Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  All of our preparatory instruction made the leap into space fantastic but I was mildly surprised when pitched into a horizontal posture as the parachute deployed with noticeable creaking of the harness at shoulder level; then everything became dead-quiet. As instructed, I looked up to check the canopy and noticed that it appeared much smaller that I had expected. All was well, so it was just a matter of pulling the seat strap under my buttocks to get into a sitting position and then, with left hand holding the right-hand lift web above my head, I undid the harness buckle and pulled the securing straps away from my front. Having done this, the right hand crossed over to hold the left lift strap above my head, and I was set to enjoy the ride down, with Sandy Mutch ahead and below me.

  Lake McIlwaine’s water was pea-green with algae due to abnormally high levels of nutrients that had come downriver from Salisbury. On the green surface were two powerboats waiting to collect us. From one of these there came the clear voice of Flight Lieutenant Boet Swart, OC Parachute Training School, who was bellowing at Sandy Mutch to undo his harness. Sandy stubbornly refused to comply.

  One seemed to be suspended in a static position for ages until, suddenly, perspectives changed rapidly as the water rushed up. Seeing this, it was just a matter of straightening one’s legs to slip off the seat strap and remain hanging on the lift webs. As my feet touched water I let go of the lift webs. The water was surprisingly warm with zero visibility as I swam under the canopy and came to the surface to find outstretched hands reaching from the recovery boat. Once on board I saw that my parachute had already been recovered.

  As the other recovery boat passed us to collect following parachutists, Boet Swart’s angry words carried across the water. He was blasting Sandy Mutch for not having observed safety regulation by remaining in the harness that was still firmly strapped to him when he was pulled into the boat. I found this an amusing end to a superb experience.

  Standing: John Blythe-Wood, PB, Peter Knobel, Boet Swart, Sandy Mutch, Keith Corrans, Derek de Kok, Pete Woolcock and Brian Murdoch. Kneeling: Frank Hales, Bill Maitland, Ian Harvey, Lofty Hughes, unknown. Sitting: Tol Janeke, Ed Potterton, unknown, unknown.

  Although a member of Air Staff, I had been deployed from June right through to the end of September to teach many pilots visual recce; there being no one else to do the job. When eventually I returned to Salisbury, hoping to commence work on a few projects I had lined up, I learned that four South African pilots were on their way to Rhodesia for recce training.

  Jan Mienie, Francois du Toit, Eugene Coetzer and Don Jordaan were by far the most willing pilots I had flown with. This made teaching them, even in the most trying dry conditions with no terrorists around, a much easier task than expected.

  These four men could not get over the living conditions at FAF 5, Mtoko. They considered this to be a place of luxury and found the food equal to the best of home cooking. They were right I suppose, because we tended to take for granted the efforts of Squadron Leader Murray Hofmeyr and other members of Air HQ staff. They went to great lengths to provide the best possible accommodation and comforts, including swimming pools, from the meagre funds allocated for each forward air base.

  Swimming pool at FAF 5 with Chopper Arms beyond.

  Regular caterers from the various messes at New Sarum and Thornhill did two-week stints in the field where they did wonders with the regular run of fresh rations for their kitchens. The squadron technicians always praised the quantity and quality of food served by preceding caterers to ensure that the current staff would compete for higher accolades.

  Jan, Francois, Eugene and Don flew with me in pairs for three sorties each before launching off on their own to cover ground allocated to them. Every fourth day one of them flew with me so that I could check out the places they had marked on their maps. By Christmas they had covered the entire operational area from Mount Darwin eastward to the border and had pinpointed every old CT base and feeding-point previously recorded in the dry season.

  The rains had set in and the bush was thickening when I took the opportunity to take my four South African charges to Salisbury for a grand Christmas luncheon with my extended family. The next day we returned to Mtoko believing that ZANLA’s return was imminent.

