Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  IN THE LATTER HALF OF December and early January 1968 I was with the Army at Kariba for local training. Air HQ took advantage of this by having me take over FAF 2 so that the permanent OC could take long overdue leave. This gave me opportunity to get Beryl and the children to Kariba for the Christmas and New Year period. We stayed at the Cutty Sark Hotel on Lake Kariba where I was in continuous contact with FAF 2. Staying at the same hotel was Hugh Maude who had been one of Winston Churchill’s wartime secretaries

  Hugh Maude was a political friend of the Rhodesian Government and hated what the Labour Government was doing to destroy our country. He was enjoying a break from political work at Kariba and asked me to take him on a visit to FAF 2. Debbie and Paul already knew Hugh because of his friendship with my mother and Berry. So they asked him if they might accompany him in his chauffeur-driven car. Beryl and I in our own car were leading the way when we came upon ‘George’, a well-known elephant bull who was always close to Kariba Airfield.

  George, charging our car.

  George was browsing close to the roadside so I passed him and stopped well forward leaving plenty of room for Hugh’s driver. The chauffeur obviously did not know too much about elephants because he stopped before reaching George. I told Beryl I did not like this and was signalling the chauffer to come forward when George decided it was time for fun. He charged first towards us then turned for the other car.

  The chauffeur reversed at great speed but George was moving faster. Only when the trunk of the screaming jumbo was over the car bonnet did George break away having enjoyed his naughty car-chasing habit. Five minutes later we arrived at FAF 2 and listened to simultaneously spoken stories from our two excited children. Hugh and his driver were noticeably quiet.

  Next morning, on Christmas day, I received a call from FAF 2 to say that the SAP helicopter permanently based there was well overdue from a task it had been sent to conduct in the Chirundu area. Beryl and the children accompanied me to the airfield where they were to wait whilst I flew down to Chirundu to investigate the SAP helicopter situation.

  My technician, Corporal Butch Phillips, and I were about to lift off when we saw the entire FAF contingent walking towards us with Beryl and the children in tow. The senior NCO came to my door and shouted, “Sir, you cannot pass up the opportunity to give your family a ride in the helicopter. Nobody here will say a word. Please take them along with you.” I was going to refuse when I realised that Debbie and Paul had already been ushered aboard, their faces full of expectancy. I relented and Beryl came in to sit beside me.

  By its very nature a helicopter is too easily misused. Some pilots had given rides to unauthorised persons, but this was the first and only time for me and it troubled me for ages until I felt certain I had got away with it. The children never breathed a word though they must have longed to tell their friends.

  This, their first flight in any aircraft, started out under patches of low cloud on our route along a green valley in the high ground running to open sky on the lip of the escarpment where the Zambezi River exits the Kariba Gorge. The spectacle was breathtaking as could be seen in the facial expressions of my family.

  Family on Kariba Lake-Christmas 1967.

  We had just descended to follow the river at low level when I spotted the SAP helicopter approaching up-river towards us. As I turned to climb back up the escarpment, the other helicopter came into loose formation adding more excitement for the children. Having been airborne for just a short time, I decided to fly another five minutes by routing back to the airfield through an area that carried plenty of wildlife. I was showing the various animals when eight-year-old Debbie pointed ahead saying she could see a rhino. Butch Phillips and I could not see the beast but Debbie kept pointing directly ahead. I held track for over three kilometres before seeing the rhino at the edge of bush that was yet another kilometre ahead. Debbie’s eyesight amazed us all.

  Training Norman Walsh

  FLIGHT LIEUTENANT MIKE GRIER ACTED as OC of the squadron for the month between John Rogers’ departure and Norman Walsh’s arrival. There was need to get the new OC converted onto the helicopter in the shortest time possible and, as ‘B’ Flight Commander, the task fell on my shoulders. Norman’s training started on 9 January 1968 and was completedin record time on 21 February.

  Of all the pilots I instructed on helicopters, none was more frustrated by the learning process than ‘steely-eye jet pilot’ Norman Walsh.

