Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  Frustrating political constraints on the military desire to take the war into hostile Mozambique and Zambia continued to be, so far as we could see, the consequence of Vorster’s obsession with his détente initiatives. Ian Smith’s book The Great Betrayal released over twenty years later confirms these suspicions.

  However, because of the nature of its operations Special Branch had never been constrained in the same way as the military, and SB was determined to make the best of this unique situation. They had no intention of sitting back and waiting for increased troubles with intensified bloodshed when détente initiatives for the December 1974 ceasefire were seen to be against Rhodesia’s interests. The SB knew that this and future détente initiatives would fail; so they aimed to capitalise on ZANLA’s confused situation by intensifying it. Inside Mozambique, no great distance from Mukumbura, SB and Army intelligence officers managed to set up meetings with Thomas Nhari. He was a ZANLA field commander and member of the DARE. Meetings with Nhari and his lieutenants occurred on three or four occasions between September and November 1974. This was a period when ZANLA was already pretty punch-drunk from our mounting successes inside the country and from the SAS’s continued attacks along their ‘safe routes’ in Mozambique.

  Thomas Nhari, like Rex Nhongo, had been a Russian-trained member of ZAPU before defecting to ZANU in 1971. For the SB and Army officers, posing as white left-wing agitators, it was easy to persuade Nhari that ZANLA was failing inside Rhodesia because they were following Chinese philosophies and using light weapons when what they really needed were heavy weapons, as advocated by the Russians.

  The enormous casualties suffered by ZANLA seemed to give credibility to the lie and Nhari and his followers were fired by these thoughts. They accepted as truth many accusations that pointed to the fact that all ZANLA’s weaknesses lay squarely with ZANU politicians and senior DARE members. These people lived lives of luxury in Lusaka, never caring a damn for the lives of armed ZANLA comrades who suffered immense dangers and hardships in blind support of selfish ‘fat cats’. Nhari was persuaded that he could secure power to himself and his followers and then come to an accommodation with the Rhodesian Government.

  The SB selection of Nhari was no mistake. He happened to be a highly respected leader who treated his men well and protected them from the bully elements amongst ZANLA’s field commanders. Once convinced he should take action against his seniors in Lusaka, it took little time for him to gather together a suitable force for a task he liked to believe was entirely of his own making. The SB did not expect Nhari to succeed; in fact they hoped he would fail.

  Nhari’s rebel force first secured ZANLA’s main base in Mozambique. This was at FRELIMO’s HQ base, Chifombo. Any resistance to his leadership was handled by burying his detractors alive. Nhari then set out for Lusaka to overpower the ZANU hierarchy and ZANLA’s ruling committee, the DARE. Fighting broke out in the streets of Kamwala in Lusaka as the Nhari rebel force tried to gain control. Tongogara’s wife and a number of ZANU and DARE officials were kidnapped. As had been hoped, Nhari botched the job and, together with many of his followers, died for his efforts; but not before bringing about serious repercussions within the high command and drawing down on ZANU the displeasure of the Lusaka Government.

  The ‘Nhari Rebellion’, as it became known, caused serious disruption in ZANLA ranks and it took the remaining elements of the DARE some time to regain control and neutralise all of Nhari’s followers. The SB was well pleased with Nhari’s achievements and even misled Lusaka with trumped-up intelligence reports to capitalise on the rebellion and further undermine Zambian relationships with ZANU.

  CTs prepare to resume war

  THE PRESIDENTS OF THE FRONTLINE States had been misled by ZAPU and ZANU into believing there could be no accommodation with the Rhodesian Government, so they pressurised ZAPU and ZANU into establishing a unified political front. Presidents Kaunda and Nyerere also insisted that ZIPRA and ZANLA must go back to war as one unified force.

  A few ZANLA commanders, and particularly Josiah Tongogara who was still in prison, saw the sense of unification. They had seen that, following Angola’s independence, the split interests of four guerrilla forces was already developing into a civil war that was certain to last for years; and they did not want to see this happen in ‘free Zimbabwe’. ZAPU and its military wing ZIPRA were still intact and enjoyed total support from the Zambian Government. For ZANU things were not so rosy, particularly with Tongogara and his DARE still ensconced in a Zambian prison. Sithole had been rejected as the political figurehead in favour of Mugabe, but for the time being Mugabe was out of reach.

