Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  It appeared to me that only the RLI, Air Force and Special Branch gave the Selous Scouts support and credit for the incredible work they were doing. Like others, I was often niggled by Selous Scouts ‘freezing’ areas in which pseudo teams were working when I myself had planned to operate over those same areas. But the reason for disallowing any security forces into the ‘frozen areas’ was so obviously intended to avoid misidentification and unnecessary casualties that one learned to live with the situation. Besides, I repeat, most of our successes were coming from the ‘frozen areas’.

  I believe the real reason for the Air Force’s positive attitude was that, almost from the start, helicopter crews deployed and recovered pseudo operators to and from their screened-of ‘forts’, so they got to know the Scouts operators personally and were involved in most of their pseudo successes. Apart from this, the Air Force was totally unaffected by Selous Scouts manpower and equipment needs.

  A major problem in not having a national military strategy was the periodic misuse of the SAS due to differences in opinions on how the specialist unit should be employed. When made available to JOC Hurricane, the SAS were correctly used to disrupt ZANLA’s external communication routes. When detached to JOC Repulse, they were often used incorrectly on internal Fireforce tasks.

  Another weakness in not having an executive command was that a general lack of co-ordination and co-operation went counter to ensuring the optimum utilisation of resources. Provincial JOCs hung jealously to whatever was theirs, often showing a marked reluctance to assist in matters outside of their boundaries—even though ZANLA’s operational zones overlapped our provincial boundaries.

  The consequence of all this, and ZANLA’s ever-increasing numbers, was that an air of depression set in and many Rhodesians were emigrating in what was unkindly referred to as ‘the chicken run’. Almost every able-bodied white male was involved in military call-up and everyone could see that the political assurance that Rhodesia would win through was no more than a smoke screen. The Rhodesian press and radio boasted high successes against ZANLA, but studiously avoided telling the civilian population that, for every ZANLA killed or captured two or more replacements flowed in. There was clearly a need to turn things around and indications that such action was about to be taken came when Ian Smith was seen moving around the op areas more than usual.

  Pilot John Annan with Prime Minister Ian Smith and the Air Force Commander Air Marshal Mick McLaren about to take his seat. Army Commander General Peter Walls is on the other side of the aircraft. The aerials on the front of the aircraft were for the Becker Homer device that made locating callsigns so much easier.

  The move came in March 1977 when a major change in command structure was implemented in an attempt to emulate the direction Britain had taken in handling a similar situation in Malaya during the early 1950s. The British Government appointed General Gerald Templar as Supreme Commander over every arm of government with instructions to reverse ever-mounting Chinese communist successes in their bid to take control of Malaya. As Malaya’s Supremo General Templar’s successes had been spectacular so now, almost too late in the day, Rhodesia aimed to follow suit.

  Lieutenant-General Peter Walls was appointed Rhodesia’s Supremo and his new HQ, known as Combined Operations Headquarters (COMOPS), was established in Milton Buildings next to the Prime Minister’s offices. This same building housed Air Force HQ and the Treasury.

  Throughout the military, there was a general air of expectancy and hope because most officers were familiar with the Malayan success story. Rhodesia’s ‘C’ Squadron SAS had been formed to serve in Malaya and was used as an extension of ‘A’ and ‘B’ Squadrons of the British Special Air Service. In that war, the Rhodesian unit had borne the title ‘C’ Squadron Malayan Scouts and had been commanded by General Peter Walls, then a major.

  When General Templar took control of Malayan affairs, he first planned his strategy to counter communist forces that had been giving the authorities a severe mauling. From the start he knew that arms alone could not win the war. He realised that success depended on every governmental and private organisation acting in perfect unison with well-honed, balanced and unified military forces all acting in harmony to gain the confidence and total support of the Malayan people. Neither petty jealousies between or within any structures nor any weakness in leadership could be tolerated. The enemy had to be denied access to the civil population along with the destruction of his hitherto safe-havens deep inside the jungles. But above all, the ‘hearts and minds of the Malayan people’ was recognised as the key to defeating the communists.