  He simply could not understand why he could not control the Alouette III in the hover and muttered angry words to himself when the aircraft failed to respond to his bidding. During his second flight he was attempting to keep theaircraft stationary at about three feet but, as happened to all pilots, Norman was over-controlling on cyclic. The aircraft would pitch nose down and move forward, followed by overcorrection so that the nose pitched up and the machine moved backwards before the next over-correction induced forward movement.

  Flight Lieutenant Mike Grier.

  I had seen this all before and what Norman actually said as the aircraft seesawed back and forth, I do not remember. Nevertheless I had to switch off my microphone to conceal my laughter as aircraft pitching and Norman’s frustration grew progressively worse. Hardly able to see through my tears, I took control, steadied the aircraft and handed it back to Norman. “It’s all right for you,” he grumbled, “You’ve had plenty of practice,” and the over-controlling started all over again. By the end of this flight, Norman’s brain started providing the right signals and he was able to hover jerkily from point to point around the white-lined square we used to practise precision hovering.

  Norman Walsh (left) with Peter Cooke and Cyril White—Centenary 1972. Those who knew him well will recognise Norman’s habit of nibbling at the end of a pen or pencil.

  As with my previous students, Norman’s flying training was mostly at high weight. At the conclusion of the operational conversion phase the usual ‘round the houses’ exercise was flown. We started with mountain-flying at Chimanimani, then flew a series of legs via Army and Police positions up the eastern border, along the Zambezi to Victoria Falls then down to Bulawayo to conduct helicopter enplaning and deplaning training for the Police and Army. Every conceivable aspect of helicopter operations was practised along the route in widely varying terrain, temperature and altitude conditions. Because of his personal experience, Norman became a stalwart in supporting the need for this type of training. By now he had grown to love helicopters and in his dealings with the Air Staff he was able to convey that the final ‘round the houses’ flights, though great fun, served an all-important purpose in more fully preparing pilots for most operational situations. As had happened to me, Norman Walsh did not have long to wait for his first operation on helicopters.

  Tracker dog project

  BEFORE JOHN ROGERS LEFT THE squadron, he raised the subject of the radio tracker dogs. Though Air HQ approval had not been forthcoming, he suggested that I should look more deeply into the concept and not let it die. Encouraged by this, I arranged for trials to see if a dog could be taught to respond to radio instructions from his handler. Peter Allen decided to use his big Alsatian, Beau, for the purpose. This concerned me because Beau was well on in years and had been trained as an attack dog.

  Thousands of Rhodesians had seen Beau in action at a variety of shows where he and Peter Allen were brought in by helicopter to demonstrate the ‘arrest of a criminal’. Although the Air Force man acting the part of the criminal wore a protective sleeve on his arm to give protection against Beau’s large teeth and powerful jaws, Beau was strong enough always to throw the man to the ground. This is why I felt we should be using a less aggressive animal.

  Wally Jefferies made a small receiver that was inserted into a back harness made especially for Beau in the Safety Equipment Section. In less than one week Peter Allen had his dog obeying radio commands when Beau could neither hear Peter’s normal voice nor see him. The next step was to work the dog along human trails laid by two perso
ns. For this we had to add a transmitter in Beau’s harness so that his ‘out of sight’ handler could hear Beau’s breathing whilst also receiving his own transmissions to his dog.

  First runs were made on thirty-minute-old scent trails over short distances. These were stepped up progressively to six-hour-old trails with longer runs. Beau did well but he always expected a good bite at the end of each run. Because of this, the men who laid the trail had to wait up a tree out of Beau’s reach. Peter Allen’s call, “Beau, come-come-come”, always worked and Beau backtracked rapidly to receive his handler’s applause and fussing.

  When Beau was ready to be flown to the starting point of a trail, we fully expected teething problems. The plan was for Peter to climb out of the helicopter, with both Beau’s and his own radios switched on, and run Beau on leash a short distance to be sure he had picked up the trail scent. Peter would then release his dog and, shouting above the noise of the helicopter, “Go Beau, go, go, go”, remain static as he continued urging his dog by radio. On the helicopter’s radio I could hear Peter’s commands overlaid by the noise of the helicopter and Beau’s breathing.