  Robert Gabriel Mugabe was fifty-one years of age when he and Edgar Tekere broke parole in March 1975. Then, acting on instructions from the ZANU Central Committee in Lusaka, Chief Tangwena smuggled them across the border into Mozambique. Mugabe was one of the few academics in ZANU and for some years had been recognised as a revolutionary activist whose thoughts and ideals were deeply rooted in Marxist teaching.

  Mugabe’s task in Mozambique was to regroup ZANLA’s forces, receive large numbers of school children pouring into Mozambique for training and resume the war with all haste. Though he and Tekere commenced work immediately, they were limited by FRELIMO who, not realising these men were high-ranking officials acting under mandate from ZANU’s executive, took them away from the ZANLA camps and confined them to the coastal town of Quelimane. Whilst there, Mugabe was appointed President of ZANU by the DARE members still in prison in Zambia and this was confirmed by ZANU forces in Mgagao in Tanzania. But it was not until early 1976 that Mugabe’s appointment to the leadership of ZANU became known to FRELIMO, after which he was free to exercise his authority in Mozambique. By that time the war had already resumed under the leadership of Rex Nhongo.

  Mugabe’s leadership of ZANU, and therefore of ZANLA, would not have occurred but for his release from detention to satisfy the Vorster-Kaunda détente initiatives. Even so, he might never have gained ascendancy had tribal rivalries and personal ambitions not plagued the nationalist cause with continuous unrest. In 1975, for instance, there existed a number of organisations. These were the ANC, ZAPU, ZANU and FROLIZI. The ANC was supposed to be the umbrella organisation under which the three independent opposition formations were expected to unify. But, as with any unification attempts in Africa, the ANC failed to overcome never-ending jostling for personal power.

  ZAPU, for its part, attempted to capitalise on its politically stronger position to gain the upper hand by insisting that the unified force sought by the Frontline presidents must fall under ZAPU’s control. Mozambique’s Samora Machel saw through this and concluded that military leaders must control fighting men. He ruled in favour of ZANLA and, on 12 November 1975 in Maputo (previously Lourenço Marques), forced ZIPRA into signing an agreement for the formation of a new Zimbabwe Liberation Army (ZIPA) under overall control of ZANLA’s Rex Nhongo.

  ZIPA was supposed to launch its offensive before Christmas Day 1975. Three sectors of Rhodesia’s long eastern border were to be penetrated simultaneously by ZIPA with the aim of spreading Rhodesian forces as thinly as possible. The northernmost push was to be through ZANLA’s Takawira sector towards the old battlegrounds of the Chaminuka and Nehanda sectors. The central push was to be along the mountainous border region centred on Umtali, and the third through the flat lands of Mozambique’s Gaza Province in the south.

  ZAPU reneged on its agreement by sending only 100 men to the ZIPA force instead of the thousands promised. When eventually they entered into Rhodesia, the ZAPU elements promptly deserted their ‘ZANLA brothers’, dumped their weapons and uniforms, and made their way to Matabeleland and thence through to Botswana back to Zambia. So much for the unified force! ZIPA never got off the ground. The SAS had severely blunted ZIPRA’s plans but ZANLA was refreshed and, although its political organisation was in a shambles, many armed men were ready to move into the country.

  At about this time I read an article in the American
Time magazine reporting an incident in one of the American cities. This had absolutely nothing to do with Rhodesia but it struck me how much the reported incident illustrated the situation that was about to befall us.

  The report told of a woman who was refuelling her own motorcar. Having placed the fuel nozzle into her vehicle’s filler neck, she set it to run and went to check the engine’s oil level. Whilst she was doing this, the nozzle dislodged from the filler neck and fell to the floor still spewing fuel. Somehow the fuel ignited, making it impossible to get to the nozzle or the pump-stand. The car caught alight and burning fuel poured into a shallow water drain along the main road. Many people, including the owner of the petrol station, panicked and rushed in with fire extinguishers from adjacent stores but theirs was a no-win situation. The fire continued to worsen until a sensible old man arrived on the scene. He immediately asked for directions to the station’s electrical control box. He went quietly to the box and switched off the electrical mains switch. This stopped the flow of fuel and the fire burned itself out quickly.

