Reserve force.
Squadron Leader Rex Taylor, with a small team of Air Force VR and RLI troops, awaited the arrival of the helicopters at a ‘staging base’. This base was sited at the eastern end of a long, flat, high feature known as ‘the Train’ lying between the Rhodesian border and Lake Cabora Bassa in Tete Province. The mountain was so named because, when viewed from the south, it resembled a steam engine with a long line of carriages travelling in a westerly direction. Our landing point approximated to the position of the guard’s van.
Rex and his men had positioned the previous day to receive a large supply of fuel by para-drop. With plenty of time to spare, the fuel drums had been set out neatly throughout the open ground of the staging base and all parachutes were stacked out of harm’s way. Everything seemed unhurried as the helicopters refuelled in the crisp, early morning air.
The 176-kilometre leg from here to Tembue would normally be the maximum range for an Alouette carrying a full load of laden troops inside Rhodesia. However, being only 2,000 feet above sea level in cold conditions, it was possible for the trooper helicopters to carry an extra ten-minutes’ worth of fuel to cater for unexpected situations. Norman Walsh’s command helicopter and the K-Cars with full fuel-loads could fly to Tembue and remain over target for a little more than one hour.
I enjoyed flying low-level over territory that was so familiar to me from my recce days. The countryside was quite breathtaking and not a soul was to be seen with so much noise from so many helicopters—anyone around had disappeared into hiding. The Cabora Bassa dam was about ten meters below its maximum level and I was astonished to see how much the water had eroded the banks along hillsides with long stretches of vertical walls at water’s edge. Eight minutes from target, we heard the Hunter and Canberra radio transmissions as they made their airstrikes, dead on time. Earlier the six Dakotas had passed the helicopter force as they ran in to drop SAS and RLI paratroopers. My helicopter broke away from the others as they passed the Admin Base area. This site was populated by small trees and short grass but had plenty of openings for individual helicopters.
We landed in the centre of the selected location in the largest open space in the entire area. My immediate problem was to get the protection party down where I was and have fuel evenly distributed in the Admin Base area. George Alexander in the DC7, again flown by Captain Jack Malloch, responded perfectly to all instructions.
I had to climb onto the roof of the helicopter to see the DC7 early enough to give direction. “Red light on… five degrees right… steady… Green light.” George was listening this time. Troops and pallets descended right where I wanted them on runs left, right, short and over my position. There was a tense moment when one pallet appeared to be descending directly onto me but, happily, it drifted enough to crash through a tree next to the helicopter.
The Admin Base was only six kilometres from the nearest edge of the target so we could hear the K-Cars firing quite clearly; otherwise the bush absorbed all sounds of smallarms fire. The Tembue Admin Base task was a cakewalk compared to Chimoio. All the trooper helicopters arrived and landed well clear of the cargo parachutes. The aircrews quickly disconnected them from the pallets, bundled them neatly and moved them centrally for easy recovery. Rolling the drums and standing them up in small clumps at each helicopter landing point was hot, sweaty work for the crews who completed the job before the first K-Cars arrived in the Admin Base.
The protection troops deployed in all-round defence and were not seen again. There was only one drama in the Admin Base. Very few hits were sustained by K-Cars whose pilots reported fewer targets than they had seen in any part of Chimoio and a great deal less anti-aircraft fire. Nevertheless, one K-Car engine had taken a strike that necessitated its replacement. The technicians, using fuel drums as a working platform, made the engine change, and the helicopter that had flown it in completed the round trip from and to ‘the Train’ in less than six hours.
Awaiting para-drop of troops and pallets.
This Admin Base scene was repeated 360 degrees around.
It was late in the day when I went forward to be escorted by an SAS callsign through sections of the airstrike areas. The Alpha and Golf bomb effects were less gory than I had seen at Chimoio. However, my main interest at Tembue was to inspect the area of a flechette strike. During the planning phase of Op Dingo, I had asked Norman Walsh to consider using flechettes if he felt there was a target that suited them. Although he liked the idea, he decided against using flechettes at Chimoio because there would certainly be an international outcry following the inevitable inspection by the United Nations High Commission for Refugees. He chose rather to use one Hunter to drop a pair of flechette dispensers on the parade ground at Tembue. This was duly done.
