponents in the last two weeks of January 1 985
alone), few mercenary casualties have been reported.
Indeed, were it not for the deaths of two mercenaries in a
helicoptercrash in September 1984, none at all would have
been recorded forthe entire year May 1984— April 1985. It is
knowwhetherthis is becausesuch information
difficult to
is suppressed or because mercenaries are mostly involved
in administrative tasks rather than direct combat.
The situation in Nicaragua is more complicated than it
seems at first sight. Civil war followed the toppling of the
42-year old Somoza regime by the Sandinista National
Liberation Front (FSLN) in 1979. Disagreement within the
broad-based revolutionary government led to early
resignations, which peaked with the defection of Eden
Pastora, a former senior military commander, and the
setting up by him of the 2,000-strong anti-Marxist

Left Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who came to power in 1959, has
Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE).
supported revolutionary movements in Latin America and Simultaneously, about 15,000 ex-Somoza followers
Africa. Cuban troops in Angola are assisting the MPLA formed the Fueza Democratica Nicaraguense (FDN), soon
government to put down South African backed rebels. to become known as the 'Contras', operating from a power
base across the border in Honduras. The CIA showed
Below The of 1,179 captured mercenaries and Cuban exiles
trial
who attempted to invade Cuba at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 in an
marked preference forthe Contras, giving them immediate
operation organized and sponsored by the US Central aid, but at the same time giving aid to the ARDE. Pastora's
Intelligence Agency (CIA). stubborn refusal to associate with the Contras led to
Left A Soldier of Fortune staff member with his distinctive cap
badge teaches Contra guerrillas how to operate an 81 -mm
mortar. The Contras receive weapons from a number of private
American sources.

Right top An advanced class being run by a freelance instructor

for the Salvadorian army. El Salvador has asked that the number
of American "advisers " be reduced for political reasons, but this
does not affect instructors, who are paid by the Salvadorian
government.

Bottom right New recruits to the Contras undergo basic military

training at a secret mountain base. The peasants of the area have
been known to serve with both the left-wing and right-wing
guerrillas just to get a new pair of boots or a good meal.

Below American advisers both sponsored by the US

government and private sources are active in training pro-US
troops in Central America and right-wing guerrilla forces.
171

i
serious divisions within his ARDE organization, which
culminated in the US government cutting off all further aid.
In May 1984, an attempt was made on Pastora'slife, he was
deported to Venezuela and in June 1985 was expelled from
the ARDE.
Prior to his fall from power, Pastora was, to many
observers, the most credible and tangible opponent to the
Sandinista regime. But his troops, although hardy,
proved to be incapable of organizing basic logistics.
Doctors, helicopter pilots, mechanics and skilled
personnel were badly needed - and it was in these
capacities that many mercenaries enlisted. Though US
citizens, these people had settled in Costa Rica, supported
the old Somoza regime and gave their assistance
gratuitously - often at great financial loss to themselves.
For instance, a Dr Jorge Fout gave up his medical practice
in Costa Rica to tend the rebels and their families. Dr Fout
apparently provided his own medicines, set up an
unofficial committee to ensure the continuous supply of all
medical needs, and asked for no payment.
The role of "Advisers"
Military advisers have grown considerably in importance
in the last 20 years. They are now used extensively by
countries at both ends of the political spectrum, who wish
to support an ally without offering formal military aid. In
some instances advisers are civilians recently retired from
the armed forces who want to extend their military careers
for a few years. As such, they are clearly mercenaries
fighting for payment, though few would ever support a
government hostile to their own. Many of them actually
sign their contracts while still serving. For example, a
number of organizations in the UK, such as Airwork,
openly recruit specialists to fulfill two- or three-year
contracts, during which they will command elements of
friendly Middle Eastern armies.
Other advisers are detached from their own (often
special) forces for a fixed term to lend experience to the
armed forces of an ally. Although these advisers, who are
nearly always volunteers, often relinquish their own
uniform, they nevertheless remain part of their own force
for the purposes of pay and discipline.
While the US was still considering sending aid to the
Nicaraguan Contras, Cuba, Bulgaria and the Soviet Union
went ahead and sent advisers to train the Sandinistas, with
the result that their officer corps is now arguably the most
professional in Central America. It can rely on a cadre of
highly-trained and highly-motivated senior NCOs. For
example, the Soviet Union has sent as advisers pilots and
tacticians to train local pilots in the latest antiguerrilla
tactics learnt in Afghanistan.
Before the arrival in Nicaragua of Communist advisers
from Cuba and the Soviet Union, the Sandinistas had lost
control of the crucial northern provinces of Jinotega and
Matagalpa with their huge coffee farms, but since then
they have succeeded in inflicting losses on the Contras.
Whereas in early 1 985 the Contras had 4,000 or so activists
in the northern mountains of Nicaragua, it was only a year
later that this number had been reduced to about 50.
An operational base
It virtually impossible for the leader of a world power to
is
send advisers into a country, unless a firm base has been
established close to where they will operate. Therefore the
Americans would have been unable to send in advisers to
help the Contras if the Honduran government next door
had not agreed to let them operate from bases on the
border.
In El Salvador the situation is quite different. In that
country, divergent guerrilla organizations fought the
repressive regime of General Humberto Romero for many
was overthrown in 19" 9,
it was hoped that
7
years. After he
the new government with its moderate civilian
reformist
element would bring about much-needed agrarian
reforms, and bring to heel the infamous right-wing death
squads. However, right-wing commanders soon regained
control and the civilians "resigned".
A new period of repression reached a peak of horror in
Left Armed with Belgium FN FAL rifles,
Nicaraguan contras guard the entrance
to a rebel village. The contras are
supported by the US government as well
as a number of American mercenaries
and instructors.
Right Members of the US 101st airborne
"
division during exercise "Universal Trek
move through the jungle on the north
coast of Honduras. Regular joint
exercises are held with the Hondurans.

