Takka Takka Bom Bom: An Intrepid War Correspondent's 50 Year Odyssey

The world’s oldest still-active war correspondent shares the real stories behind half a century of headlines from the front lines.

The world’s oldest still-active war correspondent, Al J. Venter, has reported from the front lines for well over half a century, witnessing the horrors humanity visits upon itself in twenty-five conflict zones across Africa, the Middle East, and Central Asia.

In this memoir, Venter masterfully recounts his experiences, sharing the real stories behind the headlines and the sharp lessons he learned that enabled him to survive his countless exploits, ranging from exposing a major KGB operative in Rhodesia entirely by accident, and accompanying an Israeli force led by Ariel Sharon into Beirut, to gun-running into the United States.

Table of Contents

Foreword
Prologue

1 Africa, the great continent with an appeal all its own
2 Home by five
3 Heading out into the unknown
4 Africa in the 1960s
5 Matilda and Albert Schweitzer’s jungle hospital
6 Palm wine and plantain in Libreville
7 Nigeria: ‘Crazy, but I love it!’
8 A peripatetic existence
9 Rib-eye and red wine in Abidjan
10 Kids with machine guns
11 Republic of Guinea to London
12 The Londoner: my dream of a ship
13 Looking for wars and learning to write
14 A bloody battle and a narrow escape in Lagos
15 Another close call
16 Getting the job properly done
17 Independence and revolutions
18 The safari capital of the world
19 Banned from Rhodesia
20 Pen-pushing pals
21 All’s fair in love and war
22 My favourite: the realm of the underwater
23 Mayday … Mayday … Mayday
24 Lisbon: beloved city
25 You’d be lucky to be hit …
26 South Africa invades Angola
27 Battle for Beirut
28 The murder of a United States Marine colonel in Lebanon’s civil war