Fireforce: One Man's War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry by Cocks, Chris J.
Fireforce: One Man's War in the Rhodesian Light Infantry by Cocks, Chris J.
Hardcover, ISBN 9780620215732
Publisher: Covos, 1997 Second Edition.
Used - Very Good+. This book is in very good condition. The Dust Jacket has some very limited signs of wear and the pages are clean, intact and the spine remains undamaged. This book has clearly been well maintained and looked after thus far. The book is protected with a Cellophane cover.
-"Reputedly the best book on the Rhodesian bush war ever written, a personal account of close quarter warfare. 306 pages, colour and black & white plates, line drawings in the text, maps.
Fire Force is the account of Chris Cocks’s service in 3 Commando, The Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI), during Zimbabwe’s civil war of the 1970s—a war that came to be known, almost innocuously, as ‘the bush war’. Fire Force, a tactic of total airborne/airmobile envelopment, was developed by the RLI, and became the principal strike weapon of the beleaguered Rhodesian forces in their struggle against the tide of the communist-trained and -equipped ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas."
“Like Reitz’s work, Commando: A Boer Journal of the Boer War, Fire Force, by first-time author Chris Cocks, is a personal account of close-quarter warfare. It is a unique, compelling, sometimes brutal account of a young conscript’s three years of service in the elite Rhodesian Light Infantry … Cocks’s work is one of the very few books which adequately describes the horrors of war in Africa … Fire Force is the best book on the Rhodesian War that I have read.” – Southern African Review of Books
“Fire Force will be to the Rhodesian War what Remarque’s All Quiet on The Western Front was to World War I. A high claim indeed, but perhaps valid, for this moving book is a classic in any sense.” – The Star
“The narrative is raw … it gives the book a veracity so complete that it will transport anyone involved in the ordeal back across the years with the force of a body blow … Rhodesia does at last have its own version of Michael Herr’s Vietnam experiences, Dispatches. A sense of regret is what really lingers, that the whole nightmare had to happen at all. The list of names of boys killed, or scarred physically and mentally, is moving beyond mere words.” – The Financial Mail
-"This is the compelling, brutal but true account of Chris Cocks’ service in 3 Commando, The Rhodesian Light Infantry, during Rhodesia’s bitter civil war of the 1970’s – a war that came to be known almost innocuously as ‘The Bush War’. ‘Fireforce’, a tactic of total airborne envelopment, was developed and perfected by the RLI, together with the Selous Scouts and the Rhodesia Air Force. Fireforce became the principal strike weapon of the beleaguered Rhodesian forces in their struggle against the overwhelming tide of the Communist-trained and equipped ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas. The combat strain on a fighting soldier was almost unbelievable, for the Rhodesians, who were always desperately short of ground troops, were sometimes obliged to parachute the same men into action into as many as three enemy contacts a day. While estimates of enemy casualties vary, there seems little doubt that the RLI accounted for at least 12,000 ZANLA and ZIPRA guerrillas – but not without cost. Fireforce is not for the squeamish. Although it has been written with unforgettable pathos and humour, it tells of face-to-face combat in the bush and death at point-blank range.It is a book which does nothing to glorify or glamorize war, for as Chris Cocks found at such a young age, war is merely a catalogue of suffering, destruction and death. The book has been described by critics as being to the Rhodesian War what All Quiet On The Western Front was to World War I and Dispatches was to Vietnam. One of the best books I have read."
