When, in August 1966, the British Government announced the withdrawal of the Javelin squadron, the Rhodesians gave the RAF fellows a grand farewell party at Victoria Falls. But it was not only the Royal Air Force that had a soft spot for Rhodesia; the Royal Navy seemed to have had similar sentiments.
When Ian Smith met for talks with Harold Wilson, first on HMS Fearless and later on HMS Tiger, one of his team was Flight Lieutenant Brian Smith, a Rhodesian Air Force communications Officer. Brian received the highest possible cooperation from the Royal Navy, resulting in perfectly secure communications with Salisbury. By all accounts, Ian Smith himself was accorded greater respect and acknowledgement by all ranks than Harold Wilson.
We were aware that the British forces were violently anti-communist and sympathised with Rhodesia, but this did not apply to the British Government who seemed hell-bent on forcing us into a communist take-over. Sanctions were taking effect in so far as open trade was concerned but Rhodesia had turned towards South Africa and Portugal and our sanctions busters were becoming increasingly effective. For the ordinary man in the street not much had changed and support for Ian Smith and his RF party strengthened with every new threat from Whitehall.
Ian Smith and Harold Wilson aboard the HMS Fearless.
A different way of thinking
IAN SMITH DESCRIBED THE BLACK folk of Rhodesia as the nicest and happiest people in all of Africa. I have no doubt that this was so because they needed no persuasion to report the presence of terrorists whenever and wherever they appeared. Through 1966 to 1972 very few of our black countrymen were even aware of the ZANU and ZAPU armed incursions and continued to lead normal lives.
Many amusing stories of these times can be told of our black countrymen and the way that they interpreted non-tribal issues. I give some short examples here.
What with a drought and one thing and another, an old man in the southwestern region near Kezi, was facing hard times. For hours he contemplated what he should do until he recalled being taught by missionaries many years before. “Ask and it shall be given unto you.”
The old man decided to act on this and wrote a letter to God asking Him for £10 to overcome all his problems and promised never again to trouble Him if he received this help. When the letter was in an envelope the old man was in a quandary because he did not remember being given God’s address. Deciding the post office people would know what to do, he addressed the stamped envelope ‘TO GOD IN HEAVEN’ and posted it at the Kezi Post Office.
The sorter of mail did not know what to do with the letter so took it to the postmaster who was a white man. The postmaster said he would handle the matter. At the end of his working day he drove to the local Roman Catholic mission and handed the letter over to the senior father who was so pleased by the writer’s faith that he passed it all the way around the mission. A total of £5 was collected in silver that was reduced to a £5 note and mailed to the old man with an accompanying letter.
During the following week a second letter addressed ‘TO GOD IN HEAVEN’ arrived at the mission. In this the old man thanked God for the gift of £5 but suggested that, in future, God should not make any payment through the Catholic mission because they keep half of His gifts.
A terrorist was captured unhurt but in an emaciated state. He was armed with an SKS rifle and had plenty of ammunition. His belly had been empty for days and the urine in his water bottle had turned to acid because he had failed to find water. Once he had been fed and his thirst had been quenched he was interrogated by Special Branch. He told SB that he was the sole survivor of a contact with the Army and had been trying to get back to Zambia. The matter of hunger and thirst came up and he was asked if he had seen any game. He said he had seen plenty of animals. When asked why he had not shot something to eat, he said, “I do not have a Government hunting licence!”
An old headman near Chipinga came with his people to inspect my helicopter—the first they had seen close up. The headman was delighted to be taken on a short goodwill flight around his own territory accompanied by his ten-year-old grandson. Having experienced flight for the first time in his life, the old man declared that he was now the possessor of untold knowledge. He understood cars, buses and tractors, all of which he had driven. He understood most mechanical things, having worked with ploughs, farm implements and dairy milking machines. He said he even understood jet airliners because he had seen them flying high in the sky. But there was one thing that really puzzled his mind. He could not understand how white men put whole sardines into a totally enclosed tin. When I told him how this was done and pointed out the solder lines around the crimped lid he was tickled pink but asked me to promise that I would keep this amazing secret to myself.
