Dingo Firestorm

by Ian Pringle

  Together with his trainee recce pilots, PB was busy meticulously plotting pathways over a large area between Centenary and the Zambezi River in Mozambique. It was long, tedious work and tough on the bladder, but once the pathways were plotted, any changes to established patterns were relatively easy to see. Besides spotting numerous temporary camps, PB identified a single well-trodden route from Mozambique south along the Musengezi River and up the escarpment near St Albert’s Mission.

  ‘I was convinced ZANLA terrorists were active right there,’ he recalls. ‘I went to Air HQ to make a presentation of 4 Squadron’s findings. I stressed that terrorists were active in the St Albert’s Mission area of the Kandeya TTL and this posed an immediate and serious threat to Centenary farmers bordering on the area.’

  Nevertheless, just as Rhodes’s officials had preferred to listen to the Native Commissioners, who failed to see the Chimurenga threat 76 years earlier, the Rhodesian government seemed to do the same again. When PB’s disturbing findings were presented to Prime Minister Ian Smith, he asked why the Department of Internal Affairs had not reported this before.

  The Department of Internal Affairs took umbrage at PB’s assertions, assuring the prime minister that there were definitely no terrorists in the Kandeya area. PB was horrified. Not only was his intelligence ignored, but a superior officer ticked him off for ‘causing unnecessary alarm and despondency’. PB was joylessly vindicated four months later when Altena Farm was attacked. ‘It was maddening,’ he recalled.

  But the damage was done. ZANLA was by now well established in the north-east. Ken Flower wrote in his diary that the failure to spot ZANLA was ‘a dismal failure of our much vaunted “ground coverage” and our previously successful techniques of counter-insurgency’.

  Things had indeed changed dramatically. The previously successful techniques Flower referred to had relied on the peasants compromising the insurgents. But ZANLA was now, as Chairman Mao put it, like fish in water: they were living among the peasants.

  The army commander, Lieutenant General Peter Walls, would later recall: ‘Had the police commissioner and CIO been good enough to tell us the intelligence they had at the time, we would have been even more prepared. I can’t help feeling a bit bitter about the lack of cooperation there.’

  10

  Hurricane and Tete

  Attacks came thick and fast in the wake of ZANLA’s opening attack on Altena Farm. Ida Kleynhans became the first farmer to die in the north-east when ZANLA attacked Ellan Vannin Farm near Centenary. The attacks spread further east to Mount Darwin. Then came a report that some land inspectors were missing in the far north-east. Flight Lieutenant Dick Paxton, an RhAF helicopter pilot based in Rushinga, was tasked with searching for their missing Land Rover. He soon spotted a vehicle parked by the side of the road. Not expecting foul play, Paxton landed his Alouette on the road behind the vehicle and shut down the engine. Paxton recalls:

  As I approached the vehicle on foot, I saw a tarpaulin draped over the back of the Land Rover. As I got closer the hairs on my back started standing on end. I had an eerie feeling something was awfully wrong. I peered in through the driver’s window and saw an AK rifle magazine and a bush hat lying on the front seat. I went cold, cursing myself about how daft I had been to land the heli, and worse still shut it down. I was sure the terrs were watching me as I gingerly retraced my steps back to the helicopter. It was the longest Alouette start-up I have ever experienced.

  A much-relieved Paxton was soon airborne, and he raised the alarm. Later, the bullet-riddled bodies of two land inspectors, Robert Bland and Edward Sanderson, were found under the tarpaulin. A third man, Gerald Hawkesworth, had been taken prisoner by the ZANLA attackers.

  The scale and spread of the attacks in the north-east brought home to Rhodesians the realisation that ZANLA had managed to infiltrate a vast area. The conflict had now become serious.

  Although a year behind the curve, the Rhodesian response was swift. The Joint Operations Command was set up in Centenary in late 1972 to bring together the army, air force, police and SB; these corps worked together to plan operations. The military response to ZANLA in the north-east would be known as Operation Hurricane. The kill rate increased dramatically as many of the original ZANLA attackers were apprehended by the army and the SAS.

