Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  Jungle Lane

  THERE WAS NEED FOR ALL squadron personnel to be reasonably well prepared for self-defence if downed amongst the enemy and to be able to assist in the defence of airfields. Every pilot and technician underwent weapons training on rifle ranges and all had to be proficient with both rifle and pistol.

  Whereas the Army always received maximum Air Force assistance in preparing for FAC, GAC and helicopter-trooping, the same could not be said of the Army when we sought professional assistance to prepare aircrew in ground-fighting techniques. Fortunately we had one or two ex-Army men ourselves, so 4 Squadron was given the necessary training by Warrant Officer Barney Barnes. One Army exercise he put us through was known as the ‘Jungle Lane’.

  Jungle Lane was designed to develop snap reaction and accurate shooting whilst under high physical and mental stress. Preparation for this involved setting up a number of hidden pop-up ‘hostile’ targets along a difficult twisting bush course known only to the man who prepared it and conducted the training runs.

  Barney Barnes took one pilot or technician at a time with FN rifle and three magazines of live ammunition to run the course. He followed close behind bellowing instructions on which way to move or firing his FN to signify when to dive for cover. Man-sized targets, standing, crouching or lying, popped up when Barney pulled on hidden strings. The man running Jungle Lane had to fire two shots from the hip immediately a target appeared but without losing forward momentum. Targets could appear as far back as forty-five degrees, which meant having to cast around for them but still avoiding obstructions along the way.

  I hated Jungle Lane with a passion. Barney Barnes, on the other hand, revelled in my breathless agony. Being a smoker did little to help me run in deep sand along a dry river-course with Barney’s live rounds sending spurts of sand and rock splinters flying left and right about me. The steepest banks were the points he selected to change from riverine to bush and vice versa whilst he trotted gently along level high ground.

  Having passed the first five targets and diving for cover I felt my legs would carry me no further. My mouth tasted of blood and my lungs were close to bursting. Twice I received a verbal blast for not counting how many rounds I had fired when I was about to move on without changing magazines. When fifteen or so targets had gone by Barney declared the run completed. We then backtracked the course to count hits on the targets. It took me the entire route back to recover my breath but I was always pleased to have seen every target and equalled the results of the best of my men. Nevertheless, those Jungle Lane runs made me decide that, if I was downed, I would go into cover and let the bloody enemy do the running.

  Jungle Lane and all other ground-combat training had me wondering what attracted men to a career in infantry. I knew they had to be barmy to enjoy filth, sweat, breathlessness, leopard-crawling and diving for cover at full running speed with heavy kit and weapon impeding a gentle touch-down. I never came to any conclusion on the issue but found it interesting that soldiers wondered what madness made a pilot operate in full view of the enemy with no place to hide.

  ‘October Revolution’

  THE PRESIDENT OF THE OFFICERS’ Mess Committee at Thornhill, Squadron Leader Ralph Parry, was the station’s Senior Technical Officer. It was unusual to have a non-flying PMC, but there he was sitting at the centre position of the top table for a dining-in night in October.

  Bad habits imported from RAF Aden dining-in nights broke loose on this particular occasion when Rich Brand set off a very loud cracker that filled the room with strong-smelling smoke. The PMC rose to his feet and called for order, whereupon another cracker went off. Infuriated by this, Ralph Parry returned to his feet and in an uncertain manner threatened to expel the culprit if the incident was repeated. Following a much bigger bang with more dense smoke, the perplexed PMC rose to his feet yet again and ordered the culprit to leave the room. Since he did not know who the culprit was, he became even more perplexed when twelve of us rose as one and departed from the dining-room.

  When we were outside laughing our heads off at the way our gentle PMC had handled misbehaviour, Tol Janeke invited everyone to his home to continue the evening there. Where all the beer came from remains a mystery but I remember Tol attiring everyone with his wife’s prized lampshades as headdress over mess kit. A very merry party ensued.

