Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  Keeping to the same timings of the original follow-up operation, the dogs were placed on tracks at 08:30 when the sun was high and ground conditions were already hot. Jill set off on the trail immediately but Beau had to cast back and forth across the trail, so poor was the scent. Jill never moved more than 100 metres before stopping and looking back to wait for Beau to catch up. This went on for a while until Jill ran into a herd of elephants giving her such a fright that she rushed back to Beau. Beau took no notice of Jill, now following him, and led her straight through the elephants which, in spite of the helicopter’s presence overhead, all turned to watch the dogs pass by. Then a young bull with trunk high, and presumably trumpeting, gave chase for a short distance before breaking away. Beau had never seen an elephant before, so we were surprised and delighted by his apparent nonchalance as he passed through before Jill resumed the lead.

  During the steep climb up the escarpment, it was very noticeable that the dogs were moving faster. Peter Allen attributed this to improved scent retention by higher grass and larger areas of shade. When they came out onto the open ground at the top of the escarpment Jill ran straight into a bull rhino, which immediately charged, sending her helter skelter back to Beau. Beau saw the big fellow coming and ran in a semicircle, which Jill and the Rhino followed.

  Once the rhino broke off his chase we thought the game was over, particularly when we saw Beau plunge into a waterhole with Jill in tow. Both dogs submerged their bodies and enjoyed a long drink. We were considering landing to pick them up when Beau ran out of the water, shook himself vigorously, and started casting for scent. Again, Jill followed suit and, of greatest importance, the radio links were still working. They had to range more than 200 metres across the original line of movement before Beau picked up the trail and Jill, as always, moved off ahead of him. I picked up the steep riverline into which the terrorists had turned from the valley in which the dogs were still running strongly. Both dogs disappeared into thick riverine bush and we watched anxiously for them to reappear in the rocky river-line itself. Instead we spotted them coming out of the trees well beyond and continuing to run along the side of the open valley.

  Again I wondered if we should recall the dogs, particularly as I was running low on fuel. But then they turned into the next gully running into the mountain. At this point both dogs went to ground and Beau gave his funny yelp. Just ahead of the dogs we saw Porky MacLaughlin and his group. The men who tracked the Griffin terrorists had taken more than twenty-four hours to cover the same ground that these two dogs had run in a little under one-and-a-half hours.

  At that very moment there was no way I would have believed that the radio tracker dog system would never be used in operations. We had just seen it work in the worst possible conditions. Unfortunately however, Air HQ passed the entire project to the Police. Though some effort was put into continuing with the work already done, it failed because regular police dogs were expected to conduct routine urban dog patrol work with the specialist radio tracking as a sideline. Worse still was the fact that operationally inexperienced handlers managed the dogs and all training was done at Mabelreign, which was a long way from New Sarum.

  Patrol Officer Ted Spencer with Jill, PB, Warrant Officer Peter Allen with Beau.

  Had I remained on helicopters things might have been different because I envisaged Air Force Dog Section preparing four dedicated dogs in conjunction with a handful of battle-experienced soldiers who would be trained to handle them in the field. All training would have been done at New Sarum where all important helicopter participation was at hand.

  Operation Mansion

  AS A CONSEQUENCE OF OP Griffin, ZAPU had failed for the third time to establish a safe route through Rhodesia. But they tried again in yet another attempt in mid-August 1968. The crossing was made way over to the west at the headwaters of Lake Kariba. Operation Mansion was established when the crossing was detected 500 metres from where the Gwai River flows into the Zambezi Gorge.

  Terry Jones, with his helicopter gunner Senior Technician Willy Armitage, tried unsuccessfully to get at the terrorists who were cornered in a cave on a steep riverbank with RAR troops poised on the ridge above them. Then Mark McLean and Corporal Technician John Ness had a go at dislodging them. Although one terrorist was killed, Mark could not flush the terrorists out into view of the RAR troops, so he requested his supporting FASOC to call for heavy airstrikes.