  The analogy of this story with Rhodesia is that the continuously flowing fuel represented the terrorists. The panicking people fighting the burning fuel represented the Rhodesian Government and our security forces. The sensible old man represented senior military officers who sought to turn off the switch by striking every external structure involved in supporting the flow of trained CTs. But access to the switch was barred by South Africa.

  Return of ZANLA

  IN EARLY JANUARY 1976, THE northern penetrations commenced. Plans for simultaneous crossings on the other two fronts were stymied for a short while by logistical shortcomings and because FRELIMO was experiencing difficulties with dissident elements within its own forces close to the Rhodesian border. These dissidents may well have been those responsible for firing at every Rhodesian vehicle or aircraft moving near the border over previous months.

  ZANLA’s first entry occurred just north of the Mudzi River and was detected by a routine border patrol just after dawn. I was at Mtoko with my four South African recce students when news of the resumption of war reached us at the breakfast table.

  The elevation of the sun is vitally important for visual recce work. Because of this, most recce flights were conducted between 10 o’clock and 3 o’clock. However, aerial tracking could be done for at least two hours either side of these times. Since I was committed to a recce task inside Mozambique, not too far from the entry point, I tasked Francois du Toit to precede me and try his hand at aerial-tracking the CTs who were reported to have split into three groups of about fifteen men each.

  When I got airborne, Francois had already been flying ahead of trackers for about an hour. I listened in on the operations frequency but only heard general natter between the ground callsigns and supporting helicopters. I had been working inside Mozambique for some time when I heard Francois ‘sunmistakable Afrikaans-accented voice calling for troops to be lifted forward to a patch of thick bush where he had lost one trail he had followed for some distance from the border. He did not sound too confident but his request was met without question. The action that followed accounted for some CTs killed and the capture of large quantities of equipment abandoned as survivors scattered. With his ability in aerial tracking now proven, Francois went after the trails of the other two groups and brought troops into contact with both of them.

  Sitting at height over rough terrain in Mozambique, I was following the action in Rhodesia with interest and a sense of pride in the young South African I had trained. I had become so engrossed in what I was listening to that I did not immediately understand the meaning of dense white smoke that suddenly blossomed on the ground 5,000 feet below me.

  The smoke densified slightly and appeared to be drifting quite rapidly when I noticed a shadow line racing down-sun from the smoke. I clicked to the fact that this was the trail of a missile coming my way. It would not have helped one bit but I instinctively closed the throttle and switched off both magnetos and watched the smoke line streaking upwards. I did not see the Strela missile itself but watched its swirling white plume pass about 200 metres behind the aircraft. Thanks to the anti-Strela modifications to the Cessna, the missile had failed to ‘see’ the aircraft. The operator must have tracked the aircraft until he received a false ‘lock-on signal’ from the sun. Nevertheless I was happy to signal Air HQ with the good news that we had outright proof of the effectiveness of our anti-Strela modifications.

  Shortly thereafter the four South African pilots returned to their home bases. However, Jan Mienie and Francois du Toit had enjoyed their time with the Rhodesian Air Force so much that both of them resigned from the SAAF and joined us later in the year.

  Lynx ferry

  IT WAS AT THIS TIME that final preparations were being made to take delivery of the new twin-engined (push-pull) Cessna 337 aircraft from Reims in France.

  If the story about a Trojan T28D shipment being turned around within sight of Cape Town is correct, it is hardly surprising that the option to sea-freight the Cessnas had been discarded. But it is more likely that an existing problem influenced Air HQ to opt to fly the machines directly from France to Rhodesia. A batch of SAIA-Marchetti SF 260C training aircraft, which were to replace the Provost as a basic trainer, had been shipped from Europe months earlier but all trace of them had been lost. Although the first batch of seventeen (to become known as Genets) eventually pitched up, there was great concern for their safety when the Cessna 337 aircraft were ready for collection.

