for two basic reasons. Firstly, an armed guerrilla is better off without telltale rucksacks to carry changes of clothing and, secondly, identity of dress could be switched by exchanging inner with outer clothing or simply removing and hiding the outer clothing. Pseudonyms were discarded for real names and authentic
The de Borchgrave family moved in with friends whilst Altena Farm was thoroughly checked over. They were unlucky enough still to be at Whistlefield Farm when another of Rex Nhongo’s groups attacked it two nights later. Rex told me eight years later that this attack had also been made to study security-force reactions.
On this occasion, Marc de Borchgrave and another of his daughters were injured, but again not too seriously. Unfortunately, however, Corporal N. Moore of the RLI died when the Army vehicle in which he was travelling to Whistlefield Farm detonated a landmine on the approach road to the farmstead. This occurred in spite of the fact that, during the follow-up at Altena Farm, the landmine planted by Rex Nhongo had been found and lifted.
At this time the SAS had been withdrawn from operations over the border in Mozambique to assist JOC Hurricane, which based itself at the Centenary Airfield. Rex Nhongo’s plans to draw forces from the east had worked, just as he hoped.
SAS trackers accompanying the RLI on the Whistlefield call-out were lucky because they had climbed off the truck to commence a search for tracks just before the vehicle hit the landmine. These same trackers, now angered by the mine incident, picked up the trail of the terrorist group and started after them. They tracked all day until darkness fell. Unknown to them, they slept very close to where the terrorists had stopped to rest. They only found this out when they came upon ZANLA’s campfire soon after tracking recommenced at dawn.
Major Brian Robinson, who had recently taken command of the SAS, was at Centenary. He decided to deploy another SAS callsign by helicopter as a cut-off force ahead of the tracker group. The position he chose was spot-on and resulted in the death of three terrorists and the capture of two others in the first military contact of Op Hurricane. The RLI were especially pleased by this success against the group that had laid the mine that killed one of their men and injured others.
Countering landmines
EVEN BEFORE THE COMMENCEMENT OF Op Hurricane, landmines had become a serious menace, playing havoc with vehicles and causing serious injuries and loss of life. On 27 April 1971 Lance Corporal Moorcroft and Trooper Meyer were killed in a single mining incident. Two months prior to Op Hurricane, Sergeant Hill died in another landmine detonation.
Efforts to counter the threat were redoubled and many satisfactory though crude solutions were found. First efforts revolved around correct sandbagging of floors and filling tyres with measured quantities of water. Within eighteen months hideous-looking vehicles started making their appearance and, insofar as military vehicles were concerned, landmines ceased to be the dangerous weapon of early times. Rhodesia and South Africa worked together to become world leaders in countermine warfare. This was achieved with specially designed mine— defecting modules affixed to standard truck and Land Rover chassis.
Loss of life and injuries to military and paramilitary personnel was almost completely eliminated and most vehicles that struck landmines could be returned to service at relatively low cost. When death or injury did occur, it was usually through failure of passengers to observe correct seating and securing procedures. Hapless civilians were not so fortunate; hundreds were killed or severely maimed when unprotected buses and cars detonated mines that had been laid without concern for civilian traffic.
There was always a worry that airfields would be mined because there was no way of protecting aircraft from catastrophe if one detonated a mine. Why the terrorists did not capitalise on this one cannot say, yet I only recall two landmines laid for aircraft. One was planted in the aircraft parking area of a remote airfield but was detected and lifted. The other occurred on 19 February 1979 when Byrne Gardener, an Internal Affairs pilot, died when his aircraft activated a land mine on the Mrewa Airfield.
Because landmines planted by well-trained individuals are impossible to detect visually, many electronic devices were developed as substitutes to the slow and laborious ground prodding method. One electronic system was borne by a vehicle known as the ‘Pookie’ (nickname for a Night ape). Its purpose was to act as lead vehicle to detect mines ahead of vehicles travelling in convoys.
The Pookie was a light vehicle based on the Volkswagen Beetle chassis, riding on four very wide, low- pressure tyres. It was fitted with a single-seat mine-proof module for the driver who monitored signals coming to him from a wide mine-sensing unit mounted crosswise to the module base. This vehicle, which looked as if it had come from outer space, could pass over a mine without detonating it. But because the detector response rate was slow, and the need to stop quickly to prevent following vehicles reaching a detected mine, Pookies could only travel at about 40 kph (25 mph). These vehicles came into Rhodesia’s bush war in small numbers and only served to give convoy protection along the highest-risk routes. In consequence, most convoys continued as before.
One such convoy was travelling along a typical TTL dirt road with gunners standing in their vehicle cabs manning machine-guns mounted on a ring affixed to a hole in the cab roof. From their elevated position they had a good vantage point from which to search for threats on roadway and surrounding bush. They passed a couple of young children who, as the lead vehicle went past, stuck their fingers in their ears and distorted their faces in obvious expectation of a big bang. The lead gunner slammed the top of the cab with his hand to signal the driver to brake hard. It only took a minute of prodding to find the landmine lying just two metres from the front right wheel. The kids had disappeared, probably disappointed, but they had given the best mine warning any soldier could hope for.
Centenary days
WHEN JOC HURRICANE WAS ESTABLISHED, I sent Rob Tasker with three pilots, four technicians, two Provosts and two Trojans to join four helicopters at Centenary Airfield. This airfield, initially with grass runway, became FAF 3 under command of Squadron Leader Peter Cooke who did such a fine job that he remained there for many months.
When operations in the northeast spread eastwards from Centenary, JOC Hurricane, the senior controlling body, moved to Bindura and the regional Sub-JOCs adopted the name of the place at which they were based. This gave rise to Sub-JOCs Centenary, Mount Darwin and Mtoko. The associated Air Force bases were FAFs 3, 4 and 5 respectively.
Back at Thornhill I had lost Gordon Wright on posting to Hunters. Rob Tasker became ‘A’ flight Commander and Bruce Collocott ‘B’ Flight Commander. Since Rob and I were the only instructors on 4 Squadron and Rob had done little time on ops, I decided that I should remain at base to complete Greg Todd’s conversion and handle general squadron matters. In particular, I needed to run Bruce Collocott through his new management responsibilities.
