For a while activities in the northeast were limited to follow-up operations on increasing numbers of farm attacks, sightings and reports, but physical contacts with elusive terrorists were limited. Having secured the support of the locals, ZANLA groups were operating so much more effectively than in previous times and for very little effort they were able to tie down hundreds of security force men. 7 Squadron’s helicopters were busy all the time whilst 4 Squadron provided some top cover, made a few airstrikes and conducted casualty evacuation to rear base hospitals.
Territorial Army and Police protection teams were allocated to farmsteads whilst private companies made a financial killing setting up an inter-farm and Police radio-communication network (Agri-Alert) and erecting security barriers with flood-lights around farmsteads. The farm workers’ compounds were not protected in the same way because it was realised that to do so would bring terrorist retribution on workers’ families living in the TTLs.
Because of the demand for trackers and follow-up forces, the SAS continued to be used as infantry, which was a terrible waste of their potential. Brian Robinson pressed for his squadron to return to the role for which it was intended and trained. This was to operate in depth inside Mozambique to counter ZANLA’s freedom of movement through Tete Province. He did not have long to wait, though the SAS return to Tete came in an unexpected way.
On 8 January 1973, three white surveyors and two black assistants were ambushed in their vehicle near the Mavuradona Pass on the road to Mukumbura. Robert Bland and Dennis Sanderson were killed. They were the first whites to die at the hands of terrorists since the Viljoens were murdered at Nevada Farm in May 1966. Gerald Hawksworth and two black assistants were abducted and marched off towards Mozambique.
Under pressure from the Rhodesian Government, Portuguese approval was given for the SAS to move back into Tete, ostensibly to free Hawksworth and his two black companions. Their operations were initially limited to areas south of the Zambezi River but, having got a foot in the door, the SAS were to continue operating in Mozambique for many months to come. They failed to find the abductees who had already crossed the Zambezi because the SAS were belatedly cleared for the search.
ZANLA’s direct entries from Zambia into Rhodesia had ceased long before Op Hurricane started, so it came as a shock when Ian Smith closed the border with Zambia on 9 January. He blamed Zambia for allowing ZANLA and ZIPRA free access across the Zambezi to attack white farmers and to abduct civilians. South Africa and Mozambique had received no warning of this unilateral action that threatened their lucrative trade with Zambia. Despite the ideological differences that existed between South Africa and Zambia, Prime Minister Vorster and President Kaunda favoured dialogue with free trade in southern Africa and a situation of detente developed between their two countries. South Africa was incensed by the situation, which if allowed to continue, would mean the loss of over 300 million rands in valued annual exports.
Ian Smith had been under pressure from South Africa for some days when he received assurance from a Zambian envoy that no terrorists would be allowed to cross the Zambian/ Rhodesian border. This gave him the excuse needed to reverse an obvious political error and the border was declared open on 3 February. Kaunda however refused to reopen it. The economic effects of this emotional decision on South Africa, Mozambique and Rhodesia were enormous; for Zambia they were disastrous. By throwing his toys out of his cot, Kaunda denied his country access to four major seaports in South Africa and Mozambique. He was therefore limited to Dar es Salaam and Luanda, the latter involving enormous distance via unreliable Zaire and war-torn Angola. Neither of these routes was efficient and the implications of Zambia’s self-imposed vulnerability introduced new factors into Rhodesian counter-terrorist thinking.
A week after Kaunda decided to keep the border closed, I was tasked to make a study of the Zambezi River from Kanyemba to Kariba, concentrating mainly on the Zambian bank. This three-day recce task was a welcome break from instruction but, apart from updating maps, nothing suspicious was located. By this time, most callsigns along the river were South African Police units who exhibited the same habits I had seen five years earlier when I was still flying helicopters. They swam naked in the Zambezi River and continued to ignore the crocodiles around them.
Deaths of Smart and Smithdorff
HAVING COMPLETED THE BORDER recce I reported to Air HQ. Whilst I was there on 21 February, Flight Lieutenant John Smart and his technician, Tinker Smithdorff, were reported overdue on a flight from Rushinga to a location to the northwest. Why Wing Commander Sandy Mutch was required to oversee a search for the missing helicopter I cannot say, but I was tasked to fly him to Rushinga and remain there to assist him.
I hardly knew John Smart who had recently joined us from the RAF. On the other hand, Tinker was well known to me. Brother to Mark Smithdorff, Tinker was quiet by nature and very popular with all who knew him. He was also an excellent technician and a good rugby player.
Whilst Sandy gathered in aircraft and tasked them for what was expected to be an easy search, I was finding out what had been happening in that area. From the Special Branch and Police I learned that a group of terrorists had been reported moving northward along the Ruya River two days previously. I asked if John Smart knew about this group, to which I received an affirmative reply; so I went to Sandy Mutch and suggested he should include the Ruya River in his search plan. He would have nothing to do with this because the Ruya did not fit in with his now finalised search plan.
I explained to Sandy that I felt certain that John had done what I would have done in his situation. I would have diverted from the direct track to run up the Ruya at low level in the hopes of catching the terrorist group in the open. There had been no urgency for John to reach his destination so a deviation of some forty kilometres would not have concerned him. Sandy still took no notice and two whole days of intensive but fruitless searching passed.
The wreckage of John’s helicopter was then located by accident. Hugh Chisnall of the Police Reserve Air Wing was on a routine flight along the border when he noticed strong sun reflections flashing off items in heavy bush in the Ruya riverbed. He knew an air search was being conducted for a missing helicopter and guessed that the flashes he had seen might have been from wreckage of that machine. His report was investigated by one of the search helicopters whose pilot immediately confirmed the reflections had been from the scattered wreckage of John’s helicopter.
Troops were flown in to secure the area before an Air Force team arrived to conduct a detailed investigation. The findings were that the helicopter had struck a tall, dead tree that John had obviously not seen (a known hazard when low-flying). Whether the impact incapacitated John or the helicopter was not clear, but some 100 metres had been traversed before the helicopter reached high bush and broke up in a long crash path. John and Tinker had been killed instantly and there was no evidence to suggest any enemy involvement.
Offensive recces
ALTHOUGH I HAD BEEN IN and out of Centenary to change over crews and receive updates on what was happening in the Op Hurricane area, I did not deploy to Centenary until March. Back at base Rob Tasker was busy with Trojan conversions and operational orientation for a new crop of youngsters fresh off PTC. These were Peter Simmonds, Chris Dickinson, Ken Newman, Cocky Benecke, Mark Aitchison and Willie Wilson.
There were limited calls on 4 Squadron in this period, so I decided to get back into Tete to see what was happening in the same area 4 Squadron had used for recce training eight months earlier. Mike Litson flew with me
