Winds of Destruction: The Autobiography of a Rhodesian Combat Pilot

by Peter Petter-Bowyer

  Why General Walls allowed his pompous Director General of Operations, Brigadier Bert Barnard, to bypass Army HQ and issue directives directly to formations under Army command I cannot say. A well-balanced and unassuming officer would have passed these to Army HQ to action, thereby avoiding the unnecessary antagonism that developed very rapidly between the Army and COMOPS. So far as I was concerned, Army HQ was partly to blame for having sent the wrong man to COMOPS but General Walls more so for accepting him.

  Sadly COMOPS assumed outright operational control of the SAS and Selous Scouts, leaving Army HQ to attend to their administrative needs only. In consequence, a deep rift developed between Lieutenant-General Walls and Major-General John Hickman with devastating consequences to most aspects of Army’s operational efficiency. It resulted in pathetic ‘them and us’ attitudes at a time we so desperately needed absolute unity.

  The Police and Air Force were not affected in this way, but the all-important strategic plan we awaited was not forthcoming. I met Norman Walsh on a number of occasions and learned of his deep frustrations in this regard because the Army component of COMOPS, being greater than Air Force and Police combined, seemed unable to see the wood for the trees, and would not listen to reasoned argument. Even the Officer Commanding SAS, Major Brian Robinson, and OC Selous Scouts, Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly, told me, unreservedly, that the only senior officer in COMOPS with both feet on the ground and possessing any idea of what needed to be done was the ‘blue job’, Group Captain Walsh

  In his attempt to coerce COMOPS into action Norman recommended the employment of the SAS, Selous Scouts, elements of the RLI and Air Force in the systematic destruction of all the external routes, specifically bridges, serving ZANLA and ZIPRA communication needs. This he considered essential to slow down the unimpeded flow of men and materials into Rhodesia. The secondary effect of such action would most likely force the governments of Mozambique and Zambia to cease hosting our enemies.

  The need to destroy the communications infrastructures of both Mozambique and Zambia was old hat, having been recognised as an urgent matter ever since the collapse of the Portuguese. However, the Rhodesian ‘political ruling’ (in reality a South African imposition possibly exaggerated by CIO) against the destruction of any economic targets had always discounted such actions until, following total failure of the détente-inspired ceasefire back in August 1976, the Selous Scouts and SAS were eventually cleared to immobilise rail and road routes in Gaza Province.

  Norman Walsh knew only too well that to raise the issue of destroying bridges on such a large scale would create a political storm but, from a military standpoint, the issues had to be pressed. In fact, Norman was not so sure that the ‘politically sensitive issues’ blocking the military originated from politicians; he guessed they were more likely imposed on NATJOC by Ken Flower of CIO. However, before presenting his plans for consideration by the NATJOC Norman, working with the OC SAS, needed to select all key targets to formulate a detailed campaign to be conducted in two phases; first the destruction of Mozambican and Zambian infrastructure and secondly all CT concentrations in those two countries.

  The destruction of Mozambique’s communications infrastructure would involve ten days of intensive flying to deploy and recover specialist demolition teams and their protection elements. For this, all helicopters and Dakotas would have to be withdrawn from internal operations. The month of July offered the best weather conditions for this tightly programmed campaign. At the end of the Mozambique phase, all helicopters would have to undergo major servicing over a period of three days before launching a six-day campaign against Zambia. This meant just nineteen days of intensive effort—start to finish.

  As he anticipated, the Phase One plan failed to get past COMOPS. Had Brigadier Barnard been included in the planning, and presented it as ‘his own idea’, it might have made a difference. (This is my own biased opinion based on personal experience.) Nevertheless Norman’s plans were shelved and were only resurrected in 1979 when it was too late to materially influence Rhodesian fortunes.

  Apart from a reluctance to wage war on neighbours, which would surely increase tensions between the West and South Africa, it was feared that Zambia, seeing what was happening in Mozambique, might call for the physical support by surrogate forces (most likely Cubans) in anticipation of action against herself. Once invited, such forces would almost certainly remain in Zambia!

