Winds of Destruction

by Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer

  Unfortunately, intelligence concerning the telephone exchange security arrangements and civilian activities within the town and around the prison proved to be badly understated. Beira was alive with hundreds of people and FRELIMO had become so concerned about MNR activity, that they had substantially increased guarding levels on all likely MNR targets, including the telephone exchange. Although the force dressed in FRELIMO uniform reached both targets, the SAS commander was forced to move his men into hiding to think things through whilst awaiting an abatement of the unexpectedly high civilian activity. But then a suspicious civilian spotted the luckless team and reported its presence to FRELIMO who sent a patrol to investigate.

  Following the death of some of these unfortunate investigators, the SAS-MNR force made a running retreat to the waiting dinghies distributing MNR pamphlets as they went. During the retreat, the demolition team assigned to blow up ZANLA stores was ordered to abandon its task. Notwithstanding failure to release prisoners, destroy the exchange or blow up ZANLA holdings, the main objectives of the operation were achieved. The dredgers had been sunk, the dry dock was out of commission and FRELIMO’s fear of the MNR had been heightened.

  The use of fixed wing and helicopters during the Troposcatter operation exposed Rhodesia’s direct involvement with the MNR. Although we had hoped to avoid this it turned out to be an advantage. This was because FRELIMO concerns about the MNR forced President Machel to realise that either the war with Rhodesia had to end or ZANLA had to get out of Mozambique to save his country’s economy from total destruction. But in COMOPS we planned to do just that. Operation ‘Manacle’ was the elaborate plan for SAS and RLI demolition teams to destroy every worthwhile bridge between Maputo and the Zambezi River.

  Air Force jet support was to be given throughout against FRELIMO forces guarding all the bridges. These were then to be secured by SAS-MNR protection teams before demolition parties and their explosives were para-dropped directly onto target. After destroying each bridge, helicopters would recover the demolition teams to Rhodesia to prepare for their next targets. At the same time helicopters would move the SAS- MNR securing teams to their next assigned bridges.

  Whilst these plans were being finalised, other external operations in both Zambia and Mozambique were underway.

  Search for New Chimoio

  FOR MANY MONTHS AN ONGOING operation, codenamed Bouncer, sought to ambush likely roads used by ZANLA’s top commanders. Ideally we hoped to capture or at least kill Josiah Tongogara and Rex Nhongo. However, in spite of many Bouncer deployments by SAS and Selous Scouts, all attempts failed though many high-ranking CTs were killed in the process.

  In late September an SAS-MNR team was flown to an unpopulated start position for a twofold task. One was to locate ZANLA’s elusive ‘New Chimoio’ base, which captured CTs implied had moved well away from the Chimoio and Vanduzi Circle areas. They claimed it was now well established and much closer to Rhodesia on the west side of the main Vanduzi to Tete road. Since Tongogara and Nhongo were reported to be living in the base, the team’s second task was to make yet another Bouncer attempt on them.

  Having walked through the night, the SAS-MNR team came upon an unmarked but well-used vehicle track that was in current use. Feeling certain that this led to the ZANLA base, which the team commander thought was still some distance off, the team moved into an elevated daytime hiding place. The intention was to observe the surrounds before setting up an ambush late in the afternoon in hopes that one or other of two Toyota Land Cruisers driven by Tongogara and Nhongo would pass their way.

  Whilst in hiding the team was surprised by the high level of general activity around the area but then became very concerned when a large force of ZANLA passed along the vehicle track, quite obviously checking for mines and human tracks. Realising that this must have been prompted by the sound of the helicopters dropping them off the previous evening, the commander guessed the base must be much closer than expected. So, instead of going ahead with the ambush, the commander wisely decided to remain in hiding that night and send his MNR men out early next morning to have a chat with the locals. When the MNR returned, they reported that the base was very close by.

