Rhodesian Airforce Helicopter Crash R 5176?

Can you throw any light on this one. Picture comes from Pride of Eagles - caption says a spanner was left in the engine intake after a service in Fort Vic. Spanner was drawn into the intake during a training flight over Seki causing crash and fire - no other info on serial number or crew. Judging by type 1 shroud and full armoured seat it could be late 1977. The only recorded prang (Brent) that fits is 10 th October 1977 - Peacock and SAC Watt - R 5176. Any ideas / comment ?


A previous query on R 7524 Harvey / Thompson - 1 st Sept. 1976. I see from Props book that Harvey / Belstead were using K Car 5074 when Belstead was killed and presumably Ian Harvey pranged R 7524 (with Eric Thompson) later the same day at Grand Reef ? Harvey's nerves must have been stuffed after that lot !
Can anyone verify this info please as I have my doubts that Ian flew both aircraft, as far as I know he was with Eric Thompson when the K Car had an engine failure, Beef Belstead was shot in a K Car in Boli which was a long way from Grand Reef?
Beaver

Norman Farrell

F/S Norman Farrell who ended up as WO2 on Seven Squadron

CRAIG BONE PAINTING OF ANDY BARRETT

Wouter Basson in Rhodesia

Extract form the Sunday Times 31 October 1999

A Mercenary Confesses

I saw Dr Death inject five men before they were thrown alive from plane. MICHAEL SCHMIDT reports on five murders that have escaped the attention of the courts. A former soldier of fortune has made a taped confession in which he claims he saw Wouter Basson 'doctor' five guerrillas on a plane in 1979 before they were thrown out over Mozambique. Retired French Foreign Legionnaire Charles 'Chris' Timothy Pessarra claimed from his home in Texas this week that Basson, who he says was wearing a mask, injected two of the guerrillas with an unknown substance. He says the five men had been disguised in the camouflage uniforms of the Rhodesian Selous Scouts and were poisoned so they would spread 'contamination' among the guerrilla force that recovered them


A FORMER French Foreign Legionnaire this week claimed he saw South African chemical warfare expert Dr Wouter Basson inject five unconscious guerrillas with a solution on board a "death plane" from which they were then thrown out over Mozambique

Retired mercenary Charles "Chris" Timothy Pessarra, 50, who also served in the Rhodesian and South African armies, told a chilling tale of a top-secret flight aboard a Rhodesian Air Force Dakota at the tail-end of the Rhodesian bush war.
Pessarra's testimony about the alleged flight in May 1979, which has never been previously revealed and which is not known to Basson's prosecutors, was sent to the Sunday Times from a town in rural Texas, recorded on two micro-cassette tapes. He added some details later in a phone conversation.
Pessarra describes a memorable night at the airfield at Buffalo Range, near Chiredzi in the south of Rhodesia, 20km from the Mozambican border - nicknamed the Russian Front - where he was an airborne-assault paratroop instructor.



The tape begins with Pessarra's description of the night in May 1979 when a Dakota aircraft was due to fly across the border into Mozambique at 9pm.
The pilot of the Dakota, a civilian Air Rhodesia pilot who flew reserve for the air force, begged him to come on the flight because he was worried about the unusual levels of secrecy involved.
At 2pm that day, Pessarra says, he argued at length with a Rhodesian major , and a former Foreign Legionnaire serving with the Selous Scouts. The Scouts wanted five parachutes, but Pessarra said he had not received any orders to that effect from air force headquarters.
Pessarra says that he examined the Dakota, and that its interior windows had been blacked out and the pilot's cabin sealed off with canvas.
But he was able to see what was being loaded: "Five . . . semi-conscious [Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army] terrorists into the back of the Dak.
"I recognized several different people from the Recce people, and also recognized an American intelligence officer and two of the gentlemen who I'd seen once before with the Recce people, the South African Recce [reconnaissance unit]."
He says Basson "drove up in the Land Rover . . . he was there for at least a few hours". Basson "did not have a beard; hell of a bit more hair. He looked like a German hunter out on safari."
Pessarra sneaked onto the aircraft through the navigator's door. "I was able to look through the side window, saw them load the bodies. They were still conscious.
"Basson got out of the door . . . on the right-hand side of the Land Rover, walked around the side, climbed up the steps. He had his case with him. He bent over them inside the door, on the back part of the aircraft between the last seats and the doors."
Peeping through a hole in the canvas screen, Pessarra saw "the terrs [terrorists], they were semi-unconscious, some of them were obviously, I could see, alive".
"I only saw him [Basson] inject two of them with some type of solution [directly into their stomachs]. They did some scrapings, everything. The rubber gloves were put on.
"Basson had a mask on . . . he put the mask on once he was inside the door, took it off once he was outside. This all took about 25 minutes."
Five members of the Recces had helped Basson, he says.



