Dingo Firestorm

by Ian Pringle

  It was in Malaya that Walls noticed a corporal, a former post office signalman, who had potential. His name was Ron Reid-Daly. ‘I promoted him to sergeant above a staff-corps man, who was pretty bitter. Reid-Daly became my right-hand man in many ways; he had a knack that others didn’t have.’ Reid-Daly would go on to command the Selous Scouts in the Rhodesian War.

  One of the most uncomfortable experiences for Walls was when he discovered that a blood-sucking river leech had lodged itself inside his urethra. ‘This leech had gone up my whatnot and I tried to get it out but couldn’t. I started getting desperate, as it was going further up. One of the old Ibans [Dyaks] working with us stepped forward, took me off and got it out. I was so grateful to him.’

  Walls was awarded the MBE in recognition of the contribution C Squadron SAS had made in Malaya.

  Back in Rhodesia, his career continued on an upward path, and in 1964 he was appointed commanding officer of the RLI, a new regiment established in 1961. The RLI was formed during the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland, and its initial instructors were drawn from the British Army. In 1965, under Walls’s command, the RLI became a commando battalion divided into subunits, or commandos. The RLI, also known as ‘The Saints’, became very adept at counter-insurgency, making their mark as probably the best heli-borne troops in the world. They also established themselves as a crack parachute outfit when the Dakota was added to the Fireforce mix. The RLI almost certainly carried out more offensive parachute operations than any other unit in the world. The statistics speak for themselves: the RLI wiped out about 150 guerrillas for each man it lost in action, whereas the average for all Rhodesian forces was about ten guerrillas to one Rhodesian soldier.

  ‘Commanding the RLI was probably the happiest time of my soldiering career,’ said Walls.

  The bad news for Mugabe’s ZANLA was that these two crack units – the SAS and RLI – would be combining to assault its headquarters at New Farm, Chimoio, and the ZANLA Tembue base. The guerrilla movement was in for a torrid time.

  23

  Secret is secret

  ‘If you reveal your secrets to the wind, you should not blame the wind for revealing them to the trees.’

  – KHALIL GIBRAN

  Operation Dingo relied heavily on the element of surprise. Secrecy had to be paramount. ‘Keeping the operational planning confidential,’ said Norman Walsh, ‘was one of the biggest challenges.’

  Both he and Brian Robinson fretted that the plan would be leaked, especially as rumours suggested there was a mole in high places. Their concern turned to relief, however, on the day of the briefing; the secret was apparently still a secret. Norman Walsh recalled: ‘Due to the uphill climb of getting to this point, we were pleased and relieved.’

  The top-secret Dingo plan was restricted to a select few, and even then only revealed in parts on a need-to-know basis. Peter Petter-Bowyer (PB) was one of those select few. Norman Walsh had shown him aerial photographs of the Chimoio HQ complex as far back as January 1977 because Walsh needed PB’s advice on the choice of weapons for an airborne attack.

  Over the months leading up to Dingo, Walsh met regularly with PB, yet it was not until the last minute that PB learnt that the attack would include ground troops.

  ‘Norman had not mentioned the use of ground forces until, at short notice, I learnt that I was to be the admin base commander for both operations, and that I was to attend a two-phase briefing at New Sarum on Tuesday 22 November,’ PB admitted.

  One problem with secrecy is that those who are kept in the dark become cheesed off. And some did. Norman Walsh remembered one of many cases: ‘Randy du Rand was furious with me that I had not confided in him. He was officer commanding of flying at Sarum at the time and he felt that I should have trusted him. I did trust him, but secret was secret. No squadron commanders were briefed before the major briefing.’

  Even in the field, secret was secret. The main helicopter staging base at Lake Alexander was in the middle of an operational area commanded by Major John Peirson, officer commanding of the 6th Independent Company, based in Umtali. Peirson recalled:

  One Wednesday afternoon in late November 1977, we had some spare time so my second in command, Captain Gavin Rawson, who was not only a very good fisherman, but a very lucky fisherman too, suggested we go up to Lake Alexander to catch some bass. As we came over the ridge by the lake, I was astonished to see a lot more than the eight helicopters I knew the Rhodesian Air Force possessed. Someone of senior rank came over asking what the hell we were doing in the area. As Gavin and I were in uniform and driving an army Land Rover, I retorted, ‘I am in command of this area, what are you doing here?’