When we were operating in the Kanyemba area, I came upon some of the people of the two-toed tribe known as the Vadoma. Not all members of the tribe suffered the affliction, but all seemed to be resistant to the killer disease ‘sleeping sickness’ caused by tsetse flies that plagued that area of the Zambezi Valley. Every time I was bitten by one of these creatures I not only jumped at the sting but also came up in a red and painful swelling around the bite. When I asked a Vadoma chief how he put up with the tsetse fly menace, he said he suffered no problem. He always made certain that a person who was more attractive to the flies than himself stayed close to him, day and night.
My father was overseeing the monthly dipping of tribal cattle when a delegation of old men approached him driving three oxen before them. These animals had been castrated many moons back but the men had come to Dad to say they had made a big mistake; these beasts should never have been castrated. Would ‘Mambo’ please turn them back into bulls!
Amongst European traders there was always good-natured rivalry evidenced by notices and nonsensical poems affixed to shop windows. I cannot recall any that I saw but Maria Pickett, who lived in Gatooma, told me of one incident that typified the rivalry between people trading in similar lines. This involved two chemists whose premises were opposite one another on the main street in the middle of town. One altered his display window to promote a whole range of quality hand-soaps. Included was a poem that read, “I am young and full of hope—I wash my pussy with Coal-tar soap!” Seeing this, his rival responded by filling his window with all sorts of low-cost soaps and displayed them with the following message: “I am old and have no hope—I wash my cock with any old soap!”
FAC courses and smoke trails
AT THORNHILL THE HUNTER AND Vampire squadrons were running Forward Air Controller (FAC) courses for Army officers undergoing company and platoon commander training at the School of Infantry, Gwelo.
The FAC courses were primarily intended for situations of conventional warfare where the Army might need air strikes to be undertaken against a variety of targets, including tanks, other armoured vehicles and artillery. These courses were the foundation upon which the Army and the Air Force developed very special bonds between units and individuals. Most of the participating Army officers were majors, captains and lieutenants who became senior commanders in future operations.
Arising from the FAC courses, I thought that situations could arise in which helicopter pilots might also have to undertake airborne FAC tasks by directing jet pilots onto pinpoint targets. It occurred to me that if two helicopters could trail smoke from different directions towards a target, jet pilots would be able to visually extend the lines and strike the intersection point. With official approval to investigate this possibility I had special nozzles made to inject atomised oil into the combustion chamber of the jet engine. For weeks I worked on this with the willing assistance of the squadron’s technicians, often covering the entire airbase in a cloud of white smoke.
PB, Rob Gaunt and Eddie Wilkinson seen here with Army officers of an early FAC course. Most of these officers were to become the mainstay of Army operations as excellent field commanders.
When the nozzle design and method of pumping the fluid into the engine seemed right, airborne tests were conducted with
a Canberra. The Canberra’s crew could easily see the smoke trail from over twenty nautical miles but it soon became apparent that a helicopter’s flight line and the smoke trail differed considerably, even in the gentlest of wind conditions. Since this was bound to lead jets into striking wrong positions the project was discarded.
Missing rhino
AIR HQ RECEIVED AN UNUSUAL request for help from a farmer living a few miles west of Salisbury. He ran game on his place. Included was a white rhino that had gone missing. I was tasked to find the animal and, if possible, drive it back to the farm. A pass up one of the boundaries revealed a break in the fence through which the rhino had escaped. Fairly high grass on the adjacent farm clearly revealed the line the rhino had taken and led me to the big fellow who was having a snooze under trees some five miles from the gap in the fence. The animal responded well to helicopter shepherding and trotted back to where the farmer and his workers had positioned to guide the animal through the broken section of fence.
