by Ian Pringle
Like a heavy-metal shower, the Alpha bombs from Dixon’s Canberra bounced and exploded around the old Antonio farmhouse, ZANLA’s HQ building, ripping branches from trees and cutting down the ZANLA personnel who hadn’t yet legged it after Brand’s attack. Green 2 and 3 simultaneously carpeted the huge area housing Chitepo College, Chaminuka and Nehanda camps, and Mugabe’s residence, while Green 4 hit the complex housing convalescing combatants.
As quickly as they came, the threatening, bat-like Canberras were gone, leaving behind a massive cloud of dust, smoke and death.
With split-second timing, even as the Canberras were dropping their bombs, Vic Wightman and his wingman, Spook Geraty, were diving their Hunters towards the menacing anti-aircraft emplacements. The anti-aircraft gunners were now switching their aim away from the disappearing Canberras to the Hunters and the big, lumbering Dakotas approaching for the mass paradrop.
Wightman and Geraty opened up on the anti-aircraft emplacements with 68-mm rockets, and then attacked with 30-mm cannons. Wightman’s Hunter took a hit in the port air intake from ground fire on his second attack. John Blythe-Wood’s Blue Section Hunters attacked the other main anti-aircraft pits, following up with attacks on infrastructure targets. These attacks by the Hunters were absolutely crucial. Had they not attacked and reattacked when they did, it is virtually certain that serious damage would have been caused to the Dakotas.
All quiet at New Farm
Before the haunting howl of the blue note from Red 1 had interrupted things, the ZANLA HQ was going about its normal business. Some guerrillas were on parade and many more were receiving instruction under the thick tree cover that was characteristic of New Farm. The area around Chitepo College was a hive of activity as instructors lectured guerrillas in various aspects of military theory. Down the road to the east, the vehicle mechanics tinkered away on ZANLA vehicles in the garage.
The dirt thoroughfares around the HQ building, lined with neatly spaced palm trees planted by the farmer who had owned the land, were neatly swept in the African tradition. The atmosphere was calm, the inhabitants oblivious to the impending storm. The passage of the DC-8 flying high overhead did not cause panic, although some anti-aircraft crews manned their weapons. Generally, the inhabitants felt very secure.
Brian Robinson’s key tactic, the element of surprise, had been well achieved.
Oppah Muchinguri, a secretary to the ZANLA high command, was near the HQ building when the attack started. She told the ZBC 33 years later:
We saw planes, about 10 initially, flying towards the camp. We did not suspect anything, as we thought they were Mozambican. We had been attacked before at Nyadzonia. The planes started dropping bombs and parachutes. Rhodesian ground forces had already been dropped and had us surrounded, so the planes were targeting their bombs at our camp. As the bombs fell, those who tried to escape faced helicopters, which were targeting the outskirts of the camp. The camp had about 5 000 people. As secretary, I was responsible for the safekeeping of all party and war documents so I dug a hole and buried them in the ground.
Muchinguri may have taken care of the war documents, but the Rhodesians still managed to retrieve masses of ZANLA classified material.
33
The mass paradrop
The oldest aircraft deployed on the raid, the Dakotas, rumbled along at 130 knots (240 km/h) in a loose formation. As the ‘old birds’ crossed into Mozambique, or ‘Indian territory’, as it was called, the dispatchers and parachute jump instructors hooked each paratrooper’s static line to the overhead cable. This was a precaution in case the aircraft was seriously crippled by anti-aircraft fire – at least then those on board could jump out. This routine also served to ratchet up the tension; it was now getting serious.
The Daks were still 17 minutes from dropping – too long for some of the paratroopers, who were feeling a bit nauseous as they descended suddenly from the high ground to the Mozambican lowlands.
Kevin Milligan was standing near the open door of his Dakota. For the first time, he saw the helicopter armada as the faster Dakotas passed the Alouettes. Over his headset, he could hear the Hunter, Vampire and Canberra pilots talking in clipped, tense tones as the aerial attack continued.
