COUNTERSTRIKE BOOK

Dear all,

I have some very exciting news. I have been chatting to a broadcaster in New Zealand about Counter-Strike from the Sky. He previewed the entire documentary and loved it. He aquires one-hour specials for his channel—The Documentary Channel. According to Richard on an average night they enjoy 10-15 000 viewers per one-hour special. Once they have screened it he will put me in touch with some big shot UK and US distributors so hopefully it will gain some momentum from this and be snatched up by another.

I can't thank you all enough for all the energy and support you have all given this project. Hugh will have to feedback to us on what it all looked like on tellie as he is the only one in New Zealand but I'm sure it'll be a hit.

Kind regards

Kerrin

AK 47 ASSAULT RIFLE

Kalashnikov’s 60 deadly years (Homeless Talk, South Africa)
Harrison Ndlovu
June 2, 2008


The world’s most popular weapon, the AK-47, has reached the 60th anniversary of its deadly career. About 100 million Kalashnikovs are in circulation worldwide, used by state agents, insurgents, gangsters, individuals and private security; and there may not be a country which has not had an incident involving an AK-47.

The gun has featured prominently in nearly all armed conflicts around the world, especially in Asia and Africa. During the 1970s the Vietnamese used it to drive US troops out of their country; though American face savers argue that they were not actually defeated in combat.

It was also the standard weapon in the Korean and Cambodian wars. In the hands of idiots like late Cambodian Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot, the Kalashnikov became an accessory in some of the world’s worst human rights calamities.

Since the 1960s, the unending Middle East wars have relied on the AK-47 for firepower. That included the bloody Lebanese civil war of 1975-90, in which death squads operated with impunity. Today’s nasty fighting is reminiscent of that period, and the AK-47 is still the weapon of choice.

Both the Iraqi and Iranian Arab brothers used Kalashnikovs when they fought during the 1980s Gulf War. Reports said hundreds of Iranian child soldiers were often massacred by Iraqi gunners as they charged at enemy tanks armed only with AK-47s, having been made to believe that the popular weapon made them invincible.

The Kalashnikov gun has also featured in the killing of prominent personalities. On 6 October 1981 AK-47 wielding fundamentalist assassins assassinated ex-Egyptian president Anwar Sadat in a hail of bullets.

In June 1989 the Type 56 version of the AK-47 was involved in massacring hundreds of Chinese pro-democracy protestors in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square. Government forces opened fire on the crowds, killing 3 000 people, according to student unions. The New York Times newspaper estimated the toll at 800, while the Chinese government reduced it to 200.

At that time one soldier said students sparked the carnage by seizing an army tank and opening fire on the troops, using the vehicle’s mounted PKT machinegun, an AK-47 derivative. He however would not say why he brought a battle tank for civilian crowd control.

In the 1980s Afghan Islamic Mujahedeen fighters, armed with earlier versions of the AK-47, fought Soviet troops who were armed with the latest AKS-74. The fighters, who included wanted Al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden, scored major victories against the superpower Soviet army and ultimately overthrew the Kremlin installed communist regime.

The AK-47 features in the current Iraqi imbroglio, where it is often used to spray crowded marketplaces with automatic fire. The UN says over 30 000 Iraqis died from gunshot wounds last year, most of which were inflicted through the AK-47. Executed ex-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein so loved the AK-47 that he had his own made of gold and displayed in his Baghdad palace. Upon his defeat the prized weapon was seized by the Americans and its location is not clear.

In Afghanistan, where the ousted Taliban gunmen have vowed to return to power, and in Palestine and Lebanon, brother shoots brother with an AK-47 in convoluted political squabbles. It is also the prime weapon against Israeli occupation in Palestine.

The Kalashnikov also featured prominently in the 1991-95 Balkan war, where some of the world’s most chilling atrocities were committed. Gunmen often rounded up hundreds of people and executed them in a hail of AK-47 fire.

Between the 1960s and 1980s African liberation forces used it to end colonialism, most prominently in Algeria, Angola, Mozambique, Namibia and Zimbabwe. Upon independence the Mozambican FRELIMO liberation movement incorporated the image of an AK-47 in their flag to symbolize its importance in their struggle for freedom. In South Africa, in the hands of MK and the APLA, the AK-47 helped to force apartheid rulers to the negotiating table, paving the way for democratic rule.

Ex-Chinese leader Chairman Mao Zedong’s declaration that ‘power grows out of the barrel of a gun’ motivated many of the guerillas, who often reworded it to mean it did not ‘grow out of any kind of gun’ saying it actually ‘grows out of the barrel of the AK-47’. Other motivators were Bolivian legendary guerilla Ernesto Che Guevara and Cuban leader Fidel Castro, who also used AK-47s in their heydays.