Below US airborne troops guard Cuban

prisoners during the invasion of the
Caribbean island of Grenada. The
invasion was justified, the Americans
claimed, because American lives were
put at risk after the overthrow and
murder of Maurice Bishop, the country's
popular leader.

173
^^m-^^LM^

'
*'^^J'* ,
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•
\ — ^— -
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//. /j ft"***
B9Bi^£
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a:BK
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Above American-armed Salvadorian naval commandos on

patrol in coastal waters off El Salvador.

Right A Starlifter troop transporter lands at the unfinished

airporton Grenada. A few West Indian governments supplied
troops to assist the Americans in the takeover of the island.

174
175
March 1980, when the much-respected Archbishop Oscar
Romero was murdered. At the end of 1980 the American
government became alarmed when the five principal
guerrilla organizations sunk their differences and agreed
to operate under the common umbrella of the so-called
"Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front" (FMLN),
thereby creating a coalition of the main Communist, Social
Democratic and Christian Democratic Parties. American
financial aid increased, only to be followed by guerrilla
successes, and by 1984 the government had lost control of
more than 20 per cent of the country.
Whenthe Christian Democrat leader Napoleon Duarte
came to power in 1984, and the Social Democrats obtained
a majority in 1985, the government acquired an aura of
respectability, making it less embarrassing for the US
administration to admit openly the size and nature of the
aid program. Financial aid was immediately increased to
$575 million, while General Gorman, the commander of
the US Southern Command, offered to increase the
number of adviserson the ground from 55 to 125.
Surprisingly, not only was this offer declined, but the Chief
of Staff of the Salvadorian Army, Colonel Adolfo Blandoc,
actually called for a reduction in the number of advisers.
Whether he did this because he had sufficient confidence
in the ability of his troops to act alone against the
guerrillas, or because he was wary of American influence,
is not known.
Whereas Communist advisers are often found close to
combat areas, American troops (with the exception of
Green Beret specialists) usually remain in comparative
safety at their headquarters. There they can teach the use
and maintenance of the increasingly complex -though
usually obsolescent to the donor -equipment that is
supplied.
According to figures produced by the US Department of
Above Salvadorian troops and American mercenary instructor
Defense, during 1 982 there were 47 advisers stationed in El
Dale Dye take a break from training. El Salvador is engaged in a
Salvador, serving a number of different functions. A few civil war in which the USA is backing the government troops.
were US Embassy staff, some were involved in logistics,
communication and maintenance, and some were Top right Equipped from head to toe by American aid, regular
engineers, but most, 25, comprised unit training teams Honduran troops on patrol along the border look for signs of
incursion by communist-backed guerrillas.
attached to the Rapid Reaction Battalion.
The DoD is more reticent about the role of Green Berets
Bottom right American personnel examine a Bell OH-58 Kiowa
in Central America, though it is known that in 1981 fifteen
helicopter that had been shot down by Nicaraguan forces along
Green Berets formed part of the contingent sent to El the border with Honduras. The Nicaraguan government has
Salvador to help to create Quick-Reaction often accused the US of carrying out spying missions on behalf
counterinsurgency units. of contras operating out of Honduras.
Advisers, dressed up in many uniforms and working
under many disguises, are used by the developed
countries to further their own ends in the continuing East
vs West, Communist vs Capitalist, struggle. By giving
much-needed help, information and advice on the use of
modern weaponry and the application of the latest tactics,
they exert an influence which is out of all proportion to
theirnumbers.
Given their function, advisers are little different from
common mercenaries. They do, however, in contrast to
other soldiers of fortune, enjoy the advantage of acting on
behalf of their own governments, and therefore of having
their protection.

