Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  Ten years after my flights with him, Roland Coffegnot is seen here during one of his regular visits to Rhodesia. From left to right: PB, Harold Griffiths, Roland, Graham Cronshaw and Air Commodore Norman Walsh.

  At the moment the engine cut, it was necessary to dump collective and pitch the aircraft into a vertical dive. The helicopter accelerated rapidly in its hair-raising descent but this kept the rotor blades spinning at a safe speed. The nose was then pitched up quite rapidly with the ground rushing up as the rotor blades spun up to maximum rpm, providing plenty of rotor speed to reduce the descent rate to zero for a gentle roll-on landing. As with the power-off practices from forward flight, use of the collective pitch control, other than to prevent the rotors from over-speeding, had to be left to the last moment to utilise the kinetic energy within the spinning rotor blades to make a controlled touch down. Good judgement was paramount.

  Roland made it known to Air HQ just how important it was for pilots to experience and handle unexpected power failure. This was accepted and 7 Squadron instructors were cleared to cut power in flight. However, Air HQ ruled that this was only to be done at base where the resultant forced landing would be onto a runway. This ruling completely defeated Roland Coffegnot’s insistence that pilot reaction could only be adequately tested if engine failure was induced when a pilot least expected it. When flying anywhere near the main runway with an instructor, pilots were always wide awake and expecting fuel flow to be cut.

  Operation Griffin

  IN MID 1968 BERYL AND I went on long-overdue leave. During our absence ZAPU made its third attempt to establish the safe route through Rhodesia that they so dearly wanted to create for their SAANC mates. The employment of large forces during Operations Nickel and Cauldron had failed dismally, but ZAPU’s James Chikerema and SAANC’s Oliver Tambodid not seem to grasp the reasons for these failures with high losses. This time they used a small group of twenty-nine menwho crossed the Zambezi River on the night of 15 July.

  Their crossing point between Chirundu and the Kariba Gorge aimed for a shorter route to the African populated areas of Vuti Purchase Land and Nyaodza Tribal Trust Land where they intended to establish firm bases. However, unbeknown to them, they had an SB plant in their midst. Glenn MaCaskill had launched his agent into Zambia in April 1968 and was surprised by his early return as a ‘trained terrorist’. The agent had slipped away as soon as it got dark and made a beeline for the Police base at Chirundu to report the incursion.

  The group’s spoor was located at 08:30 on 16 July by trackers and Border Control troops. RLI troops were brought to immediate standby at Kariba and four helicopters with two Provosts bolstered FAF 2’s regular contingent. Terrorist tracks were followed westwards to the opening of the Kariba Gorge then southward up the steep escarpment line before entering a level, south-flowing valley with moderately high hills bounding its flanks.

  Ahead of the tracker group, Second Lieutenant Jerry Strong’s callsign was established in an ambush for the night of 17-18 July. At 07:00 on 18th he broke ambush to conduct a cross-graining search. He came upon the terrorists’ tracks and asked his OC, Major Rob Southey, for two additional sticks (then five men) including a tracker to be flown to him.

  A narrow river running from the eastern high ground with very steep slopes was the place the terrorists had moved from the main valley to rest and shelter in amongst large boulders that packed the twisting ravine. Jerry’s callsign moved along the north bank of the river line with a supporting callsign paralleling on the south bank. Two terrorist backpacks were then located giving warning that the terrorists were very close by. Twenty metres farther on lead scout Lance-Corporal Lahee on the north bank came under fire from about ten terrorists. This forced him and the whole of Jerry’s callsign to retire a short distance and regroup in cover.

  Jerry and Lahee then moved to higher ground and crawled forward onto a ledge to overlook the cave from which terrorist fire had come. They lobbed in all of their hand grenades, fired one 32Z rifle-grenade each and emptied their rifle magazines before they became pinned down from a different terrorist position. They could not withdraw.

