by Ian Pringle
As the sun sank below the Rhodesian Highlands in the distance, activity at Chimoio started to slow down and the men thought about night positions. The officers now focused on bringing order to the situation and getting their men together.
Everyone knew that quite a few guerrillas had escaped the envelopment, either through the eastern side of the box or under the descending paratroops. There was the obvious threat that the ZANLA remnants might come back to their smouldering camp in an organised manner. The officers chose a heavily treed area near Chaminuka Camp, at the centre of the triangle, to set up an all-round defensive perimeter. The RLI would guard one half of the circle, and the SAS the other. Once settled, the exhausted soldiers tucked into their ratpacks (food ration packs), wolfing down bully beef and hard biscuits. The guard would be rotated through the night, allowing the men time to get much-needed sleep.
One RLI machine gunner recalled: ‘It was a dark night, and during my guard shift I heard a cry from the SAS side. It was a sleeping SAS soldier. One of three gooks passing by had stepped on his head. The SAS sentry fired his RPD immediately, killing two gooks; the third escaped. I was very alert for the rest of my guard shift.’
Not far from this incident, Bob MacKenzie was falling asleep. Earlier that afternoon, he had found a locked Samsonite suitcase, which he believed was the suitcase full of money already discovered by Samler, but at the time he was too busy fighting ZANLA to think about opening it. ‘I drifted off to sleep dreaming of a suitcase full of money, often interrupted by gunfire from all around Chimoio as surviving guerrillas battled each other, or shadows. I would find that case first thing in the morning.’
The defence perimeter was very effective. During the night, another 60 ZANLA perished, mostly on the RLI side of the perimeter. The main priority of D-day + 1 was to move the men out of Mozambique. General Walls wanted that completed by midday at the latest.
The G-car helicopters of Pink Section would leave Grand Reef at first light to be in position at the admin base and begin the final troop withdrawal. Norman Walsh ordered a pair of Canberras and three Hunters to be over the target by 05:15 to provide top cover and respond should FRELIMO decide to send tanks and troops up from Chimoio Town. At Thornhill and New Sarum, the ground crews were up at 03:30 to prepare the aircraft. Rich Brand decided to hand the leadership for the day over to his deputy, Flight Lieutenant Vic Wightman.
Wightman would lead Red Section with his faithful wingman, Spook Geraty; John Annan made up the trio. Wightman set the walk time for 04:20, when it was still pitch dark in Gwelo. At 04:40 precisely, just as dawn was breaking, he applied full throttle, and the FGA9 started accelerating down the runway. Red Section joined the Canberra pair of Green Section over the target at 05:45. The mere sight of these warplanes would make any ZANLA guerrilla think twice about attacking the Rhodesians.
The main area of the ZANLA camp was quiet, so the early-morning focus switched to the recruits’ camp, seven kilometres away, where stragglers were firing at the aircraft. Walsh ordered Red Section to attack with frantan and rockets, followed by a Canberra attack over the heavily wooded area along the Mombezi River.
A sweep through the recruits’ area, performed later by Captain Grahame Wilson’s group, revealed that 70 were dead out of a total in the camp of 700, and many were heavily wounded, judging by the trails of blood. On D-day, only Vampires and K-cars had attacked this target, as it was a second priority. Unfortunately for the Rhodesians, at least 80 per cent of the ZANLA trainees in the camp would survive to fight another day.
Bob MacKenzie took a small patrol to find the pile of documents his men had stashed away and, of course, the mysterious suitcase.
Declaring to his men they were about to be rich, MacKenzie opened the first latch with his bayonet: ‘I paused for a second, then lifted the lid. “Bugger! Nothing but bloody papers,” I said, shaking the case … With the shake, though, a new Rolex watch bounced out and into my hand … only a low-end Rolex. It nevertheless brought more than a month’s pay when I sold it in Salisbury a few weeks later.’
Little did MacKenzie know that Samler had already found the suitcase full of money that belonged to the ZANLA paymaster, Herbert Ushewokunze.
