Special Branch War

Slaughter in the Rhodesian Bush. Southern Matabeleland, 1976-1980

Ed Bird

• Publisher: Helion and Company
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781910294321
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Modern History
• Index: History

This searing account primarily covers Ed Bird's Special Branch (SB) service in the Beitbridge area of southern Matabeleland, 1976-1980, encompassing Operations Repulse and Tangent of the bitter Rhodesian 'bush war'.Joining the British South Africa Police (BSAP) in 1964, Bird cut his teeth on Selous Scouts 'pseudo' operations during Operation Hurricane in 1974-1976, so was well equipped to deal with the insidious escalation of the ZANLA and ZIPRA campaigns in the south of the country.A meticulous recorder, Bird implemented and maintained the Beitbridge SB incident log, and it is this diary of terror and death upon which Bird's account hangs, interspersed with detailed accounts of fire fights, ambushes, landmine blasts, ZANLA executions, traitors and assassinations, SB 'dirty tricks' and 'turning' terrorists.Although first and foremost an intelligence-gatherer, Bird thrived on combat and against all protocol inveigled his way onto Fire Force operations and as an air mobile MAG machine-gunner on converted Police Reserve Air Wing aircraft. Decorated for bravery but overlooked for promotion, Bird's BSAP career became victim to spurious political expedience.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Illustrations
• Maps
• Glossary
• Foreword by Winston Hart
• Introduction by Don Price
• Special Branch Beitbridge incident log by Brian Perkins
• Author's note
• About Rhodesia
• Prologue
• Chapter One: Selous Scouts attachment, 1974-1976
• Chapter Two: Beitbridge: first blood to ZANLA, May 1967
• Chapter Three: Insidious intensification, late 1976
• Chapter Four: Overt intensification, January 1977-June 1977
• Chapter Five: Landmines, ambushes and poison, July-December 1977
• Chapter Six: Protected villages and the litany of terror continues, January–June 1978
• Chapter Seven: Dirty tricks
• Chapter Eight: A busy two months, July-August 1978
• Chapter Nine: Deployment of 1 (Indep) Company Rhodesian African Rifles, September-December 1978
• Chapter Ten: Routine slaughter, January-June 1979
• Chapter Eleven: Sweet Banana and a Q bus, July-November 1979
• Chapter Twelve: Transfer to Gwanda, November 1979
• Chapter Thirteen: A case of political expedience
• Afterword
• Appendix I: The Povo system: Beitbridge area
• Appendix II: Samples of the incident log
• Appendix III: Weapons used in the Beitbridge area of conflict
• Appendix IV: Letter from Lt-Gen G.P. Walls to Margaret Thatcher
• Appendix V: Foreign and Commonwealth Office responds
• Plates
• eBooks Published by Helion & Company