Grey's Scouts of Rhodesia?

Factual Questions
1

When I was at my grandparents’ house in New York I found an old book (early 90s-era) of definitive photographs in history. The burned girl running down the road in Vietnam was in there, the Marines at Iwo Jima, the attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan was there - they were all accompanied by descriptions of the event and very detailed information about the photographer who took them and the circumstances under which the photo was taken, even including the stops on the camera used.

One of the most distinctive photos was of some white soldiers in what was then known as Rhodesia, going about their operations. In one picture, horse-mounted soldiers led a prisoner in chains. In another one, a skinny man wearing nothing but short-shorts and a straw hat, with a FAL rifle slung over his back, stood near a man who he had apparently just beaten during interrogation. Another photo showed a guy forcing a group of prisoners to do push-ups at gunpoint.

The captions described these men as “Grey Scouts” and indicated that they were mostly mercenaries and kind of implied that they were a bunch of war criminals and rogues. When I tried looking this up, it turned out that they were actually called “Grey’s Scouts” and this was a specific unit of the Rhodesian military, not some ad-hoc guerrilla group as the book made it seem, that they were quite decorated in combat and well-respected, and I could find no mention of them in the kind of negative light that the photo book implied.

Does anyone know about these guys? There’s not much information about them online. There is a LOT of info on the “Selous Scouts” which I gather were a similar, but much larger, unit.

2

I got piles of information.

Google Fu
They were a rough bunch weren’t they?

Check out the second one.

3

What do you mean the second one? The second link?

Anyone know anything else? Are there any posters here from Rhodesia/Zimbabwe?

4

Yeah, that wasn’t very enlightening was it?

The roles of Grey’s are:

a. Long range patrolling and reconnaissance of rural areas.

b. Tracking and follow-up on horseback.

c. Deep penetration in support of armoured cars.

d. To be prepared to act as dismounted infantry when required.

The second one is now different.Try this

Major Michael “Mad Mike” Williams, an American, commanded a unit of the Grey’s Scouts. Just one of a long list of bad ass things he did.

And here’s something from the horse people. Seems like they know a lot.
Horse people discussing Grey’s scouts

And you can get a T-shirt if you feel moved to do so.

T-shirt

5

Upon further reading I see the horse people know A LOT.

Actual members of Grey’s Scouts, historians, records, pictures of actual dudes posting, etc.

And Mike Williams is still around and some how connected to Soldier of Fortune Magazine.

An interesting subject I was completely unaware of.

Thanks Argent.

6

Wow! Thanks for those links. This is really an amazing untold story of history. They should do a movie about these guys.