Three Sips of Gin: Dominating the Battlespace with Rhodesia's Elite Selous Scouts

Timothy Bax's memoir documents his service as a special forces veteran in the Rhodesian War, accompanied by over a hundred photographs. The Selous Scouts, an elite unit of the Rhodesian army, became known to their enemies as Skuzapu—pickpockets—for their ability to infiltrate and eliminate insurgents. Composed of specially selected black and white soldiers supplemented by captured guerrillas, the unit posed as communist fighters to conduct counter-insurgency operations across the African bush. Bax recounts his childhood in colonial Africa with his British family, where Foreign Service employees gathered socially and his mother was trained in firearms use. After moving to Canada, he was drawn back to the continent and recruited into the Selous Scouts. By the mid-1970s, the unit had become dominant in Rhodesia's conflict, working alongside the Rhodesian Light Infantry and accounting for a significant proportion of enemy casualties. The Scouts expanded operations beyond Rhodesia's borders, conducting vehicle-borne assaults on camps in neighboring countries. Bax's account combines his combat experiences with observations about the daily realities and absurdities of life during this period.