position of the pinned-down group as well as the ZIPRA elements containing them. They arrived ahead of the jets and picked up the flash and dust of a ZIPRA recoilless-rifle firing at the trapped soldiers. In an attempt to relieve the hard-pressed soldiers, Trevor turned in with the intention of neutralising the enemy position with Frantans. Showing great discipline, the enemy had patiently withheld their fire against aircraft the previous day; but now they opened up with a vengeance the moment Trevor commenced his attack dive.
The weight of fire was too great to continue the attack and, as the Lynx pulled up and turned, it took critical strikes which forced Trevor to turn for home. On the way his damaged front engine quit and at Kariba he was forced to make a relatively high-speed belly landing because severed hydraulic lines had disabled undercarriage and flaps functions.
In the meanwhile Hunters drew all enemy attention to themselves when they put in attacks on the pan area. This allowed the southern patrol sufficient breathing space to make a hurried withdrawal. Both patrols were then recovered to Kariba, but not before the northern group had a short contact near their helicopter pick-up point. Three ZIPRA were killed and one was captured. Miraculously, as had happened before, the captured man turned out to be a key figure. He was the logistics officer for the base.
From this important man a number of issues came to the fore. The base contained part of a battalion of ZIPRA’s 1st Brigade from Mulungushi comprising over 200 conventionally trained men with another 100 men expected to arrive soon. This particular base had been established recently as the forward element for an intended invasion of Rhodesia across the Kariba dam wall. The logistics officer said the present force would definitely not abandon its position even knowing an attack was coming. Whilst plans were being made for this, the commander of the southern SAS patrol was redeployed with a smaller callsign to keep an eye on ZIPRA developments from an OP on a prominent hill feature.
Operation Tepid
WE HAD STUMBLED UPON THIS forward base at a time when disturbing intelligence was reaching COMOPS. It concerned the movement of large numbers of ZIPRA’s conventional forces from Luso Boma in Angola and from Mulungushi in Zambia. Most appeared destined for CGT 2 base, which was obviously another forward launch-point for the impending invasion. In addition, large quantities of arms and equipment, including MiG 21 fighters, were reported to be arriving in Zambia.
Joshua Nkomo was obviously pulling out all the stops to get his large invasion force into Rhodesia before the Lancaster House talks progressed to a point where this might no longer be possible. Those forces he had in the country were small and ineffectual whilst the forces of his rival, Robert Mugabe, already dominated all of the Shona tribal areas and large sections of his own Matabeleland. Considering the imminent possibility of a ceasefire agreement to be followed by all-party elections, this was not a happy situation.
There was also the probability that, following a ceasefire, Kenneth Kaunda would prevent Nkomo from expatriating his weapons and equipment—particularly after having been caught out for hiding the war materials that the SAS destroyed in July.
After the war was over, we learned that Joshua believed his only hope was to launch all his forces immediately with a view to overrunning Salisbury in two fast-moving drives. If successful, he hoped to secure Rhodesian forces to his cause so that, together, the RSF and ZIPRA could destroy the common enemy ZANU. Thereafter, an interim government would be established to prepare the country for all-party elections that excluded ZANU.
At COMOPS we obviously knew nothing of this. All we knew was that we had to stem the flow of ZIPRA men and equipment to the border areas, and secure the three permanent bridges at Victoria Falls, Kariba and Chirundu. But first the troublesome base near Kariba had to be taken out in an operation codenamed ‘Tepid’.
The RLI and SAS were assigned to Op Tepid. Since the RLI outnumbered the SAS, command of daytime operations from a high-flying Lynx was given to OC the RLI, Lieutenant-Colonel Ian Bate. Command at night vested with OC the SAS, Lieutenant-Colonel Garth Barrett.
The basic plan was for two RLI assault groups, both moving from the north, to drive the enemy off both ridges. Once these were secured, an SAS assault force would move, also from the north, through the main base below the ridges with RLI giving supporting fire from their elevated positions.
The assault forces were choppered in at dawn on 20 October. Once they had moved forward to their start positions, SAS and RLI mortar teams were brought in to the west of the western ridge. There were tense moments when the helicopters came in to land within sight of the enemy. ZIPRA had made an excellent appraisal of likely helicopter LZs and had prepared their long-range mortars for the very positions the helicopters landed. The enemy must have enjoyed the sight of Cheetahs making a hurried departure and the mortar teams scurrying for cover.
No attempt was made to prevent ZIPRA breaking out to the south because the whole aim of the operation was to drive ZIPRA from its base and, hopefully, to force the abandonment of heavy equipment. In the event, the RLI force on the eastern ridge only reached the centre of the feature at its highest point when it was stopped dead in its tracks. Troops became pinned down by accurate fire from both their own ridge and from the western ridge. Before long, the western assault force was also bogged down through intense fire from both ridges.
The distance between the two assault forces was almost two kilometres but the enemy gun positions responsible for holding them up were less than 200 metres from each force. In consequence the use of Golf bombs was impossible, yet only Golf bombs would have been effective against the entrenched enemy who had good overhead protection.
The Rhodesians were at a distinct disadvantage. They were exposed and only had light infantry weapons, whereas ZIPRA were dug in with vastly superior heavy weapons. It was just like Mapai all over again, and a situation of stalemate existed. Yet, even though the Rhodesians were out-gunned and could not move forward, ZIPRA preferred to remain in their defensive positions, fearing to expose themselves to the jet-strikes we could not have made so close to our own forces.
Attempts to outflank enemy gun positions on the eastern ridge resulted in a number of RLI soldiers being wounded. On the western ridge, an RLI trooper had been killed. Hunters, limited to 30mm cannons and 68mm Matra rockets, were employed on numerous occasions, but no strike was really successful. ZIPRA simply dived under cover when a Hunter turned in, accepted the explosions above them and immediately emerged to continue firing at anything that moved. By sunset nothing seemed to have been achieved and the RLI was ordered to make a tactical withdrawal, under cover of darkness, to regroup.
When Garth Barrett took command that evening, nothing suggested that ZIPRA had been rattled. Everything pointed to the Rhodesians having to reorganise, bring in extra troops with heavier weapons and make another push next day. Garth realised that, even though ZIPRA seemed too strong to even consider moving out, he should position a force for this eventuality and ordered the positioning of ambushes on the vehicle track south of the base.
Between nightfall and midnight the area was quiet, but then ZIPRA unleashed a full-scale mortar bombardment on likely Rhodesian positions and even fired two 122mm rockets to add to the noise and excitement. At the time the Rhodesians had no idea that this was a cover-up to an orderly withdrawal of the entire ZIPRA force. During its move southwards, the enemy force was allowed free passage by one of the RLI’s southern ambushes because the unit commander realised his force of twenty men was too weak to take on nearly 200 closely grouped ZIPRA. For this he was strongly criticised!
After the war I learned from ZIPRA that the reason for the withdrawal was that their positions had become known to the Air Force and that the Rhodesian ground forces were known to have moved some distance away. This being so, the ZIPRA commander felt certain all his positions would be annihilated by the Air Force the next day using their ‘silent bombs’. This was the name given to Golf bombs because men who had been just beyond their lethal range claimed they had not heard the bombs go off. They had only experienced high over-pressure and
