Wars of Liberation, Wars of Decolonisation:
The Rhodesian Army Archive Project.
Newsletter February 2008.
This is the second Newsletter of UWE’s
Rhodesian Army Archive project, funded
by the AHRC to catalogue the papers of
the Rhodesian Army Association. These
papers are currently housed in the British
Empire & Commonwealth Museum, Bristol
What material has been processed so
far?
As of 9th January, the contents of over 400
boxes have been added to the catalogue.
This total amounts to approximately 1,555
separate files and folders.
Update on the archiving
The Bamboo software underpinning the
catalogue was successfully customised at
the start of the project. Tom Mortimer from
Lemur (www.lemurconsulting.com) worked
closely with Chief Archivist, Dr. Tim
Lovering, to make the software reflect the
hierarchies that archivists use. This has
been a very fruitful collaboration and we
hope will lead to other joint projects.
The archivists are progressing extremely
well with the cataloguing. Dr Stephen Ball,
Deputy Archivist, did not join the project
until November 2006, so we were afraid
that we might be slightly behind target at
the end of the year. Instead, by the end of
August 2007 there had been 340 boxes
catalogued, five more than the original
estimate. Also, on 29th August 2007, the
1,000th item was added to the catalogue.
In September 2007, we submitted our
report to the AHRC on progress over the
first year of the project. We noted that we
were slightly ahead of the target for the
number of boxes to have been catalogued
by the end of the first 12 months.
However, some of the collection was still
in South Africa and was shipped to the UK
during the first year of the project. This
collection of new material turned out to be
significantly larger than we had originally
anticipated. We calculate that we now
need to catalogue 1,225 boxes as against
the original estimate of 1,050. Given that
our current rate of work has been good,
we hope to be able to meet this target
within the original timetable.
This represents the complete collection of
papers which were already held at the
Museum, with the exception of Rhodesian
Air Force Strike Reports and Army
Services Corps files. These have been set
aside for cataloguing by volunteers.
The major bodies of material included in
this total are:
- Army Headquarters records (G, A, and Q
Branch papers),
- Combined Operations Headquarters
records,
- Special Branch/Central Intelligence
Organisation records,
- Operations Co-ordinating Committee,
Joint Planning Staff, and National Joint
Operations Command files,
- Rhodesian Air Force Headquarters
records,
- Air Force squadron diaries.
Other categories of material include
extensive bodies of Joint Operations
Centres' situation reports, and the
complete collection of contact prints of
official photographs.
Dr Ball recently completed the initial audit
of the newly deposited material arrived
from South Africa. He has identified 718
further archive boxes. The bulk of the
contents has been found to consist of
papers of the Directorate of Military
Intelligence, but other material includes
significant additions to
the
Army
Headquarters records.
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Using the collection
Other archival news
It is important to catalogue this collection
so that a clear historical record is available
for posterity and for future public
reference. We envisage that the collection
will be used by people from many different
backgrounds and with many different
views about the Rhodesian war.
Dr Lovering has been making progress
with the guide to the collection. In
particular, he has been working on short
administrative histories for the various
branches of the Rhodesian Security
Forces, and an account of the
administrative processes which led to the
creation of the records.
However, at present the Museum has no
curatorial services to enable researchers
to consult the material. Given that it is in
the process of relocation, it seems unlikely
that the Museum will appoint such a
curator during the lifetime of the project.
Consequently, the Management Board
has recognised that new researchers
cannot be given access to the collection
until the cataloguing has been completed
and the collection has been re-established
in a suitable research centre within the
Museum’s new home.
However, we know that this may put in
jeopardy those projects that have already
started. So anyone who has previously
used the material and who needs to refer
to it again – a category that includes, for
example, the British Army, as well as
academic researchers – may make an
appointment with the archivists, Tim
Lovering and Stephen Ball. They will do
their best to help, within the physical
limitations imposed by the Museum’s
current storage arrangements.