  Peirson and Rawson were politely asked to leave, without even getting a chance to wet their lures. Said Peirson:

  As officer commanding the area, it peeved me that I had not been told of the op. Although I knew there were good reasons for this, I felt that the area should at least have been frozen to prevent my troops inadvertently walking in. My dissatisfaction was compounded by the fact that I had recently presided over two boards of inquiry into accidental deaths due to confusion over frozen areas.

  Nevertheless, ‘secret is secret’ applied to everyone, even those having to perform vital functions before the op began. A good example was the helicopter recovery and repair facility at Lake Alexander, which needed to be established before the op started. Leading that effort was First Warrant Officer Charles Penney of the RhAF. ‘My boss, Squadron Leader Derek Utton, told me to take helicopter spares, a full helicopterrecovery kit, tools and ammunition to FAF 8 [Grand Reef Airbase near Umtali], where I would be further briefed,’ recalls Penney. ‘I had no idea why we needed so many spares, which included a number of sets of main rotor blades, tail rotor blades, engines and general spares.’

  Penney led the convoy of three trucks out of New Sarum Airbase on 22 November, the day before the operation (D-day minus 1). ‘When we neared Rusape, I overtook a large air force convoy also heading east. We gave them a friendly wave and proceeded to Grand Reef.’

  Two hours after Penney arrived, the large convoy pulled in, and Penney was instantly summoned to the ops room. ‘I was crapped all over by Jack Lewis-Walker for passing the convoy. He said I was supposed to have been part of it – which was news to me. Anyway, we were still told nothing other than to leave at midnight for Lake Alexander to be on standby at first light.’

  To make sure Penney didn’t overtake any more convoys, his truck was placed at the front, right behind the escorting armoured car. ‘We made camp near the lake in a clearing above and to the west of the public picnic area and then got a few hours of sleep. Just before 06:00, helicopters started landing in dribs and drabs from different directions. I eventually counted 32, yet still nobody would tell us what was going on.’

  The answer was simple: Penney’s group was there to recover downed helicopters. A casualty rate of at least 10 per cent was expected, so it was anticipated that his team would have to recover at least two downed Alouette helicopters.

  To maintain the top-secret environment of the op for as long as possible, Robinson and Walsh decided that all the key participants would attend one mass briefing at New Sarum Airbase on Tuesday 22 November – the day before the operation. Pulling more than 200 soldiers from their operational areas at short notice and transporting them to Salisbury would most certainly attract attention and add grist to the rumour mill. The strongest rumour, probably planted, was that the raid was going to be on a ZIPRA base in Zambia.

  Once the men were in the confines of New Sarum, they would be quarantined, with no access to telephones. The corporals’ mess would be designated for all ranks, and stretchers with blankets would be laid out in the aircraft hangars.

  Virtually all the available helicopters would be withdrawn from Fireforce ops and fly in to New Sarum at the same time to be serviced and made ready for Dingo. This meant that 22 Alouettes would arrive at New Sarum on the same afternoon. Another 10 Alouettes, discreetly loaned to Rho
desia by South Africa – probably without Vorster’s knowledge – would supplement them. Then all the operational Vampires would fly in. Anyone just glancing across the runway from the main civilian airport would guess something big was about to happen.

  Dave Jenkins, the helicopter technician who was chosen to fly with Norman Walsh and Brian Robinson in the command helicopter, recalled:

  I was deployed to Malapati [near the south-east border with Mozambique], flying with Mike Mulligan, Kevin Peinke and Nigel Lamb operating with the SAS. On 21 November, we were recalled to New Sarum and, on arrival, we suspected that something was brewing when we realised that all the choppers appeared to be returning to base, though nothing was let on to us. The first we knew about Op Dingo was when we all attended the briefing.

