The Native Scouts of the 2nd Bn The Rhodesia Regiment

[bushfighter]

Should any Member be interested in the activities of the uncommemorated African scouts serving in 2RR in BEA and GEA, then please take a look at:

http://gweaa.com/2011/04/the-native-scouts-of-the-2nd-battalion-the-rhodesia-regiment/

Harry

[athelstan]

Thanks Harry for a concise and clear summary of the 2 Rhodesia Regiment's campaign in German East Africa. For anyone curious about the fight at German Bridge on 30th May 1916, as mentioned in the article, the first edition of Francis Brett Young's 'Marching on Tanga' contains a photograph of it (posted below). Young served as a medical officer in the Regiment and takes part in the advance down the Pangani river.

His 1930 novel 'Jim Redlake' is set partly in East Africa and follows the adventures of the 2^nd Kalahari Rifles, a thinly disguised 2 Rhodesia Regiment, complete with Brett Young himself equally thinly disguised. According to the Francis Brett Young Society 'Jim Redlake' uses material that had been censored in 'Marching On Tanga.'

It is a shame the two scouts killed have not been commemorated by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Whilst an expensive volume Alexandre Binda's book 'Masodja – The history of the Rhodesian African Rifles and its forerunner, the Rhodesia Native Regiment' contains some rare photographs of the campaign in East Africa.

james w