BATTALION OF THE DAMNED

March Battalion March!

    March the long African day,

         sing me the freedom songs,

              as we die bravely on,

                   March the Battalion of the Damned.

Stolen away as children in 1976 -

to the training camps of the North

where the comrades taught us

the songs of revolution

and the weapons of the cause.

We were like rows and rows

of fresh buds of young mealie corn

nurtured and green in the

early sunlight of an African dawn.

March Battalion March!

We trained hard -

under the harsh discipline

of the sjambok, and the bullet

in the back of the head at midnight.

We learned in the camps

there was no place for pity

or surrender in the guerilla war.

We were like rows and rows

of unripened mealie corn

strong and slender in the

burning sunshine of an African day.

March Battalion March!

We marched South in 1978 -

to wash our bayonets in the

blood of Smith's men

in the Tribal Trust Lands of home.

In contact and running firefight

we cried and died

as the helicopter soldiers

of the Rhodesian Army sought

us out in relentless pursuit.

We were like rows and rows

of shattered and strewn mealie corn

devastated and torn in the

splintered lightening of an African storm.

March Battalion March!

At wars end in December 1979 -

we camped at Assembly Place Lima

with the New Zealand Peacemakers.

Tired and victorious

we rested at Mhadlambudzi

where we sang songs of revolution

and cleaned our weapons after battle.

We were like rows and rows

of sun jaded mealie corn

lethargic and spent in the

afternoon glow of an African sunset.

March Battalion March!

In April 1980 -

we advanced from our camp at

Essexvale to fight against

Mugabe's men at the

Bulawayo. Ambushed by remnants

of the Rhodesia African Rifles

our lead armour was struck

by rockets and then the gunships

fell upon us, with their frightening

sound and endless cannons.

We fell like rows and rows

of ripened mealie corn

harvested in blood and bullets in the

red gloom of an African twilight.

March Battalion March!

How we died that day -

there at that dusty ambush

outside of Bulawayo.

800 Regulars and 200 Guerillas.

The lifeblood of our entire Battalion

is now but a ghost from another African war.

Our bones lie like rows and rows

of skeletal mealie corn stalks

stark and silent as we lie here, in the

moonlight of an African night.

March Battalion March!

    March the long African day,

         sing me the freedom songs,

              as we die bravely on,

                   March the Battalion of the Damned.

Mike Subritzky 1980

AP Lima

Rhodesian War

© Copyright Mike Subritzky - The Flak Jacket Collection

In memory of:

1st ZIPRA BATTALION

Zimbabwe Peoples Revolutionary Army

Formed:  1976 from Rhodesian children stolen by Joshua Ngkomo.

Operational:  1978 - 1979 Tribal Trust Lands of Matabeleland.

Annihilated:  April 1980 on the outskirts of Bulawayo.

Average Age:  16.