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John Cronin served in Recon, Force Recon, Rhodesian Light Infantry, Selous Scouts: Ep. 60
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- čas přidán 17. 09. 2020
- John Cronin has lived a life of adventure from serving in Vietnam with Marine Recon and Force Recon to traveling to Rhodesia where he served in the RLI and Selous Scouts. Afterwards he pursued academics going to school in the Middle East, and even got kidnapped in Beirut.
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What about csm mike kelso
First non-Zimbabwean to clearly explain the Ndebele Shona tension. That will never heal.
I'm glad Dave brought up the external factors like the Soviet and Chinese support of ZIPRA and ZANLA. I suspect a lot of younger viewers are not aware of the Cold War context of the Rhodesian conflict. The Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique had just fallen to Communist regimes. At the time with the Soviets supporting the MPLA in Angola, SWAPO in what was then South West Africa (today Namibia), the ANC in South Africa and FRELIMO in Mozambique Western strategists perceived that the Soviets were attempting to gain control of Southern Africa for its strategic minerals (especially chromium). Southern Africa was nicknamed the "Saudi Arabia of Minerals". I suspect most of the foreign volunteers in Rhodesia went in part as what they saw as an anti-Communist crusade. As a Soldier of Fortune magazine reading teenager I certainly saw it through that anti-Communist lens. I wrote to the Rhodesian Army in 1978 to find out about recruitment. As I was only 17 they told me I had to have parental consent to join. Fortunately my parents had the good sense not to give me consent to join and the Lancaster Agreement came into play the following year. As usual another great episode! I grabbed the book "The Bleed: With the Marines in Vietnam and the RLI and Selous Scouts in Rhodesia". Today it is only $4.00 on Kindle to own.
At least this was the cover story. In truth the Vatican took out southern Africa. Africa is the richest and least populated continent after Australia. The European settlers were too independent and starting to tip the balance of power. The USSR itself was a giant Jesuit Reduction. For more information on the origins of communism, please research the Jesuit Reductions of South America. You can also find pictures of Mandela in his Vatican Knights of Malta cape on the internet.
John Cronin, good Soldier I remember him well. One of two Americans who ever made it through the Selous Scouts selection. Many came a tried but only Murphy and Cronin made the grade.
What was selection like? Wikipedia says there was a 62 mile march at some point. Good lord.
@@stephen3762 Steven: The endurance march at the end of the course was 20 Ks a day for 5 days with 50 pounds of rocks in your pack along with all of your other gear. That is indeed about 65 miles in all.
@@johncroninjrc thanks for the reply jon
Cronin and Murphy ! The Irish make great soldiers
@Dj Harto they make great sufferers lol
Amazing interview, not to many interviews with veterans of the bush war. Mr. Cronin is a special breed. Thank you for your service.
Nice of you to respond, thank you.
@@johncroninjrc Hey John do you have an e-mail? I finished your book and had some questions if you don't mind. It was a fantastic read. Thank you for taking the time to write it!
Actually getting to even meet a Selous Scouts is incredible... there are so few of them! Would have loved to have heard more on the operations and also maybe on a lot of the operators going to SA after the war and incorporating into Recce 5. Recce 5 also had a Pseudo Opps detachment as well as a small mission unit section. You guys need to try and get Koos Stadler of Recce 5 on the show. He wrote an incredible book called Recce: Small Team Missions Behind Enemy Lines. You won't believe the stories. He took part in a 2 man operation to blow up Mig 21s... on the ground... yes that is two guys lay ing up inside an enemy base for 12 hours to blow up Migs. Thanks for a great show.
I am fortunate enough to have been given a Selous Scout beret and beer mug by an old Scout
Any More than 4 men in a High Covert Direct Action Mission is TOO Many...
2 Men is a GREAT number. Especially if 4 split down to 2... You can get some Work DONE! BUT Small Numbered Elements doing Hardcore Direct Actions, like rigging planes to Explode, that's BALLS! Most of the time with those numbers You don't WANT Contact, it's Usually "Humint" Recon Based Missions. My Dad was a 2 Tour LRRP in Nam.
@@AnnE-mn8ny If you give me his name, I almost surely knew him.
@John Cronin my Dad was in the armoured cars. He claimed that one of his cousins, who I never met or knew was a Selous Scout. I have always wondered how I could confirm this? His name was Douglas Banks.
Amazon has some great books written by some fine operators.Rhodesian War.
Amazing podcast and guest ! Thanks guys. 👍👌
I'm a Nan vet (173 ABN) and I was in the Rhodesian Territorials for two months stationed up at the Kariba Dam.
This is a phenomenal interview.
Thank you, John - very interesting. Good luck with your teaching!
Thanks Prop, and most gratified that you liked the content.
Thank you Team House and Mr. Cronin. Amazing interview. The big bonus was, Mr. Cronin is an excellent speaker and storyteller.
I enjoyed reading Cronin's book while I was in Afghanistan on my e reader.
Very glad that I could entertain you while that sun was beating the hell out of you and good to know that you made it back okay.
Have read 4 books on the Rhodesian bush war:
"Dingo Firestorm"
"A handful of hard men"
"Fireforce" and
"Shadows of a forgotten past: To the edge"
Of these books, I HIGHLY recommend the first two. They tell you what kind of men that made up the elite forces mentioned in this video. When I read "A handful of hard men. The SAS and the battle for Rhodesia", I got the impression that the Rhodesians were on the verge of actually winning the war. Mugabe's forces were on it's last legs and ready to fall. BUT, then a political back room deal was struck in London behind closed doors. Which in effect put the once prosperous country on the path to become the failed state it is today.