"We took off . . . They made the drop. We returned to the airfield . . . They dropped the terrs out on the parachutes . . . A powdered substance was sprinkled on the bodies just before they were ejected from the aircraft once we were over Mozambique airspace."
Pessarra says he believes the mission was an intelligence "double-bluff": the unconscious guerrillas had been disguised in the camouflage uniforms of the Selous Scouts, complete with firearms and false papers. He adds that the ex-Legionnaire had said the guerrillas were alive, but had been "doctored" - poisoned. Pessarra assumed the intention was to drop them over Mozambique where their bodies would spread "contamination" among whichever guerrilla force recovered them.
He says Basson met the flight on its return to the airfield.
"Later . . . in '97, when I saw Basson's photograph in the paper, I recognized who he was," he says.
In 1997, Basson was arrested for dealing in the drug ecstasy. Pessarra says he knew it was Basson because "I never forget a face . . . I'm not mistaken."
Basson's trial, which will be one of the biggest in South Africa, resumed this week after adjourning three weeks ago when the defense successfully argued that the court drop six charges.
One charge related to an allegation that Basson supplied drugs which were used to dope about 200 Swapo guerrillas, who were then taken up in a light aircraft and thrown to their deaths over the sea.



The Namibian government has never reversed a blanket amnesty granted in 1989 to all former SA Defense Force soldiers like Basson. But there is no such amnesty relating to atrocities, such as the one Pessarra alleges, committed by the SADF in then-Rhodesia or in Mozambique.
Court documents describe at least 24 death flights between July 9 1979 and December 12 1987, in which the drugged bodies of guerrillas were thrown out of aircraft, usually into the Atlantic or Indian oceans, about 100 nautical miles off the coast. Some were strangled, some killed with hammers, and others suffocated with drugs. The state alleges Basson supplied the drugs on at least 25 occasions.
At the time of the alleged death flight that Pessarra witnessed, Bishop Abel Muzorewa had been elected as the head of the new Rhodesia-Zimbabwe, but the guerrilla war had increased in intensity - and South African Reconnaissance commandos, or Recces, were heavily involved in the conflict along the Russian Front.
Pessarra said the top-secret death flight had been under the control of the Selous Scouts.
Dr Torie Pretorius, who compiled the murder and drug charges against Basson, said he would be calling "several witnesses from Rhodesia who will give oral evidence that they met with Basson in Rhodesia".
Pretorius said he did not know Pessarra but was "interested" in his evidence for possible further prosecution.
Pessarra claims that he has broken his silence after 20 years because the security police, for whom he acted as an informant in the late '80s and early '90s after leaving the SA army, wanted "to destroy me after all I did [as a whistle-blower on dirty tricks], and to destroy my wife and children. So now, I simply want revenge."
Both Rhodesian and South African military veterans confirmed that Pessarra had been a member of the Rhodesian Light Infantry's support commando during the bush war and then became a parachute instructor at the Parachute Training School at New Sarum, outside Salisbury, now Harare.
A former colleague at 1 Parachute Battalion in Tempe, Lieutenant-Colonel Johnny Kieser, retired, said: "I know him very well. He qualified here as a static line instructor and he also did freefall."
Basson's lawyers did not respond to the allegations.


link: http://cache.zoominfo.com/CachedPage...tName=Pessarra

JAMES CHIKAREMA

From: "Robert Kay"
Date: Wed, 5 Apr 2006 20:52:22 +0200

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April 2, 1925 - March 22, 2006


Firebrand revolutionary who was a catalyst in the transformation of Rhodesia
into Zimbabwe


When the 30-year-old James Chikerema addressed onlookers in the rough
recreational halls in Salisbury's townships in 1955, he shocked them not
only with his incendiary delivery, but also with his use of an expression
they had never heard before: "one man, one vote". He was the prototype
firebrand militant in post-Second World War Rhodesia where black political
leaders had never asked for more than better pay, the right to stand in the
same queue as whites in the post office and to be able to buy alcohol. Rule
by the white man was regarded as unquestionable, and black politicians
wanted only to be governed well by administrators they routinely addressed
as "our fathers". Chikerema was the first of a generation of African
revolutionaries to articulate the notion of black majority rule in Rhodesia,
and was the catalyst that launched nearly two decades of civil unrest and
seven years of guerrilla war that ended with the independence of the state
of Zimbabwe in 1980.


Uniquely, he lacked the blinding ambition for absolute leadership that has
littered postcolonial Africa with failed states controlled by unbalanced
despots - including his cousin, Robert Mugabe. Chikerema was committed to
"the struggle" and had a rare willingness to play second fiddle to political
leaders he believed were more able than him. To whites, he was a dangerous,
offensive, inflammatory rabble-rouser. His surname means "scoundrel" in
Shona. The rangy, bearded, pipesmoking troublemaker with his jackal-pelt cap
inspired black Rhodesians with his effrontery to white administrators.
Chikerema was non-conformist, non-doctrinaire and cared little what others
thought of his utterances. His apparently unreconcilable political
methodologies were exemplified by the two cheap copper plaques fixed to the
mantelpiece of the fireplace in his ample, run-down Harare home - a model of
an AK47 rifle next to the emblem of Tiny Rowland's Lonrho corporation. His
independence and affable frankness eventually had him sidelined from major
office as the nationalist movement grew into a government. Before and after
independence he was a dabbler in lost causes, surviving on the patronage of
Rowland, who bankrolled most of Zimbabwe's senior black politicians.