  Mark McLean

  The same code of secrecy applied to the few reservists called up for Dingo. Mark McLean, a highly experienced pilot, resigned from the air force in 1973 after 10 years of service to pursue his own interests. He did what most young people did in those days – he hopped on a plane and worked his way around Europe for a year. Then he returned to Rhodesia to begin a career in real estate. He worked for Fox & Carney and quickly became the agency’s top residential property salesman.

  Working as a civilian, however, did not exempt McLean from military service, and his first call-up was with Internal Affairs, where he spent his time recording all of the personal details of people in the rural villages. McLean was not only an experienced pilot, but a decorated one too. He had been awarded the Bronze Cross of Rhodesia in 1970 for some pretty hairy helicopter flying under extremely heavy enemy fire. Disgusted by the gross waste of his skills as a trained military pilot, he had a word in someone’s ear and was transferred from Internal Affairs to the air force reserve. Call-ups became very regular; McLean recalls a particular one:

  I went to the office very early to clear up some last-minute things. Then I drove out to New Sarum to report for duty. I was hustled into a waiting chopper and sent post-haste to Mtoko. I arrived there just after the departure of the Fireforce, so I dumped my kit on the apron, pumped some gas and joined them. Three and a half hours after leaving the office, I was in a contact, shooting at people.

  This lifestyle affected many Rhodesian reservists. McLean recalls:

  It was bizarre. You had to do a mental flick-flack, and it had its problems. For example, at FAF 4 in Mount Darwin, there was a Fireforce hooter that was blasted when we needed to scramble. One day, I was sitting in my office at Fox & Carney, having a meeting with two Greek businessmen, when a truck on the road outside sounded its horn. I was on my feet and heading for the door, before I realised I was nowhere near Mount Darwin. I got some funny looks from the Greeks as I sheepishly slunk back to my desk.

  On 22 November 1977, McLean was ordered to report to New Sarum by 08:30 the next day for a routine call-up. When the long-haired, bearded reserve pilot drove his car into the airbase and saw scores of helicopters parked all over the place, he knew this was no ordinary call-up.

  The venue

  The ‘secret is secret’ rule also applied to the venue for the briefing – not an easy task because a hangar had to be cleared out, and seating and the massive models of the target moved in. Norman Walsh chose a shared hangar, one half occupied by the PTS, the other by the Radio Section. The hangar was divided across its breadth by offices. The briefing would take place in the Radio Section half.

  The personnel in the PTS side of the hangar knew something was up: ‘We noticed that the windows in our crew room, which looked through to the Radio Section, were suddenly taped up and we were told to keep the curtains closed,’ recalls parachute jump instructor Sergeant Kevin Milligan.

  On the other side of the taped windows, mapping expert Jacques du Bois and his team got on with laying out the Chimoio model on the floor; they then disassembled it and assembled Tembue in its place. At the main briefing, the switch from Chimoio to Tembue would have to be done during a 15-minute tea break.

  The last bit of preparation entailed transporting the grandstands from the rugby field to the hangar to provide a small amphitheatre of seats. All was set for the largest military briefing in Rhodesian military history.

  The consequence of concentrating all the country’s firepower in Salisbury, ready to fly externally, meant that there was no Fireforce available to attack insurgents inside the country. ‘We have 25 terrs visual, request Foxtrot Foxtrot’ was a call that would usually have prompted a Fireforce scramble. ‘Foxtrot Foxtrot is not available’ was the disappointing reply. The armed section of the Police Reserve Air Wing (flying Cessna aircraft with a side-firing .303 machine gun), flown mostly by private pilots, became the stand-in Fireforce. The Police Reserve Air Wing crews, particularly the SALOPS Flight, which operated from Salisbury’s small Charles Prince Airport, were inundated with call-outs and saw more action during the week of Operation Dingo than they had probably encountered during the entire war.

  24

  There’s a kind of hush

  The anniversary of UDI was celebrated each year with a glittering ball attended by politicians, captains of industry and civic leaders. The star guest was always Prime Minister Ian Smith. The format was that of a New Year’s party, with dinner and dancing before the prime minister made a short speech, and then, at midnight precisely, he would strike the Independence Bell. Modelled on the American Liberty Bell and donated by Friends of Rhodesia, this large bell hung from a stand made of solid Rhodesian mukwa hardwood, on which there was an inscription: ‘I toll for Liberty, Civilisation and Christianity.’