Honestly, I'm not sure the Rhodesians ever had a chance to win that war after foregoing an opportunity to reach an acceptable accommodation with moderate African nationalists in the early 1960s. These weren't terrorists in those days, either, but rather nationalists like Ndabaningi Sithole, who would have been a lot more receptive to preserving a number of white rights than would have Mugabe and Nkomo. It's almost impossible to win a guerrilla war because there will always be a steady stream of recruits falling for the propaganda that they will one day be the ones to run the country after ultimate victory. ZIPRA and ZANLA lost 40,000 men killed from 1968-1980 and they were still recruiting at an unbelievable pace when the war ended, so there was never a loss of manpower reserves- even if the Security Forces seemingly killed them at almost the same rate they were entering the country. Rhodesia would never have won the war at that rate and would have simply been out-waited - which was a strategy put in place by the Chinese and Russian advisors to Mugabe and Nkomo in the mid-1970s - and it's exactly what happened.
Just knowing there are people like this man out there makes me feel safe in a weird way ...I could listen to him all day no probs ,he is simply unbelievable......great stuff
Nothing to feel safe when the world is under this globalist basically satanic overlordship right now
Rli, scouts and fireforce and 7squadron were formidable and by far the best counter insurgency fighting unit. The scouts found em 7sq flew the rli in. If you want to understand it you've gotta read selous scouts book, fireforce by Chris cocks and beaver Shaw book.
Remember John Cronin from 3 Commando 1RLI when I was a sergeant. Good man, nice to see him again...
TONY COOM! I was just reading through the RLI anniversary book and read your story of a contact we were on. You were a first-class troop sergeant and I'm glad you're still as strong as10 terrs.
@@johncroninjrc Amusing to hear your comment about that senior officer that you didn't get on with...we share the same experience!
@@tonycoom2976 It's interesting to hear you say that, because I spoke to several other senior NCOs in the Commando after I left and every one of them agreed with you about Major Bruce Snelgar. I think he was a bit intimidated by Jerry Strong's reputation after he took over the unit and spent his time trying to measure up. For that and other reasons, I couldn't stand the prick. Sorry he ended up getting killed during OP Miracle, but the fact that he checked out like that didn't make him any better an officer. I'm pretty sure you were with us up at Dett when he first took over the Commando and climbed into a G-Car before a Fire Force call out, thinking it was the K-Car? Incidentally, I always thought the Commando was extremely fortunate to have men like you, Enslin and the Taylor brothers as troop sergeants. I remember especially liking your work at Chimoio.
@@johncroninjrc Presume that we're on the same page with the BS...got a very interesting story that you'd be delighted to hear, reminiscent of your army's Vietnam MI Lai (sp?) incident.
@@tonycoom2976 I had just left the Marines and was back in the States when that incident took place, and it illustrated the poor training that some reserve Army officers received before being deployed over to Vietnam. There is no way he (as a lieutenant in change of a platoon) or his company OC (a captain) should have been allowed to command troops in the bush, and the fact that both of them lost complete control of their men and allowed them to go on that killing spree of villagers shows just how awful they were in those positions of authority. Both were court-martialed, found guilty and relieved of their commands, but at what cost as a propaganda gift to the North Vietnamese?
The turned terrorists that became scouts also had their entire families uplifted and moved into protected villages. Theres an interview with one of these captured terrorists who became a scout and then a brigadier in zimbabwe. His name is taffy, its a very good interview
Actually, Scouts' operators were never moved into any protected villages. The average PV was a death trap because poorly trained Guard Force members rendered them almost impossible to secure, so every pseudo and his extended family lived in only one place and that was where Scouts' headquarters was located - in Andre Rabie Barracks several miles outside of Salisbury. I rather doubt that a former Scout became a General officer in the Zimbabwean Army - and he's saying he was a captured ZANLA who volunteered for the Scouts and then returned to ZANLA ranks after the war, right? So Taffy sounds like every other piss-poor, wannabe liar who claims to have been a member of the Regiment, and these include Whites (South Africa is crawling with them), and Africans as well.
I returned to Zimbabwe in 1990, 10 years after the war, on a US government contract, and five taxi drivers in four days all claimed to have either have been in ZANLA and killed dozens of Scouts or to have served with the Regiment as operators. It's just a foreign permutation of Stolen Valor and Brigadier Taffy fits right in.
@@johncroninjrc I will post the link up for you.
@@johncroninjrc czcams.com/video/oL8CEp8dGiU/video.html
@@johncroninjrc it was zipra sorry
Also he became a colonel sorry, not brigadier
Great interview with John Cronin, fellas! By the way, it was the 15th Infantry Regiment, of the 3rd Infantry Division, that the most decorated Infantryman, of World War Two, A. Murphy, was in!
Rhodesians only knew the rifle as an FN. As John did not know what you were talking about using the American term FAL...
True enough. But sometimes use the term "FN FAL" for Americans not used to how we talked in the Forces. Disclaimer: American myself (RhACR, RAR)
FN was just the naming convention, and it was the main weapon of most of the regiments, and the UZI as sub for other areas from. Memory as a boy, the convoys on the white utes ran the big browning 50 cal
Hello Captain Cronin (RLI 3 Commando 1977). It's been a long time... sorry to see the signal red hair has gone 🤣😂😂🤣. Glad to see you're still in one piece Sir. God Bless you. You were always a wonderful inspiration for all of us in the Commando. Peter Leid (Medic)
Great to hear from you again, since the last time I laid eyes on you was the day I left 3 Commando for the Scouts selection. I trust you are well, but my question is: how on Earth did you find this CZcams channel? And yeah, that red hair went AWOL about 30 years ago, as it turned from grey to white. Same with the beard, so I just shaved that off because I looked a lot like Santa Claus.
Where are you now? South Africa, Australia or the UK, like so many others? - and did you remain in the medical field like Gavin Fletcher did? (at least he was for awhile after the war). We've lost so many guys from the Commando over the years, but I'd like to know if you have any updates on any of them. Major Jerry Strong moved to Australia with his wife three years ago from the UK and lives near his son/wife in Melbourne; Gordon Thornton was in Hong Kong for a number of years but I think has since been eaten by some Chinese dissidents; I believe that Johnny Norman still lives in Cape Town, as does Mark Adams, and Rod Smith runs a safari-type operation outside Lusaka. So tell me what's happening on your end.
I enjoyed the interview. As a young boy growing up in Rhodesia in the 70's all boys dream was to serve. We had our heroes who we looked up to, I am sure you would have had some interaction with Chris Schullenberg?
