Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot
Page 1
WINDS OF
DESTRUCTION
eBook co-published in 2012 by:
Helion & Company Limited
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Solihull
West Midlands
B91 1UE
England
Tel. 0121 705 3393
Fax 0121 711 4075
email: info@helion.co.uk
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and
30° South Publishers (Pty) Ltd.
16 Ivy Road
Pinetown 3610
South Africa
email: info@30degreessouth.co.za
website: www.30degreessouth.co.za
First published by Trafford Publishing, 2003
Copyright © P.J.H Petter-Bowyer, 2005
eBook © P.J.H Petter-Bowyer, 2012
Digital Edition ISBN: 9781908916662
Design and origination by 30° South Publishers (Pty) Ltd.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, manipulated in any retrieval system, or transmitted in any mechanical, electronic form or by any other means, without the prior written authority of the publishers except for short extracts in media reviews. Any person who engages in any unauthorized activity in relation to this publication shall be liable to criminal prosecution and claims for civil and criminal damages.
Contents
Maps
Central Africa and Southern Africa
Air Force Bases and Forward Airfields
Rhodesian, ZIPRA and ZANLA Operational Boundaries
Foreword
Author’s Note
Chapter 1
A short history of the Rhodesian Air Force
Younger days
Chapter 2
Ground Training School
Basic Flying School
Advanced Flying School
Operational Conversion Unit
Chapter 3
No 1 Squadron
Interview with Commander
Nyasaland emergency
Canberra bombers
The Colin Graves tragedy
Air shows
Flypasts
Aden detachment
Chapter 4
No 2 Squadron
Death of Jack Roberts
Sabotage
Flying Instructors School
Paul Mark
Death of Eric Cary
First students
Fire officer
Canberra belly-landing
Practical jokers
15 PTC
Fire-fighting cock-up
Congo crisis
Gwelo Gliding Club
16 PTC
RAF Trappers
No 4 Squadron
Federal break-up
Return to Thornhill
Weapons demonstration
Early weapons testing
Deaths of Bruce McKerron and Henry Elliot
First terrorist action
Flying Wing Adjutant
Deaths of Barry Matthews and Sandy Trenoweth
Rupert Fothergill
Posting to 3 Squadron
Chapter 5
Unilateral Declaration of Independence
Rolls Royce engines
No 7 Squadron
Sinoia operation
Helicopter projects
Nevada murder
Aiden Diggeden
Helicopter projects continued
Accidental entry into Zambia
Elephants and the minister
First helicopter engine failure
British military versus Labour Government
A different way of thinking
FAC courses and smoke trails
Missing rhino
The fun of helicopters
Police Reserve Air Wing
Chapter 6
Operation Nickel
Disastrous twenty-four hours
Radio tracker dog project disallowed
Find Sheriff
Mountain flying
Family in helicopter
Training Norman Walsh
Tracker dog project
Operation Cauldron
P.K. van der Byl
Roland Coffegnot
Operation Griffin
Tracker dogs proven
Operation Mansion
Operation Excess
Concern for Tete Province
Casevac of gored ranger
Tripper operations
Animal incidents
Death of Don Annandale
Recce training and Willie de Beer
Trojans
Roll cloud incident
Engine failure
Joint Planning Staff
Paris Air Show
Board of Inquiry
Alcora
Visit to Cabo del Gado
Medical hitch
Aircraft accidents 1970–1971
Exercise Blackjack
Staff College
Deaths of Munton-Jackson and Garden
Chapter 7
No 4 Squadron
Learning recce
Aloe Festival
ZANU and ZAPU activities
External recce training
Preparing for bush ops
Jungle Lane
‘October Revolution’
Operation Sable
Nicholas and the old man
Beit Bridge rail link
Commencement of Operation Hurricane
Countering landmines
Centenary days
Deaths of Smart and Smithdorff
Offensive recces
Non-offensive casualties
The Peter Simmonds incident
Flight Sergeant Benji
Another Aloe Festival
Early FAC to jets
The face of terrorism
ZANLA recruitment
Pseudo-terrorist beginnings
Night-strike trials
Pre-selection of Air Force commanders
Night ops difficulties
Trojan characteristics
SAS ops in Tete
First internal recce success
Training PRAW
Strela missiles
Crop-spraying in Tete
Chris Weinmann joins 4 Squadron
Night casevacs
Improving tactics
Selous Scouts
Cordon Sanitaire
Odds and sods
FAC errors and successes
Fear of landing in enemy territory
Chifombo Base
New Offensive trials
Beginning of Black Month
Operation Marble
Search for Chris
Hunter commanders
Army claims air kills
Gungwa mountain
Countering Strela missiles
Army Sub-JOC commanders
Fireforce and Scouts
Détente
Authentication of pseudo groups
ZIPRA plans upset
7 Squadron gains at 4 Squadron’s expense
Ceasefire
Firelighters
Quiet times
Brown Jobs versus Blue Jobs
Doctored radios and ammunition
Cocky Benecke
Last air actions of 1975
Loss of top Army officers
Lull before the storm
Déntente and SB
CTs prepare to resume war
Return of ZANLA
Lynx ferry
Fireforces back in action
Patchen e
xplorer
War spreads and hots up
SO Plans
Operation Sand
Diverse personalities and different situations
Chapter 8
Project Alpha
Pyrotechnics and boosted rockets
CS pellets
Hispano cannons for Scouts
Mixed events
Vic Cook
SAS externals
Canberras join Fireforce
Yellow Submarine
Schulie
Madula Pan
Madula Pan attack
New Frantans
Golf Project
Cavalry Fireforce
Testing American equipment
COMOPS established
External operations March – June 1977
Flechettes
‘Know your enemy’
Salisbury recce
First employment of Flechettes
Preparing to attack external bases
Operation Dingo briefing
Chimoio attack
Tembue attack
Effectiveness of Op Dingo
Operation Virile
Black Friday
Mini-golf bombs
ZANLA’s changing tactics
Norah Seear
RAR Fireforces
Bold actions—007 ideas
Katoog
Philippa Berlyn
Final tracker dogs’ trial