The liberation movements also used the Kalashnikov against each other after attaining independence, notably in Angola and Mozambique, which included the death of hundreds of thousands of people and ruining the economies. Another conflict where the gun served diligently was in Liberia, where the fighting started in December 1989, lapsed in 1996, resumed in 1999 and went on up to 2003. By that time it was reported that nearly every 12 year-old boy there had an AK-47, and the country had been destroyed.

The Sierra Leone civil war of 1991-2002 had similar features, with AK-47 toting child soldiers committing indescribable atrocities. The same happened in the Ivory Coast insurrection of 2002-06, where untold savagery was reported.

In that conflict it emerged that warlords like ex-Liberian president Charles Taylor bought the AK-47s with illegal diamonds; then passed them on to rebels in neighbouring countries, who caused untold suffering to civilians. Taylor is currently on trial for alleged crimes against humanity at The Hague, and is expectedly denying the charges. His arms supplier Guus van Kouwenhoven was jailed in the Netherlands. That also led to governments and diamond organizations to tighten laws to prevent the proliferation of what came to be known as ‘blood diamonds’.

On 22 February 2002 Angolan troops killed Angolan UNITA rebel chief Jonas Savimbi in a nasty AK-47 duel at the banks of the Luvuei River in Moxico province, in which his 21 bodyguards ‘fought to the last man’. That killing paved the way for peace, as world opinion had long labelled Savimbi a stumbling block for negotiations.

In 1994 the Kalashnikov also featured in the unprecedented Rwandan massacres, however assisted by machetes and pangas in the beastly butchering of nearly a million people. Soon after the plane that carried Rwandan ex-president Juvenal Habyarimana and Burundian leader Cyprian Ntaryamira was downed on April 6 1994, killing both leaders, some news reports suggested that the aircraft might not have been hit by anti-aircraft fire, as both the Rwandan army and the Rwandan Patriotic Front rebels denied deploying their Zsu air defence guns in the vicinity.

That was quite plausible because the Rwandan air force was not very active against the rebels during much of that conflict. So that left the AK-47 and its variants likely responsible for the downing of the plane, and the subsequent reprisals that led to the bloodshed. This of course does not rule out the possibility of SAM 7 rockets having been used.

In the ongoing conflict in Sudan’s Darfur region, the Janjaweed militia and the local gunmen confront each other using the AK-47, which they often turn onto innocent civilians. The same happens in Somalia and eastern DR Congo, where rebel Colonel Laurent Nkunda is determined to emulate the late Angolan insurgent Jonas Savimbi.

In South Africa robbers often use it together with its sub-clone, the R5, in cash-in-transit heists and other violent crime. In Colombia drug mafias use the AK-47, however often in conjunction with the American M-16 and the Israeli Uzi, to protect their interests. Some of the cartels pose as armed political movements and fight government forces that interfere in their illicit trade.

The AK-47 has an amazing manner of changing hands. In the 1980s Israel captured AK-47s from Palestinian PLO fighters and gave them to apartheid South Africa, who passed them on to Angolan UNITA rebels. South Africa also captured AK-47s from Namibian SWAPO guerillas and gave them to Mozambican RENAMO rebels, in its policy of destabilizing the neighbouring states who opposed apartheid rule.

Earlier, during the Zimbabwean liberation war, the Rhodesian army seized AK-47s from ZIPRA and ZANLA guerillas, and gave them to the fledgling Mozambican RENAMO reactionary group, setting it up as a formidable and highly atrocious armed movement. During the civil wars in Mozambique and Angola, government troops also used AK-47s, which gave the rebels the opportunity to brag to ignorant villagers that they armed themselves with weapons they captured from government forces.

In the late 1980s Zimbabwean Super ZAPU rebels benefited from a similar arrangement with the South African secret service. Nonetheless, a 1988 political settlement between the rival PF-ZAPU and ZANU-PF politicians prevented the development of an imbroglio to the magnitude of what was happening in Mozambique. That also ended a brutal insurgency and state counter-insurgency that left thousands of civilians dead; in which the AK-47 played the main killing role.

At about the same time thousands of Kalashnikovs from the Ugandan military were reportedly transferred to the Sudanese People’s Liberation Army fighters. Conversely, AK-47s formerly in the hands of Sudanese government troops were said to have ended up with the murderous Ugandan rebel Lord’s Resistance Army; and recently with the Janjaweed militia, which the Sudanese government however vehemently denies.

The UN and Amnesty International have indicated that the AK-47s arming Somali gunmen largely originated from overthrown dictator Siad Barre’s armed forces, while more were brought from neighbouring Ethiopia and Eritrea. The International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) blames Eritrea, Iran and Yemen among other countries for violating the arms embargo on Somalia.