  Unlike the Altena Farm attackers, the gang that attacked Whistlefield Farm left spoor, which the SAS picked up and followed relentlessly. With a brilliant mix of soldier’s intuition and a good understanding of counter-insurgency techniques used in Borneo, Major Brian Robinson, the new SAS officer commanding, decided to place ambush positions on the Musengezi River, along a route he was sure the ZANLA gang would follow. His intuition paid off – the ZANLA group walked right into the trap; three were killed and two captured.

  Free-falling into Tete

  Robinson, the man who, five years later, would command the ground forces during Operation Dingo, was delighted with the result. However, he also knew that regular infantry operations were not the domain of the SAS. He was keen to get the SAS back to what they should be doing – disrupting the enemy behind the lines in Mozambique.

  The target he had been pursuing in Mozambique had shifted from FRELIMO and the odd ZANLA guerrilla to ZANLA itself. He was anxious to take the war straight to ZANLA, disrupting its supply lines and transit routes from Zambia and Tete into the Nehanda, Chaminuka and Takawira sectors. Intelligence indicated that the kidnapped land inspector, Gerald Hawkesworth, had already been marched into Mozambique. This gave Robinson the opportunity and excuse to enter Mozambique to try to free him.

  Robinson organised the first ever Rhodesian night-time free-fall deployment into enemy territory, some 40 kilometres inside Mozambique. He had been working with Flight Lieutenant Frank Hales of the Parachute Training School (PTS) to train his men in free-fall parachuting, and in particular high altitude low opening (HALO) techniques. The advantage of HALO was the silent deployment it afforded. The aircraft would fly high, ideally at 18 000 feet, to reduce the likelihood of alerting the enemy. The paratroopers would then free-fall to 2 500 feet, open their chutes and drift silently to earth. On a very still night, anyone near the drop zone might hear the rumbling of a parachute opening in the violent terminal-velocity wind, but at night it would be difficult to know what the sound meant.

  Two teams of four pathfinders, the first led by Lieutenant Chris ‘Schulie’ Schulenburg and the second by Captain Garth Barratt, weighed down by their heavy kit, clambered aboard a World War II–vintage Dakota aircraft at New Sarum Airbase near Salisbury for the hour-long flight to their drop zone in Mozambique. It was late afternoon when the Dakota’s wheels left Runway 06. The men near the Dakota’s open door saw the bright-orange late-afternoon sun reflecting magnificently off Lake McIlwaine in the distance. The Dakota climbed slowly to 11 000 feet, the height extending the daylight. The cold intensified. Although it was high summer and the temperature was 24 ºC on the ground, the laws of nature meant the temperature dropped by about 2 ºC for every 1 000 feet the aircraft climbed. By the time the doorless Dakota had levelled off, the blast of air whipping around the cabin was close to freezing, with a wind-chill factor well below that.

  The SAS men sat in silence, lost in their own apprehensive thoughts, some rubbing their hands, some pretending to sleep and others incessantly tapping their altimeters to make sure the devices were working. In daylight it is difficult to judge accurately one’s height above ground in free fall; at night it is impossible, hence the ‘alti’ is the free-faller’s best friend.

  As the Dakota crossed the border, the pathfinders stood up to check their equipment. It was cold. The twilight was still quite bright at this altitude, but the SAS men knew that as they fell through the air things would get darker quickly. The red light blinked on and Schulie moved into the doorway, ready to fling himself out into the slipstream.

  The green light signalled ‘go’, and Schulie leapt from the door sill into the powerful slipstream of the Dakota’s prop
wash, which snatched at him and tossed him about. Just as suddenly, it was quiet and he was falling in undisturbed air, keeping stable by arching his back and controlling his direction with outstretched arms, legs and hands. It took 12 seconds for Schulie to reach terminal velocity, the equilibrium free-fall speed of about 200 km/h, when the wind resistance on your body equals the force of gravity pulling you to the ground.

  An amazing feature of free fall is that there is no sensation of falling whatsoever. The feeling is one of floating – floating in a very powerful wind. The only time a feeling of speed is experienced is when the freefaller passes something static, hopefully nothing firmer than a cloud.

