This manual is packed with practical lessons, on-the-ground tricks, training drills and equipment suggestions for the solo tracker on up to a multiagency tracking operation. Learn from a 30-year veteran how to find and follow tracks through any terrain; assess the age of tracks; relocate the trail after it's gone missing; foil every effort to throw off your pursuit; coordinate a four-man team while tracking armed fugitives; set up and run large tracking operations, use the latest high-tech gear to find fugitives and more.
David Scott-Donelan was a career soldier spanning almost three decades of active duty in the war zones of Rhodesia, South Africa, Mozambique, and South-West Africa/Namibia.
Enlisting in the Army of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland in 1961, Scott-Donelan was one of the original members of the resuscitated C Squadron (Rhodesia) Special Air Service, where he was introduced to the concepts of irregular warfare and tactical tracking by Allan Savory, a game ranger known for his innovative and successful concepts in hunting down heavily armed elephant and rhino poachers.
In 1968 Scott-Donelan was posted to the new Tracker Combat Unit (TCU), commanded by Allan Savory, with the mission of tracking down and annihilating Communist-trained and equipped nationalist insurgents infiltrating the Rhodesian border from Zambia and Mozambique. He went on to command the TCU and was responsible for the selection and training of expert trackers for the unit, which was beginning to make a name for itself on operations. In 1974b the TCU was absorbed by an innovative new counterinsurgency unit known as the Selous Scouts, and Scott-Donelan was posted to the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI), which was heavily involved in helicopter and airborne operations against armed terrorist gangs infiltrating Rhodesia in increasing numbers. After several years of nonstop action in the RLI, he served as an intelligence officer at a Brigade HQ and Combined Operations HQ, Rhodesia's equivalent of the Pentagon. Frustrated with staff duties, he agitated for a transfer to the Selous Scouts and was appointed Officer Commanding Training Group, which included the Tracking and Bush Survival School, the notorious "Wafa Wafa, " on the shores of Lake Kariba.
In 1980, due to intense political pressure from the United States, Britain and the United Nations, Rhodesia, after having never lost a battle, lost the war and became the Republic of Zimbabwe.
Joining the South African Special Forces in 1980 as a member of 5 Reconnaissance Regiment, he commanded the regiment's Developmental Wing, which was responsible for establishing a complete training and operational resource base as well as conducting training programs for several guerrilla armies. Five years later he was seconded to the South-West Africa Territorial Force as a company commander and made responsible for operations against the Peoples Liberation Army of Namibia infiltrating into South- West Africa/Namibia from Angola and Zambia.
Immigrating to the United States in 1989, he is now the training director of the Tactical Tracking Operations School, which trains law enforcement, corrections, and military personnel in the same tracking techniques that proved so successful against armed and dangerous fugitives in Africa.
