October 2024 -

16Oct2024

AN INSPIRING STORY OF COURAGE

October 16, 2024

courage, Dale Collett. Rhodesian Bush War, Selous Scouts, South Africa Tales of Inspiration

By John McLean

On 10^th September, 2024, the death occurred of Dale Collett, a hero of the Rhodesian Bush War and an inspiration for all those who suffer adversity in their lives.

Dale was brought up on a farm in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. He learned Zulu from speaking with the farm’s African employees. After leaving school he went up to Rhodesia and joined its army which was engaged in deadly combat with two groups of terrorists, Mugabe’s ZANLA lot who were armed by China (an enemy of the West then as it is now) and Joshua Nkomo’s ZIPRA group which was armed mainly by the Soviet Union.

Because of his fluency in Zulu Dale was first placed with the Rhodesian African Rifles, a native regiment. His competence and bravery brought him to the notice of Major Ron Reid Daly who made him his first choice when choosing officers for his newly formed Selous Scouts which in quick time became the finest and most deadly anti-terrorist force that the world has ever seen. Of this choice Reid Daly later wrote, “He was reputed to have an extremely good rapport with his African soldiers….Dale was a young man of exceedingly high spirits”.

The maiden deployment of the Selous Scouts was in January, 1974, in the Kandeya Tribal Trust lands, north of Mount Darwin. This was in the Hurricane Operational Area (north-east Rhodesia). On the night of 23-24 February Dale and his men were engaged in reconnaissance of a terrorist camp and at dawn he directed the Rhodesia Light Infantry Fireforce planes to the target with the result that six terrorists were killed and one captured plus weapons and documents, the latter with their maps, passwords, etc. being important since the terrorists were not using radio contact for security reasons.

Later in 1974 Dale was in command of troops who were to make a night raid on a small terrorist position. However, because of the terrain only he and two others were in a position to make an attack. With his trademark courage he pressed on under heavy fire and managed to clear it of terrorists, killing three of them and forcing the others to flee. By the end of 1974 his score was 29 dead terrorists and he was the first man to be awarded the Silver Cross of Rhodesia, the second highest award for gallantry in the Rhodesian Armed Services.

During an attack on terrorist positions over the border in Mozambique in 1976 Dale and the other Scouts came upon a building, the ground floor of which was an arms depot for ZANLA. It was a main store for weapons that were being smuggled into Rhodesia by the terrorists for their murder campaign against white farmers and black villagers.

The building and its environs seemed deserted. There was an upper floor to which the only access was by an outside staircase. While the Scouts were busy loading the weapons to take back over the border to Rhodesia Dale Collett mounted the staircase to the upper floor. Upon entering the first floor corridor there was a burst of enemy fire and he fell to the floor wounded. He slithered back to the top of the staircase where he was rescued by his comrades.

Dale was flown to Salisbury’s Andrew Fleming Hospital where it was discovered that his spinal cord had been severed and he was told that he would never walk again. He was paralysed from the chest down.

When Major Reid Daly visited him there and asked him how he was feeling, Dale said in a soft voice, “Sir, don’t worry about me…..you’ve got bigger things to worry about. It’s the chaps in the bush you’ve got to concentrate on….I’ll be fine.”

In Reid Daly’s words: “It was all too much for me…..here was a man struck down in the prime of his youth comforting me, instead of the reverse. I stood up abruptly and with tears welling unashamedly from my eyes, I brushed past the lady who was later to become Mrs. Collett and left the ward. ‘Hell’, exclaimed Dale to that very fine woman, ‘what’s up with the old man….I only told him to get on with the war’.” Dale and his wife were married, their wedding photo showing a happy looking bridegroom proudly wearing his military uniform and decorations as he sat in his wheelchair.

The courage that Dale had consistently shown in the field was now transferred to his new life as a civilian where his determination and positive attitude enabled him to lead as normal a life as he could in the circumstances.

