Dingo Firestorm (28 page)

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 convalescents 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.’

Haarhoff’s 2 Commando would account for more than 150 ZANLA in those early encounters.

The six Vampires had a target all to themselves: the recruits’ camp, named Tango, which was seven kilometres north-east of the main target. Tango was also struck at H-hour.

At the time of Dingo, there were only three Vampire pilots in service in the RhAF, and all three also happened to be pilot attack instructors. These were Squadron Leader Steve Kesby and Flight Lieutenants Justin ‘Varky’ Varkevisser and Ken Law. All three were also rated on Hunters. Any non-current pilot volunteering to fly the Vampire would first need a flying and weapons-familiarisation check with one of these officers. The ‘jammers’, Janeke and Slatter, were first to volunteer. Flight Lieutenant Phil Haigh, who had just recently been posted to No. 1 (Hunter) Squadron, found out that because of his inexperience with Hunters, there was no Operation Dingo role for him. Anxious not to lose out, he volunteered to fly a Vampire. It was a fateful decision.

The Vampires taxied out, careful not to stop anywhere for too long, as the downward-angled jet efflux had a reputation for melting asphalt surfaces. The Vampires took off from Runway 06, and Kesby led his section east, climbing to 20 000 feet. Kesby and Varky would attack the anti-aircraft positions, so in addition to a full load of 20-mm cannon, they carried four three-inch, 60-pound rockets.

The Vampires worked on achieving a ground speed of five nautical miles per minute, which meant a flying time of 30 minutes to the recruits’ camp. Kesby recalled:

As we approached the eastern border, we were in contact with Grand Reef Airfield and learnt about the extent of the cloud cover from feedback from the helicopters already in Mozambique. I could see that we would have a problem descending through the cloud without compromising our attack. I then elected to descend to low level and thread our way through the mountains to our IP.

This was easier said than done. Descending from high altitude when one has visible landmarks is not a problem, but with cloud below and having to fly through holes in the white stuff, precision navigation can be difficult. The last thing Kesby needed was to inadvertently fly over the main target area. ‘We always built in a “fudge factor” for timing,’ he said, ‘so that we would be able to lose or gain time in order to leave the IP as required to make our strike time.’ Kesby quickly picked up his landmarks and made the IP on time, ensuring the gun sight and armaments were set correctly for the attack. There was an anxious moment for Kesby, however:

On pulling up, I searched for the target, but only managed to fully identify all aspects of it three-quarters of the way up. I then positioned for the rocket attack and turned in. The rocket profile requires at least four seconds of steady tracking with the gun sight uncaged, during which time no evasive manoeuvring is possible. At this stage, I saw many of the camp inhabitants start to bombshell away from the parade square.

The camp appeared as the photo intelligence indicated. A large open parade square with many persons on parade at the time. There were four large barrack blocks and a number of smaller huts. I was able to identify both the anti-air positions. There was evidence of ground fire, but there was also evidence of many bodies fleeing the scene in all directions.

As Kesby pulled up from his rocket attack, he heard his pilots all call ‘off target’ as he set his sights to guns only. ‘Lead in’ was his call as he attacked the barrack blocks with 20-mm cannon.

The Vampires had caught the inhabitants of Tango by complete surprise. The ZANLA trainees were lined up on the parade square as the jets pounced. For many, however, this was their lucky day. Had a Canberra or two come this way, the casualty rate would have been much higher.

While the battle was blazing at Chimoio, another vital milestone had to be achieved: setting up the admin base near the target. Every attack helicopter needed to land there – inside Mozambique – to refuel and rearm. The code word for this milestone was Cover Point, which would be relayed to the command helicopter.

The admin base commander, Peter Petter-Bowyer, and his pilot, Flight Lieutenant Bill Sykes, left Lake Alexander with the main helicopter attacking force of 21 Alouettes. Sykes positioned his helicopter between the trooper G-cars in front and the K-cars behind. Exactly 12 minutes from the target, Sykes left the formation and broke left onto a north-easterly route towards Monte Utumece, the prominent feature alongside the area chosen for the admin base.

En route, PB saw the much faster DC-7 fly past, turn back and overtake them again. The plane was obviously early. As their Alouette approached the site, PB was in for another surprise: ‘I was startled to find that this was not the open area of ground that I had expected … it was covered with fairly high grass interspersed with clumps of dense scrub.’

PB had barely climbed out of the helicopter when he saw the lumbering DC-7 already positioning for its first run. The time was 07:58; the big airliner was a full two minutes early. The original plan had been modified to allow PB to land just ahead of the DC-7 so that he could talk it in, ensuring the fuel, ammo and troops would be dropped in the most suitable place. But there had obviously been a misunderstanding. The DC-7 started disgorging the protection troops some distance from where PB wanted them, despite his frantic calls on the radio. The DC-7 did a circuit and started another run, this time to drop the first load of fuel drums, almost in the same spot as the troops, risking flattening the soldiers beneath the heavy pallets. In an attempt to rescue the situation, Bill Sykes took off in the admin base helicopter to try to get the attention of the DC-7 crew.

For a while after Sykes’s departure, PB stood completely alone in the middle of the Mozambican bush, armed only with a radio. Sykes did manage to attract the attention of the DC-7 crew. However, the co-pilot, George Alexander, cursed him for getting in the way of the drops. The curses reached Dave Jenkins, flying in the command helicopter over the target: ‘I recall George Alexander losing his rag over the air … he was always quite temperamental.’