Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  Jacklin Trophy awarded to No 7 Squadron, 1968. Back row: Cpl Tech K. Smithdorff; Cpl Tech A. Aird; Snr Tech J. Norman; Snr Tech W. Armitage; Snr Tech M. Maughan; Cpl Tech J. Ness; Snr Tech J. Green; Snr Tech G. Carmichael; Cpl Tech B. Collocott; Jnr Tech B. Daykin; Snr Tech B. York. Front row: WO1 H.Marshall; Flt Lt P. Nicholls; Fg Of M. McLean; Flt Lt J. Barnes; Flt Lt M. Grier; Sqn Ldr N. Walsh (OC—holding trophy); Flt Lt PB; Flt Lt M. Hofmeyr; Flt Lt I. Harvey; Fg Of H. Slatter; Fg Of T. Jones; Chf Tech D. Theobald. Not present: Fg Off C.Dixon; Snr Tech M.Philips; Cpl Tech R Whyte.

  Rhodesians were most concerned about the Portuguese ability to contain FRELIMO in Tete. Should they fail, which we guessed they would, we would lose our two greatest military advantages. These were having the Zambezi River as abarrier along which to detect crossings and the wide stretches of difficult terrain between the river and the inhabited areas.

  Portugal was already facing major financial and morale problems in her wars against communist-backed liberation movements operating in all three of her African territories. These were Portuguese Guinea, Angola and Mozambique where most men under arms were conscripts from metropolitan Portugal. They showed little interest in fighting for territories that neither interested nor concerned them, which gave us the distinct impression that their whole approach to service in Africa was to take as little risk as possible and get home in one piece. One could hardly blame them! Nevertheless we hoped that the Portuguese would play a leading role in preventing Russia from achieving her goal of establishing a communist bridge across central Africa from which to drive south. Angola constituted the most important target in Russia’s plans but Rhodesians saw the Tete Province as the immediate threat.

  Unlike the Portuguese, Rhodesian forces, though small in numbers, were fighting on home soil and would not shy away from taking risks. To protect her interests, South Africa was providing much-needed manpower along the strategically important Zambezi River, intent on beating Russian supported terrorism in depth. An extension of this strategic defence line was in the offing because, unbeknown to us at squadron level, plans were in their final stages for Rhodesians to participate with Portuguese forces in Tete.

  This happened to be a quiet time when operations within Rhodesia had returned to routine border-control operations and 7 Squadron had been awarded the Jacklin Trophy. For my part I completed helicopter conversions for Randy du Rand and Barry Roberts and was involved in a Police ATOPS (anti-terrorist operations) exercise codenamed Mannix. Norman Walsh and I flew two of the three helicopters assigned to this large exercise conducted close to Umtali.

  Casevac of gored ranger

  EXERCISE MANNIX INVOLVED TWO GROUPS of police—the ‘Rats’ and the ‘Terriers’. The Rats were small teams acting the part of terror gangs. Terriers, the good guys, were policemen whose job it was to eliminate the Rats. We were amazed that war games conducted in the mountainous eastern districts were almost as exciting as the real thing, but with no danger to ourselves.

  Within the pine forests and thick bush of the area I was having the usual problem of picking up men wearing camouflage. Remembering how easy it had been to find Lance-Corporal Lahee during Op Excess and the way we kept track of our radio tracker dogs, I asked for small red day-glo patches to be affixed to the top of Terrier caps. This worked very wellfor the helicopter and Police Reserve Air Wing crews and thereafter red and orange day-glo patches were used from time to time during offensive operations.

  One evening my father visited me at Grand Reef, the airfield we used for Exercise Mannix. We were having a few drinks together at the end of the day when I was called to the Ops Room. Air HQ required me to fly to Buffalo Bend immediately to casevac a wounded game ranger to Chiredzi Hospital; an elephant had gored him.

