Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  Deferred subject after deferred subject was addressed directly to the appropriate head, giving the length of time that had elapsed since the matter was first raised, together with all the reasons previously given for deferrals. In most cases Mick offered his personal opinions on resolutions then directed that the matter be cleared immediately or, at the latest, before the next meeting. He concluded by saying “Gentlemen, I want action. Let me emphasise, yet again, that a wrong decision can be turned around or modified, but no decision is inexcusable.”

  By the time General Walls returned to chair a NATJOC meeting, no pending matters remained. Unfortunately, however, new subjects needing decisions started to pile up; and Mick returned to playing golf every Wednesday afternoon.

  So far as I was able to judge from general opinion amongst COMOPS officers and those in Army, Air Force and Police HQs, Rhodesia’s forces would have been better off with Mick McLaren as the supremo and Brigadier Peter Rich as his Director-General of Operations. Under such leadership, COMOPS would have fulfilled the purpose for which it was created, and correctly handled directives and instructions would have been dealt with in a manner that avoided the unnecessary antagonisms and mistrust that had been created.

  Black government

  THE ADVENT OF CHANGE FROM white government to a black majority government had little effect on the management and execution of military aspects of our war—we continued as before. It seemed strange however to have Bishop Abel Muzorewa attending meetings in COMOPS in place of Ian Smith. This dapper little man wearing a dark suit, dog collar on purple clerical vest and outlandish black and white Mafia-styled shoes was very different to the PM we had all come to know well. In his hand, Muzorewa carried a colourful beaded stick that was to be his personal hallmark in the manner of President Kaunda’s white handkerchief and President Kenyatta’s bull-tail switch. Apart from the PM, I only had personal dealings with one black minister.

  Minister Francis Zindonga was thickset and enormously pleased with his newfound authority. He had already proven himself to be the only politician with the guts to go into troubled areas to address the tribal folk and tell them about the principles and thoughts of the new government. He had gained a good reputation at COMOPS before I accompanied him to meet white ranchers in the Nuanetsi District Commissioner’s offices in the southern lowveld.

  Muzorewa in typical dress seen here with that despicable rat Lord Carrington; ultimate architect of Rhodesia’s demise.

  At the time, cattle rustling in the south had become a major problemalong with the wilful destruction of miles and miles of fencing. Because of this martial law had been applied to the region. It so happened that Zindonga had been plagued with the same problems himself on his own ranch in the Wedza district. Consequently, he fully sympathised with the ranchers who were up in arms about CT-inspired theft of their highly bred herds.

  Zindonga listened to many ranchers tell of how herds were being driven so fast and so far that many of the cattle were found dead along the drive trails. In some cases the herds had been deliberately stampeded to flatten fences resulting in serious injuries that necessitated the destruction of many suffering animals.

  When he had heard all that had to be said, Minister Zindonga rose and told the farmers just what they wanted to hear. There were too many cattle rustling events that, together with calls to CT targets, made it impossible for Fireforce or troops to respond to all situations. Because of this, Zindonga gave ranchers the authority to take the law into their own hands and shoot rustlers on sight. The new government would fully support such ‘self defence’ actions in these critical times. From COMOPS’ point of view this dangerous talk highlighted the difference in approach to problems between the old and new orders.

  Civilian convoys and rail protection

  BY NOW ZANLA GROUPS WERE actively attacking trains on the southern route to Beit Bridge. Even prior to the main offensives, the precaution of escorting all civilian traffic along the route had been taken following deadly ambushes in 1976 on a pair of South African motorcyclists and a lone car. Thereafter nobody was allowed to travel alone, day or night. All civilian vehicles accumulated at the starting points (Fort Victoria—southbound and Beit Bridge—northbound) at published starting times for two convoys a day in each direction, all in daylight hours.

  When proceeding to South Africa on holiday with my family in 1976, the convoy commander adjudged me to be driving the slowest vehicle because I had our large Turner Swallow caravan in tow. Because of this I was instructed to be the pace-setter behind two armed Land Rovers. At the rear of 150-odd civilian vehicles were another two armed Land Rovers and another two that roved up and down the three-kilometre convoy length for the three hour-twenty minute drive to Beit Bridge. No pee—breaks were allowed!

