My father and mother, just married, in 1940. My father was a battery sergeant major in the Royal Artillery deployed to France with the BEF and was withdrawn from the beaches of Dunkirk. He returned to France in June 1944 and, as a troop commander in a 17pdr Achilles tank destroyer with the 75th Anti-Tank Regiment, RA, 11th Armoured Division, fought through France, Holland and northern Germany.
Author (centre) at a forward airfield in the Cameron Highlands, Malaya watching the deployment of troops and supplies by Wessex helicopter during the Malayan Emergency in 1957.
Private MacKenzie newly qualified as a rifleman in the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment in 1966.
Equipment jump from an RNZAF C-47 Dakota (ParaDak) in 1969. Author is third from the rear on the starboard side.
NZ infantry (3 Platoon, Victor 5 Company), M60 gunners deployed in South Vietnam, 1970.
The author on operations in Vietnam.
Lieutenant Alastair MacKenzie being briefed by Lieutenant John Winton (KIA 10 March, 1971), South Vietnam, 1971.
Travelling on a Centurion tank in Vietnam.
Victor 5 Company deploying from M113 Armoured Personnel Carriers.
Patrol Company, 3 Para, 1974 – Para and child in Ardoyne, Belfast, 1974.
Patrol Company, 3 Para, 1974 – carrying out a ‘P check’ in Ardoyne, Belfast. ‘Dickie’ U provides ‘top cover’.
The author at Bessbrook Mill helipad, South Armagh, 1977.
Patrol Company, 3 Para, 1975, South Armagh. The ‘Night Stalkers’.
FBI Academy, Quantico, USA. Briefing on tactical options by German Special Forces (GSG 9), 1978.
A Company, 1 Para, 1980. ‘MacKenzie’s Light Horse’ patrolling the border between Hong Kong and China.
A Company, 1 Para, 1980. Showing VIPs around the border town of Sha Tau Kok.
44 Parachute Brigade, South African Defence Force, 1981. Carrying out Resistance to Interrogation training for the Brigade Pathfinder Company in the Caprivi Strip, South West Africa.
Brigade Pathfinder Company, 44 Parachute Brigade, South African Defence Force, 1981. In South West Africa, a fighting column of ‘Jackals’ and Unimogs deploy into Angola.
UNITA child guerrillas in Angola.
Remains of an RNZAF Sioux recce helicopter which crashed in 1984 in Waiouru, NZ while assisting on a Grade 2 Officers’ Staff and Tactics Course. All three occupants were injured, one very seriously, and the helicopter started burning. The author was in the immediate vicinity and helped rescue the injured and provide first aid.
The author’s final field exercise in the NZ Army as second in command of the 2/1 Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment in 1985.
The Oman Counterterrorist Team, ‘The Cobras’, carrying out aircraft assault training in 1984.
The author receiving the Order of the Special Emblem from Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman. The author was second in command of the Sultan of Oman’s Special Force and commander of the Oman Counterterrorist Team, the Cobras, 1985–88.
HQ of the Cobras, 1986.
The Cobras carrying out maritime CT training in the seas off Hong Kong on a ‘ship underway’ with the Royal Hong Kong Police Special Duties Unit.
The Cobras carrying out close quarter battle shooting with UK Special Forces.
SSF parachute training with equipment into Oman.
The author as a sales manager with Royal Ordnance (UK) in 1991 demonstrating the use of Explosive Cutting Tape© to destroy a German World War II aerial bomb at a military base somewhere in the depths of Finland.
Carrying out a maritime security survey in Trincomalee harbour and other national harbours on behalf of the Sri Lanka Government and Port Authority to assist in countering the threat of the ‘Sea Tigers’ arm of the Tamil Tigers.
Working in Phnom Penh, Cambodia with the UN mine disposal agency as part of a Royal Ordnance/British Aerospace project in 1992.
As an independent consultant observing a training aircraft assault being carried out by the Bulgarian CT Team, ‘The Red Berets’, at Sofia Airport in 1998.
Attending the first UN Military Observers Course held in Russia in February 1996. The course was held in midwinter at the Vystral Higher Military Academy near Moscow. When driver training in the inimitable Lada, four-wheel drive was only engaged when conditions were really difficult! At the time the author was a Territorial Army officer commanding a Brigade Specialist Training Team.
In 1999, the author, as a British Territorial Army officer and also a Vietnam veteran, was a ‘speaker’ on the first British battlefield tour of the wars in Vietnam, the first tour by any foreign country permitted by the Vietnam Government. These Vietnamese soldiers photographed at Dien Bien Phu would have been the grandsons of the North Vietnamese Army soldiers who the author fought against in 1970–71.
Crossing the USA on Route 66 from Boston to LA in 2014 with the Artists Rifles Motorcycle Club – what a great crew!
On return to NZ, in 2006, the Year of the NZ Veteran, the author organised a charity motorcycle tour of the whole country by all the Returned Servicemen’s Associations in NZ on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans and their Children Trust. The riders finished at Parliament Buildings in Wellington. The other riders were Bruce G and ‘JC’, both NZ Vietnam veterans, ‘Gizer’, a serving NZ veteran, and the amazing Dave Barr, USMC Vietnam veteran and double amputee.
Clockwise from lower left: green beret of the Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment and stable belt; Parachute Regiment beret and stable belt; SAS beret and stable belt; dark maroon beret of South African Parabats; imperial purple beret of the Sultan of Oman’s Special Forces and stable belt. Centre: top: South African Parachute Wings, worn on chest; second row, left to right: Vietnam Medal General Service Medal with Mention-in-Dispatches (Oak-leaf ); Vietnam Service Medal (NZ); Northern Ireland General Service Medal; Long Service Medal (NZ); Vietnamese Service Medal (S. Vietnam); Pro Patria Medal (South Africa); Southern Africa Operations Medal (South Africa); Order of Oman (Oman); Peace Medal (Oman); 15th Anniversary Medal (Oman); third row, left to right: Operational Service Medal (NZ); SSF Counterterrorist Team Clasp – Cobra (Oman); Military Service Medal (NZ).