  Overhead, Norman Walsh and his gunner ‘TJ’ van den Berg stood by to give covering fire from their MAG but, because he was pinned down, Jerry found it impossible to give proper direction. The callsign on the south bank then made contact killing one terrorist but sustained one wounded casualty before becoming pinned down also. Reinforcements arrived on Jerry’s side of the river allowing him to draw back under their covering fire. At this point Major Southey arrived and, together with Jerry, he moved callsigns downriver before crossing over to move up the south bank with the aim of relievingthe pinned-down troops who were taking casualties every time they moved. This failed and the rescuers themselves became pinned down by heavy accurate fire from well-sited terrorist positions.

  Up to this point the terrorist group was thought to be ZANU because ZANU had not shown up for a long time and the crossing into Rhodesia had been conducted in typical ZANU fashion. Besides, SB had not disclosed anything to ensure their agent and their methods remained secret. But now the aggressive resistance, good tactical siting and controlled accurate fire, made it obvious to the troops that they were in contact with ZAPU.

  While refuelling, Norman Walsh discovered that his helicopter had sustained two 7.62mm strikes to fuselage and tail rotor and Peter Nicholls’ had taken a single strike through the rear fuselage and fuel tank which, by design, had self-sealed. This was the first time aircraft had sustained hits, but at no stage had the aircrew seen a single terrorist.

  Unable to give direction for helicopter supporting fire and realising that terrorists under boulders would be immune to vertical gunfire anyway, Jerry suggested to his OC that Provosts with Frantans might provide a solution. Time had flown by and it was already 15:00 with only two and a half hours of daylight remaining.

  Tony Smit and Ken Law few in from nearby FAF 2 with two Frantans each. With the troops so close to the terrorists, it was essential to drop the first Frantans short of their target. Release of each Frantan had to be made in a steep dive whilst turning hard starboard to avoid the southern face of the mountain. After release, still turning steeply, high ‘G’ and full power had to be applied to recover from the dive where the river exited into the open valley.

  First Frantans fell well short against the mountain face. Tony and Ken returned to FAF 2 for more Frantans, which they managed to drop into the riverbed itself then progressed in two steps nearer to the pinned-down troops. Unbeknown to Tony and Ken, terrorists were taking casualties from their fery strikes even before they reached their intended strike point.

  By this time Major Southey and Jerry Strong, having sustained two wounded casualties, had pulled their callsign back using the Provosts attacks and smoke grenades to cover their withdrawal. But the callsign they had attempted to relieve remained pinned down, even after the last of sixteen Frantans had been expended. Because of this, Hunters and Vampires on airborne standby over the area could not be used before dark. Meanwhile more Frantans were flown to FAF 2 from New Sarum.

  It was not until 19:30 that the callsign, which had been pinned down for over eight hours, managed to move out under cover of darkness with its casualties. RLI, PATU and South African Police callsigns set up ambush positions in the riverbed base and on the high ground as helicopters came in to lift out the RLI casualties. In doing this, Norman Walsh and Peter Nicholls faced great difficulty because of steep mountainsides and the blackness of the night in conditions of thick haze.

  As soon as the landing light was switched on, it lit up the haze ahead making visual contact with ground impossible until dangerously low and close. Fortunately Norman noticed that, when flying to one side of Peter, he could see the ground quite clearly where Peter’s light was aimed, whereas Peter himself was blinded by his own reflected light. Norman told Peter to switch off his landing light whilst he flew high at ninety degrees to Peter’s flight path and illuminated the landing area. />
  Norman, blinded by his own white pool of illuminated haze whilst flying high enough to clear all high ground, could just make out Peter’s bright red rotating beacon lights which helped him point his landing light onto the area ahead of Peter’s flight line. Now Peter could see the ground clearly all the way and only needed to switch on his own landing light for the landing itself. This worked like a charm so, having collected casualties, Peter climbed and gave the same assistance to Norman. This virtually eliminated the dangers of approaching high ground at night. The same procedure was later used successfully in many night operations where Trojan aircraft, equipped with a handheld searchlight accompanied single helicopters for casualty evacuations at night from difficult terrain.

