Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

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by Peter Petter-Bowyer




  WINDS OF

  DESTRUCTION

  eBook co-published in 2012 by:

  Helion & Company Limited

  26 Willow Road

  Solihull

  West Midlands

  B91 1UE

  England

  Tel. 0121 705 3393

  Fax 0121 711 4075

  email: [email protected]

  website: www.helion.co.uk

  and

  30° South Publishers (Pty) Ltd.

  16 Ivy Road

  Pinetown 3610

  South Africa

  email: [email protected]

  website: www.30degreessouth.co.za

  First published by Trafford Publishing, 2003

  Copyright © P.J.H Petter-Bowyer, 2005

  eBook © P.J.H Petter-Bowyer, 2012

  Digital Edition ISBN: 9781908916662

  Design and origination by 30° South Publishers (Pty) Ltd.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, manipulated in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any mechanical, electronic form or by any other means, without the prior written authority of the publishers except for short extracts in media reviews. Any person who engages in any unauthorized activity in relation to this publication shall be liable to criminal prosecution and claims for civil and criminal damages.

  Contents

  Maps

  Central Africa and Southern Africa

  Air Force Bases and Forward Airfields

  Rhodesian, ZIPRA and ZANLA Operational Boundaries

  Foreword

  Author’s Note

  Chapter 1

  A short history of the Rhodesian Air Force

  Younger days

  Chapter 2

  Ground Training School

  Basic Flying School

  Advanced Flying School

  Operational Conversion Unit

  Chapter 3

  No 1 Squadron

  Interview with Commander

  Nyasaland emergency

  Canberra bombers

  The Colin Graves tragedy

  Air shows

  Flypasts

  Aden detachment

  Chapter 4

  No 2 Squadron

  Death of Jack Roberts

  Sabotage

  Flying Instructors School

  Paul Mark

  Death of Eric Cary

  First students

  Fire officer

  Canberra belly-landing

  Practical jokers

  15 PTC

  Fire-fighting cock-up

  Congo crisis

  Gwelo Gliding Club

  16 PTC

  RAF Trappers

  No 4 Squadron

  Federal break-up

  Return to Thornhill

  Weapons demonstration

  Early weapons testing

  Deaths of Bruce McKerron and Henry Elliot

  First terrorist action

  Flying Wing Adjutant

  Deaths of Barry Matthews and Sandy Trenoweth

  Rupert Fothergill

  Posting to 3 Squadron

  Chapter 5

  Unilateral Declaration of Independence

  Rolls Royce engines

  No 7 Squadron

  Sinoia operation

  Helicopter projects

  Nevada murder

  Aiden Diggeden

  Helicopter projects continued

  Accidental entry into Zambia

  Elephants and the minister

  First helicopter engine failure

  British military versus Labour Government

  A different way of thinking

  FAC courses and smoke trails

  Missing rhino

  The fun of helicopters

  Police Reserve Air Wing

  Chapter 6

  Operation Nickel

  Disastrous twenty-four hours

  Radio tracker dog project disallowed

  Find Sheriff

  Mountain flying

  Family in helicopter

  Training Norman Walsh

  Tracker dog project

  Operation Cauldron

  P.K. van der Byl

  Roland Coffegnot

  Operation Griffin

  Tracker dogs proven

  Operation Mansion

  Operation Excess

  Concern for Tete Province

  Casevac of gored ranger

  Tripper operations

  Animal incidents

  Death of Don Annandale

  Recce training and Willie de Beer

  Trojans

  Roll cloud incident

  Engine failure

  Joint Planning Staff

  Paris Air Show

  Board of Inquiry

  Alcora

  Visit to Cabo del Gado

  Medical hitch

  Aircraft accidents 1970–1971

  Exercise Blackjack

  Staff College

  Deaths of Munton-Jackson and Garden

  Chapter 7

  No 4 Squadron

  Learning recce

  Aloe Festival

  ZANU and ZAPU activities

  External recce training

  Preparing for bush ops

  Jungle Lane

  ‘October Revolution’

