Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  First photograph of Nyadzonya. Note the number of people mustered on the open ground. JSPIS head-count was over 800 on parade with at least another 200 visible amongst the buildings. The river on the right is the Nyadzonya River.

  Ron Reid-Daly was delighted with the Air Force find that gave final proof of the large number of ZANLA in residence. The location of this base was not on the Pungwe River as reported but was on one of its south-flowing tributaries, the Nhazonia River, also known as Nyadzonya. With the position of the Pungwe Base established, the Canberra squadron flew repeated photographic sorties to monitor developments. These showed that base occupancy was increasing daily. Captured CTs continued to indicate that this was ZANLA’s primary base and their hand sketches confirmed the base layout, including the whitewashed outline of Rhodesia surrounding the word ZIMBABWE, also structure from whitewashed rocks.

  After much detailed planning for another ‘flying column’ assault, a Scouts force was authorised to attack the Nyadzonya base. But again, direct air support was disallowed. The attack was a huge success and something in excess of 2,000 armed ZANLA, plus a few FRELIMO, were killed, wounded or drowned in the Nyadzonya River. The barrage of light and heavy automatic gunfire, including high-explosive rounds from two Hispano cannons, had been devastating. (The third vehicle fitted with a Hispano cannon met with misfortune just before the raid was launched.)

  Only when the column was under attack from FRELIMO very close to the border during exfiltration, was air assistance authorised. A pair of Hunters flown by Flight Lieutenant Abrams and Air Sub-Lieutenant Lowrie neutralised troublesome FRELIMO mortar and gun-emplacements in failing light. A helicopter collected the most serious of four wounded men and a Lynx, flown by Air Lieutenant Ray Bolton assisted the column by choosing the best route for it to bundubash its way to safety inside Rhodesia.

  A Canberra photo-recce sortie was run over Nyadzonya after the attack. The resulting photographs revealed hundreds of bodies strewn across the parade ground, between the many burnt-out buildings, and in the adjacent bush. As our politicians had feared, but expected, the international press reported the action as a slaughter of innocent refugees—ZANLA having registered Nyadzonya and all its other bases as refugee centres.

  For years Rhodesia had suffered bad international press at the hands of unscrupulous sensation-seeking reporters and photographers. Even before ZANLA became effective, British reporters deliberately produced misleading articles that were supported by concocted photographs. For instance, one reporter and his photographer threw coins and sweets into rubbish bins to induce children they had gathered together into frenzied scrambling for prizes in what the children believed was a lovely game. Photographs appearing in overseas newspapers showed ‘starving children scrambling for food on the streets of Salisbury’.

  For years the residents of Salisbury had been used to the sight of many black office workers taking a lunchtime nap on the lawns of Cecil Square, a small park in central Salisbury. Overseas photographers recorded this common sight. Next day photographs appeared in UK papers under the banner headline ‘Slaughter of innocents by the Smith regime’.

  Mixed events

  1976 HAD BEEN A YEAR OF mixed events. Robert Mugabe had been installed as President of ZANU. South Africa was under increased pressure from the West following a civil uprising in Soweto. Dr Henry Kissinger, the US Secretary of State, visited South Africa as the somewhat reluctant conveyer of a joint American and British proposal for a suicidal change in political direction by Rhodesia. By highlighting western concern over the Soweto tragedy and manipulating South Africa’s power over Rhodesia, the ‘Kissinger Proposals’ were forced on our country by both Kissinger and Vorster. One component of these proposals was for the Rhodesian Government to participate in negotiations with ZANU and ZAPU in what was to become the Geneva Conference. Both ZANU and ZAPU had been pressurised into accepting the ‘Kissinger Proposals’ by the Frontline States though they disliked the conditions as much as the Rhodesian Government. Anyway the Geneva Conference, chaired by Britain’s lacklustre Ivor Richard, ended in total failure.

  During the year the Air Force lost men and machines in offensive actions and accidents. Without exception they were superb individuals whose loss emphasised the sheer wastefulness of war and the high cost in lives from accidents associated with war.

