Commando News Edition 17 Dec2019

to purport "In Bush Mode" (I-B-M), 2 Commando
regularly alluded to the mobilised troops as "Big Blue"
and the troop away on R&R as "Baby Blue" — from
Bringing It All Back Home ("The Saints are comin'
through... It's All Over Now, Baby Blue") by Bob Dylan.
They enjoyed having animals around the base-camp,
roaming free as pets. Examples could include a fantailed
Raven called "Swarthy" or "Swar-T" (Soldier-
Warrior to a T) who just would not fly away (probably
because its natural habitat was North/East Africa), and
a Warthog called "Hertzog" who loved bacon and egg
every morning. Swarthy was blue-black in bright
sunlight and usually stayed at the base-camp, but
would sometimes follow trucks to other locations. All
the animals had a connection to someone in the
Commando.
3 Commando was nicknamed the "Lovers", or
sometimes "The Green Machine" — the latter coming
from the green jerseys its men wore in intra-regimental
sporting competitions. The "Lovers" nickname
emerged during the mid-1960s and had its origin in the
off-duty reputation of its soldiers, who were reportedly
very popular amongst the young women of Salisbury.
This reputation also contributed to the design chosen
for the Commando emblem and flag in 1968, during
Operation Cauldron. The Commando's "Lovers"
wanted to use a phallus (erection) as their symbol, to
demonstrate cockiness as they had not yet seen action
on Operation Cauldron. Captain Spike Powell and
Lieutenant Chris Pearce suggested that a more suitable
emblem (other than anything military) might be a
banana. Whether serious or not, the banana was duly
adopted and the Commando's insignia became a
banana, partially obscured by a numeral "3", with the
word "Lovers" (in quotation marks) above and
"Commando" inscribed on a ribbon banner below —
all on a green shield. The emblem endured for the rest
of the RLI's history. Flags were adopted by each 3
Commando troop during the same operation: 11 Troop
followed a similar vein to the Commando itself in its
adoption of the nickname "Legs Eleven", and a flag
depicting a pair of female legs on a green background.
When, around the same time, 12 Troop became the
first unit in the Rhodesian Army to recover one of the
hammer and sickle flags used by ZIPRA, its men began
to use the "Russian flag" (as they called it) as their own.
An unsuccessful bombing run by the Rhodesian Air
Force during Operation Cauldron, which nearly wiped
out the men of 13 Troop rather than the insurgents they
were fighting, motivated 13 Troop's depiction of a
large bomb as its emblem. The most orthodox flag of
the Commando was perhaps that of 14 Troop, which
around the late 1960s became known for returning to
Salisbury from operations with kudu horns prominently
mounted on its vehicles. Its emblem therefore became
a kudu head, and its nickname "the Poachers". All of
these flags and nicknames remained in use until the RLI
was disbanded.
Support Commando’s emblem was a black eagle
on a yellow background with wings spread wide —
similar to the coat of arms of Germany — as it held a
bomb in each of its talons. "Support Commando" was
inscribed on a ribbon banner above the eagle, and the
full name of the regiment appeared beneath it. In
January 1976, Colonel T. M. Davidson presented the
Commando with a Wahlberg's eagle to use as its
mascot. This eagle was never named, and was lost
by Captain Pete Farndell in April 1976, at Grand Reef
near Umtali. Having lost the eagle, Farndell was
ordered to replace it and in August 1976 he acquired
an African hawk-eagle chick from near Gwelo, which
became the Commando's new mascot named "Henry
Hawk-Eagle". Henry remained Support Commando's
mascot until October 1979, when he was released
unawares and escaped from the company of his
accustomed keeper, Lance-Corporal André Mac -
donald, and flew away. Support Commando was
nicknamed the "Heavies", due to the extra ordnance
(also Henry's Heavies from 1976), but sometimes called
"The Elite".
RLI Casualties
The Rhodesian Light Infantry Regimental Asso -
ciation maintains a Roll of Honour which lists 85 men
killed in action from March 1968 to December 1979. A
further 15 are listed as having died on operations from
September 1961 to December 1979. Another 34 are
listed as deceased from other causes, from 1961 to
December 1979. Of the 85 killed in action, 66 occurred
in the last four years of the war, thirty-one in 1979
alone. These figures mirror fairly accurately the ratio of
combat the Battalion was in. The number of wounded
is not known. It is known that in one of the Commandos
there were more than 50 wounded in action in a twoyear
period where it had 21 killed in action. There were
of course many other casualties, from accidents and
illness/disease, or bad landings on jumps. These
figures are very low for a battalion that was involved in
so much combat, though it must be remembered that
the Commandos were both smaller than the com -
panies of the average strength infantry battalion of
modern warfare and fighting with modern weapons
and tactics against a relatively untrained, though well
equipped, foe.
United States Army Lt-Col Dave Grossman wrote:
Rhodesia's army during the 1970s was one of the best
trained in the world, going up against a very poorly
trained but well-equipped insurgent force. The security
forces in Rhodesia maintained an overall kill ratio of
about eight-to-one in their favour throughout the
guerrilla war. And the highly trained Rhodesian Light
Infantry achieved kill ratios ranging from 35-to-one to
50-to-one. The Rhodesians achieved this in an environ -
ment where they did not have close air and artillery
support ... nor did they have any significant advantage
over their Soviet-supported opponents. The only thing
they had going for them was their superior training,
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