  The second phase of Norman’s operational plan, also external, was to become Rhodesia’s first priority if the destruction of communications was denied. This was to attack ZANLA and ZIPRA concentrations in their external bases. Undeterred by the rejection of his primary plan, Norman turned attention to our enemies’ major external havens. In the meanwhile, the SAS and Selous Scouts continued attacking small bases close to Rhodesia.

  Internally operations continued apace though a certain amount of continuation training in the field remained essential. On 4 May 1977, Air Lieutenant Bob Griffiths was tasked to carry out GAC training for local army units at the Clydesdale Battle Camp near Umtali. Along for a joyride, was Lance-Corporal Compton Brown. On completion of the training run, Rob was returning to Grand Reef at low level. Due to inexperience, he flew up the centre of a rising valley, failing to observe the golden rule of hugging the valley’s edge to give him the widest possible turn-back option, if needed. Too late he realised that he was not going to make the crest and tried to turn back. With too little space to complete a safe turnabout, he flew into rising ground. His survival in the ensuing fiery crash was a miracle and he was lucky not to have been braindamaged, but his face was permanently fire-scarred. His young passenger died instantly.

  Two weeks later, on 18 May, there was death in the air of a very different kind. Roger Watt was flying a G-Car with his tech, Rob Nelson. With them they had four game-ranger trackers who were required to assist an RAR callsign that had been in contact with a group of ZIPRA CTs near Gokwe. Roger dropped only two of the trackers with RAR because one had seen something whilst they were coming in to land. He got airborne again with the two trackers and was climbing out when all hell broke loose beneath him as he reached 1,200 feet. Smoke filled the cabin and with it there were flames. Roger immediately cut fuel-flow and commenced an autorotative forced landing but flames, coming from petrol spilling out of the aircraft’s damaged portable-refueller, intensified and burned through the cabin rear wall by the left rear cargo bay, then swirled around throughout the entire cabin. (Portable petrol-driven refuellers had replaced the pressure refuelling units many months earlier.)

  Somehow the two rangers got out onto the starboard step and were clinging on outside the cabin where they were protected from the flames by the pilot’s door. Throughout the descent raw flames continuously licked Roger but he managed to pull off a well-judged slow landing. The rangers were fine and Roger was quite badly burnt but his unfortunate tech, Rob Nelson who had been engulfed in flames, died after leaping from the aircraft whilst it was still 300 feet up.

  External operations March-June 1977

  SAS ‘COCKLESHELL HEROES’ CONFUSED FRELIMO and ZANLA completely, and had forced them to abandon large areas of Tete. ZANLA was still based way back in Tete town, but had diverted routes eastwards and made an error in routing forces through a disused Tanzanian Army base close to FRELIMO’s Chioco town.

  The Chioco base was destroyed and most of its ZANLA inhabitants were killed in an SAS assault during March. But then FRELIMO made the mistake of accepting ZANLA into Chioco town itself and that once-pretty little Portuguese administrative village was totally destroyed two months later. Air Force involvement in both of these SAS operations was limited to deployments and recoveries, although a Lynx carrying Brian Robinson had been used to cover a casevac and a pair of Hunters was used for one strike.

  It was during this period that Brian Robinson’s love of flying was sorely tested. On the night of 15 March 1977, Air SubLieutenant John Kidson was tasked to fly OC SAS on a sortie over Mozambique so
that Brian could communicate directly with his SAS callsigns engaged in these external operations. The inexperienced young pilot got airborne from FAF 5 but failed to climb at a steeper inclination than the ground that rose from the runway’s end towards Mtoko village. Fortunately the softer parts of many treetops dragged the aircraft speed down to a relatively safe speed for the eventual crunch with terra firma. The aircraft caught fire and was completely destroyed but Brian Robinson and John Kidson escaped unhurt. In spite of this experience, Brian’s passion for flying never diminished.

  In the Repulse area Fireforce was involved in an action in which the suspected presence of FRELIMO forces was confirmed when twenty ZANLA and FRELIMO died in an action inside Rhodesia. This prompted Selous Scouts to launch Operation Aztec, another ‘flying column’ foray into Gaza Province. On 29 May 1977, Scouts attacked ZANLA and FRELIMO at Jorge do Limpopo and Mapai. Although FRELIMO were getting stronger, they still had no answers to Scouts’ techniques, firepower and aggression. Mapai Airfield was secured and declared serviceable before the town itself was taken on.

