OPERATION
ENTERPRISE.
6th – 20th April 1979
THE BATTLE
FOR SALISBURY.
Preamble.
I was the BSAP Special Branch Officer based at Enterprise Base,
situated at the Enterprise Club, 20 km from Salisbury on the Shamva
Road, from early 1978 until the end of the war.
I have
written an account of what I believe is one of the most
underreported operations of the Rhodesian War, Operation Enterprise,
which came to be called “The Battle for Salisbury”. It was conducted
to save the Capital City from serious insurgency and the resulting
damage that would have occurred, and ended being arguably the most
successful internal operation conducted during the war.
My recollections are based on some notes I located, personal
memories, and the assistance of several people involved in the
operation. My thanks to Tiny Coupar, Alan Shout, Rod Marsh, Keith
Samler, Ashley Staunton, Hans Sittig, Ian Pringle, Rick Van Malsen,
Brian Steak, Ian Bate, Skippey Skipworth-Michel, and others who wish
to remain nameless, and some who if I have forgotten, I apologise.
I am obviously the “Enterprise Special Branch Officer” in the
narrative, not because I do not want to be named, but the story
seemed to flow better like that written in the 3rd person. I also
stress that I will without doubt have left out many occurrences,
probably got some wrong, but my idea is to stimulate further input
from other participants in this operation so a fuller and more
accurate picture can be formed.
Eddie Norris has kindly collated the text and the pictures for this
to be released on ORAFS.
We look forward to your contributions.
Mike Norton 9046.
BACKGROUND. NORTH-EAST RHODESIA AND SALISBURY. JANUARY 1979.
The basic and
fundamental desire of a “liberation movement”, certainly the
military wing of any such movement, is to capture the capital and
unseat the government of the day.
This was in the
plans of the Zimbabwe National Liberation Movement (ZANLA) hierarchy
during 1978, and was evidenced in notes and publications found on
killed and captured ZANLA insurgents inside Rhodesia, and from
external raids made into Mozambique by Rhodesian forces.
It was during
one of these external raids, Operation Dingo, that the first
evidence of a specific force aimed at carrying out actions within
Salisbury and its immediate environs was located. Up till then,
attacks and subversion had been carried out in areas remote from
large cities, and Salisbury had not been affected to any great
extent. The information was a little vague at that point, but note
was taken by the intelligence gathering fraternity, specifically the
Terrorist (T) Desk of the Special Branch (SB) of the British South
Africa Police. (BSAP) The role of the T desk SB personnel was one of
intelligence gathering on ZANLA , from overt and covert sources,
recovered documents, eavesdropping, captured weapons, and captures
themselves. Most of these SB men, and a few women, were posted into
the operational areas where they worked, often in splendid and
dangerous isolation, with other branches of the Rhodesian security
forces and civil administration.
Within the
secure third floor of the Railway Avenue Police Station in Salisbury
was the Registry of T desk, where information gleaned was collated
to enable an assessment to be made of the threat posed by any
particular insurgent group in an area. This information could then
be passed to SB men in the field, who with their Military
counterparts made plans to eliminate the threat by whatever means
available. The collation was done manually by dedicated ladies in
the main, working on a cardex system, each card carrying information
related to either an individual insurgent, weapon, or group, which
was updated as new reports came to light.
Further detailed
documents relating to the threat to Salisbury came to light after a
successful security force contact with ZANLA insurgents at Mayema
Hill, in the MSANA Tribal Trust Land (TTL) in May 1978.
These documents
mentioned a “Salisbury Section” within the ZANLA Chaminuka and
Nehanda sectors of Rhodesia, whose orders were to specifically
subvert the local population in the TTLs close to the Capital, and
establish corridors where further insurgents could move in. They
were also to attack white farms surrounding the capital and lay
landmines on the roads to disrupt normal traffic, disrupt schooling
and break down civil order in these areas.
But
particularly, they were to counter the new threat to ZANLA in this
area, the advent of the Security Force Auxiliaries (SFA).
Rhodesian
Security Forces were, in early 1979, stretched to the limit in
trying to contain what was a rapidly escalating conflict on all the
borders with the exception of the small one with South Africa. White
emigration had denuded the numbers within the Territorial
battalions, and despite an increase in number of the white
Officered, black troops of the Rhodesian African rifles, and the
BSAP Support Unit, there were never enough troops to go round. For
all intents and purposes, TTLs from the Mozambique border in the
north and east of Salisbury were liberated areas where civil order
had disappeared, and ZANLA were in control. Where there had been
some white farming areas in Mtoko and Mrewa, these had been
abandoned. The small villages and towns of in that same area were
still functioning and held by security forces based there, and it
was from these that forces made periodic forays into the
surrounding TTLs to tackle ZANLA insurgents. For a while these
forces re-took the areas, but in truth they only held that ground
while they were standing on it. All too soon, they were moved to
other areas to do the same thing.
To the south of
Salisbury, sporadic forays were being made by the insurgents into
the farming areas and villages of Featherstone, Beatrice, Norton,
and Salisbury South. One of the earliest of these was an attempt to
blow up the wall of Lake Macillwaine, the primary water source for
the capital, in October 1977. A group of 14 insurgents made the
mistake of feeding at the farm compound on Gilston farm, and were
reported to the Beatrice police station. A follow up involving PATU
and Support Unit lasted for several days, but did not locate the
insurgents. It was later discovered that the follow up did cause the
insurgents to abandon the attempt on the Lake, and disperse into the
Mhondoro TTL.
Up in the north,
outposts such as Mukumbura, Dotito, Rushinga and Marymount were
local fortresses, occasionally visited by large troop deployments of
Special forces, the Special Air Service,(SAS) the Selous Scouts and
the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) on their way to destroy enemy
camps in Mozambique in a belated effort to stem the tide of
insurgents from their rear bases.
At the same time
the white Rhodesian Government was trying to reach, another,
settlement with black political leaders, this time the moderates ,
Bishop Abel Muzorerwa, Ndabandigi Sithole, Chiefs Jerimah Chirau and
Kaiser Ndeweni. Muzorerwa and Sithole had been part of the original
liberation movements, but had been sidelined by the cunning and
viscous Robert Mugabe, now the leader of ZANU (PF).
Chiefs Chirau
and Ndeweni were there to make up the numbers in an attempt to reach
an “internal political Settlement” and gain recognition for Rhodesia
from the rest of the world. Muzorewa’s United African National
Congress (UANC) and Sithole’s ZANU did have genuine, if limited,
following inside the county. These two saw the opportunity to save
their political skins by being part of this settlement attempt that
was planned to reach its zenith in April 1979 with the first ever
all race national elections.
Both Muzorerwa
and Sithole claimed to have following within ZANLA, and publically
called for insurgents to desert ZANLA and join to join their
parties. A few did, very few, so another plan had to be made for
these two politicians to save face and show that they had their own
‘forces’ on whom they could call on the combat the insurgents,
alongside the Rhodesian Security forces.
THE
SECURITY FORCE AUXILIARIES: PFUMO RE VANHU:
OPERATION FAVOUR.
The first small
groups of SFAs were made up of captured, and turned insurgents and a
few that had genuinely surrendered and been given amnesty. They
were trained by SB personnel, armed with the same weapons as the
insurgents and deployed into the TTLs under the control of a white
SB or Army officers who lived remotely from the group, normally in a
security force base. However these initial numbers of SFA were so
low that further manpower was required.
.jpg)
Black youths,
unemployed in the city townships were recruited in numbers, hastily
trained by members of the Rhodesian special forces in secret
locations, and let loose into TTLs where their particular political
master supposedly held sway, armed to the teeth with captured
communist bloc weapons. The leaders of the SFA groups were genuine
former ZANLA insurgents, but the real key to the success or failure
of a SFA group was its white controllers. These men came from all
branches of the Rhodesian security forces, many had served in
foreign armies before arriving in Rhodesia, and all had to be tough
as nails.
On the 13th
August 1978, a horrified white Rhodesian public watched on the TV
news, Comrade Max, the leader of the SFA group in the Msana TTL,
rally his troops in the company of an AK wielding Bishop Muzorerwa.
The dreadlocked Comrade Max swore to make the Msana TTL free of
ZANLA bandits for his leader, the Bishop. He declared he was the new
District Commissioner (DC). It was too much for many white
Rhodesians; they could stomach shortages, call ups, but seeing this
apparent rabble let loose was the last straw, and more emigrated.
In fact Max and
his SFA had been at Nyawa Business Centre in the Msana since March
1978 under the top secret Operation Favour, run out of the Selous
Scouts Fort in Bindura . The overall commander of the Special Branch
element attached to the Selous Scouts was Chief Superintendant Mac
McGuiness. This group of SFA was one of the pioneer projects run
under Operation Favour, and funded from secret coffers where the
South African Military contributed generously in funds and
equipment. Many of this initial group were equipped with the South
African made copy of the AK, the R6.
The SFA
continued to be expanded, and moved into the Chinamora and Masembura
TTLs , and the controllers continued with their difficult task of
trying to turn a rabble into something of a fighting force. By the
end of 1978 there were 70 SFA at Nyama in the Msana TTL, and 280 in
the Chinamora and Masembura TTLs in two bases, one near Domboshawa
and the other at the northern end of the Masembura TTL, at Makumbi
Mission. Dave Nixon and Bill Prentice were the respective SFA
controllers in those areas and had the SFA patrolling the TTLs where
contacts with ZANLA were becoming common. Unfortunately most of
these contacts were long range 30 minute ‘battles’ where many rounds
were fired by either side and minimal casualties sustained.
Information did
come to light that the ZANLA insurgents were very concerned that
their control over these areas was being lost, and by dint of this
their planned attacks in and on the capital were in jeopardy. They
pushed more insurgents into the area, many hastily trained, to try
to wrest back control. The insurgents also brutalised the local
tribe’s people, carrying out mutilations’ and murders on a large
scale to try to subjugate the population. The SFA camps were
attacked frequently, mostly ineffectually and road ambushes and land
mines were frequent. At one point all five of the SFA armoured
personnel carriers in the area were out of commission, damaged in
some form of attack, and a bright yellow roads department truck was
the only available transport.
The SFA also had
discipline issues, and
on occasion were not above theft, robbery and murder if it suited
them. Or they did as little as possible for the war effort unless
they were cajoled and pushed by their controllers into action.
The Chikwakwa
TTL, adjacent to the semi liberated Mangwende TTL, and on the
boundary of the Shamva and Enterprise farming areas did not have a
SFA presence. The reason was that a SB Officer in T desk had created
a “phantom tame Insurgent” presence in that area, and convinced his
superiors that a group of 40 turned insurgents were operating there
under his control. This enabled him to collect from the secret funds
allocated to Operation Favour, along with the equipment required,
and use it as he saw fit. The group of 40 simply did not exist. It
was a sad failing in a normally efficient and secure T desk to allow
this to happen without some form of verification being done. The
attacks on the farms adjacent to the Chikwakwa, and on the one
Internal Affairs Keep, should have alerted someone to the fact that
the TTL was a free for all for the insurgents. This scheme was to
last some months before it became obvious that there was no SFA or
Turned Insurgent presence in that area, and much harm was done to
farmers during that time.
The scheme fell
apart when the Selous Scouts decided to mount a Pseudo operation in
the Chikwakwa, and the “tame insurgents” was ordered to be placed on
a farm in the Shamva farming area. Nobody arrived at the farm.
The Selous
Scouts operation over 10 days was very difficult, the operators
found it impossible to infiltrate the Salisbury Section, and their
secondary role of observation posts was negated by the Chikwakwa
being a flat long piece of land. The Selous Scouts SB officer
operating with this callsign confirmed that there was a large
presence of insurgents operating in the area, coming and going to
the Mangwende TTL.
Realisation of
the seriousness of the threat was finally appreciated in January
1979, when a chance briefing by a SB officer to the Minister of
Justice, Hilary Squires, during an operational area visit set an
enquiry in motion. Through the Old Boy channel the Prime Minister,
Ian Smith came to hear of the threat to Salisbury. Questions were
asked as to why T Desk was not taking the information submitted by
the SB operators in the area to the North and East of Salisbury
seriously. The information clearly showed the increasing risk to the
capital from the Salisbury Section, now expanded in numbers and
designated a Detachment, with plans to do evil deeds in and around
the capital.
A report to JOC
Hurricane, and to COMOPS by Chief Superintendant Dennis Anderson of
SB JOC HURRICANE, in his hand over report to Superintendant Keith
Samler in March 1979 was very clear on the threat posed to
Salisbury. Keith reinforced this when he became the SB
representative at JOC HURRICANE at that time, and Salisbury T desk
were ordered to do a security briefing to COMOPS on the security
situation to the North and East of Salisbury. This report, was
diametrically opposed to Keith’s one, and in a tense COMPOS meeting
the T desk report was questioned and Keith was requested to produce
a further threat report to be acted upon.
The OC SB
Salisbury and Mashonaland, Assistant Commissioner Jock Waugh was
posted out of SB in March 1979. And in his place came Chief
Superintendant Dan Stannard, from his post as OC CID Homicide, in a
move that was to prove pivotal for T desk, and the country long into
the future.
The most
powerful weapon of the war, the Fire Forces, moved from area to area
all round the country. Often the aircraft, Alouette III
helicopters, some of them gunships with either 20 mm Matra cannons,
or four barrelled Browning machine guns, were called in to
participate in external raids leaving the interior of Rhodesia
defended by what was left, which was often not very much.
Rhodesia was
under international sanctions, and obtaining the materials to
sustain the war was difficult, and sometimes impossible. “Sanctions
busting” was carried out by enterprising individuals who formulated
clever ruses and smoke screens to obtain what was needed by sleight
and deception, and there is no doubt some of these enriched
themselves in the process, but it was ‘needs must’ at that point.
The truculent
South African Government pulled on the choke chain of supplies
whenever it felt they wanted the Rhodesian Government to move in a
particular direction that suited them. The South African military
had good relationships with the Rhodesians, and on many occasions
assisted Rhodesia without the express knowledge of their political
masters.
All this went on
in the background for the personnel tasked with defending the
Capital; they had a serious job to do with whatever they could lay
their hands on.
Certainly when
it came to areas close to Salisbury, most of the permanent troop
presence was made up of BSAP Support Unit, Police Anti Terrorist
Unit (PATU) and Internal Affairs and Guard Force personnel. The
area fell under the Joint Operational Command (JOC) Salisbury
Operations (SALOPS), a totally BSAP JOC. Represented on the JOC were
the Support Unit, the BSAP uniform branch, both of the city and the
districts, CID and SB. Assistant Commissioner Ian Hogg, Chief Superintendent Mike Leach, Chief Superintendent's Dan Stannard and
Dave De Burgh-Thomas and Chief Inspector Chris Looker were some of
the personalities on the SALOPS committee.
The Police
Reserve Air Wing (PRAW) was made up of civilian Pilots who were
called up in PRAW, each with an allocated observer, and utilised
civilian light aircraft, often their own, for their duties.
Initially PRAW served as a courier service, but by 1978 many had
acquired special skills in aerial reconnaissance, and air gunnery.
The bulk of the aircraft were Cessna 206 and 182 aircraft, but there
were some Mooney’s, Aztecs and even a Piper Cub. Some of the Cessna
aircraft were fitted with either MAG or Browning Light Machine Guns,
firing out of the removed left rear door, the gunner sitting on an
ammo box while he fired using a rudimentary deflection sight. These
aircraft were used in support of ground call signs and proved very
effective in, if nothing else, slowing insurgent groups down, and
allowing pursuing troops to catch up. They did achieve some kills
from their air gunnery and provided much needed air support when the
Helicopters were not available.
 |
| PRAW Aircraft |
One particular
area where the armed PRAW was very effective was when working with
Motor Cycle mounted PATU in open TTLs and farming area. The Motor
Cycles made follow up very quick, and guided by the orbiting PRAW,
many successful contacts were made and kills obtained. One somewhat
desperate attempt was made to give the PRAW more teeth in the shape
of bombs, but after much hair raising trial and error, and a few
operational bomb runs, the project was abandoned. A few aviators had
other tricks up their sleeves, grenades in glass bottles which
shattered on contact with the ground, resulting in the grenade
exploding, firing Icarus flares, with the parachute removed, as a
basic rocket to set kraals huts alight, were some of these.
