Written by renowned author and photojournalist, Al J. Venter, this
book spotlights the career of a fascinating modern warrior, while also
shedding light on some of the conflicts that have raged throughout the
world behind the headlines. -- Tucson Citizen
A former South African Air Force pilot who saw action throughout the
region from the 1970s on, 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), tried to
resuscitate Mobutu's ailing air force during his final days ruling the
Congo, flew Mi-8s for Executive Outcomes, and thereafter an Mi-8 fondly
dubbed 'Bokkie' for Colonel Tim Spicer in Sierra Leone. Finally, with a
pair of aging Mi-24 Hinds, Ellis ran the Air Wing out of Aberdeen
Barracks in the war against Sankoh's vicious RUF rebels.
For just two years as a "civilian contractor," Ellis flew helicopter
support missions in Afghanistan, where, he reckons, he has had more
close shaves than in his entire previous four-decades put together.
Twice, single-handedly (and without a copilot), he turned the enemy back
from the gates of Freetown, effectively preventing the rebels from
overrunning Sierra Leone's capital--once in the middle of the night
without the benefit of night vision goggles. Nellis (as his friends call
him) was also the first mercenary to work hand-in-glove with British
ground and air assets in a modern guerrilla war. In Sierra Leone,
Ellis's Mi-24 ("it leaked when it rained") played a seminal role in
rescuing the 11 British soldiers who had been taken hostage by the
so-called West Side Boys. He also used his helicopter numerous times to
fly SAS personnel on low-level reconnaissance missions into the interior
of the diamond-rich country, for the simple reason that no other pilot
knew the country--and the enemy--better than he did.
Al Venter, the author of War Dog and other acclaimed titles,
accompanied Nellis on some of these missions. "Occasionally we returned
to base with holes in our fuselage," Venter recounts, "though once it
was self-inflicted: in his enthusiasm during an attack on one of the
towns in the interior, a side-gunner onboard swung his heavy machine-gun
a bit too wide and hit one of our drop tanks. Had it been full at the
time, things might have been different." The upshot was that over the
course of a year of military operations, the two former Soviet
helicopters operated for the Sierra Leone Air Wing by Nellis and his
boys were patched more often than any other comparable pair of gun ships
in Asia, Africa or Latin America. Nellis himself earned a price on his
head: some reports spoke of a $1 million reward dead or alive while
others doubled it.
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 multiethnic array of enemies ranging from ideological to
cold-blooded to pure evil, as well as well as examples of incredible
heroism for hire.
