Dingo Firestorm (26 page)
Although Brand was very good at low-level navigation, he left nothing to chance. He studied the route meticulously and memorised it in his mind’s eye. He chose not to fly on a direct course, but along a series of zigzag tacks as a ruse to make it difficult for anyone who saw the formation to guess its destination.
The Hunter’s navigation equipment was pretty elementary, consisting of a radio-beam automatic direction finder and a distance-measuring device that measures distance to a VHF transmitter, usually at an airport. Both of these instruments, however, were useless on a low-level precision raid. Brand would rely on the traditional instruments – a compass, stopwatch, map, and the best instrument of all, the mark one eyeball. At each turning point, Brand would fine-tune the timing by slowing down or speeding up as necessary, to ensure he would arrive at Chimoio precisely at H-hour.
Brand also factored in time to allow for the take-off roll, formation positioning and acceleration to 420 knots. Losing time is easy, but making it up can be impossible, so Brand also built in a few minutes of slack as an insurance policy. He calculated the wheels off the runway time at 07:25; engine start at 07:15; strapping in at 07:05; walk at 06:55. The final refresher briefing would be 06:30, which would take 15 minutes, allowing time for the mandatory toilet visit before walking.
Breakfast was ready in the mess from 05:45, but most pilots didn’t have much of an appetite that early. The pilots also knew better than to have more than one cup of coffee – being strapped to an ejection seat for at least two hours with a full bladder is not a good idea. Brand knew what this discomfort felt like from experience. Shortly after the Hunters had first been commissioned in Rhodesia, he was tasked to fly in formation on a maximum-range exercise. The flight was from Thornhill across the border to South Africa, past Johannesburg and on to Bloemfontein, where they would turn and retrace the same route back – a planned flight of three hours, 20 minutes. ‘The moment I got airborne, I wanted to pee,’ recalls Brand. ‘By the time we were abeam Johannesburg, I was desperate. I needed to pee … now! I started thinking up an excuse to declare an emergency and land at Jan Smuts Airport.’
In the end, the pressure of finishing the sortie exceeded Brand’s bladder pressure – but only just. He bit his lip and continued on the most agonising flight of his life to Bloemfontein and back. When at last he saw Thornhill through a painful haze, Brand landed immediately, taxied back to dispersal at almost take-off speed, screeched to a halt, slammed the high-pressure cock closed and flew out of the Hunter to the hangar, where he had the longest pee of his life against the hangar door. ‘I vowed then and there that if it ever happened to me again, I would take off one of my flying boots and pee in it.’
The pilots and crew chiefs were already assembled in the briefing room when Rich Brand walked in just before 06:30 on D-day. The Thornhill meteorology man, Harvey Quail, had some disturbing news at the briefing. ‘We have reports of low cloud in the Eastern Highlands and into Mozambique,’ said Quail.
Norman Walsh had covered this eventuality at the main briefing. Low cloud would rule out the steep dive profile needed for the Golf bombs. The alternative weapon would be frantan, requiring a much flatter dive to disperse the flaming gel. Brand quickly ordered the crew chief to change the Golf bombs on Red 2 and 3 to frantan. With typical RhAF efficiency, the rearmament was completed in a matter of minutes.
Just before 06:55, the pilots left the crew room for the engineers’ office to sign the flight authorisation sheets, the process of accepting their aircraft from the engineers. At 06:55 on the dot, the seven Hunter pilots strode out into a clear summer’s morning – Rich Brand, Dave Bourhill, John Annan, Vic Wightman, Spook Geraty, John Blythe-Wood and Martin Lowrie. Waiting for them, looking menacing on the apron, were the fully armed Hunters, with a spare machine as a back-up. The ground crew were standing by to help strap the pilots in and launch the aircraft. The pilots each checked their aircraft and armaments before climbing up the ladder to strap into the compact Hunter cockpit, first checking that the two ejection-seat handle pins were still in.
Rich Brand hopped into his favourite machine, the ‘eagle’ Hunter, emblazoned with an eagle’s head morphed with a spear and clutching a bomb in its talons. He slid into the ejection seat and secured first the parachute harness, then the straps that would secure him to the ejection seat and the leg restraints that would automatically draw his legs into the seat if he ejected. The last item he donned was his yellow helmet customised with red stars. He then said to his crew chief, ‘Ready for pins’, as he removed the pin from the lower ejection handle, or seat pan, while the crewman extracted the upper, or face-screen, pin. The seat was now live.