  On 16 February, Squadron Leader Rusty Routledge was killed when a young SAAF pilot attempted to overshoot his overloaded Cessna 185, following a botched approach for landing at Perrem Airfield near Umtali. The aircraft stalled at low level and all three souls on board died when it ploughed into the ground.

  On 10 June, following a FRELIMO cross-border attack on Zona Tea Estate inside Rhodesia, a Hunter flown by Flight Lieutenant Tudor Thomas received a fluke bullet strike during a rocket attack on offending forces at Espungabera in Mozambique. The bullet severed a hydraulic line resulting in the loss of all hydraulic fluid. In fading light Tudor returned to Thornhill where the OC Flying Wing, Wing Commander Keith Corrans, ordered him to abandon his aircraft. This was because Keith did not want Tudor to attempt a very fast, flapless landing at night with his flight controls in manual mode and too many other associated problems. Main undercarriage legs were drooped but not locked whereas the nose wheel was down and locked. In addition the air brake was half-extended and full left aileron was needed to hold wings level at 210 knots. Undoubtedly the slightest error would have been fatal.

  Tudor positioned wide downwind for runway 13, trimmed fully nose-down and ejected. As intended, the Hunter crashed in open farmlands and Tudor escaped with little more than a bruised back. The loss of this Hunter was devastating because it reduced our Hunter strength to ten aircraft.

  On 13 June 1976, a Z-Car gunner (name forgotten) was killed whilst firing at CTs in a Fireforce action. Then on 18 July, air-gunner Sergeant J.P. Graham was killed in the same way in the Inyanga area. Six weeks later, on 1 September, airgunner Sergeant Belsted was killed in yet another Fireforce action in a helicopter flown by Flight Lieutenant Ian Harvey.

  Flight Lieutenant ‘Starry’ Stevens died the very next day when he flew into an air ambush deliberately prepared by FRELIMO forces acting in support of their ZANLA colleagues. A group of CTs made their presence purposely known to induce a hot-pursuit operation into Mozambique. Their path ran along the base of a 1,200-foot-high west-to-east ridge along which FRELIMO had set up a number of heavycalibre anti-aircraft guns to take on aircraft they knew would come. Starry’s Lynx stood no chance as it passed close to and level with the guns.

  On 11 August, as a direct result of the Selous Scouts attack on Nyadzonya, FRELIMO retaliated by mounting a mortar attack on the city of Umtali. Superficial damage was caused to buildings in the eastern suburbs of Greenside and Darlington. Fortunately, not a single casualty was reported and very little structural damage occurred.

  On 21 October, Flight Lieutenant Roy Hulley was flying a Vampire FB9 on a routine gunnery sortie at Kutanga Range. He had completed a pass on his target and was running low-level on the downwind leg to position for another attack when his aircraft suddenly dived into the ground, narrowly missing the tented base of a small Army training camp. It was assumed that Roy might have been reaching for something he had dropped on the cockpit floor because there was no other explanation for this sad occurrence. It seems more likely, however, that seat-locking on the height adjusting mechanism disengaged in turbulence dropping the seat so low as to place Roy’s eyes below the cockpit combing. This technical difficulty became well known before the FB9s were withdrawn from service.

  Larger groups of CTs were crossing the border when, on 15 November, a Fireforce action in the Honde Valley resulted in one CT group being cornered on a long, heavily forested hill. At the end of a long day of fighting, thirty-one CT bodies were counted. This was the largest number of kills in a single internal action to date. Regrettably, three weeks later this action brought about a CT reprisal with the murder of twentyseven workers on nearby Katiyo Tea Estate.


  Although brutal murders by CTs were commonplace, this one was unusual and difficult to understand, because the victims were Mozambican migrant workers. FRELIMO had made it clear to ZANLA that Mozambican people were royal game, never to be touched, no matter where they were. Yet the CT gang visited this workers’ compound after sunset and went about their business in their usual way.

