Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  ‘Know your enemy’

  SOME TIME AROUND MID-1977 I learned that a Mr Tony Dalton of the ‘Shepherd Group’ was looking for me. I had no clue who Dalton was or what his business was about. When Tony found me at Mtoko he introduced himself and asked if I was willing to let him pick my brain on a subject that concerned him deeply.

  He told me that the Shepherd Group, including himself, comprised of three top-level commercial salesmen. Ian Shepherd had set up the small team to consider what should be done to rectify a transparent failing in Rhodesia’s handling of tribesmen who were being subjected to intense ZANLA propaganda with no obvious Rhodesian counter-action. I was immediately interested because this was a ‘hearts and minds’ issue that I thought should have been COMOPS’ highest priority.

  Tony outlined the Shepherd Group’s thinking and asked for my comments. I cannot recall details, but remember offering a number of opinions that Tony considered important. I found him to be a thoroughly likeable man who understood the fundamental differences between ZANLA and RSF handling of the local people far better than the politicians, Internal Affairs or the military. In a nutshell, ZANLA expended 95% of its efforts on politicising the people and 5% against the Rhodesian establishment. The RSF, on the other hand, was forced to expend 95% of its effort in response to ZANLA activity with a mere 5% given to badly misdirected psychological action.

  Whereas the Shepherd Group eventually broke up because of the lack of interest shown by the authorities, Tony felt so strongly about the need to lead and direct psychological operations that he gave up his successful civilian job to join the regular Army. For his efforts he received little more than lip service from COMOPS who, I say again, should have been leading the action in the first place.

  One issue that really troubled Tony Dalton and me was how little we knew about our enemies. Though CIO and SB knew much, Rhodesian secrecy phobias blocked important information from flowing through to the fighting men. So, with Ron Reid-Daly’s active support and participation, Tony arranged a presentation entitled ‘Know your enemy’. Surprisingly few high-ranking officers took the trouble to attend this presentation, which was held in the RLI hall.

  Those of us who were there were treated to an eye-opening intelligence briefing on ZANLA and ZIPRA command and field structures and were exposed to first-hand experiences given by two ex-CTs serving with Selous Scouts. One was a recently captured ZANLA detachment commander who told us simple things we should have known, but didn’t. The other was from ZIPRA. As with so many other issues that begged attention, Tony’s theories and plans were initially ignored then rushed into ineffective action when it was too late to gain any worthwhile benefits.

  Salisbury recce

  IN AUGUST 1977, ZANLA LAUNCHED an ineffective long-range mortar attack against New Sarum Air Base. It was so badly conducted that the nearest bomb fell more than 500 metres short of the base. Nevertheless, this was the closest action to Salisbury city and confirmed suspicions that CTs had moved into the Chimanda Tribal Trust Land on the northern side of the capital. The question arose as to whether or not CTs were based in the Seki Reserve south of New Sarum or at any location within or around Salisbury itself.

  I was asked to have a look around and was surprised to find many locations that looked similar to CT bases. There were also many other places that attracted my attention and all were plotted and passed to the SB and Salisbury Police who systematically checked them out. Instead of finding terrorists, the Police made numerous arrests because I had put them onto places where illegal activities were taking place. These included stolen vehicle strip-down joints, temporary hiding-places for stolen goods and illicit liquor-producing stills.

  First employment of flechettes

  ON 26 OCTOBER 1977, JOHN BLYTHE-WOOD, who had been posted to Hunters, together with ‘Spook’ Geraty responded to an Army callsign who reported a large female feeding-party attending CTs in a section of riverine bush between two hill features. The target description fitted the grid-reference given and first strikes went in. But then the ground callsign told the pilots they had struck the wrong point. By the time John realised that the ground callsign had misread his map and switched his attack across to the correct target, a parallel river between two hills 700 metres away, the birds had flown.

