Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  We were told that Air Rhodesia’s engineers and upper management were fully aware of what had been done to protect Dakotas and they agreed that a similar style of engineering could be employed to shroud Viscount exhaust pipes. The matter of repainting the Viscounts presented no special problem. However, despite a very cordial meeting, both Archie and I sensed that there was no real interest because Air Rhodesia’s managers seemed unable to accept that Strela would ever be a threat to civilian airliners.

  Army Sub-JOC commanders

  ON 4 JUNE 1974, LIEUTENANT-COLONEL Dave Parker, the Army Commander at JOC Darwin, asked me to take him along on a recce flight. He had been impressed with air recce successes and wanted to gain first-hand knowledge of how we searched for CT camps and what ground patterns attracted a pilot’s attention. His open-mindedness and desire to learn from direct experience was very refreshing. Throughout our flight his questions and observations made it plain that he was very switched-on. Having shown Dave a few bases I had found previously we were fortunate to find a new one that appeared to be in use. Surprisingly he saw the base more easily than many of the pilots I had trained and his excitement was infectious.

  Three helicopters brought in twelve RLI troops. Dave could see immediately that they were going to be too thin on the ground to have any chance of boxing in the area around a camp site that offered the CTs a number of escape routes in good cover.

  Tree-ship Fireforce.

  I directed the lead helicopter to position 150 metres to one side of the CT base by calling “Camp centre 150 to your right… NOW.” Troops were put down simultaneously on three sides of the camp before the lead helicopter climbed to 1,000 feet to direct the troops towards the camp. The other two put in dummy drops in gaps between the troops in an attempt to make CTs uncertain of which way to break. They then returned to Mount Darwin for more troops.

  Contact was made before Dave and I saw two groups of four CTs breaking at high speed through a huge gap between the soldiers. Being unarmed I could do nothing about this, and the orbiting helicopter was already engaging CTs inside the camp. We had to be content with two CTs killed and one captured wounded with no less than eight CTs seen to escape. This experience certainly highlighted for Dave Parker the reason why Air Force had been asking to concentrate helicopters with permanent reaction troops, not simply to reduce the size of gaps, but to improve soldiers’ efficiency under the direction of their own airborne commanders. Greater levels of immediate intelligence flowing from Selous Scouts made the availability of this type of reaction group all the more important.

  There had been a few successes when helicopters and troops were brought together with an Army commander directing his troops from a helicopter. For the most part, however, helicopters had been penny-packeted to meet far too many unprofitable calls. This had been at high cost considering the unacceptably low returns for effort expended.

  It so happened that two Alouette gunships were used for the first time on this very day, though neither one was available for our small action. Earlier in the day, Flight Lieutenant Rob McGregor and Sergeant Henry Jarvie had flown top cover to trooping helicopters. When the trooper helicopters had left the scene, a well-known wounded CT leader, who was hiding in a hut with other wounded CTs, pinned down the ground forces. This gave Rob and Henry opportunity to employ their 20mm side-firing cannon, which resulted in the death of all the CTs. During the late afternoon Flight Lieutenant John Annan and Sergeant Morris fired their cannon in another action but with no confirmed results.

  The arrival of gunships, improving Selous Scouts effectiveness and Dave Parker’s influence in the field made it possible, at last, to introduce the permanent reaction force the Air Force had been advocating for some time. The Air Force had not been alone in seeking this concentration of forces because a number of RLI commando commanders had been pressing for the same thing. To my own knowledge these included RLI Captains Jerry Strong, Pat Armstrong and Dumpy Pearce.

  As with the Portuguese assault force at Estima, this involved grouping troops, trooper helicopters, helicopter gunships and armed fixed-wing aircraft. We could not possibly match the lift capacity of the Portuguese but we had the advantage of having very aggressive RLI soldiers and could provide their commanders a seat in a gunship from which to observe and direct them. The continuous presence of a gunship overhead each action also facilitated immediate supporting fire to ground troops or to engage targets moving beyond their reach.

  Within a few days this reaction force, soon to be called Fireforce, was put into effect and the results achieved over the following six months were astounding. Dave Parker had much to do with bringing the first permanent combined force into being at Mount Darwin.

