Dingo Firestorm (6 page)

But as they gave it more thought, Cannon and PB became worried that a vehicle seen tailing the spy’s car might scare off the gang. Always the solutions man, PB had an idea: ‘Sir, may I recommend we use a high-flying helicopter to track the agent’s car all the way from Salisbury? I am certain that a chopper at great height will not upset the contact man or the terrorist group.’ Cannon liked the idea.

PB called his HQ in Salisbury. He received not only the tailing helicopter, but also three additional Alouettes. PB’s common sense, and his experiences from the previous day, told him that a single helicopter and a bunch of policemen were not enough. They were about to confront a fully armed insurgent group, not a few escaped prisoners.

Sinoia Police Station was bristling with activity that late April morning in 1966. Police reservists arrived from their farms in their typical gear – short-sleeved shirts, shorts, floppy hats and
veldskoens
with no socks. Meanwhile, Air Lieutenant Murray Hofmeyer was tailing the undercover agent’s Ford Anglia in his helicopter at 6 000 feet. Once the Anglia passed Banket, three other Alouettes, flown by Squadron Leader John Rogers (officer commanding of 7 Squadron), Gordon Nettleton and Dave Becks, landed there to await a call to move forward.

Superintendent John Cannon commanded absolute attention as he briefed his force of regular policemen and reservists, the latter now dressed in their dark-blue riot-control uniforms. He told them that a gang of seven insurgents was hiding in the bush across the nearby Hunyani River. The plan was simple: the reservists would be dropped by trucks on two sides of the insurgents in a V-shape and would sweep towards the insurgents, driving them into a stop line at the top of the ‘V’.

The plan seemed perfect, until Hofmeyer’s call from his 6 000-foot perch interrupted proceedings: ‘The occupants of the vehicle have gone into the bush on the south side, repeat south side, not north, as expected.’ The original plan and briefing were now redundant. Time was running out. But being a sceptic, PB had already worked out alternative deployment plans. The best option was a mirror image of the original plan. However, the snag was that one side of the V-formation could not be reached by road, so PB suggested helicopter deployment.

Cannon quickly ordered one of the road groups to get over to the sports field on the double. For many it would be their first helicopter flip. By now the three Alouettes from Banket had landed and were ready. Paradoxically, PB, the newest helicopter pilot, was now in charge of the airborne operation, which meant even giving instructions to his boss, Squadron Leader John Rogers. But the pilots were unfazed by this and accepted PB’s leadership.

Hofmeyer called with the news that the undercover agent and his Anglia were now leaving the area; the Battle of Sinoia was about to begin. The impending confrontation on Thursday 28 April 1966 would mark for ZANU the official beginning of the Second Chimurenga.

Although 70 years had passed, it was again the British South Africa Police (BSAP) who would respond to the threat. In 1896 the BSAP had been the only military force in Rhodesia; by 1966 there was both an established army and air force. This mattered little to Police Commissioner Frank ‘Slash’ Barfoot, however, who insisted that the insurgents were criminals, and, therefore, ‘this [was] a matter for the police’. He reminded everyone that the BSAP, which was descended directly from Rhodes’s British South Africa Company Police, was, after all, the ‘senior service’.

Although John Cannon and PB knew that these regular policemen and reservists were not properly trained to fight an armed gang in thick bush, Barfoot remained unmoved. By pure coincidence, however, and without Barfoot’s knowledge, the army did get involved.

Major Billy Conn, a Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) officer, and his quartermaster, Sergeant Moore, just happened to be driving through Sinoia en route to Kariba when they popped in to say hello to John Cannon. Seeing all the activity, Conn pulled his Land Rover up next to PB’s helicopter and asked, ‘What the hell’s going on?’ A highly experienced infantry officer, Conn quickly persuaded Cannon to let him join in. His participation would make a difference.

The operation began as the first helicopter, flown by PB, lifted off to deploy a stick of six excited policemen, soon followed by the other helicopters, with Hofmeyer also joining in. While PB was shuttling additional police reservists into position, he spotted a lone man standing under a tree. Without warning, one of the reservists suddenly opened fire from his seat in the helicopter; fortunately, the bullets missed the whirling rotors. PB was so incensed that he unceremoniously dumped the stick on the first LZ he could see – the bridge over the Hunyani River.