James Robert Dambaza Chikerema was born in 1925 at the Kutama Mission in an
African reserve, about 50 miles west of Salisbury, where his father taught
at the school under the severity of the Catholic Marist Brothers. He and
Mugabe were fellow students. They herded the family's cattle together, but
Chikerama had little in common with his aloof relative. After primary school
he went to St Francis College at Mariannhill in Natal, South Africa, one of
a handful of educational institutions in southern Africa open to blacks.
Chikerema quickly absorbed the political atmosphere of the upper forms and
was an adherent of the African National Congress by the time he left for
Cape Town, where he worked as a waiter by day and attended night classes in
history and English. He came into contact with Nelson Mandela, Walter Sisulu
and other established ANC activists, whose focus was on the agitations of
Kwame Nkrumah in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) and Jomo Kenyatta in Kenya.
Chikerema joined the banned South African Communist Party and organised
protests with other black Rhodesians against plans to unite Southern and
Northern Rhodesia in a federation. Inevitably, the South African security
police came for him but did not recognise the African foreigner when they
turned up at his lodgings to arrest him. They asked him if he had seen James
Chikerema. "He just left," said the fugitive who immediately fled back to
Rhodesia.


A job as chief clerk in a factory outside Salisbury ended after he organised
a strike, and he turned to selling insurance, and circulated with a group of
young radicals, most of whom had also just returned from other parts of
Africa with the stirrings of black nationalism. In 1955 Chikerema and his
friends founded the City Youth League in Salisbury and launched themselves
on to the quiescent townships. They clamoured for universal suffrage and
fulminated against the white man's laws. A year later the Youth League was
formalised with Chikerema as its president. They raised their campaign with
protests and civil disobedience, particularly against the Land Husbandry Act
which they believed would force Africans out of their traditional rural
homes. Later in the year, authorities raised bus fares in Salisbury, and
Chikerema organised a bus boycott. The roads were thronged by thousands of
blacks, watched by uneasy policemen, as they walked the six miles from their
townships into town. Youths stoned a bus that tried to defy the boycott.
That night the townships erupted in violence and mobs went on the rampage.


Troops and reservists were called out to quash the commotion. The British
governor, Sir Peveril William-Powlett, declared a state of emergency. But
radical black nationalism had slapped the face of white authority and shown
its efficacy. The bus fare increase was dropped. The Youth League escalated
its offensive. Rallies were held in townships every Sunday with exultant
support, while police wrote down every word of Chikerema's speeches,
arresting him whenever his tirades were judged seditious. Chikerema realised
the impetus of support was enough now to carry the campaign out of Salisbury
and across the country, but did not believe he had the prestige and dignity
for a national leader. After a few failed approaches, Joshua Nkomo, a social
welfare officer in the railways, was recruited. In 1957 the Southern
Rhodesian African National Congress was launched in Salisbury. September 12
was deliberately chosen because it was Pioneer Day, commemorating the
arrival of the first white pioneers in 1890. Nkomo, an Ndebele, was
president, and the Shona Chikerema his deputy, representing a balance
between the two tribal groups.


Their manifesto was simply to secure the swift transfer of power to the
African majority. They swept into Rhodesia's countryside, urging people to
flout the law, and organised boycotts and worked to undermine the authority
of white native commissioners who controlled the tribal areas. Chikerema was
accused of slandering the Minister of Native Affairs, Sir Patrick Fletcher,
by calling him "a thief". Chikerema's claim that he had said "chief" was not
accepted by the magistrate who fined him the immense sum then of £100. The
unrest stirred up by Nkomo and Chikerema in 1959 brought another state of
emergency, from Edgar Whitehead, the Prime Minister. Chikerema was among the
first victims of new repressive laws of detention without trial. He was
released in 1963 to find the SRANC had been banned. Its latest incarnation,
the Zimbabwe African People's Union (Zapu), was splitting into two tribally
based factions, one led by the Ndebele-speaking Nkomo and a Shona group
called the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu), of which Mugabe was one
of its most provocative officials.


Violence erupted, mostly in Salisbury's townships as the two factions went
to war with firebombs, stones, cudgels and spears. In 1964 the Government of
Winston Field rounded up almost the entire ranking membership of the African
nationalist movement, running into thousands and including Nkomo and Mugabe,
and put them away in prisons and remote restriction camps. Chikerema and a
few others were able to flee and Rhodesia's townships were relatively calm
for the next ten years. Chikerema remained loyal to Nkomo. He set up a Zapu
headquarters-in-exile in Dar es Salaam but angered President Nyerere of
Tanzania when he promised in 1965 "a reign of terror" against whites in
Rhodesia if Ian Smith's new Government carried out its threat to declare
independence unilaterally. The Zapu offices were moved to Lusaka, the
Zambian capital, where Chikerema was part of a "war council" to prepare for
the battle for Rhodesia. As a military strategist, he was a failure. The few
guerrilla groups Zapu dispatched into Rhodesia were almost all caught not
long after they crossed the border. He also got into trouble with President
Kaunda of Zambia for taking a BBC television crew around a Zapu guerrilla
training camp.


