Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  BRIEFING. Main target briefing was given by Sqn Ldr Petter-Bowyer at New Sarum at 0800 on Thursday 4th April. OC 1 Sqn and both Canberra crews attended the briefing. Photography (OP JUNCTION) supplied by JSPIS. A combined attack pattern using SOPs was agreed between RED and GREEN Sections.

  TACTICS. RED to operate out of Thornhill using 18lb RP and 30mm front gun. GREEN to operate from New Sarum using 96 x 28lb FRAGMENTATION. Sections to meet at IP Delta (UT 115619). Bombing height 1200 ft AGL. Control on Channel 3. After mark the Hunters to put in RP attacks on central area, the Canberras following with minimum time delay on single run releasing full weapon load. Hunters to re-attack after Canberras clear.

  SORTIE. GREEN Section airborne at 1420 aiming for IP 1452. Contact made with IAK and IZP on route. Red and GREEN joined as planned at the IP and RED leader made contact with marker aircraft A4 who began positioning for his attack. The combined formation with Canberras on the starboard of the Hunters left IP at 1456. A4 marked on time and called “on target”. I positioned Green Section for a final attack heading of 240 deg. M turning left as the Hunters pulled up into Perch position. GREEN 2 was briefed to be about 1000 yds behind me. The bomb run was normal and the target identified by white marker smoke and Hunter RP strikes. Bombs were seen to leave and the strike detonations heard clearly. I continued straight ahead as planned. A4 then called to say that GREEN 2 had exploded over the target. This was confirmed by RED LEADER. No parachutes were seen and it was obvious that both crewmen had died in the initial explosion which was reported to have been a large fireball. I searched the area after the Hunters had completed their re-attack. Several areas of burning wreckage were visible. YELLOW section then began trooping into the area and I returned to base after establishing that there were no survivors. REMARKS. The SOP HUNTERS/CANBERRAS worked well and with a minimum of fuss. Briefing was adequate but although we had the benefit of a very full description of the target by A4, I am certain we could not have identified the target without the very good marking we had.

  (Signed) Flight Lieutenant I.H. Donaldson

  It will be helpful to clarify a few abbreviations in the sequence Don used them:

  OP JUNCTION was the codename for the photographic

  coverage of Mozambique to upgrade poor-quality Portuguese mapping.

  JSPIS—Joint Services Photographic Interpretation Services.

  SOP—Standard Operating Procedures.

  1AK and 1ZP as written, ONE ALPHA KILO and ONE

  ZULU PAPA as spoken, were the callsigns of JOC Hurricane

  at Bindura and FAF 3 at Centenary.

  YELLOW section was the callsign of helicopters based at the

  SAS Tac HQ, Macombe.

  GREEN 2—Canberra flown by Air Sub-Lieutenant Keith

  Goddard with Air Sub-Lieutenant Bill Airey as navigator.

  RED Leader was Rob Gaunt, leading Hunters flown by Don

  Northcroft, Danny Svoboda and Paddy Bate.

  The 1 Squadron’s (unsigned) report, probably by Rob himself, followed by Wing Commander Tol Janeke’s remarks as OC Flying Wing Thornhill, are typically low-key.

  1. The sortie to the IP was SOP. At IP ‘Delta’, Green Section was located and after join up, Red and Green Sections left the IP for the target area on a heading 313 deg M. The FAC aircraft Alpha 4, was sighted and target marking and identification was carried out.

  2. The first aircraft on target were four Hunters firing 18-pound 3-inch RP’s, the second aircraft on target were two Canberras dropping frag bombs.

  3. On the downwind leg of Red Section’s next attack, Red leader observed a large ball of fire falling towards the target area and was informed by Alpha 4 that it was the number two Canberra that had exploded in mid air. The scattered wreckage of the aircraft landed 500 yards to the north of the target.

  4. The third and fourth attacks were carried out by four Hunters with 30mm. After the last attack Red Section joined up and on climbing away, Red lead gave an in-flight report to One Alpha Kilo giving details of the attack and the Canberra. Red Section recovered to Thornhill and the remaining Canberra to Salisbury.