The rest of the morning was spent gathering documents and destroying vast quantities of arms, ammunition and other supplies. The best equipment, such as AK-47 rifles, RPD sub-machine guns and 12.7-mm anti-aircraft guns, was taken back to Rhodesia. But there was only so much the helicopters could carry; the rest had to be destroyed, including more than 500 semi-automatic SKS rifles.
All this took time, and, once again, the plan was flexed, with the last helicopter crossing the border back into Rhodesia just after 16:00 on 24 November 1977. But it wasn’t quite over: Captain Bob MacKenzie had laid down radio-activated marker flares for a Canberra to drop bombs on the complex that night, some with delayed fuses. The Canberra run effectively brought a close to Operation Dingo, Zulu 1.
General Peter Walls summed up Zulu 1 in a call from the command Dak as it headed back to Salisbury: ‘At worst, the job was worthwhile; at best, it may have been bloody excellent.’
But there was no time to celebrate. An even more difficult task lay ahead: attacking ZANLA’s Tembue base deep within Mozambique, almost on the Malawian border. This was Operation Dingo, Zulu 2.
Part 3
Zulu 2: Tembue
40
Lightning over the Saudi desert
‘Mayday, Mayday, Mission 262 ejecting.’
Former Royal Rhodesian Air Force pilot Charles ‘Vic’ Wightman had lost control of his English Electric Lightning supersonic interceptor over the Saudi Arabian desert. He was demonstrating an intercept on another Lightning, watched on radar by a senior Saudi government minister at the Khamis Mushayt Airbase. Wightman recalled:
After take-off, I noticed the ventral tank was not feeding, probably a fuel-no-air valve sticking. So I applied positive and negative G to unstick it, plus a few slow rolls. This didn’t sort the ventral feed, but seemed to induce, first, a hydraulic 1 failure, followed shortly by hydraulic 2, and on came the clangers and lights of the central warning system. The elevator accumulators exhausted almost immediately, but pitch control was possible using differential engine power, so I continued the climb to gain space and time to sort the problem. At about 26 000 feet, the aileron accumulators exhausted and the aircraft rolled over into an uncontrolled, rapidly accelerating dive.
With the airspeed indicator rising sharply, Wightman knew he risked very serious injury if he ejected at supersonic speed, so it was not a difficult decision: pull the ejection handle now.
It all happened so fast. There was a terrible rush of cold wind, then I was free of the aircraft, but the seat and I were in a rapid spin, making me feel awfully nauseous. I tried to stop the spin, and even opened my visor to overcome the overwhelming feeling of wanting to vomit. All of a sudden, the chute opened. Below was a wonderful view of the Saudi Arabian desert, and the long canopy ride down to terra firma gave me ample time to work out what I would say to the board of inquiry.
As Wightman was nearing the ground in his inaugural parachute ride, he was alarmed to see that the numerous darker patches in the desert sand were in fact jagged rocks.
There was a strong wind and I was swinging like a pendulum below the chute. I was so worried about the rocks that I forgot all my training and landed with my legs wide apart, slamming my face into the ground, causing a bloody nose. But I felt euphoric – I had survived.
As I stood up, I saw a Saudi woman, looking like a full bottle of Guinness in the middle of the desert. When she saw me, she got such a fright that she threw her hands in the air and ran off shrieking. I think she must have thought I was the second coming of someone or another.
I walked up to the top of the nearest mound to set up my search and rescue beacon. When I turned to go back down and collect my other survival toys, I realised I could not walk; my ankles were damaged. So I sat there like a dummy. I wasn’t even able to put
a mosquito net over my head! Then a man in a truck arrived and offered me a lift, which I declined, telling him, ‘No problem, all my shamwaris will be here soon.’ But it was a quite a while before my shamwari Farouk arrived in his rescue helicopter. He couldn’t land next to me, so crew members had to pick me up and lug me to Farouk’s helicopter, where they unceremoniously dumped me inside.
Vic’s ankles, nose and pride healed and he continued flying the ‘frightening Lightning’ until, a few years later, his wife, Shirley, unexpectedly fell pregnant with their fourth child. Saudi was not a great place to be for childbirth, so Vic resigned from the Saudi Air Force and later that year, 1973, the Wightmans decided to head back home to Rhodesia.