By 1971 Chikerema had lost influence in the exiled Zapu leadership and, with
a few other disaffected black nationalists, founded the Front for the
Liberation of Zimbabwe (Frolizi), to unite the guerrillas of Zapu and Zanu
into a single army. That too failed. He attended the first talks between
Smith and senior representatives of all the black nationalist groups on a
train on the middle of the bridge over the Victoria Falls, on the
Zambia-Rhodesia border. The talks ended in failure. Chikerema's hopes for a
military role faded in 1975 when the men in the largest guerrilla camp, in
Mgagao, Tanzania, signed a document of no confidence in him, and declared
their loyalty to Mugabe. He returned to Rhodesia and joined the "internal
settlement" between Smith and Bishop Abel Muzorewa that in 1979 won him a
Cabinet post in Muzorewa's ten-month rule. Frustrated with Muzorewa's poor
leadership, he joined a group of rebel parliamentarians to form the Zimbabwe
Democratic Party. It was only a few months before it was overtaken by the
Lancaster House agreement in December 1979 that bore independence in April
1980. He all but disappeared from the political scene thereafter, working
for Lonrho, making one last, unsuccessful stab in an election in 1995 for
the shortlived Forum Party, and he spent the rest of his time as something
of a gentleman farmer on a property he bought near his home at Kutama.
Shortly after Mugabe mounted his seizure of white-owned land in 2000, he
also had Chikerema's listed for seizure. "It's a punishment," said
Chikerema. "Because I stood against him and have never been a member of his
party." He died in Indianapolis in the US where he had gone for medical
treatment. He leaves his wife, Philda, and seven children.


James Chikerema, political activist, was born on April 2, 1925. He died on
March 22, 2006, aged 80



.

OSSIE PENTON RHAF

Half a Century in Uniform ~ a book about The Life Story of Group Captain O.D. Penton OLM AFC and how he helped form the Rhodesian Air Force includes Spitfire and Cessna Skymaster Ferries across Africa

This is the life story of Ossie Penton, who has been described as a "Journeyman Pilot." When I started preparing the manuscript I was told by him that he did not "really have a story to tell, I am not an "ace of the base" like Douglas Bader or Neville Duke. To me most of war was like a Cook's Tour.

This is the man who flew 114 missions over Malta, the Adriatic, Albania and Italy. He earned his wings with the South African Air Force and then went "Up North" attached to the RAF and flew with the Desert Air Force over the Italian War Theatre.

In his log one comment epitomised the man. He wrote it after he landed from a ground strafing mission in Albania with several bullet holes in his plane. It read: "Hit several times. The Big Twitch!"

When he finally returned to South Africa he could not leave flying alone and emigrated to the then Southern Rhodesia where he joined the Southern Rhodesia Auxiliary Air Force. With that force he took part in the longest ferry of Spitfires ever undertaken, setting the scene and providing the ground work for another ferry some 25 years later. This was the Ferry of 18 Cessna 337G (Skymaster ~ Milirole Ground Attack platform) aircraft from Rheims in France to Salisbury against United Nations sanctions. Both the Ferries are detailed in the book with the original logs from both recorded. The detailed account of how the Rhodesian Aircraft ferried the Skymaster code named the Lynx ~ the aircraft designed especially for operations in Viet Nam includes photographs only published in this book.

Ossie was a founder member of the Rhodesian Air Force and rose to high rank due to his unique personality and his ability as a leader as well as a pilot. He helped train several of the men who became Officers Commanding of the Air Force.

In addition to recording the story of a unique man the book also shows the political climate and events of a turbulent time in South Africa's and Rhodesia's (now Zimbabwe) history.

Ossie finally retired from flying in 1982 after serving with the fledgling Air Force of Zimbabwe. One of his students was at that time the Air Marshal in charge of the Air Force.

THE RHODESIAN SOLDIER LITERATURE

THE RHODESIAN “SOLDIER LITERATURE”

(BY MEMORY CHIRERE)