  They rounded everyone up and, whilst getting high on dagga (marijuana), they demanded and consumed all the food and beer the villagers possessed. The headman was then tied up and forced to kneel in the sight of all his followers. Death only followed after the helpless old man had been forced to eat his own ears and nose which, despite his screams for mercy, had been brutally hacked from his head. His lips were then cut off before the fatal thrust of a bayonet released him from his agony. Not content, the CTs grabbed a baby from its mother and ordered another woman to batter the child to death with a stick. The horrified mother saw this all happening before she was raped by every CT and then bayoneted to death. Only then did indiscriminate firing kill another twenty-four innocent souls together with all their prized cattle.

  On a lighter note, I received visitations from a few Americans during the year. One of these was an arms dealer. He was a neat, dapper, dark-haired fellow whose good looks and quiet manner gave no hint of his sadistic nature. He hoped to interest me in a new type of bullet that he could supply for any calibre ammunition of my choosing. The 8mm rounds he showed me looked and felt quite normal. However, the projectile consisted of a light outer casing within which were tiny tightly packed steel slivers. The American told me that upon impact with anything, the casing yielded and released the slivers in a highenergy, fan-like shower. A single strike anywhere on a human body created such trauma that death was virtually guaranteed. The man told of this awful killing device with such passion and enjoyed the gory supporting photographs so much, that he had my blood boiling. I kicked him out of my office saying we had no interest in such dastardly devices. However, when he was gone, I wondered why I had been so put out by the man and this style of killing when I myself was so tied up in developing and producing a whole range of very unpleasant killing devices.

  Another American who visited me must have done the Dale Carnegie course that teaches one to remember names by association. Knowing I was called PB, he obviously linked my name to fuel because, when he spotted me at the end of a long corridor a year later, he shouted at the top of his voice, “Hi there Shell.”

  Roofless protection pens.

  At about this time I met a very different type of American. Bob Cleaves came to my office with Ian Player, brother of the world-famous golfer Gary Player. Bob Cleaves’s purpose in regularly visiting South Africa and Rhodesia lay with his wildlife interests. However, Ian Player, a noted wildlife man from Natal, had brought Bob to Air HQ at Bob’s request. Bob was both very pro-Rhodesia and fiercely anti-communist so, with his good connections in the USA, he wondered if there was anything that he could do to help us. I asked him for samples of three things. Gyro-stabilised binoculars for visual recce, intensified-light night-vision binoculars for night recce and bulletproof vests for aircrew protection. All of these were delivered when Bob came back again six months later.

  A strange incident occurred on 17 December 1977 when CTs mounted an attack on FAF 8 and the Army base that was also sited on Grand Reef Airfield. A long time prior to this, a project proposal by armourers at Thornhill was brought to me. This was to arrest enemy mortar bombs in heavy diamond-mesh fencing stretched above the roofless protection pens in which our aircraft parked at forward airfields. I was very sceptical initially, but the armourers proved their theory by successfully arresting a number of captured 82mm mortar bombs, none of which detonated. In consequence all forward airfields had the appropriate heavy netting stretched out high above aircraft pens.

  When I heard that mortar bombs had been used against Grand Reef, I flew down immediately without waiting for details. On arrival I spoke to Flight Lieutenant Rob McGregor who was FAF Commander and was disappointed to learn from him that none of the bombs had come down over the aircraft pens. Nevertheless, it was interesting to see how the CT group, which had been specially trained and briefed for this job, had botched it.

  The group, consisting of about forty men armed with AK-47 assault rifles, RPD machine-guns, RPG rocket-launchers and another six men with a single 82mm mortar tube, approached Grand Reef under cover of darkness. All the CTs carried mortar bombs, which were dropped off with the mortar crew who set up about forty metres behind the left flank of the main line. In this line the men set up next to a cattle fence that ran parallel to the runway. Just 150 metres from their position, across the runway, lay the Army camp with the Air force camp adjoining its right side.

  All guns opened up together, sending a hail of bullets towards both bases. Rob McGregor told of the incredible noise and brilliant display of red and green tracer bullets, most of which went over the camp. The CTs may have been overexcited or blinded by their own tracers because, considering the weight of fire, amazingly few rounds hit their intended targets, though a few RPG 2 rockets detonated on sandbag protection walls.