  To ferry the Cessnas such a long distance was a dangerous undertaking at a time when a Rhodesian might be arrested on sight in many countries, and more so in the black African countries through which the aircraft would have to transit. To reduce the risks, considerable trouble was taken to disguise the ownership and destination of the aircraft. French-speaking Malagasy was chosen as the ultimate destination for two separate flights; the first down the western side of Africa and the second down the east.

  The Government of Malagasy knew nothing of this plan nor did they know about the fictitious Malagasy Fisheries Surveillance Company whose fancy crest was emblazoned on variously coloured and brightly painted Cessnas. The false company’s name was Sociedad Estudios y Pescas Maritimas, registered in Spain. All documentation, flight planning and correspondence was in French and, where appropriate, gave the impression that the original paperwork had been sent ahead to the Malagasy-based company. Considering Rhodesia’s considerable successes in sanctions-busting, it would not surprise me to learn that there were agents of the bogus company actually sitting in Tananarive to handle mail and queries.

  Two ferry flights following widely separated routes was considered essential, as more than ten aircraft flying one route could draw attention; eighteen aircraft would certainly look too much like squadron strength to any knowledgeable observer. Separate timings of the two flights was another issue. To minimise risk, it was necessary to keep the number of stops along each route to the barest minimum. This necessitated the use of specially designed long-range fuel tanks that occupied the entire volume of cabin space behind the pilots’ seats. Direct injection into the engines of oil for the long flights was also necessary. However, the fuel tanks were so expensive that only ten were made to cater for both ferry flights. After the first ferry, tanks were to be flown to France as quickly as possible by a Rhodesian-owned sanctions-busting airline to get the second ferry completed before hostile intelligence services picked up on what was happening.

  Considerable care was taken in the selection of nine Rhodesian Air Force pilots. Seven would be used on the first ferry, but only two on the second ferry. This was to avoid having recent entries in their false passports evidencing passage down the west coast of Africa, which might raise unwanted questions along the east coast route.

  The plan was for each participating Rhodesian pilot to be accompanied by a French pilot. The Frenchmen had to do all the talking at the various refuelling stops as ‘proof that the ferry was a purely
French affair’. The explanation for the presence of English-speaking pilots with southern African accents was to be that they were commercial pilots who had been hired to ensure safe passage through tropical weather conditions with which the French pilots were unfamiliar. I was one of the pilots selected to go to France for a quick conversion onto the Cessna 337 before the first ferry commenced. But then at short notice I was withdrawn because a SAAF delegation that was about to visit us specifically requested my presence in Salisbury. In consequence I did not attend the pilots’ briefing by the Commander and DG Ops who made it clear that, if things went wrong, the Rhodesian Government could not guarantee the safety of individuals.

  The pilots who went to France for the first ferry were Wing Commander Rob Gaunt (in charge), Eddie Wilkinson, John Barnes, Dave Thorne, Vic Wightman and John Bennie. Wing Commander Keith Corrans and Mike Gedye were there too, preparing for their participation as the only two Rhodesian pilots on the second ferry.

  My disappointment at this turn in events switched to outright annoyance when the South African visit was delayed to a time beyond the period of the ferry. However, probably in compensation, I was instructed to accompany Wing Commander Len Pink on a mission to Ruacana in South West Africa. The purpose of this mission was to monitor the first ferry during the times the aircraft were airborne all the way from Reims in France to Ruacana.

  The ferry refuelling stops were Palma (Balearic Islands), Agadir (Morocco), Dakar (Senegal), Cotonou (Benin), Port Gentil (an island just off the coast of Gabon) and Ruacana. At the Ruacana airfield we were accommodated in tents with a resident South African Army company. The Rhodesian team assisted Chuck Dent to erect an HF radio aerial that he had personally designed for this mission. To Len Pink and me the aerial looked like a large, flimsy, horizontally inclined turntable washing line that wobbled in the breeze high above the radio tent. We said nothing but both of us wondered if the aerial would work at all, never mind receive and transmit signals between far-off France and Ruacana.