It was Stanley Nyamufukudza who argued in 1993 that it was becoming clearthat those who study Zimbabwe’s 1970’s war literature risk narrowing down to pro-guerilla literature only – something to that effect.
The grave danger was to deny oneself opportunity to get to know how the ‘man in the opposite camp’ viewed the same war, Nyamufukudza continued. He was reviewing former Rhodesian soldier Angus Shaw’s war novel Kandaya: Another time, AnotherPlace.
With that in mind one gradually noticed a lot of Rhodesian “soldier literature” lying all over the country in; old book-shops, old libraries, flea-markets, treasure shops,old school cupboards, former nannies and kaddies’ suitcases… Rhodesian soldier literature is everywhere in Zimbabwe and we side-step it everyday as we look for bananas, flowers or brightly coloured magazines. Some of it is just crazyand when you read it, you curse: “Of course, their version - the terrorists– was that we’d massacred women and children, just to incite hate against us. Well, maybe there were some women and Children.
I know there were. But you can’t stop shooting at terrorists if there are women and children there, because then you’d never win the war.” Some of it gets straight to the guts with its kind of brutal candour mixed withstony bravado: “I often used to wonder how Kandaya felt when we were closing in on him or his people.
Sometimes they didn’t have a chance because we had the helicopters, the radios, the superior fire power, you name it, we had it.” Jeremy Ford’s 1975 book of poems called Hello Soldier! Is not a book you might consider going through when you come across it.
It is a “hastily” written andillustrated “book of sketches and poems of a Rhodesian soldier’s life”. But when you realize that this could be one of the small but useful windows into the Rhodesian Front Call Up, you read it for pointers and insights.
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Carrying fifty-seven poems, Hello Soldier! Is passionately dedicated “To my wife, Florence.” It is a kind of Rhodesian soldier’s diary in poetry form. It should be remembered that able-bodied Rhodesians dutifully went to “Call-Up.”
Meaning that they trained and served in their Rhodesian army for specific periods during the 1970s war which they often refer to as the “bush war”. The Africannationalists refer to the same as “war of liberation.” In the first poem called “Call-up” the persona who is out on call up addresses a girlfriend back home. The reason for going to war is understated: Think of all the love we had, Girl, sometimes think of me, Now I’m just a soldier in A war to keep us free.” Free from what? You ask. Obviously free from communism or black rule! Maybe it also means “free to have our kind in power.” Free to continue tilling the lands usurped from the helpless natives. However that very contentious issue is given a soft touch in the poem: “Girl, I am just a soldier with A rifle and a pack, Girl, you got to keep your heart For me when I get back!” This lends this poetry to comparing and contrasting with the black nationalist guerilla poetry by the likes of Freedom Nyamubaya and Thomas Bvuma where the war is actually “the real poetry” and the bush and struggle are “that open university.”For Jeremy Ford’s persona call up is just duty, something you can go in and outof. It is only a rite of passage and an initiation into manhood. It is not further than a physical experience. In “Fit Enough” the doctor insists on the mere physicality of the venture and the war is not associated with clear-cut ideals: “The Doctor says I’m fit enough, They say he ought to know- Two feet, two hands, a steady gaze To carry on for days.” If you are looking for the Rhodesian soldier’s ideals in this anthology beyond “keeping us free,” you are bound to be disappointed. The poems are about“training” only as an external experience. However the sense of thrill such poems could instill in a white boy-reader cannot be over-emphasised. As a
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3romance/mobiliser genre, this book must have been very useful to the Rhodesian cause. It is a book that can drive any boy to the barrack. There is a lot of “wheeling”, “marching” “muttering” in these poems and at the end of the day, there is always “time to eat.” The sense of picnic in the Call-Up barrack isportrayed as over-powering: “Now Army food is not too bad When you’ve been out all day, For then you eat what they dish out In lumps upon your tray. The weight of it is quite enough To keep a man content, It weighs him down like may tonsOf healthy grey cement.” There is a mixture of both the spartan and ‘soft’ adventure. The comfort strikes a direct opposite with the hunger and disease of the ZANLA and ZIPRA camps inMozambique and Zambia, respectively. One senses that the “Rhodesian war” dependent on a regular fat bill. The illustrations to this collection show young soldiers in pretty tunic, fitting caps, barrack beds, well oiled guns and the occasional acoustic guitar. Interestingly there was time to write letters to “Dad, mum, Pete and Joe back home.” Mum and Dad could even come visiting. There was time to listen to radio Jacaranda’s “Favourites in the Forces,” a programme on which girl-friendswould phone in or write to tell Jack to “give the terrs a hard-time.” Or one could phone in to pass “all my love to Frikkie du Toit – somewhere in the bush.” One’s duty in this war was “timed” and one marked the passing day on the barrack calendar. You “did your bit” and went back home or to college a true patriot. This was a leisure trip and when it ended, one turned one’s back and moved on. One was only “a rifleman” who received money on pay-day: “Pay checked and found correct sir! Is what they make you say, And that’s enough to last you till It comes to next pay day” But then, throughout, you don’t find a black face in this one hundred and twentythree paged book of poems! But one knows that the cooks and care-takers in these barracks were blacks. The black characters have been very unskillfully erased from the whole picture. This is however part of the well known Rhodesian lie or myth – that the blackman is not worth seeing. This is not only
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evident in Rhodesian literature. It is also the same case in Rhodesian paintings.In 1995 Tim McLoughlin was to write: “This point becomes clearer if we compare landscapes (paintings) by white painters like Alice Balfour and others who are fascinated by the vast unpeopled spaces which they see (and not people). Much attention, Particularly in water colour painting, goes into the brush- work details of long winter grass or aloes. (and not people), contorted shapes of branches…” There is, in Jeremy Ford as in Rhodesian psyche, an excitement with the self. The none but ourselves syndrome. And even after the training, the young soldier persona is not portrayed as properly defining his (guerilla) enemy. Atbest the man on the other side is a monkey:“We’re leaving in a week or so To go and earn our keep Away there in the valley where The monkeys lie asleep.” Towards the end of this “amusing” book of poems one comes across the only contact in a poem called ‘Contact.’ You think - now I will “see” the guerillas. Butthe guerillas are not given shape. There is a single guerilla gun-shot and beforethe Rhodesians respond, the guerillas disappear: “We all skirmished forward And sank to one knee As they ran away through The forest of trees.” The guerillas remain simply as “they” and their association with the bush and darkness have been typical as far back as Peter Halket of Mashonaland. The African guerillas rush back into the unchristian bush where they belong. The young Christian Rhodesian soldiers remain and continue to preserve their“freedom.” Part of Ian Smith’s U.D.I. document does not mince words: “We have struck a blow for the preservation of justice, civilization, Christianity and in the spirit of this belief we have this day assumed our sovereign independence. God bless you all.”
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As Jeremy Ford’s soldiers go deeper and deeper into “their country”, they get lost in it! They say, “We are miles away from nowhere.” They miss “a smoke, a wash, some good hot food and a sleeping tent.” They are stranded until an army helicopter finds them. The “bush war” remains an adventure until the young soldiers return home. The Rhodesian soldier literature, music and life-style has retreated from the public sphere but it is very much alive. Today the Rhodesian web-sites receive poems continuously from Rhodesians in Zimbabwe, South-Africa, Canada, Britain,Australia and New-Zealand. What unites the Rhodesians, as seen in their literature (both in print and today’s web-sites) is the theme that “Rhodesians never die.”
The physical Rhodesia was overtaken by ‘terrs’ in 1980 but the Rhodesians the world over have created a nation in their minds.
They are watching us. They hear what we say.
Stanley Nyamufukudza’s warning is important: Let us keep them in sight.
Let us understand them through what they wrote and are still writing.