Archival news from Zimbabwe
In July, Prof Jeater visited Zimbabwe and
met with Ivan Murambiwa, energetic
Director of the National Archives of
Zimbabwe (NAZ). He was very welcoming,
and keen to co-operate with the archivists
on this project. In particular, he and Dr
Lovering would both like to discover where
and how the archives in the NAZ and the
RAA archives connect or overlap. We are
very pleased that Mr Murambiwa will be
visiting the project in April, as keynote
speaker to our workshop (see below).
Prof Jeater tried to get news of what had
happened to the parallel material
generated by the nationalist forces, ZIPRA
and ZANLA. It seems that the ZIPRA
material has probably been destroyed.
The ZANLA material is housed in the
headquarters of ZANU (PF) in Harare, and
researchers may ask ZANU (PF) for
permission to consult it.
Two research assistants will help with
cataloguing the Rhodesian Air Force
Strike Reports and Army Services Corps
files. The first of these volunteers,
Theresia Kremer, will join us on February
12th 2008. She is studying for a BA in
European History at the University of
Bayreuth in Germany, and has a particular
interest in working in public history.
The other assistant is Manuel Escamilla,
an undergraduate student at UC Berkeley.
Berkeley has awarded Manuel a McNair's
research scholarship in order to pursue his
studies in the UK over the summer. He is
particularly interested in the Rhodesian
Army.
The progress of the archiving is overseen
by the Project Management Board. The
Board met twice last year and approved
the budget and progress reports.
The Board agreed at its autumn meeting
that Brian Oliver, of the Rhodesian Army
Trust, should be recognised as a full
member. He has proved invaluable in his
good advice and sound sense since the
project began.
Rosemary Seton, the Chair of the Board
and Former Keeper of Archives and
Special Collections at the School of
Oriental and African Studies, London, has
also proved invaluable. She has given us
a huge amount of well-informed advice
and has shown an enormous commitment
to the success of the project.
In
October,
the
archival
team,
accompanied by Rosemary Seton, visited
The National Archive advisory service.
We had a range of thorny issues to chew
over, because this collection does not fit
easily into existing archive categories: it
was generated by public bodies but is not
part of a government archive. We had a
very helpful conversation. Some of the
generic issues raised will, we hope, be
addressed at our workshop on ‘Expatriate
collections in UK Museums and Galleries’,
on 19th April (see below for more details).
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WORKSHOP SERIES:
Return of the Empire: private expatriate archives in UK Museums and Libraries
Readers of the first Newsletter will be aware that we were planning two workshops to bring
together museum curators and librarians with archivists, academics, and other stakeholders,
to discuss the challenges posed by research collections in UK museums and galleries. We
were very pleased to win AHRC funding to support these workshops.
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The first workshop took place on
The second workshop
September 8th 2007. It focused on the
difference between managing an archive
and managing a museum collection.
Our keynote speaker, Paul Lihoma,
National Archivist of Malawi and Advisor to
the Museum of the Society of Malawi,
gave an excellent presentation that
highlighted how curators are not archivists;
there are procedures and facilities specific
to archives. Museums need to be aware of
these when accepting deposits of archival
material.
The discussion was greatly enriched by
presentations from Rosemary Seton, Tim
Lovering, Tom Mortimer and Brian Oliver,
as well as Patricia Methven, Director of
Archives and Information Management,
King’s College London; Helen Pye-Smith,
Head of Resource Centre & Library at The
National Archive, and Prof David
Killingray, who is also a member of the
project’s Management Board.
Key recommendations included
Advice for museums about accepting
archival collections should be drawn up.
Museums and archives both need to pay
more attention to the importance of
support services for research, including
good
systems
for
communicating
information
about
opening
hours,
accessibility etc., and adequate facilities
for researchers.
Cross-domain cataloguing standards,
especially meta-level descriptions enabling
convergence between catalogues of
artefacts, archives and published texts
should become established and –
importantly – disseminated to archivists,
curators and appropriate training courses.
Funds should be earmarked (eg by AHRC)
for a person/institution to develop and
maintain a centralised directory of existing
guidelines / good practice / standards and
existing projects to develop such
guidelines (eg MLA, SCAM). This overall
co-ordination to be aimed equally at
archivists and curators and to ensure
dissemination across domains.