I can identify how you felt doing jump course in Tempe. I was stationed there for 18 months in the mid 80's. Been english speaking in the SADF was a miserable life unless you learnt to praat die taal.
I worked with Schullenberg only once and that was during a camp attack in Feira, Zambia in 1978 when we flattened a ZIPRA staging area that was housing people who were about to cross the Zambezi into Rhodesia. It was after that assault that we captured the first Strellas (SA-7 Grails), which ZIPRA later used to shoot down the two Viscount commercial airliners. I think he was also in the Scouts' two-man team that recced Chimoio in November of 1978, in which case we in the RLI would have worked directly from his maps and sketches when we organized our assaults.
So you must have been with the 1st (?) Parachute Battalion, then? Great instructors and training facilities - plus we got to jump out of C-130s, but we went there in June of 1977 so I damn near froze to death. I would add that you have my sincerest sympathies if you had to spend 18 months in the middle of the Free State. You must have really pissed someone off.
I fully agree, growing up in Borrowdale and going through Cubs and Scouts and having a leader who was part of a regiment, he was getting us ready, but alas fate changed all that, however it was all I wanted to do as a boy,.
I remember going to Nyanga and see my friends older brothers serving and and being on duty watching areas, taking ration packs and well it’s so hard to explain.
Tempe women.
Many proffessional hunters was Selous Scouts over there. Sten Cedergren went through training and then serving with them during the bushwar .
One very good unit that many owes very much today worldwide.
About one-half of Assault Group was composed of TAs, many of whom were game rangers in one of the wildlife reserves when they weren’t doing their six-week call-ups, and this is what made the Scouts such good trackers.
Interesting life and I can agree with a lot of what he says on Rhodesia. What he didn't say was the rich history that Rhodesia has as a fighting nation of pioneers. The UK and the politics of the 70s was what did Rhodesia in, with sanctions and terrible reporting by international agencies and the UN agenda. As a fighting force Rhodesia had very few equals. That goes back to the 1st and 2nd World War and their willingness to fight for the British who so eagerly stabbed the nation in the back. The units of RLI, SAS, RAR. PATU, Grey Scouts and the Rhodesian defense force never numbered more than 20 000 men. They faced over 200 000 men and had a kill ratio of eleven to one. A book could be written in detail about what truly went on, but while Rhodesia prospered - Zimbabwe is now in ruins. What was build up over 90 years ended in 1980 when a brutal dictator Mugabe took over. Now the country is one of the poorest in Africa. So sad, and probably what will happen to many nations that go the communist socialist route.
Oppressive governments have a history of defeat. The Rhodesian government was oppressive, corrupt and rascist. A perfect mix for downfall.
Zimbabwe didn't do any better. The Mugabe's government was also oppressive, corrupt and rascist.
Same problems, different master.
@@065Tim You obviously don't know history and to compare the two governments is pure hogwash. Rhodesia was built up from nothing from 1890 to 1965 when the UK decided that it has to destroy this prosperous colony. 3 times as many people lost their lives after independence from whence Zimbabwe was formed, and it happen in less than 5 years. Have you ever visited Bulawayo and talked to the survivors of the genocide that occurred there? I don't think so. Rhodesia to Zimbabwe is a micro version of whats happening in the world right now, a major push to socialistic, communist views soon to come on the world. The reset, watch it unfold.
@@allanedwards1067 100% Correct you are Sir..!! The reset is upon the world now and the rest of the world have zero clue...!!
Regards Charlie
@@065Tim As you probably didn't ever live in Rhodesia, you may well be confusing Rhodesia with South Africa: ours was never an oppressive government or corrupt, though it would be regarded as racist in today's terms. The problem with the racism bit is that you cannot fairly judge a country with today's eyes, in fact you cannot effectively judge any sort of history from a modern standpoint.
We had perhaps the best African health care in Africa; a British based 'rule of law' and many of us could speak Ndebele, Shona or a sort of universal language called chillapa lapa (or funigalo). Up until the early 1970s race relations were generally good.
@@allanedwards1067 Spot on Allan (from a Makiwa born in Bulawayo).
Firstly John, Thank you for your service in Rhodesia. Some fine units and brave men.
I would like to correct some historical inaccuracies which you could be forgiven since you were not brought up in Rhodesia.
Rhodesia (formerly Southern Rhodesia) was never a British Colony. Cecil Rhodes, the diamond mining magnet of the late 1800's bought the mining rights in Rhodesia from Lobengula, King of the Ndebele (Matabele) who was the effective ruler of the region by right of conquest. Rhodes setup the British South Africa Company as the official organisation that ran the mining operations in the territory. The Company was part mining and part military and part police. The Police of the Rhodesia was still called British South Africa Police (BSAP) right up until 1980. After Rhodes death the Company was still financed through the aegis of the de Beers Mining Company. De Beers was bought out by Oppenheimer in 1921 and he had no interest in continuing this association. The people of Rhodesia were given a referendum as whether they should become the 5th Province of the Union of South Africa or become a Self Governing territory in the Empire with the same status as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand. They opted for the latter. This meant they elected their own government and had a Parliament and Prime Minister and their head of State was the UK Sovereign. The British Government's on;y responsibility was Foreign Affairs and External defence. The Sovereign's representative was a Governor General.
In light of the above the UK has never sought or attempted to interfere with or dictate to any of the other territories mentioned above. So the question arises why in Rhodesia?
The African history is also convoluted. The Ndebele only arrived in the territory in 1850. The King of the Ndebele was Mzilikazi who had been the Western Sector General of Shaka Zulu. He had totally depopulated the central region of South Africa (see The Robert Moffat Journals from his time at the London Missionary Society Mission in Kuruman, Northern Cape). Mzilikazi had kept back cattle and booty from raids from Shaka. Shaka tasked other units to destroy his force. He fled to the Northern region of Southern Africa just South of the Limpopo River. Mzilikazi had some brushes with the arriving Voortrekers and wished to avoid further contact and migrated North into the South West region of what became Rhodesia. Robert Moffat was friendly with Mzilikazi and established the first Mission station in the territory near Old Bulawayo in 1855. Mzilikazi then proceeded to continue his murderous campaign against the Shona and would have totally eliminated them but for the arrival of the European settlers. On Mzilikazi's death his son, Lobengula assumed power and as tradition had it established the new Bulawayo and burned the old one.