The Pilots and
Observer/Gunners did way more than their fair share, and were
dedicated to their task. Gerry Cleveland, Nigel Seward, Buster
Brown, Hamish Harvey and Ian Pringle among the pilots and Paul
Chappe led the band of observer/gunners.
Internal Affairs
and Guard Force were positioned in constructed keeps within the TTLs,
supposedly to carry out the civil administration in the area, but in
reality they provided a static target for the occasional attack from
the insurgents.
Each European
owned farm had a radio system, the Agric Alert, that allowed the
farmers from inside their fenced and fortified houses, to
communicate with the local Police Station on a 24 hour basis, and
radio checks were done every morning and evening. Any failure to
call in resulted in a response being sent out to the farm to check
on the inhabitants as the telephone system was unreliable. When farm
attacks or incidents occurred, the Agric Alert was a vital life line
to call for help and alert the entire district to the incident, and
anxious listeners could hear all the sounds of battle on the radio,
often operated by one of the children as mother and father fought
off the attack while help was on its way.
Some farmers
employed “bright lights”, armed farm guards recruited initially from
Police reservists from “bright lights”, Salisbury, but by 1979 most
of these farm Guards were permanent fixtures, sometimes recovering
wounded soldiers, or older men without a military commitment, and
foreigners, soldiers of fortune who came to the war for many
reasons, some of them not honourable.
One British
bright light, by name of Gary Bostock had an argument with an
auxiliary Constable from the BSAP, over one of the ladies in the
farm compound, and shot the Constable dead with his rifle. Bostock
was arrested, prosecuted, and astonishingly found guilty of Culpable
Homicide, although he was clearly guilty of murder. He was deported,
back either to his MI 6 handles or the IRA cell he came from. An
American, a genuine Vietnam special forces Veteran, Master Sergeant
Eric Hudson started out as a farm guard, but then joined PATU and
was a very effective operator. That was until he was discovered in a
compromising situation with one of the Police Reserve Women, a
farmer’s wife. He was finally caught recording the serial numbers of
the Helicopters and the Matra cannons. His CIA controller owned up,
and Hudson (if that was his real name) was deported, his work done.
One of the
missions of the insurgents was to drive farm labour off the land,
making farming in this highly productive, but labour intensive
industry impossible. Most farm compounds were fenced, and some
guarded by armed guards, mostly ex soldiers or policemen, an
extremely hazardous occupation at the best of times. One of the
tasks that fell to these men was to walk the farm roads daily
looking for signs of land or anti personnel mines and tracks of
insurgents crossing the properties. They were armed with G3 rifles
or old .303 bolt action rifles and shotguns, and they were a very
important deterrent to the insurgents attacking the labour force,
and the farm itself. Farmer Ashley Staunton, of the Grove Farm,
almost adjacent to the Enterprise Club had unarmed farm guards who
were located at the main gate of the security fence to his house and
sheds. If the guard on duty was aware of a presence of insurgents in
the farm compound he would dress in a yellow or blue overall, as
opposed to his usual green one. This would alert Ashley who was able
to contact Enterprise Base for a reaction stick.
Ashley had been
involved in the beginning of the nationalist uprising, when it was
still in protest form. During the late 1960s he was came across a
white man being marched in front of a mob of his farm labourers,
their clear intention was to beat him. As it transpired, the
nationalists of the time were putting out a story that white men
were kidnapping black children and sending them to the Congo to be
made into sausage meat! This white man had stopped near a bridge on
the main Shamva road to pick wild mushrooms, and had asked two
passing young black boys to help him. They ran off screaming that
they were being abducted to be sausage meat, and the labour force
had reacted. Ashley intervened and the white man was freed.
The Rhodesian
Government granted funds to farmers for their security fences, and
most of these were erected by a Salisbury company called Salwire,
under Managing Director Ted Willis. Ted lived on a small farm with
the Enterprise district, and was a stalwart Police reservist, when
he was not arranging for the erection of fences all over the
northern part of Rhodesia. To supplement the fences, many explosive
devices such as Addams Grenades and explosive filled plough discs
were erected along the fences, and were able to be remotely
detonated by the farm occupants.
It was
discovered that one of the best deterrents to cutting, or
approaching close to the fences was a hedge called Mauritius Thorn,
which when fully grown along the fence, made an impenetrable
barrier.
Ted was a
prankster of note, and one of his tricks was to fire an Icarus
Rocket into the Enterprise Special Branch Officers bathroom, while
the incumbent was enjoying a once in a while hot bath. The choking
smoke some drove the naked officer out of the bathroom, and past the
startled Police reserve women radio operators to his office/bedroom.
Revenge took a while, but one day Ted was going off duty after dark
in his land rover, and when he moved the gear lever out of reverse
to start the vehicle, a soft hiss emanated for the dashboard where a
green smoke grenade had been secured, the pin linked to a wire on
the gear lever. It would have been easy for Ted just to abandon his
land rover via the driver’s door, had a wooden jam not been placed
in the outside door handle after he had climbed in. By the time Ted
clambered out of the passenger door he was a little green in more
ways than one. Naturally he set about planning a further attack on
his opponent.
ENTERPRISE
BASE
 |
| OPS tent , Enterprise Base.
Op Enterprise |
Enterprise Base
was established at the Enterprise Country Club in March 1978, when
the first overt act by insurgents was carried out in the Enterprise
farming area. This was an ineffectual ambush on local farmer Oscar
Suzman as he drove home from Salisbury late one afternoon. His
vehicle was hit twice in the trunk area, and it was well after dark
before a PATU stick arrived from Goromonzi Police Station. Clearly
the Enterprise area required a base of its own, as Goromonzi was
situated a long way south on difficult roads, and the Enterprise
Club was a logical choice.
The clubhouse
provided a large area for accommodation, ablution, and feeding
troops, within a security fence, and the club manager’s house made
an ideal base for the BSAP and SB personnel, as well as a radio room
with VHF communications and an Agric Alert. Additional prefab
accommodation was constructed for the African staff members, along
with a holding area for prisoners. Bunkers made from railway
sleepers were placed at strategic points in case of an attack on the
base, with sandbagged roofs to prevent damage from mortars.
Two of the
stalwart black members of the BSAP contingent were Detective
Sergeant Norbert Chibaya, and Constable Alec Munyoro. They were an
essential link in the process of interrogation of locals, mujibas
and captured insurgents, and their in depth knowledge of the area,
gained over their long service at Goromonzi and Enterprise detected
initial untruths being told to them by the captives. Sgt Chibaya had
several excellent paid informers in the field, which provided
reliable information resulting in many contacts and kills.
He detected that
the affable Enterprise Club cook, one Pattison Gono, was in fact an
informer for the insurgents, passing troop strengths and snippets he
heard while serving meals to the Police members and drinks to the
troops. Using this knowledge, Chisiya begun to feed false
information via Pattison to the insurgents, which resulted in groups
of insurgents being ambushed when they were directed to areas where
troops were, rather than were they were not. Working with the dirty
tricks department of SB, civilian radios containing homing devices
were surreptitiously placed in stores and the insurgents directed to
them by leaking Pattison the information that the store had a
resupply of goods and would be worth robbing. This also led to a few
contacts and kills. One arms cache located after one of these
contacts was “doctored” with AK bullets filled with high explosive,
and one insurgent was located a few days later with the breech block
of his AK imbedded in his face, when he fired his SKS rifle in a
farm attack.
A detailed hand
drawn map of Enterprise base was recovered from a dead insurgent,
showing the defensive bunkers, where the troops billeted and
vehicles parked. It also showed that there was a clear intention to
attack Enterprise, with an 81 mm mortar position shown on Swiswa
Hill, about 3000 meters away. Enterprise defences were strengthened.
 |
Rob Tasker
RIP, Keith Samler , BSAP SB, John McVey playing golf at Enterprise Base during
Operation Enterprise.
|
The golf course,
and cricket and rugby field provided space for visiting troop’s
vehicles and a landing area for helicopters, for which fuel was
stored in one of the squash courts. Access to the tar road was a
short 400 meters of dirt road, and this was cleared every morning
to guard against the placing of landmines.
 |
Bivvies in the trees next
to the Golf Course, Op Enterprise
|
Enterprise base
fell under the operational control of SALOPS, and had in its area
the Enterprise farms, and the North and South Chikwakwa TTL. In
practical terms the eastern Msana TTL was also part of the area, as
it was adjacent to the farms and easily accessible. Bindura whose
actual area Msana fell into was only too happy to have Enterprise
operate there, and seconded the area, as did Borrowdale the eastern
Chinamora TTL.
The troop’s
contingent was made up of PATU, many of them farmers from the area,
their numbers boosted with the release of men from their army
commitments if they lived in an operation area. This was essentially
to provide self defence, and brought into the PATU sticks much
expertise from the RLI, SAS, Selous Scouts and territorial
regiments. Vital elements were the older Police reservists who
carried out the driving and escort duties, and the women reservists
who manned the control room. PATU sticks from Salisbury, and other
areas not regarded as fully operational, were posted in to
supplement the manpower numbers.
As the
Enterprise Farming area was relatively wealthy, and had farmers with
influence in high places, the base was equipped with 18 scrambler
motor cycles and two armoured troop carrying vehicles, both with
mounted Browning Machine guns. The local PATU men could choose
their weapons from the issued FN rifles, to AK 47, RPK and RPD light
machine guns and 60 mm mortars, it was personal choice and most of
the Motor cycle operators chose the communist AK and RPD as being
shorter and lighter than the FN, they were easier to carry on the
bikes. Many of the farmer’s wives and older children were given
captured Chinese SKS carbines for home defence, and were used on
many occasions. All these communist bloc weapons were somewhat
illicit, but a blind eye was turned in order to provide practical
firepower to the people that needed it.
Contacts with
the enemy occurred at least on a weekly basis, with kills generally
one or two insurgents, until a day in May 1978 when the base scored
its first real success. Following a spate of landmines and farm
attacks in the north of the farming area, particularly on Rob
McManus’s Rutope farm, and resulting from intelligence gained in the
field, an observation post (OP) was placed on Mayema Hill in the
Msana TTL. On day 7 the OP had established that a group of 11
insurgents were based in the kraals at the base of this substantial
granite hill. This OP had done exceptionally well, led by Mike
Cullinan, they had resorted to drinking their saline drips when
their water ran out, but stuck to their task. Plans were made to
attack these insurgents, but neither Fire Force nor PRAW were
available at that point, so three PATU sticks with SB personnel
walked into the area at night, and started sweeping through the
Kraal line at first light.
Contact was made
almost immediately, with 2 insurgents killed, when by sheer luck an
full fire Force worth of Helicopters, flying without troops, on
their way to FAF 5 at Mtoko called in, and using the PATU and SB
contingent on the ground as ground troops, with one BSAP SIS
(SPECIAL INVESTIGATION SECTION) stick, led by Jerry Lancaster, a
kill of 10 insurgents was achieved with only a flesh wound to a
Police reserve Vehicle escort man. The wounded man was no other than
James Huggins, the younger son of Lord Malvern, Sir Godfrey Huggins,
one time Prime Minister of Southern Rhodesia.
The PATU men,
local farmers including Henry Birrell, Bux Howson, Louie and Ephriam
Volker, Glenn Dixon and Andy Hartell were complimented by the
chopper crews for their aggressive and brave conduct.
By early 1979,
Enterprise was a very active base defending its own area and the
surrounds of eastern Salisbury. The radio room was run by the Women
Police Reservists’ during the day, they were in the main farmers
wives, Cathy Volker, Beryl Staunton, Libby Norton, Sandy Dixon and
Margret Hayes to mention a few.
The vital
element of radio communication was assisted by two relay stations,
one in the Chinamora TTL on a large granite outcrop and was
designated Lima Alpha. LA. The other was within the Enterprise
farming area, on Colga Farm, and called Victor Alpha, VA. These were
manned by Police Reservists, who had received training in radio
communications, normally four men at a time, and on 24 hour standby
for a week. LA was extremely difficult to access, even with a four
wheel drive vehicle so resupply was often flown in by helicopter, or
dropped from a PRAW. VA was accessible by vehicle, and consequently
an additional two men were allocated there as camp guards. The camp
was surrounded by rolls of razor wire, and protected by claymore
mines as well. Doug Stodart, Jeff Staunton, Stan Cary, Mick Taggart
and others carried out this task with skill and dedication.
One of the first
and major successes of the Salisbury Detachment was a rocket and
small arms attack on the Salisbury fuel depot in Southerton on night
of 11th December 1978. This was a devastating blow for
Rhodesia, financially, militarily, and morally. It was proof that
the insurgents could and would act within the city limits, and could
cause serious damage, and it was very clear that the Salisbury
detachment had in its ranks determined and specifically trained men.
The evening
after the fuel depot attack, a BSAP roadblock at the junction of the
Mtoko and Shamva road on the edge of the Umwinsidale suburb of the
capital was broken by a Datsun pick with a canopy. The roadblock was
caught napping and the vehicle got through unscathed and carried on
towards JURU Township in the Chikwakwa TTL. The driver however, made
a turn onto the Atlanta road in the Enterprise farming area, and an
alert farmer, Dave Stobart, noticed the vehicle and its odd
behaviour, and fired on it. The vehicle returned to the main Mtoko
road, and headed once again in the direction of Juru Township.
The occupants on
the last farm before the TTL and Township, Owen Connor and his 16
year old son Kevin, were contacted by Enterprise base on the agric
alert, and asked to ambush the vehicle, which they duly and very
bravely did. The vehicle was hit several times, but continued on for
about 200 m from the ambush before coming to rest in the ditch.
Once first light
came, the vehicle was approached and copious blood stains were
located from the front and rear of the vehicle, and under the canopy
were located two AK 47s and a British made 3,5 inch rocket launcher
with three projectiles. These weapons and the escaped wounded
insurgents had been part of the group responsible for the attack on
the fuel depot two days before. Also recovered was a satchel with a
notebook, updated the day previous, and carrying details of the
personnel of the Salisbury Detachment.
Another
significant event for the capture of one Jeffrey Murerwa, the owner
of the ambushed pick up vehicle, in Juru Township on the edge of the
Chikwakwa TTL the day following the ambush. Jeffrey denied he was an
insurgent, but admitted to driving the pickup and knowing full well
the purpose that his passenger had hired him. Quiet and steady
questioning over the next day revealed that Jeffrey knew a large
amount about the Salisbury Detachment, and a clear picture of the
threat to the Capital City emerged.
Jeffrey defected
to the Rhodesian side. He didn’t have much of a choice, and was
installed as the Enterprise Base spare driver and dogsbody. He was
highly intelligent, and was of great assistance with local knowledge
of the area, and the personalities who were routinely picked up and
interviewed to establish any changes in the insurgent presence or
plans. He was loaned in January 1979 to a section within Special
Forces Headquarters, the Q cars. The Q cars operated modified and
armoured bread delivery vehicles, and ranged about the TTLs
supposedly on a delivery run, and waited to be approached by
insurgents, or be ambushed.
When either
event occurred, the insurgents received a nasty surprise when the
roof hinged open and 4 Light Machine guns opened up on them. One Q
car had a spectacular success in January 1979 when they duped a
group of 9 insurgents from the Salisbury Detachment and several
Mujibas (local boys running with the insurgents as messengers and
scouts) and managed to kill 7 insurgents and 3 mujibas. The
documents from these kills in the Northern Chikwakwa TTL added to
the building intelligence picture.
After this
incident, the Q car cover was obviously blown in the area, Jeffrey
was returned to Enterprise and the Q car went to another area
painted another colour.
January also saw
a dramatic increase in the numbers of insurgents in the area to the
north east of Salisbury, farm attacks, store robberies, destruction
of herds of cattle and landmines. The insurgents were being
funnelled into the area from the Nehanda sector, from Mozambique
through the mount Darwin and Madziwa TTL route, and from the
Chaminuka sector through Mtoko and Mrewa. It was of note that even
though the sector boundary between the Nehanda and Chaminuka sector
was basically the Shamva road, the Salisbury detachment members
operated across both sectors.
