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186: Did the film "Zulu" get it wrong? The mystery of Lt. Adendorff.
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Did the film Zulu get it wrong?
In the 1964 epic, Lieutenant Gert Adendorff rides into Rorke’s Drift with dire news of the disaster at Isandlwana. He explains Zulu tactics, warns of the impending attack—and when asked if he’ll stay to fight, replies:
“Is there anywhere else to go?”
But just a year later, Donald Morris’s classic book The Washing of the Spears claimed he fled—not once, but twice. Ever since, Adendorff has been caught in a storm of controversy.
Was he a deserter who abandoned his men?
Or was he the only man to survive Isandlwana…
The skinny
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