it had appeared from the air—a shambles requiring close attention to every step one made.
Now I had a fair idea of the basics but needed to know more about patterns that developed when humans occupied ground temporarily. Army bush camps, farm workers felling trees for tobacco barn boilers and grass cutters reaping thatching grass were some of the activities that helped build a picture of fresh human disturbances in open grassed and bush areas. Remembering how pigs had confused me during Op Cauldron there was need to find a way of distinguishing between game and human pathways. Wild pigs move about in an erratic manner often doubling back and crossing over their own tracks. Sharp kinks in their path lines were easily recognised and they seldom used a pathway twice.
Fresh elephant feeding paths and human transit lines through grassed areas gave me some difficulty until I passed the shadow of the aircraft along them. In doing this I noticed that human paths, and those made by wild pigs, left a continuous chevron pattern pointing in the direction of movement. Elephants on the other hand created a series of half-moon patches with undisturbed grass in between these patches. The explanation was simple. Humans hardly lift their feet when walking and draw grass blades forward, then bruise and flatten the stems under foot. In green grass a single human leaves a faint but detectable trail. When others follow in single file, the visible intensity magnifies rapidly until it stabilises when six or more men have passed along the same line.
On similar ground, elephants tended to move about individually in random patterns. They only follow each other in single file when the matriarch cow leads the herd from one area to another, in which case jumbos prefer their established pathways.
Rhino were seldom seen in numbers exceeding three. Their trails through green grass were indistinguishable from elephants but I could not see them presenting any difficulty to recce pilots. I found that the only barely discernible difference between established elephant pathways and those of humans was that those of elephants, over flat ground, exhibited smoother and longer curves than those made by humans. The width of elephant paths is greater than that of humans but this is impossible to judge from height.
On hillsides, human paths followed the most direct route, often ascending steeply, whereas elephants and all other game follow shallow inclines with sharp turn-abouts like hairpin bends on a mountain roadway. In flattish country it was obvious that humans used elephant routes wherever these coincided with their direction of travel. In fact it was for this reason that ZAPU and SAANC had used elephant paths before they were detected at the start of Op Cauldron.
These issues added together made it clear that, in remote areas populated by elephants, detection of terrorists would only be possible from the air wherever they set up bases. In such cases I expected that radiating toilet paths would be a give-away and since a base had to be close to water the areas to be recced should be relatively small, particularly in the dry season.
Buffalo herds created patterns identical to domestic cattle and most antelope used buffalo or elephant paths when commuting to water. Otherwise they left no visible trail whatsoever. Apart from elephants, rhino and to a lesser extent hippopotamus, I concluded that game paths should not mislead pilots searching for terrorists.
After two months I was ready to start teaching pilots and technicians but I realised that such training as I could give would have little impact unless it involved working over terrorist affected areas. It was obvious to me that what I had been doing would be far too boring for most men and their enthusiasm would soon wane. So, at the beginning of May, I approached Air HQ for permission to conduct recce training inside the Tete Province of Mozambique. This was eventually cleared with the Portuguese authorities with the proviso that all flights remained south of the Zambezi River and west of the Dague River.
This was a much smaller area than I had hoped for but it encompassed one sector that I believed ZANLA was likely to use in the future. For the time being I felt it would be a good training ground because FRELIMO was known to be operating in the block.
Aloe Festival
BEFORE CLEARANCE WAS GIVEN TO train in Mozambique, the squadron paid its annual visit to Umtali on 4 May 1972. The town in which I had schooled had adopted No 4 Squadron and always invited the unit to visit for the weekend of its annual Aloe Festival. Our direct involvement was limited to cocktails with the mayor and city councillors, providing a formation flypast over a colourful parade of floats along Main Street and to crowning the Aloe Queen at the Aloe Ball; the highlight of the festival. Otherwise we were guests of the Town Council who treated us like royalty. 4 Squadron spirits were high and a particularly naughty element had developed amongst the technicians. At the centre were Sergeants Henry Jarvie, John Britton and Phil Tubbs whose every move needed to be closely monitored.
Wives and girlfriends accompanied most officers but the technicians elected to go stag. The unmarried technicians pooled money for a ‘Grimmy prize’ to be awarded to the one who dated the ‘grottiest-looking grimmy’ for the Aloe Ball. This idea of ‘grimmies’ was one adopted from RLI troopers. At the end of a party, the man who had brought along the grottiest (least attractive) grimmy (grotty female) received the Grimmy prize. John Britton decided he could win this prize if he dated Henry Jarvie in drag.
Dressed in a badly fitting three-quarter-length floral dress, lipstick almost to his nostrils and wearing way too much eye shadow and rouge, Henry completed his attire with thick brown stockings and heavy boots. He certainly was the ugliest-looking partner whose actions and antics had everyone in fits. But he and John Britton were discounted from the Grimmy contest because Henry was judged to be grottier than grotty.
As the fanfare heralded the Aloe Queen’s entry into the huge ballroom, slim Henry and big John moved ahead of her approach-line to the throne. Henry pirouetted neatly revealing hairy legs above knee-length stockings; his right index finger in John’s raised left hand. John moved in smooth steps with feet splayed in exaggerated ballet fashion, straight-backed, right arm bent with hand on hip. They continued down the length of the aisle before Henry leapt into the air with arms spread and head back to land horizontally in John’s outstretched arms.
Most people found this impromptu ballet display unbelievable and very amusing, but not so the organisers who were badly put out as it had drawn attention away from the Aloe Queen’s grand entrance. Soon enough the Aloe Queen was seated on her throne and, by the time I had crowned her, all was forgiven and everyone enjoyed a grand evening.
ZANU and ZAPU activities
THE WARS BEING FOUGHT IN the Portuguese territories, like Rhodesia and South Africa, were to prevent liberation movements, inspired and supported by communists, from taking control by force. We all knew that the Soviets planned to form a bridge of states across Africa from which to drive for their ultimate prize, South Africa. Should they succeed the Soviets, and possibly the recently involved Chinese, would have access to the vast mineral wealth of southern Africa and control of the strategically important sea route around the Cape of Good Hope.
As in other African countries, the emergence of Rhodesian liberation movements was made possible by white politicians’ actions and laws that placed many constraints on the black people. Contrary to the glowing history lessons given to my generation of Rhodesia’s pioneers, our black folk were presented the contrary view that their territory had been taken by political intrigue and force of arms before laws were introduced to ensure
