Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  On the second attack I was certain that I had pulled out much earlier than the first time only to be told that I had been so low that my navigation lights had disappeared from view in a shallow depression beyond the FLOT flares. I thought the RSO was having me on until the Army officer conducting the GAC confirmed how close we had come to death. There was no question of continuing this dangerous trial so I headed for base, much to Mike Shute’s relief. My report to Air HQ advised against any night attack involving a dive profile as this would certainly result in disaster. Nevertheless, Army pushed for further trials, this time using Canberras in level flight.

  Army field officers suggested that two or more machine-guns firing tracer rounds from different directions at the centre of a target should give a bomb-aimer a perfect aiming point. Again there was scepticism but the concept had to be tried. I was involved again, this time to assess the visible effects of marking with tracer before committing a Canberra to the test. Flying at height I watched two guns firing with a convergence angle of little more than fifteen degrees. The crossover point was clear-cut and would be easy for the Canberra bomb-aimer to see. However, a Canberra’s bombing run is very long when measured against the time machine-guns could provide continuous fire. There was a need, therefore, for many very short bursts to be fired simultaneously to ensure Canberra line-up, and a long burst for final aiming. So we put this to the test.

  Repeatedly the Canberra ran in, but the gunners on the ground could not synchronise their firing during run-up, and both ran out of ammunition at the critical moment on each of a number of runs. It was obvious that, since this system could not be made to work in clinical conditions at Kutanga Range, there was no point in expecting better results in the field. In time to come an altogether better solution was found, as will be revealed later.

  Pre-selection of Air Force commanders

  FLIGHT LIEUTENANT MICK MCLAREN HAD been my first flying instructor in 1957 and I had served under him in 1969- 1970 when he was Chairman of the Joint Planning Staff in the rank of group captain. His meteoric rise brought him to be the Commander of the Rhodesian Air Force in 1973 in the rank air marshal.

  There were no doubts in the minds of most officers that Mick was the right man for the job because he had proved himself in every way. However, the discontent of one or two superseded senior officers reached political ears. For reasons I do not know, the politicians decreed that no such accelerated promotion should occur in the future and that Air HQ must pre-select officers to be groomed for the top Air Force post.

  Frank Mussell was the obvious man to succeed Mick McLaren when he retired in 1977. For the term commencing 1981, Keith Corrans and Tol Janeke were earmarked as running mates and were immediately promoted to wing commander. This politically induced situation proved to be a bad move because it had forced Air HQ to pre-judge individual standings eight years ahead of time, and this had the effect of limiting the prospects of many officers who might have aspired to positions that now seemed blocked. Keith and Tol were both fine men but we could not understand how either one of them could have been selected ahead of Norman Walsh. Anyway, this early selection failed because Keith and Tol both took early retirement and Norman became Commander in 1981 in circumstances that couldn’t have been foreseen in 1973.

  Night ops diffculties

  MY EXPERIENCE ON HELICOPTERS HAD highlighted the dangers of flying on dark nights. This was largely due to the helicopter’s inherent instability, but following Guy Munton-Jackson’s death, helicopter pilots were forbidden to fly unless there was a clearly defined horizon. For slow fixed-wing pilots who continued to operate at night in all conditions, save for low cloud and storms at destination airfields, dark nights presented very real difficulties.

  Most readers will have flown many hours in airliners and may wonder what is so difficult about flying at night. Many scheduled departures and arrivals occur at night in marginal weather conditions, so where are the problems? Well, it is all a matter of instrumentation, flying aids, navigational aids and a second pilot to monitor and assist his captain at every stage of flight. These are all routinely available in all airliners that operate in and out of fully equipped airports having qualified air-traffic and radar controllers.

  Although we were equipped with standard flight instrumentation, it was necessary to physically control an aircraft every second it was airborne. There were no such luxuries as autopilot, a second pilot, aids to pinpoint one’s position or to guide one in for a safe landing. The airfields into which we operated had no let-down aids of any description. Very often, when cloud cover necessitated flying above minimum safe altitude to clear all high ground, our best assistance came from men on the ground saying something like, “We can hear you to our northeast.”

  Once guided to approximately overhead it was a matter of entering into a gentle descending turn hoping to break cloud close to the airfield before reaching minimum safety height. Over flat sections of the Zambezi Valley this was not too bad, but in mountainous terrain immense tensions built up in one’s mind and body before breaking out below cloud and seeing one’s destination.

  With no aids to assist navigation and let-down in remote areas I, like most pilots, often wondered how I could have let myself in for such a hazardous occupation. On these occasions I longed for the safety of jet flying which always brought one back to a major airfield with all aids, including radar. But, being stuck with the problem, one had to work at remaining calm and reminding oneself that Air Force training had been geared to cater for these frightening situations.

  Even when the destination airfield, other than Air Force FAFs, had been located, danger existed because pilots were forced to rely on soldiers, policemen and civilians to mark the runway. I will say more about this subject later.

  Flying Provosts was always less trying that flying Trojans in identical situations. The Provost felt sturdy, it had ample power to cater for the unexpected and responded well to throttle and flight controls. Wearing a parachute also gave some comfort if everything went pear-shaped. On the other hand, the Trojan could be a real bitch, particularly when laden and there was no alternative but to stay with the beast, no matter what happened.