  Some of the wives, including Tol’s wife June, pitched up from a gathering they had been to and went behind the neighbour’s hedge to watch their rowdy men partying in the house. The position they chose to lie in the shadows was not a good one. Cyril White, coming out of the light into darkness, failed to see the girls on the other side of the section of hedge into which he relieved his bladder. Mildly splattered, the girls backed off but managed to suppress their mirth until Cyril let loose a very loud fart.

  Many parties were held in many places, most to be forgotten. But this night, nicknamed the ‘October Revolution’, was an impromptu affair that remains clear in my memory.

  Operation Sable

  IN SPITE OF ALL THE assurances given by the Department of Internal Affairs (which we nicknamed Infernal Affairs) it was obvious that they had no clue of what was actually happening in the remote places of northeast Rhodesia. The intimate contact that existed back in the days of horse and bicycle patrols, when every tribal kraal, big and small, was visited regularly, had been progressively lost with the advent of motor vehicles. The same might be said of the Police but for their ‘ground coverage’ men and agents who continued to make Peter Stanton and his colleagues our best source of ‘people intelligence’.

  From information gleaned after the SAS attack on Matimbe base, it was clear that ZANLA had reached the Rhodesian population earlier than expected. This brought about increased military activity in the northeast, including RLI and RAR deployments along the border inside Rhodesia with SAS working inside Mozambique.

  4 Squadron positioned a Trojan and four Provosts to support RLI and SAS sited at a small remote airfield called Nyamasoto and were joined there by four of 7 Squadron’s helicopters. The RLI and RAR were cross-graining along the border to try and pick up terrorist transit points whilst the SAS conducted over-border reconnaissance. A Joint Operations Centre, JOC Sable, was established at Nyamasoto Airfield for SAS and RLI ops whilst RAR operated out of Mtoko.

  Nyamasoto airstrip.

  The Nyamasoto airstrip was little more than an opening in the bush with no buildings or amenities besides tents and flysheets. Lieutenant Colonel Peter Rich, ex British SAS and previous OC of ‘C’ Squadron (Rhodesian) SAS, was then CO of the RLI and based with his soldiers at Nyamasoto.

  Immediately 4 Squadron arrived, I suggested that I should go over border to build up an intelligence picture of the ground. Initial reaction from Peter Rich was negative. He felt that I would upset ZANLA and make the Army’s task more difficult. However this officer with a fast penetrating wit eventually gave in to my nagging and agreed to “give this newfangled air recce a try”. Within an hour on my first flight, I picked up a temporary base in a small break in a line of low hills, fairly close to a main path. Initially I was concerned this might be a path network created by wild pigs either side of heavily treed and broken rock cover. However, a strong link to the main pathway did not fit with anything but men, so I called for troops to be brought in by helicopters. Peter Rich sounded distinctly sceptical but he agreed to respond.

  Although I was quite certain that this was a base without structures, I had no way of knowing if it was occupied. Nevertheless I did not wish to give any terrorist the impression of being too interested in the spot so continued to orbit getting progressively farther away. When four helicopters checked in with me, I cut across country to pick them up to ensure we arrived at the base at the same time. Immediately we got there the helicopters landed all their troops in long grass south of the base. I watched the troops shake out into an echelon formation then move directly towards the gap in the hill line.

  I was greatly relieved when contact was mad
e with terrorists who had gone to ground inside the base area. From Nyamasoto, Peter Rich called, “Bloody marvellous, I owe you a beer.” Had he taken my information more seriously, the advice to split the troop deployment either side of the gap would have disallowed escape of most of the terrorists who broke northward. Final results were fair with seven killed, two escaped wounded and three captured out of a group of twenty-four ZANLA. This was one of a number of groups that had come from Zambia through Tete carrying supplies, now hidden in Rhodesia. We had caught these terrorists on their way back to Zambia in what was no more than a regular resting spot on water along their route to and from Rhodesia. Personal equipment that had been abandoned by terrorists was booby-trapped with phosphorus grenades, accounting for another terrorist two weeks after this action.

