Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia's famed Selous Scouts
    Unavailable
    Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia's famed Selous Scouts
    Unavailable
    Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia's famed Selous Scouts
    Ebook795 pages8 hours

    Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia's famed Selous Scouts

    By Timothy Bax

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    There is nothing that terrorized Russian and Chinese-backed guerillas fighting Rhodesia's bush war in the 1970s more than the famed Selous Scouts. The very name of the unit struck fear into the very heart and soul of even the most battle-hardened guerillas. Too afraid to even whisper the name amongst themselves, they referred to soldiers of the unit simply as Skuzapu, or pickpockets. It was not for nothing that history has recorded the Selous Scouts Regiment as being one of the deadliest and most effective killing machines in modern counter-insurgency warfare.

    The Selous Scouts comprised specially selected black and white soldiers of the Rhodesian army, supplemented with the inclusion of hardcore terrorists captured on the battlefield. Dressed and equipped as communist guerrillas and with faces and arms blackened, members of this elite Special Forces unit would slip silently into the shadows of the night to seek and destroy real terrorist gangs. It became a deadly game of hide-and-seek played out between gangs and counter-gangs in the harsh and unforgiving landscape of the African bush. So successful were the Selous Scouts at being able to locate and destroy terrorist in their lairs that by the mid-1970s, they had begun to dominate Rhodesia's battle space. Working in close conjunction with the elite airborne assault troops of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, the Selous Scouts accounted for an extraordinary high proportion of terrorist killed in Rhodesia's bush war. Not content with restricting themselves to hunting guerrillas inside Rhodesia, the Selous Scouts began conducting external vehicle-borne assaults against terrorist camps situated deep inside neighboring countries with devastating loss to the terrorists.

    Survival in this cauldron of battle was never guaranteed. In this special 'deluxe' edition of author Tim Bax's hugely acclaimed Three Sips of Gin, we follow Tim on his missions into the silence of the shadows. As his story unfolds, we begin to understand how he managed to survive and it is here you will find the significance of 'three sips of gin' revealed. Readers of the earlier edition of the book will not want to miss reading this 'deluxe' edition, which, for the first time, is illustrated with dozens of photographs of every facet of Tim's amazing journey, including stark, never before seen images of the war.

    Three Sips of Gin is not just a book about war. It is a remarkable book about a remarkable man’s life journey. Tim tells his story with the wit, candor and self-deprecating humor for which he has become so well known. His amazing journey is one, which few could ever have experienced.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHelion and Company
    Release dateAug 19, 2013
    ISBN9781909982444
    Unavailable
    Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia's famed Selous Scouts

    Related to Three Sips of Gin

    Related ebooks

    African History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Shot Heard Round the World

      Nov 23, 2021

      Shot Heard Round the World
      3 min read

    • Article

      Redefining Survival

      Apr 16, 2019

      Redefining Survival
      14 min read

    • Article

      On Top Of The World

      Jul 27, 2021

      On Top Of The World
      12 min read

    • Article

      Shadow Warrior

      Nov 29, 2022

      Shadow Warrior
      14 min read

    • Article

      David H. Hackworth

      Jun 4, 2019

      David H. Hackworth
      2 min read

    • Article

      The Train Wreckers

      Oct 11, 2022

      The Train Wreckers
      11 min read

    • Article

      Valor Three Cheers!

      Oct 11, 2022

      Valor Three Cheers!
      2 min read

    • Article

      Eoka

      Jun 14, 2018

      Eoka
      9 min read

    • Article

      Ulric Cross 1917-2013

      Oct 26, 2023

      Ulric Cross 1917-2013
      2 min read

    • Article

      Interview A Father’s Secret War

      Apr 30, 2019

      In their 2019 book Scholars of Mayhem Daniel C. Guiet and Timothy K. Smith relate the fascinating story of how Guiet’s Frenchborn American father, Jean-Claude Guiet (1924–2013), went from being a sheltered freshman at Harvard to become a highly train

      6 min read

    • Article

      The Siege Of Jadotville Part III: The Forgotten Victory

      Oct 30, 2017

      Tony Dykes’s United Nations photo ID, which was issued shortly before he was deployed to the Congo Irish UN peacekeepers at Elisabethville Airport during the Congo Crisis. After the Siege of Jadotville Tony Dykes fought with other members of A Compa

      16 min read

    • Article

      Surviving The Siege

      Nov 29, 2018

      Surviving The Siege
      13 min read

    • Article

      Northern Ireland

      Dec 22, 2022

      Northern Ireland
      3 min read

    • Article

      Of War And Waves

      Dec 14, 2017

      Of War And Waves
      7 min read

    • Article

      Pilots Of The Caribbean

      Oct 8, 2020

      Pilots Of The Caribbean
      9 min read

    • Article

      A Rescue Mission Gone Wrong

      Feb 20, 2024

      A Rescue Mission Gone Wrong
      13 min read

    • Article

      The History Of The SAS

      Jun 10, 2022

      The History Of The SAS
      5 min read

    • Article

      Home Front Heroes

      Nov 30, 2023

      TRINIDADIAN, 1 AUG 1891 – 8 JAN 1970 George Arthur Roberts arrived in Britain and joined the army around 1914, fighting in World War I. In the years between the two wars, Roberts became a founding member of the League of Coloured Peoples, an influent

      3 min read

    • Article

      Britain's Secret Army

      Jun 11, 2020

      Britain's Secret Army
      8 min read

    Reviews for Three Sips of Gin

    3.5/5

    7 ratings1 review

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      The only comments I have found on this book appear to have been written by people who were there - fellow ex-Rhodesian soldiers. I am not one of them. This book was commended to me by a friend who was in the BSAP (Rhodesian Police) thru most of the '70s and knew a number of the people who feature in the book, tho' not the author. Bill suggested it might allow some insight into 'cultural' differences between the white Rhodesians and South Africans, which I believe it does (at least late in the book). It is an enjoyable read. I had to suspend my usual intolerance of typos and some of the sorts of errors that can only have been caused by a spell-checker. I am sure I saw a reference to a "swab Englishman" and "violent crime in South Africa had reached academic proportions"! The author seems to make light of what must have been some horrific experiences in the course of Rhodesia's bush war. The theme of (too much) alcohol and jokes (often practical) recur thru the book. The 'sips of gin' referred to in the title are effectively a battlefield anaesthetic. Being unacquainted with life in Southern Africa, I had a few unanswered questions resulting from reading this book. A couple that arose were why did they (Selous Scouts and other Rhodesian security forces) appear to have such success in persuading captured terrorists to switch sides? And if as it appears that protocol on arriving at a new army base was for all of the officers to head down to the local sports and social club and join the local planters & farmers in an all-out booze-fest, why were these places not targeted by the terrorists? Why did Rhodesia conscript farmers into the army - madness surely? A local probably would not need to ask, and my ex-BSAP friend was able to provide plausible answers (and he reckoned conscripting farmers was madness). But I digress - it is a fascinating book and adds a little more to the voices of the white South(ern) African diaspora. It seems to me that white Southern Africans are rendered voiceless in the face of a smug 'we know what you got up to' sort of an attitude that they face when living in the countries they have dispersed to. Maybe that is unfair on people from other places, but it seems to me a lot of former Rhodesian and South African people face that sort of attitude here in New Zealand where the media is stuck in an arguably imagined past.I can't help feeling that there is a much darker story lurking beneath this one.