Besides its prominence in the 17 year Somali bloodshed, the AK-47 also features in the hands of pirates along the Somalian coastline. The gunmen hijack ships in the Indian Ocean and demand ransom of up to US$7 million. In May last year they seized a Taiwanese vessel and murdered a crew member to force the ship’s owners to pay up.

That has solicited global alarm since 2005, when the World Food Programme (WFP) suspended food deliveries by sea for several weeks. WFP spokesperson Josette Sheeran said the buccaneers in speedboats mounted with Kalashnikov machineguns hijacked one of their chartered ships and murdered a guard.

“This increases commodity prices for the poor Somalis, as insurance and protection expenses rise. That may also lead to cut-offs in food supplies to them,” Sheeran warned.
Uganda and Rwanda provided the AK-47s used by Congolese rebels to overthrow ex-Zairean (DR Congo) dictator Mobutu Sese Seko; and also to turn against their former friend, Laurent Kabila, who succeeded him. The ensuing fighting sucked in Angola, Namibia and Zimbabwe, whose troops, also armed with Kalashnikovs, helped Kabila remain in power, albeit for a while. One of his men later shot him dead, with an AK-47.

The gun’s designer, Mikhail Kalashnikov, born in 1919 in the Russian village of Kurya, a self taught engineer, learned mechanics when he worked at a train depot. As a Russian Red Army tank unit commander during the Second World War in 1941, he was wounded in battle, and while in hospital conceived the idea of designing his own gun.

The Russian army’s urgent need for a simple weapon with a high volume of fire motivated Kalashnikov; since the 1939-40 war with Finland, in which the Finns devastated the Russians with submachineguns in close combat; and in 1941 when German troops invaded Russia.

Kalashnikov was however not the first to respond to that need. It was Georgii Shpagin who designed the light PPSh-41, which was cheaper and quicker to make. Its magazine was a 71 round Suomi drum; providing only high rate automatic fire, without a fire selector.

Six years later Kalashnikov unveiled the ‘Automat Kalashnikova, model 1947’, the AK-47.

Up to the late 1950s the PPSh-41 was phased out of Soviet military service, in favour of the AK-47. Shpagin’s gun is nonetheless still active in some hotspots today.

The AK-47 was initially developed for motorized infantry and adopted in 1949. It was a gas-operated selective-fire weapon which fired 7.62mm bullets, housed in a 30 round curved box magazine.

Of the two early versions one had a fixed wooden stock, and the other, the AKS, a folding metal one, for use by paratroopers and armoured regiments. In 1951 it became the standard Soviet army weapon.

In 1959 the Soviets developed the AKM, weighing a kilogram less; made from stamped sheet metal, replacing the forged steel. The hand guard, pistol grip and butt were laminated wood, replacing the solid wood. It provided a fire control lever near the trigger, and a rear sight graduated to 1 000 metres, approved for Soviet army use in 1961.

Later Kalashnikov developed a machinegun variant of his AK-47, the Ruchnoi Pulemyot Kalashnikova, the RPK; and another belt-fed one called the Pulemyot Kalashnikova, the PK. Between 1950 and 1970, Kalashnikov’s guns were produced in a series, which included the AKM, AKMS, AK-74, AKS-74, AK-74U, RPK, RPRS, RPK-74, RPKS-74, PK, PKS, PKM, PKSM, PKT, PKTM, PKB and the PKMB. Up to 1990 over 70 million different designs had been produced.

More versions were manufactured in Eastern Europe and Asia: the Hungarian AMD; Czech V258P; former East German MpiK; Polish PMK; Bulgarian PMKm and the Yugoslavian M70. The short barreled Chinese Type 56 and North Korean Type 68 have been popular with gangsters and terrorists, as they can be easily concealed in clothing.

Variants of Kalashnikov machineguns were produced in 1961: the PKB for use on armoured carriers, the PKT for tank use and the PKS heavy machine gun. The long barreled Yugoslavian PKM, commonly known as the Yugo, has been a favourite for African and Asian gunmen. Its concentration of fire has not been matched by any other light machinegun, including the RPD, the Goryunov, the DshK or NATO models.
In 1990 the AK-74M was produced, and in the next year the RPK-74M light machinegun also emerged. Up to this moment there is the 100 series AK-47s in production. Those include the AK101, AK102, AK103, AK104 and AK105.

All AK-47s function normally after being handled roughly, like being immersed in mud or water. The initial test included dragging it behind a truck for over a kilometre, and it still worked properly. The fully chromed barrel provides for effective operation at extremely low temperatures, and can be cleaned by merely dragging a banana frond through it. In African conflicts rebels are often seen toting some of the earliest versions of the AK-47, which were produced before their fathers were born, the butt completely worn out, or the pistol grip having long broken off; but the weapon functions perfectly.