PB’s one-man Ops Centre at Tembue. All one needed was a parachute sunshade, radio in hand, a parachute bag to sit on and a planning board.
Regrettably the daily parade had been postponed on this particular day; Sod’s law—the base commander was suffering from a hangover so the parade square was vacant at the time of strike. A lone tree just short of the parade ground, on the right side of the attack line, was tightly embedded with flechettes from its uppermost branches all the way down to the base of its trunk. The entire parade site itself was crowded with partially embedded pink tail fins that had separated from steel shafts now buried below surface. Nobody, but nobody, would have survived the daily parade had it been held at the routine time.
FRELIMO, in their own base no more than three kilometres away from the ZANLA base, had no desire to come to the assistance of their comrades. This was pleasing because there was no external interference of troops who systematically winkled out ZANLA. Close-range firefights left many ZANLA dead with no casualties to the SAS and RLI. Out on the flanks, RLI stop groups accounted for CTs trying to escape past their positions.
Late in the afternoon, Canberras returned to attack ground surrounding an abandoned Portuguese store, thirty-five kilometres to the north of Tembue. This location had only come to notice when a captured terrorist revealed that there was a concentration of trained ZANLA residing there. The Canberra crews reported that their Alpha strike had been on target and later it was learned that ZANLA at that site had suffered many casualties, most having been seriously wounded.
Departure from Tembue occurred later than intended. On the way home one helicopter pilot reported being so low on fuel that he would not be able to reach ‘the Train’. Norman Walsh instructed him to put down on a small uninhabited island in the middle of Cabora Bassa Lake and arranged for fuel drop by a Dakota that had been on standby for such an eventuality.
Even before reaching Cabora Bassa, we could see a huge storm building up way to the south along the Rhodesian escarpment. Being so late, there was concern about having to pass through this after sunset, so helicopters arriving at ‘the Train’ refuelled and departed for Mount Darwin independently. The earliest ones, including mine, managed to bypass the heavy rain centres under heavy cloud. Tail-end Charlies were not so fortunate and I became really concerned when a fair number of the helicopters, including the command helicopter, were well overdue. As the night progressed, we received calls from various widely dispersed places reporting the arrival of helicopters that were remaining in situ for the night. All had been accounted for by 8 o’clock. Norman Walsh, who held back to ensure that the crew from the little island on Cabora Bassa reached ‘the Train’ safely, was forced to land at Chiswiti near the base of the escarpment.
He and Brian Robinson were thoroughly exhausted but very relieved that Operation Dingo was now behind them. Both phases had been totally successful and they had no intention of allowing their unplanned stop to deny them from celebrating their joint success. They found the local Army base pub and proceeded to drink it dry; or so we heard.
Next morning, helicopters returned to Tembue via ‘the Train’ to collect the SAS stay-behind force. Upon their return, Op Dingo ended.
For their superb plannin
g and personal participation in these two operations, Group Captain Norman Walsh, BCR, and Major Brian Robinson, MCM, were made Officers of the Legion of Merit (Operational). They certainly deserved it. Harold Griffiths received the Jacklin Trophy from Air Marshal Mick McLaren on behalf of 7 Squadron for a year of astonishing successes, not the least being Op Dingo.
Effectiveness of Op Dingo
OPERATION DINGO COST ZANLA IN excess of 3,000 trained men killed and something in the order of 5,000 wounded, many too seriously to be of further use. Others lost all interest in fighting and deserted.