After moving to Botswana he built up his own farm and business, employing local people who were themselves disabled. He also gave motivational talks. After a number of years he was helping to renovate his house when a roof collapsed on him, requiring his leg to be amputated and injuring his shoulder which, despite several surgeries, never really recovered.

And did he feel sorry for himself and wallow in self-pity? Remaining positive, he got his motor bike fitted with a flat-bed and rode it from Gaborone in Botswana to Cape Town (1,548 km) to raise funds for the Ray of Hope Foundation in Gaborone, which takes care of terminally ill children. This ride raised over 100,000 Rand. At the time he said, “The big problem in life is that very few of us take the bull by the horns. Get on the bike and ride! Stop dreaming about it, just do it.”

Dale Collett was not only a brave soldier who risked his life on several occasions so that civilians in war-torn Rhodesia could sleep more safely at night but also his courage in the face of almost unbelievable adversity is an inspiration to us all. He was among the very finest of his generation. May he rest in peace.

15Oct2024

WHEN WILL THE NAVY EVER LEARN?

October 15, 2024

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Commodore Melissa Ross, DEI. HMNZS Manawanui, Judith Collins, Minister of Defence, Peter Cresswell, RNZ Navy, sinking Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

By John McLean, author of “A Mission of Honour; The Royal Navy in the Pacific, 1769-1997”.

In my article of a couple of days ago on the HMNZS Manawanui disaster, entitled “Is The Navy Fit For Purpose?”, I raised the issue of the perceived over-promotion of minority groups in the services at the expense of the efficiency of our defence forces.

Speculation is rife throughout the country as in both general conversation and on social media (usually a truer reflection of opinion than the mainstream media) the suspicion is that the captain of HMNZS Manawanui, Commander Yvonne Gray, was over-promoted because she ticked the boxes of being both female and lesbian.

Instead of facing this issue and providing some facts to rebut such a presumption the Navy has compounded the problem by appointing as chair of the Inquiry into the disaster yet another person who can only too easily be perceived to be another of its over-promoted women – in this case Commodore Melissa Ross, who also ticks the boxes that seem to be more and more important in naval promotions – in her case being both female and part-Maori.

So passionate is she about the importance of promoting women in the Navy (apparently because they are women rather than on merit) that the Navy website of 6 December, 2019, stated of her: “She is passionate about the development of women in the military and was co-chair of the N.Z. Defence Force’s Women’s Development Steering Group, which she helped create”.

She gave away her prejudices in her own words: “With women in the Navy, we still have work to do to create the environment where they can thrive” (presumably at the expense of men). And yet the speaker of this sexist nonsense has been appointed by her fellow feminist, Judith Collins, to investigate the sinking of the Manawanui by another woman officer, Yvonne Gray whose ability to tick various boxes is widely believed to have been the reason for her rapid promotion to command of the $100 million vessel that, under her command, sank in Samoan waters.

How could anyone have faith in such an Inquiry, headed by one who appears to be so fanatically committed to her fellow female officers as to bring her objectivity into doubt? Commodore Ross is the very last person who should be involved in an inquiry into the sinking of the Manawanui. Much of the blame for this continuing “train crash” can be laid at the feet of Judith Collins who, as Minister of Defence, was responsible for appointing her fellow feminist, Melissa Ross, to head the inquiry.

Instead of trying to rebut the obvious presumption that Yvonne Gray might have been appointed to command due to her ability to tick certain boxes of political correctness that the Navy apparently now deems so essential to promotion, Judith Collins resorted to smear tactics, which are always easier than giving truthful answers to allegations. Those who dared to point out that the purpose of the Navy is to defend the country and that this can best be achieved by promotion on merit rather than gender/sexual orientation were damned by Collins as “misogynists” and “armchair admirals”.

