Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  For anyone suspected of being a ‘sell-out’ (informer) to the SF, terrorist retribution was swift and cruel. Too often this gave rise to misinformation by opportunists who, having a grudge against another and knowing terrorists never bothered to check out any accusation, deliberately and wrongfully reported them as ‘sell-outs’. However, even wrongful killing of this nature fitted well enough with ZANLA’s campaign of terror.

  Atrocities committed against the people, their livestock and possessions were widely reported in the media with graphic photographs of destruction, murder and maiming. Whereas the international community chose to ignore these horrors, the mindless slaughter of innocents angered urban blacks and the entire white community.

  I saw the poor woman whose husband was killed in her presence before the gang leader cut off his ears, nose and fingers. The wife was then forced to cook and devour the grizzly items. No pity was shown when she retched and vomited; she was beaten until she retained even that which she had thrown up.

  Another woman was flown in for medical attention. Her entire top lip had been cut away from back molars via her nose with electrician’s side-cutters.

  The naked body of a young woman was found staked to the ground, arms and legs outstretched on ropes that were pegged into the ground. A blood-covered maize cob remained imbedded in her vagina as well as a thick burning pole that had been driven into her rectum to cause her an indescribably painful death in a very lonely place.

  In the presence of his family and other petrifed tribesmen, this wrongfully accused youngster was murdered. After his death his body was repeatedly bayoneted (note no blood), to drive home ZANLA’s message.

  A woman whose top lip had been cut off by terrorists.

  In many cases the use of burning poles driven into women’s vaginas and men’s rectums was done in the presence of villagers who witnessed such horrifying murder that they dared not report the atrocities for fear of becoming victims themselves. Whole herds of cattle were slaughtered with automatic gunfire or were hamstrung, necessitating their destruction by government agencies.

  The term ‘terrorist’ was entirely justified for cowardly leaders of ZANLA gangs who wantonly brutalised hundreds of hapless civilians; yet the international community called them ‘guerrillas’. These bullies, though intent on murdering white farmers, lacked the courage to achieve the levels sought by their ZANU politicos. Night attacks on white farmers mounted but the casualties and damage caused was so much lower than might have occurred if undertaken by men of courage. ZANLA could intimidate their black brethren but not the white folk. There were many instances of a farmer and his wife fighting off the most determined of terrorist forces, usually in excess of fifteen men, because the terrorists could not match their sheer guts and determination. Yet a mere handful of terrorists could have hundreds of tribesmen cowering from the simplest of verbal threats.

  In the course of moving around their farms and out on the country roads, farmers and their families needed to be prepared and armed to face the ever-present threat of landmines and ambush. Incredibly, very few farmers abandoned their farms because of these dangers. The vast majority stubbornly refused to be intimidated, as ZANLA had been assured they would. Most children attended boarding schools and were brought home to the farms for their holidays. Every effort was made to keep farming life as normal as possible and many incredible stories can be told of the community that bore the brunt of the war against whites.

  One Centenary farmer received a hand-written note from the leader of a particular terrorist gang asking him not to allow his daughters to ride their horses on an adjacent farm where their safety could not be guaranteed. So long as they rode on their own farm they would be safe. It seems the farmer in question was popular with his workers whereas the farmer on the adjacent farm was not.

  Amongst Christians there were stories of divine intervention. One of these emanated from a captured terrorist who explained why his especially large group abandoned their planned attack of a farmstead. He said the attack was aborted when, upon arrival at the farmstead, many armed men dressed in illuminated white clothes and riding white horses surrounded the place; yet not one horseman had been present that night.

  ZANLA recruitment

  TERRORIST NUMBERS INSIDE THE COUNTRY during 1973 were insufficient to spread the SF as thinly as ZANLA had hoped. ZANLA losses, particularly to its leadership, were having a greater detrimental effect than we realised. Recruits sent to Tanzania for training would only be available in late 1974, but ZANLA could not wait that long. The short-term solution was to train recruits internally.