  Having had three beers, I approached Norman Walsh who had also been drinking. We agreed it would be much safer to fly together, one piloting whilst the other navigated. Big Alan Aird was our technician. Norman piloted the 370-kilometre leg to the distinctive loop on the Nuanetsi River, named Buffalo Bend in Gona re Zhou (Place of the Elephants) Reserve. Thanks to half-moon and clear-sky conditions I was able to direct Norman along the precise track. From a long way out we could see the huge bonfire at our landing place. When we landed the injured man’s girlfriend and three game-rangers, all with loaded rifles, were watching out for the angry cow elephant that had gored the ranger. She was lurking about close by and trumpeted once just to make life interesting. I was most disappointed that my pilot training coursemate Ron Thompson, then the Senior Warden at Gona re Zhou, was not present because he was away from his base at the time.

  I cannot recall the injured ranger’s name but can still picture him lying on his back exactly where he had been downed. In the late afternoon he had been out on foot with his little dog and another ranger. They were watching elephants browsing when the dog became excited and started barking. This made one cow angry. She charged, knocked over the ranger and quick as a flash drove one long tusk through his pelvis then kneeled on his body to extract it. The other ranger managed to drive the cow off by firing a shot over her head. Once the cow was clear, he fired three shots in quick succession—the recognised SOS signal to anyone in earshot.

  The injured ranger gave us instructions on how to manoeuvre him ever so slowly onto the helicopter stretcher because he was in too much pain to be handled in any other manner. When, however, we got him into the helicopter his six foot, seven inch-length was greater than the helicopter’s width. There was no option but to subject him to excruciating pain by bending his legs to close the rear doors. We had just enough fuel to get to Chiredzi and the moon was about to disappear below the western horizon, so I elected to navigate again whilst Norman Walsh piloted the helicopter. We landed at Chiredzi Police Station with five minutes of fuel to spare. Having seen our casualty safely into a waiting ambulance we refuelled for the dark leg back to Grand Reef. Since they could be of no assistance to me on the return flight, Norman and Alan accepted cold beers whilst I drank strong black coffee.

  The flight to Grand Reef in pitch-blackness had to be made entirely on instruments using heading and time alone because there were no visible features to assist navigation along the route. I climbed high and was quite settled. Beside me I could see that Norman had fallen asleep as had Alan Aird who was sprawled out in his rearward-facing seat. We were about halfway home when, without warning, Norman grabbed the cyclic control and pulled it back sharply. I shouted andNorman let go, instantly realising he had responded to a bad dream. Although normal flight was regained immediately, I was unsettled by the incident and remained tense for the rest of the route, expecting Norman to react to another dream. Fortunately this did not happen.

  When eventually I picked up the lights of Umtali and then Grand Reef it was almost 03:00. I was really tired and could not bring myself to do a simple straightforward descent onto the lights of the base. It took me an age to let down in a series of orbits over the unlit runway despite the fact that I knew we were well clear of the high mountains to the north of the airfield. Even in real emergency situations I had never suffered such uncertainty as on this particular descent. Norman Walsh was awake and, even though he must have been fully aware of my predicament, he did not say a word; such was the nature of my boss.

  Having had less than two hours’ sleep, I was awakened early for a deployment of Police Terriers at sunrise. Just as I was about to place them down in a vlei my technician John Ness shouted, “Lines, lines,” but it was too late. The rotor blades severed the thin telephone wires whose posts, both left and right, where hidden by clumps of trees. Many farms were without telephone communications for the day and I received one hell of a ribbing from the Police Reservists in the Odzi Sports Club that evening.

  Tripper operations

  ON 7 DECEMBER 1968 WE learned that four helicopters would be deploying into Mozambique the following day. Great secrecy surrounded the Portuguese-Rhodesian inter-service co-operative deployment. This and other Tete operations to com
e were codenamed Operation Natal whereas, for internal purposes, our Air Force used the codename Tripper. The first of these was an experiment in inter-force co-operation and lasted for only ten days. Our task was to assist Portuguese to combat FRELIMO so as to render it incapable of providing ZANU or ZAPU safe passage to Rhodesia through Tete.