176
177
The making of a mercenary
Since the end of World War II, there has been a marked
increase in the use of guerrilla warfare, a type of warfare
for which the mercenary soldier is particularly well suited.
In the immediate postwar years the world saw a number of
insurrections inwhich mercenaries were involved.
Guerrilla warfare became widespread, partly because of
the upheaval that World War created, and partly because
II
of the anticolonialist feeling in countries that had been
occupied and reoccupied, or had fought for freedom and
democracy, only to find they were denied them once the
war was over.
There are, basically, three types of guerrilla warfare.
Firstly there are attempts by some sections of the local
population to overthrow the existing regime and replace it
with one of their liking. There have been a number of
insurgency wars of this nature since World War II,
including those in Hungary, Cuba (since Castro) and the
Yemen, and more recently in Central and South America.
Often these wars have been supported to varying degrees
by outside governments or government agencies, most of
whom have used mercenary or "contract" soldiers soasto
limit their own direct involvement.
The second type of guerrilla war is essentially
anticolonial, with locally-raised forces fighting for their
country's independence. Examples of this type of war have
been conducted with varying degrees of success in
Indonesia, Cyprus, Kenya, Algeria and Angola. In some of
these cases these insurgencies began after the colonial
power had started to "wind down", but in others they were
the primary cause of the colonial power's withdrawal. The
employment of mercenaries in these conflicts varied, and
those that were involved almost always worked for the
colonial rulers.The French government made extensive
use of the French Foreign Legion in Algeria, where they
were the primary force in the counterinsurgency
operations. However, the British, as well as using troops
such as the Gurkhas in addition to their own troops, often
used locally-raised forces such as auxilliary police. These
were essentially paramilitary formations, usually under
the command of British or colonial officers. In these wars
the British employed individuals on a contract basis, either
long or short term, depending on the particular job
required of them. These men usually had previous military
experience, often gained during World War or a II
counterinsurgency conflict, or had belonged to an
178
organization such asthe Palestine police force. Essentially
they were the British equivalentto the American "soldiers
of fortune", moving from one country to another, but
always working for a Commonwealth or colonial
government.
The third type of guerrilla war in which mercenaries
have been used since the end of World War has been in
II
the anti-Communist counterinsurgency war, examples of
which have been the wars in China, Greece, the
Philippines, Malaya, Laos and Vietnam. In such cases a
number German or, more
of Chinese, Russian, East
recently, Cuban "advisers" have been employed on one
side, with the opposite side making use of individuals and
in some cases units - recruited both internally and
externally. One example of such a conflict was the
Malayan Campaign, where the Communist insurgents
were supported by Communist governments outside the
country, while the British employed both externally- and
internally-raised units - such as the trackers brought in
from Borneo (who gained a rather gruesome reputation
forcollecting enemy heads astrophies). In addition to such
units a number of individuals, such as ex-Palestine police
officers, were employed by the British on a large scale in
normal police units, and particularly in Special Branch,
which played a vital part in the war.
The dividing lines between these three typesof guerrilla
warfare are indistinct and the categories often overlap; in
much the same way it is difficult to define those who are
mercenaries and those who are not, and to elaborate the
difference between terrorists and guerrillas. It usually
depends on the viewpoint of the individual.
One thing is certain: guerrilla warfare offers the best
opportunity for the mercenary to apply his trade. With the
gradual decline of colonialism over the past couple of
decades, most mercenaries today are employed either in
third-world revolutionary struggles, where internal groups
are attempting to overthrow the regime in power, or they
areemployed in postcolonial conflicts between two or
more internal factions who are attempting to gain the
upperhand. Examplesof the formertype of warfare can be
seen today in Latin America, where mercenaries are
employed by each side - both rebels and government -
and sometimes working with the approval of their own
home government, sometimes without.
The same is true for counterinsurgency wars, where two
Above South African soldiers tackle an
J&
assault course. In a hostile environment,
'

teamwork combines individual skills to

achieve group objectives.

Top right Although teamwork is

essential, the time may come when the
individual skills
and self-reliance of
unarmed combat are all that stand
between a mercenary's survival and
death or capture.

Right At Frank Camper's training camp

the potential mercenary can learn
some
of the required skills - but this school
gained a certain notoriety when it was
reported that Sikh terrorists linked with
the Air India disaster had received
their
training there.

179
internal factions are fighting against e.ach other to gain \
\
i i
Any commander of mercenaries would
a
the case today in Angola; here, two groups be happy to recruit the combination of
control. This is
his member
^skills acquired by this n of the US
- UNITA and what was formerly the MPLA - have been
jecial Forces.
fighting since the end of Portuguese rule. A third group,
the FNLA, which had employed a large group of British
mercenaries in 1975, has faded into relative obscurity.
Today the government (MPLA) is strongly backed by Cuba,
whosupplytheirarmy with equipmentand advisers, while
UNITA is supported by South Africa. In fact the South
African Defence Force (SADF) contains one unit, known as
32 Battalion, whose primary role is to provide support to
UNITA. The 32 Battalion is composed almost totally of
Portuguese-speaking Africans and led by white officers,
mostly of Southern African origin. This unit spends over a
third of the year inside Angola conducting cross-border
operations, with such success that it is responsible for the
majority of the SADF's "kills" in Angola.
There are other, smaller Special Forces units operating
under the command of the SADF in territories outside
South Africa. These units contain a large number of
non-South Africans, manyofwhom are former Rhodesian
Special Forces. After Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, many
members of units such as the Selous Scouts, Rhodesian
Light Infantry and Rhodesian Special Air Service Regiment
left and moved down to South Africa. Some of these men

have continued to soldier, including many ex-members of

the Rhodesian Security Forces who come from countries
other than Rhodesia.
Apart from Southern Africa, mercenaries continue to
findemployment across the world, usually, although not
always, in guerrilla wars. It is guerrilla warfare, probably
more than any other kind, in which the modern mercenary
is likely to become involved.

