The Selous Scouts were a Rhodesian counter-insurgency regiment commanded by Lt. Col. Ron Reid-Daly. Their greatest specialty was in the area of pseudo-operations; disguising themselves as terrorists in order to infiltrate and actually live amongst the terrorists, sometimes for periods of several weeks. As part of their pseudo-operations, the Selous Scouts would regularly conceal themselves as member of both the major terrorist armies - ZANLA and ZIRPA - and also as soldiers of Rhodesia's neighbors - FRELIMO, the Zambian Army and the Botswana Defense Force.
The dangers of such operations are obvious. ZANLA and ZIRPA would not hesitate to instantly execute anyone that they suspected to be a Selous Scout. However, even more hair raising was the Selous Scout policy of "encouraging" recently captured terrorists ("tame" terrorists) to work for the Selous Scouts and betray their former comrades - somtimes within hours of their capture!
The methods of the Selous Scouts entailed enormous risks for the Selous Scouts operators but they also reaped enormous benefits. During the 7 years of their existence, the Selous Scouts exterminated several thousands of terrorists while losing only about 40 Selous Scouts killed in action. Intelligence gained by the Selous Scouts was also used by other units of the Rhodesian security forces, such as the Rhodesian Light Infantry, to locate and kill several thousand more terrorists.
The book is written in a humorous, lucid and almost chatty style, which contrasts sharply to most memoirs written by military men.
This is a hard cover book. Dust jacket slightly torn with some markings. Hard cover in good condition, normal fading and rubbing on cover. (Please see attached photographs) Light brownish spots on couple of pages and some browning on thickness of pages. Pages neat and clean and the binding tight! Book in good readable condition.
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