  Peter had then to run back to the helicopter and jump in, all the time urging his dog, “Go Beau, go, go, go.” We lifted vertically upwards to pick up Beau about 200 metres ahead. He wore a bright day-glo patch on his harness to make finding him in long grass easy. On the first two flight trials Beau started off well, but when the helicopter was over 300 feet high, he turned back to run in circles below the helicopter awaiting uplift. His love of helicopters was frustratingly obvious.

  On the third try he managed to ignore the rising helicopter and had run over two kilometres with the helicopter orbiting above when he suddenly skidded to a halt to relieve his bowels. Having done this, he lost interest in the trail and, again, ran in circles barking madly for uplift. The fourth attempt was successful. Beau ran three kilometres and nearly caught one of the trail layers who managed to climb a tree in the nick of time. He then sat under the tree watching his ‘quarry’ until Peter called, “Beau come, come, come!” whereupon Beau ran towards the helicopter for uplift. No one was more pleased than Beau who leapt into the helicopter and licked me all over my face as I lifted into flight.

  From now on Beau ran the trail each time but he always hoped for a good bite at the end of an ever-increasing trail distance. One thing we were trying to get him to do was go to ground when he had sight or direct scent of those he was tracking and bark just once. Amazingly Peter achieved this, thereby proving that even old dogs can learn new tricks. There were times when Beau really amused us by going to ground and hiding behind the smallest of bushes as he sounded once with more of a suppressed yelp that a bark. From the direction he pointed we were able to establish where his quarry was hiding.

  We now knew that it was feasible to use a helicopter and one or more dogs to run down terrorists without sacrificing dogs in the process. Even on the hottest day Beau could cover fifteen kilometres in about forty minutes following a trail laid eight hours earlier. He tended to be slow initially where the scent was oldest then progressively increased speed as the scent became younger and stronger. Squadron Leader Norman Walsh had been on 7 Squadron for a while by the time we had achieved this. Right from the start he supported what we were aiming for and was impressed when he witnessed a run. As a result, he arranged for Wing Commander Dicky Bradshaw to fly with me to see Beau in action.

  Dicky Bradshaw was convinced by what he saw and arranged for Director General Operations Air Commodore John Deall and Staff Officer Operations Wing Commander Sandy Mutch to visit 7 Squadron to see for themselves. They were both satisfied that the tracker dog concept should be progressed for operational employment.

  Two days later Norman Walsh was instructed by HQ signal to give me a blast for the unauthorised stripping of A60 radios to make Beau’s receiver and transmitter and for expending flying hours without Air Staff’s knowledge. My OC showed me the signal but said nothing. Instead he visited Air HQ to state his opinion that senior technical staff officers, with no bush warfare knowledge whatsoever, were not paying close attention to the needs expressed by operational pilots andtechnicians. Squadrons were still feeling their way in preparing for intensification in the bush war that surely lay ahead. Norman contended that Air HQ’s fullest support and co-operation was essential, particularly where squadron commanders had added support to sensible ideas intended to promote operational effectiveness.

  Operation Cauldron

  OPERATION CAULDRON WAS INITIATED BY National Parks game-ranger Dave Scammell who, when driving with African game-scouts below the Zambezi Escarpment, noticed boot prints of two persons crossing the main east-west access road. Right away Dave recognised that the prints were from terrorist issue figure 8 and chevron pattern boots. RLI troops were flown in and a tracker-combat team under Lieutenant Bert Sachse took control.

  Squadron Leader Norman Walsh, John Barnes, Mark McLean and their technicians were called forward next day after Bert Sachse’s callsign contacted a terrorist group, which took an awful pounding. During the follow-up on survivors, a major base was located near the Chiwore River resulting in a second punch-up on the same day as more RLI callsigns deployed. RLI gained further successes with survivors scattering in all directions. Continued follow-up operations resulted in the discovery of five well-established bases along the Chiwore River stretching from the Zambezi River southward for over eighty kilometres to a sixth base that was later found close to where the Angwa River exits the escarpment. The sixth base was still well short of the populated area the terrorists had sought to reach secretly.