Vic had joined the RRAF in 1958. He was posted to No. 11 Short Service Unit with the likes of Ian Harvey, Rich Brand and Tol Janeke. In many ways, Vic was not a typical air force pilot. He liked challenging the system, hated wearing shoes, disliked routine and got airsick. But he got his wings, and after the two-year contract was over, he left for England to join the RAF, where he spent time flying Canberras and Gnat trainer aircraft before volunteering to teach Saudi pilots to fly the Lightning.
Vic rejoined the RhAF and flew Hawker Hunters in No. 1 Squadron. Two years later, he spent time instructing ‘snotty-nosed students to fly the Impala and Vampire’. Just before Operation Dingo, Wightman returned to No. 1 Squadron as Rich Brand’s deputy. He would be the first pilot to deliver a new weapon on an external target – an antipersonnel bomb called flechettes.
Flechettes
Peter Petter-Bowyer had studied a French anti-personnel rocket system that delivered thousands of small darts (fléchettes in French) at high speed. This weapon was eventually banned by international treaty, mainly because the darts tended to tumble, making awful exit wounds. ‘What never made sense to me,’ recalls PB, ‘was that ordinary rifle bullets caused more damage and were just as lethal – yet they were not banned.’
PB experimented unofficially with a locally made version of the flechettes in 1964, launching a canister armed with the darts from a Provost, but the project was shelved. Twelve years later, having completed his work on the highly effective Golf bomb project, PB applied himself to completing the new weapon.
With his usual passion for simplifying things, PB had the darts made from headless six-inch nails, onto which were fitted moulded fins made from recycled plastic. They were packed into a single dispenser that held 4 500 darts. Being dropped at high speed – 450 knots was ideal – increased the weapon’s effectiveness. There was only one aircraft capable of achieving this speed: the Hawker Hunter.
PB had tests done from a Hunter in the typical gun or frantan profile, a 30-degree dive. ‘The tests proved that the new weapon was accurate and highly effective. Released in pairs at 450 knots resulted in an immensely dense cloud of flechettes flying a shallow trajectory, which made survival of those exposed within the 900 metres by 70 metres strike area impossible.’
The effect was equivalent to 340 Browning machine guns firing simultaneously. PB had developed yet another remarkable weapon.
Norman Walsh was not keen for the new weapon to be used during the Chimoio raid, however, because the UN High Commission for Refugees was bound to visit the complex after the raid. Because Tembue was so far off the beaten track, however, such a visit was unlikely, so Walsh approved their use for the second raid, Zulu 2. Vic Wightman would deliver the first flechette canisters on a ZANLA target in Mozambique.
41
Tembue by train
The ZANLA Tete Province HQ at Tembue comprised three complexes along the Luia River, at the base of the Angonia Plateau of northern Mozambique, near the picturesque hamlet of Catane. The hamlet sported its own 900-metre grass runway, registered as Tembue airstrip, not to be confused with Tembue Town, also known as Chifunde, which is 12 kilometres to the north.
The Rhodesians knew Catane well, having visited it many times to liaise with the Portuguese military in the pre-FRELIMO days. It was only 25 kilometres from Bene, another place often frequented by the Rhodesian military in the days of Portuguese rule. Bene was known for the stench of the open latrines; it was also where the Rhodesians had first set eyes on a K-car belonging to the Portuguese. The Tembue airstrip is easy to find by air, as it lies near Serra Techecunda, a nearperfect conical mountain known by some as the Tembue Tit.
The three ZANLA camps at Tembue were made up of 400 mudand-thatch buildings situated between the Bene–Tembue road and the Luia River. Camp A, a basic training camp for recruits, was isolated, lying six kilometres north of the other camps, not unlike the recruits’ camp at Chimoio. Camp B was where ZANLA taught specialist skills to already trained guerrillas. Camp C, just less than three kilometres to the south of Camp B, housed fully trained guerrillas ready to deploy into Rhodesia. Each camp had a series of anti-aircraft pits surrounded by thick timber walls; these were dotted around a vast number of defensive trenches and bomb shelters.