  Vampires flown by Keith Corrans, Wally Galloway, Graham Cronshaw and Prop Geldenhuys struck with rockets and cannon fire. A Canberra piloted by Peter Woolcock with John Digby delivered a noisy load of ninety-six fragmentation bombs. The airstrikes broke the terrorists’ will and RAR troops inflicted some casualties before nightfall allowed survivors to escape back into Zambia.

  ZAPU’s operations had been receiving a great deal of press coverage outside of Rhodesia. The party’s propaganda machine, ignoring dismal failures, claimed that its military wing had killed many Rhodesian troops with the downing of many more helicopters than we owned.

  Operation Excess

  ZANU HAD BEEN QUIET FOR AGES but then, spurred on by ZAPU’s exaggerated claims and an urgent need to prove itself to the Organisation of African Unity, launched a large group across the Zambezi River at Mpata Gorge. Having failed repeatedly, ZANU had learned to avoid the long distances previously used to reach populated areas. In this case they aimed to get to the large sparsely populated Dande Tribal Trust Land, but without getting too close to the police station and Army base at Kanyemba.

  A border patrol unit only detected the crossing eight days after it had occurred. This was the consequence of infrequent surveillance of the rough ground at Mpata Gorge and because, in winter, there was no water for many miles beyond the Zambezi River. Operation Excess commenced when Lieutenant Christopher John (Dumpy) Pearce of the RLI took over from the border control unit and commenced a follow-up southeastwards through rough, dry country. The whole region had plenty of trees but in the dry season they were leafless making the hot breezeless conditions extremely uncomfortable.

  An RLI Tactical HQ commanded by Major Rob Southey was established on the site of a disused road camp on the main east-west Zambezi Valley road where it crossed the Angwa River bridge at Mato Pools. The main JOC that had been established at Karoi for Operation Cauldron was still in situ to oversee Op Excess. On 28 July 1968 I led a flight of four helicopters to support the RLI operation.

  My first task was to resupply Dumpy Pearce with water and rations a little after midday. I located Dumpy near the source of the small bone-dry Ruponje River on the north side of a watershed ridge, where I shut down to have a chat. Dumpy’s callsign was hot, sweaty and tired, but in good spirits. The men welcomed the cold water and ice I had brought them and rested whilst Dumpy and I talked. Dumpy estimated that they were seven days behind a group of approximately fifty terrorists. I asked him to point to the spot on the nearby ridge where he believed the tracks were heading. Having noted this, I got airborne and found I could actually land there.

  It was obvious that aerial tracking this old trail in such dry grassless conditions was a non-starter but I had other ideas in mind. Looking over the ground ahead I could not help seeing a patch of bright-green trees about twelve kilometres away beyond a series of descending ridges. The walking distance was at lease twice the direct distance. The trees were off to the right of the direction the terrorists had been heading, but they gave the distinct impression of being sited on water. I was absolutely certain the terrorists must have been drawn to the spot having travelled so far without water. I called Dumpy and asked if I could fly his trackers forward to see if my guess was right, promising to have them back within fifteen minutes if I was wrong. Dumpy said it suited him but I must first get Rob Southey’s blessings. For this I had to climb quite high to make contact with RLI Tac HQ. Rob Southey did not accept my suggestion, so I set heading for base.

  About one minute later, I received a call to say it would be fine to return to Dumpy and lift his
trackers forward, providing Dumpy was with them. I raced back to pick up Dumpy and two trackers. When we landed on smooth short green grass next to the copse of green trees, the trackers climbed out and immediately pointed to terrorists tracks on the very spot we had landed. They established that there was no surface water as I flew the rest of Dumpy’s callsign forward to tracks now assessed to be five days’ old.

  Pressing my luck, I headed off low and slow over a vast expanse of leafless trees in the direction the trackers were moving and noted a single prominent and unusually high tree with distinctive smooth yellow bark. Although it was a long way ahead it was certainly on the line the trackers were moving. At this stage I was short of fuel and returned to base.

