A fine Bronze Cross of Rhodesia group of three awarded to Warrant Officer Class 2 V. “Van” Rashayi, Rhodesian African Rifles

Zimbabwe Independence Medal 1980, officially numbered ‘07945’; Bronze Cross of Rhodesia, the reverse officially inscribed ‘643981 W.O. II V. Rashayi’; Rhodesia General Service Medal (R43781 L. Cpl. Vanhuvavone), mounted as worn, generally good very fine (3) £400-500

Bronze Cross of Rhodesia: October 1977.

Vanhuvavone “Van” Rashayi’s exploits receive frequent mention in J. R. T. Wood’s The War Diaries of Andre Dennison, a copy of which accompanies the Lot.

Dennison makes mention of Rashayi being wounded for a second time in an action near Gona-re-Zhou game reserve on 18 March 1976, when he ‘was winged in the leg and his A63 radio got a bullet clean through it’. On the first occasion, while serving in 1st R.A.R., he had killed three Z.A.N.L.A. terrorists in a point-blank range firefight before a fourth hit him in the knee - four more bullets tore holes in his combat jacket. Warrant Officer “Van”, as he came to be known, was back in action that October, taking out another terrorist with ‘a common garden or fragmentation grenade’ after all else had failed.

Another interesting encounter took place in a bush village on 22 February 1977, as featured in his Bronze Cross citation, when “Van” accounted for three terrorists, and two suspicious-looking women, and captured a large quanitity of arms and ammunition. Two other terrorists were wounded and captured. However, a somewhat different account appears in Dennison’s diaries:

‘During a routine patrol he [Rashayi] entered a bush village. His sixth sense told him that all was not well. When he said “good morning” to a village hag, she unaccountably started shivering ... To cut a long story short: behind a hut the R.A.R. patrol found a group of eight communist terrorists disporting themselves with some “easy” local floozies. A few quick bursts of R.A.R. fire cut down seven of the group, as well as the two girls ...’

Apparently the two women were not locals but had joined the terrorists in the Pangarai area in December 1976, and had been running with them ever since.

“Van” departed ‘A’ Company in the summer of 1977, to take up an appointment as C.S.M. to a Support Company. He had, meanwhile, been invested with his Bronze Cross by President Wrathall, an investiture that also witnessed Dennison receiving his Legion of Merit (M.L.M.).

N.B. Major Dennison’s Honours and Awards were sold in these Rooms on 25 March 1997, the accompanying footnote also describing in detail many of the actions and activities of ‘A’ Company, 2nd Rhodesian African Rifles, in which Rashayi served under Dennison’s overall command.