The local
population in the TTLs suffered badly, the insurgents were concerned
they were losing control of the area, and thereby their chance of
attacking Salisbury, and carried out many atrocities on the locals,
in particular in areas where the SFA were seen to be gaining
ascendency. Attacks on farms and road ambushes were commonplace, as
were the indiscriminate landmines, often claiming busses filled with
locals as victims.
An ambush
carried out in the Hatcliffe area of Borrowdale on the 13th
January 1979 resulted in the death of 15 year old schoolboy Colin
Tilley, and the wounding of his parents. Walls Hill Ground Coverage
Base in Umwidsidale was ineffectually attacked during the same
month, both attacks well within the city limits.
Special Branch
Officers from Bindura and Enterprise had been submitting detailed
Top Secret reports of the intelligence gained from documents,
captures, locals, informers to T desk in Salisbury from the middle
of 1978 relating to the threat to Salisbury, but a few individuals
at T desk seemed determined to ignore this intelligence, included in
which was a warning of their intention to attack economic targets
within the city.
At 0930 on the
8th February 1979 a District development Funds truck was ambushed
just north of the Mtoko road on its way to the Chikwakwa Keep loaded
with provisions and escorted by 5 District assistants. The truck was
immobilised, the driver along with one DA killed, and three DAs
captured by the Insurgents. One fled the scene and luckily was
located on the main tar road by passing SB personnel from
Enterprise. An immediate follow up was instituted, using 8 PATU men
from Enterprise on their Motorcycles.
Tracks were
located from the ambush and followed towards the Nyadiri River where
the insurgents intended to cross into the Mangwende, which by then
was a rest and recuperation area for them as security force
personnel seldom ventured into this liberated area. On this occasion
the bikes caught up with the insurgents and a contact ensued, with
one insurgent being killed by the PATU men, and one of the captured
DAs showed great bravery and initiative by using the distraction of
the contact to wrestle an AK from an Insurgent and shoot him dead.
The other DA fled and were located by the Bike sticks shortly
afterwards.
It was by now
late in the afternoon, but the insurgents could still be seen in the
river line and sporadic contacts were ongoing. A request for Fire
Force had been made at the initial contact, and a K Car and two G
cars arrived, with a very arrogant fire force commander on board. He
flew up and down the river a few times and told the PATU men they
were shooting at nothing, and that he was going to return to his
base. As the K car turned over the river, it received a sheet of
tracer, with two bullets through the front Plexiglas of the
helicopter. The K Car commander was obviously wrong about there
being no insurgents in the river line. The K car put down some 20
mm cannon into the area of the firing, and then the commander told
the PATU men to ambush the area overnight, and as it was getting
dark, the small fire force was now going back to base. The PATU
tracker, Andy Hartell told the fire force commander to get stuffed,
and that he would carry on the follow up as he saw fit, and was not
going to waste time with pointless ambushes as the birds had now
flown.
More
importantly, the Insurgent the DA had shot was a platoon commander
from the Salisbury section, Happy Trigger, and he had a detailed
note book on the Salisbury detachment which was to prove vital in
the establishing of exactly what the threat posed by this
detachment.
The note book
carried the following information.
Salisbury Sub
Detachment .Chaminuka (Names were aliases, called chimurenga names)
Commander:
Masweet Kunaka
Political
Commissar: P. Nziyo
Security
Officer.: Martin Mazarura
Salisbury
Section.: Sabotage.
Section
Commander: Muhumbira Kupisa
Political
Commissar.: Roy Shupo
Security
Officer: Pondai Mabunhu
Logistics
Officer: Tendayi Nyika
Medical Officer:
Montgomery Moto.
Platoon
Commander: Happy Trigger - Bob Bouncer - Manesi
Insurgent
strengths were listed as follows: Chaminuka Sector.
Mangwende TTL.
North: 240 Trained Insurgents
Mangwende TTL.
South: 170 Trained Insurgents
North Chikwakwa
TTL: 30 Trained Insurgents
South Chikwakwa
TTL
12 Trained
Insurgents
Msana TTL:
170 Trained Insurgents
Chinamora TTL:
90 Trained Insurgents
Salisbury
Townships : 20 Trained Insurgents
There was a long
list of rifle serial numbers allocated to individuals, a list of
ordinance which included TM 46 land mines, 51, Mortar bombs 123,
RPG rockets 34, British rocket 8 ( the 3,5 Inch rocket launcher) and
12300 bullets, obviously 7.62 mm intermediate AK/RPD rounds.
There was also
comment on plans for the section to attack schools, cinemas,
restaurants, power stations and homes of prominent Rhodesian
individuals in Salisbury.
This information
was related to T Desk and Comops post haste, and the seeds for
Operation Enterprise finally germinated. SB Bindura and Enterprise
were ordered by SALOPS to produce an intelligence briefing for an
Operational orders meeting to be held on the 4th April at KGV1
barracks at 1800 hours. Someone in the hierarchy had finally taken
notice of this threat that existed under their very noses.
The Selous
Scouts were deployed in a reconnaissance Pseudo role into the South
Western Chinamora TTL and into the Northern Mangwende where the
areas were frozen, and they began to feed back confirmation that the
area was swarming with insurgents with evil intentions on the
Capital City, and the upcoming elections. The SB element of the
Scouts, along with their intelligence officer added their
contribution to the picture.
At 1800 hours
precisely on the 4th April, the briefing room at KGV1 Barracks, Army
Headquarters, filled up with Officers from the Army, Air Force,
Military Intelligence, BSAP, Special Branch, Central Intelligence
Organisation and Internal Affairs. The RLI, RAR, Selous Scouts and
Rhodesia Regiment, and Rhodesian Artillery and Engineers were all
represented, and looked intently at the annotated map that was the
centre piece to the briefing.
The security
classification placed on the Operation was TOP SECRET, and measures
to limit compromise similar to an external raid were put in place.
The Selous
Scouts intelligence Officer and Superintendent Keith Samler of SB
JOC Hurricane led the intelligence briefing, detailing the threat
posed by the Salisbury Detachment and detailing recent activities,
and the activities that were likely to occur if this threat was not
eliminated. There were many startled faces around the room, hardened
Soldiers who now realised that their homes and families faced a
clear and imminent danger. The detailed locations, strengths,
weapons, clothing of the Salisbury detachment were indicated, and
their modus operandi was discussed at length.
Colonel Ian
Bate, OC of the RLI then took over and advised he was going to give
the preliminary Operational orders, which would set about the
mobilisation of the necessary troops and Air Force element for
OPERATION ENTERPRISE, to commence on the 6th April, under
his command from the RLI Tactical Headquarters to be set up at the
Enterprise club on the morning of 7th April. He also
advised that a final detailed operation orders would be given at
1500 on the 6th April to company commanders, Air Force,
BSAP and Special Branch elements at the same briefing room.
The force levels
were to be formidable.
RLI Tactical HQ
with the Mobile Resuscitation Unit, MRU, Rhodesian Medial Corps,
would position at Enterprise
A jumbo fire
force comprising 2 K Cars, one with a 20 mm Matra cannon and the
other with the 4 barrelled .303 Browning “Dalmatian”, and 8 troop
carrying G cars would be based at Enterprise, with 1 Cdo RLI
providing the troops. One platoon of 1 Cdo RLI would provide the
parachute element for the Dakota based at New Sarum Air Base in
Salisbury, where two Cessna 337 Lynx Ground attack aircraft would
also be available. A jet element of aging Vampires would be
available.
Two armed PRAW
aircraft would be available from Charles Price Airfield, with one
positioning daily at the airstrip on Frascati Farm, in the northern
part of the Enterprise farming area. Rhodesian Corps of Engineers
were to position a Pookie mine detection vehicle at enterprise with
an infantry support element for mine clearing.
Company strength
of Rh. Artillery operating in an Infantry role, and 5 companies of
the Rhodesia Regiment were to provide the ground troops to be
deployed in a series of Observation posts in the Msana, Masembura,
Chikwakwa and Mangwende TTL. 2 Troop Selous Scouts, would be
deployed into the Chinamora TTL, and in the Eastern Mangwende TTL
which was frozen for them to enable them to operate in their Pseudo
role. The HQ element being based at the Borrowdale Country Club,
within the Salisbury city limits and an operational base was quietly
established at Mermaids Pool, the once popular resort that featured
a fine rock slide into the pool. The Msana TTL was immediately
adjacent to the resort, enabling Pseudo call signs to move in and
out without risk of compromise.
5 BSAP Patu
sticks would operate out of their base at Enterprise into the
Southern Chikwakwa TTL, along with their tracker element. They would
be under the command of Section Officer Keith Norton. One additional
SB officer was to be allocated to assist the resident SB officer at
Enterprise, and Detective Patrol Officer Tiny Coupar was allocated
this job.
Elements of the
SFA from Msana and Chinamora TTLs would be attached to some of the
troops, as their local knowledge would assist the troops in
detecting if the behaviour of the locals indicated and insurgent
presence. The SFA would not be informed until the operation was
under way to preserve security.
Colonel Bate
made it clear that the infiltration of the Observation Posts on the
night of the 6th April was critical to the success of the
Operation. The area concerned was ideal OP country, with many
granite kopjes’ and hills, but that also made a night walk in from
distance problematic.
The briefing
adjourned, and all elements retired to their respective bases to
plan and prepare for the upcoming operation. Stores and ammunition
were drawn, vehicles allocated, aircraft prepared, fuelled and
armed. SB officers pressed their intelligence sources for any last
minute information and changes in the insurgent numbers and
location.
At 1500 hrs on
the 6th April, Colonel Bate with his adjutant Lieutenant
Gordon “Jug” Thornton, and RLI Intelligence Officer Captain Brian
Streak carried out the detailed briefing for the deployment of the
allocated troops, including their OP positions, drop off points,
walk in routes, and the full gambit of radio call signs, sitrep
times and Fire Force call out procedures. By 1800 the show was on
the road.
Early the
following morning, the RLI Tactical HQ and part of 1 Commando, RLI,
under the command of Lt Rick Van Malsen, moved in on the Enterprise
Base, specifically the area adjacent to the Squash Court, in the
trees that lined the edge of the 5 th fairway on the golf course.
The Mobile Resuscitation unit set up behind the squash court, where
it could be connected to piped water and electrical power. Corporal
Skippy Skipworth-Michel , Rhodesian Medical Corps, secured the tent
awnings and checked the equipment lists, preparing as the Medics
always did, for the worst.
The troops
spread out along the tree line, set up their bivies and dug shell
scrapes where MAG machine guns were positioned in a defensive
perimeter. The mess tents and kitchen were unloaded and set up and
the admin clerks set out all the maps, radio communications and
telex link.
The Air Force
Control Tent set up alongside the cricket and rugby field, with
their tall aerials dwarfing those of the RLI Operations Tent. Drums
of Avtur fuel were laid out on the field ready for the choppers to
guzzle up, and a pile of reserve drums was set up on the edge of the
field for future use.
Lt. Colonel Ian
Bate arrived with his HQ team of Major Pat Armstrong, Adjutant Lt
Jug Thornton, Intelligence Officer Lt Brian Streak, and the all
important Regimental Sergeant Major Ken Reed. The RLI Doctor, Major
Cliff Webster and his medical staff manned the MRU.
At about 10 am,
some of the Alouette 3 helicopters arrived and settled on the field,
the balance where waiting to bring in some further RLI troops,
including 1 Cdo Officer Commanding, Major Fred Watts, from their
Cranborne Barracks outside Salisbury Airport, where the balance of
the Commando troops waited with the Dakotas to be deployed in the
parachute role. The pilots were a mix of experience and nervous
newcomers, with a few South African Air Force pilots, thrown in.
They were in Rhodesia under the secret Operation Polo, South African
Military assistance to the security forces. Wing Commander Rob
Tasker was there to settle in the communications and logistics, and
left the “drivers’ to check their aircraft and weapons with their
every busy technician /gunners. Flight Lieutenants’ Bud Cockcroft,
Nigel Lamb, Pete Simmons, Air Lieutenants’ Ian Henderson, Alistair
Thorogood and Dave Shirley were among the early arrivals. The K cars
set off for the large dam on Frascati Farm to calibrate their
weapons, firing at a “floating rock” in the middle of the dam.
The
technician/gunners carried out their endless maintenance tasks on
the choppers, working tirelessly to ensure every chopper was ready
to fly at a moment’s notice.
The Observation
Posts were called up, their positions checked and verified, radio
channels tested and a relay station, manned by the Corps of Signals
flown to the granite Kopje called Domborembudzi, just inside the
Mangwende TTL to provide additional coverage for the radio channels.
Some of the OP s
reported interesting walk ins to their position, at least two had
fleeting contacts with insurgents in the dark, some were a distance
from where they should have been, but all were set up and looking
for signs of insurgent activity.
Major Fred Watts
was scarcely airborne at midday from Cranborne barracks when the
operation frequency crackled into life with a Selous Scouts OP
reporting a sighting of 15 insurgents in the Eastern Mangwende TTL .
By the time he landed, and rapidly changed out of his town uniform
into his bush camouflage, the position of the insurgents had been
pinpointed, and a line of approach for the 7 choppers settled on. A
lynx was ordered airborne, and the para Dakota was put on immediate
standby for callout if required.
It was eleven
minutes flying to the target, and the OP s talk took the Fire Force
directly over the insurgents position, where the K Car immediately
engaged them, while the G cars positioned the STOP s , each
comprising 4 soldiers, in position. Each stop was in radio contact
with the K car, and the elaborate, deadly chess game begun.
The Lynx aircraft put in
a ground attack in the insurgents position, using the twin .303
Browning front guns and dropping Frantan with deadly accuracy. Some
insurgents returned fire at the choppers and the troops, while other
fled, or tried to snivel into the cover of a small river line.
Steadily the K car guided the stops through the river line, clearing
ahead of them with the high explosive 20 mm cannon shells. The stops
winkled out those insurgents hiding in the river line, their MAG
machine guns taking a toll on the insurgents that had not been
knocked down by the K Car, and making sure the ones that were down
were dead. Two insurgents surrendered to STOP 2, one wounded in the
legs, and they were lifted out by G car as quickly as possible.
After about four
hours, and a re- sweep of the contact area by the stops, there were
13 dead insurgents, 15 weapons ranging from a RPD Machine Gun, to
AKs and old SKS rifles. A RPG 7 rocket launcher and several grenades
were also recovered, along with the usual packs and the inevitable
notebook normally carried by the section commander. Bodies were left
where they lay, the local TTL population would bury them in days to
come.
The Stops were
recovered by the G Cars and flown back to Enterprise, where Lt Rick
Van Malsen had been dealing with another sighting by a PATU stick
in the Southern Chikwakwa. They had 6 insurgents visual and had
watched them go into cover in a vegetable garden near a kraal line.
It was too late for the Fire force to deploy to this sighting, so
Rick called up the second Lynx and asked the PATU stick to indicate
the target to the Pilot for him to put in a rocket and Frantan
strike. The strike went in at last light, and tracer was seen being
fired at the Lynx from the area of the garden where the strike went
in. Rick ordered three of the PATU sticks in the area to base up
together and be ready to sweep the area of the strike at first light
the following morning.
The two captures
were met on landing by SB details, who hooded them to hide their
identity and whisked them to their office for immediate
interrogation. The wounded one was taken via the MRU for Doc Webster
do attend to, which was done quickly as his wounds were mainly
shrapnel from the K car cannon shells.
The weapons and
documents were collected from the incoming G cars, and brought to
the SB offices.
Captures were
the lifeblood of current intelligence; from them the size of the
group, their intentions, the individuals in the group, and the
whereabouts of other groups can all be obtained. The captures are in
a state of shock, expecting to be summarily executed, or tortured,
and once they find out they are not, generally they spill out their
story within a short time. Both the captures were cadres, (trooper)
and had been armed with SKS rifles. Their section leader was Manesi
and the section had been 19 strong, so the kill/capture of 15 was
very good result and a testament to the high number of stops
available on the ground at the time.