  Schulie fell for another 40 long seconds, during which he looked up, his face distorted by the powerful wind, to see his three team members free-falling above him, and he could just make out Barratt’s men in the rapidly fading distance. Schulie saw his altimeter go through 3 000 feet as it approached the red zone of 2 000 feet, at which height the freefaller is only 11 short seconds from impacting the ground. Schulie waved his arms to signal to his team that he was going to open his chute, reached in with his right hand and tugged the metal ripcord from its housing. The sudden deceleration from 200 to just 20 km/h made him dangle like a rag doll for a brief moment and then there was absolute silence. The contrast between falling in a super-hurricane and floating quietly under the canopy is dramatic.

  Then Schulie saw one of his men, Sergeant Frank Wilmot, plummet past him in full free fall. Sadly, Frank’s parachute did not open and he fell to his death in a deserted gully near the Musengezi River. The SAS would never know precisely why Wilmot failed to open his chute, but he was in a spin as he plummeted earthwards. In the fading light, it may well have been that Wilmot was focusing so hard on stopping the spin that he lost awareness of his altitude. Frank Wilmot’s death on 19 January 1973 was ‘the worst possible birthday gift I could ever have received,’ recalled Brian Robinson.

  After Wilmot’s body had been recovered by helicopter, Schulie and Barratt picked themselves up and continued the mission. Although the SAS never found Hawkesworth, they managed to ambush quite a few ZANLA forces, who had no idea any Rhodesians were in Tete.

  This set the tone for operations in Mozambique over the next few years, when the SAS, operating by parachute, canoe, foot and from a fixed base in Tete, would inflict serious damage on ZANLA’s war effort in the province.

  While the SAS were upsetting things for ZANLA in Mozambique, Operation Hurricane was making life very tough for ZANLA within Rhodesia. The Selous Scouts were mastering ‘pseudo’, the art of deception, in the targeted area. Using black and white soldiers, and captured ZANLA guerrillas whom they had turned, the Selous Scouts were able to impersonate real ZANLA groups and cause mayhem. The main objective of the pseudo operation was to infiltrate areas where real ZANLA groups were known to be by asking the locals to guide them to their ‘comrades’. Once the scouts had located a group, they would call in heli-borne troops and direct them to the target by radio.

  The Alouette helicopter was again proving its worth by carrying troops quickly to ZANLA positions. Although the number of contacts and the kill rate increased, too many were getting away. Once the guerrillas heard the sound of approaching helicopters, they would bombshell in all directions; the optimum time to hit them was when they were still grouped together.

  If the fixed-wing Provost managed to attack guerrillas while they were bunched, the kill rate was good. But more often than not, they were already legging it by the time the strike aircraft arrived, making things much more difficult. Also, after each attack, the Provost had to reposition itself for subsequent dive attacks, losing yet more time.

  The side-firing machine guns on the Alouette troop carriers did account for a number of enemy kills, but hitting a moving target from a moving platform with ordinary bullets was difficult. The sights were calibrated at a given airspeed (easy to replicate) and at a given height above the ground (hard to replicate over hilly terrain). More firepower with a greater spread was needed. Ideally, a helicopter that could lob bomblets among the enemy quickly and continuously, without having to reposition, would have been best.

  The K-car

  The answer was the Matra 20-mm cannon, which some Rhodesian pilots had first seen mounted in a Portuguese Alouette helicopter at Bene, Mozambique, six years earlier. Rhodesian procurement agents eventually managed to secure a supply of the weapons and ammunition, and a few helicopters were fitted with the cannons for trials. This newly fitted Alouette gunship was called the K-car (command car, also known as the killer car). The size of the cannon, firing from the left doorway, meant that no troops could be carried; the K-car was a dedicated gunship.

  Soon a place was made on the floor in the left bubble of the Alouette for the infantry commander, who sat in an armoured seat facing backwards. A force of one K-car, three G-cars (Alouette troop carriers with machine guns) and an armed Provost made up a highly effective new counter-insurgency unit, which soon took on the name ‘Fireforce’, or, in radio speak, ‘Foxtrot-Foxtrot’.