Vic Culpan’s voice over the intercom interrupted his thoughts. ‘Prepare for action,’ the No. 2 dispatcher bellowed. ‘Stand up, check equipment.’ The checks were done quickly: static line hooked up, safety pin fitted, helmet secure, Capewells secure, reserve-chute ripcord secure, body band secure, quick-release box secure. The paras then turned to face the open door at the rear of the aircraft, each man checking the parachute of the man in front. Then the dispatcher shouted: ‘Tell off for equipment check.’ Immediately, the furthest para from the door called out, ‘12 okay’, ‘11 okay’, and so on, down to the first man in each stick, who respectively called out, ‘One okay, starboard stick okay’; ‘One okay, port stick okay.’
Bob d’Hotman levelled his lead Dak off at 500 feet and slowed the machine to 95 knots. Vic Culpan followed suit, staying in line-astern formation. The timing and separation had to be perfect to avoid mid-air collision both of the aircraft and the paras. Each trailing Dak positioned itself slightly to starboard and about 50 feet above the one in front.
The 144 paras on board the six Daks would form two sides of the box. Stops 1, 2 and 3 covered the western side, 3.2 kilometres long; Stops 4, 5 and 6 would cover the southern side, 3.6 kilometres in length.
As the Daks started positioning for the run-in, two minutes out, the dispatchers took up their positions near the door of the swaying aircraft. This brought on a new surge of adrenalin in the paratroopers. ‘Will my chute open? Will I land on a rock? Will the gooks be waiting for us?’ were some of the thoughts rushing through their minds.
Then Culpan called ‘action stations’ over the intercom, which Milligan repeated immediately to the No. 2 dispatcher, who, in turn, yelled ‘action stations’ to the ready and poised paras. The stick of 12 men on the port side shuffled to their position, one pace from the door. Culpan flicked the red-light switch, illuminating the bright red light above the open door. ‘Red light on; stand in the door,’ shouted the No. 2 dispatcher. The lead para took up his position in the door while the rest of the stick shuffled up to ensure they were tightly packed for the exit.
In the lead Dak, Derek de Kock counted off the paratroops as they jumped; this was transmitted by Bob d’Hotman over the air. As the second-last man jumped, Vic Culpan flicked the green-light switch in his Dak. Milligan shouted, ‘Green light on, go! [slap on the shoulder], two and three and four …’
Unlike in the case of Fireforce deployments, the dispatcher had to pause for a brief moment between jumps to ensure the men would land far enough apart to cover a side of the box. Travelling at 95 knots, the Daks covered the ground at a rate of 48 metres per second, meaning all 72 paras in the leg would be spread over a distance of 3.4 kilometres, exactly what was needed. The paras’ adrenalin was flowing, and Milligan remembers that it was ‘hard to slow them for a slower stick. They were used to exiting in one fast, flowing movement.’
In fact, it was impossible to slow them down. Lieutenant Mark Adams, commanding the southern half of Stop 1, explains:
The RLI were used to jumping from the Dak in Fireforce operations. The key for us was to get a stick [four men] together as soon as we could after landing. The concept of an individual troopie staying where he lands and then fighting on his own some distance from the remainder of his stick was foreign to us. Also, when bullets are cracking around, the infantryman does not like to be in a confined space, be that an aircraft or a vehicle, where he is unable to use his weapon to defend himself.
The powerful slipstream violently snatched each man as he stepped out of the door, the static line now his only attachment to the aircraft. It was a very brief attachment, as the static line quickly reached the end of its length and hauled the pilot chute from the pack before breaking free. None of this was visible to the paratrooper. He waited for
the reassuring tug of the parachute opening, and then shouted, ‘Look up, check canopy.’ The ground was less than 500 feet away.
The green chutes mushroomed from the Daks, a sight resembling large mammals giving birth to multiple young in flight. Soon the sky was filled with parachutes, but not for long – as the last paratroops were hurling themselves into the Mozambican sky, the first were already landing.
Derek de Kock was pleased to see that his drops had gone to plan. He was also happy there was good tree cover. This would snag many parachutes and slow the landing speed, reducing the risk of injury – provided the men remembered the golden rule: keep your feet tightly together. This wasn’t simply a gender-saving precaution, but also a good branch-breaking technique, and, of course, the correct position for landing on terra firma.