  Back at Nyamasoto, Peter Rich apologised for not having taken me seriously because he did not believe it was possible to locate terrorists from the air. I told him there was no need for any apology because my squadron was still on a pretty steep learning curve.

  I do not know if it was our three captures or an SB agent within ZANLA that led Peter Stanton to ZANLA’s bush ‘post box’; a lone hollow tree inside Rhodesia in which instructions were lodged for ZANLA’s group commanders. Not only was Peter able to record the latest instructions found in the ‘post box’, these led him to a huge arms cache, which included landmines, on the side of a prominent hill not far from the post box. Here Peter unearthed weapons in such numbers that he was astounded so much communist equipment could have come into the country unreported by the locals and undetectedby police ‘ground coverage’. Obviously, indoctrination of the local people was already well advanced!

  My plan to continue putting together all available visual recce information along the border was temporarily interrupted by a call to assist the SAS. Callsign 21 reported being pinned down inside Mozambique by enemy fire coming from a high ridge overlooking their flat exposed position. There was no way the callsign could advance or retreat from where individuals lay in the best cover available. I raced to the Provost and flew directly to the given map reference. This particular Provost was different from the others in that it had a trial-fit of four .303 Browning machine-guns, two in each wing, instead of the standard pair. The four guns had received limited testing so this call gave opportunity to see how they would fare on their first live target. It happened also to be my first-ever live attack in a light fixed-wing aircraft.

  The target description was so well structured that I knew where to lay down fire whilst still some distance out. I told callsign 21 that I would commence firing at long range and asked him to give me corrections on fall of shot that he should pick up easily from dust and tracer rounds. As soon as I started firing I received his call, “On target”. So I laced the appropriate section of the ridge-line, then stood off to await developments.

  The terrorists, who were almost certainly FRELIMO and obviously shaken by the noise of 1,000 rounds cracking around them, ceased firing at callsign 21 to flee from the area—though I saw nothing of them. A sweep up and over the ridge succeeded in locating the terrorist firing positions but apart from expended communist 7.62mm cartridges and many .303 bullet holes in the trees nothing was found. The SAS continued on their intelligence gathering patrol and I returned to Nyamasoto.

  Visual reconnaissance across the border was made difficult by the paths of many refugees, some into small hidden camps and others into Rhodesia. Quite why they were running from FRELIMO was difficult to understand initially. Then, following up on an SAS report, I picked up the trail of a very large herd of cattle that had obviously been stolen from the Mozambican tribesmen. They had been driven away to the north by FRELIMO but I broke off my search having tracked the herd for more than forty kilometres from our border.

  I also noticed that most Mozambican villages had been abandoned and that no crops had been planted. All this confirmed that FRELIMO had been in control of Tete, all the way up to our border, for some considerable time. It also meant that we would have to fight both FRELIMO and ZANLA to prevent terrorism from taking root in Rhodesia.

  Although every consideration and effort was given to preventing civilians becoming involved in any armed conflict, it was inevitable that unexpected incidents did occur. One such occasion gave rise to a situation that was described to me by one of the helicopter pilots. Although I was not involved in any way, I think it is a story well worth repeating in the style of its telling.

  Nicholas and the old man

  RLI PURSUED A MIXED GROUP of FRELIMO and ZANLA in a running action from the Rhodesian border deep into Mozambique. Most Mozambican civilians dispersed and ran from the fighting in the general direction of Rhodesia. Then during this day, one RLI callsign of four soldiers came upon a very old, partially blind man standing by himself under a largetree. He was in a state of fear and confusion. The soldiers did what they could to calm the old fellow with drink and food but it took time to understand that his distress centred on the loss of his personal donkey. It transpired that the donkey’s name was Nicholas and that he was no ordinary donkey; he was blue-grey in colour. The old man relied on Nicholas to carry him about and he had been trained to answer to his name. Nicholas was also trained to make mounting easy for the old man.