See_report:_http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/his
tory/raa_workshop/report_workshop1.pdf
Expatriate Collections in UK Museums
and Galleries
19th April 2008
With the passing of the colonial
generation, there are increasing deposits
of expatriate material in UK museums and
libraries. Typically they are paper-based
archives with enormous research and
educational value, but limited display
potential. There are ethical and practical
considerations regarding the uses of such
material, including issues of copyright,
confidentiality and access.
Keynote Speaker
Mr. Munhamu Ivan Murambiwa,
Director,
National
Archives
Zimbabwe
of
The workshop will be at the Empire and
Commonwealth Museum, Bristol. It will
share experience and good practice on
working with expatriate material deposited
within and outside established archives.
The workshop will be of particular interest
to those who need to address the ethical
and practical issues raised by such
materials.
Speakers will highlight some of the
problems with access to these collections
and the lack of clear guidelines regarding
access and confidentiality. We will also
consider perspectives from the countries
of origin.
Other speakers include:
Susan
Healy,
Information
Policy
Consultant and Data Protection Officer,
The National Archives
Oliver Urquhart-Irvine, Cultural Property
Manager, British Library
Mandy
Banton,
Principal
Records
Specialist (Diplomatic and Colonial),
Advice
and
Records
Knowledge
Department, The National Archives.
Attendance is free. Further details at
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/history/raa_
workshop/workshop2.shtml
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NEWS:
‘Why did you fight?’: The Rhodesia Forces Oral History Project
We are delighted to announce that the AHRC has also agreed to fund a two-year oral history
project, to accompany the archive project. We aim to interview up to 120 former members of
the Rhodesian forces and the British South Africa Police. Dr Sue Onslow, from the LSE,
London, will be working with us on this project, which is due to start on 1st March 2008.
Background to the oral history project.
Research Questions
This oral history project is designed to
complement the work of cataloguing the
Rhodesian Army. The need for a
complementary oral history project was
identified at an early point in the
cataloguing, when three important issues
emerged.
Firstly, we have been contacted by
researchers from across the world who, for
various reasons, are interested in the
perspectives of common soldiers in the
Rhodesian army. However, this is one
subject that does not arise particularly well
out of the RAA material, because it was
produced by middle-ranking and senior
elements of the army. An oral history
would enable us to place the RAA material
in its broader social context.
Secondly, the cataloguing project has
highlighted a range of concerns about how
the past would be represented. There was
a strong sense that (in the words of one
correspondent) the ‘voices of the
vanquished’ had been written out of the
historical record. The soldiers whose lives
were recorded in the army documents felt
they had little involvement in the archive
that UWE is creating. An oral history
project would address both these issues,
providing an opportunity to investigate the
perspectives of the Rhodesian forces and
assuaging their sense of alienation from
the academic community.
Thirdly, the archivists realised that their
work would be much more efficient if they
had
more
information
about
the
circumstances in which the material was
generated.
Information
about
the
administrative histories of the various
departments represented within the
collection would enable the archivists to
make better sense of the way in which the
material was generated and subsequently
organized.
It is our intention to deposit digital copies
of the interviews and transcripts in the
Museum, as a companion collection to the
RAA material, for use by researchers and
for public exhibition.
The oral history project will create a
valuable archive of memories. However, it
is also a research project designed to
address academic questions.
We want to address two related questions,
from two different perspectives. From the
perspective of political history, we want to
discover what it was that the soldiers
believed they were fighting for. Did their
sense of what it meant to be ‘Rhodesian’
match the constructions of national identity
at government level, reflected in the press
and the political and diplomatic archives?
Was the experience of military training,
with the bonds of group loyalty formed
through war, one of the unforeseen, and
unrecognized, factors that sustained the
Rhodesia Front’s defiance of the
international community? Dr Sue Onslow
will lead in examining these issues.
From a historiographic perspective, we
want to examine how recollections of the
war have been constructed. How are they
influenced by subsequent events and by
dominant discourses within the ‘exRhodesian’
communities?
How
do
collective
memories
emerge?
The
opportunity to gather oral testimony
alongside the cataloguing of the archival
material offers an exceptional opportunity
to identify how some events of the past
are given more significance than others.
Prof Jeater will lead on these issues.