  No contact was made with terrorists during the night. Tony Smit and Ken Law dropped a few 600,000-candlepower flares before midnight to help troops search for movement but none was seen. At 06:10 next morning Tony and Ken placed down four more Frantans on the terrorist position that had been so troublesome the previous day. Then Jerry Strong led a sweep up the river. There was no resistance because the terrorist survivors had made good their escape over the high groundbetween ambush positions. Twelve dead terrorists were found, most burnt by Frantans.

  Sergeant Major ‘Bangstick’ Turle in the meanwhile was leading a tracker-combat callsign on the trail of survivors whose tracks were found to be moving south over the high ground, then across the main Kariba road into flat ground east of Kariba Airfield. As the callsign was approaching a dry riverbed, the sergeant-major smelt the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh. One hundred metres farther on he came upon the terrorists and took out all ten ZAPU, without casualties to his callsign. Most of the dead terrorists had been burnt by Frantan, which accounted for the early warning stench.

  Twenty-seven ZAPU had been killed and one captured. Another was thought to have escaped but in reality, though listed in capture documents as a member of the group, he was the SB plant.

  Tracker dogs proven

  FOLLOWING AIR HQ APPROVAL TO progress the radio tracker dog project, BSAP Dog Section Officer Ted Spencer and his dog Jill joined Peter Allen and me. From the outset Jill, a Doberman Pinscher-Bloodhound cross, worked well with Beau. But Beau refused to be outdone by the bitch that was a much faster tracker. He stubbornly insisted on working every inch of every trail himself.

  The route the Op Griffin terrorists had followed from the Zambezi River up to where contact occurred offered us the most difficult testing ground for the dogs. In August the area was very hot and dry giving the worst possible condition for scent tracking. Accompanied by Wing Commander Porky MacLaughlin from Air HQ, the original trackers of Op Griffin commenced a moonlight retrace of the terrorists’ route and timing from the point where tracks had originally been detected. By dawn they were moving along the valley on the high ground.

  Keeping to the same timings of the original follow-up operation, the dogs were placed on tracks at 08:30 when the sun was high and ground conditions were already hot. Jill set off on the trail immediately but Beau had to cast back and forth across the trail, so poor was the scent. Jill never moved more than 100 metres before stopping and looking back to wait for Beau to catch up. This went on for a while until Jill ran into a herd of elephants giving her such a fright that she rushed back to Beau. Beau took no notice of Jill, now following him, and led her straight through the elephants which, in spite of the helicopter’s presence overhead, all turned to watch the dogs pass by. Then a young bull with trunk high, and presumably trumpeting, gave chase for a short distance before breaking away. Beau had never seen an elephant before, so we were surprised and delighted by his apparent nonchalance as he passed through before Jill resumed the lead.

  During the steep climb up the escarpment, it was very noticeable that the dogs were moving faster. Peter Allen attributed this to improved scent retention by higher grass and larger areas of shade. When they came out onto the open ground at the top of the escarpment Jill ran straight into a bull rhino, which immediately charged, sending her helter skelter back to Beau. Beau saw the big fellow coming and ran in a semicircle, which Jill and the Rhino followed.

  Once the rhino broke off his chase we thought the game was over, particularly when we saw Beau plunge into a waterhole with Jill in tow. Both dogs submerged their bodies and enjoyed a long drink. We were considering landing to pick them up when Beau ran out of the water, shook himself vigorously, and started casting for scent. Again, Jill followed suit and, of greatest importance, the radio links were still working. They had to range more than 200 metres across the original line of movement before Beau picked up the trail and Jill, as always, moved off ahead of him. I picked up the steep riverline into which the terrorists had turned from the valley in which the dogs were still running strongly. Both dogs disappeared into thick riverine bush and we watched anxiously for them to reappear in the rocky river-line itself. Instead we spotted them coming out of the trees well beyond and continuing to run along the side of the open valley.

  Again I wondered if we should recall the dogs, particularly as I was running low on fuel. But then they turned into the next gully running into the mountain. At this point both dogs went to ground and Beau gave his funny yelp. Just ahead of the dogs we saw Porky MacLaughlin and his group. The men who tracked the Griffin terrorists had taken more than twenty-four hours to cover the same ground that these two dogs had run in a little under one-and-a-half hours.