The unwounded
capture was reunited with his weapon, without any bullets, and his
pack, and taken off by SB/Selous Scouts liaison officer to be
placed on the ground with the Selous Scouts that had called in the
fire force on him that afternoon. He would be “turned” to the
Rhodesian cause, and used to authenticate the Selous Scouts call
sign in the area as “survivors’” of the contact looking for
assistance from other insurgents. This would hopefully lead them to
another group’s area, where they could set up another OP and talk
the fire force onto them as well.
The immediate
intelligence gained from the wounded capture was discussed and
planned on in the evening Mini-Joc meeting held in the Operations
Tent, where changes in call out procedures for the fire force were
made to cope with the high number of callouts. Fred Watts would head
out to the first call out with all the choppers, and once the stops
were down on the ground, the K car with Fred commanding from, and
one G car would remain in the contact area and the other K car and 7
G cars would return to Enterprise for Rick van Malsen to deploy in
to the next sighting. The ParaDak could also bring in fresh troops
as required to the contact areas.
The SB personnel
continued to link up weapon numbers with individual insurgent names,
all noted in the section commanders notebook, to establish who had
probably been killed. Manesi, the section commander’s weapon was
there, so it was likely he had been killed along with most of his
men. This information was all collated into a situation report,
Sitrep, prepared on a well worn typewriter. The main events of the
day were reported to the JOC Hurricane and SALOPS, by a radio
message given on the scramble radio frequency. The detailed sitrep
would be sent to T desk, Salisbury by the next SB individual going
that way.
Once it had been
digested by the SB hierarchy, the ladies in the registry would pick
out the detail, and make changes to existing cards on known
insurgents, or establish new ones where required along with weapon
numbers and other relevant information. The weapons went to the BSAP
armoury where ballistic tests were carried out by armourer experts
such as Supt Don Hollingworth. Weapons were matched to other
incidents and often a pattern emerged showing where the individual
insurgent had fired the weapon previously. This may have been in
another contact, a murder of a local, a store robbery or farm
attack.
One of the
SB/Selous Scouts liaison officers from the Scouts “fort” in Bindura
arrived to take the wounded capture to the fort where he would be
further medically treated, and turned, and probably join the SFA in
the Msana within a short time.
Fresh
intelligence was gained from a good SB source, a black businessman
who lived in Salisbury but had shops in several of the TTLs. He
always gave his information when contacted by telephone by his SB
handler from Enterprise. He had news of a group of insurgents living
near Tsati School in the Chinamora TTL, incidentally about 5 minutes
flying time from Enterprise. It was the Selous Scouts area, so this
was passed to them on secure radio channels, for them to confirm the
presence either on the ground or from OP. If contact was made with
this group, and kills occurred, the informers reward was R$ 1000-00
per kill, which could amount to a tidy sum.
At around 10 pm,
just when exhausted men were turning in, a call came from SALOPS to
advise that the main SFA base in the Chinamora TTL was under heavy
attack. The SFA were fighting back at an aggressive attack from some
80 insurgents, who were using rifles, mortars and rocket propelled
grenades. The attack continued until around 3 am, when the
insurgents broke off contact, having tried to breach the south wall
and being repulsed with casualties. Two SFA casualties were
reported from inside the base, wounded, and everyone waited for
first light. The SB and SFA liaison officers in the base contributed
greatly to the defence. Hans Sittig and Dave Nixon were tired men
the following morning.
Day 2 dawned
with the SFA doing a clearance patrol of their camp perimeter, where
they located 4 dead insurgents, a lot of blood spoor leaving the
area, some 6000 cartridge cases, mortars, and a 75mm recoilless
rifle with ammunition. Luckily the insurgents had not been expert in
the use of this weapon; otherwise the end result might have been
very different. The insurgents had broken into groups and had headed
back into the area of the Msana and Chinamora where the OP s were
situated for OP Enterprise. COMOPS made sure this attack, and the
defence, received the attention of the press, to give the image of
the SFA in general a boost.
The first
contact of the day came from the three PATU sticks tasked to sweep
the area of the late evening Lynx strike, when they received a good
“rev” as they approached the area. Taking cover and returning fire,
they called for fire force, which was duly dispatched in the shape
of one K car flown by Air Lieutenant Ian Henderson with Major Fred
Watts as ground commander, and 4 G cars with stops on board. A lynx
was scrambled from New Sarum and arrived over the scene at the same
time as the choppers. As the K car came into the orbit, heavy fire
was directed at it from the tree line near a kraal, and Ian called
in the lynx for a strike with rockets and front gun. Stops were
dropped, and joined up with the PATU sticks in sweeping towards the
area of the strike.
The insurgents
and some civilians broke cover and headed toward the Nyagui river,
on the Mangwende TTL boundary some 2 km distant, firing as they
went. The K car knocked several down, and the stops and PATU put in
their contribution. One insurgent was cornered near a large gum
tree, and was using it for cover from the K car, shuffling around
the big trunk to keep away from the K car cannon. A PATU stick was
moved up to get this fellow from the ground, but before they did, he
gave the K car a full magazine from his AK, and Ian had his eyebrow
lacerated by a piece of shrapnel. Blood poured out of the wound, and
he was hard pressed to swing the K car away, and land in an open
field before the swirling blood cut off his vision completely. The
PATU stick chased down and killed the insurgent a short distance
away, and went across to the landed K car to find that Ian had been
bandaged up, and was ready to fly again.
By now the scene
had wound down, and weapons and equipment were being recovered, SB
details arrived by land rover, and took over the weapons and packs
as the stops emplaned again and flew back to Enterprise. One trooper
had been shot in the foot, and hobbled to the G car under the care
of his stick medic.
With the help
of the PATU sticks, the contact area was swept and more weapons and
packs located. 11 insurgent bodies and weapons were found, 5 bodies
of mujibas, some with stick grenades in their pockets, and four
civilians, two of them women had been killed in the contact.
Civilian deaths are inevitable in this type of warfare, sadly.
The other half
of the Fire force had reacted to a sighting in the Msana TTL, where
an OP from Rhodesian Artillery troops had a group of 7 insurgent’s
visual moving east along a river line. Due to the wind direction,
they heard the approaching choppers and bomb shelled into heavy
cover below a large granite kopje, where the OP lost sight of them.
The choppers scoured the area, and eventually spotted two of them in
dense tree cover and the K Car fired on them. The insurgents kept
moving as the cannon shells were exploding on the tree canopy, so
stops were dropped to cut them off. Stop 2 chased after them and
drove them into stop 3 and 4, who killed them. The stops then swept
back over the area and located a youth hiding in some sense bush, he
surrendered and was captured.
The youth was
handed over to SB when the choppers returned to Enterprise; he
admitted he was a mujiba, and that he had been with six insurgents
that morning. They had been part of the attack on the SFA base last
night and were heading back to join the rest of their section at
Machaponda School. This information was passed to Col Bate, and he
ordered one of the OP s in that area to move overnight closer to the
school and observe. The mujiba was held in the stockade for the
meantime.
At the
Operations meeting that evening, Col Bate advised that there were
three potential “scenes” brewing for the morning, one with the
scouts in the Mangwende, and two others in the Chinamora TTL, where
OP s were hoping to confirm Insurgent presences after first light.
Once it was
dark, and callouts were not possible most of the troops retired to
the club bar where they proceeded to reduce the alcohol stocks
dramatically, but by about 10 pm all was quiet as everyone rested up
for another day ahead.
Day three dawned
with the OP s quiet, waiting for the sun to fill the shadows so they
could look for the insurgents in their hiding places. Many of them
went to ground at night in huts, and the OP had to wait until they
emerged into view. The chopper crews serviced their aircraft and did
running repairs while the troops wandered over for breakfast while
they waited the siren for call out. The hard working signallers and
clerks in the operations tent update troop movements and sent
sitreps, ration and ammunition requests as required.
A member of the
Rhodesian Intelligence Corps, RIC, called in just after breakfast to
advise on the planning for upcoming first all race elections, due on
17th April. 1000 polling stations were to be placed and
manned country wide, and the biggest call-up of territorial and
reserve military, police reserve, internal affairs, and guard force
was being made to try to ensure that the people could vote in the
rural areas free of intimidation from the insurgents. It was a big
ask.
To top that,
Bishop Abel Muzorerwa, a member of the current transitional
government and leader of the UANC party was to make a campaign visit
to the Chinamora, Msana and Chikwakwa TTLs in three days time. He
was going to fly by “loaned” South African “civilian” helicopters to
various business centres, and vehicles were to be allocated to
ensure the local population attended the meetings, and were
protected from insurgent attack. This task fell largely to the
Uniform Branch of the BSAP, but troops would be moved to these areas
as well to provide early warning and protection.
Mid morning was
interrupted by a thunderclap explosion typical of a landmine,
normally a TM 46, just to the north west of Enterprise Base, and the
response party located a road department mine protected 7 ton truck
lying at the grid that led the gravel Denda road onto the main
Shamva tar road. In the opposite ditch, luckily still upright was a
Peugeot sedan with a very surprised looking local farmer and PATU
man, Peter Howson standing next to it, rifle in hand.
Peter had
coincidentally been driving past at the exact moment that the roads
department truck had hit the mine, and the blast had thrown his
vehicle into the ditch, luckily with minimal damage. The Roads truck
had the front wheel blown off, but the mine protection had saved the
three man crew, save for their eardrums.
Rhodesian
Engineer Corp were summoned with their Pookie mine detecting
vehicle, and a sweep of the gravel roads in the vicinity was carried
out. A message was put out on the farm agric-alert radio network for
farmers to be extra vigilant for landmines on their roads. Within a
few hours, the Pookie had located another mine, on the access road
to Chabweno farm. A farm vehicle tracks could be seen passing over
the mine, but just missing the pressure detonator, a lucky escape
for that individual. The mine was lifted and recovered by the
engineers.
The first OP to
call in with a sighting was in the Msana, but were looking across
into the Northern Chikwakwa where they reported a group of 10 -12
insurgents in a kraal line, appearing to have settled under the
mango trees. The area around was open sandy fields, so it was
decided that one K car with 4 g cars with stops would react to this
sighting, and the para dak would drop additional troops to the north
east of the kraal to cut off escape that way. The dak could drop 16
troops from low level, and this was easy landing country, not the
rock and tree strewn areas the paras often had to jump into.
Off went the
aircraft, and as the K car pulled up over the target, the paradak
trundled in and spilled its men out onto the ground. The stops were
dropped, and it looked like the insurgents were totally encircled.
The OP had not seen them move from the mango trees, but when the
sweep line arrived there, no sign of them. They had to be in the
huts and small brick houses, and the troops were ordered to search
them, a job they hated. Some civilians were found, but no one armed,
so the K car Commander told the troops to search again. This time,
one of the stick leader felt the hairs on his neck stand up as he
entered a house, but again he could not see anything. The insurgent
holding on to the rafters in the dark roof of the house moved, and
made a sound, and suddenly all was clear. The stick leader fired up
at the noise, and received a burst of fire back that hit him in the
forearm, luckily a flesh wound. He staggered out of the hut and
yelled, in the roofs, fire into the roofs, they are hiding there.
Once the dust
had settled, several houses were ablaze from the tracer, four
insurgent bodies were located, and five weapons. It was likely that
the fifth insurgent had died in one of the blazing huts, but the
others had somehow escaped the attentions of all the troops and the
K car. Parachutes were collected, and the troops flow back in relays
to Enterprise, from where the paras went back to barracks by truck.
The wounded stick leader was patched up by Doc Webster and his
medics, and was back in the fray.
One of the BSAP
“crocodile” armoured vehicles radioed in from the Shamva road near
Lions head, a prominent granite hill, advising that they had been
ambushed in the cuttings near to the hill, but they had returned
fire and suffered no casualties. One K car, with 2 G cars reacted,
loaded with stops made up of RLI base staff, the rest of the men
were out on one of the callouts that had come in during the day, and
the para dak had been called into action again. A second jump for
the day for some of the parachutists. Stick Medic Trooper Chris
Norton jumped twice that day, and a world record of three jumps into
contact in one day was established by Corporal Des Archer of 1
Commando RLI.
 |
Trooper Chris Norton, my
late younger brother, stick medic with 1 Cdo RLI during Op
Enterprise.
He was mainly used in the para role.
|
+and+Trooper+Chris+Norton.+1Cdo+RLI.+1979).jpg) |
My late father and brother. BSAP SPECIAL RESERVE Warden Terry Norton (Mount Pleasant) and
Trooper Chris Norton. (1Cdo RLI. 1979)
|
Police
reservists Ted Willis, Jack Wheeler, Norman Carle and Don Bulloch
talked the K car onto where they had been ambushed, and the stops
swept through the area, locating one body, an AK and a 60 mm mortar.
There was also blood spoor leading off to the TTL, but as it was
late in the day, a follow up was not possible. Ted and his men were
very pleased with their efforts; Norman had been manning the mounted
Browning .303 machine gun, and had sent back heavy fire when they
were ambushed. All their practise with, and care of the browning,
had paid off, and a few well deserved beers were consumed that
night.
The Ops meeting
that evening highlighted the fact that the insurgents were
definitely more aggressive, and despite the high force levels they
showed no sign of leaving the area. The incidents of landmines had
increased and the SFA camps reported being fired on at night. The
body count was now 31 killed and 2 captures, not bad going
considered that probably meant at least double that number had been
wounded. Security force casualties had been only wounded.
By day 4, a
pattern was emerging, early morning saw scenes not cleared up
overnight sorted out, and at least one vehicle would hit a landmine
in one of the TTLs. Once the sun was up and the OP s could see into
the areas that had been in shadow, tentative sightings came in, and
were confirmed by mid morning. The fire force would head for the
most promising sighting, and most of the G cars would recover back
to Enterprise, load more Stops and head out for the next scene
assisted by the para dak, and the second Lynx. Fred Watts and Rick
Von Malsen, with the pilots and gunners, were getting in some
serious hours in the air.
A civilian bus
hit a landmine on the Denda road in the Chinamora, with many
casualties, and Guard force vehicle hit another in the Mangwende
TTL. A Guard Force member from the keep in Chikwakwa was found shot
dead near the gate of the keep. He had evidently sneaked out into
the nearby kraal the previous night to find some beer, and had been
caught by the insurgents there and executed. The entire fire force
was called up to the Bushu TTL, in the Mount Darwin area, to a
sighting of a big group of insurgents with heavy weapons. Despite a
day of searching, nothing was located, and worse still, two
confirmed sightings were reported by the Enterprise OP s, but could
not be reacted to.
By now Operation
Enterprise was flavour of the month, and many high ranking officers
made liaison visits, it had never been easier to visit the “sharp
end”, a mere twenty minute drive from Salisbury, and they could rub
shoulders with the fighting men. The hierarchy of SB T desk suddenly
tried to make out this Operation had been their idea, despite their
voiced scepticism in the beginning, and demands for updated reports
came thick and fast. At one point the three SB members on the
ground, run ragged with attending and documenting the contacts,
attacks, murders and landmines told T desk to take a hike, the
reports would come when they could find time.
The fire force
commander were becoming very adept at making a plan to get as many
scenes attended to as possible, sometimes lifting Observation Post
troops by G car and deploying them as stop lines, using every able
man in base, cooks were not exempt, and utilising the paradak to its
fullest. The Selous Scouts had infiltrated the Chinamora TTL, and
were passing back accurate information as the insurgent presence in
that area, but requesting no offensive action until they had set the
targets up comprehensively.
On the night of
the 10th, Colga and Strathlorne farms, both on the
boundary of the Chikwakwa TTL came under attack with small arms,
mortars and rockets. Some damage was done to the homesteads, and a
tractor was set alight at Colga. The labour force were routed from
the compound and fled into the surrounding bush and agricultural
land. The farmers, their wives and their “bright lights” returned
fire, and set off Adams grenades located on the perimeter two meter
diamond mesh fence. Reaction in the form of Police reserve and PATU
went to the farms, using predetermined “safe routes” which avoided
the primary roads that would almost certainly be mined or have
ambushes laid on them.