  Having established this, the commander decided to go ahead with the ambush. The team did not have long to wait before two vehicles came their way. As they came into view, the ambushers saw that they were both Toyota Land Cruisers. These they took out in a slick action that killed all the occupants. Fires raging in both vehicles were so intense that it was impossible to get close to them. However, one SAS soldier reported glimpsing what he thought was a white man’s body in the flames. Later this was confirmed when radio intercepts revealed that three Russian advisors were amongst the fifteen-odd dead.

  The team cleared the area only to find they had been so close to the enemy base that hundreds of ZANLA were closing in pursuit, so a call was made for hot extraction. Under continuous and heavy fire, the team managed to survive a long running-battle before being whipped away to safety by the Air Force.

  Now that we had a fair idea of the base’s actual location, thought was given to photo-recce. Initially it was considered that if this was done, ZANLA would move because we had received vague information about ZANLA’s unique air warning system. Two tame baboons Jamie and Amie, having been subjected to many airstrikes, were said to be ultra-sensitive to the sound of jets. Apparently they gave early warning by screeching and leaping about long before ZANLA heard sound of the aircraft that so terrified these two animals. Even a high-flying Canberra passing quietly over a noisy camp might get the baboons excited.

  It was decided, therefore, to put in another ground recce. The SAS were fully committed on other tasks, so the Selous Scouts deployed one of their oft-proven two-man recce teams. This time no helicopter was used and the team walked in from the border. Unfortunately, it was detected in the early stages of its passage through the base and was forced to call for hot extraction. By now, however, captured CT’s were indicating that the base was highly prepared with sophisticated heavy anti-air and ground defences specially sited by Russian advisors. The deaths of three Russians certainly gave weight to these reports. The captured CTs also said ZANLA felt too strong to be frightened off the present base position by the passage of any aircraft.

  The rainy season had started early this year but a photo-recce flight was made immediately a gap appeared in the weather. Even though the JSPIS photo-interpreters had poor-quality photographs to work from, they immediately identified elaborate defences including many heavy-calibre gun positions and extensive trench works linking and surrounding each of at least four bases. Typical for this time of year, cloud cover masked much of the ground in which we believed there must be additional bases. They needed to be pinpointed and analysed but bad weather thwarted further attempts to photograph the area.

  Fortunately, two high features at the northern end of a line of rugged mountains contained the bulk of the defences, and these had been exposed. Since there was need to get on with the job, planning for an operation codenamed ‘Miracle’ was formulated on the basis of what was known and a fair amount of reasoned guesswork on what could not be seen.

  The SAS were preparing to go external against two large bridges in Zambia and another three in Mozambique, but this was not the only reason the Selous Scouts were earmarked for the job with RLI in support.

  Operation Miracle

  INTELLIGENCE INDICATED THAT ONLY ZANLA occupied the New Chimoio base and that FRELIMO had sent them far away from Chimoio town to prevent Mozambican civilians from becoming involved in future RSF raids. Captured men also indicated that if CTs were forced to leave the base, they would move towards Rhodesia because FRELIMO had forbidden them from going in any other direction.

  Ron Reid-Daly recognised that this suited Selous Scouts pseudo work perfectly, so he decided to deploy a large number of pseudo callsigns to the north, west and south of the base. Once in position, and under Ron’s direct command from his own forward HQ set high on
a border mountain, the callsigns would interrupt ZANLA’s supplies and, coupled with Air Force bombardment, induce fire-fights that would have CTs in a jitter. Ron expected that the CTs would not know who was pseudo and who was genuine, thus forcing them to indulge in attacking one another on sight. To the east of the base, RLI paratroopers would form a line of ambushes to take on any CTs breaking east in contravention of FRELIMO orders.

  The plan was wonderfully unconventional and would certainly have prevented the imminent launching of large numbers of ZANLA intent on influencing the Lancaster House talks. However, General Walls rejected the idea, initially preferring to employ well-proven operational methods. This soon changed because there was considerable apprehension over Soviet advice and planning for ZANLA’s defences. Those that we could see were clearly superior to any ZANLA defences encountered before.