The Inquiry seems to be organised so that the Navy can protect its own back as well as its policies, including – and especially – the criteria for promotion in this ever more feminine (and feminist) service. As Peter Cresswell pointed out on his Not PC Blog (pc.blogspot.com) “An inquiry by the Navy about the Navy doesn’t give confidence that we’ll ever know much more”.

The New Zealand Navy is a small affair where everybody knows everybody else and that is especially true of the coterie of powerful female officers who all seem to be of the same stripe – of advancing women (and covering up for them?) at the expense of men. Obviously Melissa Ross and Yvonne Gray know each other – probably very well. If a litigant in court is known to the judge, that is always pointed out and the judge will normally remove himself from the case. So why not follow this rule for the naval Inquiry?

For an Inquiry to be credible in should be headed by the Judge Advocate of the Armed Forces with two others: one from Britain’s Royal Navy and the other from the Royal Australian Navy. Only then could the public, whose taxes have to pay for a $130 million replacement vessel, have confidence in the outcome of the Inquiry. The choice of Melissa Ross to head it is yet another example of Judith Collins’ notoriously bad judgement. Former Defence Minister, Ron Mark, would never have made such a blunder.

Not surprisingly, the continuing absence of any meaningful information from the Navy has fuelled the rumour mill. One of these rumours is that Yvonne Gray’s “wife”, Sharon, was also on board the Manawanui when she sank. This is either true or false; it would be helpful if the Navy (or its Minister) would either confirm or deny it. As the well-paid Minister of Defence, Judith Collins has a lot of questions to answer and merely smearing those who ask them is not good enough. This thing is becoming a bigger mess by the day.

13Oct2024

IS THE NEW ZEALAND NAVY FIT FOR PURPOSE?

October 13, 2024

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DEI, Fiona Jameson, HMNZS Manawanur, HMNZS Te Kaha, RNZ Navy, sinking, Yvonne Gray Diversity, Equity and Inclusion

By John McLean, author of “A Mission of Honour; the Royal Navy in the Pacific, 1769-1997”

So, one of the New Zealand Navy’s five operating vessels, HMNZS Manawanui, valued at more than $100 million, went aground on a clearly charted Samoan reef in reasonable weather and visibility, then caught on fire and sank – the first of our Navy’s ships to go under since the Second World War.

The captain of the ship was a proud lesbian by name of Yvonne Gray and this raises the issue of whether the Navy is over-promoting women beyond their capacity in order to meet gender and sexual orientation goals. This would appear to be the case as the recently retired Chief of Navy, Rear-Admiral David Proctor, is on record as saying “Having wahine (women) as commanding officers on more than 60%of our ships as well as heading up shore unites and other important portfolios, is a realisation of that goal [‘to celebrate the diversity of our personnel’]”.

To have such a goal shows that Rear-Admiral Proctor did not understand the function of the service that he headed. The purpose of the Navy is to defend the nation in time of war by fighting the King’s enemies. This is best achieved by promoting people on merit and NOT having a Woke DEI goal of boosting women because they are women in order to “celebrate diversity”. When diversity prevails over merit – as appears to be the case in New Zealand’s rapidly diminishing Navy – things can only go backwards.

The sunken Manawanui was a survey/research vessel. It was doing survey work in Samoan waters when, under the control of Yvonne Gray, it went to the bottom of the ocean. Surveying has been an important function of the Royal New Zealand Navy since its creation in the Second World War and before that hydrographic surveys were carried out by the Royal Navy which defended the seas around our coasts until the 1940s. The centuries old principle of surveying is that the surveying vessel – or “mother ship” if you like – stays out at sea while the inshore surveying is done by the ship’s small boats. That way they can get in and out of shallow waters, reefs and even river mouths. They then return to the survey vessel where the charts are drawn up. So why did Commander Gray take the large and valuable ship so close to the reef?

Her defective command of the vessel risked the lives of the crew who fortunately managed to reach the shore on rafts virtually without injury. Their lives had been endangered but with their good training they got themselves off safely.