  In the meanwhile the CT mortar crew, launching bombs as fast as they could, were oblivious to the incredible cock-up they were making, simply because they had been too lazy to bring along the heavy but all-important base-plate for their mortar tube. The first mortar bomb landed in the Army camp, killing an unfortunate soldier, Signaller Obert Zvechibwe, whose body was found lying under his bed. With the launching of this bomb the mortar tube, without a base-plate to distribute the heavy shock-load, bedded into the ground. With each successive firing, the tube bedded deeper and deeper causing the tube angle to progressively steepen. The consequence of this was that the second bomb fell short of the Army camp and every bomb thereafter moved further from target and ever closer to the line of CTs still firing their guns along the fence line. When the angle of the tube was close to vertical, bombs fell amongst the CT gunners, killing two and seriously wounding others. Panic set in because the men believed the mortar bombs were coming from the Army camp. The attack broke off and the CTs ran for their lives, leaving their wounded to crawl away unaided.

  Vic Cook

  ON 20 DECEMBER 1976, THERE WAS a lucky escape due to brave and aggressive actions by Flight Lieutenant Vic Cook. Vic was a quiet character who was often ribbed by his colleagues for appearing to be a bit dozy. An example of this occurred when he was in his second-floor bedroom at his parents’ home. He was awakened after midnight by the sound of someone creeping up the staircase. Arming himself with a baseball bat, Vic waited for the intruder to come through the door then laid a genuine thief low with a mighty blow to the throat. He then called the police. When asked how he knew this was not one of his parents coming to his room, Vic said he had not considered that possibility.

  In the Op Repulse area, Vic was flying a G-Car with Corporal Finch Bellringer and an army medical orderly en route to casevac black civilians who had been injured by CTs near Malapati. He was some way short of the Army callsign to which he was going when he came under intensive smallarms fire that severed his tail-rotor drive shaft. This is a situation that every helicopter pilot dreads. During the short period of the forced-landing, the helicopter continued taking hits. Vic was struck in the foot, though he did not know this at the time, and his technician was rendered semi-conscious by two rounds that struck his ‘bulletproof’ vest.

  Vic did very well to retain some semblance of control as the aircraft drove sideways through trees. He spotted terrorists “as many as a rugby team” with five directly ahead; all were firing at him. He aimed for the group of five and came to an abrupt halt amongst them, but this was smack-bang in the centre of the other CTs. With the force of impact, Vic’s head was thrown forward onto the cyclic control column. Though stunned and hurt, he was able to pull out his MPK sub-machine-gun from under his seat only to discover it had been rendered useless by a bullet strike. Surprisingly, th
ough the battered rotor blades were stationary, the engine was still running when Vic jumped out of the aircraft. He wrestled a terrorist, injured by the crashing helicopter, for his AK-47 and shot him dead.

  Still under fire, Vic opened up on the CTs forcing them to run for cover before assisting the shaken but uninjured medical orderly to pull the incapacitated technician out of the aircraft and into cover. Once he was certain that his tech and the medic were safe, he went back to the dead CT, firing as he went, to collect all the CT’s ammunition. He then attempted to move from cover to cover firing at CT movements, but he found that he kept tripping and falling. Only then did he notice the large bullet gash in his foot, so Vic assumed a good position on a small rise from which he succeeded in holding the CTs off until help arrived forty-five minutes later. Vic received the Silver Cross of Rhodesia for his determination to protect his tech and the medic in very adverse conditions when he himself was hurt and under near-continuous fire.

  After Vic left the force he worked for the South African Electricity Supply Commission. In the mid-1990s he was involved in a fatal accident when laying new power-line cables. Vic’s task was to pull lead lines over the high electric pylons which heavy ground winches then used to draw the heavy cables into position. Precisely what went wrong I do not know other than the ground anchor point of one lead line broke loose and recoiled towards the helicopter where it became entangled in the tail-rotor causing the crash that killed Vic Cook.

  SAS externals

  FOR SOME TIME DURING THE second half of 1976, the Special Air Service squadron was employed in the Repulse area and participated in a number of Fireforce actions. Although there was urgent need for experienced soldiers in the south at the time, use of the SAS inside the country was an incredible waste of their specialist skills.