  At about this time Shell & BP installed underground fuel tanks for Avtur and Avgas at FAF 5. Amazingly the engineer responsible for the work was a very good-looking woman, Di Edmunds. In the evening she was beautifully dressed and trimmed, every bit a lady. By day she was something else. In overalls and wielding a heavy pipe wrench with the ease of a tough rigger, she drove her team of four black men relentlessly to keep up with the high rate at which she worked. In doing this, she employed the foulest language I have ever heard. This not only amazed the men at FAF 5; it caused them to keep well clear of her in daylight hours.

  Détente and SB

  FOUR MONTHS EARLIER, ON 25 AUGUST 1975, a much-publicised South African and Zambian détente-generated meeting between the Rhodesian Government, ZAPU and ZANU took place in a South African Railways carriage on the Victoria Falls Bridge midway between Rhodesia and Zambia. The meeting was another détente failure despite the assurances given Ian Smith by Prime Minister Vorster and President Kaunda that ZAPU and ZANU were ready and willing to meet formally with the Rhodesian Government leaders. To facilitate this meeting, leading men of ZAPU and ZANU had been released, on parole, from Rhodesian prisons; another huge political error forced on Rhodesia by Vorster.

  The object of the meeting had been to give the parties opportunity to express, publicly and without preconditions, their genuine desire to negotiate for an acceptable settlement. This was to be followed by the disengagement of forces and talks between the parties on Rhodesian soil.

  As expected from past bitter experience, preconditions were raised in the very first statement that was made on behalf of ZANU and ZAPU by Bishop Abel Muzorewa. At the luncheon recess, ZANU and ZAPU delegates cleaned out the vast liquor holdings of the South African Railways bar before making a drunken departure back to Zambia. They were totally incapable of returning for the afternoon session. Later a message from Zambia indicated that neither ZAPU nor ZANU had any intention of honouring their agreements with Kaunda and Vorster. So that was the end of Vorster’s ‘guaranteed’ détente initiative.

  At the time it was clear that ZAPU had one undisputed leader, Joshua Nkomo, who continued to be wrongly viewed by Kaunda as the leader of all Rhodesia’s African people. Within ZANU there was turmoil with three people claiming to be its leader. They were Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the Reverend Ndabaningi Sithole and Robert Mugabe. Not only was there confusion in political ranks; there existed huge rifts in the ZANLA ranks between members of the Karanga, Manyika and Chizezuru factions. Such is the nature of African politics.

  A Special Branch agent in Zambia had used a custom-made bomb to assassinate ZANLA’s operations chief, Herbert Chitepo, to engineer more confusion. Chitepo’s VW Beetle activated the bomb’s electrical firing mechanism when he reversed out of the driveway of his rented home in Lusaka. The assassination had been rigged in a manner that fingered members of ZANLA’s DARE (military high command) and led to the arrest and imprisonment of Josiah Tongogara and other senior military personnel; leaving ZANLA headless.

  It was all very well to be content with a high attrition rate amongst ZANLA’s numbers inside the country, but as I have said, most Rhodesian officers realised that the best place to fight the enemy was beyond one’s borders. With reducing numbers of ZANLA personnel inside Rhodesia and troubles in ZANLA’s command structures, it was the perfect time to strike hard and in depth to stem the inward flow of replacements. However, as has been stated already, South Africa made overt action impossible.

  Frustrating political constraints on the military desire to take the war into hostile Mozambique and Zambia continued to be, so far as we could see, the consequence of Vorster’s obsession with his détente initiatives. Ian Smith’s book The Great Betrayal released over twenty years later confirms thes
e suspicions.

  However, because of the nature of its operations Special Branch had never been constrained in the same way as the military, and SB was determined to make the best of this unique situation. They had no intention of sitting back and waiting for increased troubles with intensified bloodshed when détente initiatives for the December 1974 ceasefire were seen to be against Rhodesia’s interests. The SB knew that this and future détente initiatives would fail; so they aimed to capitalise on ZANLA’s confused situation by intensifying it. Inside Mozambique, no great distance from Mukumbura, SB and Army intelligence officers managed to set up meetings with Thomas Nhari. He was a ZANLA field commander and member of the DARE. Meetings with Nhari and his lieutenants occurred on three or four occasions between September and November 1974. This was a period when ZANLA was already pretty punch-drunk from our mounting successes inside the country and from the SAS’s continued attacks along their ‘safe routes’ in Mozambique.