  Diverting for a moment—our verbal, written and radio terminology changed in this period to identify individuals. These were:

  CT—Communist Terrorist

  EFA—European Female Adult

  LTT—Locally Trained Terrorist

  AFJ—African Female Juvenile

  AMA—African Male Adult

  EFJ—European Female Juvenile

  EMA—European Male Adult

  AMJ—African Male Juvenile

  EMJ—European Male Juvenile

  AFA—African Female Adult

  Willing and unwilling recruits, mainly young males, were inducted for immediate training inside the country. Given old SKS and PPSH weapons, these young men and teenagers were taught rudimentary skills preparatory to armed combat. In most cases no more than two rounds were expended in training to conserve ammunition and limit the risk of exposure by the sound of gunfire. Inevitably these LTTs gained their shooting experience in combat, providing they survived the first contact with our troops; many did not!

  The real value of LTTs to the regular elements of ZANLA was their local knowledge and their ability to move amongst the people. They could also expose themselves openly amongst the RSF when unarmed to gather intelligence and provide early-warning services. But the LTTs themselves gave ZANLA leaders many headaches since most became nasty little thugs who committed murder and rape, causing a great deal of tribal chaos. Many other youths, impressed by LTT thuggery, fashioned replicas of CT weapons from wood to terrorise adults, thereby creating a general breakdown in family unity and discipline.

  Along with the training of LTTs, ZANLA commenced forced recruitment of youths, male and female, for external training. This came to the country’s open attention on America’s Independence Day when, during the early evening of 4 July 1973, seventeen heavily armed CTs stormed into the usually peaceful St Albert’s Mission, causing fear and panic as they rounded up over 270 people. They stated that they were taking the secondary-level children, together with a number of adult teachers and mission staff, for military training outside the country.

  Harassing and hurrying their frightened abductees, the CTs used force to accelerate the collection of food, clothing and blankets for the long walk through Mozambique to Zambia. From there they were to be transported to the Tanzanian training camps. Father Clemence Freymer bravely insisted he must go along to be with the children. He was the only white member of the group that set off that dark night for the steep descent down the escarpment. The missionaries, fearing landmines and ambush, set off on foot to raise the alarm at the nearest white farm. This could not be done by telephone because the lines had been cut and the mission had opted not to be on the Agri-Alert radio network.

  At Centenary I was awakened at 02:00. It was normal practice to have two Provosts on immediate standby loaded with eight 4-inch para-illuminating flares to respond to CT attacks on farmsteads, so two of us scrambled to light up the route along which the CTs were taking the abductees.

  My intimate knowledge of the route from St Albert’s Mission to the base of the escarpment near Gutsa paid off. On the basis of the time that had elapsed, approximately seven hours, it seemed that a slow-moving party should be close to the valley floor. Though the night was black, there was sufficient starlight for the people on the ground to grope their way down the steep pathway.

  Commencing a run from the mission, my first 600,
000-candlepower illuminating flare was released on heading and time. Below my aircraft the flare, descending slowly on its parachute, created a pool of white light that reflected strongly off the haze. This made visual contact with ground impossible. After about five minutes’ flare burnout, which was preceded by bits of burning pyrotechnic compound falling free from the flare, signalling the second aircraft to drop his first flare. By standing off to one side and flying lower than the flare, I could see ground sufficiently to see the escarpment base and positively identify a well-defined ridge down which I knew the pathway ran. For forty continuous minutes we kept this area illuminated.

  Later we learned that the flares had been directly above the CTs and their abductees. Initial reaction had caused sufficient panic and confusion for a number of children and one teacher to make good their escape and return to the mission. However, aided by the flares, the CTs regained control of those remaining and, knowing SF follow-up would come at first light, they split into two groups. In retrospect we realised that we should have ceased illuminating ground after ten minutes, in which case more abductees might have escaped under cover of darkness.

