At the time, cattle rustling in the south had become a major problemalong with the wilful destruction of miles and miles of fencing. Because of this martial law had been applied to the region. It so happened that Zindonga had been plagued with the same problems himself on his own ranch in the Wedza district. Consequently, he fully sympathised with the ranchers who were up in arms about CT-inspired theft of their highly bred herds.
Zindonga listened to many ranchers tell of how herds were being driven so fast and so far that many of the cattle were found dead along the drive trails. In some cases the herds had been deliberately stampeded to flatten fences resulting in serious injuries that necessitated the destruction of many suffering animals.
When he had heard all that had to be said, Minister Zindonga rose and told the farmers just what they wanted to hear. There were too many cattle rustling events that, together with calls to CT targets, made it impossible for Fireforce or troops to respond to all situations. Because of this, Zindonga gave ranchers the authority to take the law into their own hands and shoot rustlers on sight. The new government would fully support such ‘self defence’ actions in these critical times. From COMOPS’ point of view this dangerous talk highlighted the difference in approach to problems between the old and new orders.
Civilian convoys and rail protection
BY NOW ZANLA GROUPS WERE actively attacking trains on the southern route to Beit Bridge. Even prior to the main offensives, the precaution of escorting all civilian traffic along the route had been taken following deadly ambushes in 1976 on a pair of South African motorcyclists and a lone car. Thereafter nobody was allowed to travel alone, day or night. All civilian vehicles accumulated at the starting points (Fort Victoria—southbound and Beit Bridge—northbound) at published starting times for two convoys a day in each direction, all in daylight hours.
When proceeding to South Africa on holiday with my family in 1976, the convoy commander adjudged me to be driving the slowest vehicle because I had our large Turner Swallow caravan in tow. Because of this I was instructed to be the pace-setter behind two armed Land Rovers. At the rear of 150-odd civilian vehicles were another two armed Land Rovers and another two that roved up and down the three-kilometre convoy length for the three hour-twenty minute drive to Beit Bridge. No pee—breaks were allowed!
The convoy system became a way of life for locals and visitors alike and there were few difficulties or incidents on the roadway. This was because CTs preferred to attack at night to give themselves ample opportunity to move well away before sunrise. Close by on the railway line, things were not so comfortable because it was impossible to confine all rail traffic to daylight hours and flexible response to attacks was not possible for trains in motion.
The greatest threat to rail traffic came from track sabotage, though surprisingly few incidents of this nature went undetected before a train reached any point of damage. Ambushes proved to be more troublesome until ex- Air Force 20mm Hispano cannons were mounted on special wagons—three per train. These armed railway wagons switched from northbound to southbound trains when gun crews were changed over.
Most of the gunners were coloured soldiers, nicknamed ‘goffles’. They did a good job of silencing or limiting CT ambushes, providing they opened fire the moment an ambush was sprung. Sometimes, however, these soldiers were not as wide-awake as they should have been. Following two particularly damaging attacks, it was established that the goffles had picked up prostitutes to provide them ‘comfort’ on their usually uneventful and boring rides. But female distractions resulted in the CTs having sufficient time to lay down damaging fire before cannons responded. In consequence, the armed rail wagons changed name from Cannon Wagons to ‘Nanny Wagons’.
British Conservative government
ON 3 MAY 1979, THE BRITISH public voted the Conservative Party into power and Margaret Thatcher became the UK’s first female prime minister. Having been so badly let down by a communistically inclined Labour Government, there was good reason for Rhodesian morale to be uplifted. Margaret Thatcher’s statements concerning the need to forget the past and judge the Zimbabwe-Rhodesian situation in the light of the present situation reinforced our hopes in her. She even intimated that Zimbabwe-Rhodesia had done enough for the Conservatives to grant the country recognition and remove sanctions. This all came as a breath of fresh air giving hope that communist ZANU and ZAPU would not be coming to power. Unfortunately history proves that we were wrong. We had yet to learn that the Conservatives were bigger ‘snakes in the grass’ than their predecessors who, it has to be said, did not speak with forked tongues.
Flechette success
IN EARLY MAY I RECEIVED an urgent message from the Duty Officer at JOC Thrasher to say that a TF callsign of 4RR was asking for an immediate jet-strike. The callsign was in an OP on a prominent mountain ridge overlooking a known CT entry route that ran from the Revue Dam area in Mozambique into the Burma Valley, Rhodesia. This callsign had noticed high levels of activity in four villages with many women moving to and from a section of bush lying between the villages carrying bowls and dishes on their heads. The callsign commander told JOC Thrasher he was 100-per cent certain that a large group of ZANLA CTs were being fed and, since he was FAC trained, he could talk jets directly onto the target.
It so happened that a pair of Hunters had just been scrambled for an internal target. I cannot recall who was leading but know for certain that the wingman was Ginger Baldwin. My gut feeling was that the Mozambican target deserved priority, so I requested Air HQ Ops to divert the Hunters to the Burma Valley area. The pilots were unprepared for this change and did not have large-scale maps of the target location. Fortunately Burma Valley was very well known so it was easy enough to give the TF callsign position as the third border peak on the south side of the valley.
When the Hunter section made contact with the callsign, they received a very crisp and concise description of the target, so much so that they were able to visually identify the exact section of bush thirty seconds (slant- range about four nautical miles) from target. As the lead Hunter commenced its attack, the TF callsign was instructed to pass correction on leader’s strike to the second Hunter. When the first 30mm cannon shells exploded, the TF called the correction, “Drop 50—Right 20.” Ginger Baldwin then fired his cannons on the correction and received the call, “On target!” whereupon he released two flechette dispensers at the end of his cannon run.
Back in COMOPS I was perplexed to learn that flechettes had been dropped in Mozambique—something we were not supposed to do by our self-imposed ruling. However, because Ginger Baldwin had set out for an internal target with flechettes, and because Air HQ imposed no restriction for the external scene, he did not hesitate to use them.
Although this happened to be a genuine mistake it resulted in Rhodesia’s singlemost devastating air action against ZANLA. But I only learned this after the war had ended. From ZANLA’s top brass I learned that they feared