  Thomas Nhari, like Rex Nhongo, had been a Russian-trained member of ZAPU before defecting to ZANU in 1971. For the SB and Army officers, posing as white left-wing agitators, it was easy to persuade Nhari that ZANLA was failing inside Rhodesia because they were following Chinese philosophies and using light weapons when what they really needed were heavy weapons, as advocated by the Russians.

  The enormous casualties suffered by ZANLA seemed to give credibility to the lie and Nhari and his followers were fired by these thoughts. They accepted as truth many accusations that pointed to the fact that all ZANLA’s weaknesses lay squarely with ZANU politicians and senior DARE members. These people lived lives of luxury in Lusaka, never caring a damn for the lives of armed ZANLA comrades who suffered immense dangers and hardships in blind support of selfish ‘fat cats’. Nhari was persuaded that he could secure power to himself and his followers and then come to an accommodation with the Rhodesian Government.

  The SB selection of Nhari was no mistake. He happened to be a highly respected leader who treated his men well and protected them from the bully elements amongst ZANLA’s field commanders. Once convinced he should take action against his seniors in Lusaka, it took little time for him to gather together a suitable force for a task he liked to believe was entirely of his own making. The SB did not expect Nhari to succeed; in fact they hoped he would fail.

  Nhari’s rebel force first secured ZANLA’s main base in Mozambique. This was at FRELIMO’s HQ base, Chifombo. Any resistance to his leadership was handled by burying his detractors alive. Nhari then set out for Lusaka to overpower the ZANU hierarchy and ZANLA’s ruling committee, the DARE. Fighting broke out in the streets of Kamwala in Lusaka as the Nhari rebel force tried to gain control. Tongogara’s wife and a number of ZANU and DARE officials were kidnapped. As had been hoped, Nhari botched the job and, together with many of his followers, died for his efforts; but not before bringing about serious repercussions within the high command and drawing down on ZANU the displeasure of the Lusaka Government.

  The ‘Nhari Rebellion’, as it became known, caused serious disruption in ZANLA ranks and it took the remaining elements of the DARE some time to regain control and neutralise all of Nhari’s followers. The SB was well pleased with Nhari’s achievements and even misled Lusaka with trumped-up intelligence reports to capitalise on the rebellion and further undermine Zambian relationships with ZANU.

  CTs prepare to resume war

  THE PRESIDENTS OF THE FRONTLINE States had been misled by ZAPU and ZANU into believing there could be no accommodation with the Rhodesian Government, so they pressurised ZAPU and ZANU into establishing a unified political front. Presidents Kaunda and Nyerere also insisted that ZIPRA and ZANLA must go back to war as one unified force.

  A few ZANLA commanders, and particularly Josiah Tongogara who was still in prison, saw the sense of unification. They had seen that, following Angola’s independence, the split interests of four guerrilla forces was already developing into a civil war that was certain to last for years; and they did not want to see this happen in ‘free Zimbabwe’. ZAPU and its military wing ZIPRA were still intact and enjoyed total support from the Zambian Government. For ZANU things were not so rosy, particularly with Tongogara and his DARE still ensconced in a Zambian prison. Sithole had been rejected as the political figurehead in favour of Mugabe, but for the time being Mugabe was out of reach.

  Robert Gabriel Mugabe was fifty-one years of age when he and Edgar Tekere broke parole in March 1975. Then, acting on instructions from the ZANU Central Committee in Lusaka, Chief Tangwena smuggled them across the border into Mozambique. Mugabe was one of the few academics in ZANU and for some years had been recognised as a revolutionary activist whose thoughts and ideals were deeply rooted in Marxist teaching.

  Mugabe’s task in Mozambique was to regroup ZANLA’s forces, receive large numbers of school children pouring into Mozambique for training and resume the war with all haste. Though he and Tekere commenced work immediately, they were limited by FRELIMO who, not realising these men were high-ranking officials acting under mandate from ZANU’s executive, took them away from the ZANLA camps and confined them to the coastal town of Quelimane. Whilst there, Mugabe was appointed President of ZANU by the DARE members still in prison in Zambia and this was confirmed by ZANU forces in Mgagao in Tanzania. But it was not until early 1976 that Mugabe’s appointment to the leadership of ZANU became known to FRELIMO, after which he was free to exercise his authority in Mozambique. By that time the war had already resumed under the leadership of Rex Nhongo.