  The convoy system became a way of life for locals and visitors alike and there were few difficulties or incidents on the roadway. This was because CTs preferred to attack at night to give themselves ample opportunity to move well away before sunrise. Close by on the railway line, things were not so comfortable because it was impossible to confine all rail traffic to daylight hours and flexible response to attacks was not possible for trains in motion.

  The greatest threat to rail traffic came from track sabotage, though surprisingly few incidents of this nature went undetected before a train reached any point of damage. Ambushes proved to be more troublesome until ex-Air Force 20mm Hispano cannons were mounted on special wagons—three per train. These armed railway wagons switched from northbound to southbound trains when gun crews were changed over.

  Most of the gunners were coloured soldiers, nicknamed ‘goffles’. They did a good job of silencing or limiting CT ambushes, providing they opened fire the moment an ambush was sprung. Sometimes, however, these soldiers were not as wide-awake as they should have been. Following two particularly damaging attacks, it was established that the goffles had picked up prostitutes to provide them ‘comfort’ on their usually uneventful and boring rides. But female distractions resulted in the CTs having sufficient time to lay down damaging fire before cannons responded. In consequence, the armed rail wagons changed name from Cannon Wagons to ‘Nanny Wagons’.

  British Conservative government

  ON 3 MAY 1979, THE BRITISH public voted the Conservative Party into power and Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first female prime minister. Having been so badly let down by a communistically inclined Labour Government, there was good reason for Rhodesian morale to be uplifted. Margaret Thatcher’s statements concerning the need to forget the past and judge the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian situation in the light of the present situation reinforced our hopes in her. She even intimated that Zimbabwe-Rhodesia had done enough for the Conservatives to grant the country recognition and remove sanctions. This all came as a breath of fresh air giving hope that communist ZANU and ZAPU would not be coming to power. Unfortunately history proves that we were wrong. We had yet to learn that the Conservatives were bigger ‘snakes in the grass’ than their predecessors who, it has to be said, did not speak with forked tongues.

  Flechette success

  IN EARLY MAY I RECEIVED an urgent message from the Duty Officer at JOC Thrasher to say that a TF callsign of 4RR was asking for an immediate jet-strike. The callsign was in an OP on a prominent mountain ridge overlooking a known CT entry route that ran from the Revue Dam area in Mozambique into the Burma Valley, Rhodesia. This callsign had noticed high levels of activity in four villages with many women moving to and from a section of bush lying between the villages carrying bowls and dishes on their heads. The callsign commander told JOC Thrasher he was 100-per cent certain that a large group of ZANLA CTs were being fed and, since he was FAC trained, he could talk jets directly onto the target.

  It so happened that a pair of Hunters had just been scrambled for an internal target. I cannot recall who was leading but know for certain that the wingman was Ginger Baldwin. My gut feeling was that the Mozambican target deserved priority, so I requested Air HQ Ops to di
vert the Hunters to the Burma Valley area. The pilots were unprepared for this change and did not have large-scale maps of the target location. Fortunately Burma Valley was very well known so it was easy enough to give the TF callsign position as the third border peak on the south side of the valley.

  When the Hunter section made contact with the callsign, they received a very crisp and concise description of the target, so much so that they were able to visually identify the exact section of bush thirty seconds (slant-range about four nautical miles) from target. As the lead Hunter commenced its attack, the TF callsign was instructed to pass correction on leader’s strike to the second Hunter. When the first 30mm cannon shells exploded, the TF called the correction, “Drop 50—Right 20.” Ginger Baldwin then fired his cannons on the correction and received the call, “On target!” whereupon he released two flechette dispensers at the end of his cannon run.

  Back in COMOPS I was perplexed to learn that flechettes had been dropped in Mozambique—something we were not supposed to do by our self-imposed ruling. However, because Ginger Baldwin had set out for an internal target with flechettes, and because Air HQ imposed no restriction for the external scene, he did not hesitate to use them.