However, when the rhino spotted the people ahead of him he became confused and gave me a run-around as I moved about trying to steer him in the right direction. The people on the ground waved hats and other objects to help but two of them only succeeded in getting knocked over by the rhino before I eventually came very close and forced him through.
The fun of helicopters
IT WAS UNUSUAL EVENTS SUCH as this that made helicopters so much more fun to fly than any fixed-wing machine.
Because of the helicopter’s versatility, every opportunity was taken to reduce stresses and make a student’s training a special experience. Intensive training was broken down into short periods with rest breaks taken in a variety of locations. This allowed students to meet a whole range of people, which was not possible when operating conventional aircraft.
Many of our training flights included tea and luncheon stops with farmers who were always delighted to have us drop in on their front lawns. Seldom was this done without forewarning and, in consequence, there were usually additional guests invited to join the helicopter crew for a swim and sumptuous meal.
Visiting Great Zimbabwe. Hotel out of sight to the right.
A number of officers at Air HQ considered such practices a misuse of helicopters. Fortunately, most recognised the true value of these stopovers because it saved many wasted flying hours. If two hours of actual flying training was to be done in two parts and a farm visit was taken in between, it saved the high cost of having to route to and from the training area twice. The second benefit was the all-important matter of generating good public relations for which the Air Staff received loads of good reports.
Police Reserve Air Wing
ANOTHER GROUP OF PEOPLE WE were getting to know in these times were pilots and observers of the Police Reserve Air Wing. PRAW had been established along the same lines as the Kenyan Police Air Wing that did such good work during the Mau Mau rebellion in Kenya.
PRAW operated privately owned aircraft ranging greatly in make and capacity. All crews were flying enthusiasts who longed to be employed in operational roles in preference to mundane transporting of passengers around the country. But their operational training was very limited and wholly geared to police needs and thinking.
One aspect of training that received an inordinate amount of attention was message dropping. All aircraft were fitted with radios for civil aviation communications but the police radio network was not compatible with these sets, hence the need for occasional message drops. To meet this shortfall, a message was inserted into a small weighted bag to which was attached a long thin red streamer. A ground party could easily follow the streamer when the bag was dropped, even in the thickest bush. The PRAW pilots however placed great emphasis on dropping a message at its recipient’s feet.
I was called upon to lecture PRAW pilots on air operations in general but, because of the number of individuals involved, my lecture was given in two sessions. At question time during the first session a lawyer from Umtali, Dendy Lawton, raised the matter of message dropping in mountainous areas. I spelt out the immense dangers of flying at low speed close to any mountain and stressed the reason for having a long streamer to assist ground parties follow and find a message. Flight safety was the issue, not accuracy of the drop. In particular I said no drop should ever be made flying towards rising ground, irrespective of the wind direction.
During the second PRAW session Chipinga farmer, Bill Springer, raised the self-same question. He received the same answer and cautions I had given Dendy Lawton. Yet, incredibly, it was these two men who met their deaths making drops towards rising ground.
On 6 May 1967 Dendy Lawton ploughed into the side of a mountain and his observer, Bill Perkins (Perky), was thrown clear. When Perky staggered to his feet he saw that the aircraft was on fire with Dendy inside. Without hesitation he went into the aircraft to rescue his friend but was driven back badly burnt and Dendy perished. It took many months for Perky to recover from severe burns, though he eventually did so with surprisingly minor scarring.
Two years later, on 19 July 1969, Bill Springer was dropping supplies to ground troops monitoring the valley through which the Umtali to Beira road and rail line ran. In the process Bill flew into rising ground. How it came to be that Bill Perkins was there I do not remember. But Perky got into the aircraft and, with fuel pouring all over him, he managed to pull badly injured Bill Springer clear of the wreck.
Fortunately for Perky there was no fire this time but, unfortunately, Bill Springer lost his life. The bravery shown by Bill Perkins in knowingly going to a friend’s aid in spite of a real danger of being burnt again is beyond description.
