Nobody but John and I knew what was going on. We alone knew there were to be three groups each along both roadways and one for the river line. Alpha 1, 2 and 3 were nominated and allocated their vehicles, as were Bravo 1, 2 and 3 and Charlie 1. When this was done John Cannon told the expectant gathering that they were about to be involved in a cordon and sweep operation. Alpha would form one stop-line, Bravo the second line and Charlie the third one. Everyone knew there was at least one terrorist group in the area but when John told of the Armageddon seven in such a nearby triangle of ground, the level of excitement rose. His briefing was simple.
"At the word, ‘Go’, Alpha will move off along the main road dropping off Alpha 3 first, starting from the bridge, then Alpha 2 and finally Alpha 1, ending at the junction with the strip road. Bravo will do a mirror image of Alpha’s deployment along the strip road to its junction with the main road. The officers are to shake out their men for even distribution along the entire length of both roads. Charlie is to proceed to both bridges, half the men to each, then walk in towards each other on the west bank of the river and shake out.
"When everyone is ready, a sweep is to commence from the east at the road junction. As the sweep line moves westward, the stop lines are to bunch up with every second man joining the sweep line.”
After the briefing I walked the short distance to my helicopter parked by the HQ building. I checked in with Murray Hofmeyr who was following the police contact’s vehicle, flying his helicopter at 6,000 feet above ground. All seemed to be going to plan when an Army Land Rover pulled up next to my helicopter. Major Billy Conn climbed out and came over to me to ask what was going on. I told him the story, including PGHQ’s refusal to involve the Army.
Billy was on his way to Kariba and had popped in to see his old friend, John Cannon. He could not resist this opportunity for action and asked John if he and his sergeant could be fitted into the plan. John agreed and put them in with Bravo 2. A good choice as it happened!
All vehicles were assembled in two lines along a road running past the Police HQ building. I noted that the regular policemen and both Army men were armed with 7.62mm SLR assault rifles whereas the PR men were armed with an amazing mix of self-loading shotguns, .303 Enfield rifles, Sten-guns and the odd sporting rifle. All that was missing from this scene was a film director, huge movie cameras and a glamorous actress. It all seemed surreal but like everyone else around, I was pretty excited.
I heard Hoffy tell the other three helicopters they were cleared to land at Banket, the contact vehicle having passed there. Gordon Nettleton transmitted an acknowledgement. The time was 10.45 and I told Hoffy we were ready to roll. Only then did he let me know he was armed with an MAG machine-gun just in case there was need for such a weapon.
It seemed a long wait before Hoffy called; “The contact vehicle has been stopped at the road junction, Stand by." A moment later he said someone had climbed into the vehicle that was now proceeding slowly along the strip road. Next Hoffy said, “The vehicle has stopped and the occupants have gone into the bush on the south side, repeat south side, not north as expected.”
This turned our planning upside down but I was pleased I had asked for extra helicopters. Having studied my map to consider possible changes to plan, I knew precisely what needed to be done. Hoffy in the meantime was moving very slowly westward still at 6,000 feet watching for the contact man’s departure from the area. I asked him to get the other helicopters airborne for a circuitous route to avoid their sound reaching the gang. Their final approach to Sinoia was to be from the west. Fuel was already set out on the sports field.
John Cannon accepted my recommendation and quickly prepared his men for a reverse image of the first deployment plan. A power-line ran eastward from the strip-road bridge and crossed a north-to-south cattle fence line next to open farmland. This fence line ran from there to the junction of the main and strip roads. Bravo units would move up the strip road by vehicle, as planned. Using five helicopters, I would arrange for the deployment of Alpha units along the power-line and place Charlie along the farm fence. Charlie would no longer be a static line but would constitute the sweep line for a westerly drive.
This would have been easy enough if the police radios on the ground were compatible with those in our helicopters, as would have been the case with the Army. We had no means of communicating with any ground unit other than through John Cannon’s radio room. All Alpha and Charlie units were instructed to get over to the sports field and prepare themselves for helicopter deployment. Way up in the sky the tiny dot of Hoffy’s helicopter still moved very slowly westward as men hurried over to the sports ground. As soon as they were positioned, the three helicopters came in across town, landed and commenced refuelling.