  Dave was a truly superb individual who was held in high regard by all who knew him. He was blessed with many talents that included flexibility of mind and a desire to actively seek and receive the opinions of others without regard to their rank. He absorbed everything he heard before reaching decisions that were reduced to clear-cut plans and instructions. He also had the rare ability to admit to occasional error, never offering excuses for his own mistakes. It was no wonder that the RLI troops nicknamed Dave Parker ‘The King’.

  Five weeks after my flight with Dave Parker I flew with Lieutenant-Colonel Bert Barnard, an RAR officer. Bert was the Army commander at JOC Centenary, the post he had held from the outset of Op Hurricane. Along with most Army and Air Force officers I found Bert Barnard to be the exact opposite of Dave Parker. He was pompous, highly self-opinionated and intolerant of opinions emanating from any rank below his own.

  My Flying Logbook shows that he accompanied me on a visual recce sortie that lasted for only one hour and twenty-fve minutes. Bert became bored and asked to return to Centenary on the pretext of matters requiring his urgent attention; a marked contrast to Dave Parker’s flight of over six hours, following which he had expressed disbelief at having been airborne so long.

  Fireforce might have come into effect much sooner, admittedly without gunships, had Bert Barnard listened to Air Force and RLI opinion. However, none of us had yet realised that we should have pressed for penny-packeting of helicopters to bring him, inevitably, to the opposite view of needing to concentrate forces.

  Fireforce and Scouts

  ON COMPLETION OF TRIALS AND training for the new 20mm helicopter cannons, helicopters and RLI commandos teamed up to form two assault forces, initially comprising one 20mm gunship and four trooper helicopters, each carrying four soldiers. Mount Darwin and Centenary had one force each.

  To distinguish between gunships, Rhodesian troopers and SAAF troopers, abbreviations were introduced. Influenced by a popular British Police TV series then showing in Salisbury and entitled ‘Zed Cars’, the helicopters became:

  K-Car (Kay)—gunship (killer)-cum-command post

  G-Car (Gee)—trooping and general purpose—Rhodesian

  Z-Car (Zed)—trooping and general purpose—SAAF

  The first action out of Mount Darwin occurred on 21 June 1974. John Annan, flying the gunship with Sergeant Garry Whittal as his gunner, led four trooper helicopters and a Provost. Two G-Cars were crewed by Squadron Leader Eddie Wilkinson (OC 7 Squadron) with Sergeant Pete McCabe and Flight Lieutenant Ken Law with Flight Sergeant Farrell. Two Z-Cars were crewed by Captain du Plessis with Sergeant Hulatt, and Lieutenant Anderson with Sergeant Veldman. Air Lieutenant Steve Baldwin flew the Provost.

  The ASR is typically brief. It reads:

  1. K-Car led four troopers in an assault on a position where an observation post reported seeing 6 terrorists being fed. Troopships landed assault force in vicinity of kraal to southeast of terrorist position. K-Car engaged terrorists in a passing attack pattern to cover the landing.

  2. Position of terrorists was exactly as given, but approximately 20 terrorists were seen. K-Car engaged terrorists as they split up and ran. Then assisted by a Provost and the troopships, the terrorists were engaged for approximately 20 minutes until all had “gone to ground”.
The aircraft continued to orbit the area in order to limit terrorist movement while ground forces moved into the contact area.

  3. Approximately 15 ters seen to fall during strikes, but several of these were seen to move again afterwards.

  4. Return fire was heard on many occasions but the aircraft were only hit twice. (Provost one round, Zed car 3 rounds)

  5. Good surprise was achieved due to an approach route screened by hills and the Provost providing some screening of the helicopter noise during the approach.

  John said, “Return fire was heard on many occasions…” Bearing in mind the high level of noise inside a helicopter and the marked reduction in surrounding noises when wearing padded earphones under a ‘bone-dome’, the sound level of sharp supersonic cracks from rounds passing close to a helicopter was substantially diminished. In fact passing machine-gun rounds sounded something like a swarm of bees striking the windscreen of a fast moving motorcar. So when helicopter crew heard this, they knew rounds were passing either through their craft or very close to it.