  I went to Rob Southey to suggest moving the trackers forward again. Colonel John Hickman, the Officer Commanding the RLI, was visiting and I learned that it was he who had persuaded Rob Southey to let me try the first move. Though this had been successful and had brought the RLI two days closer to the terrorists, Rob seemed reluctant to move trackers to ‘the tall tree’. One could hardly blame him, because it must have seemed improbable that the terrorists would have seenthings the way I did. However, he changed his mind when Colonel Hickman said, “You have nothing to lose Rob!”

  I returned to Dumpy, picked up his trackers and put them down close to the yellow tree. They were more surprised than I to find that a man had climbed the tree to scan the route ahead whilst the rest of the group had waited close by. Dumpy’s men were brought forward onto tracks, now estimated to be thirty-six-hours old. Again I pressed my luck and, dealing only with Dumpy, moved trackers forward about six kilometres to where the trees gave way to open ground along the dry Mwanzamtanda River. Here the trackers had to cast 200 metres before locating tracks that were under twenty-four-hours old. I had just sufficient fuel to bring the whole callsign forward before returning to base feeling well pleased with myself. We had closed from seven days to one day in less than three hours. Had Colonel Hickman not been at the Tac HQ, this would certainly not have occurred and a new method of gaining ground might have been lost.

  It was late afternoon and with my enthusiasm at a peak I searched forward. I dared not proceed at low level with terrorists so close and climbed to 1,500 feet. Almost immediately I saw dark-green trees ahead and sensed this was the actual position of the terrorists. Alan Aird had been with me the whole time and he also saw the water in the heavily treed tributary that flowed into the Mwanzamtanda. This otherwise dry rivulet ran northwards along the edge of a rocky outcrop, then looped southward around a moderately high rocky feature. In this bend lay surface water with the dark-green trees lining the banks. Alan agreed with me that the terrorists were under those big shady trees and said he was certain he had seen bundles of something or other under the northernmost trees.

  Back at base it was agreed that Dumpy Pearce should continue his follow-up and that fresh troops would be lifted into the suspected terrorist base early next morning. I do not remember the reason for this, but I only carried Alan, his MAG and a full fuel tank when I flew ahead of the three helicopters carrying Jerry Strong and his troops. I passed over the suspect point where both Alan and I saw what we believed were shell-scrapes at the edge of the tree line. We did not change direction until the other helicopters had passed over the site to drop troops behind a small ridge just 100 metres away. The helicopters lifted immediately to return for more troops as Jerry led his men directly to the suspect site. As he entered the trees, he called, “Terrs left about one minute ago—in a hurry. There is abandoned equipment—no time to collect—moving east on tracks.”

  Poor Dumpy Pearce who had followed these terrorists so far was not at all happy that Jerry was right on the tail of the terrorists his callsign had been mentally prepared to contact in less than two hours. Major Southey refused to let Dumpy’s force join Jerry’s fresh troops, even though helicopters could have moved them forward in less than five minutes. Nevertheless this turned out to be a good decision.

  Being under-strength, Jerry was moving cautiously in rough country. Soon enough the rest of his troops arrived and, though able to move faster for a while, patches of heavy bush in rough terrain well suited to ambush slowed Jerry down. His trackers reported following less than twenty men, which was way below the number Dumpy Pearce had given. In the meanwhile Dumpy had reached the terrorist base by the water where he found that a big force of about forty men had broken south. The only other tracks were those that Jerry was following.

  Before Jerry’s troops reached one particular spot, I asked for 37mm Sneb rockets to be fired into a patch of bush on the lip of a ravine through which Jerry and his men would be passing. To assist Flying Officer Chris Weinmann, who was flying a Provost, identify the correct position, I asked him to follow my helicopter’s shadow until I called, “Now” to pinpoint his position of strike. So far as I know, this was the first time that one pilot guided another by using his aircraft’s shadow; but it worked perfectly and Chris placed the strike exactly where I wanted it. When Jerry reached the point a few minutes later, he reported that the tracks went through the point of strike but the terrorists had passed there some time earlier.