  Not knowing what to expect we set of early next morning for a Portuguese Brigade HQ at a hamlet called Bene. Only Wing Commander Ken Edwards, the Air HQ representative and detachment commander, had received a briefing; such wasthe importance given to secrecy.

  Tete had become the most important front for FRELIMO because their operations in far-of northeast Mozambique, though tying down most of the Portuguese military effort, had not attained the depth of penetration they sought. So, under guidance from their Chinese communist advisors, FRELIMO moved to strike at Mozambique’s soft underbelly via Tete Province.

  Malawi would have been a much better country from which to launch this offensive but Doctor Kamuzu Banda had no wish to involve his country in any conflict with the Portuguese Government, upon which he was heavily dependent. This meant that FRELIMO had to use the longer route through Zambia, which already hosted a number of liberation movements operating against Angola, Rhodesia and South Africa.

  FRELIMO’s Tete offensive might have started earlier had a proper accommodation been struck with Zambia. When eventually this was achieved, FRELIMO progressed to its first goal, the Zambezi River, easily and rapidly. It was all too clear that the Mozambican authorities did not view Tete in the same light as Rhodesians did. For the Portuguese there was little commercial value in that vast chunk of undeveloped territory other than at Cabora Bassa. Here in the deep gorge through which the Zambezi River flowed was the vital hydroelectric scheme that had already reached an advanced stage in its construction. Its purpose was to provide Mozambique’s electrical power needs and earn much-needed foreign currency through the sale of excess power to South Africa.

  Pathetically low force levels were deployed in a manner that confirmed the Portuguese were only really interested in keeping FRELIMO away from the tortuous terrain surrounding their Cabora Bassa project. In this deep gorge construction work on the dam wall and its associated electrical generating rooms was well advanced. Beyond this site and the main road leading to it, the Portuguese placed heavy reliance on aldeamentos. Guarded by local militiamen, these were enclosed and defended village forts housing tribesmen dragged in from miles around. The military objective was to deny FRELIMO access to the tribesmen and food in the manner Britain employed so successfully during the Malayan Campaign.

  The civilian people who had been living a simple lifestyle for centuries were perplexed by the situation in which they found themselves. On the one hand the Portuguese said that the aldeamentos were there for their own protection. Protection from what they did not know because they had not yet learned to fear the politically motivated ‘comrades’ of FRELIMO. On the other hand FRELIMO told the tribesmen that they had come to “liberate the people” from the oppressive Portuguese who they must no longer obey. But the simple tribesmen could not understand ‘liberation’, never mind what they were being liberated from. The need to stay close to the spirits of their ancestors was their only wish.

  The inevitable happened. As in most wars, these innocent people became involved in a tug-of-war between the Portuguese, insisting that they must be contained under armed surveillance, and FRELIMO insisting that they must be spread out in the countryside to be freely available to provide them with food, shelter and plenty of women for their comforts. Portuguese forces attacked those in the countryside. FRELIMO attacked the aldeamentos.

  In these circumstances tribal unity was destroyed and families disintegrated. Those forced into the aldeamentos dared not venture out without armed protection, meagre as it was. Those who had chosen to remain in the areas of their ancestral spirits made every effort to avoid detection by either side but, inevitably, most were roped into FRELIMO’s net.

  We flew low-level directly from Salisbury to the Brigade HQ at Bene, northeast of Cabora Bassa. The dam wall had not yet interrupted the Zambezi River’s flow so the river course still remained as it had been for centuries. Having watched Kariba being built in the late 1950s, we were somewhat disappointed by the small dimensions of Cabora Bassa’s concrete wall spanning the deep but narrow gorge. The dam wall had reached about half its final height and the surrounds were badly scarred by heavy earth and concrete workings. A fenced minefield ran around the perimeter.

  Butch Graydon with his MAG in foreground.

  Beyond the dam site, ridges and ravines gave way to gentle rolling countryside that was covered in a mix of forested areas and grassy vleis. Everything was so beautiful after good rains and there was so little evidence of human habitation that it was hard to imagine a war was in progress in the untamed region. Set in this paradise we found the base at Bene looking neat and clean yet giving no hint of the dreadful pong that we were going to encounter as we landed on the only open area within the defence lines of the base.