In the aftermath of the Chimoio raid, it was not inconceivable that FRELIMO would decide to react this time, although Tembue was much more remote and isolated than Chimoio. The nearest threat to the Rhodesians was a platoon at Bene, 20 minutes away by road, and a company of 150 soldiers at Tembue Town, 30 minutes away. Any other potential FRELIMO reaction would take longer. There was a battalion at Fingoe, three hours away, and a FRELIMO company at Farancungo. The biggest threat was a reaction from the FRELIMO brigade HQ at Tete, six hours away by road. As a precaution, the roads leading to the target would be mined, ambushed and a mortar site set up within range.
The problem posed by Tembue was its distance. At 200 kilometres from Chiswiti, the final staging post inside Rhodesia, it was well out of range for a fully laden Alouette. Besides the admin base near Tembue, another refuelling site was needed on the way, ideally about halfway between Chiswiti and the target. The halfway mark, however, was bang in the middle of the widest part of Lago de Cahora Bassa (Lake Cahora Bassa), a large hydroelectric reservoir and dam holding back the Zambezi River.
Norman Walsh pondered the options. The lake’s shoreline was very rugged and too close to habitation. Landing beyond the lake was out of the question because that would push the Alouettes beyond a safe fuel reserve, not a good idea over dry land and even less attractive over water. A secure open piece of ground south of Cahora Bassa was needed. Walsh knew the area well from his earlier days as boss of No. 7 Squadron, when he often flew into Mozambique for meetings with the Portuguese and to fight FRELIMO. He needed a secure area away from populated areas and roads, but within an hour’s flying time of the target at Tembue. Walsh pored over the aerial photographs and maps, and soon realised exactly where the best place was.
About 40 kilometres north of the Rhodesian border in Mozambique was an ancient plateau, rising 700 feet above its surrounds. This tabletop feature ran broadly west–east, and measured 26 kilometres from end to end. Over the ages, it had eroded into an irregular shape, resembling a long-necked cat when seen from directly above at high altitude. When viewed from the ground in Rhodesia, the feature resembled a giant train heading west. The two parts forming the cat’s tail were the engine and coal tender, followed by irregular carriages ending with the cat’s head, resembling the guard’s van. Rhodesian pilots flying in the north-east on a clear day would often use the ‘Train’ as a navigation aid.
Being flat-topped, the plateau should make a good helicopter refuelling point, thought Walsh. It was exactly one hour from Tembue for a loaded Alouette, and only 21 minutes from the home staging base at Chiswiti. Another important factor was that the Train was inaccessible by land vehicle, making it a safe haven in the heart of hostile territory.
‘That’s where my first admin base will be,’ said Walsh as he planted a mapping pin, giving the cat a left eye, or, when looking at it from ground level, forming the roof of the guard’s van.
Walsh chose Wing Commander Rex Taylor as his ‘train driver’, or, more accurately, as the ‘guard’. Taylor had joined the second SS
U as a cadet pilot in March 1952 along with Frank Mussell and 10 others. After the two-year contract was over, Taylor, together with Vic Paxton and Barry Stephens, joined the Kenya Police Air Wing. Both Taylor’s colleagues would perish in air accidents in Kenya. Taylor rejoined the RRAF in 1957, later becoming a founder member and instructor of No. 7 (Alouette) Squadron in 1962.
Rex Taylor loved the outdoors, nature and fishing. He also liked a bit of comfort in the bush. ‘In the late 1970s, I was “retreaded” out of a cosy office back to the cockpit of an Alouette III and fed into the Fireforce operating out of Grand Reef.’
After deploying a stick of troops during Fireforce operations, the G-cars would land nearby and await developments. But there was no tea served in the middle of the bush, so Taylor came up with a plan:
Legend has it that the army marches on its tea, but I was sure that I could make a brew which could be drunk, not marched upon. I acquired a gas stove and a cardboard box. From our caravan camping kit I borrowed the aluminium teapot and four plastic cups. The ration packs yielded tea, sugar and milk powder. The box shielded the gas stove and teapot from the wind, and the cups were painless to drink from, unlike the metal ones in issue.
It was no surprise that the Fireforce pilots and reserve sticks of infantrymen would gather around Taylor’s helicopter for tea. ‘Our tea tin shared the rigours and dangers of a gentleman’s war, camaraderie, banter and real bullets too.’