  To achieve his political and military aims General Templar needed, and was given, enormous power to act unilaterally. He started by firing the Commissioner of Police and followed through by dismissing many high, and middle-ranking civil and military officers. Ignoring career planning for individuals, he promoted go-getters and soon gained the willing co-operation of the armed forces and the civil authorities. Everyone knew General Templar’s overall plan and how they, individually, fitted into it. The rest is history.

  General Templar’s plans worked because he had the power to remould all organisations and dovetail their efforts to support and implement his clearly defined strategy. He did not involve himself in tactics or the nitty-gritty, day-to-day activities, but watched the overall situation closely to ensure that timely corrective actions were taken where and when necessary.

  COMOPS had been established for the right reasons, but General Walls was not afforded the powers General Templar had enjoyed. Without these I believe he was stymied. Within a couple of weeks of its formation, it became clear that COMOPS was not going to bring about what we were expecting. Our hopes of receiving clearly defined military direction were dashed because General Templar’s single most important need to ‘win the hearts and minds of the (African) people’ found no place as the firm foundation upon which to build a total strategy. This vital issue was simply ignored. Furthermore there was no effort made to eliminate weakness in leadership at any level.

  The real strength of the Rhodesian Army at the time lay in its battle-experienced colonels, lieutenant-colonels and majors, but they stayed in their positions whilst officers of questionable character and performance remained in harness. The same applied to the Police and many government ministries. I believe that, being the smallest of the three armed forces, Air Force leadership was sound at all levels.

  General Walls (left) and Group Captain Norman Walsh (right), four years later after taking on his most difficult posting as Commander of the Air Force of Zimbabwe.

  In effect COMOPS had merely replaced OCC, but with more people attending lengthier meetings of what became known as the National JOC (NATJOC). The selection of COMOPS staff officers was left to individual HQs and this resulted in General Walls failing to receive the powerful planning staff he needed.

  The Air Force approached the formation of COMOPS seriously by posting in Group Captain Norman Walsh, a battle-experienced pilot with outstanding qualities in leadership and bags of common sense.

  The same could not be said of Army HQ’s approach to COMOPS needs. Army’s initial allocation of officers was astounding considering it possessed many top-line leaders so essential to Rhodesia’s all-important strategy-formulating body. Instead, it sent officers who were unsuited to appointments demanding clear thinking with proven records of operational proficiency and excellence in both personality and leadership. COMOPS should never have given space to any prima donna.

  All too soon it became clear that the new command was not going to serve its intended purpose but would make Rhodesia’s already difficult situation even worse. Instead of formulating strategy, COMOPS involved itself in the day-to-day running of operations, occasionally even instructing JOCs where to move small units. Proven Principles of War were ignored. In fact the only useful function I remember COMOPS performing at that time was ordering reluctant JOCs to pass over their Fireforces to adjacent JOCs when such a need arose.
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  Why General Walls allowed his pompous Director General of Operations, Brigadier Bert Barnard, to bypass Army HQ and issue directives directly to formations under Army command I cannot say. A well-balanced and unassuming officer would have passed these to Army HQ to action, thereby avoiding the unnecessary antagonism that developed very rapidly between the Army and COMOPS. So far as I was concerned, Army HQ was partly to blame for having sent the wrong man to COMOPS but General Walls more so for accepting him.

  Sadly COMOPS assumed outright operational control of the SAS and Selous Scouts, leaving Army HQ to attend to their administrative needs only. In consequence, a deep rift developed between Lieutenant-General Walls and Major-General John Hickman with devastating consequences to most aspects of Army’s operational efficiency. It resulted in pathetic ‘them and us’ attitudes at a time we so desperately needed absolute unity.

