Winds of Destruction

troops under command of Major Andre Dennison was very messy. (More about this officer shortly.) Nevertheless the Fireforce action had come at the end of our normal recce period so our airborne time was greatly extended by the action. At New Sarum, Norah showed she was not much of a ‘long range’ camel by making a headlong rush for the nearest loo.

^{This was the CT base Norah watched Fireforce react to during her flight with PB. Two feeding paths from four villages can be seen running toward the base from the main pathway running left to right under the only visible village. Two thin paths running toward the bottom of the photograph led to sentry outpost positions under trees. The base for twenty-five CTs is easily identified amongst trees at centre.}

RAR Fireforces

WHEN FIREFORCES FIRST CAME INTO being they were manned exclusively by RLI. Throughout the war they were undoubtedly the finest of all Fireforce soldiers. Following the spread of the war and an increase in helicopter availability, RAR and Territorial Army units also became involved, but seldom did they perform as aggressively and efficiently as RLI. Certain of the Territorial Army units did well and the same could be said of RAR companies when commanded by the right officers and, even more so, when controlled by K-Car pilots.

From my own observations and the opinions expressed by other pilots, it was clear that the black soldiers of the RAR were good fighters who were too often severely encumbered by language difficulties between the white airborne commander and men on the ground. Most RAR soldiers spoke one or other of the Shona dialects and there were a few N’debele soldiers too.

Whereas they all had a fair understanding of English, the official language in battle, it was seldom sufficient for them to absorb fast-spoken instructions coming to them over crackling radios with the near-continuous presence of noisy helicopters during high-stress actions. It was noticeable that some white officers gained a great deal more from their RAR troops than others. These were ones who spoke calmly, clearly, slowly and used the barest minimum of simple words. Above all they remained cool-headed and never lost their temper nor showed any sign of irritation if asked to repeat instructions.

Officers who failed to get the best out of their black troops exhibited common characteristics. They were short–tempered and pompous. In the air they would instruct their men too quickly in sentences containing too many words. When these instructions were misinterpreted or there were requests for a repeat of instructions, the man on the ground received a verbal blast with accusations of ignorance and incompetence.

There was an occasion when one K-Car pilot was so annoyed by an RAR officer’s inability to handle his men correctly that he surreptitiously muted the Army commander’s radio link and took over control of the RAR men on the ground. Most K-Car pilots were every bit as good as the best of our airborne Army commanders, usually having seen more Fireforce actions. In this case the pilot directed the callsigns in ‘Chilapalapa’ that these particular RAR soldiers understood well.

The Shona word Chilapalapa is the name of a language developed on the gold mines of South Africa where it is known as ‘Fanagalo’. This simple language continues to facilitate easy communication between mine management and thousands of mine workers coming from many African countries and language groups. Most Chilapalapa words come from Zulu, cautionary and swear words from Afrikaans and, simple words like left and right from English.

^{Andre Dennison.}

Anyway, the K-Car pilot directed the willing troops with ease and led them to success. Initially the Army commander frantically checked his radio leads for a fault he had no hope of finding. He gave this up when the air- gunner leaned across and shouted to let him know that the pilot and soldiers were managing fine and that the “headset failure” could only be rectified when they returned to base.

One RAR officer I got to know quite well at Mtoko was Andre Dennison, commanding ‘A’ Company of 1 RAR. He was an ex-British Army officer who performed with considerable courage in many ground actions with a weapon in his hands. As a combat leader on the ground he was first-class but his troops performed abysmally under his airborne control, even though they had done really well under previous airborne commanders. The reasons for this were very plain to many pilots, but Andre took no notice of the advice offered to solve his soldiers’ “outright stupidity and inability to understand plain English”. It was through officers like Andre that the RAR came to be regarded by many as second-rate soldiers. Those of us who knew how well they could perform thought otherwise.

Andre had a phobia about the Selous Scouts in general and Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly in particular. This led to a very unnecessary incident when, following two failed callouts by Scouts pseudo callsigns, Andre flatly refused to respond to a third one on the same day. Whilst all hell was breaking loose between Ron Reid-Daly, COMOPS and Andre Dennison, I arranged for Territorial soldiers operating fairly close to the Scouts callout position to prepare for immediate uplift for a Fireforce action. For this I had first sought COMOPS approval from Harold Griffiths, who was then working under Norman Walsh.

Away went the empty helicopters from Mtoko with their accompanying Lynx to pick up the TF troops who, though inexperienced in the Fireforce role, thoroughly enjoyed a small but successful action in the Msana Tribal Trust Land. Andre’s frustrated anger switched from the Selous Scout CO to me for having “taken away my aircraft without my permission!” Such was the nature of the man as Fireforce commander! But with gun in hand and feet on the ground, Andre was a great soldier and leader of troops.

Bold actions—007 ideas

THE SAS CONTINUED WITH THEIR successful operations using minimum manpower for maximum results. During May 1978 eight SAS men made a parachute descent with canoes and plenty of explosives to take out a ZANLA barrack block in the FRELIMO stronghold town of Tete. In a typical SAS-styled night action involving moments of threat and doubts, they paddled heavily laden canoes down the Zambezi River right up to their target set high on the bank of the river. There they set the charges that blew the barracks and its occupants to hell and back. Upon their return to Rhodesia the participants described the operation and spoke of their passage under the huge Tete bridge spanning the great river. They said how awesome the illuminated bridge appeared as they passed silently below FRELIMO guards and vehicles on the bridge deck high above them. The business of blowing bridges had become quite fashionable so it was not surprising that these men were considering how the Tete bridge might be dropped, if the need arose.

I was fascinated by the problems involved and went away with the subject turning over in my mind. As the SAS had said, dropping the bridge could be done easily enough if it was not located at a garrison town containing hundreds of well-armed troops. The question that exercised my mind was how the Air Force might deal with the problem, if given the opportunity. Looking forward in time and considering friendly Malawi’s future interests in the bridge, there seemed no way Rhodesia would ever consider destroying such a vital road link. Nevertheless I could not get the subject out of my mind.

Tete bridge is a huge suspension bridge with two high support towers on each bank of the river. Over these towers two suspension cables pass from their deep anchor points on the south side to those on the north. These two enormously thick and powerful cables support the entire road platform by means of many vertical drop cables.

No available bomb or rocket would have any meaningful effect on this type of structure because assured