There is, of course, a dynamic tension
between these two questions, with the
historiographic issues raising questions
about the status of the political history
findings. For us, this is one of the more
exciting aspects of the project, allowing us
to develop conclusions within a robust
conversation about the status of the
knowledge being generated.
Both the political and historiographic
issues can be approached by posing a
simple opening question: ‘Why did you
fight?’. This multi-layered question will
help us to trace the role of war in the
construction,
and
subsequent
maintenance, of national identity.
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PLANS, PARTNERSHIPS & NEWS
The Outnumbered:
Proposed film for cinema.
Set in 1976, ‘The Outnumbered’ is a
proposed feature film about a group of
young soldiers in a Light Infantry company
during the Rhodesian War.
The director Saxon Logan, who grew up in
(then) Rhodesia, although now based in
Bristol, writes: ‘My concern is that much of
this history – in particular this war – will
pass with nothing universally substantial to
represent those who lost lives and those
who remain wounded by the conflict.
‘An internationally acclaimed, successful
movie would re-root this in a worldwide
audiences’
consciousness
and
for
generations to come’
Saxon Logan is an established film maker
and has won many awards for feature and
documentary work.
The initial development of the film has
been supported by Films@59, one of
Europe’s largest production companies.
Saxon is now looking for backers to
support the film’s entire development
process. If anyone is interested, he will
send them an information pack and DVD.
Contact: saxon_211@fsmail.net
Book launches
Two books on Rhodesian Forces have
recently been published by the South
African publishing company, 30oSouth.
Both books had launch events in London
that were attended by members of the
project team. We were able to meet a
range of people involved with the archive,
and also made some good contacts for the
oral history project.
The regimental history of The Saints – the
Rhodesian Light Infantry, by Alexandre
Binda, compiled and edited by Chris
Cocks, was launched at a gala event at
the Guards Museum, London, in June.
Alex Binda also produced Masodja. The
History of the Rhodesian African Rifles
and its Forerunner the Rhodesia Native
Regiment, which was launched in
November. Four African soldiers from 1
RAR (Masodja), all of whom had also
served in Malaya, were invited to the
launch as honoured guests.
30oSouth publishes histories and memoirs
of conflicts and soldiers, and attempts to
do so from a non-partisan perspective.
http://www.30degreessouth.co.za/
Academic papers and projects
Dr Carl P. Watts has recently published
‘Dilemmas
of
Intra-Commonwealth
Representation During the Rhodesian
Problem, 1964-65’, Commonwealth &
Comparative Politics, Vol. 45, No. 3
(2007), pp. 323-44.
James Guthrie has long-term plans to
write a doctorate on the former Rhodesian
AF 1964-1980. He won’t be starting until
2011, but nearer that time he would be
interested to make contact with people
who can offer assistance or ideas.
James.Guthrie@tab.ac.uk
Colin Graham is a PhD candidate (in
History) from Canada writing a dissertation
on British intelligence in Rhodesia during
the Cold War. If necessary, his
dissertation will be expanded to include all
of southern Africa. He may be contacted
via the project.
Other contacts
In October, the project team enjoyed
meeting with James Hargrave, now based
in Australia, who catalogued the Welensky
papers in Rhodes House, Oxford.
Other projects
Robin Pickers was a member of the
Rhodesian Army from December 1976
until just after the elections in 1980. He is
trying to establish a web site dedicated to
all the recruits that were part of Intake 155
Depot Rhodesia Regiment at Llewellyn
Barracks, Bulawayo, and to all the
members of 4 Independent Company
(Wankie).
Contact: Robinp@pmb.sivest.co.za
Thanks to Management Board and AHRC
In addition to the members of the
Management Board already mentioned,
the project team would also like to thank
Dr Jocelyn Alexander; Dr Gareth Griffiths
and Mr John Smith, for their contributions
to the Board over the past year.
We would also like to thank Rachel Kelly
at the AHRC for her help and advice over
recent weeks.
Contact the project at:
Diana.Jeater@uwe.ac.uk
History Dept., UWE, St Matthias Campus,
Bristol, BS16 2JP.
http://www.uwe.ac.uk/hlss/history/staff_dje
ater.shtml
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