DICK GLEDHILL'S STORY Episode 4 Witchcraft and The End of the War

WITCHCRAFT.

Witchcraft might seem like a bizarre subject to include in a military parachuting

Story but I would like to include them because two of the episodes were Para related.

To the western mind, witchcraft is a lot of gobbledygook but to the African it is as real as driving a car is to us.

The first two instances were when I was on operations with the R.L.I. We were at the Mtoko forward airfield on Fireforce ops and one afternoon some of the troops brought in a middle aged African male. He was looking very sick indeed. When asked what was wrong, the man explained that a witchdoctor had put the death spell on him. The doctors all checked him out at the base hospital and could find nothing medically wrong with him.

The man just got sicker and sicker and within three days he just died. There was no rational explanation, he just willed himself to death.

We had been called to a contact in the Elim Mission area and we were sweeping through a village. I especially remember this contact for two reasons. We were crossing a small stream when I saw a terrorist crawling up the side of the river bank. I took a shot at him when my rifle jammed. I called out to the machine gunner who was walking above the area where the gook was crawling. “Hey Eddie. Watch out. Gook right in front of you.”

Eddie let rip into the sand right in front of his feet.

“Fuckin hell, I nearly had to shoot my own feet of to get the c—t” he laughed.

I checked my F.N to see what was wrong and found the gas piston had worked lose.

I had no weapon.

I called over to the stop group leader. Corporal Dippenar. “Hey corp. I might have to use the floppies A.K. but let the other oeun’s know there is a commie weapon being used in our sweep line.”

“Good thinking Dick. We don’t want a blue on blue, do we?”

The sound of an A.K is different to the heavier boom of an F.N rifle. Anyone hearing an AK being fired would probably start firing in that direction, thus drawing friendly fire. Or a “Blue on blue”

We continued the sweep and received the message from the K.Car (helicopter gunship in control of the scene) that there were “Charlie Tangos” (Communist Terrorists) up ahead. Our stop group was sweeping through a clear area and we did not expect to see any of the enemy as the area to our right was thickly wooded. To our surprise, a lone Terr appeared from the thick cover, right into our rifle sights. More amazing was the fact that he was hurriedly sniffing something.

It is difficult to describe the mess two machine guns and six rifles can make of a man in such a short time.

As the terrorist was directly in my line of advance, it fell to me to search the remains as we swept through.

I picked up the powder horn the man had been sniffing.

“Hey Corp, what’s this?’ I asked.

“That’s his magic muti (Medicine). They believe it will turn our bullets to water or make them invisible to us.”

“Didn’t work for this poor bugger did it?”

This photograph shows a Parra Stick of Rhodesian African Rifles boarding a Dakota at a forward airfield for a Fire Force operation. All these soldiers were veterans of the Rhodesian Bush War against terror. 

Meanwhile back at the Parachute Training School.

One morning as we were about to begin the days lessons I heard a loud keening and wailing, it was a scary sound and I went to investigate.

What I saw would have been ludicrous if it were not for the horrible wailing and screeching.

One of the students seemed to be fitting as his body was convulsing and twitching. His eyes were rolled back in his head. What his mates were doing was even more dramatic.

They were spitting on his forehead and slapping his head. One of the others had picked him up and was forcibly bouncing him up and down on his feet.

“What’s going oo fellas?”

“Ah Seh. The bad spirits have got him and we are trying to get the spirit out.”

All we could do was to send the man down to the hospital, but as usual there was nothing our system could do for this type of thing. So we sent him back to his unit.

Continuation jumping and wizardry.

Often when units were off operations they would come and do continuation jumps at New Sarum, to keep them current.

On this particular day, a company of the Rhodesian African Rifles were doing their currency jumps. This company were well trained, good soldiers and many of them had several operational jumps under their belts. In fact they were regarded as one of the best companies in the R.A.R.

After the jump was completed and the parachutes had been field packed and sent to safety equipment ,the company drove off back to their barracks. Within an hour, we received a frantic phone call from safety equipment.