PATU tracker,
Andy Hartell had established a good relationship with the dog
section of the BSAP, and called out the duty member with his dog,
and was on tracks at about 3 am, in the dark, with the dog on a long
leash. Andy had used this tactic successfully a few times already,
and surprised the insurgents he was following at first light, when
they thought the follow up would only be starting. On this occasion
he, the dog and handler and a patu stick surprised the insurgents
where they were resting up near the Nyagui river crossing. They
killed one insurgent and two mujibas in the initial contact, while
the others fled across the River into the Mangwende TTL. The
choppers were all busy, so the information was passed the Grey
Scouts, a mounted unit now operating in that area. With their high
mobility on their horses, they located two further insurgents within
two hours and killed them as well.
The MRU was
being kept busy with wounded civilians, some children, who were
being brought in from contact sites. They did their best to repair
the damage and sent the severely wounded ones to Harare Hospital for
further treatment. The civilian’s didn’t always survive, and became
another casualty statistic. RLI Padre Bill Blakeway was often on
hand to council soldiers and civilians and tried to ease the pain of
this war.
The farmers were
a brave lot, but on occasion they were foolhardy. Some would push
their luck returning well into the late afternoon from Salisbury,
and driving at breakneck speeds on the Salisbury to Shamva road that
passed through a part of the Msana TTL. A Shamva farmer did that,
and was ambushed close to the Lions head cutting and was killed in
the ensuing crash that occurred when his car was hit by several
bullets. An OP on the edge of Lions head hill witnessed the ambush,
but could do nothing as it was almost dark. Police reserve reaction
sticks from Enterprise recovered the farmer’s body, and he became
another loss to his family and farming colleagues.
Keith Norton had
arranged for Bishop Abel Muzorerwa to have captive audiences at
three business centres the next day, and Colonel Bate made suitable
arrangements for any insurgents that might wish to disrupt these
meetings to be spotted and dealt with. As it transpired, small
crowds of largely press ganged locals listed to the bishop make
promises to stop the war, either by defeating Zanla or reaching a
peace deal with them. It would be the first time all these people
had been presented with the chance to vote, and there was a quiet
keen interest in this aspect of his address. The Bishop hopped from
one meeting to another is his “loaned ‘South African registered Bell
Jet ranger, complete with bodyguards.
The call outs
continued through the day, with three confirmed sightings being
reacted to, but as these were all smaller groups, the kill rate was
only 7, with two wounded mujibas being captured in the Msana. They
were duly interrogated by SB, and both confirmed that the leadership
of the Salisbury Detachment had gone into the Mangwende to collect
fresh men and equipment, and were expected to return in two days
time.
Colonel Bate
contacted the Selous Scouts and the Grey Scouts in the Mangwende,
and advised them of the information, it would be ideal to locate the
leadership and eliminate them there. The PATU sticks were alerted
to ambush known river crossing points from the Mangwende TTL for the
next two days.
Day 5 was quiet,
and the troops, pilots and technician/gunners hung around until a
game of volley ball started. Then someone produced a rugby ball, and
pretty soon a fierce game was on the go on the rugby field, two of
the choppers having to be moved to free up the field. Others took to
the more sedate game of golf on the 9 hole course that surrounded
the Club, and the really lazy ones went to the swimming pool.
The siren
finally went at 1600 hours, a call out by an OP near Lions head
again, with a group of 5 insurgents visual in a river line. Lt Rick
Von Malsen was the designated first wave K Car commander for the
day, he and Major Fred Watts alternated to try to ease the pressure,
and Major Pat Armstrong filled in where necessary. Rick had to be
lifted by the K Car from the eighth fairway where he was about to
finish his putt.
The talk on to
the target was spot on by the OP, and three of the insurgents went
down to the cannon in the initial minute of the contact. The other
two were trapped, and put up fierce resistance from good cover in
the river line. The stops on the ground closed on the two
insurgents, and in the ensuing contact Trooper Keith Prowse was
wounded by shrapnel from the K car when the gunner fired too close
to his position. Luckily a hefty tree branch took most of the
shrapnel, and Keith was only wounded in the lower leg. One of the
insurgents was killed by the stop, and the other badly wounded and
flown back to the MRU for treatment just as it was getting dark.
The insurgent
was very badly wounded, and Doctor Cliff Webster had to amputate a
forearm and a leg above the knee, and did his best to stabilise the
very ill man for most of the night. A SB detail did his best to get
some information from him during moments of lucidity, but all he
could really establish was his name. He was Redman Nyika, and he
died in the early hours of the morning from his wounds.
A call in the
morning of day 6 to the SB registry showed Redman Nyika as a section
commander in the Salisbury Detachment, and as usual the note book he
carried and the weapon numbers gave the identity of his fallen
comrades. Sometime later three of the AK rifles were matched to the
ambush of the Shamva Farmer and to some extent, justice was done.
The SB personnel
at Enterprise tried to get to every contact, ambush, farm attack,
civilian murder as they possibly could, either by air or road, to
gather as much information in the shape or cartridge cases,
documents and interrogations of civilians that had been involved in,
or near the area of the incident. Most Police Stations had ground
coverage details, uniform members of the BSAP who carried out
intelligence gathering in support of the Special Branch were also in
spanned to assist in the small Kunzwe TTL, close to Goromonzi.
It was following
a visit to a contact scene in the Kunzwe, where a PATU stick had
ambushed a store and killed two insurgents and three mujibas in the
act of robbing the store that Goromonzi GC detail Section Officer
Alan Shout and Patrol Officer Pete Wessels were lucky to escape with
their lives. They were on their way back to the Police station from
the scene when they were ambushed by a group of 9 insurgents, their
truck was immobilised, Alan had his FN rifle hit and rendered
useless, but under covering fire from Pete and two Constables,
managed to extricate themselves from the ambush. By the time a Fire
Force arrived the insurgents were long gone, having tried to torch
the truck with little success.
On the quieter
days sport carried on at Enterprise, the rugby had become a sort of
never ending match, some squash and tennis rackets had been loaned
by local farmers, and golf was often on the go. The local farmers,
and club members from Salisbury, played their Saturday sport in the
mornings, so they could return home during the early afternoon to
avoid the ambushes that generally occurred in the late afternoon.
On this
particular Saturday, there were a fair number of golfers, and the
bowls green was a hive of activity. A regular golf four ball of
elderly, but stoic ladies always played together and hacked their
way round the course, generally cursing their black caddy’s for
their poor form. When they reached the 4th hole, one
stout lady struck her ball into the bunker close to the MRU, and
strode towards the bunker to play her next shot. She adjusted her
glasses as she approached the bunker, as protruding from the sand
was a black arm and a leg. Somewhat nonplussed for a moment, she
decided attack was the best form of defence and struck the
appendages with her golf club, knocking them over. Her caddy dropped
her golf bag and fled, and very soon the MRU had four irate ladies
looking for the culprit. Not a medic was in sight, but cries of
mirth emanated from many areas, including the Ops room. Redman Nyika
limbs had been put to misuse.
Not to be
outdone, Air lieutenant Alister Thorogood flew his chopper low over
the bowls green “in error”, spreading the bowls far and wide and
lifting a few skirts above some aged knees. He landed a good
distance off and took a circuitous route back to his tent. Flight
Lieutenant Bud Cockcroft got an earful from an irate farmer’s wife
after he had tested his choppers guns on her dam, close to the club.
Her prize Egyptian Geese made an excellent moving target to practise
on.
Corporal Dave
Masoccoi was somehow attached to the SB element of Enterprise as a supernumerary, having been injured in a military vehicle accident, and
his forte was arranging “entertainment” for the Club bar. He had
contact with various strippers and ladies of ill repute, and once a
week would organise a “show” for the troops at the club. He would
collect the “ladies” from Salisbury in an armoured Hyena vehicle,
and sneak them into the clubhouse where the show would be launched.
On one occasion
he recruited the famous Zilla, a well known stripper whose party
piece was a large python. On this occasion the python was not
involved, just Zilla removing her clothing in the middle of the
large hall at the club, with lathering troopies, and officers,
ogling on at her. He minder, a large bouncer type man was seated off
to the side collecting the R$2 fee from the watchers. In residence
at the club was a small terrier type dog called Jack, who was
extremely curious. Just as Zilla had removed all her clothing, and
was gyrating on the floor to the beat of some music, Jack sauntered
up to her, smelled her nether regions, and sneezed violently. The
watchers collapsed in gales of laughter, many crying with mirth.
Zilla and her minder took the opportunity to make a break back to
the Hyena for Dave to return them to Salisbury, and none of the
watchers minded the show being cut short, Jack had made it for them.
On another
occasion Dave was approached by 3 ladies who were topless barmaids,
and wanted to come out to Enterprise to do their thing. Dave duly
collected them and they appeared behind the bar, clad only in bikini
bottoms. The bar was five deep, and they were greeted with an
appreciative howl, that became a little muted when the assembled
masses had a good look at them. They were definitely ladies, not
girls, and one had a pronounced hunchback! However as the beer went
down their beauty became enhanced and a late night was had by all.
In the early
hours of the morning, Dave headed back to Salisbury in the Hyena
with the barmaids and made an error of judgement as he turned onto
the Shamva – Salisbury road, and flopped the Hyena into the ditch
and onto its side. Luckily the ladies had been in their seatbelts,
but Dave rolled around a bit, and was dazed and confused when
assistance arrived from Enterprise, in response to his somewhat
garbled radio message.
The ladies were
returned to their lodgings, and Dave was taken to the casualty at
Andrew Flemming hospital to be checked out and have a few stitches.
The Hyena was righted and no-one was the wiser, they were
extraordinarily tough vehicles.
Dave was waiting
in one of the casualty cubicles to be examined when the duty Sister
came in, and asked him how he was. He mumbled something and put his
hand up the Sisters dress, and received a resounding slap for his
trouble. He lapsed off to sleep, finally succumbing to a long night
of beer, a vehicle accident, and a good clout. He was back on duty
two days later.
Dawn again
brought the advice of sightings, and breakfast was wolfed down while
waiting for the inevitable siren wail signalling the fire force call
out. The Pookie was out sweeping the roads for mines, and the
administrative staff carried out their tasks to ensure all items
required to keep the TAC HQ fully functional were available. Some
troops changed over, some going on courses, some on leave or R and
R, and were replaced by fresh men to fill their posts.
The Selous
Scouts working in the Mangwende and Chinamora had established the
pattern of several groups of insurgents and Major Pat Armstrong,
acting OC while Colonel Bate was in Salisbury for two days, decided
a visit was needed to the Selous Scouts command post at the
Borrowdale Club. He and Captain Brian Streak, and the Enterprise SB
officer climbed aboard a G Car and headed for Borrowdale Country
Club, flying over the up market residential areas of Glen Lorne,
Helensvale and Borrowdale. It was the weekend so many of the
inhabitants had already taken to their pools on this hot day, and
Ian Henderson flew low enough to have a good look at the girls
waving at the passing helicopter. The war really was close to
Salisbury.
A plan was made
to strike two of the targets identified by the Scouts a little later
in the day. One was in the Mangewende, again near Domborembudzi
hill, and the other was not far from the Domboshawa Business centre
in the Chinamora. Pat was going to split the fire force and attack
both targets at about the same time, additionally utilising the
paradak and three vampire jets on the larger Mangwende target, said
to number 30, and the Lynx on the 10 insurgents in the Chinamora.
Fred Watts was to be in the K car for the Mangwende, and Rick Van
Malsen in the other.
At about noon
both Fire forces headed off, and first contact was made by Rick and
his men in the Chinamora, a shorter flying distance away. The Scouts
information and talk on was spot on, and within two hours six dead
insurgents, five mujibas and two civilians were dead and three brick
houses had been razed to the ground. Seven weapons were brought back
to Enterprise, along with packs and the notebooks. One insurgent had
a good supply of dagga cobs on him, and this was distributed
clandestinely among the troops for use after hours. The notebooks
showed this group had been resupplied in the past few days with
weapons, mines and extra personnel fresh from Mozambique , having
routed in via Marymount Mission, the Chiwese and Masembura TTLs.
The extra landmines and Mortar bombs had to have been cached
somewhere, and this information was passed to the Scouts for their
follow up. It was a great pity there was not a capture to
interrogate. During the contact, the northern suburbs of Salisbury
were clearly visible from the K Car and the closest fuel was
actually at New Sarum Air Base.
K car pilot
Nigel Lamb pulled the K car, with Fred on board, into the orbit over
the Scouts Mangwende TTL sighting and instantly saw sprinting
figures below them, heading for rocky cover near the base of
Domborembudzi Hill. The cannon opened up immediately, and Fred set
the stops down and called in the Paradak to drop four more sticks in
open ground to the west of the contact area for uplift by the G
cars. This was an easy drop for the Paras, open fields, little wind,
a decent height of 600 feet above ground.
The K car was
taking fire from the ground and Fred called for the Vampires, the
Pilots were sitting in cockpit readiness at New Sarum Airfield. It
took them all of 9 minutes to reach the contact area, but only
Vampires Voodoo one and three called in, voodoo two had failed to
start its Goblin Jet engine. Once Fred had his stops set in place,
he called for the Voodoo section to Strike the rocky area with their
front 20mm cannons and squash head rockets. The ancient aircraft
swept in and laid down devastating firepower over the area, but were
still followed out by return fire from the ground. Fred moved some
of his men into a sweep line and reset the stops ready for the
breakout. He called in the Vampires for another strike, this time
from East to West to suppress the return fire as the sweep moved
forward.
The two vampires
called in heading back to New Sarum for refuel and rearm, and Voodoo
two called in airborne at last. Fred chastised him for being late
for the party, but the easy tone from the pilot advised Fred that he
had had trouble getting the woodworms to hold hands. The Vampires
airframe is made largely of wood. Fred was grateful to have the
vampire in support, circling above the contact, ready to act when
required.
Slowly the sweep
line moved forward, winkling out the insurgents and mujibas, with
the K Car cannon softening up the area as they moved. The body count
mounted, and then a casevac was called for, a troopie injured by
grenade shrapnel. The G car flying in for the casevac was fired on
from some brick houses about 1000 meters north of the contact area,
and Fred called in Voodoo 2 to strike the houses while two other g
cars moved some troops to the area. The strike was on target, and
two insurgents were hauled out of the houses, very dead. The sweep
line met with several pockets of resistance and suppressed them, and
the stops knocked down a few fleeing insurgents and mujibas. Fred
had the troops re sweep the area and collect up equipment to a
suitable landing zone and back loaded the men to Enterprise, from
where the paras were trucked back to New Sarum to prepare for
another jump.
This time the SB
members had the luxury of a G car to clear up the contact scene,
with the assistance of one stick on RLI men, and eleven weapons were
recovered along with usual paraphernalia. One folding butt FN rifle
was among the weapons, a very unusual find as was the one dead
insurgent wearing a rice fleck uniform common among Frelimo
(Mozambique) troops. The wearer was quite light skinned and
certainly was not from the Shona tribe that made up the bulk of
ZANLA. The FN was given to the RLI troops; it was a prized weapon
for parachutists. Once again no prisoners had been taken,
unfortunately.
As the SB and
RLI men walked back to the LZ for uplift, and alert troopie spotted
a shiny item in some rocks, and using a long stick prodded the area
to find loose soils and some AK bullets. A further look showed an
area about two meters square that had obviously been dug up
recently. It was time to call in the expertise of the engineers as
this looked awfully like a cache of some sort. Before long two
sappers arrived with their long steel rods and old bayonets and
prodded the area for any mines or other surprises. Having pronounced
it clear, the soil was shovelled away to reveal an old door covering
a substantial hole in the ground. Out of that came 4 landmines, 6000
rounds of AK ammunition, 5 RPG 7 rockets and 9 stick grenades, a
decent haul indeed. A G Car was loaded up and flew the spoils
directly to the Scouts fort in Bindura for use by the Pseudo call
signs in the future.
A good days work
overall, and the beers tasted good that evening.
Early the
following morning relay station LA requested a resupply of water and
radio batteries, and pilot Dave Shirley and his technician loaded up
and headed for the mountain. On the return flight they came upon a
bizarre sight of a man standing in the middle of a gravel road
within the Chinamora TTL, waving his arms frantically at the
chopper, and then lying down face first in the middle of the road.