  Most of the vehicles and many of the heavy guns in the Selous Scouts column had been captured during earlier operations in Gaza Province. Rather than destroy good equipment to prevent its use by the enemy, the Scouts preferred to recover whatever they could to bolster their increasing needs. During this operation they captured a number of vehicles and huge quantities of arms and ammunition. So they called for a Dakota on 30 May to fly in a team of Scouts mechanics to make necessary repairs so that their acquired vehicles could carry home all the captured equipment. Later in the day, the Dakota returned with demolition teams to assist in the destruction of structures in Mapai.

  By late afternoon the demolition teams were running low on explosives and the defending troops needed more mortar bombs to hold off troublesome ZANLA and FRELIMO forces that were firing at them from beyond the town’s outskirts. The Dakota landed for the third time that day, but this was shortly before sunset. Instead of offloading and taking off immediately, the aircraft was held up when the skipper agreed to a Scouts request to wait a while to load more captured equipment. In this case aircrew willingness to assist the Army turned out to be a very bad mistake because two hours elapsed between landing and the Dakota commencing its take-off run.

  Flight Lieutenant Bruce Collocott.

  Enemy forces using the cover of darkness had been given plenty of time to establish themselves close to the centre of the runway. The hail of bullets and RPG rockets that followed the Dakota, just as it lifted off, gave it no hope of survival. Flight Lieutenant Bruce Collocott in the co-pilot’s seat died instantly, the starboard engine was knocked out and leaking fuel ignited.

  Skipper Jerry Lynch had no option but to close down the port engine and land straight ahead. He did an amazing job to bring the crippled aircraft to a controlled halt, allowing survivors to escape from the aircraft. His attempts to get Bruce out of his seat nearly cost Jerry his life before being forced to abandon the attempt due to the blazing inferno around him. Bruce Collocott, with his ever-ready wit was a great loss to the Air Force. So too was the loss of the very first Dakota ever owned by the Southern Rhodesian Air Force. By instruction of Prime Minister Jan Smuts, South Africa had sold it to Rhodesia in 1947 at a ridiculously low price.

  Flechettes

  THE FRENCH PRODUCED AN ANTI-PERSONNEL warhead for 68mm Sneb rockets that incorporated thousands of tiny darts known as ‘flechettes’. When the rockets were fired they flew for just under one second before explosive charges burst warhead casings to release the flechettes into very high-speed free flight. A salvo of flechette-carrying Snebs resulted in a dense cloud of lethal darts covering a large area of ground.

  For reasons I never understood, flechette rockets were forbidden by international law because the darts, upon impact with a human body, had the habit of tumbling and making nasty exit wounds. Yet ordinary rifle bullets, which caused more damage and were just as lethal, were considered acceptable. This has never made sense to me.

  From as early as 1964 I had been interested in the possibility of using clusters of free-flying darts as a lethal weapon system. This had nothing to do with very lightweight rocket-borne flechettes that relied on very high velocity to make them lethal. I was thinking of large quantities of heavy darts flying in dense formation to produce an instant effect on the ground that could only be achieved by hundreds of machine-guns firing simultaneously.

  At the time I was preparing Kutanga Range for the weapons demonstration in 1964, I loaded two teargas carriers with as many six-inch nails as they would accommodate. Flying a Provost, I delivered these from low level at 240 knots. The test was unofficial and was only known to the Kutanga Range staff. The standard flat head of the nails did not give all the nails stability, but those that struck nose-first embedded quite deeply into the trunks of hardwood trees. The test was sufficient to show that the use of six-inch nail shafts incorporating flight stabilisers would be lethal if delivered fast enough. In 1976 I was in a position to extend my explorations officially.

  I arranged for an unserviceable Vampire long-range fuel tank to be modified to incorporate a downward opening trapdoor that was activated by the bomb-release button on the control column. Station Workshop at Thornhill produced 2,000 darts from six-inch nails whose flat heads had been removed and substituted by three small in-line fins.