Bob MacKenzie
SAS Captain Bob MacKenzie, an American veteran of the Vietnam War, wrote up his experiences of Operation Dingo, later published in the magazine Soldier of Fortune. MacKenzie was commanding Stop 4:
I stood in the door of my Dakota while red and green tracer rounds zipped by, signalling the beginning of the battle for Chimoio 500 feet below. Inside the crowded fuselage of the Dak, my men were already standing and hooked up, and were finishing their pre-jump checks. A last look from the door revealed a landscape billowing with smoke and dust, and I saw the other half of my ‘A’ troop start jumping from a Dak ahead and slightly below the one in which I stood.
With rounds popping like popcorn outside, I gave the thumbs-up to my long-time comrade and troop colour sergeant, Koos Loots, and to my men – silent, sweating, and grim-faced after an hour of flying. The buzzer and green light went on and they started shuffling to the door and out, the 60 to 70 pounds of equipment hanging under their reserve chutes, making graceful exits impossible. ‘Fuck me, get me out of this flying target,’ I thought.
Hanging in my harness, drifting down from 500 feet, I could see terrorists running beneath me through the bush, firing wildly over their shoulders into the air. I gave a brief moment of thanks for the wretched marksmanship and lack of fire discipline exhibited by most African terrorists, and was pleased to see the long line of green canopies descending through the heat haze into the bedlam. My boots crashed through the branches of a Mopani tree and on down, coming to a halt six inches off the ground.
Pounding my quick-release box, I dropped out of my harness and took cover behind a tree. My first day at Chimoio had begun.
As the Daks finished the drop, they dived to low level to get away from the target zone and avoid the heavy anti-aircraft fire. This increased their speed significantly, ‘which made it a real bugger to get the static lines and bags in,’ recalled Derek de Kock.
As the parachutes were descending, the 10 trooper helicopters, now flying abreast in a staggered line, began dropping the men from the RLI on a ridge at the northern part of the box. Norman Walsh steered his command helicopter right to the edge of the battle zone, from where he and Brian Robinson could now assess the situation and establish command.
‘As we came overhead and pulled up, there was still a lot of dust and smoke, and among all that there were hundreds of people running in every direction,’ recalls Dave Jenkins, flying in the command helicopter. ‘There was constant radio chatter, non-stop. Callsigns on the ground were reporting gooks everywhere.’
It was not easy for the commanders. Massive clouds of dust from the Canberra bombs hung in the morning air, obscuring visibility. The Hunter strikes had set scores of huts ablaze, and the problem with burning thatch is that before bursting into flame, it emits vast quantities of extremely thick white smoke. To add to the gloomy mix, the hot air rising from the fires into the moist air above cooled and condensed into little, puffy, man-made cumulus clouds, further obscuring visibility for the jet pilots.
The K-cars, now only four miles away, had a grandstand view from their bubble cockpits. Mark McLean recalled:
Running in is something I remember very clearly because it was one of the most exciting times of my life. My initial thoughts then were on a television series called Twelve O’Clock High, about the US Air Force Flying Fortresses attacking Germany, with scenes of cigar-chewing Yank pilots bouncing around in their seats as the flak burst around them. It seemed to fit the scene as we ran in to target. Hunters barrelling in, explosions, bombs streaming out of the Cans – it was a totally impressive sight. Then the parachutes blossoming. Our own little Arnhem, I guess.
From his prime viewing position, McLean knew that this was a very big punch-up: ‘It was definitely a “yahoo” moment – really, really exciting.’
Major Simon Haarhoff, the commander of the RLI’s 2 Commando troops being carried in the 10 G-cars of Pink Section, described the scene as something like ‘a swarm of angry bees – the air force’s entire strike capability throwing any and every ordnance they could carry into the camp area’.
Norman Walsh, witnessing the same spectacle from his helicopter nearby, quickly spotted the major threat: many anti-aircraft weapons were still firing. These had to be silenced, and quickly too. After the initial attack, the Hunters orbited above the target area, forming a ‘cab rank’. The next one in line would respond to Walsh’s command, ‘Blue 2 from Delta Zero, hit gun pit four with guns, then ZZ193061 [the grid reference on the photo map] with rockets.’
