Delta Scout: Ground Coverage operator

Delta Scout was the call sign for Tony Trethowan’s Ground Coverage ‘stick’ during the Rhodesian bush war of the late seventies. This is the story of an ordinary policeman, a young man who signed up with the British South Africa Police as a raw 18 year old and who was to serve seven years with that fine force. As a young Patrol Officer, he was to experience rural life in remote stations in the bush of Rhodesia. He embraced the experience and learned Sindebele within a few months. The first part of the book deals with the authors training and posting to police stations as a Uniformed Branch Patrol Officer during which he relates anecdotes of rowdy prospectors, obstreperous farmers, maverick hunters and bizarre eccentrics. As the bush war intensified Tony was transferred to Ground Coverage and later Special Branch where he became increasingly involved in military operations for four and a half years until the end of the bush war. Ground Coverage was a BSAP intelligence-gathering unit— operating literally ‘on the ground’ in the rural areas. The second part of the book deals with the author’s conversion from civilian policeman to full-blooded counter-insurgency operator in an African terrorist war. It may sound unseemly to those who have not experienced the prolonged horrors of war but about the only way to survive it without being overcome with emotion was to maintain a sense of humour which detached readers may consider inappropriate. Tony manages to do this without seeming indifferent to the brutality and suffering around him. Told with a sensitivity and pathos that is rare in military memoirs, Delta Scout is a brutally honest, compelling account of innocence lost.