  Besides, we remembered how in 1967-8 Soviet studies of Rhodesian tactics and operational methods had led ZAPU and SAANC to use difficult crossing points over the Zambezi River where gaps existed in our border control. The reader will recall that large groups were deep inside Rhodesia before Ops Nickel and Cauldron got underway. More recently, we had seen the effectiveness of Soviet planning at Mapai; so now we wondered if those Russians killed by the SAS had prepared a deadly trap for us at New Chimoio. It occurred to the planning team that the well-proven vertical envelopment of bases by paratroopers and helicopters might be exactly what the Russian advisors would expect, particularly as the base was less than twenty kilometres from the border and a mere fifty kilometres northeast of Umtali. We simply could not take the risk of running our helicopters and slow fixed-wing aircraft into a well-laid Soviet trap.

  Consequently it was decided to go conventional by employing Selous Scouts in their vehicle-borne fighting role with large-calibre guns and jets in support. Since this would involve moving many men and vehicles into position before launching Op Miracle, there was concern that the CTs in nearby New Chimoio would be fully prepared for the attack. So, to mask our true intentions, it was decided to mount high-density operations to create as much noise and movement as possible in the Mutasa and Holdenby Tribal Trust Lands whose eastern boundaries were the international border nearest to New Chimoio. As the HD Op got under way on 27 September, Selous Scouts pseudo teams moved in amongst the African population along and across the border to prepare for the expected westerly breakout from New Chimoio.

  The high-density operation ruse undoubtedly worked, but it cost us dearly when three fine men and a K-Car were lost. Air Lieutenant Paddy Bate was flying down a river-line in the Mutasa TTL when his K-Car was pulled to the ground by power-lines he had not seen. Paddy, his gunner Sergeant Gary Carter and RLI Major Bruce Snelgar were all killed.

  Wilky crash.

  This was the fourth incident of helicopter crashes through cable- and power-lines that I can recall. In November 1973 Squadron Leader Eddie Wilkinson and Sergeant Woods were returning from an action flying low level directly towards the setting sun. Eddie spotted troops waving madly next to a stationary vehicle. He thought they were in distress and turned back to investigate. Blinded to some extent by the sun, Eddie failed to see the telephone lines that snagged his nose wheel as he came into the hover. Feeling himself being drawn downward he increased collective to climb but this simply resulted in the aircraft being somersaulted into an inverted crash. Though he and his technician were lucky to escape alive, Eddie was annoyed with himself when he learned that the soldiers had only been waving in friendly manner at the passing helicopter.

  Then in December 1975, SAAF Lieutenant van Rensburg was the only survivor of the Vumba cable incident in which General John Shaw and Colonel Dave Parker died. In March 1977, Mike Mulligan suffered head injuries in a crash following collision with power-lines near Mrewa. According to fellow pilots this brought about a substantial change to Mike’s character. This was because he had ended up inverted and, as would happen later to Mark Dawson, choked on his armour vest.

  Returning to Op Miracle. Two days later, in the early hours of 29 September 1979, the Scouts fighting column commenced the difficult task of crossing the Honde River border into Mozambique. This constituted the only major obstruction between Rhodesia and the ZANLA base. The mobile force of Selous Scouts, Armoured Car Regiment and Rhodesian Artillery comprising one command vehicle nicknamed “the Pig”, nine Eland armoured cars, twelve infantry vehicles carrying 320 infantrymen, and six 25-pounder artillery guns.

  In the absence of suitable bridging equipment, crossing the Honde River proved more difficult than expected. A bulldozer had to be used to pull every one of the vehicles through deep water and heavy mud resulting in a delay of almost seven hours. Whereas the column should have reached target to coincide with the first airstrikes at 07:00, they did not get there until mid-afternoon.