  The stench emanated from a communal toilet facility right next to the landing zone. It was so overpowering that we had to take a few deep breaths to help us acclimatise before getting on with the job of refuelling. The latrine arrangement was one single trench line of about forty-five metres in length over which a continuous wooden seat was set with at least thirty holes for users who were afforded no privacy. Many places were rendered unusable by mislaid faeces from those preferring to squat with their filthy boots astride holes rather than sit in the manner intended by the toilets’ designer. I felt like returning to Salisbury right away.

  Happily the smell did not affect the area of the messes, Ops Room and accommodation huts where waterborne toilets, though not great, worked after a fashion. The problem was that they were not hygienic. Our reluctance to use these toilets was handled in an unusual way. We ran daily ‘toilet flights’ to the top of a high domed-rock hill close to the base. Setting the helicopter down on the crest, we moved out in different directions to attend to our private needs. Our exposure against the skyline made a perfect target to any FRELIMO mortar team that might be so close to the Portuguese base, but the risk was considered worthwhile.

  The whole purpose of our detachment was to establish if the Rhodesian Air Force and the Portuguese Army forces could operate effectively against FRELIMO to the mutual benefit of both countries. The first thing we needed was a briefing on current Tete operations.

  Toilet run. Squatting: Tudor Tomas, Tinker Smithdorff and PB. Standing: Bob St Quinton, Randy du Rand, Butch Graydon, Mark McLean and ‘TJ’ van den Berg.

  The base commander, a short, fat, bright-eyed and rather arrogant brigadier, conducted the briefing. This was translated into good English by one of his junior staff officers. We could see from the outset that military intelligence on FRELIMO’s dispositions and modus operandi was very scant and that Portuguese successes had been minimal. The capture of a single terrorist weapon following a major assault on a FRELIMO base just before our arrival was considered a ‘successful operation’. The brigadier’s boastful unveiling of a ‘score board’ astounded us because, in Rhodesian terms, it revealed pathetic returns if the costly military efforts we were hearing about were to be believed. As the briefing progressed we came to understand part of the reason for Portuguese failures.

  There was no aggressive patrolling to search out FRELIMO groups and base camps. Most of the imprecise information upon which the military appeared to rely came from the aldeamento militiamen who seldom ventured beyond the fenced perimeter of their protected villages. Upon such dubious information military plans would be drawn up with detailed orders for vehicle convoys, the formations each unit would adopt when attacking and the exact timings for commencement and termination of each operation. A glance through operational orders for past events showed that conventional war methods were being employed against an elusive non-conventional enemy that was heavily schooled in the need to avoi
d armed confrontation in all circumstances, even when undertaking planned hit-and-run raids.

  Because the brigadier sensed unspoken disapproval of his own operations, he invited the Rhodesians to illustrate to him and his staff something of the style of Rhodesian operations that he had heard were very successful. Following an impromptu briefing by Norman Walsh, who emphasised our use of aggressive ground patrols, we were briefed on a forthcoming operation we were to support.

  My most vivid memory of that Portuguese operation was the length of time and effort needed to dig vehicles out of the mud along one of many poor tracks they used to get around the countryside.

  In retrospect I realise that we must have appeared pretty arrogant, being so used to Rhodesian Army methods and having experienced nothing but high levels of success against our own enemies. Our contempt for the aldeamento system also sticks in my mind.

  Typical Tete road conditions.

  We could not accept that this system was right for Africa, possibly because our own black folk living in open villages were still providing us with intelligence on the presence of terrorists. At that time we could not visualise that, within seven years, our own situation would change so radically that we too would employ a similar system, albeit on a smaller scale.

  We returned to Mozambique four times during 1969 and were always received with open arms and treated to the outstanding hospitality for which the Portuguese people in general are so well known. On my second detachment to Bene, the Portuguese were as pleasant as ever but the toilet problems had not changed one iota.