“Cocky, I know you enjoy action and that you have done well whenever you have been called. So tell me, are you happy to keep on sitting around just waiting for someone else to call you to action? Are you too special to act on your squadron’s motto ‘Seek and Find’ or are you going to get off your arse, find gooks and lead others to action?”
I cannot remember his response, but I do know that he was wide-awake two hours later when I pointed out another of many old CT bases I had been showing him. This one was on the western side of the Nyadiri River valley. “The base is in use, sir”, he said. “There are gooks down there. I can see their kit under the trees.”
My reaction was one of disbelief but, as we continued on along our search line, Cocky insisted he had seen plenty of kit. I knew how often he had seen motionless CTs when no other pilot or gunner could see them, but again I asked, “Cocky, are you absolutely certain there are ters in that base?” “No question about it, sir. I am absolutely certain.”
I called FAF 5 to have the Fireforce brought to readiness and asked for two Provosts to be armed with eight fragmentation bombs each. Cocky was champing at the bit and pressing me to go straight back to base, so I had to make him understand that in these circumstances it was essential to keep orbiting along our recce line so as not to give the CTs any clue that they had been spotted. At a safe distance we headed east for a while before racing south to Mtoko.
Having briefed the Fireforce, Cocky and I got airborne again, each flying an armed Provost. Flying 4,000 feet above the helicopters, we weaved left and right to remain behind them. Five minutes out from target with Cocky following 200 metres behind me, we put our propellers to maximum rpm to maximise noise effect and overtook the helicopters that were flying very low on their northward course in the Nyadiri River valley.
When abeam the target, I rolled the aircraft over and entered into a steep-dive attack to release my bombs into the base. Cocky did likewise and followed me in a wide orbit to watch the Fireforce helicopters deploy their troops. They came into contact very quickly and the entire group of fifteen CTs died in this combined ground and air action.
Cocky’s attitude to recce had been instantly reversed. He wanted to be released right away to work on his own. I would have nothing of this until we had covered a few more aspects of recce he needed to know. These were met the next day before we found another CT base. My immediate assessment of the small base was that it was fresh and occupied by six to eight CTs, even though I had seen no persons or equipment to reinforce the assessment. Again Cocky said he could see kit and at least three men wearing dark-blue clothing inside the base. For many months CTs had favoured blue denim slacks and tops, which made any man wearing dark-blue clothing a suspect.
Fireforce was called and we continued along our orbit line, which was in the direction from which the helicopters would be coming. We picked up the five helicopters flying line astern at treetop level with K-Car leading. This time we tagged along to give a verbal talk onto target. “Yellow, go five degrees left— that looks good—base approximately five kays ahead.” A little later I called, “Base is on the south slope of the ridge ahead of you. Stand by—pull up now—base ninety degrees left, 200 yards—NOW.” From there K-Car took control.
Cocky again said, “Gooks visual in the base. They are lying still in the shadows.” I could not see any myself but relayed Cocky’s information to Yellow 1. The K-Car pilot was busy instructing the other helicopter pilots on where to place down their troops, but his gunner concentrated his attention on the base area. He could see the base clearly enough but could not pick up any sign of kit or men under the trees.
Even though K-Car was at 1,000 feet above the base and we were at 2,000 feet, neither the pilot nor his gunner could spot the individuals Cocky insisted were lying prone in shadows against the bases of trees. It was only when firing started and the CTs moved that the K-Car crew and I saw what Cocky had been reporting all the time. Five of the terrorists were killed and one wounded CT was captured. Later we learned that one CT had managed to escape. Cocky’s recce training was complete, so I arranged for a Cessna to be delivered from Thornhill for him to commence his own recce work out of FAF 4 at Mount Darwin.
