This would add an entire chapter to Smithies book 'The Great Betrayal'
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This would add an entire chapter to Smithies book 'The Great Betrayal'
This is maybe the saddest correspondence I have read in a long time. Wonder what history will show in a couple of years about SA.
thanks Chas, again you allow us the privledge of these historic pieces and i thank you! for all rhodesia did for the empire we were discarded and it is amazing that all the infrustructure as well as values have deminished. the brave few who remain are the last moments of a great country! we made rhodesia great, they made zimbabwe ruins! i still have familly there and am heading across the wors curtain in oct, the place in still dear to my heart. the politics have desimated the once lush, thriving country!
i was born after the mugabe take over and chas, and other service men, i thank you for your servics and contribution.
dylan
Thanks Chas
I enjoyed reading the correspondence. It is very sad as it does point to the major motivator being political expedience.
Sweet
Ten years old and four feet high
History and U.D.I.
"Today we've struck a blow", said he
"For Justice and Christianity,
For Principle we've made a stand,
Courageous people, splendid land
Civilized we stand or fall
God save the Queen, God bless you all."
And like the years, good friends have gone
Dave and Richard, Mike and John
Crash and ambush, mine and mortar
Cold and heat and dust and water
Freckled David, laughing Paul
and Pete my bravest friend of all.
Write their names on Rolls of Honour,
Scripted bold in golden splendour.
For us will be no victory day,
The dogs of war have gone astray.
Now Principle becomes surrender,
Expediency, the legal tender.
Is justice just for those who shout?
Is this what Christ is all about?
Will someone tell us why we fight?
What once was wrong is now what's right.
Where am I going? - where have I been?
Somewhere...Nowhere...in between
Years of waste - and so I cried,
The day my good friend Johnny died.
My life could have been so different.
I live with an English lady, who was going to pony club when I was riding shot gun with my Dad driving, in convoys to and from towns around Rhodesia.
She really battles to understand how we went fishing with rifles in the boat, how I happy to sleep under the stars, how I walk everywhere barefoot when I can.
Till on night when the phone rang, I heard her Dad saying that there was someone in their garden, ( property next to ours ), before the call was over, I was in a tracksuit, armed, and on the way over the fences. She looks at me different now, and she tries to understand.
I was still a young boy when this happened, so my very limited knowledge is from what I have read over the years. I especially enjoyed "See you in November" by Peter Stiff.
Over all I must say that the Rhodesians and PM Ian Smith were terribly betrayed. The first person who betrayed them was SA PM John Vorster. And then Maggie Thatcher followed.
I have come to the conclusion, that the Brits (for whatever reason, only they will know) struck a deal with Bob and decided to put him in power. All this was done under covers, while propagating the opposite in public. But maybe I'm just being cynical...