Kalashnikovs fire in semi-automatic and automatic mode, with a range of about 300 metres. They can fire about 600 bullets per minute, practically 100 rounds in automatic, or 40 in semi-automatic.

During the Cold War the Kalashnikov faced rivals in weapons that were associated with the ‘free world’, as opposed to the ‘communist world’. Many NATO aligned forces in Africa used the Belgian FN-FAL, or the ‘Fabrique Nationale-Fusil Automatique Léger’.
The colonial troops of Angola, Mozambique and Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) however loathed the FN-FAL for its inclination to jam in wet conditions. It was the same with the West German G3, but their commanders would not directly change to the AK-47, ostensibly owing to Western policies that shunned association with the ‘communist weapon’, the AK-47. They rather used the Armalite AR-10, the M-16 and the Uzi, or even the old Lee Enfield .303, which was almost useless in that kind of combat.

In 1969 the Israeli military adopted the Galil rifle; a design based on the Finnish Valmet RK-62, itself an AK-47 copy. Sub-clones of the AK-47 are the South African modifications of the Galil; the Galil AR, or R4; the Galil SAR, or R5 and the Galil MAR, or R6; made by DENEL’s Vektor Arms. The Croatian APS-95 is another variant of the Galil.

In 1980 the South African army replaced the R1, a clone of the FN-FAL, with the R4, an AK-47 derivative. To this Mikhail Kalashnikov lamented that the manufacturers did not even thank him after ‘stealing his design’.

For his contribution to the arms industry the Soviet government conferred to him the Stalin Prize in 1949; the Soviet Russian Hero of Socialist Labour Award in 1958; promoted him to the rank of colonel in 1969; and granted him a Technical Sciences doctorate in 1971.

He again won the Hero of Socialist Labour Award in 1976. He was also awarded three Orders of Lenin, Order of the Patriotic War First Class, Order of the Red Star, Order of the Red Banner of Labour, and more medals. His bronze statue was erected at his native village in 1980, and in 1998 he was awarded the Order of Saint Andrew the Protoclete.

In his 75th birthday late Russian ex-president Boris Yeltsin awarded him the Order for Distinguished Service for the Motherland-Second Class, and promoted him to major-general.

In 2004 Kalashnikov toured Western Europe promoting his Kalashnikov Vodka, in a bottle shaped like his AK-47. When London reporters suggested he must feel bad that his invention kills so many people, Kalashnikov argued that people killed each other even before the gun was invented. “Human nature, being so evil, would still come up with something else with which to kill each other, maybe something even worse. I however regret that terrorists also use my gun,” he said.

He also denied making any money from the weapons, saying he survives from a miserly pension.

Quite unexpectedly, Russian special forces have ditched his AK-47 in favour of the AN-94, the ‘Automat Nikonova’ designed by Gennady Nikonov in 1994. It however costs six times more to produce. Its mechanism is complex, with an uncomfortable pistol grip and folding stock that covers the trigger, making it unusable when folded.

In October 2006 the UN passed a resolution towards a treaty to regulate arms trading to prevent guns from falling into the hands of gunmen. Members would start work on an arms treaty to regulate the flow of weapons that fuel conflicts, like the AK-47, which would provide legally binding safeguards for the import and export of the weapons.

Nonetheless, while countries that included the UK and the EU voted for the motion, Russia and China, the chief producers of the AK-47, abstained, which could reduce the effectiveness of the resolution. The US, another major weapons provider, voted against the idea, saying it already has its own high standards of controlling the weapons trade.

International Action Network on Small Arms (IANSA) director Rebecca Peters said up to April last year member states submitted their views on the feasibility, scope and parameters of the proposed treaty to the UN secretary-general. Under the Control Arms umbrella, IANSA, Amnesty International and Oxfam, launched a worldwide campaign.

The matter is to be presented to the UN Group of Governmental Experts (GGE) as the next phase of the process. “The emphasis is on regional and national initiatives. West Africa’s new convention is the third sub-regional small arms agreement in the continent, after those in Eastern and Southern Africa. Sub-Saharan Africa must now amend its national policies to meet the new regional standards,” she added.