  Two days later, a Selous Scouts’ observation team on a high feature spotted this group again. The Scouts radioed that they could see 150 CTs moving northwest along the Pesu River, ten kilometres from the South African border. The Repulse Fireforce manned by the SAS responded. The K-Car, piloted by Ken Newman with OC SAS, Brian Robinson as airborne commander, called for Hunter airstrike. John Blythe-Wood and his wingman Air Lieutenant Lowrie were scrambled with Lowrie’s aircraft carrying a pair of flechette dispensers.

  Ken Newman’s ASR is given in his rather unusual style. It reads:

  The call-out was initiated by c/s 72B (chl 22). The sequence of events was as follows:

  1. FF (1 K-Car + 4 Gs + E4) airborne from Malapati arrange for c/s A5 (Canberra) to bomb grid reference passed by c/s 72A and 72B at 30:10:02B. FF to arrive overhead at 10:03B. A5 does not identify target and does not bomb.

  2. K-Car overhead area ‘A’ sees ters and opens fire. Pink Section (G-Cars) told to drop sticks to surround area ‘A’. Heavy ground fire directed at K-Car.

  3. Lynx c/s E4 (Flt Lt Mienie) does 2 x Frantan/.303 attacks West to East in area ‘A’. A5 does two bomb runs on area ‘A’. K-Car calls for Hunters. Pink returns to Malapati for more troops.

  4. Heavy fire still directed at K-Car now hit several times. Second Canberra (C5) on airborne standby bombs area ‘B’.

  5. Hunters strafe area ‘A’ along both sides of river. 4 more stops arrive. Para-Dak (F3) arrives from FAF 8 and drops Eagle callsigns in area shown. CTs return fire and K-Car hit several times. Cannon jams. K-Car pulls back H4 attacks W.

  6. Second pair of Hunters on standby. Heavy fire directed at K-Car. At no time did K-Car/K-Car commander see 150 ters. Presume advance group of 30-40 contacted in immediate area.

  7. Stop 2 tells K-Car heavy fire coming from open area to his (stop 2) north. Does not seem likely area but K-Car investigates. H4 (A/S/L Hatfield) relieves E4. 2nd pair Hunters arrive. F3 positions more troops at Groot Vlei (UL 180415).

  8. K-Car is talked onto area by Stop 2 (area ‘B’). Opens fire on a few (old abandoned) huts. No results. Still heavy fire at K-Car. Then K-Car sees approx. 6 ters in area ‘B’, opens fire. Ters E. 1 Frantan/.303 on target. (There were actually 11 ters in area ‘B’).

  9. Hunters** attack target. K-Car cannon fixed. K-Car opens fire— cannon jams.

  10. Pink Section troop in extra troops (now total of 16 stops). Pink 1 fired at by smallarms overshoots LZ. (Fire came from area ‘B’ prior to air attack.)

  11. K-Car clears area. Eagle c/s 3 has contact with 3 ters. 3 ters killed (area ‘C’). H4 drops 1 frantan/.303 N-S.

  12. 2 more ters killed in subsequent follow up. Other 120 or so ters presumably legging it to Mozambique.

  ** Hunter strike using flechette proved very successful. Total of 11 dead found in area of flechette strike. Final tally 28 CTs killed of which 5 accounted for by stops.

  This was the first use of flechettes; so OC SAS was present for yet another Air Force ‘first’.

  Preparing to attack external bases

  BEFORE HIS POSTING TO COMOPS, Group Captain Norman Walsh had been Director Operations in Air Staff. Never one to sit and wait for action, Norman left his office as often as possible to seek out all available intelligence. During late November 1976 through to February 77 he and Peter McLurg always seemed to be in an awful hurry as they rushed between Air HQ, JSPIS at New Sarum and SAS HQ at Kabrit. During this time, Norman came to me regularly to keep abreast of weapons developments in which he was profoundly interested.

