Dingo Firestorm (32 page)

Inside the HQ building, Samler found a suitcase belonging to Herbert Ushewokunze, a medical doctor, who had recently joined ZANLA. It was stuffed with Rhodesian dollar bills. ‘Ushewokunze was the ZANU paymaster, and, thanks to him, I could afford a new set of golf clubs when I got back to Salisbury. The rest went to funding a huge party for the RLI troopies on the operation,’ recalls Samler.

The SB team, and everyone else for that matter, were in for a big disappointment, though. There were no bodies or prisoners resembling any of the ZANLA hierarchy – just the cases. ‘We proved that Nhongo and the other senior ZANU members were not in the camp when the raid started,’ says Samler.

It was Mugabe’s lucky day. He and his Dare reChimurenga had switched their routine meeting from Chimoio to Maputo, the Mozambican capital.

Edgar Tekere wrote: ‘Later, it became clear that someone had informed the Rhodesians that all the people meeting in Maputo would actually be at Chimoio.’

Had the Dare members been in their conference room, or reviewing the parade from the balcony that morning, Brand’s precision strike would undoubtedly have changed history.

One thing became very apparent to the Rhodesians: ZANLA loved the formality of paperwork. Hundreds of thousands of documents were now flying around in the convection breeze caused by the burning huts. Although the SB men found many very important ZANLA documents, there was one that particularly aroused Samler’s interest: a report on the findings of a FRELIMO board of inquiry into the Selous Scouts’ raid on Nyadzonia. This report confirmed what was well known – Nyadzonia was indeed a ZANLA camp, housing trained and trainee guerrillas.

Their work now complete at the HQ area, the SB team were choppered to the Chitepo College and intelligence complex, where Captain Bob MacKenzie had piles of documents waiting for them. It was already 16:00, yet there was so much still to do.

Norman Walsh ordered Petter-Bowyer to be flown into the target area to assess the effectiveness of the air weapons, particularly the Alpha bombs. Although the troops had accounted for the majority of the enemy killed, the Alpha bombs had wreaked havoc where ZANLA personnel were caught in the open, especially among those who were bunched together. The weapons developer and admin base commander was in for a shock. PB recalled: ‘An airman’s war tends to be detached. Even seeing CTs [communist terrorists] running and going down under fire seemed remote from the air. Counting holes in dummy targets at Kutanga Range was one thing. To see the same weapons’ effects on human beings is quite another. I saw more than I bargained for and the experience shook me to the very core of my being.’

PB was much relieved when it was time to pull out – an airman feels like a fish out of water on the ground with bullets flying about.

Back in Salisbury at New Sarum Airbase, all the jets but one were back under covers. Squadron Leader Steve Kesby reflected on the long day: ‘It was a very hectic and sad day for the Vampires.’

Time seemed to fly at supersonic speed for Norman Walsh and Brian Robinson. It was already approaching 17:00 and three of the remaining milestones stood no chance of being ticked off: Leg Break (thorough search of camp); Fast Ball (withdrawal of troops from target area); and Off Spin (all troops clear of Mozambique).

Robinson had obtained permission from Peter Walls to withdraw half of the troops and leave the remainder in a defensive ring at the centre of the target area for the night. The thorough search could then recommence at first light.

At the admin base, all 32 helicopters were on the ground, ready to fly back to Rhodesia. Having all the helicopters on the deck in Mozambique at the same time, including the Polo helicopters borrowed from South Africa, was something ComOps had prohibited. The original plan had been changed, however, to cope with events, and as it was pretty clear that ZANLA had been well and truly beaten at Chimoio, the risk of a counter-attack was low. Some helicopters stayed at the admin base. The rest of the armada departed as night approached, ducking low cloud to land at Lake Alexander for refuelling and then on to Grand Reef, near Umtali.

Second Lieutenant Neill Jackson of the RLI Support Commando, which had been on standby at Grand Reef to provide Dingo reinforcements, remembers seeing the helicopters return:

Later that afternoon, as the action at Chimoio was winding down, I was sent to Umtali to buy cold beer for the returning SAS and RLI troops.

I remember being in the bar of the hotel on the Harare side of Christmas Pass when one of the local barflies called everyone outside onto the veranda to witness an amazing spectacle unfolding on the horizon. As we tumbled out of the bar to see what he was so excited about, he pointed to a long row of twinkling red lights moving from right to left. Much speculation ensued as to what these strange lights could be, with the usual suggestions of UFOs, monster fireflies, and the like. I felt that I had to put the poor fellows out of their misery, and explained that they were actually helicopters returning from Lake Alexander to Grand Reef after an operation. ‘Nonsense!’ proclaimed the initial spotter. ‘We don’t have that many choppers in our entire air force!’

The sight of the helicopter fleet, red strobe lights flashing in the twilight, was something to behold. Those on the ground at Grand Reef would never forget it, and it even brought the odd tear to the eye. But Zulu 1 was not over yet. There were troops spending an uncomfortable night in the heart of the ZANLA complex and more at the admin base. This meant that the priority for Norman Walsh and Brian Robinson that evening was to come up with a plan for the next day.

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.

‘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.