Gunship Ace

- Blurb -

This book describes the full career of this storied aerial warrior, from the bush and jungles of Africa to the forests of the Balkans and the merciless mountains of today' s Afghanistan. A former South African Air Force pilot who saw action throughout the region from the 1970s, Neall Ellis is the best-known mercenary combat aviator alive. Apart from flying Alouette helicopter gunships in Angola, he has fought in the Balkan War (for Islamic forces), flown Mi-8s for Executive Outcomes, and thereafter an Mi-8 fondly dubbed "Bokkie" for Colonel Tim Spicer in Sierra Leone. For the past two years, as a "civilian contractor," Ellis has been flying helicopter support missions in Afghanistan, where, he reckons, he has had more close shaves than in his entire previous four-decade career; twice he turned the enemy back from the gates of Freetown, effectively preventing the rebels from overrunning Sierra Leone' s capital. Known as Nellis to his friends, he was also the first mercenary to work hand-in-glove with British ground and air assets in a modern guerrilla war. This book describes the full career of this storied aerial warrior, from the bush and jungles of Africa to the forests of the Balkans and the merciless mountains of today' s Afghanistan. Along the way the reader encounters a multi-ethnic array of enemies ranging from ideological to cold-blooded to pure evil, as well as well as examples of incredible heroism for hire. AUTHOR: Al J. Venter is a specialist military writer and has had 50 books published. He started his career with Geneva' s Interavia Group, then owners of International Defence Review, to cover military developments in the Middle East and Africa. Venter has been writing on these and related issues such as guerrilla warfare, insurgency, the Middle East and conflict in general for half a century. He was involved with Jane' s Information Group for more than 30 years and was a stringer for the BBC, NBC News (New York) as well as London' s Daily Express and Sunday Express. He branched into television work in the early 1980s and produced more than 100 documentaries, many of which were internationally flighted. His one-hour film, Africa' s Killing Fields (on the Ugandan civil war), was shown nationwide in the United States on the PBS network. Other films include an hour-long programme on the fifth anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, as well as AIDS: The African Connection, nominated for China' s Pink Magnolia Award. 50 photographs