  On one of these visits in January 1977, he and Peter laid a large-scale photograph across my desk. It was of ZANLA’s main base and headquarters in Mozambique. Peter explained the lay
out of Chimoio Base and gave me a run-down on all available intelligence relating to it. Well over 6,000 ZANLA were known to be in residence with more trained personnel arriving daily from Tanzania and other countries. Norman warned that this was top-secret information and that my involvement was purely to assist him select the best weapons for a possible attack on the base. At that time Alpha bomb stocks were mounting but Golf bombs were not yet in production.

  When he was posted to COMOPS two months later, Norman asked me to visit him regularly to keep him informed about weapons availability and run him through current project work. By that time Golf bombs were available and had already been integrated into his airstrike plans. Norman knew about the flechette dispenser system and the startling effects that could be expected from this weapon, so I suggested he consider them for use against large concentrations of exposed enemy forces, such as mass parades seen on some aerial photographs.

  By June 1977, intelligence had established that there were 8,000 ZANLA in Chimoio Base and photographic evidence confirmed that the base was growing rapidly. Many miles to the north of Chimoio, inside the Tete Province, a second ZANLA base for about 4,000 CTs was also being monitored. Norman and his SAS colleagues linked this base, Tembue, with their attack plans for Chimoio. Realising that the threat from such large concentrations of trained CTs was overwhelming; they sought COMOPS authority to execute their plan.

  General Walls and his COMOPS staff attended a number of presentations at SAS HQ. These were made around large-scale models of the two targets. The operational proposals frightened those who listened because they were madly daring and very dangerous. Both proposals involved relatively straightforward air attacks that were to be followed with vertical envelopment by paratroopers and heli-borne forces. This was considered absolutely essential to ensure maximum results and to seriously disrupt ZANLA.

  From the outset COMOPS totally rejected any idea of attacking Tembue due to its great distance from Rhodesia; but there was a softening towards the strike plan for Chimoio. Eventually, after many persuasive presentations and much lost time, the operational plans for both Chimoio and Tembue were approved. By then it was late October 1977 when Chimoio’s numbers had risen to 11,000. Tembue was still reported to contain 4,000.

  The task that Norman and his planning colleague Major Brian Robinson had on their hands was a daunting one. It was one thing to make operational proposals, but quite another to reduce them to the finest details that were so necessary to ensure effective execution.

  The onset of the rainy season in November made it imperative that the attacks went in before large numbers of CTs launched into Rhodesia to take advantage of good bush cover with abundant food supplies. Had the attack been approved earlier any threat of bad weather affecting plans would not have been a factor, but now it was a critical issue and accurate weather forecasting was essential.

  For some time a fundi in Salisbury had been providing the Air Force with weather information that he alone could receive indirectly from space satellites, using his own homemade equipment. Due to international sanctions Rhodesia was unable, officially that is, to receive satellite imagery of the weather patterns affecting southern Africa. How this man managed to tap into the Intelstat transmissions from Europe escapes me.

  Cloud cover images were beamed down in digital form to the Intelstat receiver in Europe. Eight hours later, having been processed into usable form, the information was transmitted to a network of official receiver stations that subscribed to the service. Surreptitious interception of these signals in Salisbury obviously cost nothing but the data acquired had to be processed in a special way to get a printout resembling a photograph of cloud formations over southern Africa, as seen by the satellite. At around 10:00 every day this cloud-map arrived at Air HQ.

  The cloud-maps were important to us because reports from weather stations to the north of Rhodesia were completely unreliable. Although the images we received were rather poor by modern standards, they were sufficient to warn of any major weather fronts that might affect operational planning. Nevertheless, they could not be relied upon to forecast localised orographic and thermal cloud situations that might afect long-range operations.

  With the best will in the world, and using every available strike aircraft, the Air Force could not hope to produce the meaningful kill and serious wound rates we needed, because Chimoio was made up of so many camps spread over a vast area. There was no alternative but to use the very best available fighting soldiers to assault the targets immediately after a maximum-effort jet-strike.

  Chimoio lay over ninety kilometres from the Rhodesian border and Tembue was almost three times that distance. However, Norman and Brian agreed that these distances favoured them in that they were both convinced neither ZANLA nor FRELIMO would seriously expect a combined air and ground attack so far from Rhodesia’s border. Until now, all combined external operations had occurred very close to the border.