Martin Lowrie, next in line in the Hunter cab rank, looked at the gridded photograph of the target area in his cockpit, and knew instantly that Walsh wanted him to attack gun pit no. 4 with 30-mm cannon, then the mill and stores complex beyond the gun pit with 68-mm Matra rockets. ‘Blue 2, roger’ was Lowrie’s crisp reply as he rolled his Hunter into an attacking dive, neutralising the weapon with a hail of cannon shells and returning to pump 24 rockets into the mill and stores beyond, setting scores of buildings alight.
However, the anti-aircraft guns seemed to pop up like mushrooms – as soon as you stood on one, another popped up elsewhere. The preraid photographs clearly showed the main fixed anti-aircraft gun pits. These emplacements were ringed by thick walls of logs, making them easy to spot. Less noticeable, however, were the anti-aircraft guns placed on what were thought to be lookout towers. But the most dangerous weapons were those almost impossible to see – mobile anti-aircraft guns that were well camouflaged among the heavy tree cover.
The extent of the anti-aircraft defence came as a surprise, and it would take three more hours to silence all the heavy-calibre guns. It was not surprising that virtually every aircraft that engaged targets was hit.
Once the set-piece air strikes and early restrikes were over, it was the turn of the K-car gunships to move in and engage their allocated targets. Most of the K-cars sealed with their cannon fire the fourth side of the box, attacking east of the HQ complex. The remaining K-cars were to attack two targets outside the box, the convalescence centre, to the west of the HQ, and the recruits’ camp, seven kilometres to the north-east.
Mandi Chimene, a ZANLA medical orderly, told the ZBC: ‘Before anyone realised what was happening, we were under attack. In confusion, I left the barracks and went outside. A helicopter was hovering above me, spraying petrol down onto our building. I ducked inside as the soldier inside the helicopter started firing at me.’
The K-car fire might easily have been mistaken for petrol, as the 20-mm cannon shells exploded and set thatching alight.
The K-cars sent to Pasidina 2, the combatants’ convalescence centre built around the old De Sousa farmstead, near where Chimene had her helicopter encounter, were in for a surprise. As they approached to engage, a withering wall of small-arms fire rose to meet them. Clearly, the convalescents were well armed and pretty sprightly. One of the K-cars was damaged almost immediately and had to retire. The convalescents continued to make a stand. The awkward thing was that Pasidina 2 was outside the box and about a kilometre behind Colour Sergeant John Norman’s Stop Group 1, which, at the time, was engaging enemy to their front. Turning the RLI paratroops around or splitting them to attack the con
valescents was not an option. Robinson had no choice but to ask Walsh to pacify the so-called convalescents with Hunter strikes.
Further to the east, at the fourth side of the box, Mark McLean arrived at his target zone:
I pulled up into my attack orbit and started shooting. There was quite a lot of long thatching grass and reasonably dense tree cover, which presented a problem, in that you could see a dozen or so enemy rushing in one direction, but as soon as we engaged them, they would throw themselves to the ground and disappear in the tall grass. So you would have needed to be directly above to spot them.
I was surprised that the high-explosive shells from our cannon did not set the grass alight; it must have been wet or quite green.
McLean was right – the grass was still damp from the rain the night before, which allowed quite a few guerrillas to slip through this part of the box.
The SAS stop groups were in the thick of it from the time they left the Dakotas. Hordes of ZANLA guerrillas were fleeing south, running away from the air strikes and straight into the SAS men just across the dry Massua River. The urge to escape the air assault seemed to make many of the guerrillas totally oblivious of the devastating ground fire they were running into.
There was also plenty of action for Simon Haarhoff’s helicopter troops as they sealed the north side of the box. Guerrillas fleeing from the air attacks on the Takawira and Pasidina 1 camp areas covered ground so quickly that the men of 2 Commando hardly had time to deplane from the Alouettes before they were confronted by the vanguard of the sprinting guerrillas. Haarhoff explained:
Within minutes, firing started all along the line of sticks as terrs began breaking cover in front of the ridge and were picked off. It was like a badly organised turkey shoot, with the air force as the beaters and 2 Commando as the shooters.
Lieutenant Graeme Murdoch, whose stick was in the first G-car to land on the western extremity of the RLI stop line, was separated from the rest of 2 Commando. He recalls: ‘It took me nearly 40 minutes to literally fight our way to join up with the rest of the commando after being dropped off, as the bad guys were desperately trying to flee out of box.’