Dave went into the orbit around this individual, who repeated the
performance. The area around him was clear, so after a few orbits
Dave landed and his tech leaped out, rifle in hand and grabbed the
man and hustled him to the helicopter.
A few minutes
later, the chopper was met as it landed at Enterprise by SB
personnel who took the usual precaution of hooding the man and
taking him to be interviewed. He readily admitted he was Sub
Detachment security Office, Salisbury Detachment, by name Martin
Mazarura, and he had had enough of the war. He had been in five
contacts in the last few weeks, in the last one two days previously
he had just escaped with his life and had a perforated eardrum from
cannon fire, and many pieces of shrapnel in his arm and neck. He had
hidden his rifle and pack and decided to surrender and was in the
process of walking to the SFA base at Nyawa School when the chopper
had flown over.
Within a short
period SB were able to confirm that 60 reinforcements had been
brought into the Msana alone, along with a lot of kit and equipment,
with orders to once again attack the SFA bases, and detach three
small groups of three experienced insurgents to begin attacks in
Salisbury. Large amounts of equipment had also been brought by
porters into the Eastern Mangwende TTL to shorten re supply time.
Another 70 insurgents had been brought into the Southern Mangwende
TTL with instructions to increase attacks in the Marandellas ,
Goromonzi and Arcturus areas. Six Frelimo soldiers had been among
the reinforcements, and they were trained in demolitions. When
Martin was shown the rice fleck shirt, he confirmed that those were
worn by the Frelimo men.
The insurgents
tasked with the attacks in Salisbury were led by Big Brain Chiwanda,
who showed up on SB T desk records of being a Zanla veteran who had
been operating in the Nehanda sector since 1976. He was regarded as
hard core.
ZANLA high
command had issued an order to all the insurgents in the country to
ensure that the upcoming elections were to be disrupted at all
costs.
Colonel Bate
and Superintendent Keith Samler were briefed on the latest
information, and requested that the company of Grey Scouts that were
leaving the Southern Mangwende be replaced with at least two
platoons of the same unit to keep the pressure up in that vital
area.
The SB and
BSAP stations in the capital were warned to be on the alert for
incursions and attacks within the city, and to make use of all means
to prevent these wherever possible.
BSAP Special
Reserve “Womble” Terry Norton, who patrolled his home area of Mount
Pleasant with other “wombles” from the area were briefed to be on
the lookout for unusual activity and vehicle movement which might
be Insurgents moving to targets in the city. These “wombles”, older
men, did night patrols and were armed with personal weapons, mostly
handguns with the odd rifle and shotgun thrown in. A sort of Dads
Army, as of the Second World War, a war in which many of them had
participated in various roles.
The rest of the
day remained reasonably quiet by Enterprise standards, one call out
to a group of fast moving insurgents just south of Bindura that
resulted in one insurgent and three mujibas killed, two of them
female.
Later in the
afternoon we received a visit from a Major from the army
Psychological Operations unit. They advised us the powers that be
had been persuaded to initiate a series of sky shouts over the
operational area from the next day, where the insurgents would be
advised to surrender and receive amnesty. The operation personnel of
Op Enterprise though this was not a good plan and a waste of
resources, but orders were orders.
They then
advised that Martin Mazarura was not to be handed over to the Scouts
as per usual, but was going to be used in these shy shouts and
paraded around to try to encourage his comrades to surrender. He
was to be handed over to the Physops personnel as soon as his in
depth interrogation was complete, not later than the following day.
Martin was not best pleased when he was told what he had to do, but
had no choice.
One piece of
immediate intelligence was forthcoming from Martin, the Chabweno
Farm Store, next to the Shamva road was going to be robbed for its
provisions by a section of insurgents from the Chinamora in the very
near future. As the Chinamora was a frozen Selous Scouts area, Rick
Passaportis was requested to use some of his Territorial members,
acting in a conventional military role, to ambush the Denda Road
from the Chinamora into the farming area as this was the likely
route the insurgents would use.
Martin made
another short trip with SB personnel to recover his AK rifle and
pack where he had cached it.
The store
robbery happened sooner than expected, that very night just after
midnight. The gunfire from the ambush was heard clearly from
Enterprise base, and shortly afterwards the call sign radioed in
advising they had sprung the ambush on armed insurgents and porters,
and withdrawn a short distance in case of a counter attack. They
were still covering the road where they had initiated the ambush,
and knew they had scored hits from the screaming and moaning from
the area.
At about 3 am,
three mortar bombs were fired from the TTL in the general direction
of the ambush, but John advised they were way short of their
position. At first light a SB team linked up with the ambush party
and swept through the contact area. Two wounded women porters were
taken for treatment, leaving three dead insurgents, two dead
mujibas, and three dead women porters. The goods from the store lay
strewn around the ambush site, and what was not covered in blood was
recovered. Four weapons were recovered, two new AKM rifles, one SKS
and an ancient PPSH sub machine gun. Documents on the insurgents
indicated they were part of the reinforcement party from the
Mangwende TTL.
The biggest call
up ever of all security forces, including men up to 60 years old had
started to try to ensure that every polling booth, some 1000, would
have adequate protection and enable the local population to vote
wherever possible. There were some areas where it was not possible
to place a polling booth, the locals were living wild in the bush
and had abandoned the kraals, most of which had been burned down.
Military law was in place in most of the countryside.
The booths had
to be in place by the afternoon of the 16th April, and
vehicles were moving out to the designated areas. One struck a
landmine in the northern Mangwende, one was ambushed in the
Chinamora, and the fire force reaction to this killed two of the
attackers.
The sky shout
went ahead, an Air force Islander aircraft equipped with large
speakers and amplifiers carried Martin Mazarura around the TTLs
extolling his former comrades to surrender and receive amnesty. In
his former area of the Msana and Chinamora he named the insurgents
individually and called on them to join the SFA. The aircraft was
fired on three times, and an abortive fire force callout was made on
one area.
Mujibas captured
in the following days who had heard the sky shout with the
insurgents named, advised that the stature of that particular
fellows named increased in the eyes of the locals and his comrades,
and not one surrender occurred in the Operation Enterprise area.
The radio net
and relays were exceptionally busy with the polling booth call sign
checking in, and everyone held their collective breath for the
anticipated attacks on the booths overnight. In the end two booths
came under long range mortar and small arms fire in the northern
Chikwakwa, fire was returned and the insurgents broke off the
attack. Neptune farm was attacked, again, but the attack was beaten
off by farmer and PATU man Henry Birrel, his wife, small children
and a bright light. A tractor was set alight and some maize stock
burned. The motor cycle sticks reacted and killed one insurgent and
two locals in the follow up.
 |
Neptune Farm
|
And then the
locals did turn out to vote, slowly at first, but then in increasing
numbers as they grew more confident that the insurgents were staying
away. Certainly in the area of Enterprise, only one half hearted
attack occurred on a polling station, in the late afternoon, and the
roving motor cycle sticks chased the insurgents into the dusk across
the Nyagui river into the Mangwende.
The second day
of voting went ahead, with less voters, and no disruption from the
insurgents. The daily national sitrep gave many incidents of attacks
on polling stations around the country, but in proportion to the
numbers, a small amount indeed. Voting was reported slow but steady
in most areas.
Now media
celebrity Martin Mazarura arrived at the polling station at
Enterprise Club, and in the glare of the cameras cast his vote, and
extolled his former comrades to do so as well. Some later reports
came in that a few insurgents did go and vote, having cached their
weapons and mingled with the SFA.
Call outs from
the Ops continued and the fire force deployments carried on. The
paradak and Vampires were in action again twice that day, and a
Police Reserve Auxiliary constable, riding escort in a police 7 ton
truck was killed when it struck a boosted landmine in the Chinamora
TTL. The Internal Affairs keep in the Chikwakwa was mortared at last
light, one bomb landing inside the sand walls and lightly wounding
two Guard force members. Saratoga farm was fired on from long range
during the night, fire was returned and a Lynx dropped two
illuminating flares, after which no further firing happened.
The polling
booths recovered to their central collection points, again with few
incidents, and when counting was complete, an astonishing 62% of the
eligible voters had cast their ballot nationally, with the UANC of
Bishop Muzorerwa winning the bulk of the votes. It was a severe
physiological blow to the insurgents, but the war carried on.
Information
passed to the Scouts operating in the Chinamora and Msana TTL a few
days previously about a group operating near
Chishavavudzi kraal had born fruit, their op had
the group visual in a V shaped valley close to the kraal and called
for fire force at about 1300 hrs. K Car one with four G cars headed
for the scene, a mere four minutes flying time from Enterprise Base.
Major Fred Watts was in the K car; Lt Rick Von Malsen was already at
a scene in the northern Chikwakwa TTL where K Car 2 and the rest of
the fire force and the para dak were in contact with another group
of insurgents.
K car 1 pulled
up over the valley and immediately engaged the insurgents as they
bomb shelled in all directions up and down the valley, which had a
small river line and patches of heavy cover. The stops were
positioned to cut off escape, and two stops formed up into a sweep
line, slowly moving down the valley winkling out the insurgents who
had gone to ground. Cpl Nicky Van Niekerk BCR, was in charge of the
sweep line with two of his troopers being Ronald Geldenhuys and Paul
Young. It took several hours for five insurgents to be accounted
for, and the shadows were lengthening when the sweep line killed
another insurgent. Fred was overhead in the K car, which was on red
light indicating that it had to refuel shortly, and ordered Nicky to
reverse his sweep to ensure the area was clear before the G cars
came in for uplift of the stops and captured weapons.
The K Car had
just landed on the rugby field at Enterprise when Nicky’s voice came
through on the radio, “I have been hit, Boss” followed by frantic
calls from the other call sign in the sweep line calling for the K
car as they had encountered further insurgents and had three serious
casualties on their side. They advised that they had killed the two
insurgents who had opened up at point blank range at them with an
RPD machine gun, knocking down the three wounded soldiers.
The partly
refuelled K car took off again, closely followed by G Car amber 3
flown by Flight Lieutenant Colin James, with STARLIGHT Major Cliff
Webster on board. Fred got overhead in the K car, assessed the
situation and talked amber 3 onto the area where the wounded men
where, now indicated by a day glow panel laid out by the troops.
Colin went in at treetop level and landed in an incredibly tight
landing zone, disgorging Dr Webster and his equipment.
The troops
indicated the three casualties, the stick medic tells Dr Webster
that Geldenhuis is dead; Van Niekerk seems still to be breathing,
and Young still partly conscious. Doc Webster gets working on Young
as fast as he can, with drips and morphine to try to keep him alive
despite the heavy blood loss from his chest wound. Young is in
severe hypovolemic shock, and his survival is touch and go. Colin
James had shut the G car down and is assisting where he can while
his tech/Gunner keeps a wary eye over his twin Browning machine
guns. Doc Webster slithers over to Van Niekerk and confirms he is
dead, as is Geldenhuis who had severe chest wounds rupturing his
liver and spleen.
Further firing
comes from the stops as they clear any thickets for insurgents, and
Young is loaded in the G Car and Colin heads directly for the Andrew
Fleming Hospital in Salisbury, luckily only 10 minutes away.
Trooper Young is soon under the care of the casualty staff and into
theatre for surgeon Dr Graham to carry out emergency surgery.
Dr Webster
waited at the casualty, hoping his skills in the field have done
enough to save Trooper Young, and is mightily relieved some hours
later when Dr Graham comes out of theatre and tells Dr Webster and
Young’s parents that he will survive, mainly thanks to the immediate
treatment in the field by the stick medics and the further treatment
by Dr Webster.
It is a weary
Doctor and G Car crew that fly to New Sarum Airfield at first light
for fuel, and back to Enterprise to continue the war.
The other G Car
pilots flew into the evening dark to recover the bodies and the
stops, but it was a subdued camp that night as everyone wondered who
might me next to make the supreme sacrifice.
The Scouts made
a request for the SB officer from Enterprise and Major Pat
Armstrong to urgently travel to the Selous Scouts HQ at the
Borrowdale club to discuss further information his men on the ground
have in regard to insurgents that have gone into Salisbury itself.
It is almost dark so Pat and the SB Officer drove in Pats white
Renault five staff car to meet at Borrowdale, where over a couple of
beers, the information from the Selous Scouts on the ground is
married with what is known about insurgent leader Big Brain Chiwanda
and his gang. The scouts have found out that one of the targets is
Bothashof School in Southerton, the Liberty cinema in Rezende
Street, and General Wall’s house in Alexandra Park. This information
is passed to the duty SB officer for SALOPS for action.
It is late when
Pat and his companion return towards Enterprise, Pat driving flat
out as it is now properly ambush time, while his SB colleague hangs
his AK out of the window as a puny defence. The little Renault has
barely stopped behind the Ops tent, when gunfire and tracer emanate
from the area of Chabweno store, for the second night in a row. The
Scouts stick has ambushed the store itself, and a small group of
insurgents had arrived moments before the little Renault had driven
past the store. The insurgents dived for cover as the store was
swept by the vehicle lights, and as they stood up after their
surprise, the Scouts opened fire. Under the glow of an Icarus flare
fired by the Scouts, a SB reaction vehicle from Enterprise recovers
one badly wounded insurgent and his AK from the store veranda, and
establish that the three insurgents had come to murder the store
keeper as they surmised it must have been him that informed the
security forces of the store robbery. Unfortunately, despite Doctor
Webster and his medics, the insurgent is too badly wounded and dies.
Pat Armstrong
and his passenger, and the storekeeper, have a lucky escape.
Early morning
and a patrol of Grey Scouts call in from the Southern Mangwende, hot
on the train of a group of insurgents moving north east towards the
Kunzwe TTL. They recon they are not more that 30 minutes behind
them, and the group number 40. Fire force is scrambled, the paradak
gets airborne with the Lynx and heads for the area. The Lynx is soon
over the Grey Scouts and ranges ahead of them to try to locate, or
slow down the insurgents. A short distance ahead of the patrol, the
lynx comes under fire from a granite outcrop, and turns live in the
dive with guns blazing to drop a frantan on the area. As the Lynx
climbed out of the strike, further heavy ground fire is directed
accurately in its direction and the pilot reports the aircraft has
been hit and the rear engine is losing power, and reports heading
for New Sarum to land.
The fire force
arrives and the K car attacks the outcrop with the cannon, while the
G cars drop stops and the para dak places the paratroopers in an
area of fields about two kilometres away, waiting for the g cars to
pick them up. Heavy return fire is still coming from the outcrop,
and two Vampires, called in by the Lynx, stooge above waiting for
work. Rick Von Malsen calls them to strike the outcrop with their 20
mm cannons and rockets. The Vampires also receive return fire, and
Rick notices that some of the fire seems to be of heavier calibre
and some of the tracer is red, not green. He calls the Vampires in
for a re -strike, and the return fire now slackens, and the stops
move forward to clear the area, firing into likely cover as they
move forward.
Three bodies are
dragged from the outcrop, and Rick asked the stops if they are sure
there are only three, to which they reply in the affirmative. The
reason for the heavy return fire then becomes obvious; there are two
RPD machine guns, and one MAG machine gun, the same as used by the
Rhodesian forces. That explains the red tracer, and realisation
dawns that this was a rear guard group, holding up the security
forces to enable the rest of the insurgents to move on. Rick
immediately puts the Greys back on the follow up, and they set about
casting for fresh spoor towards the Kunzwe TTL, a difficult task in
an area where there are many cattle, used often to obliterate tracks
by driving the cattle over the spoor. The MAG was subsequently
identified as one taken from a 1 Independent Company RAR when a
stick was over run in the Inyanga area about two months before. Two
of that stick were killed and the Mag, the radio and one FN rifle
taken. The security forces don’t always win.
A PATU Motor
cycle stick also had a contact with one insurgent and two local men
killed in a kraal line. A liner of AK ammo and two stick grenades
were located in one of the huts and they were burnt down. The armed
PRAW with Gerry Cleveland flying and Paul Chappe on the gun assisted
the PATU stick, but one bike had to be towed back by stick mechanic
Glenn Dixon with his powerful scrambler. The other rider, Nico Boer,
had ridden into a donga that had about a meter of water in it, and
the bike would not start after that. All in a day’s soldiering.