The two phases of Dingo involved the largest concentration of our air and ground effort for over four-and-a-half days and had cost us two dead, six wounded and a Vampire lost. But the successes achieved were astounding when compared to our gains inside the country during the eight-week period immediately preceding Dingo. At considerably higher costs in hours flown and weapons expended by jet, light fixed-wing and helicopter airstrikes, as recorded in 105 ASRs, only 283 CTs were positively known to have been killed with forty-two captured. There were almost certainly more CTs killed and wounded, both internally and externally, during this period but the combined figures could not compare with those of Op Dingo. Additionally, more servicemen were killed and wounded and one Lynx was lost inside the country during the same eight-week period. Two of those killed were Air Force men. They were Air Lieutenant du Plessis and Sergeant Underwood who crashed a Lynx in mountainous terrain whilst making a Frantan attack in support of Fireforce.
One important aspect of the Op Dingo successes was that it lifted moral amongst the forces and white population at a time when many civilians had lost all hope in the country’s future. Emigration figures were alarming and the civilian Territorial Force was shrinking noticeably. This had less to do with terrorism and never-ending problems with Britain and the West as with doubts about South Africa’s willingness to continue supporting us. The media said little about South African attitudes but, on their return to Rhodesia from visits to South Africa, Ian Smith’s and his ministers’ faces showed that things had changed. Gone were the smiles that were always evident after such visits. After the Portuguese collapsed our politicians looked drained and grim; the odd smile so obviously forced.
For months Ian Smith had been negotiating with local African leaders for an internal settlement that would raise Africans to political leadership under a Westminster-styled constitution. Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe had been invited to participate. Both refused, preferring armed force to gain personal power. The need to end unnecessary loss of life by Rhodesians killing Rhodesians was not for them. In fact their craving for personal power stripped them of any sense of concern for the huge numbers of people they had wasted and those they were still prepared to sacrifice.
One man involved in the internal negotiations was Bishop Abel Muzorewa, the weak-kneed leader of UANC (United African National Council). Notwithstanding the recalcitrant attitudes of Nkomo and Mugabe, his reaction to the Chimoio and Tembue raids was to declare a week of national mourning. Although nobody seemed to pay the slightest attention to his call, it made whites wonder why Muzorewa, by then recognised as the most likely political figure to become first Prime Minister of a black majority government, could be mourning the loss of Mugabe’s CTs when he had so openly declared them to be our enemies.
Ian Smith told the nation that the move to establish black rule in the country was to everyone’s advantage, but Muzorewa’s action did little to improve the confidence of those who had already lost hope. Nor did it stem the spreading gloom. Nevertheless regular force personnel were well pleased with the outcome of Op Dingo and remained steadfast in trusting Government to solve the political issues. Theirs was the job of containing the forces of two power-hungry and fortuneseeking demagogues.
Operation Virile
UNLIKE THE OPERATIONS HURRICANE AND Repulse areas where CTs had some distance to move through tribal lands before reaching white-owned farms, towns and strategic targets, Op Thrasher CTs entered directly into the commercial farming areas. Op Dingo had to a large extent blunted a westward drive from Chimoio that extended from Inyanga in the north down to Chipinga in the south. However, just prior to the attack on Chimoio, Selous Scouts had been cleared for an operation that aimed to stem the high flow of CTs moving into the Chipinga area. At the time ZANLA were able to travel unhindered from Chimoio along a primary roadway right up to the FRELIMO garrison town, Espungabera, sited alongside the Rhodesian border.
Operation Virile, another of Selous Scouts vehicle-borne fighting columns, should have launched three days before Op Dingo, but it was held over for fear that it would stir up FRELIMO and ZANLA to the detriment of the Chimoio operation. In addition, the nature of the Scouts operation made it plain that jet support might be needed but this could not be guaranteed whilst Op Dingo was in progress. In consequence, Op Virile was only launched on the night of 26/27 November.
Much had changed because clearance was given for Selous Scouts to destroy five bridges inside Mozambique and close air-support was included as a matter of course; a very refreshing reversal on earlier limitations. Because of the Chimoio and Tembue raids, it seemed that Vorster’s obsessions with détente had fallen away and that Bishop Muzorewa had become South Africa’s new hope. The usual ‘political denial’ had not been imposed because the bridges were of limited economic importance to Mozambique’s overall economy. We really welcomed this change and saw it as the thin edge of a big wedge.