  (Unsigned)

  Comments by OCFW

  This strike was well co-ordinated with No 5 Squadron and the FAC aircraft. The only incident that marred an otherwise good strike was the fatal Canberra accident.

  Weather at Thornhill on recovery was poor with low cloud and intermittent drizzle. It was apparent on speaking to the crews after the sortie that the loss of the Canberra had had a marked effect on them. It is to the credit of the junior pilots on this flight that the recovery in bad weather was well handled.

  (Signed) Wing Commander F.D. Janeke

  My perspective of this airstrike was quite different considering I watched each aircraft as it attacked. Rob Gaunt’s rockets were exploding on target before my marker rockets were down. As usual I tensed up until I saw the Hunter pass under me. Once the fourth Hunter passed through target I looked up to watch Don Donaldson’s bombs appear out of the bomb bay at the very moment I expected to see them. The bombs ran the full 950-metre length of the target before I saw a number of men running in many directions within the base. I looked up for the second Canberra, hoping its bombs would reach target quickly.

  Keith Goddard was too far behind and still turning onto his attack line. With my own motion this gave the impression that the Canberra was skidding sideways against the beautiful backdrop of bluish purple hills. When on line, the Canberra made a couple of sharp corrections in response to the bomb-aimer’s instructions. At the very moment I expected to see the bombs falling, there they were but, as they reached about one-fuselage depth below the aircraft, the graceful Canberra disappeared in an orange fireball of enormous dimension. I knew immediately that a bomb had detonated prematurely setting off the full bomb load. Moments later the loud bang and pressure wave came to me through the open window of my Trojan.

  Rob Gaunt asked, “What the hell was that?” I told him Green 2 had exploded. Rob then asked if it had been Strela to which I answered, “I saw no trail. I think it was a premature detonation setting off the whole bloody frag load.”

  In a fraction of a second the fireball had increased in size and changed to a mixture of deep-red flame billowing out of dense black smoke with a tongue of orange flame spewing out of its centre and curving downwards. This was the flaming forward section of the fuselage that tumbled slowly leaving a trail of white smoke and unburnt fuel along its long path to ground. Both engines passed the fuselage throwing up showers of soil and red dust as they impacted. By then the fireball had given way to dense black tumbling smoke from which sections of wings, tail and other wreckage left many trails of light grey and white smoke as they descended at varying velocities. Like falling leaves the wings and large bits of wreckage wafted down slowly.

  By the time the last piece of wreckage reached ground the smoke ball had become brownish grey which reduced in density as the wind took it westwards past numerous columns of smoke rising from the sparsely-treed ground, some 500 metres to the north of the target.

  Rob Gaunt had not missed a beat and ran the four Hunters through the target a second time as if nothing had happened. I was only vaguely aware of these strikes low on my left side because my attention was fixed on the awful drama I have described. When the Hunters cleared I switched over to the SAS radio frequency and moved over to the crash site where I noticed Don Donaldson’s Canberra orbiting above me.

  The SAS on the ground at Macombe, just fifteen kilometres away, had heard the explosion clearly. Four helicopters were heading for the target, at last to check out air strike effectiveness. However they witnessed the disaster and headed directly for the Canberra’s nose section. In moments confirmation was given that both crewmen were dead and that their bodies were intact. Having heard this, I returned to the airstrike frequency and gave Don Donaldson the bad news.

  Flight Lieutenant Al Bruce in the meanwhile was airborne out of Macombe and met me over the crash site preparatory to an atta
ck on the small base I had located just before the jet strike. We made our strikes and were well clear of target when the SAS troops at the Canberra crash site reported hearing a large explosion from the position we had just struck.

  I landed at Macombe to collect the bodies of the Canberra crew and flew them back to New Sarum. On arrival there, well after dark, I was feeling very depressed by events and for having to carry the bodies of two fine young men, whose deaths I had witnessed.