More enemy reversals
Deaths of du Toit and Nelson
Second Tembue attack
Viscount disaster
Return to Chimoio
Operation Gatling
Mulungushi and Mboroma
Moatize hangar
Chapter 9
Posting to COMOPS
Mozambican National Resistance
Luso Boma
Vanduzi Circle
Cost comparisons
ZIPRA plans revealed
Beira fuel refinery
Assassination attempts on Joshua Nkomo
Kazungula ferry
Cheetahs
Uncomfortable times in COMOPS
Black government
Civilian convoys and rail protection
British Conservative government
Flechette success
ZIPRA’s NSO
Xai Xai
Attempts to assassinate Robert Mugabe
ZIPRA loses war holdings
Political turmoil
Operation Uric
Enhancing MNR’s image
Search for New Chimoio
Operation Miracle
Chambeshi bridges—Zambia
Moatize bridges
Encounter with conventional ZIPRA forces
Operation Tepid
Operation Dice
Chapter 10
Ceasefire
Dinner with ZIPRA
Visits to ZANLA Assembly Points
Visits to ZIPRA APs
Elections
Joint High Command HQ
Epilogue
Glossary
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Foreword
I WILL NOT PRETEND THAT I have known Group Captain Peter John Hornby Petter-Bowyer, affectionately known as ‘PB’, as long as some have. After both having left our beloved Rhodesia, we lived in the same town, Durban, for years without encountering each other. Given my work on the history of Rhodesia, and my service in the Rhodesian Regiment and the Rhodesian Intelligence Corps, I knew his reputation, of course, indeed the awe in which this modest-to-a-fault airman was held within the ranks of the Rhodesian Security Forces. If our paths did not cross in daily life, I made it my business to interview him about what I knew of his achievements.
What PB presents us with in this book is a unique account of Rhodesia from the prosperous post-Second World War years to her death-throes in 1980. Unique because it is seen not just through the eyes of a pilot, because PB was seldom deskbound, rarely flying a ‘Mahogany Bomber’ at headquarters, but through those of a Renaissance man, the proverbial man of great knowledge. PB’s restless, inquiring mind never allowed him just to perform the task required of him. He was not what the Army thought of the typical pilot, homeward bound to clean clothes, a warm bed, fine food and the girls and the beer.
If PB was flying, he was thinking. Thinking about his aircraft. He was not an engineer but he would be responsible for many modifications of his aircraft, much to the irritation of a few of the technical staff. If he was bombing, he was thinking about the bomb, its purpose and whether it was achieving it. So it would be PB who would mastermind the invention and production of Rhodesia’s remarkable range of bombs. He did not do this alone, but his inquiring, inventive mind was the inspiration. The Rhodesian Air Force was condemned by circumstance to fly aircraft which elsewhere were obsolete, but the best had to be made of them, and not just by a high level of flying competence. The aging Canberra bomber (designed by PB’s cousin, William ‘Teddy’ Petter) was Rhodesia’s bomber equipped with a range of standard NATO bombs. PB soon saw ways to make it more effective even if metal fatigue would reduce the number of available Canberras. PB enhanced the humble air-to-ground rocket and gave the Hunter a formidable blast bomb, among other weapons. When a helicopter pilot, PB would enhance the Alouette III’s refuelling ability, and assist in improving its weaponry.
It was not just a fascination with technology that marks the man. PB is not just an inventor; he was an inspiring and resourceful leader of the school that did not ask his pilots to do anything he would not do, and he would be the one doing it longer. Beginning with his helicopter days in the latter half of 1960s, PB was a leading counter-insurgency tactician. It was PB who realised that one could track from the air. Better than that, alone among the pilots, he realised that there were telltale signs, not just tracks, which betrayed the presence of his enemy. His self-imposed social anthropological research led him to become Rhodesia’s leading air-recce pilot when commanding No 4 Squadron. When PB appeared overhead in his stuttering Trojan, everyone in the ground forces knew something was about to happen, that the whereabouts of the quarry was about to be known. His training led to others acquiring this skill, and one at least bettered him, but it was PB who had the vision. He would carry that vision into every task that he performed.
I commend to you not just this inspiring pilot’s tale, but the man himself.
Professor J.R.T Wood
Durban, South Africa
Author’s Note
WHILE RESEARCHING MY FAMILIES’ backgrounds I ran into difficulties that forced me to rely entirely on faded memories of aged relatives because no written legacies exist. So in 1984 I started recording my own life’s story with the simple objective of leaving a permanent record, in hopes that my family would record their own historical narratives for successive generations to build upon. But then in January 2000 I was persuaded by Rhodesian friends to expand on what I had recorded, to meet a need for at least one Rhodesian Air Force story told at an individual level. Consequently this book is not an historical account of the most efficient air force of its day; nor does it cover important subjects that did not involve me either directly or indirectly. Nevertheless, my experiences are unique and sufficiently wide-ranging to give readers a fair understanding of the force I served, and reveal something of the essence of Rhodesia and her thirteen-year bush war.