  Upon reaching the valley floor, ten CTs took the adults off in one direction and seven CTs took the children along their normal infiltration route running alongside the Musengezi River. An RLI follow-up resulted in contact with the latter group. However, the troops were faced with a dilemma when the CTs used the abductees as human shields and opened fire from behind them. To mask a bit of fancy soldiering aimed at wresting advantage from the CTs via their left flank, half of the troops returned heavy fire deliberately aiming high above the terrified youngsters.

  The children realised what was happening when the flanking troops opened fire and most managed to escape by running straight for the RLI troops. One mortally wounded CT was screaming loudly which added to the general confusion of gunfire and movement that persisted until the six CTs had made good their escape, but without any abductees. Had the RLI not been forced to avoid hitting any child, those six CTs would not have survived.

  At this point the troops and Father Clemence Freymer gathered the children together and calmed them preparatory to their helicopter flight back to the mission. But valuable time had been lost before RLI learned of the second group with the adults.

  All day I searched well ahead of a slow-moving tracker group but apart from seeing fragments of an ill-defined trail in the dry conditions, I could not spot a soul. This was frustrating and, at the time, I had no way of knowing that I had been instrumental in helping another thirty-three abductees escape. Those that returned to the mission said my aircraft had been directly above them on a number of occasions during the day. Whenever the aircraft came close, everyone was ordered to take cover and remain dead still. The lucky ones had remained in cover when the CTs ordered resumption of the march. The escapees told of terrible beatings for those who were discovered in their hiding places. Thanks to relentless pressure on the CT abductors, three of their numbers were killed and all of their abductees were eventually saved. In spite of failing on this particular occasion, ZANLA continued recruiting by force.

  Pseudo-terrorist beginnings

  AS EARLY AS THE LATE 1960s the Army Commander, Major-General Keith Coster, had given his support to ideas generated by Assistant Commissioner ‘Oppie’ Oppenheim of the BSAP. This was to develop pseudo-terrorist teams (not to be confused with SB plants into terrorist organisations). Selected Army, Police and SB personnel involved themselves in extensive trials but the exercise was shelved following incorrect assumptions and because their anti-terrorist plans did not suit the times. By 1973, however, changes in CT modus operandi suited pseudo-terrorist operations perfectly.

  The only good to have come out of the early pseudo-terrorist trials was the development of the Tracker-Combat team concept. The first commander of the Territorial Army’s Tracker-Combat School was Lieutenant Alan Savory, a politician, noted ecologist and master in bushcraft. Later his school was expanded to train regular Army personnel including the SAS and RAR, hence their availability as early as Op Nickel. African game-trackers were still being used extensively by the RLI during Op Cauldron.

  Arising from his experiences in Malaya, Colonel John Hickman favoured pseudo-terrorist operations but his ideas differed from existing plans to draw all pseudo operators from SF personnel. John believed in ‘turning’ captured terrorists and inducting them into service under direction of regular personnel trained in pseudo ops. At that time, however, it was considered that all captured terrorists should be hanged, or at least receive life sentences. Any thought of integrating them with the regular Army was rejected out of hand. So John Hickman had to wait until he became the Brigadier Commanding JOC Hurricane before he could implement his own theory; and this turned out to be very successful.

  John had the reputation of possessing the finest military brain in the Rhodesian Army and his flexibility and tactical thinking adapted quickly to every change in enemy strategy and tactics. I had witnessed his flexible approach during Op Excess when he persuaded Major Rob Southey to let me try my hand at moving Dumpy Pearce forward on an old trail.

  Realising the time was right to put his pseudo ops theories into practice, the brigadier set up a secret ‘safe house’ from which his first small pseudo team prepared to emulate ZANLA gangs. The intention was to pose as ZANLA to gain the necessary intelligence that would facilitate destruction of whole ZANLA groups by regular forces. First to be co-opted were two SAS master trackers who also spoke Shona fluently. They were Sergeants André Rabie and ‘Stretch’ Franklin. From the RLI the brigadier brought in Sergeant Peter Clementshaw and from RAR he selected three African soldiers. To this group was added a captured ZANLA terrorist who had been ‘turned’.