The objectives of this particular operation were to deny ZANLA vehicular access to the border by dropping five key road bridges between Dombe (near Chimoio) and Espungabera and destroy all motorised transport between the bridges.
As it progressed ever deeper into hostile territory, the large column enjoyed almost continuous daylight cover by a Lynx carrying Selous Scout Captain Athol Gillespie. His jobs were to give early warning of enemy vehicle movements, to provide the main force a continuous VHF radio link with its forward HQ at Chipinga and maintain communications with a rearguard force inside Mozambique, near Espungabera.
On the first day when the column was about halfway to its first objective, the bridge over the large fast-flowing Mabvudzi River, Air Lieutenant Chris Tucker flying the Lynx destroyed a Land Rover-sized vehicle that was moving towards the column. A pair of Hunters, flown by Rich Brand and Spook Geraty, had already cleaned up some larger vehicles farther east, but the weather precluded further Hunter involvement, forcing Chris to take on a number of targets on his own. By the 30 November the force was back in Rhodesia having successfully dropped the five bridges; a job made so much easier and safer by air support.
Black Friday
MANY FIREFORCE ACTIONS CONTINUED TO occur internally with variable results and limited RSF losses. This changed dramatically in a matter of hours in the Op Hurricane area on Friday 12 January 1978. Air Lieutenant Francois du Toit, the young officer I had trained in recce when he was still with SAAF, had been on helicopters for some time when he led a Fireforce action supported by another K-Car and three G-Cars. The Fireforce had been in an action initiated by the detection of an activated ‘road-runner’ (doctored portable radio).
The action became slightly confused by a second ‘roadrunner’ signal emanating from the same general area. However, typical for the time of year, the bush was very thick and because the ground force of seventeen stops groups were largely inexperienced PATU men, only three CTs were killed. The action was not yet over when K-Car 2, flown by Air Lieutenant Chaz Goatley with gunner, Flight Sergeant Ian (Flamo) Flemming, had to leave to refuel at Mtoko. On their way they came under heavy fire from dense bush resulting in the instant death of Ian Flemming. Francois in the K-Car immediately moved across and soon had G-Cars ferrying stops directly from the first scene to the new one. Then the airborne Army commander, Lieutenant Adams, was hit in the hand and was transferred to the lead GCar flown by Air Lieutenant Mantovani, who took many hits as he lifted off. On arrival at Mtoko his G-Car was grounded.<
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A number of stops had already been deployed when a G-Car flown by Air Lieutenant Norman (Bambam) Maasdorp with gunner Flight Sergeant Henry Jarvie, came in with another load of troops. Just before touchdown they came under heavy fire and Henry Jarvie was killed. Norman and one soldier were wounded, and the aircraft was severely damaged necessitating a forced landing close to the CTs. The only remaining G-Car flown by Air Lieutenant Thorogood uplifted everyone from the downed helicopter and flew them off to Mtoko, leaving the two K-Cars and a Lynx, flown by Group Captain John Mussell, over the scene. By nightfall the only serviceable GCar had brought in the last of the stops from the first scene, and Francois arranged all the callsigns into over-night ambush positions. One of these positions was attacked by about 20 CTs during the night and a soldier was killed.
During the frustrating and somewhat confused day-action the CTs had the advantage of unusually thick bush cover and, apparently, only lost two killed. We, on the other hand, had lost three killed and three wounded with two helicopters needing expensive repairs.
I had just returned to Air HQ from weapons testing at Kutanga Range and walked into the Ops Room as news came through about Henry Jarvie and Ian Flemming. News of this shocking loss stunned everyone, but none so badly as me. I suffered an assault on all my emotions, such as never before and remember asking aloud, “Oh my God, why should such a terrible thing happen?”
Henry (left) and Flamo (right) seen here in Umtali at the 104 (VR) Squadron Mess with (left to right) Sqn Ldr Don Howe OC 104 VR Squadron, Phil Tubbs, Johnny Lynch and Mick Fulton.
Winds of Destruction Page 77