I briefed my new OC Squadron Leader John Rogers, my ‘A’ Flight Commander Gordon Nettleton and Flying Officer Dave Becks on their tasks, I told them that I would take only one load of men and immediately commence a recce of the area. The first loads of six policemen per helicopter were aboard and all pilots were ready to start engines when Hoffy called to say the contact vehicle was clear and heading for Salisbury.
I led the way and deposited my load by the power-line nearest the river then climbed to orbit the area looking for signs of movement. A grassy vlei running both sides of a rivulet split the search area in two. It ran from the farmland almost to the Hunyani before crossing the strip-road 100 metres short of the bridge. The trees were fairly open along the edge of the vlei itself so I felt confident that I would see anyone attempting to cross from the northern bush area to even thicker bush on the power-line side of the vlei.
I noted that Bravo was in position along the strip-road and watched the helicopters as they raced back and forth placing down men and returning for more. Hoffy had refuelled and joined the other three helicopters who were all having difficulties finding landing spots along the power-line. Eventually all was in place and the sweep line started moving westwards from the fence. I flew over to see if the stops along the power-line had shaken out correctly but I could not find a soul until, to my horror, I found a disjointed line of men moving northward through the bush towards the vlei. The danger of these men converging on the correct sweep line was obvious so I asked John Cannon’s radio room to instruct all Alpha units to hold their positions.
Dave Becks had refuelled and came to help me prevent Alpha and Charlie from bumping into each other. For over an hour Dave hovered at treetop level just ahead of the primary sweep line with his technician waving at men and pointing to those they were closing on. He did a great job and no policeman shot at another. Dave’s noisy manoeuvring may have been the main reason the terrorists remained on the north side of the area. My presence over the vlei would also have limited them until I was forced to pop into Sinoia for fuel.
I returned with my technician and four PR who had been retained in reserve. Upon reaching the centre of the vlei I spotted a black man standing under a tree on its north side. He was dressed in dark slacks and a white shirt but did not appear to have a weapon nor show any sign of concern for my helicopter’s presence. I was discussing this man with my technician when one of the PR spotted him too. Without warning, the PR started firing his Sten-gun at the figure, his rounds passing through the disc of the helicopter’s rotor. Ewett Sorrel snatched the weapon smartly and gave the bewildered man a shouted lecture as I flew out of the area to dump the PR men out of harm’s way on the Hunyani Bridge. When I returned to the vlei, the lone figure was still under the same tree. Although I had discounted him from being a threat I decided that Hoffy should get airborne with his machine-gun, just in case.
At the western end of the area I spotted another man crouching in long grass right in the centre of the vlei. Suddenly this guy, also wearing dark slacks and a white shirt, stood up and started shooting at my aircraft. I could not believe it at first, but the gun was pointing at us and clearly visible puffs of smoke were emitting from his weapon. I called Hoffy to come across to me with his mac
hine-gun. The fellow stopped firing and crouched again to reload. Having done this he continued firing at my aircraft then, for reasons I did not appreciate immediately, he ceased firing and started running at high speed towards a ridge on the south side of the vlei. As he reached the edge of the vlei he disappeared in a cloud of dust created by gunfire from Hoffy’s aircraft. It was only then that I realised an earlier dustless burst into the grass area had got him running. I had not seen the shadow of Hoffy’s helicopter moving in opposite orbit to mine until now. So I broke away, found Hoffy above me, reversed from a right-hand to left-hand orbit and climbed above him to watch the action.
The terrorist had emerged from the dust cloud running even faster than before then disappeared from view in the dust of the third burst of fire. Again he emerged running up the ridge at super-Olympian speed. The fourth burst struck his weapon, sending it flying sideways out of his grip before he disappeared from view. He emerged beyond the dust staggering at walking speed before going down under the fifth and final burst. The Air Force had scored the first kill in a bush war that would continue for almost fourteen years and Hoffy’s good-looking technician, George Carmichael, acquired the nickname ‘Killer Carmichael’.