All the pilots were ready with time to spare ahead of the start. The tension was building as they waited. At 07:00 precisely, Brand pointed to the sky, rotating his index finger, the signal to start. The silence was shattered as the seven Hawker Hunters, almost in unison, let out a whistle-like sound from the purging motors followed by a massive hissing noise as the Avpin starting fluid exploded in the starting chambers to spin the turbines, bringing the Rolls-Royce Avon engines to life. The cost of the highly volatile starting fluid was the same as a bottle of the finest cognac.
A few minutes later, all the jets were ready. Brand hit his radio transmit button: ‘Red Section, check in.’ The crisp responses followed quickly, ‘two’ then ‘three’, as Dave Bourhill and John Annan confirmed to their leader that they were on frequency. Brand repeated the check-in procedure for White Section, led by Vic Wightman, and Blue Section, led by John Blythe-Wood. The Hunters were ready.
‘Tower, Red Section ready taxi.’ The control tower replied immediately: ‘Red Section, clear taxi for Runway 13.’ Brand eased the power up to 3 800 rpm, testing the brakes as the Hunter eagerly started moving forward. Thornhill is laid out in a triangle, the runway forming the base and dispersal the apex, joined by long taxiways to each end of the runway.
Brand moved onto the left taxiway, taking him to the north-west end of the runway. He had plenty of time to complete the vital preflight checks. He entered the runway and moved well forward, allowing room for his number two and three to line up behind him. Over his right shoulder, he could see that Vic Wightman was halfway down the taxiway, with the rest of White and Blue Section neatly spaced behind him.
Brand looked again at the map and the photograph of the target that was mounted inside the Hunter’s crowded cockpit. He had gone over the route in his mind many times and knew exactly what to expect. He reviewed the turning points and had a long look at the most important one – Monte Hombe, a tall, shark-fin-shaped koppie in Mozambique, rising 230 metres above the surrounding ground. This was the IP, the initial point, where he would turn his formation directly towards the target. Brand had plotted his course so that the IP was 22.4 nautical miles, or three minutes and 12 seconds, north of the target. Take-off time was approaching; Brand checked the instruments and settings one last time.
At precisely 07:09, Brand signalled to his wingmen and eased the throttle forward, holding the Hunter still with the brakes while the Avon engine howled as air was greedily sucked through the twin air intakes into the turbine. The brakes now barely held the straining machine as the engine reached 7 000 rpm. The Hunter lurched forward as Brand released the brakes and applied full power, sending over 11 000 pounds of thrust through the jet pipe.
‘Check 8 100 rpm, check jet-pipe temperature, check fire warning out,’ Brand said to himself as the Hunter began accelerating smoothly – to 80 knots, 100 knots – then, at 120 knots, he tugged the stick back to bring the nose wheel just off the runway, a position he maintained until the main wheels followed suit, gently leaving the tarmac at 150 knots. As soon as a good climb rate was established, he squeezed the brake lever behind the stick to stop the wheels spinning, stabbed the gear-up button, moved his hand instinctively to the pressurisation switch and flicked it to ‘on’, and then raised the flap retract switch. With the drag out of the way, the Hunter accelerated eagerly.
Brand banked the jet to the right onto a southerly course. Over his right shoulder, he could see Red 2 and Red 3 taking the inside lane to catch up and formate loosely on him. He knew that White and Blue Sections would be going through the same routine, staggered according to their strike times. The Hunters passed over Prime Minister Ian Smith’s farm, Gwenoro, meaning ‘the place of the kudu’, then past the nearby town of Selukwe. Brand then banked left for quite a long time until he was on a north-easterly route towards Gutu.
The Hunters were flying at about 100 metres above the ground, low enough to go unnoticed by radar. Those on the ground close to their flight path, however, would hear a deafening roar as the jets tore through the morning air, underscored by the blue note, the characteristic howling sound coming from the four cannon ports.
Brand started making speed adjustments as he passed his early landmarks to ensure Red Section was dead on time. The earth was whizzing by at 13 kilometres a minute, yet time seemed to stand still. It felt like forever, but it took barely 25 minutes for the Hunters to cross the high mountains of the Eastern Highlands and into the People’s Republic of Mozambique. Brand noticed a lot of low cloud on the escarpment, but the way to Monte Hombe looked clear enough at low level. He followed the ground as it dropped away into the Mozambican lowlands.