Equipment and training

The traditional assets of mobility and terrain have been
supplemented over recent years by increased technology
in both weapons and support systems. Mercenaries
conducting guerrilla operations in third-world countries
today rely more heavily on radio equipment than did their
predecessors. Advances in radio communications have
meant that the mercenary commander can now keep in
contact with his forces when they are deployed over wide
areas. Because of the nature of their work, mercenaries
tend to operate in small groups, whether involved in the
training of a local troop, or actively carrying out
reconnaissance or small-scale raids.
Mercenaries are now armed with up-to-date weapons
technology. Fully automatic weapons are now lighterthan
before, and fire a smaller round. This allows for more
ammunition to be carried on operations while at the same
time giving the mercenary increased firepower - an
important advantage considering there are smaller
numbers of mercenaries.
Increasing use has also been made of aircraft, and a
number of smaller countries employ contract pilots. Apart
from being used by mercenaries operating in the offensive
role in cross-border operations, aircraft are an invaluable
asset; not only can they resupply patrols, but they can be

180
¥

X
*\

1 !*

/
181

>>
 Above Strength and stamina in both body and mind will allow
on long after less fit individuals have given
this soldier to carry
up from physical and mental exhaustion.

Above left The ability to operate in small teams, possibly behind

enemy lines against superior opposition, and being in a position
to cause damage and chaos out of proportion to the unit size are
hallmarks of mercenary and special forces training.

Left Three of the magazines that cater for both the true
mercenary and the armchair adventurer, covering stories on
overseas activities, training and equipment.

Right Vietnam was to produce a generation of Americans who

experienced combat, such as these of the 101st Airborne
Division. This knowledge has continued to be used throughout
the world.

182
used to insert small groups by parachute. produced a large number of trained professional soldiers
The modern mercenary not only differs from his for themercenary market.
forebears in the use of weapons and equipment. His The world ofthe mercenary soldier is no place for the
training is also of a far higher standard. After the end of amateur. Today's mercenary is a skilled, highly-trained
World War II, the gradual disbandment of the
world's professional; he is up-to-date with moderntactics and
conscript armies created a large reserve of potential fighting techniques, capable of operating a wide variety of
mercenaries, of whom were readily available for
many sophisticated weapons, and has had experience in a
employment the numerous limited wars that followed.
in combat unit of one of the world's major armies.
Some joined the French Foreign Legion and fought in Many ofthe mercenaries serving with foreign armies
Indochina, and later in Algeria. Others served in have previously served in units such as the US Army
Commonwealth orcolonial police forces. Many ofthe men Special Forces or the French Foreign Legion. Many of
who fought Mike Hoare's No. 5 Commando in the early
in those who served with the Rhodesian Security Forces
1960s had served in a variety of armies during World were former British Army soldiers.
War II.
The high cost of training a professional soldier runs into
Today this pool of trained and experienced men has tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of dollars. It
dried up. With the exception ofthe Vietnam war, there has generally takes somewhere between three and five years
been no major conflict in the past 20 years that has to produce a fully-trained soldier. Three years is currently