Perky (centre) with Hugh McCormick and John Blythe-Wood.
Chapter
6
Operation Nickel
BY MID-AUGUST 1967 I had completed helicopter conversions for Peter Nicholls, Hugh Slatter and Mick Grier before moving to Makuti where the RLI was engaged with incoming terrorist groups. They were also searching for arms reported cached in a cave.
Border Control units continued picking up small terrorist group infiltrations across the Zambezi east of Chirundu at a time when the Zambezi Valley floor was stinking hot and bone-dry. Soldiers were catching up and accounting for almost all terrorists whose water bottles were either empty or contained urine. The few terrorists that managed to reach local tribesmen above the escarpment were reported to the police who either captured or killed them. So ZANU was getting nowhere!
It was whilst I was with the RLI at Makuti, that the officers and men ripped sleeves off camouflage shirts and cut legs off camouflage trousers to counter the heat. All wore veldskoen boots (vellies) without socks because socks picked up irritating burs and sharp grass seeds. Most young farmers had rejected socks years before this for the same reason. In the cool of evening I noticed Army officers were wearing slacks and vellies but no socks. They nicknamed the bare skin of their ankles ‘Makuti socks’; a name that stuck. Thereafter, vellies and Makuti socks were fashionable for most young Rhodesian men.
In 1967 the helicopter squadron was small. As usual for those times, technicians were almost equal in number to pilots and every one of them served as gunner-technician in the field.
The search for the hidden arms cache eventually led RLI to a site in the Vuti Purchase Area. It proved to have been the cache point but the equipment had been moved just before its discovery. All the same, it was interesting to explore the narrow cave whose deep bed of bat guano made one bounce as one walked. A ledge on one side of the cave was at the base of a vertical tunnel that led to another small ledge on the open side of the ridge above the cave. ZANU’s keepers of arms had built a long stepladder that gave access to this opening so that they could survey all approaches; which is why they detected the RLI’s approach in time to move their arms cache to safety.
My real interest in the cave was the huge quantity of bat guano that was much sought after by gardeners. Recognising the commercial value of this natural fertiliser I plann
ed to do something about getting it to market when I could find time to do so. However, I obviously talked too much and lost out to one of 3 Squadron’s VR pilots who had the time to set up camp and extract all the guano, which he sold in Salisbury. During later operations I located another cave off the Umfuli River in the Mcheka-wa-ka-Sungabeta range. This cave contained greater volumes of bat guano but I never did find the chance to capitalise on it.
I was still operating from Makuti when, on 14 August 1967, I received orders to get to FAF 1 (Forward Airfield 1). This was an established permanent Forward Airfield at Wankie Town. At the time FAF 2 was being developed at Kariba Airport. In time to come another eight such bases would be built. On arrival at FAF 1, I learned what the flap was about. A large group of terrorists (later established to be ninety-four men) had crossed the Batoka Gorge, downstream from Victoria Falls, during the night of 9 August and had covered a distance of almost seventy miles before Rhodesian forces made contact. The operation was codenamed Operation Nickel.
The Batoka Gorge lay the same distance again from the bottom right hand corner of this aerial photograph as the distance to Victoria Falls (top left). Of interest in this picture are five ancient falls lines that have stepped back over millions of years. The next line in the existing falls is developing on the left side of Victoria Falls, as witnessed by a deepening cut known as The Devil’s Cataract.
Most of the deep gorge below the Victoria Falls had been ignored in regular Border Control operations. This was partly due to a shortage of troops but more so because that stretch of the border was considered safe. The bone-dry, unpopulated rough country on the Zambian side of the Zambezi River plus steep-sided gorges and fast-flowing turbulent water with many crocodiles all appeared to form a perfect barrier. But this crossing awakened us to the fact that we had been focusing too much on ZANU’s infiltration methods that involved the use of vehicles to reach the Zambezi River and fishermen’s canoes to cross it.
Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot Page 26