  By late afternoon Jerry’s callsign had slowed to the extent that they were over one hour behind the terrorists when tracks crossed the north-south road leading to Kanyemba. Because the terrorists were heading directly for Mozambique, diplomatic clearances were needed to enter that country in ‘hot pursuit’. When it was too dark to track the troops settled for the night at the borderline. The road crossing had allowed trackers to get an accurate count of the number of men they were pursuing. This confirmed that, with only fifteen sets of prints, Dumpy was following the greater portion of the original group.

  During the night authority was given to cross into Mozambique. At first light Jerry’s men received water and Mozambican maps before continuing the follow-up into flat, dry mopani country where the temperature would rise to thirty-eight degrees by midday. No aircraft came near Jerry until he said he was close to contact. As I approached his area, a radio transmission from Jerry was so heavily overlaid by the sound of automatic gunfire that I could not hear what he was saying. That he was in contact was obvious.

  Jerry had heard voices ahead and opened out his callsign for a sweep through moderately open bush towards the voices. The terrorists saw the troops emerging from the bush line on the other side of a dry riverbed and opened fire, wounding one RLI trooper. Jerry called on the terrorists to surrender, whereupon they responded with vile language and anti-white slogans before resuming fire that kept Jerry’s troops pinned down for a short while.

  The terrorist position was under trees on slightly higher ground on the other side of the dry riverbed. The RLI threw phosphorus grenades into the river line to give smoke cover to Jerry’s left echelon as it rushed over the riverbed and positioned itself on the terrorists’ right flank. With pressure on them from front and side, the terrorists’ action abated and Jerry crossed the river under covering fire to sweep through the camp where he found seven dead terrorists and one wounded. This meant there were still seven others close by.

  Alan Aird and I searched forward and saw two terrorists lying against the bank of a small gully with their weapons pointing towards the advancing troops. Alan opened fire, forcing them to run in a crouch along the gully in the direction of Jerry’s flanking callsign. One fell then rose as Alan’s fire struck the second man who went head over heels. He rose again just where the gully seemed to end next to a clump of trees. Here both injured men disappeared from view. A gully line beyond helped us understand that a tunnel existed were the roots of the trees bound surface soil to form a natural bridge. The two terrorists were obviously in hiding under this bridge.

  Then from above we witnessed a very strange action when two soldiers, one wearing a bright green item of headgear, moved to where we had lost sight of the terrorists. These two men were bending over the bridge and gesticulating wildly before both dropped on their stom
achs moments before a grenade detonated in the gully next to them. They rose and did what they had done before, again dropping facedown as another explosion occurred. The act was repeated but, this time, the two wounded terrorists emerged and were taken prisoner.

  Later we were to learn that Lance Corporal Lahee was the wearer of the green headgear, a tea cosy, which was the lucky charm he had used during Op Griffin to attract enemy fire. During the action in which he had been pinned down with Jerry Strong, he had lifted the tea cosy on a stick into terrorist view to confirm their continued presence and position. In so doing the cosy collected a number of holes. I knew the man had to be a bit crazy to be wearing such a bright article because it made finding him from the air so much easier than any other RLI soldier.

  Lahee had watched the dust from our helicopter’s gunfire, which drew him to the terrorists under the earth bridge. Here he shouted to them to surrender. They refused, so he threw a grenade into the tunnel. The terrorists were just around a bend in the tunnel that protected them from the two detonating grenades that they had thrown back out into the gully. Lahee told them the next grenade would detonate as it reached them and this is what had brought them out of hiding at the very moment another terrorist was seen and killed by other troops.

  A little past the point where the gully entered the dry river, I spotted a terrorist as he ran under a tangle of roots overhanging the bank of the main river. Alan had not seen this, and the terrorist was no longer visible to me. With Alan holding the MAG steady, I manoeuvred the helicopter and told him when to pull the trigger. With a touch of rudder I brought strikes to the correct spot for Alan to identify. We then made three passes down the river putting in accurate strikes on the spot before running out of ammunition.