  Trojan characteristics

  THANKS TO SUPERB TECHNICIANS AND the excellent training given to its pilots, the Trojan did a marvellous job despite its limitations. All the same, this aircraft’s unusual characteristics often took one by surprise by day as well as night.

  I was returning from one recce sortie in Mozambique low on fuel when I encountered a solid line of cumulonimbus running the length of the escarpment. There was no way around the storm line, which was putting on a spectacular display of near-continuous lightning strikes. My destination was Centenary and it was already too dark to go into Mukumbura or Musengezi, so I selected a section between two huge cumulonimbus columns that appeared to offer the safest passage through the storm line.

  With lights set to maximum brightness and having transferred attention to instruments, the cloud was entered with stopwatch running at an indicated height of 6,500 feet above sea level. Instantly smooth, straight and level flight changed as unseen forces within the storm cloud took hold of the Trojan and lifted it as if it was feather-light. Inside the aircraft the sensations, sounds and instrument indications were terrifying.

  With all my strength I worked to keep wings level, paying scant attention to the varying pitch attitude as the airspeed indicator fluctuated rapidly between stalling speed and somewhere beyond VNE. The Vertical Speed Indicator was against its upper stop and the whole airframe shuddered and shook so violently that I thought it might break up. One minute and ten seconds after entering cloud, which felt like an eternity, the aircraft was spewed out of the storm into clear, calm air at 11,500 feet above sea level. Stretched out ahead was a fairyland of security lights burning brightly from Centenary’s farmsteads.

  5,000 feet gained in such a short time was one thing; unstoppable descents towards the ground with full power applied was quite
another. There were times when it seemed such descents must end in disaster. On one particular occasion I was flying along a narrow valley in the Shamva area with the high ground right and left a little below the level of flight. The aircraft started to descend rapidly under the influence of a strong crosswind flow so I applied full power and was in a normal climbing attitude, but the aircraft continued descending into the valley.

  I was not concerned about going all the way to ground because it was obvious that wind flow must level off before this occurred. My concern was for the ridge at the end of the blind valley that was too narrow to allow turn-about. The aircraft levelled out at about fifty feet as expected and remained there until lifted upwards so fast that it had risen above the high ground well before valley’s end.

  The Trojan’s response to local windflow and thermal activity could have it descending like a streamlined brick or climbing like a homesick angel. For me the Trojan’s sensitivity to air currents was especially annoying when I first started visual recce. It took some time to get used to trimming the aircraft and allowing it to float up and down without fighting to hold a fixed height. Somehow the downs seemed to equal the ups as the aircraft yow-yowed about the intended recce height.

  SAS ops in Tete

  UP UNTIL AUGUST 1973, SAS operations in Tete had not achieved what Brian Robinson had hoped for. Patrols succeeded in locating groups of ZANLA moving through the area but infantry reaction to SAS hot intelligence had been agonisingly slow and poor for a variety of reasons. The greatest of these was the pitifully small lift-capacity of only two helicopters operating from the co-located SAS and RAR Tactical HQs on the border at Musengezi Mission. Other helicopters were always tied up elsewhere on internal operations.

  Parachute deployment of the infantry by Dakotas was an obvious solution but at the time there were no paratroopers besides the SAS. This was because the Air Force had only sufficient parachutes for the SAS and the Air Force Parachute Training School was short of PJIs (Parachute Jump Instructors). So, although planning and provisioning was underway to make all regular soldiers paratroopers, we were stuck with what was available.

  When the SAS located CT groups, the two Alouettes had to make a number of round trips to position sufficient troops ahead of the assessed line of CT movement. This in itself involved a lot of time. But a greater limitation came from the noise of helicopters that carried for miles in the flat Zambezi Valley. CTs, having travelled through the silence of bush for many days, could hear helicopters flying as much as thirty kilometres away, which accounted for major deviations in their headings that invariably bypassed the awaiting troops.

  The SAS had been entirely successful in their classical role of finding the enemy for the infantry. However, repeated failures by the RAR to capitalise on the good work of his men made Brian Robinson reconsider the SAS role. He concluded that SAS callsigns must continue in their classical role but take on the ZANLA groups themselves.

  In essence, Brian advocated a ‘seek-and-find then shoot-and-scoot’ style of operation. To be effective in mobile reconnaissance as well as in static surveillance necessitated the use of small patrols. This meant that, when they came upon large groups that had previously been passed on to the RAR, they would not be able to engage the enemy in typical infantry fashion. Relying entirely on surprise, they would have to act rapidly to inflict maximum casualties and get the hell away as fast as possible. Such hit-and-run operations would obviously be dangerous and immediate air support had to be discounted. Nevertheless, Brian pushed for this new approach because he had supreme confidence in his men. They had all been painstakingly selected from the best volunteers and were trained to the highest degree possible. But he also realised that, if there was to be any hope of turning the ZANLA tide, it was essential that the SAS should operate in depth north of the Zambezi River with regular infantry covering the ground south of the river. For this he had to have at least two helicopters and two Provosts permanently available on immediate readiness at his Tac HQ.