  At that very moment there was no way I would have believed that the radio tracker dog system would never be used in operations. We had just seen it work in the worst possible conditions. Unfortunately however, Air HQ passed the entire project to the Police. Though some effort was put into continuing with the work already done, it failed because regular police dogs were expected to conduct routine urban dog patrol work with the specialist radio tracking as a sideline. Worse still was the fact that operationally inexperienced handlers managed the dogs and all training was done at Mabelreign, which was a long way from New Sarum.

  Patrol Officer Ted Spencer with Jill, PB, Warrant Officer Peter Allen with Beau.

  Had I remained on helicopters things might have been different because I envisaged Air Force Dog Section preparing four dedicated dogs in conjunction with a handful of battle-experienced soldiers who would be trained to handle them in the field. All training would have been done at New Sarum where all important helicopter participation was at hand.

  Operation Mansion

  AS A CONSEQUENCE OF OP Griffin, ZAPU had failed for the third time to establish a safe route through Rhodesia. But they tried again in yet another attempt in mid-August 1968. The crossing was made way over to the west at the headwaters of Lake Kariba. Operation Mansion was established when the crossing was detected 500 metres from where the Gwai River flows into the Zambezi Gorge.

  Terry Jones, with his helicopter gunner Senior Technician Willy Armitage, tried unsuccessfully to get at the terrorists who were cornered in a cave on a steep riverbank with RAR troops poised on the ridge above them. Then Mark McLean and Corporal Technician John Ness had a go at dislodging them. Although one terrorist was killed, Mark could not flush the terrorists out into view of the RAR troops, so he requested his supporting FASOC to call for heavy airstrikes.

  Vampires flown by Keith Corrans, Wally Galloway, Graham Cronshaw and Prop Geldenhuys struck with rockets and cannon fire. A Canberra piloted by Peter Woolcock with John Digby delivered a noisy load of ninety-six fragmentation bombs. The airstrikes broke the terrorists’ will and RAR troops inflicted some casualties before nightfall allowed survivors to escape back into Zambia.

  ZAPU’s operations had been receiving a great deal of press coverage outside of Rhodesia. The party’s propaganda machine, ignoring dismal failures, claimed that its military wing had killed many Rhodesian troops with the downing of many more helicopters than we owned.

  Operation Excess

  ZANU HAD BEEN QUIET FOR AGES but then, spurred on by ZAPU’s exaggerated claims and an urg
ent need to prove itself to the Organisation of African Unity, launched a large group across the Zambezi River at Mpata Gorge. Having failed repeatedly, ZANU had learned to avoid the long distances previously used to reach populated areas. In this case they aimed to get to the large sparsely populated Dande Tribal Trust Land, but without getting too close to the police station and Army base at Kanyemba.

  A border patrol unit only detected the crossing eight days after it had occurred. This was the consequence of infrequent surveillance of the rough ground at Mpata Gorge and because, in winter, there was no water for many miles beyond the Zambezi River. Operation Excess commenced when Lieutenant Christopher John (Dumpy) Pearce of the RLI took over from the border control unit and commenced a follow-up southeastwards through rough, dry country. The whole region had plenty of trees but in the dry season they were leafless making the hot breezeless conditions extremely uncomfortable.

  An RLI Tactical HQ commanded by Major Rob Southey was established on the site of a disused road camp on the main east-west Zambezi Valley road where it crossed the Angwa River bridge at Mato Pools. The main JOC that had been established at Karoi for Operation Cauldron was still in situ to oversee Op Excess. On 28 July 1968 I led a flight of four helicopters to support the RLI operation.

  My first task was to resupply Dumpy Pearce with water and rations a little after midday. I located Dumpy near the source of the small bone-dry Ruponje River on the north side of a watershed ridge, where I shut down to have a chat. Dumpy’s callsign was hot, sweaty and tired, but in good spirits. The men welcomed the cold water and ice I had brought them and rested whilst Dumpy and I talked. Dumpy estimated that they were seven days behind a group of approximately fifty terrorists. I asked him to point to the spot on the nearby ridge where he believed the tracks were heading. Having noted this, I got airborne and found I could actually land there.