  Although this happened to be a genuine mistake it resulted in Rhodesia’s singlemost devastating air action against ZANLA. But I only learned this after the war had ended. From ZANLA’s top brass I learned that they feared the ‘Racist South African nail bombs’ more than the other South African weapons. They were in fact talking about Flechette, Alpha, Golf, and Mini—golf systems. Since we had not used flechettes externally, other than one pair of dispensers dropped at Tembue and the pair delivered by Ginger Baldwin, I thought ZANLA was talking about flechette successes inside Rhodesia. “No,” they said. “We know about some comrades nailed inside Zimbabwe, but it was the death of our twenty-six top commanders at Revue that made us fear these weapons most.”

  The whole situation came about because of ZANLA’s growing concern over the Pfumo re Vanhu auxiliaries who had become a serious hindrance to their operations in most sectors. Josiah Tongogara decided there was only one way to find out exactly what was happening. He sent twenty-six senior commanders to Rhodesia to investigate the matter and return with detailed reports and recommendations—but none of them even made it into the country!

  As the TF callsign had said, Mozambican villagers were feeding these commanders preparatory to their night entry into the Burma Valley. Once through this valley they intended to disperse to undertake independent analyses of the widespread auxiliary threat.

  They did not count on Ginger Baldwin’s 9,000 flechettes, which eliminated every one of their numbers together with the unfortunate Mozambican women who were feeding them. The description given of this strike intrigued me. The body of the leader bore twenty-six flechette wounds and the least number of hits seen on any commander’s body was six. What shook the ZANLA HQ team investigating this incident was the fact that every single feeding pot and plate had been holed by not less than one dart.

  If only we had known about this success six months earlier we might have used more flechettes externally; but not a single radio FRELIMO intercept exposed ZANLA’s grievous loss!

  ZIPRA’s NSO

  ELLIOTT SIBANDA, THE ZIPRA MAN captured by Selous Scouts in Botswana, had undergone successful stomach surgery before revealing the existence and location of ZIPRA’s Department of National Security and Order (NSO). This fancy name was for ZIPRA’s central intelligence organisation that was structured and controlled by Moscow’s KGB. Commanding NSO was Nkomo’s number-two man Dumiso Dabengwa (the ‘Black Russian’), who was reputed to be a KGB colonel.

  The SAS was given the task of taking out the NSO, situated in a suburb of Lusaka southeast of the city centre. Planning commenced immediately to meet the following requirements:

  1. Capture Dumiso Dabengwa, his deputy Victor Mlambo and the counter-intelligence officer Gordon Butshe.

  2. Capture all radio and cipher equipment.

  3. Capture all documents and

  4. Destroy everything else.

  The SAS planners were acutely aware that their return to Lusaka so soon after the attacks on Nkomo’s house and Liberation Centre was fraught with perils. The Zambian Army and Air Force were expected to be alert and better prepared and ZIPRA would surely be fully primed to repel attacks at every one of its many facilities in and around Lusaka. Surprise alone was the key. The biggest question was, “What if the unidentified mole in Rhodesia lets the cat out of the bag?” So many ideas were explored on how to get to target secretly and safely. Consideration was given to many modes of transport such as a furniture removal pantechnicon with motorbikes aboard, railway wagons, hijacked cars, maybe Sabres again, parachuting in and so on. However, CO SAS, Lieutenant-Colonel Garth Barrett, who would command the operation, discarded these in favour of going in and coming out in our newly acquired Cheetah helicopters. Consequently, Squadron Leader Ted Lunt, OC 8 Squadron, was brought into the planning to assess the feasibility of doing this.

  Running a Canberra photo-recce of the NSO target was discounted, as this would warn the enemy of an impending action. Instead, old survey photographs were dug up which showed NSO buildings and surrounds to be just as Elliott Sibanda remembered them. So, despite Brian Robinson’s concerns, there was no alternative but to use them for planning. The photographs showed a house and two office blocks surrounded by a security wall with a road running past the front gate. Unoccupied plots surrounded the rear and sides and, according to Elliott Sibanda, Dumiso Dabengwa and his men actually lived in the house and should be there when the attack went in.