  The soldiers called for helicopter assistance but were told that all the helicopters were too busy—one would come over when there was opportunity. The hours moved on and, though the white soldiers with their new-found charge tried to be patient, they called many times to make sure the Air Force had not forgotten its promise. When eventually a helicopter could be spared, the pilot was surprised to be asked to search for a blue-grey donkey.

  Helicopters are extremely expensive to run and, in operations involving the movement of troops, fuel endurance is limited. Nevertheless the RLI soldiers’ story touched the pilot’s heart so he started a search. He managed to find a handful of donkeys, which he herded together before driving them towards the far-off tree under which the old man waited with his RLI friends. When the donkeys were close enough, the pilot broke away for Rhodesia to refuel.

  The RLI soldiers were tickled pink when one donkey responded to the old man’s frail call, “Nicholas, Nicholas”. Sure enough the donkey that came to them was blue-grey, not like those other common brownie-grey jobs. He trotted straight to the old man whose eyes streamed with happy tears. But this was not the end of the story for the Air Force. The RLI troopies were not going to leave the old man and Nicholas behind because all of his kinsfolk had disappeared; so they called for helicopter uplift of themselves, the old man and Nicholas.

  When a helicopter pilot said he could take the old man but that there was no possibility of getting Nicholas inside the helicopter, the RLI soldiers already had the answer to that problem. They had ripped apart their webbing and had fashioned a harness to lift Nicholas back to Rhodesia by way of the cargo sling, which was fitted to every helicopter.

  By this time the helicopter pilots, who had just about completed the uplift of RLI troops back to Rhodesia, were getting a bit fed up with the persistence of the troopies. Being closest to the border, they were assigned for the last lift but their persistence and 7 Squadron’s flexible attitude soon had the callsign and old man airborne with one braying donkey hanging under the helicopter.

  The flight had to be made at slow speed so as not to spin the donkey or drown him in the airflow. At the RLI’s bush base, Nicholas came into contact with the ground gently, the pilot pressed his cargo release button and Nicholas waited patiently for his harness to be removed. Within five minutes he was nibbling fresh green grass. The old man had his own tent, complete with the most comfortable bed he had ever known. He was given a hot shower and fresh clothing to replace his rags.

  The old man and Nicholas were tended day and night by the troopies who had found him. When these soldiers went on patrol they handed their wards into the care of other soldiers. For two weeks Nicholas and the old man were comfortable and both gained weight. The
n, out of the blue, there was the sharp crack of a rifle shot in the camp. The small contingent of soldiers and helicopter crews in base rushed to investigate and were horrified to find Nicholas lying dead from a bullet through his brain. A vehicle was racing away westward and the INTAF man, who came to shoot Nicholas for being ‘illegally imported into the country without veterinary inspection and compulsory quarantine’, was lucky to get away with his life. Had the RLI soldiers who gave chase in a lumbering Army truck caught up with this guy, there can be no doubt that theywould have killed him, so great was their anger.

  The helicopter pilot who told me this sad story was the one who intercepted the INTAF man, possibly a District Officer acting on instructions from the District Commissioner, and flew him to safety. This he did to protect RLI soldiers from committing murder, certainly not out of pity for the detestable INTAF man. An attempt to console the old man and find a replacement blue-grey donkey failed when, just a few days later, he died broken-hearted. Internal Affairs’ reputation, already poor amongst operational soldiers and airmen, worsened.

  For me, this story highlighted the very best and worst of the human spirit but it also raises another issue that you, the reader, can judge for yourself. I recorded what you have just read in about 1985. Now in 2001, following publication of Beryl Salt’s book—A Pride of Eagles—I read Ian Harvey’s account of an airlift of hundreds of civilians from Macombe in Mozambique to higher ground near the Musengezi Mission in Rhodesia. This move of people was at the request of the Portuguese to save them from the rising waters of the Cabora Bassa dam. This is part of what Ian told Beryl Salt: