This detachment differed from the first in that we had with us three experienced RLI officers. The brigadier gave us another lengthy briefing following which he asked for a Rhodesian update briefing for the benefit of senior staff officers visiting his Brigade HQ. Norman Walsh and Captain Ron Reid-Daly made an impromptu presentation, again laying emphasis on the need for offensive patrols to seek out and destroy FRELIMO. This briefing was well received and resulted in an agreement that Portuguese soldiers would be placed under command of RLI officers to see how offensive patrolling might work in Tete Province.
After spending some time in the field, Ron Reid-Daly told us that there was nothing much wrong with the average Portuguese soldier’s fighting spirit but he lacked fire discipline, creating unnecessary noise and expenditure of ammunition. To be led from the front by Rhodesian officers was good experience for the troops at Bene. Notwithstanding language difficulties they enjoyed a new sense of confidence that made them braver soldiers through having a commander visible up front giving the silent hand signals they understood. We learned that Portuguese officers born and bred in Mozambique were greatly favoured by the troops because they also led from the front. But because they were so few in number, most troops were led by metropolitan officers who commanded from any positions but right up front. This is borne out to some extent by the very high casualty levels amongst Rhodesian Army and Mozambican-born officers when compared, pro rata, to their Europe-born equivalents.
At every opportunity and with Norman Walsh’s blessings, I pursued my interest in trying to rustle up FRELIMO targets through visual reconnaissance, which I conducted at low level. I would later discover that this was very dangerous and not an efficient way of searching large tracts of ground. Nevertheless the effort proved worthwhile and assisted in generating targets for joint actions. But so poor was the quality and so vague the physical details of river-lines and surface gradients of the maps issued to us that we concluded they must have been drawn by Vasco da Gama himself. This made low-level map-reading particularly difficult.
Operating independently out of radio range of any forces was really dangerous for my technician and me. We got ourselves into hot situations on some occasions when FRELIMO, rather than going to ground as they had been taught, chose to stand upright to fire at us. Fortunately their anti-aircraft fire was still poor though we suffered moments of terror when numerous men fired their automatic weapons at very close range as we twisted right and left passing over them at treetop level. Many hundreds of rounds were fired so we were lucky to sustain only two non-critical hits through the tail boom.
In consequence of these recce flights, we provided more intelligence to the Brigade HQ in a week than had been received in a year; or so it seemed. Two young Portuguese Air Force pilots who operated single-engined Dorniers fromthe small airstrip at Bene were interested in establishing what I was finding that they themselves had been unable to find. A comparison of maps immediately revealed that they had reported almost every location I had plotted. It was hardly surprising that they were deeply distressed by this because the very same Army officers who were happily responding to my reports had been fobbing them off, month in and month out. Nowhere on the Ops Room wall map or intelligence logs was any of the Portuguese Air Force information recorded. This was not only absolutely disgraceful from our point of view; it exposed one of the greatest flaws in Portuguese operations.
Rhodesians believed that inter-force co-operation was fundamental and of paramount importance. From time to time there were hiccups, but one force never totally ignored intelligence given by another. Because of this we found it difficult to understand how inter-force jealously or rivalry, call it what you may, within the Portuguese forces could be allowed to limit their operational effectiveness against FRELIMO. Through this spirit of non-co-operation we recognised that the threat posed to Rhodesia by FRELIMO was far more serious than we had first imagined.
As with two other RLI officers, Captain Ron Reid-Daly continued to lead a small force of Portuguese troops. Ron was a pretty tough customer with considerable experience, including combat service with the SAS in Malaya. Yet he continued to believe in the ordinary Portuguese fighting soldier and was only too happy to take on FRELIMO with these men, providing he used his own FN rifle and not the Portuguese issue 7.62mm Armalite rifle.
I located a base area early one morning from barely discernible smoke rising out of heavy riverine bush west of Bene. Ron was flown in with fifteen soldiers to check it out. Before he commenced a sweep through the area I warned Ron that this might be a civilian camp. Soon after the sweep commenced a Portuguese soldier opened fire on movement he had seen. Immediately all the Portuguese soldiers let fly causing Ron great difficulty in getting them to cease firing. He too had seen human movement just before the firing started but immediately realised these were from terrified women running for their lives. Fortunately the troops had been shooting blind and casualties were limited to a mother and her baby.
Back at base I saw that the baby had been shot through the flesh of one buttock and his mother had been grazed in her flank by the same round. Kindly medical attention was given to mother and child before they were taken to an aldeamento along with all the other women brought in from the bush camp. Like so many of their kind, they had been in hiding from both FRELIMO and the Portuguese forces. Hearing this, I felt really guilty for being responsible for bringing them into Portuguese custody.
Whilst the two casualties were still being attended, a Portuguese major asked who had initiated the fire. One soldier pointed to Ron Reid-Daly intimating that he had been the first to fire. Ron’s fiery temper showed deep red in his taut face as he literally threw his rifle into the hands of the surprised major saying, “Judge this for yourself.” The embarrassed major sniffed at Ron’s FN rifle and realised that it had not been fired at all. Then, followed a severe blasting for indiscipline by all the soldiers, the unfortunate soldier who had pointed to Ron was taken off for twenty-one days’ detention.
I was not involved with other deployments to Tete that year as I had new pilots to instruct. But during one of these a very unpleasant incident occurred when, following a particular action, helicopters were recovering troops and taking civilians back to the Army base. Flying Officer Hugh Slatter landed when only five soldiers and two young African women remained. The five Portuguese soldiers made a dash for the helicopter and boarded. Hugh shook his head and hand-signalled that the two women must be lifted out first; another helicopter would return to collect the soldiers.
A Portuguese sergeant returned negative gestures then, before Hugh or his technician realised what was happening, stepped out of the helicopter shot both women dead where they stood and casually returned to his seat. Hugh’s horror and rage was such that he was simultaneously crying, screaming and drawing his pistol to shoot the sergeant. Seeing the danger, Hugh’s technician intervened and persuaded him to let the matter be handled at base. Hugh reluctantly agreed but, upon landing, he tendered his ‘immediate resignation’ to Air HQ by signal. There was a general revolt by the Rhodesians aircrews causing considerable embarrassment to the Brigade HQ staff. The Portuguese sergeant was arrested and charged with murder whilst communications went back and forth between the Mozambican and Rhodesian authorities. Though the Rhodesians were persuaded to stay on in Tete, Hugh refused point-blank to do so, preferring to face court martial rather than operate with the “murdering Portuguese forces”. He was flown back to Salisbury where considerable effort was needed to persuade him to withdraw his resignation.
Our experiences in Mozambique concerned us deeply because everyone realised that military failure in that country would have serious consequences for Rhodesia’s security. We also felt deeply for the Mozambican people, black and white, who knew their country’s future was being mishandled by their metropolitan government 10,000 kilometres away.
Judging by the results that were jointly achieved during our detachments to Tete, a continuous presence of Rhodesian forc
es operating with Portuguese forces would have made all the difference in curbing FRELIMO and denying ZANU and ZAPU use of the Tete Province. In fact, if we had been granted continuous access along the Zambezi River’s southern bank within Tete province this would have met our strategic needs. It would have allowed us to extend our border-control operations eastwards to capitalise on the successes we had achieved along this same river at home. Unfortunately, politics disallowed this critical advantage and history records the consequences.
Tripper operations continued on and off and Peter Briscoe had this to say to author Beryl Salt about one attachment to Portuguese forces at Chicoa in late1970:
We formed a detachment based on Chicoa on the south bank of the Zambezi just west of the Cabora Bassa Gorge. Chicoa was a hellhole. We anticipated a lengthy stay and we had learnt to take our own field kitchen and cooks. It was the rainy season and the afternoons were punctuated with the usual thunderstorms. Cleanliness was a problem so we rigged up showers. These were serviced by a tank of water that was filled from the waters of the Zambezi. However, the water was chocolate brown and we ended up dirtier after the shower than before. So we found the answer—wait for a rainstorm, strip naked, bring out the soap and shampoo and use Mother Nature. Except for our feet and ankles we were clean. The only person who enjoyed shower time more than we did, was the postmistress who watched from a distance.
The thing we envied most about the Portuguese Air Force stationed at Chicoa was that their Alouette helicopter had a 20mm cannon. Compared with our 7.62 machine-gun this was a real killing machine. It was patently apparent that they had little or no idea how to operate this weapon or even service it and this was graphically demonstrated one morning when the gunner’s replacement arrived. The new incumbent had never seen a weapon like this before and was given a quick tutorial. The tutor, demonstrating how to load the gun, pulled back the moving parts and released the breechblock. He had, however, forgotten to clear the weapon. It picked up a 20mm round that went off with a fearful bang, travelled across the open ground towards the Portuguese camp, entered a tent and hit the cook who was taking his post-breakfast siesta. It removed a large part of his skull and he was casevaced to Tete by chopper. That evening the commander came over to tell us that the cook was dead. Seeing the looks of dismay on our faces, he immediately qualified his remark by saying, “Oh, don’t worry, he was a ‘sheet’ cook anyway!” We were stunned by this callous disregard for human life, but it was typical of the overall attitude.
As there seemed to be little action at one stage, we threatened to pack up camp and return to Rhodesia, which was bad news for the Portuguese Army colonel. We had just been to a scene where there had been a report of a Fred (FRELIMO) camp but it was a ‘lemon’. The Portuguese had to return by vehicle. No sooner had we landed back at Chicoa than the Portuguese Army colonel came running to our camp, in itself an unusual sight. Panting and puffing he approached Wing Commander Ozzie Penton, and, scarcely able to contain himself, he blurted out what was to become the most famous words ever uttered at Chicoa. “Colonel Penton, good news, good news, we have been ambushed!” Ozzie’s face was a picture. Recovering, he looked at the Colonel and said, “Well Colonel, if that is good news, what the hell is the bad news?” We deployed the troops but rain had washed the tracks away.
One morning Captain Neves, their OC, gave the whole company a pep-talk, telling them that convoys were going to be sent out on the three roads that led out of Chicoa to locate mines. This was a good plan—except for one small drawback—the intention was to discover the mines by hitting them. The plan also required volunteers to drive the vehicles. As these vehicles were not mine-protected, the volunteers were, in effect, going to their deaths. The troops got into a huddle and a group of volunteers stepped forward to loud applause from their comrades. They boarded the vehicles and drove off. Within the hour we were called on to pick up the casualties and drop trackers to search for spoor but, even in the case of freshly laid mines, the rains soon washed any evidence away. The young people lost their lives needlessly but this did not seem to bother the officers. After a few days the exercise was called off—there were no more vehicles. There was one concession, however. The drivers of the Bedford trucks were allowed to remove the bonnets because if they hit a land mine the bonnets would flip back and crush the driver!
Then we were off again on our ‘magical mystery tour’, on this occasion to the picturesque resort of Tembue, an Army camp encircled by a few mud huts. We were billeted in a corrugated-iron shed, which had a hessian partition across the middle to separate the officers from the other ranks. A short walk found us at the officers’ mess, next to which was an open kitchen in which the chef was preparing our evening meal, surrounded by a host of flies. A severely undernourished cow, which should have been put out of its misery months ago, was tethered nearby. On the second day, we returned to camp to find the cow missing. We decided not to risk it, so we dined on corned beef and ‘dog’ biscuits washed down with copious amounts of cerveja (beer). The following morning the cow reappeared, so we needn’t have worried, but the threat was ever-present that she would one day go missing for good.
Animal incidents
FOR THE MOST PART RHODESIAN troops were pretty bored with border-control routines though the abundance of wild life often helped break the monotony. The Zambezi Valley teamed with wild game in the early 1960s before they became disrupted by terrorist and security force activities, which forced some to move to quieter regions; many elephants crossed the Zambezi River for the tranquillity of Zambia.
On a number of occasions we saw soldiers swimming in deep water close to sandy beaches along the Zambezi River. From our helicopter my technicians and I could see the semicircle of large crocodiles lying submerged in close proximity to the naked men. Every radioed warning was ignored because experience had shown the troops that, if a group of people remained close together, crocodiles kept their distance. If however anyone separated from the group, or was alone, crocodiles would attack. A number of men were lost to crocodiles in this way, including some members of SAP operating in the Victoria Falls area.
Situations of confrontation between soldiers and big game occasionally induced friction between National Parks and the military, particularly when charging animals were gunned down. There were also situations in which the Army shot for the pot and to produce biltong (dried meat) in quantities exceeding Parks’ approval. But the presence of game had its lighter side.
A high-ranking aged policeman flew into Mana Pools during a joint-force inspection tour of border-control units. He was a keen photographer and left the helicopter immediately on arrival to take photographs of a large lone bull elephant he had spotted from the air just before landing. This was ‘Twinkle Toes’ who was well known to the locals, but not to this policeman.
Some months earlier Twinkle Toes had been darted by National Parks rangers to record his vital statistics and to mark him with a large white painted number for ease of tracing his movements. Before the recovery drug was administered, the rangers had a bit of fun painting the big jumbo’s toes in a variety of bright colours; hence his nickname.
When the visiting team was ready to fly on to their next port of call they could not find the aged policeman. A quick search around found Twinkle Toes circling the base of a large, straight-trunked tree. He had taken exception to the clicking of the camera and had charged the policeman who was now perched out of reach amongst the high branches. The jumbo was chased off but no amount of persuasion could get the policeman to slide down the huge, straight and smooth tree trunk. Use of the helicopter’s hoist was discounted because of the density of the tree’s foliage. How he managed to climb the tree the aged policeman could not explain; how he eventually came down I do not remember.
At Mana Pools there was a treetop lodge whose owner spent the six coolest months of the year running a game-viewing business and the rest of the year at his home in England. I landed at the treetop lodge to conduct one of multiple locatio
n tests on an SSB radio unit that had been specially developed for deployment by helicopter. It so happened that this coincided with the impending departure of the owner of the lodge who was packing up for his return to Britain. Since he had so much curry in his fridge he asked my technician and me to take lunch with him on the high balcony that overlooked the Zambezi River.
Having set up the SSB aerials and tested the set with satisfactory calls to Air HQ, we left the equipment in situ and went off for a leisurely lunch because we had two whole hours to waste before the next radio test. We had finished eating and were chatting when I asked my tech to check on the aircraft, which was out of sight to us. Immediately hesaw the helicopter he called saying, “Just take a look at this!” Surrounding the helicopter was a herd of about fifty jumbos, huge to tiny, all sniffing and feeling the helicopter and laid-out equipment with their trunks. There was nothing we coulddo because forcing the big fellows to move away might have caused damage. Seeing one large trunk wrapped around the flimsy plastic hydraulic fluid reservoirs of the main rotor blade dampers worried me. When the elephants moved off we went down to inspect for damage. None was found though there were snot marks covering everything and our slimy helmets and masks stank strongly of jumbo.
Mick Grier had just landed troops in the Zambezi Valley when, out of the corner of his eye, he detected movement. The next moment a large angry black rhino bull burst out of the bush charging directly at the helicopter. Mick, who had a good sense of humour, told me how, “With one graceful fluid flowing movement, I applied full collective and watched the beast pass inches under the aircraft.” Luckily the rhino did not notice the two soldiers he had barely missed and, with horns and tail held high, followed Mick who drew him away to a safe distance from the men on the ground.
Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot Page 35