Pearce of the RLI took over from the border control unit and commenced a follow-up southeastwards through rough, dry country. The whole region had plenty of trees but in the dry season they were leafless making the hot breezeless conditions extremely uncomfortable.
An RLI Tactical HQ commanded by Major Rob Southey was established on the site of a disused road camp on the main east-west Zambezi Valley road where it crossed the Angwa River bridge at Mato Pools. The main JOC that had been established at Karoi for Operation Cauldron was still in situ to oversee Op Excess. On 28 July 1968 I led a flight of four helicopters to support the RLI operation.
My first task was to resupply Dumpy Pearce with water and rations a little after midday. I located Dumpy near the source of the small bone-dry Ruponje River on the north side of a watershed ridge, where I shut down to have a chat. Dumpy’s callsign was hot, sweaty and tired, but in good spirits. The men welcomed the cold water and ice I had brought them and rested whilst Dumpy and I talked. Dumpy estimated that they were seven days behind a group of approximately fifty terrorists. I asked him to point to the spot on the nearby ridge where he believed the tracks were heading. Having noted this, I got airborne and found I could actually land there.
It was obvious that aerial tracking this old trail in such dry grassless conditions was a non-starter but I had other ideas in mind. Looking over the ground ahead I could not help seeing a patch of bright-green trees about twelve kilometres away beyond a series of descending ridges. The walking distance was at lease twice the direct distance. The trees were off to the right of the direction the terrorists had been heading, but they gave the distinct impression of being sited on water. I was absolutely certain the terrorists must have been drawn to the spot having travelled so far without water. I called Dumpy and asked if I could fly his trackers forward to see if my guess was right, promising to have them back within fifteen minutes if I was wrong. Dumpy said it suited him but I must first get Rob Southey’s blessings. For this I had to climb quite high to make contact with RLI Tac HQ. Rob Southey did not accept my suggestion, so I set heading for base.
About one minute later, I received a call to say it would be fine to return to Dumpy and lift his trackers forward, providing Dumpy was with them. I raced back to pick up Dumpy and two trackers. When we landed on smooth short green grass next to the copse of green trees, the trackers climbed out and immediately pointed to terrorists tracks on the very spot we had landed. They established that there was no surface water as I flew the rest of Dumpy’s callsign forward to tracks now assessed to be five days’ old.
Pressing my luck, I headed off low and slow over a vast expanse of leafless trees in the direction the trackers were moving and noted a single prominent and unusually high tree with distinctive smooth yellow bark. Although it was a long way ahead it was certainly on the line the trackers were moving. At this stage I was short of fuel and returned to base.
I went to Rob Southey to suggest moving the trackers forward again. Colonel John Hickman, the Officer Commanding the RLI, was visiting and I learned that it was he who had persuaded Rob Southey to let me try the first move. Though this had been successful and had brought the RLI two days closer to the terrorists, Rob seemed reluctant to move trackers to ‘the tall tree’. One could hardly blame him, because it must have seemed improbable that the terrorists would have seenthings the way I did. However, he changed his mind when Colonel Hickman said, “You have nothing to lose Rob!”
I returned to Dumpy, picked up his trackers and put them down close to the yellow tree. They were more surprised than I to find that a man had climbed the tree to scan the route ahead whilst the rest of the group had waited close by. Dumpy’s men were brought forward onto tracks, now estimated to be thirty-six-hours old. Again I pressed my luck and, dealing only with Dumpy, moved trackers forward about six kilometres to where the trees gave way to open ground along the dry Mwanzamtanda River. Here the trackers had to cast 200 metres before locating tracks that were under twenty-four-hours old. I had just sufficient fuel to bring the whole callsign forward before returning to base feeling well pleased with myself. We had closed from seven days to one day in less than three hours. Had Colonel Hickman not been at the Tac HQ, this would certainly not have occurred and a new method of gaining ground might have been lost.