The next morning I was airborne again to inspect the surrounds of the many collective villages (CVs) that had sprung up in the operational areas. CVs were very different from protected villages because the PVs, as initially installed in the Chiweshe TTL, were far too costly to build, man and provision on a large scale. Before Selous Scouts became effective, the concept of CVs had been under instigation by JOC Mtoko from early 1974 because of a serious decline in field intelligence and the need to reduce the CT threat to tribesmen in small isolated family kraals. A CV (collective or consolidated village) was simply an amalgamation of many small villages into one large village. A curfew from 18:00 to 07:00 was imposed on the tribesmen who knew they would be shot if seen outside the CV between these times.
At about 11 o’clock I changed frequency to the Mount Darwin Fireforce channel. The force had been inactive for ages but I could hear that it was in action following a call by none other than Cocky Benecke. I listened in for two hours during which time Cocky repeatedly directed the K-Car onto small groups and individuals. His voice never once showed the frustrations he was experiencing flying an unarmed Cessna.
Cocky had flown all his previous engagements in Provosts or Trojans, which allowed him to strike at those targets which he was trying, usually unsuccessfully, to draw to the K-Car’s attention. Although Cocky was cool, the K-Car pilot’s frustration was obvious. “I am looking at the corner of the bloody field but cannot see anyone there.” Cool as a cucumber Cocky said, “Try a short burst thirty metres right of the western edge and ten metres up from the south.” A short burst and the K-Car crew had the CT up and running before dropping him.
Later in the day I heard the Fireforce back in action. On his first day on recce Cocky was responsible for actions that depleted ZANLA’s few remaining CTs within the country by seventeen killed or captured. These actions seem to have been the final straw that forced most surviving CTs in the country to exit to Mozambique. ZANLA, however, had arranged for at least one group to remain in their Nehanda sector in a caretaker role and had sent an execution group to the Chaminuka sector with a list of ‘sell-outs’ to be eliminated.
I found Benecke’s successes astounding and confusing. I had brought forces to contact with many CT groups and had gained a fair reputation for the successes achieved. Ground troops gave me a variety of nicknames, including ‘Hawkeye’ and ‘Grid Square Charlie’. Yet for every success my record showed that I had been responsible for three ‘lemons’. It was difficult to figure out why Cocky’s unusual sight was giving him 100% success and even Hamie Dax was doing better than me by scoring two successes to one failure.
Cocky and Hamie Dax (both sitting). This photograph was taken at a PRAW recce training camp. PB with arms around the lady caterers.
At Station Sick Quarters New Sarum, I asked to have my eyes tested and the results compared with Cocky Benecke’s test results. I was assured that we enjoyed equally good eyesight. I knew that colour-blind people had been used during WWII to detect German camouflaged gun emplacements and tank formations that normal-sighted people could not see. In the eyes of colour-blind individuals, military camouflage has no effect. But Cocky could not have passed his flying medical examinations if he had been colour blind so I could only guess that his colour perception was different from mine, even though he named colours just the same way as the rest of us did. I went to an optician and an oculist to arrange for a variety of tinted and polarised lenses with which to experiment; but none of these helped me see the dark items I had personally placed in the shadow of trees.
Throughout the war Cocky continued to display his uncanny talent. However, it was not only his eyesight that made Cocky a truly exceptional operational pilot. He was aggressive and brave in all that he did, yet never did he become big-headed or arrogant. Hi
s happy nature and huge smile endeared him to all.
I questioned every doctor and eye specialist I encountered to try and find out what it was about Cocky’s eyesight that made him one in a million. Doctor Knight eventually gave me the answer in late 1979. He had established that Cocky’s colour perception was slightly defective in the green-brown range. This was why, for Cocky, deep and mottled shadows did not blend out anything that lay in them.
Not all of Cocky’s recce finds were successful in later times and he was responsible for a few Fireforce ‘lemons’ which made the likes of me feel better about the ‘lemons’ we had generated. For the most part, helicopter crews and Army elements of the Fireforce had come to accept that recce pilots would lead at least two ‘lemons’ for every success; but not so with Cocky. His reputation reversed their expectations.