  The Selous Scouts’ attack on Nyadzonya Base in August 1976 had quite obviously taught ZANLA not to concentrate its forces, which is why Chimoio Base comprised so many small camps widely spread; and to a lesser extent this also applied to Tembue. Though the wide spread of targets compounded planning difficulties, it did not alter the planners’ view that ZANLA felt perfectly safe from anything but air attack, particularly with FRELIMO’s main base at Chimoio (previously Vila Pery) being so close by.

  Planning the air attacks was simple enough and the selection of troops was obvious; the SAS and RLI would be used. But any idea of employing a mobile column to get a large ground force to either target was a non-starter as surprise would be impossible to achieve. Interference from FRELIMO would certainly occur early and involve heavy fighting most of the way to target, thereby giving ZANLA all the time in the world to vacate their bases. It was clear therefore that the ground force had to go in by air and be recovered the same way.

  Our total airlift capacity was very small, which meant that very few troops would be taking on overwhelming enemy numbers, particularly at Chimoio. Only total surprise could turn ZANLA’s numerical advantage to SAS and RLI favour, providing ongoing close-air support was available.

  The general military principle of attacking an enemy with a force three times larger was a pipe dream. Even if every soldier in Rhodesia was made available, this could not be achieved. It had to be accepted that, at Chimoio, the troops would be outnumbered by at least fifty to one but OC SAS was not put off by these impossible odds, providing total surprise could be achieved.

  Any idea of aircraft returning to Rhodesia for second-wave troops was discounted since this would take too long to have any meaningful effect on the ground in the critical first hour of fighting. In any case the trooper helicopters would first have to refuel inside Mozambique as soon as they had deposited the first wave of troops, thereby adding to the delay in getting back to Rhodesia for a second lift. If such troops were used it would also multiply post-operation recovery difficulties.

  To meet all requirements in what would surely be a full day of fighting, fuel and ammunition reserves would have to be available close to the battle sites at Chimoio and Tembue. Norman named these positions ‘admin bases’ into which a small force of protection troops, with all fuel and reserve ammunition, would have to be delivered by parachute at the same time that troops were landing in the target areas. No such luxury as a medical team could be considered. An Air Force officer would have to be at the Admin Base to co-ordinate all activities in and out of there.

  There was no way of pre-judging the level or consequence of aircraft and troop losses that might occur in each battle or, heaven forbid, if an admin base was overrun. To cater for such unforeseen situations, and because every participating soldier would have to be airlifted back to Rhodesia, it was essential to retain a sizeable reserve of trooper helicopters as close to the action as safely possible. There were only thirty-two helicopters available. One would have to be specially prepared as a command helicopter with every radio freque
ncy needed to control both air and ground actions. Another would be dedicated to the Admin Base commander, who would also carry all radio spares.

  This left thirty helicopters; ten would carry troops to target, ten would take offensive action as K-Cars and the remaining ten would be held in reserve with back-up spares. The reserve helicopters would participate in the recovery of troops at the conclusion of operations.

  Six Dakotas were available to deliver 145 SAS and RLI paratroopers, and another forty RLI could be carried to target in the ten trooper helicopters. Assuming that at least 1,000 ZANLA had been neutralised during the opening air strikes, just 185 men on the ground would face at least 10,000 armed ZANLA at Chimoio. Although assigned to their own specific targets, the ten K-Cars, carrying double loads of 20mm ammunition, could be called upon to assist troops where necessary. A civilian DC7 aircraft, flown by its owner Captain Jack Malloch, was made available to parachute-in the admin area protection troops, ammunition and fuel.

  Norman Walsh planned to fly the command helicopter himself to control all air activity. Sitting with him would be Brian Robinson as overall commander of ground forces. Their helicopter would give them freedom to move about the target area to direct the ground battle or stand off if anti-air action made this impossible.