In his ASR a couple of days later, Flight Lieutenant George Wrigley, flying K-Car, with Sergeant Pete McCabe as his gunner, made this observation:
The group was engaged and ters were seen to fall but rise and run again. It was frustrating to watch groups of 5 – 6 with rounds burst amongst them. Many managed to recover enough to clear from the contact area before the troops had swept through. It is felt, however, that 70–80% suffered hits of some degree.
As I had witnessed in Mozambique, the 20mm rounds were bursting below surface where the full effect of shrapnel was lost. Whereas this troubled the Air Force, the Selous Scouts were very pleased because the number of CTs captured wounded helped swell their ‘tame ter’ ranks. The Selous Scouts had learned very early on how easy it was to denude CTs of politically induced hullabaloo and bring them back to being themselves again.
Although most shrapnel was lost into the ground, a limited number of low-grade bits of 20mm shell casing burst steeply upward. Any CT close enough to a below surface burst was usually subjected to minor wounding of legs, buttocks and groin. Occasionally large pieces of casing caused death or serious injury. Gunners soon learned that a direct hit on a CT, effectively an airburst, was disastrous for him and others in his proximity, but this was difficult to achieve with the slow-firing cannon. Good gunners, of which there were many, learned to aim for hard surfaces such as rock and large trees to induce lethal effect and often withheld fire until CTs moved close to such surfaces.
Initially, every fifth 20mm round in the 20mm ammunition belt was a tracer round which proved to be unnecessary for air-to-ground firing. The highly visible flash from each exploding round was more than sufficient for sighting corrections, so tracer rounds were removed.
Tol Janeke had just taken over the post of OC FAF 4 when Selous Scouts initiated an action that ran smoother than any previous Scouts call. On 28 September Air Lieutenant Roger Watt, flying K-Car with Flight Sergeant Norman Farrell, led two G-Cars and three Z-Cars to a CT base whose location had not been precisely identified. Roger’s ASR gives references to his accompanying sketch of the action. Since the sketch is not reproduced here, the references appear as blanks in this otherwise verbatim report:
1. I was the pilot of the K-Car detailed to lead an assault on a suspect terrorist base camp at approx. US504754 as indicated by Selous Scouts. The helicopter formation approached the area from the East preceded by a Trojan at about 1,500 feet AGL to act as a noise decoy, and a Provost followed behind in support.
2. On arrival in the area the Scouts told me that the camp was on the southern bank of the river, but they weren’t sure exactly where. I got into an orbit in the centre of the area and asked Yellow 2 to orbit to the East and Yellow 6 to the West, while the rest of the formation just did a wide orbit of the area.
3. After a visual search of the area for about 5 minutes, the Army Commander and I decided to deplane the troops to search out the odd suspicious area. The sticks were dropped off at……… and were instructed to move to………
4. I then sent Yellow 2,3 & 4 back to Mt. Darwin to take part in another planned assault, while Yellow 5 & 6 and I remained in the area. After a further 5-8 minutes nothing had occurred so I sent Yellow 5 & 6 to Dotito to refuel.
5. At this stage my tech saw birds fly out of a thickly wooded ravine, but I decided not to fire into the area, as we could not see anything and were therefore uncertain whether the birds had been scared off or not, and also that stick No 2 was soon going to search the area anyway.
6. After a further 5 minutes I was orbiting Stick 4 when stick 2 called “Contact”. I immediately flew to the area and found out that the stick leader had a slight leg wound, and that he had killed 2 terrs.
7. As we got to the contact area I saw a group of 5 terrs running along the southern bank in an easterly direction. We opened fire on them and immediately killed one at……… The other four ran into a small river and started running south, but we killed all four at……… We then saw two terrs running along the river in an easterly direction and killed both of them.
8. During this engagement I had recalled Yellow 5 & 6 from Dotito and they had uplifted sticks 4 and 6 and flown them in to reinforce stick 2. Yellow 5 had been recalled from Darwin with a doctor to tend to the wounded (2 terrs died before he arrived) and to take care of the casevac (Lt. Bax).
9. I then directed the callsigns onto the bodies and we found that Stick 2 had killed 3 ters at……… and Stick 3 had killed 2. I then returned to base.
As OC FAF 4, Tol Janeke had this to say:
a. This was a first class operation in every respect. The co-operation between air and ground was good and at no time was there any confusion. The movement and deployment of troops was handled by Maj. Lambert from the ‘K’ car. This personal contact with his sticks paid dividends.
b. The entire group of terrorists was accounted for in this contact. This would probably have not been the case if the ‘K’ Car had not been available. It would certainly be a great loss to the operational effectiveness of the fire force if we should run out of ammunition.
c. Pre-briefing of the Trojan to act as noise cover was also successful. The callsign which had reported the presence commented that he had not heard the helicopters until they were within 1000 metres of the area. This tactic will be used when possible but it will no doubt soon become known to the terrorists.
d. The ‘K’ Car on occasions fired within 50 metres of our troops but discussion with these troops indicated that they considered it safe under the circumstances. The ‘K’ Car, having deployed the sticks was fully aware of their positions on the ground at all times.
The term ‘Fireforce’ (my underlining above) was used for the first time in this ASR and Major Lambert was the first ‘official’ airborne Army Fireforce commander. However, as previously stated, control of ground troops by Army commanders flying in helicopters had been used previously. Tol Janeke referred to a shortage of 20mm ammunition for our gunships. This problem applied to many other critical commodities and the reasons for this will become clear later. What is not made clear was the decision to move back-up troops and fuel forward to Dotito (a small village) by road at the same time that the main force flew out of Mount Darwin. This became fairly standard procedure for many Fireforce operations that followed to reduce reaction time.
In all actions the K-Car orbited to the left because the 20mm cannon, whose long barrel protruded out into the airflow, was mounted on the port side. The gunner needed maximum traverse of his cannon, which was difficult in the confines of the cabin. This would have made an airborne Army commander’s presence intolerable if he had occupied a standard forward-facing seat. To resolve this difficulty, his seat was reversed and secured in the front left-hand corner of the cabin. Although this meant having to face backwards, Army Fire Force commanders had an unrestricted view of the ground that concerned them and most mastered with ease the problem of ‘flying backwards’.
Whereas a pilot’s view was totally unrestricted in a right-hand turn, this was not the case in the offensive left-hand orbit. The presence of the Army officer, the instrument console, the cabin floor and the gunner, particularly when he was firing, restricted a K-Car pilot’s visual freedom. Nevertheless, by having control of the aircraft flight path and bank angle, K-Car pilots managed very well indeed.
Detente