Rhodesian AF Air to air contact comment

Gordon,



Saw on your choppertech blog about the only air-to-air combat during the bush war. I ‘d heard the story from the other side – the pilot of the other plane was actually an RAF instructor who was training up the BDF Air Wing at the time. His name was Tony someone who I came across in Gaborone in the early 80s. He told me he’d actually visited Thornhill after the war to meet up with you guys and mull over the story.



Good luck for the book.



Dave Crossley

Rhodesian Air Force Publicity Photos

FIREFORCE PAINTINGS

SOUTHERN AFRICAN MILITARY KIT CIRCA 1970s

Michael Ian Upton BCR

Mike Upton was a Flight Sergeant when I first joined 7 Squadron and was brilliant at drill. He was also a very experienced operator during the bush war leaving the Rhodesian Air Force as a Master Sergeant and earining a Bronze Cross for his bravery in action.
This is a recent photo taken from ORAFS of Mike at a recent Anzac parade.

Rhodesian Military mineproofing soloutions

Rhodesian Army Quarter-Master General, Colonel I.R. Stansfield faced what appeared to be an insolvable problem. First, United Nation sanctions isolated Rhodesia from world markets and restricted him from purchasing the armor from which he might fashion MRAP vehicles. Second, Rhodesia could not afford to buy the armor even if he could gain access to the world markets. These circumstances forced Rhodesia to design, build and field an MRAP vehicle fleet alone.


And less than six years after the first mine strike in April of 1971, the Rhodesians succeeded in transforming their entire vehicle fleet from an unprotected liability into an offensive capability that restored tactical and operational mobility to the Fire Force, virtually eliminated mine related deaths and significantly reduced mine related casualties. Following is a brief synopsis of how this small, financially constrained country sanctioned off from the rest of the world developed an MRAP fleet of vehicles over 25 years ago that, unbelievably, are more survivable than any comparable vehicle produced by the U.S. today.


To counter the successful fire force tactics, the communists began an offensive unconventional mine warfare campaign in 1971. Using mines they quickly began to exploit the unprotected Rhodesian infrastructure, laying mines along roads, city streets, and random open areas of the countryside surrounding farms and villages. In order to protect its citizens and maintain its legitimacy, the government formed a mine warfare committee that included the federal government, police, civil vehicle organizations and private companies. According to Stansfield, the committee’s most important and far reaching decision was to make survivability the most important aspect of mine and ambush protection, [emphasis added] and they laid down very specific criteria for crew protection.i


Next, Stansfield combined Rhodesia’s exacting and exhaustive mine casualty records with the mine warfare committee’s extensive vehicle blast tests to determine the major kill mechanisms associated with mines. Then he used this information to design and build special-purpose vehicles to effectively counter the kill mechanisms.ii Stansfield categorized the principles of mine protection under primary, secondary and tertiary kill mechanisms.

Primary kill mechanisms included acceleration, fragmentation and overpressure. Acceleration is the dynamic vertical acceleration resulting from a mine blast that often produces permanent or fatal neck and spine injuries. Fragmentations are the pieces from the mine itself or other debris propelled by the mine blast that cause massive soft tissue damage primarily to the head, heart and lungs. Blast overpressure is the sudden violent pulse of air generated by the mine blast that destroys the circulatory and respiratory system.

