On the second occasion, the Scouts assault team was helicoptered to a drop-off point much closer to Lusaka. However, they encountered such heavy jesse bush that they were unable to reach the agent and his Toyota Land Cruiser, this time waiting at the RV point. Instead, the assault force found itself in the middle of a Zambian Army exercise and had to make a hasty retreat for helicopter recovery.
The third attempt probably gave the Scouts their best chance of success. This was a parachute descent onto the same road the agent had been using, but very close to Lusaka. Following their para-descent, which was to be controlled from the ground by the Scouts agent, the Dakota was to mask the purpose of its presence by flying straight on to drop pamphlets onto a known ZIPRA base.
Unbeknown to the Scouts, however, their agent had been arrested by Zambian police just after he had passed the codeword that launched the assault force into the air. In consequence, with nobody at the drop-zone, the troops had no alternative but to remain aboard the Dakota for the leafletdrop and an unhappy ride home.
Though certainly not for want of trying, Selous Scouts had experienced such unbelievable bad luck in their attempts to kill Nkomo that our COMOPS planning team recommended to General Walls that he should pass the task to the SAS. The general agreed.
When he learned of this decision, Ron Reid-Daly burst into COMOPS in a rage. He took the COMOPS decision as an insult to himself and his men. He could hardly be blamed for believing that the Selous Scouts were being badly rated by COMOPS, or for worrying about the profound effect this would have on the morale of his force. So it was with some difficulty that General Walls assured Ron that his COMOPS planning staff had simply recognised that such a run of bad luck had to be broken and a fresh start made.
When Ron had calmed down, he suggested that Selous Scouts should be given one more try. He advocated flying the assault team directly to the golf course that lay just over the road from Nkomo’s home. This was an intriguing idea which, being so utterly crazy and brazen, would almost certainly have worked—but considering the Scouts’ run of bad luck, Nkomo would probably be away on his travels anyway. “No, Ron,” said General Walls, “the SAS have the task—and that is final!” But the Selous Scouts’ commander would not let go.
In an endeavour to reach some sort of compromise, Ron asked the general to let the team he had sent to Zambia participate with the SAS. This was flatly refused but, recognising Ron’s deep desire to have some level of Scouts’ inclusion, General Walls decided that SAS would take one white Scout who knew Lusaka backwards, he having been the agent with the car bomb. In addition, a black Scout who could speak Zambian languages would also join the SAS team to do any talking, should this become necessary.
The SAS were already in an advanced stage of planning when General Walls ordered them to include these two Scouts. To say that the SAS officers were incensed by this instruction would be understating the case. I recall that they were as mad as hell at such high-level interference in specialist planning that already included a navigator for Lusaka. The black Scout seemed a good idea but this, it was felt, should have come to them through Brian Robinson as a ‘useful suggestion’. But then, orders are orders!
Two SAS men were dropped from an operation considered by some to be ‘an exciting opportunity’. However, the men whose names were taken off the list had no idea of this because the plan was only known to a handful of officers right up to the moment the operation was launched.
Whilst this was happening, the Canberras were tasked for a second raid on ZIPRA’s Mulungushi camp. It was supposed to be another offset bombing raid in which Schulie would be setting up the RAMS flares. As it happened, Schulie called Ron Reid-Daly at Selous Scouts HQ late in the day to say the attack should be postponed because he had only seen a few ZIPRA in camp. Air HQ received this message but, with COMOPS concurrence, decided the raid should go ahead because the moon conditions were favourable for a visual attack. Ron Reid-Daly was unable to pass this decision to Schulie who had switched off his radio for the night and had set off for an even closer inspection of the target.
Why these vital changes in plan had failed to pass from Air HQ (the tasking agency in all air matters) to the Canberra boys I cannot say. They got airborne on the night of 10 April and, working to their original Air Task, proceeded to target fully expecting Schulie to ignite the outer flare at 19:00.