Why did Rhodesians fear Black majority rule. As the younger generation grew up after WW2 (me included) we witnessed the barbarity of Kenya Mau Mau attacks in graphic reality. Many White Kenyans settled in Rhodesia. This was followed by brutal treatment meted out to the Whites in the Belgian Congo. I remember graphically as a young child the Whites fleeing the Congo and coming through Bulawayo by train from Northern Rhodesia with just the clothes on their backs. Why should we believe that this would not befall us as well especially with violence already being unleashed on whites in Rhodesia. History has proved us correct. The Whites lost their farms and businesses following Mugabe's rise to power. The country with the strongest currency on the African Continent and zero foreign debt is now the poorest country on the planet. The life expectancy of the Black population was 65 and is now 37.
Thank you for the background information and for filling in a few historical blanks. In answer to one of your rhetorical questions about what Rhodesian whites had to fear during the 1960s Age of Revolution in Africa, their armed forces were much more proficient in bush warfare than were the French in North Africa, the British in Kenya and the Belgians in the Congo. Mugabe was smart enough to know at independence in 1980 that Zimbabwe's economic future lay with the White-dominated farming industry and so he left it alone until internal political pressures became so strong in the early 1990s that he had to nationalize many in that community and turn them over to ZANU-PF cronies - who promptly ran them into the ground and fired all of the African employees. Hence, the devaluation of the dollar, the end of an export-led economy, and the beginning of hyperinflation, financial ruination and a debilitating fiscal and administrative ineptitude that continues to this day despite a changing of the guard.
It wasn't just a ' fear ' of black rule, the nation could not afford to educate all the people, nor could many of the blacks afford to allow their children to take enough time off to go to school. So effectively one man one vote at the time ment rule would be decided by significantly illiterate people. Worse the native tribes had a history of conflict going back beyond recollection. It would not be reasonable to ask them to vote or rule in the best interest of the nation, because they identified themselves first by their tribe.
To allow democracy, and thus black rule, first enough generations would need to pass for the people to identify themselves as Rhodesian first, and secondly the economy and infrastructure would need to be developed such that the common Rhodesian could be educated in literacy, economics, and civics.
Part of why Africa in general has failed to develop is simply that the nations were not allowed to establish themselves naturally, nor were they allowed to develop far enough under minority rule.
Key phrase was Belgian Congo...Does anyone after how the King Leopold government treated the native African, there wouldn't be a settling of scores?
@@nelsonzambrano5788 Doesn't change the perceptions of whites who lived through that period. If people lived in fear of what might happen in the future based on the past nothing would happen.
Whether you like colonialism or not it brought huge advantages to the the local population and colonial powers that would never happened without it.
@@TheTigerOC - that's a tough one...think of it this way...The Roman empire conquered France/Gauls, Britian/Britania, Germany/Germania, built roads(brought progress) , some of which stand to this day...NONE of those countries, feel or owe a bit of gratitude to the Roman's....as a matter of fact have monuments, to people who fought them...So I just ask you to think about that part of history, (those examples) when anyone makes the claims about how much, the "colonized" people were "helped" ...
Thanks John for your service to Rhodesia! As a Rhodesian myself forced to leave the country thanks to Mugabe I appreciate what you did for our country at the time .
Thank you for the comment, and my four years there were worth every day of it.
@@johncroninjrc your stories and intelligence information were accurate and interesting . My family of 4 brothers all came the military. My father was airforce and two brothers also . My eldest brother was RLI and then Corps of engineers until he did his officer’s selection In Gwelo where we were born and lived . At the school of infantry. A beautiful country now in shambles thanks to the indigenous people who were not ready to govern as predicted by Ian Smith right from the beginning.
@@rhodesia1578 I knew Gwelo well and it was a great little town. Any time you can, please give my regards to your family and the ones who served. When was your brother in the RLI and which Commando was he with?
Did you know my father Trooper Joseph Patrick Byrne KIA 10/26/78? I want to know what he was like. I've got pictures, stories from family but I haven't spoken to anyone who served with him.
@@jennasamuels5308 Hi Jenna .. my apologies sorry I didn’t know of him . But hope someone can recall him that served with him , my condolences for your loss
What a great interview! One of the best ever.
What? How in the world did I miss this conversation? 😢 I really appreciate 🙏❤💕💓 for SHEDING LITE on your life's.
I have a lot off respect for our men in uniform. I also support our veterans ❤💙
Very nice of you to say, so thank you.
This guy is awesome. Great memory. You should have asked him what his diet was he clearly doesn't have dementia or alzheimers which so many of these guys have from that time and that age. Sharp guy. Should bring him on for future episodes whenever you have Vietnam guys on would be good to have somebody from the era to build your story narratives with you. Right now it's like doing a GWOT vets deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan without having someone on the show who has ever deployed to the ME. There's a lot of details a Vietnam guy could tie in if they were involved to make the episodes that much better. Just my .02c.
Great! Fantastic! I love getting history on the Rhodesian Bush War. More like this please and thank you.
Excellent and informative, thanks very much.
I read his book a couple years back, it's a good read. A lot of it is hysterically funny too.
Halbeck device is what they put on FN FAL to prevent the muzzle rise of the 7.62 during automatic fire.
And it worked beautifully, where you could fire a two- or three-round burst and your weapon might rise an inch, if that. I once saw one of my men hit a guerrilla square in the back on a dead run from about 100 feet away and I didn't even see the weapon recoil. Three rounds on full auto grouped about six inches apart. In all honesty, he should have been on single-shot, but I let that one go.
It’s interesting to hear the NVA were very good about casualty collection for either simply trying to save their buddies, the decent of not letting them rot, or maybe even a “master plan” of having you wonder if you killed anybody or they survived or imagined it.