Secondary kill mechanisms resulted from vehicle parts failing under the stress of the mine blast and causing traumatic injury to the occupants. Tertiary kill mechanisms resulted from the various traumatic injuries produced by a vehicle crash often resulting from a mine blast.iii


Successful mine and ambush strikes also score a psychological mobility kill because they degrade the morale and confidence of offensive-minded forces. Successful mine attacks create hesitation, and sluggishness that degrade operational maneuver, while the confidence and high morale derived from knowing the operating force is protected from mine attacks is immeasurable. Stansfield recognized this fact and set about developing a fleet of vehicles capable of defeating each of the mine kill mechanisms listed above. In addition to protecting the operating forces, these vehicles actually changed the character of Rhodesian countermine warfare from passive defense in terms of neutralizing and avoiding mines and ambushes to an active offensive strategy of seeking them out.


The Rhodesians progressed quickly through first and second-generation field expedient and bolt-on protection like the U.S. Army attempted in Vietnam. The Rhodesians understood these methods did not afford them the protection they needed, reduced load carrying capacity, and cost prohibitively. Their third generation vehicles consisted of deep v-shaped blast deflecting hulls welded onto existing truck frames. These vehicles yielded substantial increases in protection from mines and small arms with the added benefit of protecting the occupants during rollovers from vehicle accidents.


Rhodesian design culminated with fourth generation MRAP vehicles designed from the ground up to protect against all three mine kill mechansims. These MRAP vehicles significantly expanded the offensive force options available to the Fire Force. In fact, they were so robust and survivable the Rhodesian Army began using them as offensive mobile fire support platforms in addition to their other logistical and transportation duties. The MRAP vehicles were so well protected and mobile that by the time the third and especially the fourth generation MRAP vehicles were fielded, the Rhodesians no longer attempted to detect and avoid the killing ground of an ambush, they detected and attacked directly into it.iv The Rhodesians had in effect turned an enemy strength into an exploitable vulnerability because the level of protection they enjoyed enabled them to literally drive through an ambush unharmed, then turn and destroy it.


The Rhodesian MRAP efforts to reduce casualties through survivability clearly speak for themselves. Their extremely detailed mine casualty records indicate unprotected vehicles suffered a 22 percent kill rate, while 1st and 2nd generation MRAP vehicles only suffered 8 percent casualty rate. However, 3rd generation MRAP fatality percentages drops to 2 percent while 4th generation falls below 1 percent. Rhodesian MRAP vehicles immediately restored the tactical mobility, and operational maneuver critical to the Fire Force while virtually eliminating casualties. The Rhodesians had effectively defeated the mine and ambush threat with mild steel, a sound design, and a philosophy that protecting their forces to improve their mobility was the key to victory.

Tactical victories, one might add. Still the ability of the Rhodesian to give their troops the tactical and strategic mobility back was certainly amazing given the dire overall ressources. A good deal of the AO in Afghanistan are more difficult to navigate and enforce greater compromises. But it doesn't seem to be that the British Mod has only recently learned the most important lesson: High mine protection is not something you slap on the next vehicle you come across!


Extracted from: http://www.defencetalk.com/forums/ar...dates-7467-11/

Rhodesian External Operations

Rhodesian Externals

This was only the begin of problems for the regime in Maputo. Namely, to counter Machel government’s support to insurgents of Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU), and its armed wing, Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army (ZANLA), which were waging a war against the white regime in Rhodesia, the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO) conceived a strong insurgency movement becoming operational inside Mozambique. Thus the Rhodesians joined a number of loosely-organized bands of resistance fighters into what officially became known as Resistencia Nacional de Mocambique – RENAMO. This title was not very well-known in the public of the time, however, which was the reason that for most of the late 1970s, Mozambiquan insurgent-movements were more usually referred to as “Mozambican National Resistance” (MRM) or the “Mozambican National Resistance” (MNR). The first RENAMO leader was André Matsangaisse, an ex-FRELIMO platoon commander, punished for theft and expelled from FAM before being placed in a re-education camp at Gorongosa. Matsangaisse joined the rebellion out of nationalist motives upon escaping from detention to Umtali. Recognized by Rhodesians as a strong leader, one of his first actions was to lead a raid against the detention camp at Gorongosa from which he escaped, freeing over 500 prisoners, most of them ex-FRELIMO fighters. At least 300 decided to join and followed him back into Rhodesia.

Right from the beginning, the CIO agents understood that the anti-regime sentiment was still too weak. The agency therefore set up a powerful 400kW radio station – nick-named “Big Bertha” – the Voz da Africa Libre (“Voice of Free Africa”) and begun transmitting anti-government propaganda in Portuguese from a transmitter in Gwelo. The new radio station soon became so popular with Mozambicans, that the Government sought the assistance of East German technicians to jam it. The powerful transmitter, however, defied all such efforts: step by step, Voz da Africa Libre was successful in focusing anti-regime sentiment and bring ever more disaffected FRELIMO fighters back to bush.