“Do you know that every single one of the parachutes used this morning has been damaged and cut in some way?”

We recalled the troops.

Squadron Leader Hales confronted the men.

“What has happened here Sarn’t Major?"

The African soldier was an older veteran of many battles and had a history of bravery in combat.

This was his reply.

“Well Seh. Our witch doctor is going to do a cleansing ceremony for us and he told us to take a piece of our parachutes, for the ceremony.”

"Why has one the parachutes had the whole apex cut out, when most of them only have one piece of rigging line missing?”

“Ah Ishe. It is like this. The witchdoctor says he wants a skirt to wear for the ceremony.”

“Sarn’t Major. You know there is going to be a lot of trouble over this.”

“Yes Seh, we know there will be a lot of trouble. But what can we do? We cannot disobey our chief and the witchdoctor.”

They might have been an effective company and they had been trained in the white mans way of fighting, but when it came down to the bottom line, their beliefs were too strong to be ignored.

   

THE END OF THE WAR.

After Mugabe got into power, we were recalled back to Sarum, the war had finished and there was no more work for us on operations.

We received a nasty shock when we returned.

There were dozens of North Koreans trying to take over the school. They were surly and aggressive and tried to intimidate the staff.

After about half a day of being pushed around. Mike Wiltshire a large, blond Englishman had had enough.

He jumped to his feet and started shouting at the Koreans.

“Right you cunts. Fuck off out of here. Go on fuck off. NOW !!”

They started to protest and push back, but the rest of us got up and started to walk towards them. The fact that we started to draw our pistols gave the threat added impetuousness.

Mike Wiltshire again. “Just who the fuck do they think we are? They aren’t in charge yet and until someone tells us to get out, this is still our crew room.”

The Koreans were still surly, but they were a bit more respectful, because they now knew we weren’t going to be pushed around.

The only other thing of interest that happened was when we received a visit from the new Minister of Defence. Surprisingly, the man was very cheerful and friendly, especially as he was an ex terrorist. This was an official visit but the man was wearing a loud beach shirt, board shorts and a pair of Maunutela’s (Sandals made of old car tyres.)

We spent half a day showing the minister around the school.

 Part of the morning was spent showing him how a parachute actually works. We deployed a packed parachute in the hangar by walking it out on the floor and explaining the sequence of events as we went.

This had always been part of the basic para course as an introduction to the parachute.

After about an hour of what we thought was an adequate explanation, the minister scratched his head and said.

“Ah she, but how does it work?”

Three months after the war ended, we were disbanded and we went our separate ways.

WRITER’S FOOTNOTE.

It has become apparent to many people over the years that the Rhodesian war was not a racist war. It was a war fought to maintain a standard of morals that used to be the hallmark of Western society. Those standards have been rapidly eroded in the last few years.

I believe that the Rhodesian war was the beginning of the end for the West.

The lie that it was a racist war was told to give approval to the policies of appeasement, popular with the British Labour Government of Harold Wilson.

Perhaps Wilson believed that giving way to pressure from Terrorists in other countries would ensure that the rest of the world would be left alone. How wrong he was. We are now paying for those mistakes.

The ones who use Terrorism as a tool have learnt from the errors made by people like Wilson. Terrorism is now used on a global scale. Because we have capitulated to the Terrorists in the past, it is believed that we will now capitulate on a large scale now.

Media coverage of the wars we are fighting today gives credence to that belief.

It seems that we in the West have lost the will to stand up and be counted, instead we have made the dollar our benchmark and to hell with moral fibre.

I believe that I have been privileged to be part of a last ditch attempt to maintain all that was great about our civilisation.

We fought hard but we had the world against us. The Communist bloc was aiding and abetting the Terrorists in order to destabilise the continent. The West turned against us to further its own mistaken beliefs.

History will say.

 “The Rhodesians were very brave because they understood the value of good moral standards. By destroying those standards, the West has not only let the Rhodesians down. It has let itself down.”

R. Gledhill.

Townsville
Australia. 

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