Hoffy was on his way back to Sinoia to stand by for any further call on him whilst I continued my recce around the area. Close to the point where the terrorist had fired at me, I picked up two persons standing together dressed in dark slacks and white shirts so I asked Hoffy to turn back. As I started to orbit these two characters looked up, their white faces shining in the sunlight. Fortunately for them Hoffy had not reached me before I told him that these were white men who were not supposed to be in the area. Later we learned that they were Police Special Branch Officers, Bill Freeman and Dusty Binns, who had moved off the strip-road aiming to get a better view of what Hoffy had been firing at. They were the handlers of the Police ‘contact’ and had arrived after the sweep had commenced.
Through John Cannon’s radio room I relayed a message to the man in charge of sweep line Charlie to watch for the man under the tree. They came up on him, declared him innocent and left him standing wide-eyed exactly where he was. Moments later PR elements of the sweep line opened fire on a terrorist and, having killed him, gathered around his body in a manner one might only expect at a farmers’ baboon shoot.
Fortunately, Major Billy Conn and his sergeant had joined the sweep line and were just off to the right of the bunched-up PR men. Billy screamed at the PR guys to spread out and move on, but they ignored his warning. It was then that two terrorists leapt to their feet, one in the act of throwing a grenade into the knot of PR men. Billy Conn’s first round struck this terrorist in the heart causing him to let go of the grenade which went straight up then landed between the two terrorists, killing the second man before he had fired a shot. The PRs were shaken by the incident and there was no further bunching. The final three terrorists were taken out singly in quick succession, thus accounting for all seven of the Armageddon Gang.
Back at Sinoia John Cannon was elated with the success of the operation and let this be known when he addressed the participants at a debriefing in the Spots Club. The beer was running freely by the time all five helicopters departed for New Sarum and Major Conn and his sergeant continued their journey to Kariba. I submitted a detailed and scathing report to Air HQ saying that, whilst the operation had been 100% successful in accounting for all members of the Armageddon Group, it had in reality been a shambles. But for Dave Becks and Billy Conn, there would undoubtedly have been police casualties. Major difficulties in command and control due to non-compatibility of Air Force and Police radios would not have arisen if Army troops had been used. PGHQ were very displeased with this report and the Army loved it. Incredibly Air HQ chastised the squadron for “expending 147 rounds of precious 7.62mm ammunition to kill just one terrorist.”
Today the ZANU government of Zimbabwe celebrates the start of its Chimurenga war on 28 April, the anniversary date of the ‘Battle of Chinhoyi’ where “a gallant force fought against impossible odds in which the Rhodesian enemy used thousands of Army troops and powerful helicopter gunships." What they conveniently forget is the expediency of their actions in committing the young men of the Armageddon Group before they had been given adequate training for their mission.
These unfortunate young men were launched way too early, simply to provide proof of ZANU’s active involvement in Rhodesia simply to sweeten Organisation of African Unity (OAU) attitudes to their cause because, at the time, OAU only supported their rival ZAPU. Nevertheless, I personally agree with ZANU that 28 April 1966 was the true date of the commencement of the bush war in Rhodesia. Many historians give it as 22 December 1972, thereby ignoring all the Offensive actions and combat-related deaths before this date.
Helicopter projects
JUST PRIOR TO THE SINOIA operation there had been embryonic moves to mount a side-firing MAG machine-gun to our Alouette helicopters. Ozzie Penton as OC Flying Wing had insisted that Hoffy take the MAG along with him even though no firing trial had been conducted. The actual fit was no more than a simple bipod fixed to the step on the port side of the cabin. There was no rigidity in this arrangement nor were there any means of ensuring that ejected cartridge cases and belt links were retained within the safety of the cabin. This was important because these loose items, if allowed to enter into the slipstream, could cause serious damage or total failure of the fast-spinning tail rotor. Hoffy had been lucky that none of the 147 cases and links had struck his tail rotor. All the same, I took it upon myself to design, build and test a decent mounting for a 7.62mm MAG machine-gun and to fit a gunsight suited to side-firing in forward flight. During the time of this project I also looked into changing the way we refuelled our helicopters
Throughout my training away from base and during the Sinoia experience, I found refuelling to be irksome and way too slow. We were using a hand-operated wobble pump that Africans called the ‘kamena kawena’ pump. Loosely translated this meant ‘for me, for you’ in Chilapalapa; a bastardised language that continues to be the common lingo for multi-ethnic communications on South Africa’s gold mines.