  Operation Sable

  Nicholas and the old man

  Beit Bridge rail link

  Commencement of Operation Hurricane

  Countering landmines

  Centenary days

  Deaths of Smart and Smithdorff

  Offensive recces

  Non-offensive casualties

  The Peter Simmonds incident

  Flight Sergeant Benji

  Another Aloe Festival

  Early FAC to jets

  The face of terrorism

  ZANLA recruitment

  Pseudo-terrorist beginnings

  Night-strike trials

  Pre-selection of Air Force commanders

  Night ops difficulties

  Trojan characteristics

  SAS ops in Tete

  First internal recce success

  Training PRAW

  Strela missiles

  Crop-spraying in Tete

  Chris Weinmann joins 4 Squadron

  Night casevacs

  Improving tactics

  Selous Scouts

  Cordon Sanitaire

  Odds and sods

  FAC errors and successes

  Fear of landing in enemy territory

  Chifombo Base

  New Offensive trials

  Beginning of Black Month

  Operation Marble

  Search for Chris

  Hunter commanders

  Army claims air kills

  Gungwa mountain

  Countering Strela missiles

  Army Sub-JOC commanders

  Fireforce and Scouts

  Détente

  Authentication of pseudo groups

  ZIPRA plans upset

  7 Squadron gains at 4 Squadron’s expense

  Ceasefire

  Firelighters

  Quiet times

  Brown Jobs versus Blue Jobs

  Doctored radios and ammunition

  Cocky Benecke

  Last air actions of 1975

  Loss of top Army officers

  Lull before the storm

  Déntente and SB

  CTs prepare to resume war

  Return of ZANLA

  Lynx ferry

  Fireforces back in action

  Patchen e
xplorer

  War spreads and hots up

  SO Plans

  Operation Sand

  Diverse personalities and different situations

  Chapter 8

  Project Alpha

  Pyrotechnics and boosted rockets

  CS pellets

  Hispano cannons for Scouts

  Mixed events

  Vic Cook

  SAS externals

  Canberras join Fireforce

  Yellow Submarine

  Schulie

  Madula Pan

  Madula Pan attack

  New Frantans

  Golf Project

  Cavalry Fireforce

  Testing American equipment

  COMOPS established

  External operations March – June 1977

  Flechettes

  ‘Know your enemy’