Gentlemen, i thourouly enjoyed this. Thank you all.
Amazing interview--this was the first I have see on your channel, well worth a Subscribe!
Outstanding video. I’ve always been interested in this area and the war. 😊
Glad you liked it.
Hi John - to endorse your comments about the Ndebele and Shona - i have, on several occasions, listened to Zipra and Zanla fighting one another in their border areas. This caused us much amusement at the time!! There is a great deal of suspicion amongst Zimbabweans, starting at tribal level and filtering down to sub units within tribes and even families. What has always amazed me is to see the interplay between groups where they will bond against one threat but split when that threat has been removed and then become enemies. I think the whole of humankind operates like this but in Zimbabwe, perhaps throughout Africa, it is very emotive and pronounced. I cannot see Zimbabwe adopting a national identity that is stronger than a tribal one for many years to come. Suspicion is a way of life there - even the police operate on that basis!! It is very tiresome to deal with.
Hello Gundwan: As a captain, I was an assistant operations officer at JOC Grapple for five months after I left the RLI and before I went across to the Scouts, and I used to have to drive out to the farming areas in Midlands to investigate these punch-ups between ZIPRA and ZANLA groups who had run into each other the night before. And I had to do that a lot by getting debriefings from the local police. This was such a commonplace occurrence and posed so little threat to the farming community at large that COMOPS pretty much wrote that area off and just let the PATU personnel alone take over the security situation.
Terrific interview!
What an amazing life and story and man wish I had a teacher like this wow
*Thank you for posting all of your videos. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!*
One of the most interesting interviews of a combat veteran I have heard.
Just came back from Kruger Park, while there I was thinking about those guys fighting in that bush, it's difficult to see an elephant from 30 meters
Right you are, and in the Eastern Highlands on the border with Mozambique, it was worse. Some places had double, even triple, canopy, making close contact very likely - especially toward dawn or dusk.
Did my para selection and all my infantry training in Bloemfontein, De Brug - 2006. Haven't done anything more hard core ever since, and I've been operational in conflict zones till this day.
I was there for para training in July of 1977 and nearly froze, considering how much warmer it was to the north in Rhodesia.
@@johncroninjrc yes -6 at night and during the morning, 35+ during the day. Little sleep, little food lots of opfok. Afkak plek.
John, my old man served in Rhodesia and had a great friendship with Rich Brandt the Air Force pilot, and the teams in Grey scouts, and other units
Which regiment did he serve with?
@@johncroninjrc hey John great podcast firstly, thank you sp much and calling it by its original name, I will find out which regiment, and let you know, he also served in the Kenya regiment when he was drafted during the Mau Mau War; I like the fact you spoke about how much the Chinese and Russians back various groups, and the always ongoing battle between Matabele and Mashona, I remember learning Mashona at school, my favourite teacher was Mr Hill who served and was a machine whom we are looked up to and he was always making sure we were ready for anything,
@Eternal Peace hawker Hunters, shot the dust bin the old steel type,
Excellent interview. Thanks for that.
Great interview, glad I found your channel
Great interview. Lots of familiar names and places. I encountered the Scouts only once, Op Miracle - but they were in a conventional role for the most part there (Chomoio). It was interesting to hear your tales of that. My only experience with turncoats was Phumo Revanho and I didn't trust them one bit.
I don't blame you about RNM, as they were about as reliable as the Auxiliary Forces that COMPOS put together in 1979. Remember those scaly types? I was on Miracle, too, and took the Scouts' 2 Group in from a farm in the Penalhonga Estates. You had to be there to see the looks on the three civilian farmers' faces when the 110 of us showed up on their property dressed as skuzzy ZANLA, replete with AKs, RPDs, long, braided hair and beards. They kept looking at our pseudos, then back to the four of us who were European officers and senior NCOs, and then back to the pseudos again. You just knew that the three of them - like everyone else in Rhodesia - had heard all about the Scouts for years (and not really knowing what was true or not) and now, finally seeing the real deal from 30 feet away, were in a mild state of shock. Exceptionally few people in that war ever got to see what we did, and they had to have known that. Actually, COMOPS had chosen their farm as a point of departure for us to walk the three miles across the border into Mozambique at last light because they were senior police reservists and could be relied on to keep their mouths shut.
James Rigney!!!!! Reeding The Wheel of Time is one of the main reasons I enlisted in the MC in 96!
the 0:00 frame is a work of art you could meme that
One of my favorite episodes yet!
The sound sucks sooooo bad.
But the interview is sooooo good.
Faaaaaaaark.
👍 Great interview, thanks John from a G-Car tech 🙂
Great interview.. Excellent subject
Greetings from South Africa,
Excellent Guest , Excellent Show...
Mid 1968, North of Quang Tri a few clicks I’m in 3rd Recon and hearing reports about a tiger snatching up a few villagers, then a Marine on the line and they got serious about getting that tiger. Sent out a few teams on a safari, without any luck, Can’t go into the details but they killed the tiger and brought it back while taking fire. One of those you had to be there to believe it stories, that because of the gruesome nature didn’t make the news.
SF Andy
The Americans used to hire professional Vietnamese tiger hunters for the ones who had cut out a hunting ground anywhere near those big bases, and these locals killed them almost every time, or at least chased them out of their territory.
czcams.com/video/zpDnlGT3LxY/video.html
Great show
John Cronin is a name I remeber from Chris Cocks "Fire Force" book.
Thank you Mr Cronin for your service to America and the rest of the free world. Hopefully it will not be in vain considering what has just happened here in the states.
It's nice to hear from you and I'm gratified that you liked the podcast. I have no idea how The Team House found me, but Dave and Jack really do know their business, and being combat veterans, just had a good feel for the right types of questions to ask.
Not to belabor this point but Bob Mackenzie was not eaten by the RUF when he was killed working for GSG in Sierra Leone. His body was stripped of arms and accoutrements and left on the ambush zone where he and his fellow officer were slain. This information was corroborated by an RUF prisoner who was held in a cell next to the RUF radio room who overheard the communication from the RUF unit in the field asking what to do with the bodies of the two men after the ambush. Any after the ambush damage to the bodies was likely caused by wild animals who devoured the remains after the RUF left the scene.