Ted Brent received no response to his calls to Schulie and no ignition of the inner flare occurred when he transmitted the RAMS coded signal. Though agitated by this turn of events, Ted could not avoid taking his formation directly over the target and drawing heavy fire from Mulungushi’s AA guns. He was blissfully unaware of Schulie’s close-in recce as he brought the formation around for the run onto a target whose specific location was readily identifiable from the source of tracer streams that continued to rake the sky.
On the ground close to target, Schulie and his mate experienced a mixture of angry disbelief and fear when the changing position of the Canberras sound made it obvious that the jets were coming around again for a visual strike. All they could do was lie flat and pray until bomblets passed over them and detonated too close for comfort. ZIPRA on the other hand had been given so much warning that the casualties they sustained that night were low. According to intercepted Zambian radio traffic, only three ZIPRA were killed and twenty were wounded.
The Canberras returned to the same target at 08:30 the next day in hopes that senior ZIPRA officers would be doing their usual thing of visiting the base following a night attack. As it turned out this did not happen because, unbeknown to COMOPS at the time, all the CT brass was tied up in some special meeting in the Mulungushi Hall at Lusaka’s International Conference Centre.
That same afternoon at 17:30, Canberras and Hunters struck a ZIPRA training base known as Shilende Camp. After this attack, a Zambian Army unit’s communique to Army HQ in Lusaka reported having found 134 ZIPRA dead and over 200 wounded. Two days later, 13 April 1979, Nkomo was reported to be home for the night and the SAS assassination team was unleashed from its waiting position on the waters of Lake Kariba.
As usual during all our special ops, Brian Robinson and I remained in COMOPS with the duty staff through the whole night. We sat chatting and drank endless cups of coffee whilst awaiting codewords relayed from Lieutenant-Colonel Garth Barrett (SAS had changed from ‘squadron’ to ‘regiment’, hence the OC’s rank). Garth was with Wing Commander Peter McLurg in the Command Dak flying over uninhabited ground inside Zambia. The codewords would let us know the progress of the vehicle-borne force during its route to Lusaka and back.
Apart from the Command Dakota, there was nothing the Air Force could do to assist the SAS during the night. Nevertheless, Hunters at Thornhill and helicopters at Kariba would be waiting at immediate readiness before dawn in case the SAS had need of them. Two of the Hunters were armed with Sidewinder missiles to take on Zambian Air Force fighters posing any threat during the SAS exfiltration phase.
Because SAS had chosen to conduct a vehicle-borne operation using their own specialist Sabre Land Rovers, it gave opportunity to increase the force level and objectives for the foray into Lusaka where a number of worthwhile ZIPRA targets existed.
Serious consideration was given to including a team to release the Selous Scouts agent from Lusaka Prison; but this highly emotive issue, was dropped for two reasons. Firstly, if the rescue attempt failed and Zambians were killed—a real possibility—the agent would be identified for what he was and he would be left to pay a horrible price. Secondly, it would divert effort away from our main objective, which was to counter ZIPRA’s invasion plans.
Final selection was made for two additional targets. One was Zambia’s National Stores in which ZIPRA had amassed large quantities of war materiel alongside that of the Zambian Army. The second was Liberation Centre, the joint HQ for co-operative planning by senior officers of ZIPRA, South African ANC and SWAPO (South West African Peoples Organisation).
With the advent of landmines, SAS specialist Sabres (modified long-wheel-base, four-wheel-drive Land Rovers) had been withdrawn from active service—but they were just the vehicles for this operation. Seven Sabres and the three assault teams were waiting on the vehicle transport vessel Sea Lion. Then the signal came through to move from their starting point out on Kariba Dam’s deep waters where they had been waiting well away from prying eyes.
The force made an uneventful landing on the Zambian shore just before darkness fell and set off through rough country on an old disused road. Numerous difficulties were encountered in navigating at night along this indistinct track. Negotiating muddy rivulets with steep approaches made the going tough. One of these muddy ravines caused the loss of one vehicle through engine failure. The consequence of this was that critical equipment