  A single-drop trial at 350 knots proved the accuracy, density and lethality of the darts. So, as soon as the Golf bomb project allowed, I turned attention to the matter and a file marked Project Hotel was opened. The project’s aim was to produce many thousands of ‘six-inch flechettes’ for carriage by faster-flying Hunters in large releasable under-wing dispensers.

  My visit to the Bulawayo factory that manufactured six-inch nails resulted in an emphatic “technically impossible” response when I asked for nails with no heads, but then an equally emphatic “Yes we can produce them”, when I explained their purpose. My next visit was to a plastic-moulding company in Salisbury that produced the moulds for the plastic fin design that I had sketched in the MD’s personal diary. The fins were pressure-moulded from recycled plastic and force-fitted over the blunt ends of the six-inch shafts to turn them into flechettes.

  Bev designed and produced a purpose-made flechette dispenser that looked just like a streamlined bomb. It incorporated four radiused panels that, together, formed the main cylindrical body enclosing and bearing the heavy charge of 4,500 flechettes. Each of the four panels was secured at its front end to an explosive nose cone and was hinged at its rear into the forward ring of the flight stabiliser cone.

  Upon release from its carrier a loaded dispenser dropped free for half a second before the nose cone’s explosive charge fired. This released the front anchors of the four panels that rotated outwards and rearward in the air-stream to release 4,500 flechettes into free flight. 50% of the load was packed facing backwards to ensure maximum content but this enhanced lateral distribution at the expense of inconsequential retardation.

  This flechette failed to go right through the ultrahard mopani branch having suffered excessive retardation—but even the slowest of these projectiles was lethal.

  This Hunter DFGA 9 armament layout excludes air-to-air missiles and Rhodesian-made Frantans. Back line from left: 130-pound (white) Practice bomb (local), 1000-pound GP Bomb (imported), 50-gallon Frantan (imported), 450kg Golf bomb (local), 4 x 30mm Aden cannon gun-pack. Middle line: 250-pound GP bomb (imported), 68mm Matra rocket pod, Flechette Dispenser (local), Foreground: 30mm cannon shells and 68mm Matra rockets.

  Tests conducted from Hunters, off a standard front-gun attack proved that the new weapon was accurate and highly effective. Released in pairs at speeds in excess of 450 knots resulted in an immensely dense cloud of 9,000 flechettes flying a shallow trajectory, which made survival of exposed people impossible within in the 900-metre-long by seventy-metre-wide strike area.

  To give some idea of a flechette strike from a single Hunter—
it would require no less than four hundred and fifty .303 Browning machine-guns firing in unison to match the projectile density in the single second it took for all flechettes, first to last, to reach ground.

  The flechette-dispensing system was cheap; it did not involve foreign currency expenditure and, unlike exploding weapons, was totally safe to the delivering aircraft. The system was demonstrated to Air Staff and immediately cleared for operational use, though the question of how our very large stable flechettes might be affected by the international ruling against small flechettes was never resolved. Because there was some doubt, we restricted their employment to strikes inside the country.

  Having proved the flechette system for Hunters, I wondered if they could be useful for Canberra night-strikes. Being a silent weapon, I imagined what psychological effects they might have on CT morale if the silent death darts swarmed into ZANLA’s external bases when the CTs were up and about during the night when they felt safest. Using a long delay to cater for the free flight time, we tested one flechette dispenser dropped by a Canberra flying 20,000 feet above target. We needed to know the distribution pattern created by such a drop and a water target was best suited for the purpose.

  We chose Sebakwe Dam where a bright orange floating target was anchored 200 metres from the shoreline on which my party of observers and photographers was positioned. Ted Brent and his bomb-aimer, Doug Pasea, released the unit and confirmed, “bomb falling”. On the ground we focused on the floating target and were aware of the Canberra passing over our position, but nothing happened out on the water for another few seconds. We had just started to comment on the possibility of aiming error when a sound like leaking, high-pressure air surrounded us just before 4,500 darts ruffled the water surface right up to our position. Had we placed the target any closer our ground party would undoubtedly have suffered casualties. The potential for flechette strikes at night was proven to be a possibility but we never used it offensively, because of the international ruling.