  Some 600 people dressed to the nines gathered at the Harry Margolis Hall in Salisbury on the evening of 10 November 1977 to celebrate the 12th anniversary of UDI. The ball took place as yet another peace deal was emerging. This time, David Owen and Andrew Young were the brokers.

  The backdrop to this Independence Ball was an intensifying war. Ian Smith’s speech, broadcast live by the Rhodesian Broadcasting Corporation, was fittingly sombre. He talked of the multiple settlement efforts and the risk of failure: ‘Let me hasten to add as far as we in Rhodesia are concerned, we are ready to show great reason, and if there is a response from the other side I think the world would be agreeably surprised with the amount of reason that would be forthcoming from Rhodesians. But a fatal mistake would be to misinterpret our reason as weakness because that will mean failure.’

  What Smith and only a few others at the ball knew was that in just 12 days’ time, Rhodesian forces would deal Robert Mugabe’s ZANLA forces in Mozambique a heavy blow in the largest air and ground attack of the war. Smith ended with a message of caution and hope:

  I wish you well in the year ahead; I hope that, as before, Rhodesians will go forward and enter this 13th year of ours in good spirit and with strong resolution. We have got problems; don’t let’s pretend otherwise, but no doubt you have often in the past heard the wellknown saying that no matter how dark the night, there will always be a dawn.

  I believe this is very apt as far as Rhodesians in present circumstances are concerned. And, as you all know, the dawn with its fresh, cool, clear air is always the best time of the day and I believe that the dawn is coming to Rhodesia.

  To humour the audience, Smith reminded them that the bell was not struck once for each year of independence, but always 12 times: ‘You can imagine what the position would be when one of my successors, in due time, has to ring the bell 100 times,’ Smith quipped to laughter and huge applause.

  The party continued with the traditional first song of the new Independence Year, a rendition of the Herman’s Hermits hit ‘A Kind of Hush (All Over the World Tonight)’.

  25

  The Dingo commanders

  Norman Walsh

  From childhood, Norman Walsh had wanted to be an air force pilot. He was brought up in Queenstown, in South Africa’s Eastern Cape, and attended Queen’s College, a prestigious boys’ school established in 1858 at the foot of the rugged Stormberg mountains. Being young
est in his class didn’t faze Norman, except that it meant he was too young to leave school when he matriculated, so he spent another year doing a post-matric course at Grey High School in Port Elizabeth.

  English-speaking Norman didn’t fancy his chances of getting into the South African Air Force (SAAF), so he hit the Great North Road to Rhodesia, hoping to join the Royal Rhodesian Air Force (RRAF).

  Why Rhodesia? ‘Many people seemed to be going there, as the prospects seemed better,’ recalled Walsh. But he found once again that he was too young; he also had to live in Rhodesia for at least six months to qualify as a resident before the air force would consider his application.

  Norman found a job as a farmhand on Montezuma Farm, a tobacco outfit owned by Aubrey Leeuwen. Montezuma was 15 kilometres southwest of Karoi, a small agricultural town sometimes called the Town of the Little Witch, after its Shona name, ka (diminutive) and royi (witch). Tobacco farming was not easy work for young Norman, especially as the tobacco-curing barns had to be monitored for correct temperature and humidity at all hours of the day and night.

  Soon Norman was old enough to bid farewell to the Town of the Little Witch and join the RRAF selection process in Salisbury. Norman whizzed through selection, and joined the air force in 1953 as a member of the No. 5 Course, Short Service Unit.

  In no time, he was learning to fly the iconic de Havilland Tiger Moth, a wonderful biplane made of a Sitka spruce frame covered with fabric and ply; wire anchored the wings together. Built as a trainer, it had two open cockpits with tiny windshields to give the pilots a little relief.

  The student sits at the back, so Walsh quickly got used to reading the body language of his instructor, Flight Lieutenant Colin Graves: ‘He would whack the side of the aircraft if one made a major balls-up.’