Real cool interview!
Its shocking how many keyboard-commandos in the comment section disagree with a Rhodesian Bush War Veteran on the subject of Rhodesia and the Bush War!!
what a novel perspective.
my outlook on the world is expanded 10 fold having read and digested your comment to the fullest.
Could you guys get army ranger csm mike kelso on he was also in Rhodesia
We had a joke vis a vis Bloemfontein- “ Why don’t you jump in Bloem on Sunday? Because nothing opens in Bloem on Sunday”..
Story I heard was that Smith approached Nkomo with an offer of power sharing but Nkomo wouldn't do anything without Mugarbage''s agreement and we all know how Mugabe felt about anything other than total power.
Smith and Nkomo were set to announce a power-sharing plan that was sidetracked only after the first Viscount commercial aircraft was shot down by a ZIPRA section using a Soviet shoulder-fired Strella surface-to-air missile in 1978. Nkomo never consulted Mugabe about this arrangement beforehand and was ready to go it alone with Smith - with the understanding that if they could successfully pull it off, the two would eventually consolidate their forces and erase Mugabe and ZANLA entirely when the time was right.
I agree 100 percent. Right toward the end of the war, we in the Scouts, the SAS and the RLI were on one-hour standby to obliterate several large camps housing ZIPRA cadres.
After the war, when Mugabe came to power in 1980 he closed off the western side of Rhodesia with his red brigade and wiped out men, women and children of the Ndebele people. The guy who is in power today in Zimbabwe is ex army from those times and is a murderer
As a Marine 03 I worked and trained with Navy SEALs but those FR guys where ghosts.
I think you give us too much credit, but thank you anyway.
Hey you guys should have Richard Marcinko on the podcast. That would be a awesome interview! Specially with you guys asking the questions.
I doubt Marcinko would do that 🤣
An unbelievable time to be alive back then, all the conflicts minor and large, nations dissolving and new ones emerging, prior military experience and you could jump on a plane and go join the Rhodesian army; only place you can do that now is France and the foreign legion, it’s a shame Rhodesia didn’t last, all us nostalgic guys would of loved seeing the breadbasket of Africa still around today, Ian Smith was a hell of a leader too; regardless of what the mainstream says about him, the Rhodesian forces were second to none also, hugely outnumbered and their kill ratio was unbelievable
You dont need any military experience to join the foreign legion!
@@user-lf3wr8rh7r I know you don’t, I was saying that’s probably the only army around today that openly accepts foreigners
@@Phil_Mycock_69 I served in the army with people from all over the commonwealth from Gurkhas to south Africans to dozens of Caribbean and south Pacific islanders especially fijians. All in all people from 52 countries are able to join pretty easily.
@@user-lf3wr8rh7r same as the RN, we had loads in there, but that’s due to us recruiting in commonwealth countries, what I meant was say you had an ex soviet soldier who spoke English or a Kenyan that sympathised with the government they could of probably gone and joined the Rhodesians and fight for them, nowadays unless it’s the Legion or the country recruits specifically from owned territories or former colonies; you really can’t do that
@@Phil_Mycock_69 The Belgian military accept anyone from an eu member country while the Spanish has its own foreign legion. The USA will accept applicants from friendly nations as do Russia but on a much more selective basis!
Soviets supported ZIPRA while Chicoms supported ZANLA.
i was wondering John did your gunshot wounds ever impair you while you did the selection for the Selous scouts? you must be a real good athlete .
Hello Belinda:
The round that hit me in the stomach went all the way through and came out my lower back next to my spine, so it took years before my stomach muscles felt right again, even with all of the training I did in the Marines and RLI. When I went through selection in 1978 - 11 years later - we were divided into four-man teams on our morning five mile runs while carrying a 90 pound mopani log on our shoulders, and then have to stop every mile where the four of us would do sets of 30 sit-ups holding this log across our stomachs, and that was the one routine that nearly killed me. All the other stuff on selection - the initial 10 mile run-in with equipment, carrying a man up and down hills while he was lying across our shoulders, no food for four days, three hours sleep, the rope climb up to the bell ringing, the ropes course itself, the swim in Lake Kariba, the week-long endurance march - was all hard, to be sure, but those morning log runs were the one thing that truly almost did me in.
11 years later ? Not correct, more like 11 months or 11 weeks. Just saying
@@tomprice2501 11 years. I was shot in Vietnam in 1967.
I saw his name and picture on the Book Titled "The Saints" about the RLI. Then I got his book. I thought it was cool.
These vets are incredibly important. Hitler said the future of war would be assassinations, terrorist attacks, and soldiers not in uniform. Just like the Vietnam war and iraq. I believe its because having normal war with soldiers wearing uniforms and facing each other causes too many causalities because advanced airpower and artillery and tech. But if the future is more Vietnam wars than their lessons are important.
Assassinations, terror attacks and soldiers not in uniform are older than actual state vs state wars.
Hitler isn't the credible source on sustained warfare.
Guys, please hire s tech person. The content, excellent. The presentation is amateurish. My camera is not working today? Please.
SFMF....! “Be A Man Amongst Men.”
How about something on the Rhodesian Corps of Engineers and the Pookies and the soldiers who dealt with landmines and other "bangs". ?
I cover the origins of the Pookies in the book and the engineers who originally came up with the idea in the late 1960s, one of whom was a fellow named Earnest Konchel (sp?). I actually met him on a trip to Zimbabwe in 1990 while I was working on a government contract for a US company and he showed us some of his original diagrams for the Pookie. I was probably neglectful of engineers in general and I'm sorry about that, so I'm going to insert a section in the new edition of the book in a few weeks. Thank you for reminding me of the outstanding and damn dangerous job these chaps did.
Mac dog had a technique where they put claymores and c4 on a trail in such a way that it kills all but 1 guy in the front who is just knocked unconscious by the concussion. That would be their POW.