  Wing Commander Roy Morris was OC FAF 4 at the time. His comments were:

  The reaction with all available effort was quick and efficient. Full credit must go to all aircrew involved with this most successful operation which lasted for 4 hours. The participation of the two South Africans, Capt du Plessis and Lt Anderson is worthy of special mention. Their enthusiasm and high standard of professionalism was most commendable. The general co-ordination of all parties involved (Support Gp – RLI, 4 Sqn and helicopters of 7 Sqn) was first class. Of a group of approx. 35, some 25 were accounted for. A first class show highlighting the effectiveness of helicopter firepower. This action accounted for 20 CTs dead and 5 wounded. Most of the dead and all of the wounded had been accounted for by the 20mm gunship, which was operated by Garry Whittal. He had only just arrived at Mount Darwin on crew changeover having never fired the 20mm cannon before. His squadron had planned for him to do this on arrival at Mount Darwin. However, the Fireforce call came too early so his first experience with the weapon was made in anger. He did well!

  In his ASR a couple of days later, Flight Lieutenant George Wrigley, flying K-Car, with Sergeant Pete McCabe as his gunner, made this observation:

  The group was engaged and ters were seen to fall but rise and run again. It was frustrating to watch groups of 5 – 6 with rounds burst amongst them. Many managed to recover enough to clear from the contact area before the troops had swept through. It is felt, however, that 70–80% suffered hits of some degree.

  As I had witnessed in Mozambique, the 20mm rounds were bursting below surface where the full effect of shrapnel was lost. Whereas this troubled the Air Force, the Selous Scouts were very pleased because the number of CTs captured wounded helped swell their ‘tame ter’ ranks. The Selous Scouts had learned very early on how easy it was to denude CTs of politically induced hullabaloo and bring them back to being themselves again.

  Although most shrapnel was lost into the ground, a limited number of low-grade bits of 20mm shell casing burst steeply upward. Any CT close enough to a below surface burst was usually subjected to minor wounding of legs, buttocks and groin. Occasionally large pieces of casing caused death or serious injury. Gunners soon learned that a direct hit on a CT, effectively an airburst, was disastrous for him and others in his proximity, but this was difficult to achieve with the slow-firing cannon. Good gunners, of which there were many, learned to aim for hard surfaces such as rock and large trees to induce lethal effect and often withheld fire until CTs moved close to such surfaces.

  Initially, every fifth 20mm round in the 20mm ammunition belt was a tracer round which proved to be unnecessary for air-to-ground firing. The highly visible flash from each exploding round was more than sufficient for sighting corrections, so tracer rounds were removed.

  K-Car during a turn-around servicing. Note that the rear cabin had only a kneeling cushion to give the gunner maximum freedom of movement. Army commander’s seat is just visible in front corner of cabin. Observers on the ground or in the air could easily identify K-Car by the highly visible long 20mm gun barrel. Terrorists were especially aware of K-Car position during contacts.

  Tol Janeke had just taken over the post of OC FAF 4 when Selous Scouts initiated an action that ran smoother than any previous Scouts call. On 28 September Air Lieutenant Roger Watt, flying K-Car with Flight Sergeant Norman Farrell, led two G-Cars and three Z-Cars to a CT base whose location had not been precisely identified. Roger’s ASR gives references to his accompanying sketch of the action. Since the sketch is not reproduced here, the references appear as blanks in this otherwise verbatim report:

  1. I was the pilot of the K-Car detailed to lead an assault on a suspect terrorist base camp at approx. US504754 as indicated by Selous Scouts. The helicopter formation approached the area from the East preceded by a Trojan at about 1,500 feet AGL to act as a noise decoy, and a Provost followed behind in support.

  2. On arrival in the area the Scouts told me that the camp was on the southern bank of the river, but they weren’t sure exactly where. I got into an orbit in the centre of the area and asked Yellow 2 to orbit to the East and Yellow 6 to the West, while the rest of the formation just did a wide orbit of the area.