It was late afternoon and with my enthusiasm at a peak I searched forward. I dared not proceed at low level with terrorists so close and climbed to 1,500 feet. Almost immediately I saw dark-green trees ahead and sensed this was the actual position of the terrorists. Alan Aird had been with me the whole time and he also saw the water in the heavily treed tributary that flowed into the Mwanzamtanda. This otherwise dry rivulet ran northwards along the edge of a rocky outcrop, then looped southward around a moderately high rocky feature. In this bend lay surface water with the dark-green trees lining the banks. Alan agreed with me that the terrorists were under those big shady trees and said he was certain he had seen bundles of something or other under the northernmost trees.
Back at base it was agreed that Dumpy Pearce should continue his follow-up and that fresh troops would be lifted into the suspected terrorist base early next morning. I do not remember the reason for this, but I only carried Alan, his MAG and a full fuel tank when I flew ahead of the three helicopters carrying Jerry Strong and his troops. I passed over the suspect point where both Alan and I saw what we believed were shell-scrapes at the edge of the tree line. We did not change direction until the other helicopters had passed over the site to drop troops behind a small ridge just 100 metres away. The helicopters lifted immediately to return for more troops as Jerry led his men directly to the suspect site. As he entered the trees, he called, “Terrs left about one minute ago—in a hurry. There is abandoned equipment—no time to collect—moving east on tracks.”
Poor Dumpy Pearce who had followed these terrorists so far was not at all happy that Jerry was right on the tail of the terrorists his callsign had been mentally prepared to contact in less than two hours. Major Southey refused to let Dumpy’s force join Jerry’s fresh troops, even though helicopters could have moved them forward in less than five minutes. Nevertheless this turned out to be a good decision.
Being under-strength, Jerry was moving cautiously in rough country. Soon enough the rest of his troops arrived and, though able to move faster for a while, patches of heavy bush in rough terrain well suited to ambush slowed Jerry down. His trackers reported following less than twenty men, which was way below the number Dumpy Pearce had given. In the meanwhile Dumpy had reached the terrorist base by the water where he found that a big force of about forty men had broken south. The only other tracks were those that Jerry was following.
Before Jerry’s troops reached one particular spot, I asked for 37mm Sneb rockets to be fired into a patch of bush on the lip of a ravine through which Jerry and his men would be passing. To assist Flying Officer Chris Weinmann, who was flying a Provost, identify the correct position, I asked him to follow my helicopter’s shadow until I called, “Now” to pinpoint his position of strike. So far as I know, this was the first time that one pilot guided another by using his aircraft’s shadow; but it worked perfectly and Chris placed the strike exactly where I wanted it. When Jerry reached the point a few minutes later, he reported that the tracks went through the point of strike but the terrorists had passed there some time earlier.
By late afternoon Jerry’s callsign had slowed to the extent that they were over one hour behind the terrorists when tracks crossed the north-south road leading to Kanyemba. Because the terrorists were heading directly for Mozambique, diplomatic clearances were needed to enter that country in ‘hot pursuit’. When it was too dark to track the troops settled for the night at the borderline. The road crossing had allowed trackers to get an accurate count of the number of men they were pursuing. This confirmed that, with only fifteen sets of prints, Dumpy was following the greater portion of the original group.
During the night authority was given to cross into Mozambique. At first light Jerry’s men received water and Mozambican maps before continuing the follow-up into flat, dry mopani country where the temperature would rise to thirty-eight degrees by midday. No aircraft came near Jerry until he said he was close to contact. As I approached his area, a radio transmission from Jerry was so heavily overlaid by the sound of automatic gunfire that I could not hear what he was saying. That he was in contact was obvious.
Jerry had heard voices ahead and opened out his callsign for a sweep through moderately open bush towards the voices. The terrorists saw the troops emerging from the bush line on the other side of a dry riverbed and opened fire, wounding one RLI trooper. Jerry called on the terrorists to surrender, whereupon they responded with vile language and anti-white slogans before resuming fire that kept Jerry’s troops pinned down for a short while.
The terrorist position was under trees on slightly higher ground on the other side of the dry riverbed. The RLI threw phosphorus grenades into the river line to give smoke cover to Jerry’s left echelon as it rushed over the riverbed and positioned itself on the terrorists’ right flank. With pressure on them from front and side, the terrorists’ action abated and Jerry crossed the river under covering fire to sweep through the camp where he
