Page 293 - They Also Served

this would be the end of white minority rule, Smith issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence (UDI) in November 1965, beginning a period of armed struggle and international sanctions that would last for 15 years. Meanwhile, that Christmas, Walls was reproached for allowing his men to wear party hats declaring ‘RLI for UDI’.
After UDI, Walls became firstly a brigade commander and then army chief of staff. On promotion to lieutenant-general, he was army commander and, later head of the armed forces. Overseeing operations in the vicious Rhodesian Bush War against ZANLA forces under Robert Mugabe and ZIPRA under Joshua Nkomo, Walls took the fight to the enemy with raids into neighbouring Mozambique and Zambia. During the war, the Rhodesian forces never numbered more than 45,000, but it is estimated that they killed at least 20,000 of their enemies. Walls introduced many radical and controversial measures to stem the tide, including commissioning indigenous Africans into the military. However, the outcome was inevitable. Smith’s regime was outnumbered and shunned by most of the international community. Furthermore, sanctions resulted in Rhodesian military hardware becoming ever more outdated, whereas the opposition was supported by modern equipment and training from Russia, China and Cuba.
In late 1979, the Lancaster House Agreement led to a ceasefire and free elections, which were won by Robert Mugabe. Walls remained in post for a while, trying to ensure that his loyal troops were offered places in the Zimbabwean armed forces and overseeing the integration of the three warring factions. However, the paranoid Mugabe never trusted Walls, once accusing his troops of an assassination attempt – to which Walls replied: ‘If they were my troops, they would have succeeded’. In 1980, he went into exile in South Africa, living a quiet life with his family and never writing his memoirs. Peter Walls died on 20th July 2010.
Notwithstanding the issues of the Smith government, Walls was a popular figure who led from the front, once parachuting into Mozambique to deliver Christmas turkeys to the troops on operations. Such was his influence on the war that he was the number one target for the opposition. On 12th February 1979, ZIPRA shot down a Rhodesian Airlines aircraft, killing all 59 on board. Walls and his wife had missed the flight by 15 minutes.
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