  The Police and Air Force were not affected in this way, but the all-important strategic plan we awaited was not forthcoming. I met Norman Walsh on a number of occasions and learned of his deep frustrations in this regard because the Army component of COMOPS, being greater than Air Force and Police combined, seemed unable to see the wood for the trees, and would not listen to reasoned argument. Even the Officer Commanding SAS, Major Brian Robinson, and OC Selous Scouts, Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly, told me, unreservedly, that the only senior officer in COMOPS with both feet on the ground and possessing any idea of what needed to be done was the ‘blue job’, Group Captain Walsh

  In his attempt to coerce COMOPS into action Norman recommended the employment of the SAS, Selous Scouts, elements of the RLI and Air Force in the systematic destruction of all the external routes, specifically bridges, serving ZANLA and ZIPRA communication needs. This he considered essential to slow down the unimpeded flow of men and materials into Rhodesia. The secondary effect of such action would most likely force the governments of Mozambique and Zambia to cease hosting our enemies.

  The need to destroy the communications infrastructures of both Mozambique and Zambia was old hat, having been recognised as an urgent matter ever since the collapse of the Portuguese. However, the Rhodesian ‘political ruling’ (in reality a South African imposition possibly exaggerated by CIO) against the destruction of any economic targets had always discounted such actions until, following total failure of the détente-inspired ceasefire back in August 1976, the Selous Scouts and SAS were eventually cleared to immobilise rail and road routes in Gaza Province.

  Norman Walsh knew only too well that to raise the issue of destroying bridges on such a large scale would create a political storm but, from a military standpoint, the issues had to be pressed. In fact, Norman was not so sure that the ‘politically sensitive issues’ blocking the military originated from politicians; he guessed they were more likely imposed on NATJOC by Ken Flower of CIO. However, before presenting his plans for consideration by the NATJOC Norman, working with the OC SAS, needed to select all key targets to formulate a detailed campaign to be conducted in two phases; first the destruction of Mozambican and Zambian infrastructure and secondly all CT concentrations in those two countries.

  The destruction of Mozambique’s communications infrastructure would involve ten days of intensive flying to deploy and recover specialist demolition teams and their protection elements. For this, all helicopters and Dakotas would have to be withdrawn from internal operations. The month of July offered the best weather conditions for this tightly programmed campaign. At the end of the Mozambique phase, all helicopters would have to undergo major servicing over a period of three days before launching a six-day campaign against Zambia. This meant just nineteen days of intensive effort—start to finish.

  As he anticipated, the Phase One plan failed to get past COMOPS. Had Brigadier Barnard been included in the planning, and presented it as ‘his own idea’, it might have made a difference. (This is my own biased opinion based on personal experience.) Nevertheless Norman’s plans were shelved and were only resurrected in 1979 when it was too late to materially influence Rhodesian fortunes.

  Apart from a reluctance to wage war on neighbours, which would surely increase tensions between the West and South Africa, it was feared that Zambia, seeing what was happening in Mozambique, might call for the physical support by surrogate forces (most likely Cubans) in anticipation of action against herself. Once invited, such forces would almost certainly remain in Zambia!

  The second phase of Norman’s operational plan, also external, was to become Rhodesia’s first priority if the destruction of communications was denied. This was to attack ZANLA and ZIPRA concentrations in their external bases. Undeterred by the rejection of his primary plan, Norman turned attention to our enemies’ major external havens. In the meanwhile, the SAS and Selous Scouts continued attacking small bases close to Rhodesia.

  Internally operations continued apace though a certain amount of continuation training in the field remained essential. On 4 May 1977, Air Lieutenant Bob Griffiths was tasked to carry out GAC training for local army units at the Clydesdale Battle Camp near Umtali. Along for a joyride, was Lance-Corporal Compton Brown. On completion of the training run, Rob was returning to Grand Reef at low level. Due to inexperience, he flew up the centre of a rising valley, failing to observe the golden rule of hugging the valley’s edge to give him the widest possible turn-back option, if needed. Too late he realised that he was not going to make the crest and tried to turn back. With too little space to complete a safe turnabout, he flew into rising ground. His survival in the ensuing fiery crash was a miracle and he was lucky not to have been braindamaged, but his face was permanently fire-scarred. His young passenger died instantly.