Never heard of that tactic and it sounds like absolute BS to me for any number of reasons, especially since you can't come close to setting up a claymore on a trail or anywhere else that kills exactly this many men but spares exactly this many others. It's an area-denial device, and if you've ever seen the impact spread of the mine's 80 or so steel ball bearings after detonation, then you would agree. And what possible good does using C4 do? That stuff comes in one-pound blocks that's used primarily for blowing infrastructure, so who the hell uses it in an ambush? Mad Dog sounds like he needs to go back into his kennel.
God Bless Rhodesia
Is John still alive? I'm wondering if he possibly knew my father who was killed in that war.
Trooper Joseph Patrick Byrne 3/8/52-10/26/78. I want to know what he was like.
Hello Jenna: I knew your father, though not very well, because I was transferred out of 3 Commando into a permanent assignment in Midlands at JOC Grapple about that time. I do remember when we lost him in that firefight in the Lower Sabi (River) area just after that and it was a sad time indeed for the Commando because he had a lot of friends around there. At the time, he was part of a four-man stick on a sweep that had a point-to-point contact with half a dozen guerrillas in pretty thick bush where no one could see anyone else (river lines were ferociously thick going) and both groups met almost face to face when the firing started. His people did kill all of the guerrillas, however, so something decent came out of it at the very least. And I have to tell your that his NY/NJ accent was unmistakable.
They did not emphasize that Nkomo was supported by the Soviets. Mugabe was supported by the Chinese.
I have enjoyed listening to John's comments on Rhodesia. There were four racial groups in the country, the whites, Asians, coloureds (mixed race) and blacks, and to an extent people of all races benefited from the country's existence. The following footage dates from the late 1970s and gives an accurate description of life in Rhodesia: czcams.com/video/dCuN-8IKawo/video.html
Ultimately Ian Smith was correct about what would happen to Zimbabwe. So he was right and Americans and Britain were wrong fact ...
Nonsensical. Propaganda
The problem is that the white regime pushed the african nationalists to communism.
@@rafaelcapuano8280 that is no excuse for what has happened to Zimbabwe. I stand on my comment Smith was correct. The majority were not capable of running the country. The proof is before your very eyes and yet you try to make out it was not the black government it was Smith typical of the of your type way too many of you in this world. ..
@@robinmclaren4596 dont misjudge me, i am not a socialista neither i think mugabe was a good leader.
@@rafaelcapuano8280 your comment made me think that way .Rhodesia as it was known was a prosperous country made that way by black and white folks that worked together in harmony until the do gooders of this world started to stick Thier knoses in the communist jumped in seeing the opportunity. And the rest is history.
Jack, have you and Dave done any shows about your backgrounds? I know a little about yours Jack, SF and Rangers. But don’t know anything about Dave’s. You guys keep up the great work, each show keeps getting better. Dave glad to see you doing better buddy
No specifically. This is a project for 2021 we are planning.
The intestinal wound was far too easy to relate to. I've had those kinds of blockages too. It's a sickening kind of pain.
It's an out of this world pain, where it hurts to breathe and you can think of nothing else. I've had eight of these damn things since I got hit in 1967 and it's just four solid days of pure misery in a hospital bed with a tube my nose, so you have my deepest sympathies.
Hi John, last saw you in Byo, just after Mugabe was handed the country.
Hey Ken, and nice to hear from you after all this time. I was down there visiting my then girlfriend and her family at the time and waiting to be disbanded. Where are you now?
Mark Felton did a YT video about the tiger killing the marine.
Does anyone know of memoirs by people who went to the training camps in Russia and China?
These would be exceedingly difficult to find because they would have been written exclusively by former ZIPRA and ZANLA cadres - with the possible exception of some local Russian and Chinese or North Vietnamese trainers, respectively. The only archive I can think of would be held at the University of Zimbabwe, where they could have an Online serials index listing memoirs, oral histories or interviews of these people.
GREAT INTERVEIW JOHN 728501 S/SG RHASC 77-82
Thank you, Jack, and I'm really glad you had a chance to listen to it. Maybe with any luck I'll be invited back one day to talk more about some of the Scouts' operations. I often wonder if bush vets like you and me who were there at the same time ever ran into one another or knew some of the same people during the war.
thanks will reply in full later today
karibakid@gmail.com ok
@@karibakid Great place to holiday, fish and gamble a bit.
@@johncroninjrc hi john hope you had a great Xmas and we all hope that 2021 will bring health and prosperity to us all .yes kariba i used to go up there quite often when i was posted to 2maint at Cranbourne to organize the return of vehicles from the top yard .regarding people i knew Wo2 Terry Fitzgerald signals murdered in 1980 by CTs and a Capt Tudor Pope RAR who was in Kariba for a while i used to stay up on the heights. was a great spot .I think your comments of the politics was pretty accurate also a lot where like a Ostrich with there heads buried in the sand ,i stayed on for another year was asked by my old OC to return but AHQ said no .i was born in New Zealand and have Canadian citizenship live and have retired in Vung Tau Vietnam , for the last 10yrs the people are #1 thank you ,, have a safe journey through 2021 .i have many story's i could tell being in the rear and anyway enjoy i am now in my 81st yrs ..go well john a fi comment a few braggers out there from RAR a couple to mention
Understand that White Rhodesian's took a tough stance in part due to what had occurred in other parts of Africa as the Brits handed over independence. Fear derived from situations like the Mau Mau uprising to more peaceful situations where it was well understood that it became One man, One vote, One time. Rhodesia was an incredibly well oiled machine. White Rhodesian's could not come to terms with a lower standard of living, crumbling infrastructures, and such. It became do or die. History was not on Rhodesia 's side.
Like John said, it was bend or break. They chose break.
@@065Tim Rhodesians simply broke sooner than later. Compromise and sharing power was simply a longer path to ultimate destruction or at the best a seriously degraded way of living for the whites.
@@1cdo_rli706 And blacks: they are suffering both politically and economically. There are over a million Zim refugees in South Africa. What does that tell you?