183
the minimum term of enlistment in the British Army, as
opposed to five years in the French Foreign Legion.
Conscript soldiers in most NATO countries usually serve
for between 16 to 20 months, which most experts agree is
barely long enough to learn anything more than the basics
of soldiering. Itisforthis reason, among others, that most
of the world's better known mercenaries have served with
the British or American armies, or the French Foreign
Legion.
Mercenary training in the US
Mercenary training in the United States somewhat
is
different to that elsewhere. In recent years, a number
American mercenary magazines have appeared. The
best-known of these is Soldier of Fortune, based in
Boulder, Colorado. Two other well-known publications are
Gung-Ho and Eagle, which are based on the same format
as Soldier of Fortune. Magazines of this nature have
become increasingly popular over the past decade, and
reflect the general attitude of many Americans toward
mercenaries and the mercenary ideology.
Such commercial magazines and organizations offer a
wealth of information to those who are interested in the
world of the mercenary, and include a variety of
equipment, courses and, in some cases, employment.
Weapons can be purchased with comparative ease in the
United States, especially handguns and rifles, which are
advertised extensively in these magazines. To the outsider
it may seem incredible that this sort of thing goes on
democratic country - but many Americans take the whole
issue of personal protection, and the protection and
defense of the United States, very seriously.
There are a number of training courses offered to the
would-be mercenary in the United States. One such outfit
is Frank Camper's Mercenary Training Camp in Bessemer,
Alabama. Students enrol on a two-week training program
where they pay to undergo what most people would
consider virtual torture. Students are instructed in many of
the techniques used in guerrilla warfare. There are daily
sessions in weapons-handling, when students are taught
to operate a variety of modern military weapons including
pistols, sub-machineguns and rifles. In fact, weapons are
carried by the students throughout this strenuous course,
which also includes instruction in unarmed combat,
knife-and bayonet-fighting, and combat-survival
techniques. Combat survival teaches people how to stay
alive in a hostile environment with virtually nothing. The
students are taught how to construct shelters, build fires,
of catch and prepare wild game and how to live entirely off
the land.
Throughout the course the students are constantly
harassed by their instructors, many of whom are former
Special Forces-trained and have experience in recent wars
around the world. Lack of food, and more importantly
sleep, account for many of the students' failure to go on
with the course; it is not unusual for many of them, often
more than halfthe original number, todrop out before the
end of the first week.
Those who keep going find themselves being put
through realistic interrogations, blindfolded, stripped and
tied up; they may also be left for hours before being
interrogated by their instructors. Apart from learning how
to resist such interrogations, students are also taught the
basics of escape and evasion - which, considering what
in a they have to go through on these courses, is a skill worth
knowing. Being chased barefoot through the forests by
their instructors, knowing what they will have to undergo
on "capture", is enough to make many students acquire
this skill quickly.
By the end of the two-week course, the students - most
of whom have little or no previous military experience -
will have at least gained a "feel" for the life. Training is
LeftThe departure of the colonial powers
in Africareleased many men such as
these marines in Portuguese Guinea,
who for idealistic, as well as pecuniary,
reasons stayed on to fight for various
causes.
hard by any standards, but surprisingly people enjoy it- or offer. Free-fall parachuting is becoming an
at leasthave a sense of achievement at the end. A number increasingly-used method of infiltrating small parties of
go back for a second and sometimes a third course. men into "enemy-held" territory.
A high proportion of people who enrol on such courses, The British mercenary industry is a little less developed
(Frank Camper's is not the only one available, by any than that of the United States. Apart from a few
means) are not interested in becoming professional individuals, most of Britain's mercenaries are employed in
adventurers, but instead believe that this particular mainly "advisory" capacities by private companies, such
training will be of some value to them in their chosen as Airwork or Falconstar. These companies deal mainly
profession. A number of security officers, policemen, with friendly foreign governments, providing them with
bodyguards and even members of the armed forces attend skilled instructors and technicians, almost all of whom
such courses, hoping to gain valuable and useful have served in the British Armed Forces.
experience from them. Although a few commercial training schools have
For those who choose to pursue the profession of the recently been started in the UK, they bear little
mercenary soldier, there are a number of other courses resemblance to mercenary camps in the United States. In
available. One organization, known as the First Airborne Britain the emphasis has been mainly on survival, and the
Division, trains students in the art of military static-line sort of instruction provided by Frank Camper and others is
parachuting. There are also civilian free-fall courses on only found in the armed forces.

Right While very few may have had

experience as mercenary fighters, these
men and women attending a "Soldier of
Fortune" convention are obviously
deeply interested in the subject, if only as
a hobby.

185
Specialist schools can train the soldier of
fortune in the ability to be parachuted
into combat, whether by static line or
freefa II.
 Left Over 25 years after the Bay of Pigs
fiasco, Cuban exiles like these still dream
of and train for the day when they cross
the Straits of Florida and drive out the
communist regime of Fidel Castro.

Below One man's terrorist is another

man's freedom fighter - depending on
which side of the fence he is on. Here a
wounded SWAPO guerrilla is searched
by a South African soldier who, quite
possibly, is from Rhodesia or Europe.

dSfed '

•-..•:«*;'• -~v /
Tir

~*m
Right Practical combat experience is
thankfully rare for many armies, but
many mercenaries have seen action -
especially those from the British Army,
who would in recent years have patrolled
the streets of Belfast in Northern Ireland.

Below The funding of UNITA by the

South Africans has allowed the
destabilization of Angola, which is
assisted by the Soviets and Cubans in
support of the freedom in Namibia. Who
are the mercenaries?
INDEX
Note: numbers in italics refer to pictures Dhofar Liberation Front 68 H
DienBienPhu 7721 Hall, Major 93,94
A Douglas Dragonship 746 HALO 123
Aden 58,64,69,125
Skyraider 743 Hammer, Operation 52
Aden People's Socialist Party 58
Duarte, Napoleon 176 hand-out in Vietnam 732
Aden Protectorate Levies 58, 60
Dye, Dale, with Salvadorian troops 776 Hanoi 21,144,166
Afghan guerrillas 767, 164, 162-3, 165
E Harkins, General Paul B 130
Airwork 185
Eagle 184 Himalayan foothills 26
Algeria 20,24,73,178
Eagle Squadron 13 Himmler, Heinrich 34,40
Alouette III helicopter 109, 118
East Anglian Regiment 67 Hind helicopter gunship 97
American advisers 770
Eldest Son, Operation 144 Hitler, Adolf 34,37
American adviser with Vietnamese 749
El Salvador 166, 172, 176 Hoare, "Mad" Mike 74, 75,80,87,102, 702,103,
Americans land on Grenada 774-5
Emerson Squad machine-gun 736 703,105
ANC See National Congolese Army Enosis 54 Hoare's No 5 Commando 183
Angola 79,93,97,178,180
EOKA (National Organization of Ho Chi Minn 21
Angola, destabilizing of 753
Cypriot Fighters) 54,58 Ho Chi Minh Trail 130
Angolan and Cuban troops 96
F Honduran troops 166,177
antitank minelaying 159
Fairbairn, Nicholas 105 "hoplites" 8
Arab legionary 42
FAR. See Force d'Action Rapide Hotel Nine 148
army sweep 737
Farabundo Marti National Liberation howitzer in jungle 67
B Front (FMLN) 176 "Hurricane" 108
Bailey, Bill 112 Faulques, Captain Robert 73,87 I

