Harris was frustrated by delays launching Commonwealth Air Training Plan stations in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

Southern Rhodesian Prime Minister Godfrey Huggins (1933–53) recognised an opportunity not just to aid Britain and the Allies, but also to boost the domestic economy.

The threadbare SRAF bought, borrowed or salvaged a collection of vintage aircraft, including six Tiger Moths, six Harvard trainers, an Anson freighter and a handful of De Havilland Rapide transport aircraft, before purchasing a squadron of 22 Mk22 war surplus Spitfires from the RAF which were then flown to Southern Rhodesia.

The booming Rhodesian economy allowed more money to be allocated for new aircraft, training and aerodrome facilities, and growing co-operation with the RAF in the 1950s saw the SRAF operating in Northern Rhodesia and Nyasaland, Kenya, Cyprus, Egypt, Jordan, Iraq, Oman and South Yemen.

The CAF was viewed as an experiment, a democratic multiracial alternative to apartheid South Africa, and it was widely expected that the new federal state would become independent within a decade.

In 1962, Hawker Hunter fighter aircraft were obtained, and the Vampire FB9 and T55s were reallocated to advanced training and ground attack roles.

Despite efforts to broker a consensus, black and white Rhodesians complained that the pace of reform was too slow or too fast and by 1961, it became clear that the Federation was doomed.

White settler opinion hardened and Ian Smith's Rhodesian Front government issued a Unilateral Declaration of Independence in 1965.

Bentley's reluctant successor, former Royal Australian Air Force pilot Harold Hawkins had come to Rhodesia with the RATG in 1944 and joined the SRAF in 1947.

In contrast to the British South Africa Police and the Rhodesian Army, security force airmen possessed skills in demand by other governments and civilian airlines and the RhAF struggled to retain, recruit and instruct technicians.

The decision was made to build a completely new airfield at Kentucky Farm to provide a base of operations for civilian airlines and military aircraft.

It was therefore appropriate in view of both similarities in name and close association with the Royal Air Force that the new airfield be called "New Sarum."

The schools and flying squadrons are supported by a full range of services and amenities including workshops, transport fleets, living quarters, equipment depots, and sporting & entertainment facilities.

Some of them formed the nucleus of the military training schemes which led to the formation of the Southern Rhodesian Air Force.

These pilots were qualified to fly all the aircraft within the air force[citation needed] so were often involved in combat missions.

In March 1970, when Rhodesia declared itself a republic, the prefix "Royal" was dropped and the Service's name became the "Rhodesian Air Force" (RhAF).

Given the remoteness and the lack of friendly forces in areas where insurgents established bases, the strategic importance of these intelligence platforms cannot be understated.22 However, the RhAF had its greatest impact at the operational and tactical levels.

Drawing upon counter-insurgency experience gained in the Second World War, the Malayan Emergency and the Mau Mau Uprising in Kenya,[13] and adapting more recent Israeli, South African and Portuguese tactics, Rhodesian combined operations (police Special Branch, army, air force) developed 'pseudo-guerrillas', such as the Mozambican National Resistance, (RENAMO) that wreaked havoc across the border, where Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA) guerrilla camps were razed by 'Fireforce' cross-border raids.

[14] Fireforce comprised units of Selous Scouts, an undercover tracker battalion of 1,500 troops on double pay, 80 percent black, (many recruited by Special Branch from captured guerrillas facing trial and execution) probing ahead of a parachute infantry battalion of the Rhodesian Light Infantry,[15][16] and up to 200 Special Air Service commandos.

These forces were supported, in turn, by armoured transport columns, mobile field artillery, equestrian pursuit dragoons (Grey's Scouts), air force helicopter gunships and bomber squadrons,[17] one newly equipped with 20 French-made Cessna Lynx low-altitude surveillance aircraft modified for precision ground attacks.

Fireforce gathered intelligence, disrupted guerrilla forces, seized equipment and is identified frequently as a precursor of new forms of counterinsurgency warfare.

[18] For ground defence, the Rhodesian Air Force had their own armoured car unit equipped with Eland 60s armed with 60 mm breech loading mortars.