  Ron Reid-Daly in his elevated command post on the border was no less frustrated by the delay than Air Commodore Norman Walsh and Lieutenant-Colonel Brian Robinson in the high-flying Command Dakota. They need not have worried! ZANLA did not budge in the face of air attacks and were well prepared for the first ground actions that occurred too late in the day to produce any meaningful results.

  The jets revisited target a few times before the vehicle column eventually reached the western outskirts of the huge base. Extremely heavy and accurate fire greeted every striking aircraft, though miraculously none was hit. In the meanwhile, RLI paratroopers had been dropped well to the east of target and had walked in to set up a series of ambushes to cut off any CTs breaking eastward. Because breakout was expected to be westwards, the RLI was very thin on the ground. Events were to show that this was a major tactical cock-up because, whilst the mobile column was digging-in for the night in the face of a fair deal of enemy attention, the RLI was actively killing many CTs breaking their way.

  From the outset it had been clear that the high mountain features overlooking the bases would be key to the outcome of Op Miracle. At the northernmost end of the range lay a prominent domed granite mountain stronghold the Scouts nicknamed ‘Monte Casino’ after the famous, strategically important defences on the Italian mountaintop monastery that the Germans defended so aggressively during WWII.

  Monte Casino not only gave the defenders an excellent view of the Rhodesians below, it contained the majority of heavy guns and mortars defending the entire area of bases that swept in an arc from west through north to east. Within the area of bases there were many other anti-aircraft guns, all well sited and widely dispersed.

  The base and defences lay between the vertical grid lines north to south 11 to 05 and the lateral grid lines west to east 06 to 12. Rhodesia lies to the left of this photograph.

  Just to the northeast of Monte Casino was a small isolated hill feature lying between two of the bases. This was nicknamed ‘Ack-Ack Hill’ because it contained a cluster of concentrated anti-aircraft gun positions. Then, to Casino’s south, a high ridge running southward gave a number of other anti-aircraft gunners and mortar teams superb visual command of all ground approaches to the base and to Monte Casino itself.

  Early on the morning of Day Two the troops came under heavy and accurate fire from Monte Casino, making progress very slow. Low cloud disallowed air support; but then the same cloud lowered and blinded the defenders. This allowed the Elands to move closer to provide assault troops support from their incredibly accurate 90mm guns.

  It was past midday before the Hunters could return to target, by which time a good assessment had been made and troublesome positions were pinpointed for their attention.

  By mid-afternoon one particularly troublesome promontory (photo grid 070050) near the western CT base had been overrun by Scouts, but not before it had been hurriedly vacated, weapons and all. Nevertheless this vantage point gave improved observation of Monte Casino (photo grid 085065), allowing accurate direction to be passed to Hunter pilots, the mortars and Elands firing against enemy emplacements that had survived earlier attention.

  Following one concentr
ated bombardment of Monte Casino, an attempt to overrun its heights was thwarted by intense fire from Ack-Ack Hill (photo grid 095110), together with hand-grenades lobbed down from the unseen defenders above. Meanwhile, widespread fighting continued all day as troops laboriously worked through two large bases lying closest to Monte Casino (centred on photo grids 065098 and 060115).

  By nightfall of Day Two, Rhodesian forces had established themselves for a renewed attempt against the main defences the next day. Otherwise a situation of stalemate appeared to exist in the target areas with both sides settling to wait out the long night. Meanwhile the RLI had another busy night shooting an increased number of CTs fleeing east. To the west, the Scouts pseudo teams waited patiently, but nothing came their way.

  Captain Peter Stanton, having transferred from the Special Branch to the Selous Scouts, spent the night interrogating a captured CT who turned out to be the man responsible for ZANLA’s base defences. Again the Rhodesians had managed to secure a key man at a critical time. From him, Peter Stanton acquired all the details of the ZANLA defences, which were then passed to unit commanders before they launched into action on Day Three. The first of these involved clearing all the defences of a long ridge south of Casino (commencing at 072039 and extending well off the photograph through 077028).