but relayed Cocky’s information to Yellow 1. The K-Car pilot was busy instructing the other helicopter pilots on where to place down their troops, but his gunner concentrated his attention on the base area. He could see the base clearly enough but could not pick up any sign of kit or men under the trees.
Even though K-Car was at 1,000 feet above the base and we were at 2,000 feet, neither the pilot nor his gunner could spot the individuals Cocky insisted were lying prone in shadows against the bases of trees. It was only when firing started and the CTs moved that the K-Car crew and I saw what Cocky had been reporting all the time. Five of the terrorists were killed and one wounded CT was captured. Later we learned that one CT had managed to escape. Cocky’s recce training was complete, so I arranged for a Cessna to be delivered from Thornhill for him to commence his own recce work out of FAF 4 at Mount Darwin.
The next morning I was airborne again to inspect the surrounds of the many collective villages (CVs) that had sprung up in the operational areas. CVs were very different from protected villages because the PVs, as initially installed in the Chiweshe TTL, were far too costly to build, man and provision on a large scale. Before Selous Scouts became effective, the concept of CVs had been under instigation by JOC Mtoko from early 1974 because of a serious decline in field intelligence and the need to reduce the CT threat to tribesmen in small isolated family kraals. A CV (collective or consolidated village) was simply an amalgamation of many small villages into one large village. A curfew from 18:00 to 07:00 was imposed on the tribesmen who knew they would be shot if seen outside the CV between these times.
At about 11 o’clock I changed frequency to the Mount Darwin Fireforce channel. The force had been inactive for ages but I could hear that it was in action following a call by none other than Cocky Benecke. I listened in for two hours during which time Cocky repeatedly directed the K-Car onto small groups and individuals. His voice never once showed the frustrations he was experiencing flying an unarmed Cessna.
Cocky had flown all his previous engagements in Provosts or Trojans, which allowed him to strike at those targets which he was trying, usually unsuccessfully, to draw to the K-Car’s attention. Although Cocky was cool, the K-Car pilot’s frustration was obvious. “I am looking at the corner of the bloody field but cannot see anyone there.” Cool as a cucumber Cocky said, “Try a short burst thirty metres right of the western edge and ten metres up from the south.” A short burst and the K-Car crew had the CT up and running before dropping him.
Later in the day I heard the Fireforce back in action. On his first day on recce Cocky was responsible for actions that depleted ZANLA’s few remaining CTs within the country by seventeen killed or captured. These actions seem to have been the final straw that forced most surviving CTs in the country to exit to Mozambique. ZANLA, however, had arranged for at least one group to remain in their Nehanda sector in a caretaker role and had sent an execution group to the Chaminuka sector with a list of ‘sell-outs’ to be eliminated.
I found Benecke’s successes astounding and confusing. I had brought forces to contact with many CT groups and had gained a fair reputation for the successes achieved. Ground troops gave me a variety of nicknames, including ‘Hawkeye’ and ‘Grid Square Charlie’. Yet for every success my record showed that I had been responsible for three ‘lemons’. It was difficult to figure out why Cocky’s unusual sight was giving him 100% success and even Hamie Dax was doing better than me by scoring two successes to one failure.
At Station Sick Quarters New Sarum, I asked to have my eyes tested and the results compared with Cocky Benecke’s test results. I was assured that we enjoyed equally good eyesight. I knew that colour-blind people had been used during WWII to detect German camouflaged gun emplacements and tank formations that normal- sighted people could not see. In the eyes of colour-blind individuals, military camouflage has no effect. But Cocky could not have passed his flying medical examinations if he had been colour blind so I could only guess that his colour perception was different from mine, even though he named colours just the same way as the rest of us did. I went to an optician and an oculist to arrange for a variety of tinted and polarised lenses with which to experiment; but none of these helped me see the dark items I had personally placed in the shadow of trees.
Throughout the war Cocky continued to display his uncanny talent. However, it was not only his eyesight that made Cocky a truly exceptional operational pilot. He was aggressive and brave in all that he did, yet never did he become big-headed or arrogant. His happy nature and huge smile endeared him to all.
I questioned every doctor and eye specialist I encountered to try and find out what it was about Cocky’s eyesight that made him one in a million. Doctor Knight eventually gave me the answer in late 1979. He had established that Cocky’s colour perception was slightly defective in the green-brown range. This was why, for Cocky, deep and mottled shadows did not blend out anything that lay in them.
Not all of Cocky’s recce finds were successful in later times and he was responsible for a few Fireforce ‘lemons’ which made the likes of me feel better about the ‘lemons’ we had generated. For the most part, helicopter crews and Army elements of the Fireforce had come to accept that recce pilots would lead at least two ‘lemons’ for every success; but not so with Cocky. His reputation reversed their expectations.
Earlier criticisms against me for involving Fireforce in ‘lemons’ reached me indirectly. Possibly due to my seniority, minor niggling had occurred behind my back. It is an unfortunate fact that operational pilots take for granted another pilot’s successes and only remember his errors. So ribbing of young recce pilots by helicopter pilots of the Fireforces may have caused them to miss out on good targets for fear of generating ‘lemons’. What interested me was that no helicopter pilot who had flown recce himself was a critic. It was only those who had come from the jet squadrons and considered their leisure time too precious to waste. Cocky was ribbed for his failures but his record was such that he simply brushed off any criticism with a cutting retort. Nevertheless, I was very sensitive to remarks made by a small prima donna element that did no more than was absolutely necessary at base and in the field. To commit these remarks to paper, even in jest, sent my blood pressure soaring as it did other Air Staff officers. Flight Lieutenant Danny Svoboda’s ASR of 30 March 1977 is a case in point. In spite of the successful contact that resulted from Cocky Benecke’s recce information, Danny initiated his report with these words:
1. On a bright Wednesday afternoon with nothing to do the Fireforce decided to check out two possible terr camps found by Air Lieutenant Benecke in his Lemon-Car.
2. The first camp at US966236 proved fruitless. The Fireforce then proceeded to the second camp at VS013192.
3. On arrival at this camp the target was marked by 24 Sneb rockets from Benecke. Terrs broke out of the camp heading north etc. etc.
The Director of Operations at Air HQ, Group Captain Norman Walsh, expressed his displeasure over Danny’s report in strong terms, particularly as Fireforce pilots seldom criticised the higher proportion of ‘lemons’ generated by Selous Scouts and other callsigns.
Last air actions of 1975
THE CT CARETAKER GROUP AND the assassination group were contacted on 9 and 10 September. The first was when an Army callsign on patrol in a remote area below the escarpment made contact with the Nehanda caretaker group. The Mount Darwin Fireforce led by John Blythe-Wood deployed with three Z-Cars and Cocky Benecke flying a Provost. Working ahead of trackers, Cocky picked up the CTs and the action that followed resulted in the total elimination of this group, with seven CTs dead and five captured wounded.
The Mtoko Fireforce had moved to a temporary base at Mutawatawa on the edge of high ground. For what reason I was visiting Harold Griffiths and his men at Mutawatawa I cannot recall, but the sheer beauty of the surrounding hills and the long valley down which the Zvirungudzi River flowed to the Nyadiri River remains firmly embedded in my memory. I knew the area well from recce, but its beauty could only be appreciated when flying low-level in a helicopter or being on the ground in the tented base.
Griff had recently taken command of 7 Squadron and it was from this base that his Fireforce was
