Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

Winds of Destruction is a unique account of one man's service in the Rhodesian Air Force, spanning a period of twenty-three years from 1957 to 1980through the politically turbulent years of Federation; the Unilateral Declaration of Independence (U.D.I.) by Ian Smith's government in 1965 and thirteen years of relentless, uncompromising bush warfare against the never-ending tide of Robert Mugabe's and Joshua Nkomo's ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas. In a gruelling conflict that permitted no quarter, the Rhodesian Air Force (Rh.A.F.) fast became one of the Rhodesian Defence Force's most lethal and effective counter-insurgency organs. In pre-emptive bombing strikes against enemy camps in Mozambique, Zambia and as far afield as Tanzania; in its integral role as a troop-carrier and airborne strike force in ? The author was born in the highly successful self-governing British colony, Southern Rhodesia. His love of his country and its people is as clear in this book as his disbelief and anger over British and South African policies of political expendiency that forced Rhodesia out of the western camp into one clearly forseen to become a one-party Marxist dictatorship. Winds of Destruction is the story of the author's life before and after joining the Royal Rhodesian Air Force. The book centres on the writer's involvement with air and ground operations in Rhodesia's thirteen-year war against the communist forces of Marxist Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo who sought to gain power by force. Written by a serving Air Force pilot, this is one man's story of the Thirteen-Year bush-war fought in Rhodesia. It was a contest between those seeking to retain western democracy and those who sought to take power through the barrel of a gun At the conclusion of the Anglo-Boer War all seven Southern Rhodesian military units, which had participated with the British forces, were disbanded.