  In spite of the fact that I was extremely tired and had not had anything to eat or drink all day, members of the Board of Inquiry into the Canberra incident insisted on taking my evidence right away. This was because they planned to fly to the crash site first thing next morning. By the time my statement had been recorded and answers given to many questions, I was too clapped-out to fly back to Centenary and stayed over at New Sarum.

  Operation Marble

  NEXT MORNING I WAS ABOUT to return to the operational area when called to the secrephone (telephone that scrambles and unscrambles voice conversation). Group Captain Dicky Bradshaw instructed me to return to Thornhill, as I was required to proceed on a top-secret mission next day, 6 April. His signal to Thornhill would fill me in on the details.

  In his Flying Wing HQ office at Thornhill Wing Commander Tol Janeke handed me two signals to read whilst he and Rob Gaunt chatted. The first was an Operational Order for Operation Marble. It required a small team of recce pilots to position at the Portuguese Brigade HQ at Estima Air Base close to the hydroelectric construction site of Cabora Bassa.

  The task was to locate FRELIMO targets for a Portuguese assault force. Rob Gaunt was to be the Ops Commander of a temporary FAF at Estima Air Base with all necessary equipment and communications. I was to lead a team of four recce pilots to provide targets for offensive operations by Portuguese heli-borne troops and helicopter gunships.

  The second signal advised that presidential confirmation had been received for me to receive an award that made me a Member of the Legion of Merit (Operational). The congratulations I received from Tol and others went straight over my head because I was already too preoccupied with my fear of the forthcoming recce flights. These would be over areas in which I knew FRELIMO forces possessed many Strela missiles.

  Some weeks later, MLM investiture by President Dupont.

  A chat with Prime Minister Ian Smith after the ceremony.

  Tol told me to take the day off to be with Beryl and the children who I had not seen for some time. Rob Tasker and Chris Weinmann were both at base and they agreed that there was nothing requiring my immediate attention; so I briefed them to prepare three Trojans for Kevin Peinke, Mark Knight and me to fly to Estima. Kevin and Mark were the only pilots available who had shown any interest in recce, and Mozambican ground was fairly easy to read anyway. Chris Weinmann, using the fourth Trojan, was to operate out of Centenary to cover territory in the southwestern sector of the area I planned to cover.

  Chris had a fair idea of the ground he would be covering but I gave him warning to be especially careful of a particular mountainous place from which heavy fire had been directed at me every time I had been there. In particular I made it clear that I would cover those areas in which Strela was known to exist and asked him not to operate above a particular line of latitude, which I marked on his maps.

  At home I told Beryl I was only there for one night to change over an aircraft. She was disappointed but asked me several times what was troubling me. I assured her all was well and that I should be home within ten days; but she seemed to know otherwise. It puzzled me that she could see through my attempt to appear happy and relaxed.

  On the way to Estima I popped into FAF 3 to brief Peter Cooke on the Portuguese need for recce assistance and what was required of 4 Squadron. Chris would be operating from FAF 3 so we made plans for copy of his signalled recce results to HQ to be relayed to me at Estima. We also decided on the VHF ‘natter’ frequency Chris and I would use for direct communication between each other whilst airborne, because we would be beyond the range of all other stations.

  I continued with Kevin Peinke and Mark Knight to Estima where Rob Gaunt was already set up. He introduced the elderly, good-looking and immaculately dressed Brigade Commander who made it clear to all of us that he was a cavalryman, which in his view placed him amongst the ultra-elite.

  Following a short planning session with the Army and Air Force officers of the assault force, we were invited to the open-sided thatched bar of the Officers’ Club for refreshments and lunch. It was there that the brigadier offered me a bottle of any drink I chose for every live FRELIMO base my youngsters and I could offer his troops. It seemed to me that he did not believe we were all we had been cracked up to be by his superiors in Lourenço Marques. The brigadier said my choice of the cognac Antiqua was a good one.

