The Story of the Northern Rhodesia Regiment

Edited by WV Brelsford

This is the first full-sized history of the Northern Rhodesia Regiment whose history dates back to the earliest days of the European occupation of this territory, and whose members have since then fought gallantly in both World War I and World War II. It gives a fascinating account of the origin, growth and traditions of the Regiment and of its active service in many widely scattered countries.

Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia) was one of the few British dependencies in East and Central Africa that had an African regiment with its own territorial title - the military forces of Nyasaland, Tanganyika, Kenya and Uganda being known collectively as The King's African Rifles. The regiment's origins go back to the Barotse police of the early 1900s. In World War I the Regiment campaigned in East Africa, and in World War II in Italian Somaliland, Madagascar against the Vichy French forces, and Burma against the Japanese.

This book tells of the early beginnings of the Regiment, in the time of Cecil Rhodes, when the Chartered Company tackled the uneconomical task of establishing law and order in the vast tracts of land north of the Zambezi. It tells the story of the gallantry of Europeans and Africans in the Great War when the Regiment's forebears fought in the relentless campaign against General von Lettow-Vorbeck's forces, culminating in the post-armistice surrender of the German Commander in Northern Rhodesia. In the last war the Regiment mustered eight battalions and ancillary units, and fought from the grim defeat, against overwhelming odds, at Tug Argan in 1940, through Abyssinia and Madagascar, through the Chindwin Valley and Arakan, to the final triumph at Mandaly in 1945.

ISBN 0946995834. Reprinted facsimilie edition Galago 1990 (original printed 1954). Hardcover. 134 pages. Includes lists of commandants, honours and awards, maps, B&W photographs, battle plans.

Taken from Bushveld.net