Rhosarian 2019

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The Rhosarian 1/19 RIDGEBACK October 2019 15 It is not my intention to use this forum as my personal Ad space but it just so happens that I have written a book which may be of interest to some of our readership, details posted below. Should you wish to order a copy please e mail me on skipworth61@gmail.com at only R200 each. The following is an excerpt from my book OUT ON A LIMB and I think many a Rhodesian will relate to this piece of history which played out in September 1980 - 39 years ago this month! Oh When the Saints ... The late afternoon sun sparkled off shiny buttons grouped in twos on RLI Number One Dress Greens. The Battalion was on parade for the last time, waiting for the order to march off. Watching from the side lines were the wounded also dressed in their Greens with brilliant buttons, shiny medals for valour and perfectly shaped berets with their cap badge over the left eye. In their wheelchairs, or on crutches or with a pressed empty sleeve pinned to their tunic they watched their mates on parade. Solemn words had been said, "Courageous people. Splendid land", the Colours cased and all that was left was for Charlie Aust to give the word of command for him and his Battalion to march off - into history. An Alouette pirouetted at altitude in a solitary RhAF fly-over in acknowledgement of the great deeds of these men. Ex defence minister PK Van Der Byl stood in the crowd as an ordinary member of the public, unofficially and unannounced, to pay tribute to these young men. The Jacarandas were in bloom, the mature eucalyptus bordering the parade square filtered and dappled the sunlight as the sun began to accelerate its descent now that mid afternoon had passed. The Commanding Officer gave his commands and the Battalion formed two ranks to march off. Six beats of the drum and the staff band began the jaunty 'Oh When the Saints…'. Three hundred whip thin, ultra fit men marched in perfect step in a display of good order and military discipline, and - above all else - with pride. Big Red, 2 Commando, The Lovers and Support Commando led by their OCs marched off in quick time followed by the Signals Corps Band. Mine was not the only wobbly chin. Mine was not the only escaped tear. Me and the wounded could not escape the evocative emotion of those on parade. We could not blank out the emotion through the exertion of marching in step, swinging our arms and listening to the Drill Sergeant's sotte voce commands, "look up! "Keep your dressing". We stood or sat in the puddle of our raw emotions, we cried. Damn it. We were over. The crowd whooped, hollered and cheered. The gospel spiritual of The Saints is lost on nearly all of us, as is the irony. A slow southern black man's hymn that was jazzed up as a ditty, popularised by the jazz musicians of New Orleans in the 1930s. The tempo 'revved' so that a generation later, and on a different continent, it was chosen as the Regimental Quick March for an allwhite unit. The phrases too, like most literature, could have a double meaning. The lyrics adopted by the Regiment could not have been more appropriate, and somewhat bloodcurdling. These very young
The Rhosarian 1/19 16 men really did 'want to be in that number' taking the battle to the enemy wherever they were. They fell like stars from the sky in Zambia, Mozambique and within Rhodesia. On operations like the Mapai raid their 'fire blazed' and like the horsemen of apocalypse swept through the enemy. And although in the last year of the Rhodesian war we lost 30 ouens the RLI was accredited with a kill rate that went from 35-1 to 50-1. RIDGEBACK October 2019 In context, 3,000 terrorists must have died at the hands of the RLI in 1979 alone; 'the moon turned red with blood'. No wonder they were known as the 'killing machine' and little wonder that ZANLA and ZIPRA, even with their superiority in numbers, studiously avoided contact with the RLI, preferring to prey upon the soft rural poor, or defenceless missionaries, who they could easily brutalise and murder. RASA Durban Branch Committee Name Contact details Nick Skipworth-Michell (Chairman) 082 372 0000 skipworth61@gmail.com Peter Shattock (Vice Chair) 082 512 6056 pshattock@telkomsa.net Lana Skipworth-Michell (Treasurer) 072 617 7443 lana4@live.com Marlene Camps (Secretary) 079 798 1595 marlenecamps55@gmail.com Jacqui Kirrane (Welfare) 072 080 0385 jkirrane06@gmail.com Heather Walker (Stalwart) 083 322 3236 heather@hospice.co.za Rob Walker (Stalwart) 084 532 559 Rowa34@gmail.com
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Page 7 and 8: The Rhosarian 1/19 6 MARY'S MEANDER
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Page 21 and 22: The Rhosarian 1/19 20 unwise decisi
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Page 30 and 31: The Rhosarian 1/19 A man named Char
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Page 40 and 41: The Rhosarian 1/19 IN CASE OF DEATH
Page 42 and 43: The Rhosarian 1/19 The FLAG THE FLA
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Page 50 and 51: The Rhosarian 1/19 HUMOUR October 2
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Rhosarian 2019

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