By Harrison Ndlovu

Reprinted from Homeless Talk

moreFROM CHOPPERTECH

BEAVERS LOG BOOK
AIR TASK 768 HURRICANE NEAR MTOKO/NYADIRI RIVER GAP 12/1/1978
K CAR CHAS GOATLEY AND FLAME FLEMING
K CAR FRANCOIS DU TOIT AND TECH UNK
G CAR NORMAN MAASDORP AND HENRY JARVIE
G CAR AL THOROUGHGOOD AND TECH UNK
TECHNICIANS, FLAME FLEMING AND HENRY JARVIE KIA
After having completed a marathon bush trip which had taken me across Rhodesia, my Squadron Warrant Officer; Barry Ord ordered me back to New Sarum from Mtoko for some badly needed R and R.
The Changeover Dakota arrived on the 11th January 1978 and Flight Sergeants Flame Fleming and Henry Jarvie arrived to relieve us.
I was flying with Chas Goatley in the K Car; and Flamo took over from me.
Little did I know that he would be dead in the next few hours? (Flames father and mine worked for the Veterinary Department in Rhodesia)
Fireforce were called out to a scene and during this scene, the Army K Car commander Lieutenant Adams was wounded in the hand and was not able to continue running the battle.
He was transferred to a G Car flown by Luigi Mantovani, the G Car came under intense fire as it lifted off with the casevac and was grounded on return to Mtoko.
Francois du Toit took over the Stop groups on the ground as he was an experienced Fireforce operator and continued to command the Fireforce operation until it ended.

Chas Goatley and his Gunner in the K Car; with Norman Maasdorp and his technician Henry Jarvie were air ambushed as they flew through the Nyadiri River gap West of Mtoko a few minutes flying away from the FAF.
Flame had leant forward to look through the centre Perspex window when he was hit in the head by an AK round.
Fireforce heard about the incident and Norman and Henry returned to Mtoko to refuel and pick up an RAR stick and deploy to the Nyadiri river gap to carry out a follow up of the CT’s.
Chas Goatley had returned to the ambush area was flying in the K Car and running the scene, he guided Norman into an LZ.
As Norman and Henry’s G Car flared to land they were fiercely attacked by an RPD gunner.
Henry was hit and slumped into the middle of the helicopter behind his guns.
The instrument panel vibrated fiercely, as it was shot to smithereens by the intense incoming machine gun fire.

Due to his wounds Norman was unable to walk, so he crawled around the G Car to attend to Henry, however when he got to him he heard a loud gushing noise and could see fuel pouring out of the ruptured tank.
He could also see that Henry was dead!

He crawled back to the stick leader and gave him some painkillers… while he contacted Al Thorogood to casevac them on the stick leaders radio.
Norman was casevaced with the RAR stick and on arrival at Mtoko found that his legs and heel were peppered with shrapnel from the RPD.
The pedal area of the Alouette was peppered with machine gun bullets and shrapnel; and it was a miracle that Norman was not killed in this action.
That night one of the sticks who had been left in overnight ambush by Francois du Toit in K Car was attacked by about 20 CT’s and an RAR soldier killed in the fire fight.
It had been a frustrating and equally worse day for the Rhodesian Security forces.
As for me, I had survived by a hair and I knew it, the shock of it began to tell.
I started questioning myself, as to whether we could sustain all this war and terror, and how it would all end up.


LEOPARD ROCK ATTACK
In January 1978, a group of thirty terrorists approached the Leopard Rock Hotel outside Umtali and began firing AK 47 rifles and RPG 7 rockets at the hotel from a distance of 100 meters away. A rocket hit a turret of the hotel and went through exploding in a vacant room.
A second rocket struck the hotel’s roof and damaged the water mains.
There were only eight guests staying in the hotel and some of these guests managed to return fire at the terrorists.
After this attack we were banned from going to the hotel while on Fireforce duty at Grand Reef.

BEAVERS LOG BOOK
BEATRICE CALL OUT 6/1/78
AIR TASK 767 SALOPS BEATRICE 6/1/1978
G CAR 5277 CHRIS MILBANK AND BEAVER SHAW
I CT KILLED TRACKER DOGS USED IN FOLLOW UP
I was on stand by on Seven Squadron on the morning of the 6th January 1978 enjoying a day at the pool, when the duty officer called and told me to stand by and prepare a G Car for a possible scene which was brewing in the Beatrice area.
I pulled the stand by G Car out of the hangar and prepped it for operations; and within a few minutes was met at the heli-pad by Chris Milbank, who would be my pilot on the operation. Soon afterwards we were airborne setting course for the Beatrice Police Station where we were to uplift a dog handler with his dogs to join a PATU stick in the Beatrice farming area that were following up a group of terrorists.
We refuelled at the police station and headed back to the PATU Sparrow (tracker) stick; who reported that they were about five minutes behind a group of four terrorists who were moving in an easterly direction.