Shortly afterwards, a member of the gang broke cover and opened fire on PB’s helicopter. The unarmed Alouette could not respond, but, fortunately, Hofmeyer’s helicopter was armed with a crudely mounted infantry machine gun that his technician, George Carmichael, could fire from the left-rear doorway. When a helicopter is moving forward, direct aiming with a conventional sight is useless. What is needed is an offset sight that in fact aims behind the target. Even then, the altitude of the helicopter and its speed have to be taken into account or at least standardised – but such refinements were not to come until later. After many bursts from the helicopter, Carmichael used the position of the dust caused by the bullets striking the ground to adjust his aim and eventually bring down his quarry. Godwin Manyerenyere became the first ZANLA casualty of the war and the air force’s first kill. There were to be many more.

A major problem soon became apparent: the helicopter radio frequencies were incompatible with the police sets on the ground. At one stage, two police groups were unwittingly converging on each another, and police-on-police fire was imminent. Dave Becks took the initiative by hovering his Alouette close enough to the policemen to enable his technician to use hand signals, thereby preventing a clash. It was a miracle that nobody was shot by friendly fire that day.

In another incident, a stick of reservists shot and killed a member of the gang, and in their excitement went to inspect the body in a group, breaking one of the most fundamental infantry rules. Observing them from the bush were two insurgents, one about to toss a grenade into their midst. The reservists were unaware of the danger, and, luckily for them, Major Billy Conn shot the grenade thrower just in time. The Russian grenade fell to the ground and exploded, finishing off both the ZANLA men. Without Conn’s intervention, there would certainly have been Rhodesian casualties that day. The police muddled through and, slowly but surely, managed to flush out and eliminate the entire Armageddon Gang.

The jubilant policemen returned to the HQ complex to celebrate their victory over ZANLA. Although the operation had clearly been a success for the former Lancaster Bomber pilot Superintendent John Cannon and his untried police force, there were many who didn’t see it that way. The army was particularly incensed that it had not been kept in the loop, and the air force castigated Hofmeyer and Carmichael for using far too much ammunition (147 rounds) to bring down one enemy.

Nevertheless, plenty of useful lessons were learnt. First, good intelligence proved to be vital. Second, the advantage of the helicopter as both a troop carrier and a gunship was demonstrated. Good and compatible communications were also shown to be essential.

Although none of the participants realised it then or later, this engagement laid the foundation for counter-insurgency operations. Over the next eight years, the concept of heli-borne troops and helicopter gunships would be refined and honed to form the most lethal weapon in the Rhodesian arsenal, and one that would be used on a grand scale in Operation Dingo: the Fireforce.

After the Battle of Sinoia and further costly encounters with the Rhodesian forces, the mood at the ZANU headquarters was dark. Herbert Chitepo was licking his wounds and pondering the consequences of sending his forces across the Zambezi to certain death. He needed material and political support, especially as the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) and the host country, Zambia, officially supported Joshua Nkomo’s ZAPU.

Chitepo gambled that if ZANU started the war they would steal a march on ZAPU and sway opinion within the OAU. Therefore, the Armageddon Gang and other insurgent groups had been rushed prematurely into Rhodesia in 1966. The result was the loss of their best-trained men, which seemed in vain, as neither the OAU nor Zambia budged, and they made it clear they wanted a single, unified liberation movement. The Soviet Union, a key backer of liberation movements, supported ZAPU and did not recognise ZANU. The party had a choice – merge with ZAPU or seek help elsewhere.

ZANU was fortunate because the Chinese government was keen to assist, but there were difficulties. China and the USSR were competing for influence in Africa, and Zambia was wedded to the Soviets, rendering China unwelcome there. ZANU would have to find a host country where China did hold sway. That country was Tanzania.

Chitepo established a training base in south-west Tanzania at Itumbi, an abandoned farm and gold mine dating from German colonial times. Chitepo simultaneously sent small groups to China for training. The first group went in 1963, led by Emmerson Mnangagwa, who would later become one of the most powerful and feared men in Zimbabwe. The initial training in China focused on teaching the trainer the skills of military instruction. Little time was spent on military strategy.