  Johnny Green (second from left) seen here when the first Cheetah was rolled out of the refurbishment hangar. Squadron Leader Ted Lunt is 6th from left. Note Strela screening and turned up exhaust.

  Ted Lunt, who would lead the Cheetah formation, was satisfied that there was plenty of space to land the four helicopters allocated for deployment and recovery of the force. His main concerns centred on fuel endurance, night navigation for a dawn attack, and air defences that included MiG jets and British Rapier missiles. The Director-General Operations at Air HQ was Air Commodore Norman Walsh who, unlike his predecessors, involved himself deeply in the detailed planning, would be flying in the Command Dakota with Wing Commander Peter McLurg and SAS Major Graham Wilson.

  By this time the Cheetahs had been stripped down to their last components and painstakingly rebuilt by a team of 8 Squadron technicians under Warrant Officer Johnny Green. To repeat what has already been said—considering that they had no technical manuals for this difficult task, it says much for dedication, ingenuity and technical expertise that all seven helicopters had been standardised and that all of Ted Lunt’s pilots were trained and ready.

  Preparations for the operation, codenamed ‘Carpet’, included full-scale rehearsals using old buildings on an isolated farm west of Salisbury. Although the Cheetahs partook in these rehearsals, this could not prepare the pilots for formation without the aid of navigation lights and flying low level in very dark conditions. This they had to manage when the time came in the early hours of 26 June 1979. Included with the SAS assault and defence parties was Elliott Sibanda. Elliott’s job, using a loud-hailer, was to call upon the men inside the NSO to surrender themselves to the troops. He would then identify whoever responded.

  Ted Lunt and his pilots did a great job of navigating their way from Makuti in Rhodesia to a point well to the northeast of Lusaka where they then flew west before turning south for the run to target. A diversionary attack by Hunters against FC camp, now reduced to a small ZIPRA contingent, was planned to occur a little after first light when the helicopters would be approaching that location from the north. The purpose of this attack was twofold. Firstly it was intended to draw any armed reaction to the northeast of the capital and away from the NSO in the south. Secondly, Rhodesian helicopters seen flying south from that location would appear to have come from the attack on FC camp, the
reby obscuring their true mission.

  Navigating the route did not work out perfectly. Probably due to an incorrect wind forecast, Ted had flown further north than planned and map-reading was almost impossible as he struggled to establish his exact position in marginal light. Because of his uncertainty, Ted asked Norman Walsh to put in the Hunter attack on FC camp on time, in the hopes the Golf bomb flashes would give him a position fix. Norman politely disallowed this, preferring Ted to be at the right point before the Hunters attacked.

  The formation was running late, which was just as serious for the ground force as it was for helicopter fuel states. Norman Walsh and Graham Wilson were actually considering cancelling the operation when Ted positively identified his position. A quick assessment was made and the go-ahead was given, even though the troops would be landing twenty minutes behind schedule. The Hunters did their trick and the helicopters, now seriously low on fuel, passed FC heading for the NSO.

  As the NSO came into view, everyone saw that there was a new building there, but otherwise the layout was correct. However there were more defence positions than expected, these having been established after the raid on Nkomo’s house. Whilst the Cheetah pilots concentrated on landing in their pre-planned positions, they had to put up with closing-range fire from ZIPRA and very noisy return fire from SAS troops in the cabins behind them.

  As soon as the troops deplaned, the helicopters lifted off and headed south. Ted located an isolated dambo only eight minutes flying time from target and set his formation down in a box pattern with machine-guns facing out in an all-round defence posture. Engines were run down but the motors were left at idling rpm as precaution against potential starting problems. Fuel was transferred to main tanks from drums the helicopters had carried to this point. Being much lighter now than when they left Rhodesia, the helicopters were set to carry higher loads from NSO than they had delivered there. Out on the cold dambo, the helicopters waited patiently for Norman Walsh’s call to return to target.