  Salisbury recce

  First employment of Flechettes

  Preparing to attack external bases

  Operation Dingo briefing

  Chimoio attack

  Tembue attack

  Effectiveness of Op Dingo

  Operation Virile

  Black Friday

  Mini-golf bombs

  ZANLA’s changing tactics

  Norah Seear

  RAR Fireforces

  Bold actions—007 ideas

  Katoog

  Philippa Berlyn

  Final tracker dogs’ trial

  More enemy reversals

  Deaths of du Toit and Nelson

  Second Tembue attack

  Viscount disaster

  Return to Chimoio

  Operation Gatling

  Mulungushi and Mboroma

  Moatize hangar

  Chapter 9

  Posting to COMOPS

  Mozambican National Resistance

  Luso Boma

  Vanduzi Circle

  Cost comparisons

  ZIPRA plans revealed

  Beira fuel refinery

  Assassination attempts on Joshua Nkomo

  Kazungula ferry

  Cheetahs

  Uncomfortable times in COMOPS

  Black government

  Civilian convoys and rail protection

  British Conservative government

  Flechette success

  ZIPRA’s NSO

  Xai Xai

  Attempts to assassinate Robert Mugabe

  ZIPRA loses war holdings

  Political turmoil

  Operation Uric

  Enhancing MNR’s image

  Search for New Chimoio

  Operation Miracle

  Chambeshi bridges—Zambia

  Moatize bridges

  Encounter with conventional ZIPRA forces

  Operation Tepid

  Operation Dice

  Chapter 10

  Ceasefire

  Dinner with ZIPRA

  Visits to ZANLA Assembly Points

  Visits to ZIPRA APs

  Elections

  Joint High Command HQ

  Epilogue

  Glossary

  eBooks Published by Helion & Company

  Foreword

  I WILL NOT PRETEND THAT I have known Group Captain Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer, affectionately known as ‘PB’, as long as some have. After both having left our beloved Rhodesia, we lived in the same town, Durban, for years without encountering each other. Given my work on the history of Rhodesia, and my service in the Rhodesian Regiment and the Rhodesian Intelligence Corps, I knew his reputation, of course, indeed the awe in which this modest-to-a-fault airman was held within the ranks of the Rhodesian Security Forces. If our paths did not cross in daily life, I made it my business to interview him about what I knew of his achievements.

  What PB presents us with in this book is a unique account of Rhodesia from the prosperous post-Second World War years to her death-throes in 1980. Unique because it is seen not just through the eyes of a pilot, because PB was seldom deskbound, rarely flying a ‘Mahogany Bomber’ at headquarters, but through those of a Renaissance man, the proverbial man of great knowledge. PB’s restless, inquiring mind never allowed him just to perform the task required of him. He was not what the Army thought of the typical pilot, homeward bound to clean clothes, a warm bed, fine food and the girls and the beer.

  If PB was flying, he was thinking. Thinking about his aircraft. He was not an engineer but he would be responsible for many modifications of his aircraft, much to the irritation of a few of the technical staff. If he was bombing, he was thinking about the bomb, its purpose and whether it was achieving it. So it would be PB who would mastermind the invention and production of Rhodesia’s remarkable range of bombs. He did not do this alone, but his inquiring, inventive mind was the inspiration. The Rhodesian Air Force was condemned by circumstance to fly aircraft which elsewhere were obsolete, but the best had to be made of them, and not just by a high level of flying competence. The aging Canberra bomber (designed by PB’s cousin, William ‘Teddy’ Petter) was Rhodesia’s bomber equipped with a range of standard NATO bombs. PB soon saw ways to make it more effective even if metal fatigue would reduce the number of available Canberras. PB enhanced the humble air-to-ground rocket and gave the Hunter a formidable blast bomb, among other weapons. When a helicopter pilot, PB would enhance the Alouette III’s refuelling ability, and assist in improving its weaponry.

  It was not just a fascination with technology that marks the man. PB is not just an inventor; he was an inspiring and resourceful leader of the school that did not ask his pilots to do anything he would not do, and he would be the one doing it longer. Beginning with his helicopter days in the latter half of 1960s, PB was a leading counter-insurgency tactician. It was PB who realised that one could track from the air. Better than that, alone among the pilots, he realised that there were telltale signs, not just tracks, which betrayed the presence of his enemy. His self-imposed social anthropological research led him to become Rhodesia’s leading air-recce pilot when commanding No 4 Squadron. When PB appeared overhead in his stuttering Trojan, everyone in the ground forces knew something was about to happen, that the whereabouts of the quarry was about to be known. His training led to others acquiring this skill, and one at least bettered him, but it was PB who had the vision. He would carry that vision into every task that he performed.

  I commend to you not just this inspiring pilot’s tale, but the man himself.

  Professor J.R.T Wood

  Durban, South Africa

  Author’s Note

  WHILE RESEARCHING MY FAMILIES’ backgrounds I ran into difficulties that forced me to rely entirely on faded memories of aged relatives because no written legacies exist. So in 1984 I started recording my own life’s story with the simple objective of leaving a permanent record, in hopes that my family would record their own historical narratives for successive generations to build upon. But then in January 2000 I was persuaded by Rhodesian friends to expand on what I had recorded, to meet a need for at least one Rhodesian Air Force story told at an individual level. Consequently this book is not an historical account of the most efficient air force of its day; nor does it cover important subjects that did not involve me either directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, my experiences are unique and sufficiently wide-ranging to give readers a fair understanding of the force I served, and reveal something of the essence of Rhodesia and her thirteen-year bush war.

 

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