but all would be rounded up soon, and lunch should be served on time.
I intercepted Henry on his return to the stairway. I thanked him for the sandwich and instructed him to eat it on my behalf. Not saying a word, he took the silver tray, bowed and climbed the stairs, beer still behind back. When he reached the balcony he placed the tray and his beer on the serving towel spread neatly on the balcony wall.
With much ceremony he broke the sandwich in two and summoned John Britton to assist him. Looking straight-faced at the distant Himalaya mountain range, he commenced eating. Next to him John Britton attempted to follow Henry’s act but, as with others who tried to emulate our squadron clown, John failed; he was just too big and clumsy next to his slim nimble friend.
As he ate, Henry’s cheeks started to fill like a monkey’s pouches. When he had the entire sandwich in his mouth with cheeks fully extended, he commenced a violent choking and sneezing act. Each time he sneezed, with right forefinger held horizontally under his nose, a small stream of bread pieces flew vertically downwards from his mouth giving the distinct impression of muck flying from his nose, which he then wiped on his sleeve in long exaggerated strokes. Few comedians could bring an audience to such fits of laughter as Henry Jarvie. The hotel guests, now realising he was no hotel chef, enjoyed the act even more than we did.
Opportunity was taken to fly the squadron from Umtali to Centenary to link up with crews who had missed out on the Aloe Festival. The purpose of gathering the whole squadron was to have a squadron photograph taken, as this might not be possible for ages to come.
Early FAC to jets
MY FIRST CALL FOR STRIKES by Hunters occurred inside Rhodesia, though much work had been done before I gained sufficient confidence to do this. Air recce inside Rhodesia was much more difficult than in Mozambique. Within the country the locals had no reason to hide from ZANLA and any stresses that existed within the population could not be detected from height; all path systems appeared quite normal.
Because terrorists were known to move position continuously and reside at night in different kraals in ones and twos, their presence within the TTLs was impossible to detect. It was only within the boundaries of white- owned farms that terrorists based up in the bush, but never for more than two nights at a time.
For years the African nationalists had complained that white farmers had the best land and the African folk had been allocated those regions with poor soil. From the air one could see that there was no truth in this allegation. The Centenary farmlands bordering the Kandeya TTL typified most boundaries between organised commercial farmland and the subsistence farming areas inhabited by tribesmen.
Except for patches of bush on hills and rocky ground, Kandeya was substantially overgrazed and all maize fields were so over-utilised that the TTL exhibited a near desert-like appearance. Across the cattle fence that separated the TTL from adjoining white-owned farms, lush bush and grass cover contrasted as chalk with cheese, even though soil types were identical. Crop rotation and the use of fertilisers made white farmlands look rich and neat. This was why fresh pathways inside these areas stood out strongly. Although I was finding temporary bases in the farming areas, which were all confirmed by co-operative ground forces, I was gaining nothing more than an idea of what a temporary base looked like. I visited a couple of these places with ground forces to see for myself.
It perplexed me to learn from Special Branch who had interrogated captured terrorists that bases I judged to be for twenty terrorists were in fact for only ten. I could not reconcile this until Special Branch established that there had also been ten women in residence to provide female comforts to ‘their boys in the bush’. The lesson was clear—divide estimates by two.
I approached JOC Hurricane with the problem of not being able find terrorists in the TTL and requested that wide-ranging surprise visits be made on villages at all times of the night. The purpose of this was to see if we could force the terrorists away from the villages and make them base up in the bush. I guessed that, if they did this, each terrorist group would tend to site itself in a position with easy access to more than one village so that the daily feeding load could be spread whilst also giving them all-round early warning of any security force activities. I also guessed that female feeding parties would create telltale paths leading from villages to bases that, together with the inevitable paths within the bases, should make detection an easy matter. This ploy worked almost immediately. I picked up a well-defined campsite in the Kandeya TTL south east of St Albert’s Mission with fresh squiggly paths running to it from four different villages.
Established paths change direction frequently but exhibit a smoother flow than fresh paths that route around the smallest of obstructions. With the passage of time and season, the sharp kinks that characterise fresh paths progressively smooth out because man, being a creature of habit, will shortcut any sharp bend once he knows the route.
Having located this camp, which I estimated to be for thirty people, meaning fifteen active terrorists, I considered how it might be tackled with a handful of troops flown in by the only two helicopters available at the time. Looking back on the lessons learned on Op Sable it was obvious that most, if not all, terrorists would escape. A large ground force closing in on the camp might have worked but it meant gathering troops from far and wide with no certainty that the terrorists would be in residence when the force closed in. I opted instead for an airstrike that would shock the locals who were providing succour and, hopefully, account for a few terrorists.
My style of reconnaissance involved continuous elliptical orbits that moved along a general line. Orbiting was essential because paths that could not be seen when viewing down sun stood out clearly when looking up- sun. At the end of one line of orbits, I would shift position by one orbit width and commence orbiting along a parallel line in the reverse direction. This was repeated until a whole block of territory, usually over 800 square kilometres, had been covered in a five-hour sortie. The sun angle played an important role in visual reconnaissance and 10:00 to 15:00 was the ideal time-block.
I was running the first line when I located the camp. The orbits were continued along the search line so as not to give anyone any indication of my having seen the base. I called Peter Cooke in the Ops Room at FAF 3 and we discussed the matter before jointly agreeing to set up a jet-strike for 16:00 when, we guessed, the terrorists would be in base awaiting their meal.
By the time I landed, Peter had submitted an Air Request for a strike by Hunters and this had been accepted by Air HQ. The Air Task sent to No 1 Squadron was copied to FAF 3 to allow us opportunity to ensure that the Hunter pilots had received the correct details.
Using a Provost, I marked the target with smoke rockets at precisely 4 o’clock and pulled up into a steep climbing turn to watch the lead Hunter’s 30mm cannon strike running right through the centre of the target. Three following Hunters, responding to my directions, patterned their 68mm Marta rocket strikes perfectly. As the Hunters cleared, I moved back over the target and saw many civilians running helter-skelter from the nearest village.
Helicopters dropped off troops who found the fresh base well laced by cannon and rocket shrapnel. Unfortunately there had been no terrorists in residence at the time. Later we established that the terrorists had