But that changed when a group known as the Nanking Eleven returned from China shortly after the Battle of Sinoia in 1966. This group had just completed training at the Nanking Military Academy in Peking, where they were taught the critical elements that contributed to Mao Zedong’s communist victory in China – mass mobilisation, guerrilla warfare, military intelligence and control of the mass media.

Leading the Nanking Eleven to Peking was a tall and charismatic Shona military instructor by the name of Josiah Tongogara, who grew up on a farm near Selukwe in Rhodesia’s Midlands. In one of those amazing ironies of history, Tongogara’s parents worked for a farmer called John Smith, the father of future prime minister Ian Smith. To earn pocket money, the young Josiah would retrieve tennis balls when Ian played matches on the farm court during his school holidays. Little did Ian Smith suspect that one day this polite ballboy would become his arch-enemy and the prime target of one of the biggest battles of the war: Operation Dingo. The two would not meet again until many years later in 1979, when they faced each other across the negotiating table in Lancaster House in London. Despite the history and animosity, Tongogara never showed any personal hostility to Smith. In fact, he would often embrace Smith as a friend at the start of the day’s negotiations in London, to the intense irritation of Robert Mugabe.

In 1963 Tongogara joined ZANU and started recruiting young black Rhodesians, mainly from his Karanga clan, for military training. Tongogara also underwent military training in Tanzania before his stint at the academy in Nanking. With his newfound knowledge, Tongogara could see that the tactics employed by Chitepo were wrong: there was no point fighting the enemy entirely on his own terms.

Tongogara passionately believed in the Chinese strategy of first winning the hearts and minds of the people, and then – and only then – escalating the war. But first he had to persuade Chitepo and the ZANU leadership to accept the strategy. The problem for Tongogara was that the Dare reChimurenga (ZANU’s war council) was made up entirely of politicians with no military skills or experience whatsoever.

He presented his new three-pronged strategy to the Dare. The first strategic goal was for the ZANLA forces to merge seamlessly with the rural peasantry – ‘like fish in water’, as Chairman Mao had put it. Tongogara used a Shona phrase to describe the same concept:
simba rehove riri mumvura
(a fish is strong when it is in water).

This initial phase would be entirely political. Confrontation with the Rhodesian security forces was to be avoided at all costs. This crucial phase could, and would, take years to prepare for and implement. Once implemented, the second prong of the strategy would begin: hit-and-run attacks on a very wide front to stretch the Rhodesian forces. The third and final phase of Tongogara’s plan would be more conventional, namely engaging the Rhodesian forces directly.

Tongogara put his strategy forcefully to the Dare, arguing that Mao’s way offered the best chance of success. But the majority of the politicians on the Dare were not listening. They were impatient to resume the war, especially as the rival guerrilla movement, ZIPRA, had by now sent large groups into south-west Rhodesia.

Ignoring Tongogara’s advice, in July 1968 Chitepo sent 50 men through the Mpata Gorge into Rhodesia, the largest ZANLA group yet to be deployed. But there was a subtle difference in strategy. This time, they avoided the main towns and moved instead in a south-easterly direction into the Dande area, in the heart of the old Monomotapa kingdom.

Eight days after the group had crossed the border, their spoor (tracks) were picked up by a Rhodesian border patrol. ZANLA had made a mistake: they chose to enter Rhodesia at the height of the dry season when the bush is sparse and water scarce. Even with these handicaps, however, they were still eight days ahead of the RLI, which could mean a gap of 160 kilometres or more.

But help for the RLI was at hand. ZANLA’s nemesis from the Battle of Sinoia, Peter Petter-Bowyer, was on his way with four Alouette helicopters. Using them to cover ground quickly, the pursuers soon caught up with tracks that were just 24 hours old, meaning they were very close to their quarry. By then, the ZANLA gang had realised that they were being followed and split up into smaller groups.

The largest ZANLA group, with more than 15 men, was pursued by Lieutenant Jerry Strong, a Sandhurst Royal Military Academy Sword of Honour recipient, who would become one of the most effective counter-insurgency leaders in the war and would play an important role in Operation Dingo nine years later. As Strong closed in, it became apparent that the insurgents were heading for Mozambique.