Balubas 70 Federal Regular Army (FR A) 58,61 Iban tribesmen 65

Banks, John 91,93,94,95,97 Ferret armored vehicle 89 Idris, King 101
Bay of Pigs trial 763 5th Special Forces Group 135 Independent Air Assault Brigade 164
Beaver aircraft 55 "firquats" 68 Indian troops 77
Beck, Kevin 105 1st Airborne Division 185 International Brigade 3
Belgian mercenary's corpse 82-3 1 st Battalion Rhodesian Light International Security Organization Ltd 92
Belgian paras 72 Infantry (RLI) 113, 118 Irish troops 76
Bell OH-58 Kiowa helicopter 777 1st Gurkha Rifles 64 J
Bergibardi, Berik 767
87
1 Parachute Battalion of the Foreign Legion
st JebelAkhdar 68
Black, Andrew 100 1 st Regiment Etranger de Cavalrie
Jinotega 172
Black Boots 113 (REC) 16,20,21,24,25 Johnson, Mike 92,100
Blackburn, Colonel Donald 139 1st REP 24
black nuns 76
Joint Operational Command (JOC) 108
Five Force 118 Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force 132
Black Watch 54 FLOSY (Front for the Liberation of jungle patrol 66
Blandoc, Colonel Adolfo 176 Occupied South Yemen) 61
Blue Caps 54,69 K
Flying Tigers 72-73
Bongo, Omar 87 Kabul 154,157
FNLA (National Frontfor the
Borneo 32, 64, 69, 178 Karen National Liberation Army 70-77
Liberation of Angola) 91,93,94,180
British officer's effects 94-5 Karmal,Babrak 164
Force d'Action Rapide (FAR) 25
British patrolon Cyprus 55 Katangese gendarmes 85
Force Reconnaissance Marines 132
British sappers 69 K-Cars 118
42 Commando Royal Marines 64
British soldier in Cyprus 43 Kenya 52,58,69,70,123,125,178
Fouga fighter 57
Kenyatta,Jomo 52,123
C 4th Commando Brigade 87
144
Khmer Rouge 166
C-121 Constellation 4th REI 25
Kikuyu 52
C-1 30 Hercules 24 Fout,Dr Jorge 172
Callan, Colonel 93,94,95,97,98,33 "Free India" Legion 40
Home Guard 69
King David Hotel 42, 44
Callan and colleagues on trial 30-7 Frelimo column 93
"Kit-Cat" 144
Cambodia 135,147,153 French Foreign Legion 14-25, 73, 92, 178, 183
Kolmeti Campaign 27
camel-mounted Aden Protectorate Levie 63 French Foreign Legionnaires 6, 75, 17,20,23
Kolwezi 24, 25
captured mercenaries 98 on guard 25
Castro, Fidel 765 paras 74 L
Chad army soldier 75-73 French mercenaries 85 LAH. SeeLeibstandarte Adolf Hitler
Chinese Nung fighter 745 French units in Algeria 76
Lamplighter 150
Christodoulou 93,94 French volunteers for Germany 39 Landrail, Captain 20
CIA 73,74,79,91,93,132-9 Front for the Liberation of Occupied Laos 135,147,153,166,178
communist troops in Haiphong 757 South Yemen. SeeFlosy Le Braz, Colonel 87
Condor Legion's Stukas 3 Fuerza Democratica Nicaraguense (FDN) 169 Legion of French Volunteers (LVF) 34, 37
Congo 70,79,80,87 FRA. See Federal Regular Army Legion patrol in French Guiana 24
Congolese National Liberation Front 24 G Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler (LAH) 34, 35
Congo mercenaries 78 Gadir, General Abdul 164 Limited Contingent of Soviet Forces
contra with Soviet rifle 767 in Afghanistan (LCSFA) 164
Geer, Galen 767
contras 169, 172 Georgiou 93 LLDB South Vietnamese Special Branch 135
contras, new recruits 777 GeraghtyTony 94 Lockheed Constellation 743
Copeland, Sammy 92,100 German mercenary 80 Lucien-Brun, Captain Maurice 87
Cossacks for Germany 38, 40 Giap, General Vo Nguyen 21 Lu Long Dae Biet (LLDB) 132
Cuban exiles 74,755 Gorman, General 176 Lumumba, Patrice 70,73
mercenaries 77 Gowon, General 80,92 LVF. See Legion of French Volunteers
prisoners 773 "Grapple" 108 M
soldiers 88, 91 Green Berets 132, 176 M29C cargo carriers 21
Cyprus 54,69,127 Green Hornets 144 M-60tank 45
D grenade-throwing techniques 747 M-79 grenade launcher 148
Ron Reid 125
Daly, Lt-Col Grillo, Gustavo 707 McAleese, Pete 92,98,100
Death's Head SS 35,37 Grivas, General George 54, 54 MACVSOG 139
defensive position on the Nuanetzi River 707 GulfofTonkin 139 headquarters 753
Delta Project 135 Gung-Ho 184 patrol 733
Democratic Revolutionary Alliance (ARDE) 169 Gurkhas 6,26,2725,29,23,30, Maddox, USS 139
Denard 80,93 37,32-3,33,6769,178 Maddison, Barry 92