The kamena kawena Pump was packed in a large metal trunk stored next to the fuel tank behind the cabin’s rear wall. To refuel, the pump had to be removed from the fuel-soaked trunk. It had then to be assembled by one member of the crew whilst the other rolled a drum of fuel to the aircraft, heave it onto its base and remove the sealed bung. The pump stack-pipe was dropped into the drum, the flexible pipe nozzle inserted into the helicopter fuel tank and hand pumping commenced. Even with technician and pilot taking turn in pumping, it was a tiring business. Once the drum was empty, the process was reversed; by which time one’s hands and overalls were stained and stinking of fuel.
We only had eight helicopters and could ill-afford a slow turn-around and the physical stresses that repeated refuelling induced during intense operations. Too often a pilot needed to be briefed or debriefed between flights meaning that his technician had to do the entire refuelling job on his own; a situation of considerable embarrassment to many pilots. There had to be a simple way of overcoming this.
My contention was that the aircraft should be a slave unto itself. I started by testing the jet engine at idling rpm, when rotor blades were static, and found that six psi of air pressure could be continuously tapped from a P2 pressure plug located on the engine casing just aft of the compressor assembly. By using a compressed air cylinder with pressure regulated to six psi, it was easy enough to prove that, by pressurising a fuel drum, the fuel could be forced to flow up a pipeline into a helicopter’s fuel tank. It was also established that a drum of fuel could be pumped more rapidly this way than by a kamena kawena pump. I then approached Shell and BP who supplied our fuel and was assured that pressurising a drum to six psi was entirely safe.
My Squadron Commander John Rogers and OC Flying Wing Ozzie Penton supported my intention to produce a prototype refueller, as did the Air Staff. However,
I met with opposition from one senior officer of the technical Staff at Air HQ. He told me how during WWII Spitfires had to be hand-refuelled from four-gallon jerry cans in the hot desert sun and, anyway, refuelling with engine running was totally unacceptable.
The strict rule of not running engines whilst refuelling with highly volatile aviation gas was fundamentally sound, but it did not seem to fit with the low volatility of non-atomised refined paraffin (or diesel). I simply could not believe my ears about the ‘jerry can’ coming twenty years after WWII. However, what I thought did not alter the fact that I had not gained official approval to proceed with the project.
So as not to implicate OC Flying or my Squadron Commander, I carried on in secret by designing and producing a pressure-refuelling pump. This could not have been done without the willing assistance of Master Technician Frank Oliver who ran Station Workshops and who did the necessary machine work out of working hours. The unit we produced was really quite simple. A pressure line from the P2 pressure plug (the six psi static pressure point) conveyed pressure air into a head on the stack-pipe. With the stack-pipe inserted into a drum the head sealed the drum’s bunghole when a handle bar on its side was rotated through ninety degrees. The pressure air then forced fuel up the stack-pipe and into the helicopter fuel tank via a standard flexible hose. The effort required was minimal.
Both refuelling and gun-mounting projects were interrupted by a series of Police and Army ATOPs (Anti-Terrorist Operations) exercises that had obviously been generated by interest in the lessons learned during the Sinoia operation. One of these exercises was with the RAR (Rhodesian African Rifles) Battalion at Mphoengs close to our southwestern border. Apart from some interesting flying, this short detachment sticks in my mind because of an embarrassing incident. The RAR camp was set in heavy riverine bush where full blackout procedures were enforced. Screening inside the large Officers’ Mess marquee allowed dim lights to be used at the bar and dinner table. It was in this mess that I first witnessed RAR’s insistence on maximum comfort in the field. Because the Battalion Commander was present, the Battalion’s silver and starched tablecloths were laid for all meals.
Winds of Destruction Page 22