When the war began, the FAM had no defined COIN doctrine. Of course, the military attempted to address security management problems, but it failed to accomplish even this task: the FAM did not manage to maintain overland communications in order to enable troop movement and re-supply; it failed to contain the spread of RENAMO operations; and its capability to counterattack RENAMO forces remained limited at best until well into the mid-1980s.

Aside from facing an internal insurgency, the regime in Maputo and the FAM found themselves also on the receiving end of a whole series of Rhodesian strikes against ZANLA and camps of the Zimbabwe People’s Revolutionary Army (ZIPRA) in the country. The first significant cross-country strike flown by the Rhodesian Air Force (RhAF), occurred on 28 February 1976, when Hawker Hunters attacked the ZANLA base in Pafuri, in the frame of Operation “Small Bang”, a raid by Rhodesian African Rifles and Selous Scouts. In late May 1976, the RhAF also struck at a ZIPRA arms depot. On 9 August, Rhodesian Selous Scouts attacked a ZANLA camp on the bend of the Pungwe River tributary, killing 600 personnel and causing the reminder to flee in Operation “Eland”.

A whole series of raids of different scale in size and ferocity followed between October 1976 and mid-May 1977. The RhAF English Electric Canberras and Hunters, helicopters as well as various units of Rhodesian Army – including Special Air Service (SAS), Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI), and Selous Scots – were deployed to hit various targets. The situation culminated with the Operation “Aztec”, when Selous Scouts hit ZANLA targets around Mapai, intending to restrict organisation’s movement into south-eastern Rhodesia. While the Rhodesians have lost a number of RhAF and civilian aircraft while fighting guerrillas insider their own borders, during the mid-1970s, the first RhAF loss during operations inside Mozambique occurred on the evening of 30 May 1977, when C-47A “R3702” was shot down following an attack on ZANLA guerrillas in the frame of the Operation Aztec. The starboard engine of the aircraft was hit by an RPG-7 during depart from Mapai airfield, and the plane crashed, killing Flt.Lt. Collocott, one of crewmembers. On the following morning, Hunters of No.1 Squadron RhAF carried out attacks on FRELIMO and ZANLA bases around Jorge de Limpopo, but were unable to spot enemy mortar positions. Aztec ended on 2 June, with limited Rhodesian success.

In autumn 1978, Rhodesian SAS was deployed in a number of missions well inside Mozambique. Usually, the operators were parachuted in to find targets and designate them for Hunter- and Canberra-strikes. Some of these combined operations, foremost “Melon” and “Dingo”, resulted not only in considerable losses for ZANLA and ZIPRA, but also in heavy losses and destruction of several FAM units. In late November, Operation Dingo was launched against targets in Zambia before the Rhodesian Hunters and Canberras returned to hit the ZANLA camp at Tembue, NE of the Cabora Bassa lake, in Mozambique. Although equipped with a significant number of anti-aircraft artillery pieces and SA-7s, the Mozambiquan military, ZANLA and ZIPRA rebels proved practically defenceless against Rhodesian strikes. They have lost immense amounts of arms and suffered considerable casualties causing negligible Rhodesian losses in exchange. This was later to become the direct reason for establishment of the Mozambiquan Air Force as an armed branch.

The process of founding the Mozambiquan Air Force proved to be a lengthy and complex task, however, and was to take years to accomplish. Before it was so far, therefore, the most the Mozambiquans and the rebels they supported could to was to fire increasing numbers of SA-7s at RhAF aircraft attacking them. Due to excellent training of Rhodesian pilots, very few of MANPADs came anywhere near their targets, however, and most of the strikes flown during the next Rhodesian offensive into Mozambique were practically unopposed. The situation changed completely during the last large-scale Rhodesian incursion, Operation Uric. This brought savage attacks of RhAF Hunters and Canberras against targets in Mapai area, on 5 September 1979, including FAM radar stations, anti-aircraft gun emplacements and warehouses: immense damage was caused to several installations used for supporting infiltrations into Rhodesia. However, this operation signalized also the “beginning of the end” for Rhodesians, then it was not considered as success, especially as the later began to suffer unacceptably high losses. A RhAF Alouette III was shot down already on the first day of the offensive, by an RPG-7, and a South African Air Force Puma transport helicopter involved in supporting the Rhodesian operation was brought down on the following day, killing 12.

Between 28 September and 3 October 1979, Canberras and a Hunters flew a series of strikes against the huge base at Chimoio, holding some 6.000 ZANLA guerrillas, as well as a FAM column moving towards Rhodesian border. Although the main base was eventually occupied and destroyed, during bitter fighting on 30 September, resulting in most of it’s the rebels in situ being either dead or wounded, the Rhodesians were not successful in the end. The approaching FAM column proved a particularly tough nut to crack, then a Canberra and a Hunter each were shot down, with the loss of all crewmembers, including the Hunter-pilot, Flt.Lt. Brian Gordon. This was also the last Rhodesian operation of this kind in Mozambique: only two months later a cease-fire was agreed, and the war in Rhodesia ended.