BRAVO TEN (They Who Dared)

Rhodesia was one of the very last colonial outposts in southern Africa. She had long served Great Britain well, in both peace and war. During World War II, many Rhodesians rallied to the mother counties aid, serving in all branches of His Majesties armed forces, including the fledgling SAS. Her last major act of solidarity with the UK was during the Malayan emergency of 1951 to 1953. Fighting a guerrilla war for which it was ill prepared, the British Army soon realised the need for a special forces unit. The Special Air Service Regiment was duly resurrected and organised into four operational Squadrons. A, B and D Squadrons were drawn from the British Army, while C Squadron was raised from Rhodesian volunteers. When the Malayan conflict came to an end the British gave the SAS a permanent place in its order of battle, but C Squadron quietly disbanded and its members returned home to civilian life in Rhodesia. In 1961, the Rhodesian government decided to reform C Squadron as a counter to the increasing threat of communist insurgency within her borders…… The decision to reinstate C Squadron proved prudent for, after Rhodesia finally made a unilateral declaration of independence on November 11th 1965 and broke away from UK rule, both the Russian and Chinese backed communist terrorist movements known to the world as ZIPRA and ZANLA saw their chance to move in for the kill. Standing alone, hamstrung by international sanctions and facing vastly numerically superior enemy forces, Rhodesia astounded the world by not only holding the enemy off, but taking the fight to them in their host countries of Zambia and Mozambique, killing countless thousands of terrorists in the process. In 1976 FRELIMO, the ruling party of Mozambique, declared war on Rhodesia and brought her sizeable and well equipped army into the fray alongside their ally, Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA. Despite this, the Rhodesian security forces refused to yield. Indeed, they responded by upping the terrorist body count even further. By 1978 the war had intensified to the degree that the drain on Rhodesia’s limited white manpower was beginning to tell. Conscription was widened and C Squadron was expanded and given Regimental Status. In June of that year it became the 1st SAS Regiment with three operational Squadrons (A, B and C). Its tasking was simple, find and destroy the enemy and its leaders and smash their ability to wage war……. BRAVO TEN takes the reader by the scruff of the neck and transports them into the thick of Rhodesian SAS operations.