Earlier criticisms against me for involving Fireforce in ‘lemons’ reached me indirectly. Possibly due to my seniority, minor niggling had occurred behind my back. It is an unfortunate fact that operational pilots take for granted another pilot’s successes and only remember his errors. So ribbing of young recce pilots by helicopter pilots of the Fireforces may have caused them to miss out on good targets for fear of generating ‘lemons’. What interested me was that no helicopter pilot who had flown recce himself was a critic. It was only those who had come from the jet squadrons and considered their leisure time too precious to waste. Cocky was ribbed for his failures but his record was such that he simply brushed off any criticism with a cutting retort. Nevertheless, I was very sensitive to remarks made by a small prima donna element that did no more than was absolutely necessary at base and in the field. To commit these remarks to paper, even in jest, sent my blood pressure soaring as it did other Air Staff officers. Flight Lieutenant Danny Svoboda’s ASR of 30 March 1977 is a case in point. In spite of the successful contact that resulted from Cocky Benecke’s recce information, Danny initiated his report with these words:
1. On a bright Wednesday afternoon with nothing to do the Fireforce decided to check out two possible terr camps found by Air Lieutenant Benecke in his Lemon-Car.
2. The first camp at US966236 proved fruitless. The Fireforce then proceeded to the second camp at VS013192.
3. On arrival at this camp the target was marked by 24 Sneb rockets from Benecke. Terrs broke out of the camp heading north etc. etc.
The Director of Operations at Air HQ, Group Captain Norman Walsh, expressed his displeasure over Danny’s report in strong terms, particularly as Fireforce pilots seldom criticised the higher proportion of ‘lemons’ generated by Selous Scouts and other callsigns.
Last air actions of 1975
THE CT CARETAKER GROUP AND the assassination group were contacted on 9 and 10 September. The first was when an Army callsign on patrol in a remote area below the escarpment made contact with the Nehanda caretaker group. The Mount Darwin Fireforce led by John Blythe-Wood deployed with three Z-Cars and Cocky Benecke flying a Provost. Working ahead of trackers, Cocky picked up the CTs and the action that followed resulted in the total elimination of this group, with seven CTs dead and five captured wounded.
The Mtoko Fireforce had moved to a temporary base at Mutawatawa on the edge of high ground. For what reason I was visiting Harold Griffiths and his men at Mutawatawa I cannot recall, but the sheer beauty of the surrounding hills and the long valley down which the Zvirungudzi River flowed to the Nyadiri River remains firmly embedded in my memory. I knew the area well from recce, but its beauty could only be appreciated when flying low-level in a helicopter or being on the ground in the tented base.
Griff had recently taken command of 7 Squadron and it was from this base that his Fireforce was scrambled at sunrise on 10 September along with a second Fireforce operating from another temporary bush base, Pfungwe. They were responding to a police patrol that had bumped into the CTs assassin group in their temporary base on the slopes of a heavily wooded hill known as Chipinda.
SAAF Major van Rooyen and all other SAAF members of Op Polo had reverted to Rhodesian Air Force ranks and wore Rhodesian uniforms. So now as Squadron Leader van Rooyen he commanded the Pfungwe Fireforce leading two Z-Cars flown by Flight Lieutenant Kruger and Air Sub-Lieutenant Milbank plus two G-Cars flown by Flight Lieutenant Bill Sykes and Air Lieutenant Jo Syslo.
Air Lieutenant Syslo was new to our Air Force, having come in on ‘direct entry’ from the USAAF. He had served in Vietnam, flying as a helicopter pilot in a casualty evacuation unit. This dark-haired man of small build had more ribbons on his chest than the most highly decorated Rhodesian serviceman. He claimed that more ribbons were still to be added to those he wore at a time when most of our pilots wore one measly General Service ribbon. This was a source of much amusement and, for some, outright annoyance.
Griff met up with the Pfungwe Fireforce that carried Major Hammond, the airborne ground-force commander. Having deployed the troops, Griff put down with his force at a small Police base known as Alpha Base and awaited developments. When the Pfungwe K-Car ran out of fuel, Griff filled in for him until he himself needed to refuel, and passed Major Hammond back to the other K-Car.