On their way
back to Enterprise, this same stick saw several women running away
from a small river line, and diverted to check it out. One of the
women was caught by the bikers, and admitted there was an insurgent
washing in a substantial pool in the river when they saw the bikes
and took off. The pool is quickly surrounded, but no sign of the
insurgent can be found, until Johan Venter, ex Sergeant in the RLI,
noticed a slight ripple under the large lily pad floating on the
surface of the pool. He threw a grenade into the pool, and with a
huge swirl a man virtually flies out of the pool and onto the bank,
clad only in underpants, where he scrambles up the bank and grabs an
AK from under some reeds. The PATU men overcome their surprise and
he is cut down in seconds. Wry wit Ian Ross comments that that has
to the first time an insurgent has been shot on the wing!!
The Scouts in
the Chinamora were withdrawing for a few days to regroup, and some
troops from the Rhodesian Artillery regiment arrived to be deployed
into that area. They had been given some hasty re training in the
infantry role, and were given a final briefing at Enterprise on
their deployment. They were to operate in strength, a patrol of 12
men with two SFA attached for local knowledge.
The patrol was
led by Lieutenant Ron Hyslop with Sergeant Ron Goatley and Gunner
Rob Marsh carrying the MAGs. Alex Jack, Alan Cretin, Dumpy De Beer
and Jean Darne were also riflemen in the patrol. They were given a
point about 12 km from their drop off point on the Shamva road to
reach and establish Ops. After about 3 hours walking, the patrol was
alerted to something afoot by dogs barking ahead, and when they
approached the kraal area, they were challenged in Shona, and a
burst of AK fire was directed at them. The patrol withdrew about
100m and put together a plan to assault the kraal, started by a
rifle grenade being fired at the kraal.
Heavy fire was
returned, and Rob Marsh went to ground and triggered his MAG, it
fired one round and stopped, the belt had twisted. He rectified this
and got the gun going, laying down heavy fire while the insurgents
fired back in his direction, trying to find the MAG. Some mortars
were fired at the patrol, who eventually won the fire fight and the
insurgents stopped firing. The patrol withdrew to a small hill and
based up for the night, but not before a donkey went clattering by
in front of them. Ron Hyslop gave the order not to fire, as this was
probably a ruse to find the patrols position.
The next
morning, they swept the contact area, finding an unexploded mortar
bomb, that had it not been a dud, would probably have killed Rod
Marsh, Jean Darne and Ron Goatley. Many insurgent firing positions
were found, but no casualties, just some local kraal dwellers
cowering near their huts.
After a short
break, the patrol was deployed again for 3 days, Ron Goatley was in
command of one patrol with Rob Marsh the MAG gunner again, and Ron
Hyslop headed off with his men, including two SFA men in their
ragged kit with AKs to the edge of the Chinamora TTL close to the
farming area.
During the night
they based up near a small hill, and at dawn the following morning
one of the SFA got up to relieve himself, and was shot dead, with
heavy fire directed at the rest of the patrol, hitting and killing
Jean Darne as well. Suddenly the firing stopped, and someone called
out in English, obviously a European. The patrol returned the call
saying they were army. A local PATU stick had been based up in the
same area had heard the movement during the night, and when they saw
the SFA and his AK assumed there were insurgents and opened fire in
their usual aggressive and accurate manner.
Somehow an error
had been made, and the two patrols had been allocated the same area.
The PATU men were mortified, but the mistake was not theirs, it had
been made by whoever made the deployment plans. An officer
inexperienced in infantry deployments made the tragic error. Jean
Darne’s fellow artillerymen attended his sad funeral, with his wife
in a terrible state after his death.
The same officer
nearly had a further tragedy on his hands two days later, when
another artillery stick, with Rob Marsh in it again, were ordered to
cross back to Enterprise from the farms to the north after dark.
They were next to the Shamva road, about to cross when a convoy of
trucks with Scouts on board came down the road. The sticks cowered
in the ditch and luckily were not seen by the convoy, who would have
blasted them to smithereens with their vehicle mounted armament.
A mujiba running
a written message was caught by the motor cycle PATU in the northern
Chikwakwa, and brought in to SB. The note was from Political
Commissar Roy Shupo to the Salisbury detachment commander Masweet
Kunaka complaining of the high casualties the insurgents were
taking due to the thousands of Rhodesian troops and hundreds of
aircraft up against them. He also complained that the locals were
not under control, and the SFA were a big problem. It seemed
Operation Enterprise was having the desired effect.
The mujiba had
unfortunately been caught in the view of some locals, so other than
check out where he was to have handed the letter to another mujiba,
he was of no use in finding the insurgents. The cell system used by
the insurgents made sure that a mujiba was not aware of the location
of another group other than the one he was with, and in this case,
the group he came from was sure to have moved after they dispatched
him on his errand. His was able to confirm that the insurgents were
having a lot of problems with their wounded, who he said were
numerous.
Enterprise
received some high level visitors in the form of Winston Churchill,
British Conservative party Member of parliament, and the Grandson
of the famous British Wartime prime Minister, along with Louise
Gubb, a senior reporter with Associated Press. The visit had been
arranged by Rhodesian front MP Andre Holland as a fact fining
mission, and the party were escorted around the base by Chief Superintendent Keith Samler. The attractive Louise received close
attention, and even stayed for a few beers in the club bar later.
 |
ANDRE HOLLAND MP, WINSTON CHURCHILL (JNR) CONSERVATIVE MP, LOUISE GUBB ASSOCIATED PRESS.
|
The SB Officer
from Borrowdale , Hans Sittig advised that an insurgent had been
reported in the staff quarters of a suburban house in Borrowdale,
and a reaction stick from the BSAP had located him, and in a brief
fire fight killed the insurgent. He was identified as a member of
the Salisbury detachment, and his section commander was Big Brain
Chiwada. An RPG 7 rocket launcher and new AKM rifle were recovered.
On the same
afternoon, SFA Liaison Officer Dave Nixon was ambushed by an
estimated 9 insurgents while driving his Landrover with two SFA
members through the Chinamora TTL. The two SFA are killed but Dave
miraculously escapes the 28 bullet strikes on the vehicle and
manages to drive out of the killing zone of the ambush.
A midday callout
came from the Scouts still deployed in the Northen Mangwende of a
large group of insurgents moving east in the northern Chikwakwa TTL,
heading towards the Nyagui river. They estimated the number at 30,
and Fred Watts decides to take the entire fire force, paradak and
lynx onto this target. An excellent talk onto to the crossing point
on the river line soon has the fire force and twelve stops in
contact with this group. The Lynx puts in two strikes, and is
relieved by a second aircraft that stooged over the area, waiting
for targets.
The stops moved
carefully in the river line, making steady progress and kills, and
then at last a capture, unwounded for a change. He is flown post
haste to enterprise SB and placed under interrogation.
The stops re
sweep the contact area, and count 17 insurgents, 7 mujibas and 2
civilians dead, and climb back into the choppers for the ride home
in the gathering dusk. One trooper has a bullet wound to the arm and
two paras have ankle injuries from their drop. One G car has been
hit 4 times, and the blades make a distinct whistling sound as a
result of holes in the blades. A blade change will be done later
that night by the toiling technicians.
The scouts OP
calls in again, they can see Insurgents basing up near to a kraal
about 800 meters below them, it is now too dark to deploy the fire
force, but the Lynx volunteered to put in a strike, and climbed into
a high orbit for the scouts to talk him onto the target. There is a
prominent tin roofed hut he can use as an indication point, and goes
in live in the dive, guns blazing and drops a frantan on the target,
a quick turn and he lets loose all his rockets on the second pass.
With a wing waggle, the Lynx heads off for new Sarum, and a cold
beer and warm bed.
Back at
Enterprise, Captain Brian Streak tallies the confirmed kills at 103,
a special number and certainly the most successful kill rate for any
internal operation. That means another 300 or so have been wounded
and put out of action during the operation which must be a serious
blow to the insurgents in the area.
His Intelligence
clerk also points out that the contact plotting board shows that 95%
of the contacts took place within the area identified in the initial
briefing. Intelligence at its best, and a commendation to the SB men
who worked those many days to ensure the intelligence was correct
and up to date.
The capture is
Platoon Commander, Salisbury detachment, Bob Bouncer and he has a
long story to tell. He has been in the area since October 1978, and
was part of the group that attacked the fuel tanks in Southerton,
and was in the pickup ambushed by Owen and Kevin Connor on the Mtoko
road next to Juru Township. He received shotgun pellets in the leg,
some pellets were still there, two other occupants of the pickup
were wounded, and he believed one had died later in the Mangwende.
He had also been in the attack on the SFA base in the Chinamora, and
then in several contacts with the fire force. When captured he was
following an order for the Salisbury detachment to move back to the
Mangwende TTL for re grouping and re-supply as the detachment had
been decimated, and morale had collapsed when they saw the locals
voting in numbers.
Bob’s original
platoon had been 23 strong, 9 had been killed, and 7 wounded, and
that was about the same for most of the insurgent sections within
the Enterprise area. He was obviously very demoralised as well, and
was ideal for deployment with the Scouts to try to locate what was
obviously going to be a significant gathering of insurgents in the
Mangwende.
The Scouts SB
liaison Officer arrived to collect Bob, and insert him with the
Scouts operating in the Mangwende TTL.
And as fast as
it had begun, Operation Enterprise came to an end, but not without a
call out to the Msana where a further four insurgents were killed,
and not to be left out the PATU sticks were ambushed on the trucks
bring them back to base. They de bussed, charged the ambush site and
killed a further two insurgents and two locals. All the other call
signs, OP s, and troops were all recovered back to base, and 1
Commando RLI, the choppers and air force personnel made ready to
leave the next morning for R and R.
The Enterprise
club ran out of beer that night, celebrating the biggest success of
any internal operation ever, and many of the troopies were already
wearing the yellow “100 club” t shirt that had been specially
printed. The final tally was 110 killed.
It was a feeling
of abandonment that the BSAP, SB, PATU and Police Reserve members of
Enterprise Base watched the convoy of trucks move out, with smiling
faces ready to forget the war for a short while. The armada of
choppers lifted off, turned south, and were soon gone out of sight
leaving empty drums on the rugby field that would need adding to
the large pile waiting for trucks to collect them. The small
trenches and shell scrapes had been filled in, but the grass was
brown and dry where the tents had stood.
For the local
troops, it was bask to covering the Enterprise area as best they
could as the insurgents would be back, that was for sure. The
immediate battle was won, but the war would go on.
The war did
start again, in a small way during May, with two ineffective farm
attacks and a landmine that destroyed a civilian bus just next to
Juru Township, where local white farmers from the immediate vicinity
gave first aid and transport to the injured, despite the danger of
being ambushed. The Motor Cycle sticks ranged far and wide in their
determination to keep the Chikwakwa TTL clear of resident
insurgents, as a sort of buffer zone. The SFA in the Msana and
Chinamora TTLs were patrolling again, and did seem more motivated
and actually secured a few kills. The effects of Operation
Enterprise were still being felt by the insurgents.
Big Brain
Chiwanda and his urban group carried out an attack in Salisbury on
the 4th July. They attacked the house of the Greek
Orthodox Archbishop in Gun hill, mistaking the house for that of
General Walls a short distance away. Superficial damage was done and
Police reacted to the attack, but the insurgents had fled. The
attack was witnessed by near neighbour and Rhodesian cricketer
Duncan Fletcher, who came to his front door in his sleeping shorts
and his Uzzi submachine gun to see what the commotion was about. One
other neighbour received a burst of AK fire when he also peered out
to see what was going on.
Three days later
SB Officer Hans Sittig, reported that Big Brain and some of his men
had been killed in a contact with PATU in the Christon bank area,
near to Mazoe Dam.
Enterprise Base
was made full use of again in July 1979 when the RLI Tac HQ and a
jumbo fire force returned for another operation in the area,
Operation Mulligan.
It was on the
14th July Mrs Yvonne Mulligan, when wife of the farmer on
Strathlorne Farm, was abducted late in the afternoon by mujibas
carrying hand grenades. She was a large woman so progress into the
Chikwakwa with her was slow, and the Motor cycle stick on duty
followed the spoor as soon as they could. The main tracks lead North
West, which they followed until dark. In the morning they discovered
that this was deliberate plan to lead them in the wrong direction,
while Mrs Mulligan had been moved across the Umwinzi River into the
Chikwakwa.
The Chikwakwa
has little natural cover, being heavily populated, flat and sandy so
two PRAW aircraft patrolled endlessly over the area in an effort to
keep the insurgents from moving Mrs Mulligan. The Motor Cycle sticks
set about looking for a needle in the haystack, Mrs Mulligan could
have been hidden in any of the thousands of huts and houses, so they
needed to find somebody who knew where she was, which was easier
said than done.
SALOPS had been
kept fully in the picture, and pressed hard for extra resources, a
company of BSAP Support Unit were hastily recalled from their battle
camp, and deployed into the Northern Mangwende TTL, and immediately
started bumping into small groups of insurgents in broad daylight.
This was truly a liberated area, and one of the PRAW flew across to
give them some kind of top cover in the fleeting and long range
contacts that went on until dark. Known crossing points were
ambushed by PATU and the Support Unit that night, but other than one
ambush sprung on unknown persons with no result, nothing happened.
SALOPS advised
late in the day that some assistance would be arriving very early in
the morning and that the recovery of Mrs Mulligan had been given top
priority by Comops, morale of the farmers and white population in
general was at stake as no doubt the insurgents idea was to get Mrs.
Mulligan to Mozambique where they would treat her well and use her
for propaganda for their cause.
Help arrived in
the morning in the form of the jumbo fire force, 2 K cars and 8 g
cars, with RLI Tac HQ, the MRU and 3 Commando troops. It was like
Operation Enterprise all over again, Colonel Bate was in command,
Major Bruce Snelgar was the OC 3 commando and was the fire force
commander, Lieutenant Jug Thornton was the Adjutant , and Captain
Brian Streak the Intelligence officer.
Among the pilots
were Ian Henderson, Alistair Thorogood, Dave Shirley and several Op
Polo, South African, pilots on the G cars. By 7am all was ready for
whatever callouts came. Flight Sergeant Willem Joubert was the
technician /gunner on K2.
The hard work
put in by the PATU and Motor Cycle sticks paid off, Bux Howson and
his men captured a mujiba armed with two stick grenades in a kraal
line, and from quick questioning on the ground, he admitted he had
been with the abduction party for Mrs Mulligan, and they had moved
her in a wheelbarrow and a bicycle to the area of Chipangura Kraal
where she had been handed to a group of 25 insurgents. That was now
so 36 hours ago, but it was a start. The Enterprise SB officer was
flown across in a G car to collect the mujiba, and he was asked to
re tell his story while Colonel Bate and Major Snelgar made plans.
The mujiba also gave out information of another group of insurgents
at Gwamura kraal, about 3 km away from Chipangura kraal, numbering
20.
The plan was to
split the fire force, half to Chipangura and the other half to
Gwamura. Major Snelgar was in the K 1, and Colonel Bate ordered the
Enterprise SB officer into the command seat of K 2, and away went
the force. It was only 8 minutes flying time when both fire forces
reached their destinations and deployed their stops around the
kraals. The kraals were mainly brick houses, with a few grass
structures in between them, and there was not a soul to be seen.
As stop 6
approached the houses at the northern end of Gwamura kraal, with K2
in the orbit overhead, a fierce volley of fire was directed at them
from the windows of one of the brick houses and troopers Mike
Elsaesser and Bruce Mckend were knocked down instantly. Gunner
Flight Sergeant Willem Joubert fired a long burst from the four
browning machine guns into the hut and the fire slackened. More
gunfire was directed at K 2 from another hut, as well as one without
a roof, and K2 started to sustain hits. Willem raked the huts with
the guns while Ian Henderson lowered and tightened the orbit of the
K car. Bodies started falling out of the houses, some stayed still
and others ran, with the stops doing their best to stop the breakout
on the ground. Willem fired at another insurgent who was firing
controlled bursts at the K car from the southern end of the kraal,
and he rolled over.