And yet the Minister of Defence, Judith Collins, called this a “triumph”!!!! And she went out of her way to praise Gray. This reaction was part of the feminist freemasonry of which Collins is a fully paid-up member. It was Collins who, as Minister of Justice, appointed the ill qualified Susan Devoy to be Race Relations Commissioner even though Devoy had no knowledge or experience of the issue and made a complete hash of it. But she had the feminist haircut and that was all that seemed to matter to Collins. Judith Collins praised Commander Gray for “saving lives” – lives that would not have to be saved if her captaincy had not put the vessel on the seabed.

Compare Collins’ effusive praise of her disastrous fellow feminist with the words that the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord George Hamilton, used in the House of Commons in 1889 when there were calls for the British government to bestow some sort of honour on Captain Kane who, with great competence, dexterity and courage, had steered HMS Calliope safely out of the hurricane in Apia harbour that had wrecked two American and three German warships. Lord George Hamilton replied that no honour would be conferred on the captain because the courage and skill displayed by him, his officers and men “was not rare in the British navy and did not deserve any special recognition”. And Captain Kane had saved his ship and not sunk it!

In a further demonstration of its political correctness (but not its effectiveness as a fighting force) the Navy went out of its way to boast about Yvonne Gray’s lesbianism at the time of her appointment to command HMNZS Manawanui. In her short biography on the Navy’s website it made mention of her “wife”, Sharon, which in the interests of good taste would have been better left unsaid. Promotion of lesbianism in any form is not a function of the Navy. By pushing it in this way the Navy left itself open to the suggestion that that might have been another box to tick for Commander Gray’s exceedingly rapid promotion up the ranks.

With great foolishness the Navy tried to make her and another female officer, Fiona Jameson, captain of the frigate HMNZS Te Kaha, poster girls for “inclusiveness”. And the result? Gray’s ship sank while Jameson crashed Te Kaha into Auckland’s Kauri Point ammunition depot, leaving a gash of more than half a metre that cost $220,000 to repair. At the time of her appointment to Te Kaha Jameson gushed, “Now as I take command with three other women [commanding officers], I get….a greater normality around wahine toa leadership”. The poor thing can’t even speak English properly let alone steer a ship without hitting a wharf.

The Navy boasts that 27.4% of its personnel are now female with 60% of our naval vessels in March, 2023, being commanded by women. Does the nation feel any safer by being told this?

So, with Gray’s Manawanui on the seabed and polluting the nearby waters and an estimated replacement cost of $130 million, and Jameson’s ship with a $220,000 gash we have to ask whether women should be allowed to command our expensive warships. As Oscar Wilde wrote in The Importance of Being Earnest, “To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness”.

In the light of these disasters should women be given command of taxpayer funded naval vessels? If one applies the criteria of common sense and national security the answer is clearly “No”. Men and women are complementary to each other and not alternatives for each other. There are some tasks that women are not cut out for and are better carried out by men, e.g. commanding a warship or flying a fighter jet.

Until 1986 women were not allowed to serve on ships at sea. During the Second World War the female WRENS did a wonderful job on land dealing with signals, communications, etc. without which the Royal Navy could not have functioned. They were expert at this kind of work, which helped to win the war. Now the New Zealand Navy REQUIRES them to go to sea – something that has caused a lot of unnecessary trouble on ships as can be imagined. It seems that obliging the passing doctrine of feminism rather than having WRENS proudly effective on land is now the Navy’s priority. There is an important role for women in the Navy but it is on land and not on seagoing vessels.

Those who join the Navy deserve to be given reasonable protection from danger. How can they have any respect for or confidence in captains like Gray and Jameson? The top brass of the Navy seem obsessed with political correctness. That is not their function and it can only undermine the public’s confidence in the Senior Service. Identity politics are toxic wherever they rear their ugly heads and it is time that the Navy ceased giving the impression that the lunatics have taken over the asylum.

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