In this way the ground forces enjoyed almost unbroken attention from their airborne commander. The results of this contact were disappointing. One killed, two captured wounded and five known to have escaped, wounded. But this was the last time ZANLA CTs were seen or contacted in 1975. Thereafter minor contacts occurred with LTTs only.
Loss of top army officers
ARMY CHIEF OF STAFF MAJOR-General John Shaw and Officer Commanding RLI Colonel Dave Parker with Army Captains David Lamb and Ian Robertson visited a number of military bases that had recently been established in the eastern districts in preparation for the imminent return of ZANLA. On completion of inspections in Umtali their next port of call was Melsetter.
On 23 December, Op Polo pilot Air Lieutenant Johannes van Rensburg flying a Z-Car lifted off from Umtali for a straightforward flight to Melsetter. His technician was Sergeant Pieter van Rensburg. In keeping with practice, even in quiet times, the helicopter flew at low level as a precaution against Strela and smallarms fire. The route over the high ground of the Vumba mountains was followed by a steep descent into the low ground of the Burma Valley. The helicopter was following a descending river-line with high ridges left and right, when it flew into a rusty old hawser cable that ran across the flight path. The helicopter broke up and crashed, killing everyone but the pilot whose injuries resulted in the amputation of one leg.
The long-forgotten cable was anchored on the high right-hand ridge and descended to a disused track on the opposite side of the river. Its purpose had been to pass logs from the high inaccessible forest down to a track used by tractor-drawn trailers. The cable was not displayed on any map and no 7 Squadron pilot had ever seen or reported its presence. The young SAAF pilot could not be blamed in any way for this accident as he would not have seen the rusted cable that blended perfectly with the background until it was too late to take avoiding action.
News of this horrific accident shook the entire country because it robbed Rhodesia of its next Army Commander and its finest field commander. I am one of many who believe that, had John Shaw and Dave Parker lived, the Rhodesian war would have followed a better course.
Lull before the storm
FOLLOWING FAILURE OF THE ZAMBIAN-SOUTH African détente-induced ceasefire there could be no doubt that ZANLA would be returning in greater strength. The general feeling was that they were still in disarray but détente had given them the golden opportunity to prepare for a big push. This would commence when the rainy season provided plenty of surface water for the long trek through Mozambique with maximum bush cover inside Rhodesia. It was the best time to strike externally but, because of Vorster’s détente and his threat of cutting supplies from South Africa, this had been ruled out.
With Mozambique under complete FRELIMO control, it was obvious that Rhodesia’s entire eastern flank would be exposed for ZANLA, though we believed that
in the initial stages this would be limited to the border section north of the eastern border mountain ranges. This is why most troops were deployed along the border north of the Inyanga mountain range where daily cross-graining patrols watched for ZANLA’s return to areas already known to them.
The squadrons used the break in operations to catch up on training new pilots and brush up flying standards. The PJIs of Air Force Parachute Training School began training RLI paratroopers after which they would commence training RAR.
In spite of their heavy schedules, the PJIs managed to give interested pilots a short course for a parachute descent into water. Until now, Air HQ had followed the RAF lead in not allowing pilots to participate in any parachuting activities. The thought was that a pilot who enjoyed parachuting might abandon his aircraft at the first sign of trouble, rather than attempt to bring it home. In Rhodesia it was obvious that pilots were so dedicated to the safety of their machines that it was perfectly safe to let them enjoy one parachute descent. Many pilots, including me, leapt at the opportunity.
To limit the risk of unnecessary injuries, our drop was into Lake McIlwaine, west of Salisbury. Following a compressed training course and dressed in flying overalls and tennis shoes, twenty of us piled into a Dakota for a nice long 3,000-foot descent.
I expected that we would all experience fear before the drop but this only seemed to affect Wing Commander Sandy Mutch who sat scowling at the floor until it was time for him to ‘stand in the door’ as first to exit. I was next in line.
Winds of Destruction Page 60