@@warty3620 You bet. Standard for Africa. Rhodesia went from a bread basket to basket case.
@@1cdo_rli706 Mate, what you have just outlined is the benchmark when it comes to 'cancel culture', when it comes to any Left Wing assessment of colonialism . . . did the colonised witness a rise in standard of living when colonised by the French, the Dutch and the English (to name but a few)? Did they experience 'rule of law' as opposed to the tyrant's 'touch'? and there were plenty of tyrants throughout Africa before colonisation and even more after? Did their birthrate explode out of sight, with the introduction of Western medicine, with the eradication of 'sleeping sickness' in central, southern Africa, with the elimination of 'yellow fever', with the suppression of the deadly scourge of bilharzia, and so many other diseases that surpassed the death rate in England in the Middle Ages?
Africa is a basket case now, but it has a better standard of living than Africa pre 1800s.
What was his book title?
The Bleed: With the Marines in Vietnam and the RLI and Selous Scouts in Rhodesia
There were not 6 million Shona and Matabele back in the 1890s, but there were when John went over. Just a few hundred thousand back in the 1890s. Reason for the conflict is simplistic. The rise of black nationalism was Marxist driven. That was the problem. The moderate black nationalists were not a problem for Ian Smith. Nkomo was not a moderate.
Did I say there were 6 million in the late 19th century? Of course, that was a mistake on my part, so thank you for pointing that out.
@@johncroninjrc you had one hell of a life, much respect man, it’s a shame Rhodesia didn’t last
@@Phil_Mycock_69 Thank you for your thought and you were spot on about the Rhodesians knowing what they were doing in the bush. It was a small, lightly equipped and highly mobile Army and Air Force trained for counterinsurgency and able to change tactics on a moment's notice if need be.
@@johncroninjrc Thank you for taking the time to reply John. At its height, the black population was 6 million, the whites about 240, 000 though the latter population diminished significantly post 1980.
I was born and brought up in Rhodesia, did my national service before you arrived and I then left for Australia. So my perspective of black/white relationships were a little different to yours perhaps, in that I was able to see changes taking place through the early 60s until the early days of border clashes. Both brothers fought in the bush war, the youngest being in the Grey Scouts, perhaps the very last mounted unit in the world. I was young enough and stupid enough to itch for at least one contact, and I spent my last few months in the Zambezi Valley (in November/December) below Lake Kariba. I never saw a single terr.
In those days anti colonial white guilt was restricted to the Portuguese Left, the British Left and the French colonists, whilst we felt we belonged to the country that gave birth to us, and that we had a far better fetch of what was going on in our own country compared to those dictating to us from Whitehall.
You would have heard of UDI (unilateral declaration of independence) in November 1965, back in the days of the socialist Labour Prime Minister, Harold Wilson. His intention was to totally divest England of all her colonies, including Rhodesia, which had had administrative independence since 1923. He knew nothing about the whites and regarded black nationalism as an entirely benign, lawful phenomenon; the whites being mere oppressors. We were nothing of the sort, and our history was entirely different to that in South Africa.
To cut a long story short, you only have to look at Zimbabwe today to know that Mugabe and his cadres were not ready for 'majority rule', and that exporting European/American style democracy to Africa and the Middle East tends not to work.
@@warty3620 The lesson of Zimbabwe wasn't learned. The ANC takeaway from Zim seems to be that Marxism needs to be less overt and introduced slowly during the self-enrichment phase. Now that the coffers have been all but emptied the ANC are becoming more open about the state taking ownership of property and industry. The Chinese are of course ready with the cash to "help" out and the ANC make no secret of the fact that they admire the CCP's system of governance. Unless something changes we are going to see the same problems with food production experienced by Zim. Western disdain for South African whites is even more extreme than in the days of apartheid or UDI with all of the BLM/SocJus hysteria which allows the likes of Ramaphosa and various other politicos to get away with openly racist rhetoric.
My old boss in South Africa was a selous scout, was cut from different cloth than the rest of us. Told me all sorts of stories lived an amazing life. After the war he ran a hotel and booted out some South African communist members who at at the bar. This was in Zim in the 80’s… he didn’t give a stuff …
What is the title for John's book and what is VMI? I assume it's a school.
Inshallah blessings and gratitude from Dania Beach Florida to you from my heart the quiet professional waiting bye-bye
Ian Smith was an African Farmer and understood black people other than people like Kissinger or Soames.
Still cant get over worlds blind eye attetude regarding Rhodesia ,and how Mugabe got away with this mountainous atrocities.
Those atrocities eventually caught up with him in the late 1980s when the international press figured him out and effectively black-listed him for how he treated the Ndebele, in particular in 1984.
Yes indeed there was a Cap'n Cox.
Capt.Cox from Texas,he was with us in Kariba back in 1979.
First off...respect brother, we learn a lot from you older guys. I'm alive because of it.., However second off... a bullet does not send a human male body flying....it is physically impossible...the physics don't add up....what happened was what happened to my buddy...you were crouched....hit in leg...your muscles spazzam and contract, causing you to jump, the shock and impact caused you to think the bullet did it....it was your body....same as when I got a deer and it kicks. God bless you all, and again just want people to know, anatomically what occured.
Well, I want to thank you for your comment and I'm not going to argue with you. To this day I have no idea how I ended up six feet from where I got shot, still lying on my back, as I was unconscious, but you're probably right that I crawled back without even knowing it. So I'll buy that, but I also have to tell you that you're dead wrong about a bullet not being able to lift someone up, because I've seen a chest-shot .45 take an NVA completely off his feet. Daylight ambush, hit from 10 feet out and it blew him three feet right off the trail. Mind you, he weighed only about 130 and wasn't wearing a pack, but I promise you that he went airborne enough to get his wings.
A 7.62 round dies have a lot of kinetic energetic behind it...
MOH story sounds like the john mccain story
The article that she was offered the deputy metro mayor was from the Wirral Globe I think the police thought I would take the flat noway I did not feel safe here why would I want to go and live in Bootle near that person
Cessna 337 Skymaster.