and we were both astounded by the changes.
SAS teams had been operating in this same region since January and had scored small successes against ZANLA. However, the area was simply too large for the limited number of foot-bound SAS callsigns to fully reconnoitre, monitor and ambush an expanding network of routes to Rhodesia.
Although in three days I could provide the basic intelligence the SAS would take more than a month of hard work to glean, Brian Robinson was dead against my continued presence over any area in which his men were operating. Since I held the SAS in high regard, I honoured Brian’s wishes, but I have to say that I never did agree with his thinking.
We knew ZANLA was making inroads into the populated areas. When a question arose as to how far their influence extended, I offered a simple way of finding out. I got most of my squadron crews and aircraft, from Thornhill and elsewhere, to meet at New Sarum. After my briefing we flew ten aircraft low-level along parallel lines set five miles apart heading due north from a start line that ran eastwards from Salisbury. We flew due north to another line running due east from Centenary to where the Mazoe River exited Rhodesia. Along this line, all aircraft headed east for fifty miles and repeated the parallel pattern heading south.
Each aircraft had a crew of two whose task it was to study the local peoples’ reaction to the presence of their aircraft. My observation over years had been that all the black folk, men, women and children, living normal lives instinctively waved at low-flying aircraft, even when they were caught stark naked. However, whenever there had been any political tension, such as occurred during the banning of ZAPU in the 1960s, nobody would look up at an aircraft, let alone wave at it.
The crews were asked to plot the point at which peoples’ responses to the aircraft changed from open friendliness to indifference. In this way we found that the terrorists were active in northern Chiweshe TTL south of Centenary, throughout that part of the Kandeya TTL lying north of the Ruya River, the northern half of Chimanda TTL and the whole of Masoso TTL. The Ngarwe and Mkota TTLs in the east appeared to be free of ZANLA influence.
In the manner we had come to expect, Internal Affairs paid no attention to our information but Special Branch men like Peter Stanton and Winston Hart took it seriously. These two men had already learned what pilots could pick up from the air using God-given Mk1 eyeballs.
Blonde-haired, softly spoken Winston Hart, like Peter Stanton, was a top-rate intelligence officer. Both of these men became key figures in future SAS and Air Force planning. As early as 1970 they were already well known but were seldom seen because they were forever on the move, and always in a hurry. Winston was particularly lucky to have been blessed with the lives of a proverbial cat but unlucky in another sense to be involved in two landmine explosions in the space of a few days at the beginning of Op Hurricane. In these incidents he was fortunate to get away with temporary deafness and severe bruising because proper mine-proofed vehicles did not exist then.
Non-offensive casualties
AN UNFORTUNATE FACT OF LIFE is that lives are lost or seriously affected by accidents. In the normal run of things they seldom draw public attention because accidents are simply regarded as risks of living. This changes the moment they involve men in uniform. In Rhodesia routine accidents continued but new situations introduced new hazards. The greatest of these came from killing devices such as rifles and explosives as well as increased vehicular movement of men.
So far as I remember, we lost more uniformed men to accidental gunshot wounds than to offensive actions. These incidents were recorded as ‘accidental discharges’, abbreviated to ‘AD’ in the daily Sitreps (Situation Reports) sent to OCC from the JOCs. Reports of deaths and injuries by ADs became so commonplace in Sitreps that the horror of these was usually lost to those who read them. But one thing was clear, ADs hardly ever occurred amongst highly trained and disciplined units. Road accidents also made too high a claim on our uniformed men and one such incident involved my cousin, Brian Ade.
Brian was the son of my Uncle Eric Smith who had died in Italy when his Spitfire struck high-tension cables. Eric’s wife, Eileen, remarried some years later and changed the surname of Eric’s son Brian and daughter June to that of her husband, Cliff Ade. Nevertheless, Brian and June Ade were still my first cousins and were special to me.
Brian was in charge of a number of TF (Territorial Force) soldiers being transported to Mukumbura on the Mozambican border in one of a convoy of Bedford trucks. The road to Mukumbura descended from the highveld into the Zambezi Valley floor via a steep, winding pass down the Mavuradona mountain range. During its descent, the vehicle on which Brian was travelling suffered total brake failure. Brian immediately realised that the steep gradient and sharp corners spelt disaster, so he ordered everyone to jump off the moving vehicle. Whereas most did so, a few men froze. Brian manhandled some over the side of the truck and was so engaged when the vehicle rolled on a sharp corner. Brian was flipped out and flew through the air in a near-vertical descent onto rocks. Unfortunately he landed on a wedge shaped rock that broke his back, confining him for life to a wheelchair.
Not content to be just another paraplegic number, Brian coached hockey and learned to drive a car with tailor-made accelerator and brake hand-controls. He often used to go off into the bush to photograph wildlife. Using his photographs, Brian eked out a living as a painter of wildlife. On one occasion he had left the road and was taking photographs of a baobab tree when he found himself surrounded by armed terrorists. Not wishing to let the CTs know he was incapable of normal movement, Brian quietly countered threats by launching into a lecture on the finer points of the giant baobab. Quite why they enjoyed Brian’s talk I do not know, but they moved on and let him be.
The Peter Simmonds incident
ALTHOUGH THERE HAD BEEN MANY occasions in which enemy fire had been directed at aircraft, there had been no serious damage or injuries. On 4 July 1973 this changed for Air Lieutenant Peter Simmonds. He was piloting a Provost on a sortie giving support to an RAR tracker-combat team inside Mozambique. Along for the ride was his technician Mike Guy.
Army Lieutenant Mike Wilson had followed a group of terrorists across the border into Mozambique but the depth of his penetration was such that he had moved beyond the coverage given by his maps. Although there was need to know Mike’s location, his major back at base in Mukumbura had been reluctant to use air, as this would arouse the terrorists to the follow-up operation. After four days however, Peter Simmonds was asked to find the RAR callsign and drop a supply of maps and radio batteries to him. Neither Mike Wilson nor Pete Simmonds were to know that the callsign was within 100 metres of the terrorists as Peter descended for a slow low pass over the ground force. As he and Mike Guy threw out the stores, there were two loud bangs that Pete thought had come from his engine. He immediately applied full power and was relieved that the engine responded normally.
It was only as Pete gained height and closed the canopy that Mike Guy pointed to Peter’s legs. Considering a bullet had shattered his left femur and gouged a hole in his right leg, it is surprising that Peter had not felt the strike and that there was no pain whatsoever. Realising he was bleeding heavily and might lose consciousness, Pete asked Mike Guy to handle the aircraft whilst he stuck his fingers into the holes in his left leg to stem the blood flow for the twenty-minute flight to Mukumbura.
Unlike most aircraft, the Provost’s rudders pedals had leather toe straps that, together with hand-operated wheel brakes, were a godsend to Peter in this predicament. His left leg was quite useless to him but his right leg could still push to apply right rudder and pull on the toe strap to apply left rudder. Having thought things through before landing, Peter was able to put the aircraft down safely before executing a deliberate ground loop with full