  Mugabe’s leadership of ZANU, and therefore of ZANLA, would not have occurred but for his release from detention to satisfy the Vorster-Kaunda détente initiatives. Even so, he might never have gained ascendancy had tribal rivalries and personal ambitions not plagued the nationalist cause with continuous unrest. In 1975, for instance, there existed a number of organisations. These were the ANC, ZAPU, ZANU and FROLIZI. The ANC was supposed to be the umbrella organisation under which the three independent opposition formations were expected to unify. But, as with any unification attempts in Africa, the ANC failed to overcome never-ending jostling for personal power.

  ZAPU, for its part, attempted to capitalise on its politically stronger position to gain the upper hand by insisting that the unified force sought by the Frontline presidents must fall under ZAPU’s control. Mozambique’s Samora Machel saw through this and concluded that military leaders must control fighting men. He ruled in favour of ZANLA and, on 12 November 1975 in Maputo (previously Lourenço Marques), forced ZIPRA into signing an agreement for the formation of a new Zimbabwe Liberation Army (ZIPA) under overall control of ZANLA’s Rex Nhongo.

  ZIPA was supposed to launch its offensive before Christmas Day 1975. Three sectors of Rhodesia’s long eastern border were to be penetrated simultaneously by ZIPA with the aim of spreading Rhodesian forces as thinly as possible. The northernmost push was to be through ZANLA’s Takawira sector towards the old battlegrounds of the Chaminuka and Nehanda sectors. The central push was to be along the mountainous border region centred on Umtali, and the third through the flat lands of Mozambique’s Gaza Province in the south.

  ZAPU reneged on its agreement by sending only 100 men to the ZIPA force instead of the thousands promised. When eventually they entered into Rhodesia, the ZAPU elements promptly deserted their ‘ZANLA brothers’, dumped their weapons and uniforms, and made their way to Matabeleland and thence through to Botswana back to Zambia. So much for the unified force! ZIPA never got off the ground. The SAS had severely blunted ZIPRA’s plans but ZANLA was refreshed and, although its political organisation was in a shambles, many armed men were ready to move into the country.

  At about this time I read an article in the American Time magazine reporting an incident in one of the American cities. This had absolutely nothing to do with Rhodesia but it struck me how much the reported incident illustrated the situation that was about to befall us.

  The report told of a woman who was refuelling her own motorcar. Having placed the fuel n
ozzle into her vehicle’s filler neck, she set it to run and went to check the engine’s oil level. Whilst she was doing this, the nozzle dislodged from the filler neck and fell to the floor still spewing fuel. Somehow the fuel ignited, making it impossible to get to the nozzle or the pump-stand. The car caught alight and burning fuel poured into a shallow water drain along the main road. Many people, including the owner of the petrol station, panicked and rushed in with fire extinguishers from adjacent stores but theirs was a no-win situation. The fire continued to worsen until a sensible old man arrived on the scene. He immediately asked for directions to the station’s electrical control box. He went quietly to the box and switched off the electrical mains switch. This stopped the flow of fuel and the fire burned itself out quickly.

  The analogy of this story with Rhodesia is that the continuously flowing fuel represented the terrorists. The panicking people fighting the burning fuel represented the Rhodesian Government and our security forces. The sensible old man represented senior military officers who sought to turn off the switch by striking every external structure involved in supporting the flow of trained CTs. But access to the switch was barred by South Africa.

  Return of ZANLA

  IN EARLY JANUARY 1976, THE northern penetrations commenced. Plans for simultaneous crossings on the other two fronts were stymied for a short while by logistical shortcomings and because FRELIMO was experiencing difficulties with dissident elements within its own forces close to the Rhodesian border. These dissidents may well have been those responsible for firing at every Rhodesian vehicle or aircraft moving near the border over previous months.