We dropped off the dog handler and his two Labrador retrievers and began circling ahead of the stick in an attempt to bring the terrorists to ground.
After some time orbiting over savannah bushveld, we noticed that the long grass had been trampled in the direction of a thick clump of trees.
Chris pulled the G Car up into an overhead firing pattern and instructed me to put some clearing fire into the thicket with my twin .303 Browning machine guns.
I fired a burst into the target area; and as the rounds impacted into the trees we came under small arms fire from that location.
I could hear the rounds cracking as they passed our helicopter.
Suddenly a terrorist made a break from the thicket and attempted to run into a stream bed, he was armed with a folding butt AK 47 assault rifle.
“Fuck you”, I yelled over the intercom; as I raked him with a long burst from my Browning’s.

The terrorist disappeared into a cloud of dust and I saw him lying prone with his weapon lying about a meter from his lifeless body.
We turned back to the thicket and dropped a white smoke generator into it and gave the area another few bursts of machine gun fire, this time all was quiet.
We spoke the trackers on to the target area and commenced a sweep of the thicket and stream bed but came up with nothing.
It appeared that the terrorists had bomb shelled.
After some extensive sweeping, and letting the dog’s loose we called it a day and recovered all, including the terrorist and his weapon back to Beatrice.

CASEVACS AND DOGS 6-9 February 1978 -FROM THE BOOK, “AIRSTRIKE” BY PROP GELDENHUYS
AIR TASK 777 CONTACT C/S 14 AND 42 TROOPING C/S 43A
G CAR 5729 MIKE BORLACE AND BEAVER SHAW
DEPLOY DOGS, TOP COVER AND CASEVAC LANDMINE VICTIM
Due to the march of time I cannot recall this time


HELICOPTERS DAMAGED IN FIREFORCE ACTION
27th January 1978
Mike Borlace and I were involved with 2 RAR, the text has been extracted from: The War Diaries of Andre Dennison; to describe the actions which followed.

On 27th January 1978, (by now fully operational), the Scouts called us in on a sighting of ten CT’s, in a camp a few miles east of Enkeldoorn.
We had time to dispatch a road party with fuel and the second wave of troops, everything appeared to be set up for a big culling scene.
However the road party was late in arriving, and as K Car One got into the orbit over the target area it collected a mean snot-squirt, warning lights for Africa blossomed over the panel, and Nick Meikle made an immediate emergency landing in a mealie field.
The OC, Dennison transferred to K Car 2, and directed the two G Cars to land sticks. The second G Car pranged on landing, the rotors taking off the tail rotor and totally immobilizing the aircraft.
At this time the paras were dropped and the sweeping started, Stops One and Two contacted a large group of AMA/AFAs (African Male and Female adults)
In the camp area four AMAs were killed; and six AFA/AMJs (African Male Juveniles) killed; with three AMAs who had surrendered.

The call-sign then came under point blank RPK (machine gun) fire and 2Lt Biffen had a close shave when a bullet creased his FN barrel, bulging it badly, two CT’s broke West and were unsuccessfully engaged by K Car Two and a G Car.
One of the CTs was pinned down in some rocks, and Stop 3 were flown in, who flushed him out and killed him, recovering an AK. These were our first OP Grapple kills.
It was later established that one of the dead AMAs was a CT, and that the captured AMAs, by inference, (the dead ones), had received local training. The Scouts later established that three wounded CTs were evacuated that night by vehicle.
Note:
The Selous Scouts records, date this contact as 28th January, as the wounded and the dead were always flown in to a Selous Scout Fort for examination, investigation and interrogation in the case of the living; by Special Branch attached to the Scouts, these records were normally accurate.
The records relate that one of Corporal Croukamp’s sub call-signs, callsign One Three Echo, visited a village in the guise of a survivor from the main contact on the 24thJanuary.
In the general conversation that took place the villagers mentioned that another group of terrorists had based up near the village. The commander of call-sign One Three Echo then carried out a one man reconnaissance and duly located five terrorists based up at UQ055023.
The Fireforce, commanded by Andre Dennison was called, arrived and the contact ensued; in the course of which the aircraft were hit. There were ten terrorists in the base, one of which was killed and four captured.
After these contacts a great deal of information was gleaned by the Selous Scouts callsigns who had called in the Fireforce, as unless they were compromised, they would remain in the area posing as survivors.