Bruce Snelgar in
K1 at Chipangura kraal called to say that the kraal there was empty,
and he was uplifting his stops to come across and assist, and at
that moment K 2 took further hits. Orbiting above was PRAW Copper
47, pilot Hamish Harvey, who broke into the radio net to tell K 2
that there was a fire in the K2 engine area, Both Willem and
Enterprise SB officer could see the flames, and Ian shut the fuel
flow, and tried to get into an autorotation, but K2 was too low and
took further hits on the way to a controlled crash in a sandy field.
The SB officer had been hit by bullet fragments on the side of his
head and was bleeding profusely when the three crew scrambled out of
the downed chopper, lying half on its side with the tail boom
severed by the now smashed main blades, and gratefully into a G Car
that landed within minutes to collect them. The G car pilot, a South
African was on his first bush tour, and had to be directed to follow
the main Shamva tar road to Enterprise and the MRU for K2 s crew to
be patched up.
Ian Henderson,
who had injured his hands, was so incensed by being shot down; he
travelled back to the contact scene with one of the op Polo South
African pilots and joined the sticks on the ground. Major Snelgar
noted this and had Ian flown out again immediately with a severe
dressing down as to why a valuable and expensive trained helicopter
pilot should come back into a contact scene on the ground in a role
he was untrained for.
Major Snelgar
took over the contact and consolidated all the stops to contain the
breakout from the kraal, from where there was still heavy fire
coming at the stops and the K car from several of the houses and the
nearby gardens, but soon the experienced troops had the situation
under control and begun winkling out the insurgents. Stop 2 heard
the insurgent K2 had shot at the south of the kraal shouting he was
wounded, but could not get to him yet as there was still fire coming
at them from the area.
As the
Enterprise SB man was temporarily out of action, Captain Brian
Streak , as intelligence officer was flown in by G car from
Enterprise to get immediate information from the wounded insurgent
as soon as possible. When Brian was landed, along with three other
soldiers, the G car nearly placed them on top of an insurgent armed
with an RPG 7, and some hectic flying took place to set them down a
short distance away. The wounded man had not yet been secured, and
his stick and one of the stops had to assault the position and
eliminate two other insurgents before they got to the wounded one,
who had a bullet wound to the groin. He was rapidly patched up while
Brian questioned him and established that this group numbering 26,
had been surprised by the fire force and had not been part of the
ones that had received Mrs Mulligan, but he was aware that she had
been taken to Chapangura Kraal, and immediately transported
overnight into the Mangwende TTL. The bird had flown. A G car took
Brain and the capture back to Enterprise for further interrogation
and medical treatment.
Brian advised
Major Snelgar of the information and it was decided that as Mrs
Mulligan was almost certainly not in the kraal, the Lynx would be
brought into the battle to soften up the opposition, who were
fighting doggedly as they were essentially trapped in the kraal line
area. The Lynx carried out two strikes, one with rockets and the
other with frantan, but return fire continued. K1 had to refuel, and
left two G cars holding the fort while Alister Thorogood flew K 1 to
Frascati Farm, 4 minutes away to refuel from drums stored there.
A second Lynx
was requested, this time armed with two mini golf bombs, a lethal
air/fuel bomb that has a devastating blast effect on any structure.
K1 one got airborne again, and moved the stops back from the kraal
far enough for the safety area of the golf bomb, and called in the
lynx for one strike. After the thunderous detonation of the Golf
bomb, there was no return fire, but to be sure Major Snelgar had him
drop the second one in the area of the vegetable gardens. The RLI
did not want to lose any more men on this scene.
A Company, 1
RAR, who were operating in the Mangwende trucked to the main Mtoko
road in the Chikwakwa TTL and were uplifted by G car to bolster the
troops on the ground. Russell Fulton recalls contacts all over the
place with the K car and Lynx very busy until the light ran out.
It was now too
dark to complete the sweep, so the stops were instructed to ambush
the area overnight, with one stop guarding the downed wreckage of
K2. The two bodies of the RLI men were lifted out and the choppers
returned to Enterprise Base for the night.
Brian had
established from the capture the likely route the insurgent group
with Mrs Mulligan would take on their way to Mozambique, and over
midnight oil a plan was set to work from the Mozambique border back
in an effort to locate the abductee. Once the troops had been
recovered from sweeping the contact scene in the morning, the fire
Force and Tac HQ would relocate to Mtoko Airfield to conduct this
operation. To add to a sad day for the RLI, the sitrep reported
the death in action of Trooper S.M Dwyer in another contact.
First light saw
K 1 over the kraal again as the troops cleared houses and collected
weapons and equipment from there and the gardens. There were many
bodies, mostly either burnt or smashed by the bombs, but from the 22
weapons recovered, including the RPG 7 and it was clear that most of
the group had been eliminated.
The fire force,
Tac HQ and the MRU moved on to their next task in locating Mrs
Mulligan, which came to nothing as the insurgents had been well
organised in moving her very quickly to Mozambique, where she was,
as expected , used to promote the cause of the insurgents. She was
returned to Rhodesia by the International Red Cross, in December
1979, sold her story to Scope magazine and she and her husband
immigrated to South Africa during 1980.
The 3rd
of August brought the death of one of the stalwart motor cycle PATU
warriors, Ephraim Volker , when his scrambler motor cycle detonated
a landmine with its front wheel as he was returning from a
successful sweep of part of the northern Chikwakwa. His stick has
chased down and killed two insurgents with the help of the PRAW with
Ian Pringle flying, and this was a very sad end to a fine soldier,
and farmer. It was most unfortunate for the small width and weight
of a motorcycle tyre to detonate an anti vehicle mine, and the bikes
avoided roads and tracks from then on. Ephraim wife Kathy, a regular
Police reserve radio Operator and Medic at Enterprise was
inconsolable.
Dirk Geldenhuis,
the father of Trooper Ronald Geldenhuis, who had been killed in
action on the 18th April during Operation Enterprise,
continued his call ups with the PATU stick that came to Enterprise
and on the 14th August his stick was in OP near Swiswa
hill in the Msana TTL. They spotted a group of 8 insurgents near
Mutanarurwa School, and fire force was available out of Bindura
manned by Support Commando, RLI. The fire Force deployed, and six
of the insurgents were killed, along with some mujibas and
civilians. Ballistics later linked two of the captured weapons to
the contact where trooper Geldenhuis was killed, so his father had
exacted some revenge.
Enterprise base
carried on in winning their little battles, mostly on their own, and
occasionally with help from fire forces that became increasingly
occupied in stemming the external threat to what was now Zimbabwe
Rhodesia. Some of the help sent in by Salops where poorly trained
part time Police reserve men, who did not lack courage, but were
outwitted by the experienced insurgents. One Medical Student and his
stick made the fatal mistake of not moving their night position
after they had brewed up for supper and were overrun at night, with
one student killed and another seriously wounded.
Sometimes the
help was impressive, but not so useful. The Armoured car regiment
were rehearsing for external operations and did a sweep down the
northern Chikwakwa TTL, 9 Eland Armoured Cars abreast, and bumped
into a small group of insurgents. Several 90 mm shells and much
machine gun fire managed to kill one and utterly destroy three brick
houses. Major Winkler, the American in command, found the exercise”
mighty fine.”
The PATU sticks
had to now deploy in strength, at least 8 men as the insurgent
groups became larger and bolder. In one of the last offensive
actions of the war a ten man stick on bikes located a group of 12
insurgents in Gahani kraal, and a fierce contact was fought out in
the banana and mango trees surrounding the kraal. With the men on
the ground was SIS veteran Gerry Lancaster, SAS Corporal Tony
Caruthers –Smith, RLI Corporal Nico Boer, PATU men Owen Connor, Andy
Hartell, Henry Birrell, Louie Volker, Glenn Dixon and Doug Fingland.
A lynx was available from Mtoko to assist and did several strikes
which helped the sticks achieve a kill of 10 insurgents, and the
capture of a long standing very senior member of the Salisbury
detachment. Montgomery Moto, who was the Detachment Medical Officer.
He was taken
immediately to the Scouts fort in Bindura and handed over to SB for
in-depth interrogation. By now it was too late in the war for him to
be used with the Pseudo call signs so he just hung around the BSAP
holding cells in Bindura until one day he walked out and, as was
discovered later, rejoined the Salisbury Detachment and reported
with some of them to the Bushu assembly point after the ceasefire.
A mujiba arrived
at Enterprise Base on the morning of 30Th December 1979,
with a note addressed personally by name to the SB officer at
Enterprise. The note asked for transport of the comrades from
Mumurgwi Business Centre, in the Msana TTL on the main Shamva road,
to the designated assembly point in the Bushu TTL, north of Shamva.
It was signed by Masweet Kunaka, Detachment Commander. The SB
Officer, with a four man Police Reserve stick, Norman Carle, Don
Bulloch, Jack Wheeler and Ted Willis drove up to the Business Centre
in an armoured truck. Very apprehensive and not knowing what to
expect, Don having brought along his trusty MAG machine gun.
The truck
stopped short of the business centre and the SB officer, AK slung
over his shoulder, walked along the tar road towards the Business
centre, wondering what the hell he was doing. He had told the men on
the truck that if firing started they were to open up and try to
cover his retreat. Out from under the eaves of a small store came
two men armed with AK rifles, with embroidered hats and chest
webbing with spare ak magazines. Masweet Kunaka introduced himself,
and his deputy, and after some usual shona culture greetings,
requested that his men be provided with transport to their assembly
Point. When asked how many men, he casually said 230, and indicated
they should come out from the stores and huts, which they did, and
there were 230.
The SB officer
waved the truck forward to come and join up with him, and it
gingerly did, Don trying to make it look if he had not cocked his
MAG. Many of the curious insurgents walked to the truck, and pointed
at the MAG, with comments such as big gun, terrible machine,
chigwagwa (shona for machine gun) they were clearly in awe of this
weapon. Realising the situation was not tense; at least so far, the
police Reserve men dismounted and had insurgents crowding round them
asking questions about the MAG in particular. Most of the insurgents
were young with a few older men here and there, and most of the
weapons looked old, with a lot of SKS rifles among them.
The SB officer,
with Masweet listening in, called SALOPS via relay VA to request
trucks to uplift the insurgents, to which SALOPS replied trucks
accompanied by New Zealand Peacekeeping troops would be send from
Bindura. During the wait one entire months worth of SB Enterprise
float was spent on buying every coke in the business centre, which
was consumed by the more senior of the insurgents, once the SB
officer and Police reserve men had chosen one at random from the
cases and consumed it. The insurgents knew about poison being used
in some instances in cool drinks.
The SB officer
and Masweet discussed many things, the end of the war, what the
future held, who would win the election, and their own experiences
during the struggle, where they came from and many other topics that
you would not imagine would be discussed by men , who 12 hours
before were intent in killing each other. The SB officer learnt that
he was called “ Mrewa” by the locals, and the insurgents, as the
Shona language he spoke was typical of the dialect in that
particular area.
The trucks
arrived, with two land rovers each carrying 4 New Zealand soldiers
in each, along with two ZANLA liaison officers clad in green
uniforms. After much greeting, the trucks were loaded and the convoy
headed off into the gathering dusk towards Shamva. It was a somewhat
bewildered truckload that trundled their way back to Enterprise and
a much needed cold beer.
Enterprise base
kept operating until the end of April 1980, but with reduced
manpower as the area quietened down, but it was not all over yet.
Normal farming activity had resumed, and much rebuilding had to be
done, especially to the farm labourers housing that had been reduced
to ashes on many farms.
The biggest
threat now was retributions being carried out by the ZANLA comrades,
supposedly being restricted to camps, but in reality moving about
fully armed. Grazeley Farm, on the Enterprise –Goromonzi boundary
was purchased by ZANU PF and somewhere around 100 “comrades “were
placed there. They occupied the farm buildings and set them up as a
fully defended military camp.
Reports started
to come out that it was a re-education centre, where the comrade’s
enemies were taken and basically tortured and slaughtered. BSAP
Goromonzi, led by S/O Keith Norton organised an armed patrol to
investigate a report of murder there, and had to withdraw under
heavy machine gun fire from Grazeley Farm. A plan was made with the
PATU sticks to take the farm out, with help from the air force, but
word leaked to the BSAP hierarchy, who ordered that NO action was to
be taken.
During late
January 1980, Farmer Geoff Staunton went to his farm store to
investigate a report of men taking goods from it during the
afternoon, and was confronted by 5 fully armed Zanla comrades. They
were assaulting the store keeper, and when he remonstrated with
them, they beat him senseless with rifle butts. Enterprise Base
troops reacted, Geoff was taken to hospital, and the comrades were
followed to the area of Grazeley farm, but the troops were ordered
not to proceed by Salops. Geoff died two days later of his injuries.
His wife Beryl had also been a stalwart of the Police reserve ladies
in the control room.
In February
1980, Farmer Louie Volker, his wife and wife’s mother were murdered
by comrades on their farm Mashona Vlei close to Grazeley farm. It
was a full farm attack by 8 comrades who fired some 700 rounds at
the house and occupants, and escaped back to the untouchable
Grazeley farm.
One farmer did
manage to do some damage to the comrades, he rigged his workshop
with grenades and when 3 men arrived and opened the door, two were
killed and the other fled. The BSAP report recorded that ZANLA men
had broken into the workshop and one of the grenades they were
carrying exploded, killing them.
Two internal
Affairs men from Mudzi drove down the Mtoko Road in a drunken state
shooting at any black people along the way with a mounted machine
gun, killing and injuring several. They were followed by an Air
force helicopter and eventually stopped and arrested in Mrewa. The
stress levels had started to seriously tell on many people.
The Grazeley
Comrades indignantly demanded the BSAP investigate a land mine they
located on the access road to the farm one Sunday morning. The local
BSAP refused, and ignored an order from Police general headquarters
to carry out the investigation.
Intimidation
before and during the Election was wide spread, and Enterprise SB
along with the District Commissioner Goromonzi, Peter Lombard
produced an extensive report detailing many instances of brutal and
blatant intimidation carried out in the area, including two murders.
It was ignored by the authorities, at that the time under the
British Governor, Lord Soames.
A few days
before the election, Police reservist Robin MacIntosh visited the
BSAP armoury in Salisbury, ostensibly looking for ammo belts for the
mounted Browning machine gun on one of the Enterprise trucks. There
was much nervous anticipation about the election outcome, and
rumours of coups and attacks on farms and bases if the result went
the wrong or right way, depending on your viewpoint, abounded. Robin
managed to secretly load 5000 rounds of ammunition and calmly drove
out with it and major bolster to the defence of the Enterprise
district and its farmers.
An irate BSAP
officer from the armoury arrived at Enterprise the next day,
demanding the arrest of Robin and the return of the ammunition. He
went away without Robin or the ammunition, the mood of the
Enterprise men was not going to tolerate desk bound store keepers at
this point.
The election
came, and went. Nervous tension was piano wire tight on all sides,
but as history has recorded a degree of calm slowly descended in the
area. As security improved, the farmers handed in their communist
weaponry and retained their issue FNs and other Police weapons, and
went back to their normal activities. The Enterprise Club slowly
returned to its proper function, and almost as a response to the
relief of the war being over, the club blossomed. Golf, cricket,
Rugby, Bowls, Tennis and squash thrived as the locals took the
energy they had spent on fighting the war, and released it into
their leisure activities. The bar continued to do a roaring trade,
but with a more genteel patronage.
And
so the locals got on with life, the members of the base who were not
local, drifted off slowly, some continued to come to the club for
years afterwards, others went back to their homes and jobs in
Salisbury and other towns and cities, but whenever two or more of
the Enterprise base members meet again, the discussion turns to
Operation Enterprise, and what would have happened had the Battle
for Salisbury not been won?
End
Thanks to Ken for sharing his memories and photograph with ORAFs.
(Please visit our previous posts and archives
Labels: 1979, Battle for Salisbury, Norton