Soon the big shark-fin shape of the IP was visible in the distance, right on the nose. The Hunters were dead on track, and now within four seconds of the required timing. Brand quickly checked that all four guns were selected and then unlocked the trigger with his thumb. The trigger flew out like a flick knife, turning the graceful jet into a deadly weapon.
It was unusual to use all four guns at once, because each one fires 20 rounds per second, which means it takes only seven seconds to empty the magazine of 540 rounds. However, given that Robert Mugabe, Josiah Tongogara and Rex Nhongo were expected to be in the building, or standing on the patio outside, it made sense to put down as much fire as possible.
Red Section was now just over four minutes from the target, and the adrenalin was coursing through Brand’s veins, making everything seem to slow down. As he crossed the Pungwe River, three kilometres before Monte Hombe, he initiated a steep right turn and checked his stopwatch. The timepiece confirmed what he instinctively knew: he was within one second of the planned IP time.
Now he had exactly three minutes and 12 seconds to run to target. Brand pressed the radio transmit button on the throttle lever and made the announcement Norman Walsh and the rest of the air armada were tensely waiting to hear: ‘Red Section at IP.’ General Peter Walls heard the transmission from the command Dakota, but Walsh and many in the low-flying aircraft did not.
Brand now focused on two things: bringing the Hunter quickly onto a precise magnetic heading of 172 degrees and scanning the stopwatch. The IP was also the signal for Bourhill and Annan to drop back slightly into a looser battle formation, allowing sufficient space for safety. With precisely 17 seconds to run, Brand would pull up to the perch, a position 3 000 feet above ground, from where he would confirm the target and begin the dive attack.
Time dragged by ever more slowly for Peter Walls in the command Dakota. Norman Walsh and Brian Robinson, flying at low level in their command helicopter, were tense, waiting to hear from Red 1. They were anxious to know if total surprise had been achieved or whether they were flying into an organised ambush.
‘Twenty seconds to go, 19, 18, 17, pull.’ Brand felt the G-force tugging at his whole body as the Hunter rose majestically into the Mozambican morning sky, the upper surface of the wings now totally covered by white vapour. The rapid climb changed the vista dramatically; he could now see for miles, and there it was, exactly where he expected it to be – Mugabe’s headquarters complex.
Brand’s voice crackled with tension as he hit the transmit button, announcing ‘Red 1 target visual’. This time, everyone heard the call. The Battle of Chimoio was about to commence.
Just before reaching his perch altitude, keeping the target as his constant reference point, Brand rolled the climbing Hunter to his left, almost inverted, arresting the climb, and brought the plane gracefully and neatly through a 90-degree left turn and into a perfect 30-degree dive, while maintaining positive G throughout.
As the HQ building started filling the gun sight, Brand released the back pressure on the stick and rolled the aircraft the right way up. As he fine-tuned his aim, he noticed tracer from anti-aircraft fire rising up from his eleven o’clock position. ‘Someone’s awake,’ he thought as he squeezed the trigger and let loose with all four Aden 30-mm cannons, pumping out 80 rounds per second.
The Hunter shuddered violently from the recoil caused by sending nearly 200 shells towards the HQ and adjacent buildings, which slowed the machine down markedly. Just as he was about to pull up, Brand saw the first strikes glinting and kicking up dust in front of the main building. ‘Perfect,’ he said to himself. In his peripheral vision, he saw people scattering in all directions.
At the optimum moment, Brand released the trigger and pulled the Hunter’s nose up until the G-meter registered 5, the minimum G-force necessary to avoid crashing into the ground. This rapidly arrested the dive and put the juddering Hunter into a rapid climb to safety – and out of the way of his wingmen, just as they planted frantan canisters on their designated targets.
In the climb, with one eye on the high cloud base, Brand rolled the Hunter gently to his left to see Mugabe’s HQ complex clouded in dust and smoke, and, for the first time, he saw the massive armada of aircraft converging on the target: Hunters, Canberras, Dakotas, Alouettes and Lynxes.
He saw black frantan smoke rising from Chitepo College and the guerrilla convalescence centre (Pasidina 2), Bourhill’s and Annan’s targets, respectively. ‘Excellent markers for the Canberras,’ thought Brand. In the distance, he could also see Steve Kesby’s Vampires attacking the recruits’ camp seven kilometres away.