CHAPTER TWELVE



STRIKE FORCE, BEIT BRIDGE-COL RICH
My deployment to Strike Force in Beitbridge was to be an interesting time because it was my first time to be living with the Army in their environment in a battle camp.
Our Strike force was commanded by Colonel Rich who was based with us in a camp in the Mtetengwe TTL; just outside of Beitbridge.
We were supported by members of 2 Commando RLI only our G Car in support. We were based in a tented camp and in typical army fashion all ranks were separated according to seniority, rank wise..
I was a corporal at the time but wore Sergeant Stripes in the bush as it was much more comfortable to be in the Army Sergeants mess with batmen taking care of you in the field than struggling along with the junior ranks.
I did not enjoy living with the army very much due to the split messing and the rank discrimination however while camping on this tour I met up with Stu Hammond and Al Parsons who made the evenings in the Sergeants mess bearable with their constant banter.
Our task was to carry out relay changes on a regular basis and to carry out trooping and casualty evacuations if required.
We were also to give top cover to the troopies on the ground when they came into contact with terrorists.
I remember spending my time on this deployment with Dutch De Klerk, Stu Hammond, Alan Parsons and Buzzard Doulgeris
.
I can also remember that digital watches had just come out; and were the rave at the time, Keith Spence, my pilot had just returned from South Africa and was sporting a new Seiko digital watch around camp… like a rat with a gold tooth.
While on this deployment we were sent to casevac a Police reserve callsign which had been involved in a fleeting contact with a group of terrorists and one of the reservists had been shot in the face and it appeared that he had lost an eye; but would survive.
I took my flak vest off during the flight to Messina in South Africa and shielded him from the wind.
During our Beitbridge deployment we had a few great evenings in town at the local club where I was lucky enough to meet one of the local farmer’s daughters Mimi, who worked as a radio operator with the BSAP.
We also frequented the Customs and Excise club and were given bottles of brandy and Coco Rico, which was the drink of the day.
I also met Ed Byrd who was our Special Branch contact in the area and Ed was a mine of information on the area; and which terrorist groups were operating locally.

During this deployment to Beitbridge we met up with some members of the Air Force regiment who were based at Beitbridge. Their leader an Air Force VR Sergeant asked Mike Borlace if we would be kind enough to spend some time giving the VR’s trooping drills with the G Car so that they could be of use if required in a call out.
Mike agreed; and we arrived at their small base near the Bridge and briefed them on
trooping drills; and the art of emplaning and deplaning from a helicopter while armed.
The VR Sergeant looked fierce wearing his combat kit and armed with an MAG machine gun and his ammunition belts draped all over his body like an RAR recruiting poster.
We boarded the stick and practised drills for a while and when we had completed the exercise flew the stick back to their base.
The stick leader saw the convoy to South Africa, parked near their base awaiting clearance to cross the border and asked Mike if they could do a hover drop near the convoy to impress the onlookers in the convoy.
We went into an orbit and came in for the drop, our Sergeant was a little too keen to impress the crowd and bailed out of our G Car at about fifteen feet above the ground… landed on his feet, but due to the height and weight of his MAG, collapsed in a heap injuring his back.
We landed next to him, I got out and extracted a stretcher and with assistance of the remainder of his stick; placed him on board the G Car and casevaced him to Messina hospital in South Africa.

I wonder what went through the minds of those onlookers in the convoy…
BEAVERS LOGBOOK
G CAR 5817 18/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING AND RELAY CHANGE BEITBRIDGE AREA
G CAR 5817 19/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING BEITBRIDGE AREA
G CAR 5817 20/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING BEITBRIDGE AREA
G CAR 5817 22/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING BEITBRIDGE AREA
G CAR 5817 24/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW RELAY CHANGE
G CAR 5817 25/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW CASEVAC AND TROOPING
G CAR 5817 25/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING STRIKE FORCE
G CAR 5817 26/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW BEITBRIDGE-SALISBURY AIRCRAFT CHANGE
G CAR 5729 26/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW SALISBURY BEITBRIDGE
G CAR 5729 26/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING STRIKE FORCE
G CAR 5729 28/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING STRIKE FORCE
G CAR 5729 29/01/1978 KEITH SPENCE AND BEAVER SHAW TROOPING STRIKE FORCE
G CAR 5729 01/02/1978 MIKE BORLACE AND BEAVER SHAW TELSTAR AND TOP COVER FOR C/S 32
G CAR 5729 01/02/1978 MIKE BORLACE AND BEAVER SHAW GUN TEST 500 RDS .303 BROWNING
G CAR 5729 03/02/1978 MIKE BORLACE AND BEAVER SHAW RELAY RESUPPLY C/S 28
G CAR 5729 03/02/1978 MIKE BORLACE AND BEAVER SHAW TULI-VEHICLE AMBUSH-TODDS-BEITBRIDGE
G CAR 5729 04/02/1978 MIKE BORLACE AND BEAVER SHAW RELAY RESUPPLY

JON KENNERLEY AND FARMER ABDUCTIONS
An incident that hounded me for many years finally came to light during research for Choppertech was that of Jon Kennerley.
Jon Kennerley was working for the Bulawayo Chronicle as a compositor and had taken a few days leave from his regular night-shift with the newspaper to visit his father, who worked in Beitbridge as a vehicle Inspector.
Jon managed to hitch a ride in a Ward’s Transport pantechnicon and they headed for Bulawayo on the afternoon of the 5th February 1978.
Mike Borlace, myself with Mike’s dog; Doris, flew over the pantechnicon about 20 kilometres outside Beitbridge and we could clearly see Jon waving at us as we flew over them.
About 12 kilometres outside Beitbridge a group of terrorists stopped the pantechnicon on the main road adjacent to the Mtengwetengwe tribal trust lands; they robbed the driver and his assistant of $30 and abducted Jon Kennerley at about 18h30 in the evening.