190
Makarios, Archbishop 54 Portuguese Air Force Sergeant 92 helicopter 756-7
Malaun, Battle of 26 mercenary 96 prisoners 756
Malaya 32,45,64,69,70 soldier 86-7 T62 tank captured 759
Mancham, Jimmy 102,103,105 Project 404 135 Spanish Falangist soldier 36
Maquela 95,97,98,100 Psychological Operations (PsyOps) 108 Special Operations Executive (SOE) 130
Marines in Portuguese Guinea 754 Puren, Jeremiah 77, 105 Special Operations Group (SOG) 153
Massoud,Ahamadshah 160 Q SS Freiwillige (Free Will) Panzer "Nordland" 37
Matagalpa 172 Quebec One 148 Steiner,Rolf 87,89,92
MauMau 52,54,123 R Stirling, Colonel David 101
suspect 53 Radfan 58,69 Strong, Captain Jeremy 125
Mazdooriyar, Brigadier Sherjar 164 Radforce 58 Studies and Observation Group (SOG) 130, 135
MC1-9B aircraft 89 Rangers' patrol scout 150 Suharto, President 64
mercenaries Rapid Reaction Battalion 176 Sukarno, President 64
against the Simbas 79 Rene, France-Albert 102, 103 Sultan of Muscat's and Oman's Armed
mercenary REP. See 2nd Regiment Etranger de Parachutistes Forces 68,69,129
in the Congo 84 "Repulse" 108 T
magazines 182 Rhades tribesmen 745 'Tangent" 108
recruits for Angola 104 Rhodesia 79,112,125,127,129 Tet Offensive 153
small team 752 Rhodesian 3rd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment 58
training in the US 184 African Rifles (RAR) 113,125 3rd (Lahore) Division 29
Military Assistance Command Vietnam auxilliaries 775-77 3rd Parachute Regiment of the ANC 79
(MACV) 130 guerrillas 774 3rdREI 25
mini-Schmidt 79 Light Infantry (RLI) 127,129,180 3rd REP officer 27
Mobutu, General 70,74,79 patrol 723 patrol 25
Mobutu's 1st Parachute Regiment 80 recruits 109 13th Demi-Brigade 16
Montagnards 130, 135, 137, 139 SAS 121-3,127 'Thrasher" 108
Moonbeam 148 Security Forces 113, 114, 123, 125, 129, 180, 183 TNKU 64
Mouskos, Michael 54 specialist vehicles 775 Tomkins, Dave 91
MPLA 91,93,95,180 troops 705, 116-17, 118, 120, 122, 128-9 Totenkopverbande SS 34,35
Mugabe 123,127 Romero, Archbishop Oscar 176 training camp (Frank Camper's) 779, 184
Mujahideen 157 Romero, General Humberto 172 Lands (TTLs) 108, 125, 127
Tribal Trust
gunner 158 Royal Marines in Sarawak 65 Trucial Oman Scouts 68, 69
machine-gun 155 Royal Northumberland Fusiliers 58-9 Tshombe, Moise 70,74,79
soldier154 Russian volunteers for Germany 40,41 Tshombe's mercenaries 74-5
weapons 160-4 Ryukynan natives 5 24 Brigade 58
MuOng 132 S 28th Commonwealth Brigade 64
Muzorewa, Bishop 127 Saladin armored vehicle 89 U
N Salvodorianarmy class 777 UDI 106, 108, 114, 125
Najibullah, General 164 naval commandos 774 UNITA 91,93,180
Narayan, Prithwi 26 Sandinista National Liberation Front (FSLN) 169 USAF 20th Helicopter Squadron 144
National Congolese Army (ANC) 70,74 SAS 64,68,113,129 US 101 st Division 773
National Front for the Liberation of Angola. Savimba, Jonas 91 US Navy Seal team 132,733
SeeFNLA Schramme, "Black Jack" 74, 75,79,87 US Neutrality Act 166
National Liberation Front. SeeNLF Schramme's mercenaries 84 US Special Forces soldier 750-7
National Organization of Cypriot Fighters. 10th Commando 79 V
SeeEOKA Schroeder, George 80
Vietcong (VC) 132, 135, 139, 150
nationalist guerrillas 124 2nd Battalion of the British captured 742
Nicaragua 166, 169 Parachute Regiment 91 Vietnam 24, 144, 178
Nicaraguan contras 172 2nd Gurkha Rifles 64 Vietnamese People's Army (VPA) 20, 21
Nigeria 80,87,92 2nd Legion Regiment of Infantry 16 Vietnamese Rangers 737
9th ANC Commandos 79 2nd Regiment Etranger de Parachutistes troops 745-7
Nkomo, Joshua 92,123,127 (REP) 16,24,25 "Voice of Freedom" 139
NLF (National Liberation Front) 58, 61 2ndREI 25 "Volksdeutsche" volunteers 37
Northern Ireland patrol 189 Seekings, Reg 112
Volunteers for Additional Training (VATs) 112
North Vietnamese Army (NVA) 135,150 Selous Scouts 773, 722, 123-5, 726, 129
von Rosen, Count 87, 89
O 7th ANC Commandos 79 VPA. SeeVietnamese People's Army
7th (Meerut) Division 29
Office of Strategic Services (OSS)
Ojukwu, Colonel 80,89
130
Seychelles 101,102,103,105
W
Waffen Grenadier Division SS 37
Omega 139 Shining Brass Project 135
WaffenSS 34,37,40
101 st Airborne Division 183 Shotgun Charlie 95,97,98,100 113-14, 123
Walls, Lieutenant-General Peter
105th Guards Air Assault Division 164 Sigma 139 Watanjar, Brigadier Aslam 164
Oplan34A 135-9 Simbas 73-4 Watchguard 101
P Simmonds, Arthur D 132,135
Westmorland, General 135
Pakistan 32,68,160,164 Singh, Paul 102
white and black mercenaries 72
Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) 10 SKS carbine 726 White Elephant 144
Palestine Police Force 45, 178 Soldier of Fortune 184
White Star 132
Palestinian soldiers 6 "Soldier of Fortune" Convention 735
Wicks, Alastair 80
parachute-evaluation detachment (PED) 121 Somali guerrillas 24,91 Wiking (Viking) motorized division 37
Parachute Regiment cross the Radfan 56-7 Somoza 169, 172 Williams, Taffy 89
parachute training 756-7 South African
and English mercenaries 84
Y
Pastora, Eden 169, 172
Ye Ancient Order of Frothblowers 103, 105
patrol boats in Vietnam 754-5 armored column 55
Yemen 58,68,69,178
patrolling mercenary 725 Defence Force 775,129,180
PATU. See Police Anti-Terrorist Unit Reece Commandos 103 Z
People Self-Defense Force 744 soldiers on assault course 779 Zaire 24,70,91
Peters, Commandant 74,80 South Vietnamese PT boats 139 Zambia 92,121,123
Platte Island 101,105 Rangers 153 ZANLA guerrillas 106,775,123,125
PLO. See Palestine Liberation Organization Soviet Zimbabwe 79,106,129
Police Anti-Terrorist Unit (PATU) 108, 112-13,727,127 Gazjeep 755 ZIPRA 106,123,125