  About 250 ZAPU and SAANC terrorists had established this line of bases with more to follow after reaching the African population above the Zambezi Escarpment. Once established with the locals, they expected to create safe routes all the way through Rhodesia to South Africa—an aim that had failed in the west because of Operation Nickel. Again we had been caught off guard by ZAPU choosing a section of the Zambezi devoid of routine patrol coverage. We had absolutely no hope of covering every inch of our long border and had concentrated on ZANU’s dependence on Zambian fishermen to help them cross the big river. In any case, ZAPU did not fit into our planning so far east.

  Operation Nickel had taught ZAPU that regular food and water had to be guaranteed to transit men and material across unpopulated ground. To achieve this, all the camps were sited on fresh water pools along the Chiwore River’s course where there was also an abundance of game for fresh meat all the way to the populated high ground. Each camp lay under heavy riverine cover to prevent detection from the air. Centuries-old elephant paths were used so as not to create new paths that might show up on aerial photographs or be seen by reconnaissance pilots, both considered by ZAPU to be the primary threat. Captured documents in good condition and neatly written recorded quartermasters’ control of meat issued out to large numbers of men.

  Underground tunnels and ammunition bunkers amazed the soldiers just as much as the enormous quantities of arms, ammunition, explosives and staple food supplies they contained. As it happened, the camps had only just been completed. If we had detected ZAPU’s presence a few days earlier, over 100 ZAPU recruits who had portered stores and provided manual labour would also have been subjected to the RLI’s attentions, but they had returned to Zambia. About 150 ZAPU and SAANC trained men remained in Rhodesia.

  Apart from meat found hanging in the camps, the source of huge meat supplies was evident to our forces who came upon the rotting carcasses of elephants whose trunks had been removed but whose tusks remained firmly embedded in their sculls; certainly not the work of poachers! Buffalo with only hindquarters removed lay in grotesque attitudes attended by hyenas and vultures.

  The rotting carcass of an elephant.

  Control of Op Cauldron forces was through a Joint Operations Centre (JOC) established in the small farming town of Karoi. The JOC comprised senior Army, Air Force, Police and Special Branch officers. Also included was Interna
l Affairs in the person of the District Commissioner. A FASOC for fixed-wing aircraft operated from Karoi Airfield. A tactical HQ and forward base for the RLI and supporting helicopters lay ninety kilometres to the northeast at Dean’s Camp sited on a small hill at the base of the Zambezi Escarpment. The camp had originally been a road construction site until it was taken over by the Department for Tsetse Fly Control. At this base dust and flies added to the discomfort of the Zambezi Valley’s heat. With every helicopter take-off and landing Dean’s Camp disappeared in a cloud of dust. Fortunately it was taken away quickly enough by the permanent gentle breeze but not before finding its way into every tent and building. Living conditionswere rough for Norman Walsh, his helicopter crews and the small RLI command unit.

  VHF communication difficulties in the vast expanses of the flat valley floor were overcome by placing a radio relay team on the high mountain feature, Chiramba-ka-doma. This mountain lay to the east of the terrorist camp line between ZAPU bases 4 and 5. Daily resupply of water, rations and radio batteries was made by helicopters whose pilots’ mountain-flying training had fully prepared them for the turbulence and cloud interference encountered when flying into the tiny sloped patch at the summit of Chiramba-ka-doma. Callsign for the radio relay point was ‘Cloud Base’.

  The leader of the terrorist force was Hedebe who was known to be carrying over $1,000 on his person. This had every RLI soldier hoping he would get to him first; but Hedebe had other ideas and proved himself to be a slippery foe.

  In the valley RLI continued to have short-duration contacts, killing and capturing many terrorists, which caused further disintegration of an already scattered force. Many individuals tried to make their way back to Zambia via the line of camps not realising they had become death traps. Many were killed in RLI ambushes at these camps and along the Zambezi River line. One ZAPU terrorist did not go the Chiwore River route but set off for Zambia in a northeasterly direction. After more than a week without food, this emaciated man stumbled into an SAS patrol somewhere near Kanyemba. Given normal Army field rations, he gulped these down then dropped dead. When Captain Brian Robinson had recovered from the surprise of the incident, he sent a signal to the Quartermaster General offering SAS congratulations for his unit’s first confirmed kill. The QMG was not amused!