  The first major K-car action took place in June 1974 from Mount Darwin, when a group of 35 ZANLA guerrillas were spotted by a Selous Scouts ground observation post. Flight Lieutenant John Annan, piloting the K-car, and his technician, Gary Whittal, operating the Matra cannon, accounted for a large portion of the 20 killed and five wounded. A number of things went right that day, but by any measure it was a spectacular success, proving the effectiveness of the K-car and setting the tone for things to come.

  So effective was the 20-mm cannon that captured guerrillas would often recall their fear of the K-car, describing it as ‘the helicopter that throws down grenades’.

  Flight Lieutenant Mark McLean, a K-car pilot, described the role of the Fireforce pilots:

  The K-car pilot has the advantage of having an overall picture of the contact and you’re directly involved with the airborne army commander. You carry out his wishes in directing the G-cars to their drop points. At the same time, you are watching the ground for gooks, watching own forces, talking on the radio, looking out for other choppers, and so on. When you have a target you need to get the gun to bear and give the gunner a decent platform, regardless of where you may be in either height or pattern.

  The great thing was that when you saw the enemy, you put down some 20-mm high explosive and you would get them.

  The G-car pilot drops the boys wherever he is directed. So he has to be slick in finding an LZ, sussing it out at a glance and sliding his machine in fast and efficiently. Most times the boys go out from a low hover – that reduces the risk of a tail strike or damage to the belly from stumps or rocks. And then, as soon as they’re out, you scoot via the ‘safest’ departure route. No guarantee that it’s safe, as many pilots either landed near gooks or flew over them.

  What were the elements that made for a successful Fireforce deployment? McLean believed it was down to a combination of the variables:

  If the topography is good for Selous Scout observation – koppies and river lines – chances are that the action will go well because the enemy are enveloped by the attackers. But even then, they might slip past the end of a sweep line or you run out of daylight before you can make the kill. If the countryside is flat and a callsign has made contact and called for back-up, the enemy could be long gone before the Fireforce arrives. A frightened man can run a long way in 30 minutes, so your area of uncertainty enlarges with every minute of response time.

  The combination of the Selous Scouts and the Fireforce was proving to be a deadly weapon. Kill rates soared in the Chiweshe and nearby Madziwa TTLs, and two of the most sought-after ZANLA commanders, going by the noms de guerre James Bond and Mao, were eliminated. Their bodies, and those of hundreds of other ZANLA guerrillas killed in the area, were taken to the Mount Darwin police station for identification by SB. Thereafter, a uniformed police detail would take the bodies on the back of a Land Rover to an old disused mineshaft, known as the Monkey William
Mine, and tip them in. The duty became known as the ‘Mashfords run’, named after a local firm of undertakers. The remains of these dead guerrillas (and probably some post-war additions) were only discovered in 2011, which caused quite a stir.

  These heavy losses put ZANLA squarely on the back foot in the Hurricane arena.

  The Fireforce deployment evolved and improved with experience. A key change was made – instead of the Alouettes picking up the nearest available troops, dedicated RLI or Rhodesian African Rifles troops were used, based permanently near the helicopters.

  Later, the ageing Provosts were replaced by the French-built Cessna 337 or Lynx attack aircraft fitted with machine guns, rockets and frantan. But there was a limitation – the Alouette could carry only four troops. The Fireforce commander would have his four-man sticks dropped in strategic places, either in the likely line of enemy escape (known as a stop group) or to sweep towards the enemy to flush them towards a stop group. As the ZANLA groups grew bigger, it was not uncommon for a four-man Fireforce stick to find itself in a firefight with a much larger enemy force.

  The limitation of the Alouette helicopter’s carrying capacity was overcome a few years later when a World War II–vintage Dakota aircraft was added to complement each Fireforce unit. The Dakotas carried some 20 paratroopers, which instantly more than doubled the available ground troop numbers.

  The success of the Fireforce in the Hurricane arena swung the momentum right back to the Rhodesian forces. ZANLA admitted that half of its forces had been killed. Even so, the insurgents were staying ahead in one crucial part of their strategy – recruitment.