191
PICTURE CREDITS

Front cover: US Army

Back cover: Camera Press

Alan Hutchinson 86-7, 88 bottom, 109 top, 115 bottom, 127, 139: BBC
90-1; BBCHulton104: Camera Press 14, 18-9. 20. 21 top, 22, 24, 25 top.
71, 76 bottom, 78, 79. 85 bottom right, 102. 110-1. 113. 122 bottom.
126; Colorific 4-5. 179 bottom. 186-7: DAVA 12-13: T A Davies 10-11.
155, 156, 158 top, 159 bottom, 160, 161 bottom, 162-163; Frank Spooner 1
4-5, 82-3, 92 top, 97, 99. 101 bottom, 103, 185, 188 top: Imperial War
Museum 9 bottom, 13 top, 42, 45 top, 53 bottom, 64, 65 top, 68, 124 bottom,
156-7; Indian Army 33 top: Mozambique Information Office 98.
94-5; National Army Museum 60 top; Tim Page 2-3; Popperfoto
72 bottom, 74-5, 80, 84, 85 bottom left; Robert Hunt Library 9 top, 17
bottom, 23, 32-3, 44. 54. 56-7. 60 bottom. 61 62; Soldier 55. 58-9. 63, 66, 67
.

top. 69; Soldier of Fortune 21 bottom, 25 bottom, 88 top, 89, 96 bottom, 107.
108, 109 bottom, 115 top. 116-7, 118, 119 top, 120. 121. 124 top. 125, 154. 158
bottom, 159 top, 161 top, 161 center, 164. 165, 166. 170, 171. 172, 174. 176. 179
top left, 184, 188 bottom, 189 top, endpapers; The Photo Source 15, 16, 17
top, 48, 49, 51 52. 53 top, 65 bottom, 93 bottom, 100, 101 top, 148. 169:
, TRH
Pictures 26, 27, 28. 30, 31 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39. 40. 41 43. 46-7. 50. 67 bottom.
, ,

182 bottom, 189 top; United Nations 10 top. 29, 45 bottom, 72 top. 73, 76
top, 77, 81 85 top, 112,114.1 19 bottom, 122 top, 123;
, US Army 7, 138, 140
bottom, 149 top. 180-1; US Air Force 143. 146 top, 173 top; USDOD8. 133
bottom, 136, 137. 141, 142 bottom, 144, 145, 146-7, 149, 150, 151, 152 top. 153.
167, 168, 173 bottom, 174-5, 177, 179 top right, 182 top, 183; US Navy 6, 131
132, 133 top, 134-5. 140 top. 142 top, 152 bottom; West Africa 92 bottom. 93
top. 96 top

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