  Two weeks later, on 18 May, there was death in the air of a very different kind. Roger Watt was flying a G-Car with his tech, Rob Nelson. With them they had four game-ranger trackers who were required to assist an RAR callsign that had been in contact with a group of ZIPRA CTs near Gokwe. Roger dropped only two of the trackers with RAR because one had seen something whilst they were coming in to land. He got airborne again with the two trackers and was climbing out when all hell broke loose beneath him as he reached 1,200 feet. Smoke filled the cabin and with it there were flames. Roger immediately cut fuel-flow and commenced an autorotative forced landing but flames, coming from petrol spilling out of the aircraft’s damaged portable-refueller, intensified and burned through the cabin rear wall by the left rear cargo bay, then swirled around throughout the entire cabin. (Portable petrol-driven refuellers had replaced the pressure refuelling units many months earlier.)

  Somehow the two rangers got out onto the starboard step and were clinging on outside the cabin where they were protected from the flames by the pilot’s door. Throughout the descent raw flames continuously licked Roger but he managed to pull off a well-judged slow landing. The rangers were fine and Roger was quite badly burnt but his unfortunate tech, Rob Nelson who had been engulfed in flames, died after leaping from the aircraft whilst it was still 300 feet up.

  External operations March-June 1977

  SAS ‘COCKLESHELL HEROES’ CONFUSED FRELIMO and ZANLA completely, and had forced them to abandon large areas of Tete. ZANLA was still based way back in Tete town, but had diverted routes eastwards and made an error in routing forces through a disused Tanzanian Army base close to FRELIMO’s Chioco town.

  The Chioco base was destroyed and most of its ZANLA inhabitants were killed in an SAS assault during March. But then FRELIMO made the mistake of accepting ZANLA into Chioco town itself and that once-pretty little Portuguese administrative village was totally destroyed two months later. Air Force involvement in both of these SAS operations was limited to deployments and recoveries, although a Lynx carrying Brian Robinson had been used to cover a casevac and a pair of Hunters was used for one strike.

  It was during this period that Brian Robinson’s love of flying was sorely tested. On the night of 15 March 1977, Air SubLieutenant John Kidson was tasked to fly OC SAS on a sortie over Mozambique so that
Brian could communicate directly with his SAS callsigns engaged in these external operations. The inexperienced young pilot got airborne from FAF 5 but failed to climb at a steeper inclination than the ground that rose from the runway’s end towards Mtoko village. Fortunately the softer parts of many treetops dragged the aircraft speed down to a relatively safe speed for the eventual crunch with terra firma. The aircraft caught fire and was completely destroyed but Brian Robinson and John Kidson escaped unhurt. In spite of this experience, Brian’s passion for flying never diminished.

  In the Repulse area Fireforce was involved in an action in which the suspected presence of FRELIMO forces was confirmed when twenty ZANLA and FRELIMO died in an action inside Rhodesia. This prompted Selous Scouts to launch Operation Aztec, another ‘flying column’ foray into Gaza Province. On 29 May 1977, Scouts attacked ZANLA and FRELIMO at Jorge do Limpopo and Mapai. Although FRELIMO were getting stronger, they still had no answers to Scouts’ techniques, firepower and aggression. Mapai Airfield was secured and declared serviceable before the town itself was taken on.

  Most of the vehicles and many of the heavy guns in the Selous Scouts column had been captured during earlier operations in Gaza Province. Rather than destroy good equipment to prevent its use by the enemy, the Scouts preferred to recover whatever they could to bolster their increasing needs. During this operation they captured a number of vehicles and huge quantities of arms and ammunition. So they called for a Dakota on 30 May to fly in a team of Scouts mechanics to make necessary repairs so that their acquired vehicles could carry home all the captured equipment. Later in the day, the Dakota returned with demolition teams to assist in the destruction of structures in Mapai.