  By nature the African people of Rhodesia were gentle folk until subjected to the lies, false promises and other propaganda output of power-seeking individuals, who themselves had been duped by communists. The term ‘turned’ simply meant that an individual terrorist had been returned back to his original state and would willingly serve the Rhodesian cause.

  Prior to deploying as pseudo CTs, the group was briefed in detail by Peter Stanton on the all-important ‘does and don’ts’ in their contacts with the African population. ZANLA, acting on the advice of their Chinese instructors, had adopted procedures by which the locals could recognise authentic ZANLA personnel or spot aliens purporting to be ZANLA ‘comrades’. In early times ZANLA told the people what their men would eat and what would be left uneaten to prove their authenticity. Peter Stanton made sure he was always up to date with the latest feeding details by making this his first priority when interrogating captured terrorists. Other SB interrogators did likewise, though they were unaware of the reasons Peter kept pressing for such apparently mundane information.

  Right from the start the locals were easily misled by the white pseudo operators who came to them in the black of night with blackened faces and arms. But it was worrying to be welcomed with open arms with not a word of their presence ever passing to the authorities.

  Sadly, André Rabie was accidentally killed when the RLI, responding to André’s call to action, misidentified him as a terrorist. On close inspection of the body the RLI were greatly distressed when they realised that they had killed a white man and even more so when they recognised André. Somehow André had passed an incorrect grid reference that led to the tragedy. Nevertheless sufficient success and experience had been gained to satisfy Brigadier Hickman that there was need to expand pseudo operations.

  By October 1973 ground intelligence had virtually dried up; most available information was of an historic nature and of little use for military planning. The need to extend pseudo operations to generate up-to-the-minute information on the actual location of terrorist groups had been left rather too late and this brought the Army Commander directly into the picture. Major-General Peter Walls recalled Major Ron Reid-Daly from his leave pending retirement from the Army. The General invited Ron to
remain in service to form and command a new regiment that would prepare for and conduct pseudo operations. The unit was to be named ‘Selous Scouts’.

  The nature of the new regiment’s task was camouflaged by making it appear to be a specialised tracking establishment. For ages very few people knew of the Selous Scouts’ real purpose. This was to develop and control many teams of pseudo-terrorist operators whose job it was to infiltrate ZANLA and ZIPRA with a view to eliminating terrorist groups and breaking up their organised structures. Ron Reid-Daly succeeded in creating his regiment in spite of untold obstacles that were placed in his way. His problems were almost entirely due to the fact that the Army HQ officers from whom he sought co-operation were totally in the dark on Ron’s ‘real’ task.

  When eventually he moved his ever-growing Selous Scouts’ operational forces to their newly built battalion headquarters at Inkomo, Ron named it ‘André Rabie Barracks’ in memory of a fine soldier who had been the first of many pseudo operators to die in action.

  Night-strike trials

  ARMY HQ, RESPONDING TO CALLS from officers in the field, asked the Air Force to look into the possibilities of providing ground forces fire support at night by helicopters and Provosts. Air HQ expressed reservations but tasked me to conduct night trials for GAC strikes with guns and rockets. Using Provost 3605, the only aircraft fitted with four .303 machine-guns, I flew the trial, accompanied by Major Mike Shute of the School of Infantry.

  Bright ground flares were used by an Army GAC callsign to mark FLOT. A level pass was made to see if the ground was visible. It seemed fine so I decided to try a live attack with a very early pullout. At the commencement of the dive from 1,500 feet I could see the ground around the flares, but as soon as I opened fire, tracer rounds streaming from both wings towards ground burned so brightly that only the ground flares remained visible. I pulled out at what I judged to be more than 500 feet above ground. However, the Kutanga Range Safety Officer gave me a low warning saying that I had cleared the ground by no more than a few feet.