  3. After a visual search of the area for about 5 minutes, the Army Commander and I decided to deplane the troops to search out the odd suspicious area. The sticks were dropped off at……… and were instructed to move to………

  4. I then sent Yellow 2,3 & 4 back to Mt. Darwin to take part in another planned assault, while Yellow 5 & 6 and I remained in the area. After a further 5-8 minutes nothing had occurred so I sent Yellow 5 & 6 to Dotito to refuel.

  5. At this stage my tech saw birds fly out of a thickly wooded ravine, but I decided not to fire into the area, as we could not see anything and were therefore uncertain whether the birds had been scared off or not, and also that stick No 2 was soon going to search the area anyway.

  6. After a further 5 minutes I was orbiting Stick 4 when stick 2 called “Contact”. I immediately flew to the area and found out that the stick leader had a slight leg wound, and that he had killed 2 terrs.

  7. As we got to the contact area I saw a group of 5 terrs running along the southern bank in an easterly direction. We opened fire on them and immediately killed one at……… The other four ran into a small river and started running south, but we killed all four at……… We then saw two terrs running along the river in an easterly direction and killed both of them.

  8. During this engagement I had recalled Yellow 5 & 6 from Dotito and they had uplifted sticks 4 and 6 and flown them in to reinforce stick 2. Yellow 5 had been recalled from Darwin with a doctor to tend to the wounded (2 terrs died before he arrived) and to take care of the casevac (Lt. Bax).

  9. I then directed the callsigns onto the bodies and we found that Stick 2 had killed 3 ters at……… and Stick 3 had killed 2. I then returned to base.

  As OC FAF 4, Tol Janeke had this to say:

  a. This was a first class operation in every respect. The co-operation between air and ground was good and at no time was there any confusion. The movement and deployment of troops was handled by Maj. Lambert from the ‘K’ car. This personal contact with his sticks paid dividends.

  b. The entire group of terrorists was accounted for in this contact. This would probably have not been the case if the ‘K’ Car had not been available. It would certainly be a great loss to the operational effectiveness of the fire force if we should run out of ammunition.

  c. Pre-briefing of the Trojan to act as noise cover was also successful. The callsign which had reported the presence commented that he had not heard the helicopters until they were within 1000 metres of the area. This tactic will be used when possible but it will no doubt soon become known to the terrorists.

  d. The ‘K’ Car on occasions fired within 50 metres of our troops but discussion with these troops indicated that they considered it safe under the circumstances. The ‘K’ Car, hav
ing deployed the sticks was fully aware of their positions on the ground at all times.

  The term ‘Fireforce’ (my underlining above) was used for the first time in this ASR and Major Lambert was the first ‘official’ airborne Army Fireforce commander. However, as previously stated, control of ground troops by Army commanders flying in helicopters had been used previously. Tol Janeke referred to a shortage of 20mm ammunition for our gunships. This problem applied to many other critical commodities and the reasons for this will become clear later. What is not made clear was the decision to move back-up troops and fuel forward to Dotito (a small village) by road at the same time that the main force flew out of Mount Darwin. This became fairly standard procedure for many Fireforce operations that followed to reduce reaction time.

  In all actions the K-Car orbited to the left because the 20mm cannon, whose long barrel protruded out into the airflow, was mounted on the port side. The gunner needed maximum traverse of his cannon, which was difficult in the confines of the cabin. This would have made an airborne Army commander’s presence intolerable if he had occupied a standard forward-facing seat. To resolve this difficulty, his seat was reversed and secured in the front left-hand corner of the cabin. Although this meant having to face backwards, Army Fire Force commanders had an unrestricted view of the ground that concerned them and most mastered with ease the problem of ‘flying backwards’.

  Whereas a pilot’s view was totally unrestricted in a right-hand turn, this was not the case in the offensive left-hand orbit. The presence of the Army officer, the instrument console, the cabin floor and the gunner, particularly when he was firing, restricted a K-Car pilot’s visual freedom. Nevertheless, by having control of the aircraft flight path and bank angle, K-Car pilots managed very well indeed.