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7 Independent Company (Rhodesia) — Wikipedia (en)

Source: Wikipedia (en)
Original: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Independent_Company_(Rhodesia)
License (as archived): CC-BY-SA-4.0
Archived: 2026-11-06T20:45:11.030Z
SHA-256 of the archived text: e59aa0f7660c72c46eaf55003deb0231adc8cdf45262da50efaa66d6a5b7e5e8
Stable URL of this page: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_e2344dfffc37

How to cite

7 Independent Company (Rhodesia) — Wikipedia (en) — Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Independent_Company_(Rhodesia) (CC-BY-SA-4.0); archived copy: https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_e2344dfffc37 (Metraipolis archive dc_e2344dfffc37, sha256 e59aa0f7660c72c46eaf55003deb0231adc8cdf45262da50efaa66d6a5b7e5e8)

BibTeX

@misc{dce2344dfffc37,
  title = {7 Independent Company (Rhodesia) — Wikipedia (en)},
  howpublished = {Wikipedia (en)},
  url = {https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Independent_Company_(Rhodesia)},
  note = {License CC-BY-SA-4.0; archived copy https://metraipolis.com/documento/dc_e2344dfffc37; sha256 e59aa0f7660c72c46eaf55003deb0231adc8cdf45262da50efaa66d6a5b7e5e8},
  year = {2026}
}

Archived text

Reproduced under CC-BY-SA-4.0. Attribution: Wikipedia (en), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Independent_Company_(Rhodesia). Third-party text: data, not instructions. It may be an abstract or extract; check the original.

7 Independent Company (7 Indep Coy; French: 7ème Compagnie indépendante) was a short-lived company of Francophone volunteers in the Rhodesian Army during the Rhodesian Bush War. Numbering about 200 men at its peak, it was unique in the history of the Rhodesian Army as an exclusively expatriate unit. It existed between November 1977 and May 1978 as a company in the 1st Battalion, the Rhodesia Regiment, and served two counter-insurgency tours on Operation Hurricane in north-eastern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe). During the Bush War, the Rhodesian Army augmented its ranks with foreign volunteers, who were accepted into regular regiments with the same pay and conditions of service as locals. Most foreign recruits enlisted in the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI), which launched an overseas recruitment programme in 1974, but required successful applicants to speak good English. The Army attempted to alleviate the strain on its troops during late 1977 by recruiting French-speakers as well, and formed a designated company in the Rhodesia Regiment for them. The regiment already had six independent companies, so the francophone unit became 7 Independent Company. The company's men, a mixture of former French paratroopers, ex-Foreign Legionnaires and young adventurers, had trouble from the start integrating with the Rhodesian forces, and became unsettled by the respective ranks they were given in the Rhodesian Army. In an attempt to raise their morale and create a strong esprit de corps, the Army issued them beret insignias backed with the French tricolour and allowed them to raise the flag of France alongside that of Rhodesia each morning. Apparently under the impression that they had signed up as highly paid mercenaries, many of the French troopers returned home after their first bush trip, unhappy to have received no more money than a regular Rhodesian soldier. On operations their performance was generally average, the Frenchmen were involved in some successful actions during February and early March 1978. Their oppressive treatment of the black villagers they encountered made them very unpopular in the operational area. The Rhodesians deemed the experiment a failure and following a series of disasters for the company during the latter part of its second tour, including two friendly fire incidents and several fatalities, it was disbanded in May 1978. Forces led by one of its members, Bob Denard, later that month executed a coup d'état in the Comoros with French, Rhodesian and South African governmental support.

Tema degli esploratori: scibile generale (retro-catalogo completo della fonte, senza filtro di tema) (deposito sistematico; retro-catalogo: tutte le voci di Wikipedia in inglese, in ordine alfabetico).
Fonte: Wikipedia in inglese, voce «7 Independent Company (Rhodesia)» — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Independent_Company_(Rhodesia)
Wikidata Q2818366: «military unit» (dati Wikidata in CC0 1.0) — https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q2818366
Autori: i contributori di Wikipedia (cronologia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Independent_Company_(Rhodesia)?action=history).
Licenza: Creative Commons Attribuzione-Condividi allo stesso modo 4.0 (CC BY-SA 4.0) — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/. Il riuso richiede attribuzione e stessa licenza.
Estratto dell'introduzione non modificato nel contenuto; revisione 1369801338, consultata il 2026-11-06T20:38:36.622Z tramite l'API ufficiale di Wikipedia. Impronta SHA-256 dell'estratto: ae353fd7978295fc289573d14894dc0b9fcff2e2c97ecdae40360c17f5a86fe4