  After lunch Kevin and Mark helped sort out our maps before accompanying me on a familiarisation flight to get a first feel for the area of Operation Marble. We spent a lot of time over the Cabora Bassa Dam site and westward along the northern bank of the Zambezi River whose shoreline was changing as the water backed up slowly from the new dam wall. Kevin was to operate in the area next to Chris and south of the same line of latitude I had marked on Chris Weinmann’s maps. Mark was to fly with me for a day or two on extended recce training.

  On 7 April, we were routing north through the area assigned for Mark when we happened upon a large FRELIMO base. I had no doubts that it was occupied and called for the assault force to meet us at one of the river junctions we had selected for RV purposes. The brigadier could not believe we had found a target so soon after take off on our first mission.

  Because of language difficulties the plan was to lead the assault force Pumas and Alouette gunships from the selected RV directly to target. The Trojan task was to provide noise cover to the approaching helicopters and mark the target with thirty-six Sneb rockets. Thereafter control would pass to the two gunships, both armed with 20mm side-firing cannons. When the gunships ran out of ammunition they would pass control to the ground force commander.

  Having continued northwestward to get beyond sight and sound range of the FRELIMO base, I followed a long circuitous route to get back south to the RV point where we waited for the airborne force. Mark and I were green with envy when we saw it approaching us. In this single lift the four Pumas were carrying more troops than could be carried by all the helicopters in Rhodesia. As for the two 20mm gunships, we simply did not have any then.

  As agreed, the helicopters held a loose formation to my left so that I could watch them all the way. I marked target with a raking salvo of rockets and pulled up to see how the Portuguese handled themselves. Coming around in long line astern for a left-hand orbit around the base, the two gunships went into action immediately because there were FRELIMO people running in all directions. The time was about 10:15.

  All four Pumas dropped their troops south of the target but so close together I could not believe it. They then lifted, turned about in the hover and disappeared the way they had come. The gunships were busy but made no attempt to stop FRELIMO breaking northward.

  Never before had I seen so many armed terrorists. Down at about 1,500 feet, flying a little higher than the gunships, I could see everyone was armed, some with RPG rocket launchers. I was so sorry that I had expended my rockets because there were tight groups which remained stationary to fire at the two gunships whenever they came close and then moved on. The gunships concentrated on buildings that caught fire immediately. Their crews had either not seen the concentrations of terrorists I could see so clearly or had chosen to ignore them. At the end of their second orbit all ammunition had been expended so they rolled out and disappeared in the direction the Pumas had gone.

  I watched at least six large groups of FRELIMO move away in good order. They were paying no attention to my aircraft so far as I could see. Over one kilometre to the south of the FRELIMO groups, the assault troops were still being shaken out into an extended sweep line
before commencing a painfully slow advance towards the base. At least fifteen minutes had elapsed from the time they were dropped to the time the troops reached the southern edge of the base. By then every FRELIMO group had melted away into the bush farthest from the troops. I left the area in disgust because this, the target of my dreams, had been totally wasted.

  Instead of continuing on with our recce, we flew back to Estima to reload rocket pods and tell Rob Gaunt of the frustrating balls-up Mark and I had witnessed. Then, whilst positioning to continue our recce, we found that the Pumas were already back at the FRELIMO base, uplifting assault troops and captured equipment. It was not yet 12:00. All structures in the camp were burning; so that was that! No follow up on tracks as might be expected. Just packing up and going home!

  The clear blue cloudless sky conditions and the presence of Strela made me move up to 6,000 feet above ground. Moving on from the smoke-covered base, we picked up strong trails leading northwestward. The route given by a number of converging and diverging pathways was a cakewalk and we found four more large bases along the line, all of which were in use. Tucked away in the densest cover either side of the tracks were many small camps linked to fields of maize, rapoko and cassava; obviously civilians were giving FRELIMO succour and hiding from the Portuguese.

  With no protection against the heat-seeking sensors of Strela missiles, and flying in perfect conditions for these weapons, I watched for them every second. If I spotted one coming up, my plan was to cut power and roll upside down to screen off the hot exhaust stubs. At the time I did not know that the paint over the entire surface of my Trojan could be ‘seen’ by these weapons and that my plan was utterly worthless.