  For this new role, there were three essential changes to be made. Firstly, an SAS Tactical HQ would have to base permanently inside Mozambique next to a runway that could support Provosts and laden Dakotas. Secondly, patrols would have to operate in groups of only four men (known as a stick); a limitation imposed by the lift capacity of an Alouette III carrying a machine-gun and gunner. Finally, SAS sticks would have to operate six weeks in the field with only ten days’ leave between deployments.

  In September 1973 Brian got his way and an SAS Tac HQ was established next to a scruffy little airstrip at Macombe. Macombe was a Portuguese aldeamento on the south bank of the Zambezi River lying midway between the north-flowing rivers Angwa and Musengezi. Two Provosts and two Alouettes positioned forward from Musengezi Mission to Macombe on a daytime-only basis, as SAS could not guarantee their safety at night.

  From the outset the SAS was entirely successful in this new style of operation but the RAR deployment to Macombe was withheld for months. So any advantages given by the natural Zambezi River obstacle and the disruptive effects of the SAS operations to its north were largely lost. Nevertheless SAS disruption of ZANLA’s supply lines greatly assisted in relieving internal stresses.

  I visited Brian at Macombe when he first moved there and passed him all the information I had gained from my recce work north of the Zambezi. Again I suggested to him that I should continue visual recce to continuously update the information and provide him with a daytime radio link to his troops. Brian would not entertain the idea. He continued to insist that, except in emergency, the SAS areas of operation should be free of any air activity. Contrary to Brian Robinson’s thinking, mine was that aircraft on visual reconnaissance should be a permanent feature over the entire Tete region, both within and beyond the SAS areas of operations. I contended that it was essential to provide the SAS with fresh intelligence upon which to plan, thereby saving lengthy ground recces to find the best sites to monitor, ambush or attack.

  Over months to come I would build up information on civilian locations, routes and terrorist camps covering large areas beyond those in which the SAS were active. When SAS operations switched to areas I had covered, as much as six weeks previously, Brian reported that my information, though correct, was out of date. Not surprisingly the men on the ground ignored much of the air recce intelligence that had been so painstakingly put together. But one thing they helped clarify was that I had been accurate in my assessment of terrorist bases, as opposed to civilian camps. What had helped me distinguish between these sites, which looked much the same from height, were female toilet paths leading out of civilian locations.

  I was so frustrated by Brian Robinson’s attitude that I opted for air-controlled strikes on fresh terrorist bases. The Air Force never expected the successes that could be achieved by a pure SAS ground attack or those involving air strikes in conjunction with the SAS. Nevertheless, we knew that FAC strikes would demoralise and disrupt FRELIMO and ZANLA in areas unattended by SAS. In too many respects our Air Force had been forced to act independently in like manner to the Portuguese, which we had criticised so strongly—but there were advantages to be gained. I continued recces north of the Zambezi, always keeping well clear of the SAS and taking time before calling for jet-strikes. Once these got under way we developed procedures that required close understanding and co-operation. It took a few calls before FAC-controlled airstrikes became a well-honed routine.

  As mentioned earlier, jet-strikes in direct support of earlier SAS operations had been very hit-and-miss affairs that improved little over time. For the men on the ground, particularly in flat terrain, there were considerable difficulties in judging the exact point of a jet-strike because bush and rough ground usually intervened between the GAC location and target. This meant that corrections had to be assessed from the sound of exploding weapons or from dust rising above the bush some seconds after each strike. FAC did not suffer these difficulties.

  The cost of live strikes on terrorist bases w
as naturally much greater than on routine weapons training, but routine training was conducted on a range that every pilot and navigator knew intimately. Unlike calls to live targets, routine training required no hurried navigation planning or the split-second timing involved in co-ordinating fast jets with a slow-flying FAC aircraft.

  Perfect timing for maximum surprise followed by slick and accurate placement of weapons were all essential ingredients considering the speed at which terrorists could run clear of their bases. The value gained by jet crews scrambling to meet FAC in remote areas for strikes on never-before-seen targets was immense, and it prepared us well for the future.

  With every target’s grid reference I also gave an IP (Initial Point) and the exact time of my marker strike. The jets planned to fly directly to the IP—a clearly identifiable feature out of sight and hearing range of the target itself. Formation leaders worked out the heading and precise flight time from the IP to target so as to strike no more than three seconds behind my target markers. I too would have an IP point from which to move in orbits towards the target.

  Canberras could not strike anything like as quickly as the fighter-bombers because the bomb-aimer required time to pass heading corrections to his pilot which necessitated quite a large stand-off distance at the moment of mark, so they were never used alone for FAC work against fleeting targets. In addition to the long run in, the flight time of bombs exceeded 10 seconds and shrapnel settling time limited following Canberras to long intervals between individual strikes. Consequently Hunters or Vampires usually preceded Canberras. Strikes initiated by Canberras with fighter-bombers following became commonplace in later years when the bombers made their attacks in formation. However, most early FAC work was with Hunters only—usually four of them.