Mike Borlace had positioned at the Drummond’s farm in West Nicholson and was told (later that evening), to return to Beitbridge at first light the next day to carry out a follow-up on the abduction.
The terrorists hid Jon in some huts in the Mtengwetengwe TTL; and waited for the follow-up to settle down then moved him from village to village at night to avoid contact with us.
Mike Borlace, myself and our stick of troops from 1 Indep. Coy; RAR were in the G Car; we scoured the area in search of Jon, dropping the troops into villages and constantly checking for any signs of him; but to no avail, however while in the process of our search we made contact with other groups of terrorists in the area; and had some lively contacts.

Jon at this time was hidden deep in the TTL and had his first meal consisting of sadza, chicken and dried milk,(a day after his abduction when things had quietened down)
On the third day Jon was handed over to a new group of terrorists who took his money and bought tins of meat and biscuits from a store.
Five days after his abduction Jon managed to escape from his captors who had relaxed and fell asleep. Jon ran from the village where they had been hiding and wandered about in the TTL looking for water, as this area of Rhodesia is semi desert.
He walked into a village and asked for water; (there was actually a small river nearby) and was told by the locals of the river. As he was crossing the river he heard shots and was recaptured by the terrorists who were enraged with him for escaping.
The terrorists bound his hands with donkey hide straps and his feet with a belt and returned to the village.
That night Jon attempted to escape again but due to being tied up made too much noise which alerted his guard who threw water over the donkey hide straps as punishment for his attempts at escape.
The straps contracted at night and in the morning his hands had swollen terribly leaving him in excruciating pain.
It took sixteen days; from that village for the terrorists to extract Jon into Mozambique and when the group crossed the Nuanetsi River Jon had another go at escape and was caught once again.
This time the terrorists made him walk for six days without shoes walking barefoot with water up to his chest at times and other times walking through very long grass.
When Jon was interrogated by the terrorists he told them that he was in the RLI, however he was too young to serve in the Rhodesian Security forces at that time.
Jon fed the terrorists with a lot of lies and stories which they believed.
Once in Mozambique Jon was whisked away to Chimoio; where he was interrogated once again. He was also given the use of a small transistor radio by his captors.
Five months later Jon was moved to another camp (Tembue) where he met up with an Afrikaner, who had also been abducted by the name of Johannes Maartens.

Jon was to form a strong bond with the old man and called him “Oupa”. (Grandad) Who had been abducted from his farm in Headlands on 18th May 1978. Johannes a 54 year old farmer; and father of seven, was unarmed and attending to his farm in his vehicle; when he was surrounded by a group of terrorists. This group took 9 days to move the sickly old man with a heart condition into Mozambique. The terrorists were aware of his condition and took care to carry his pack and give him frequent rests during which time they assured Johannes that; they were not racists and did not wish to expel all whites from Rhodesia.
The deeply religious Johannes told them that they were being seriously manipulated by Communist ideologies, to which they laughed.
Tembue camp was attacked by the Rhodesian Security forces in July and Jon recalls the camp being “Revved” from his position behind a clump of rocks about 500 meters away from the strike. He says “It was a beautiful sight”.
By this time Jon had befriended his captors and it appeared that they had become quite fond of him.
Food was always a problem; and Jon assisted by catching lizards and tortoises which he said were good eating.

While Jon was abducted we had a few contacts with terrorist groups in the Mtengwetengwe TTL, and in Mozambique, where we found documents and letters about Jon. I was constantly looking out for him and wanted to know the outcome of his abduction. We missed rescuing him a few times; when we were searching for him in the Mtengwetengwe TTL.
A retired British Army Colonel; by the name of Major Thomas Wigglesworth was abducted on the 1st August 1978 from the Penhalonga farming area.
Maj. Wigglesworth was farming fruit and vegetables when the terrorists struck, he returned home from the fields one morning; and was knocked down by a terrorist when he got out of his vehicle.
The terrorists told him that they would have shot him if he had been holding a weapon.
The terrorists took Wigglesworth to his homestead where they looted him of foodstuff, typewriters, a sewing machine and the Major’s war medals. One of the terrorist’s pinned the medals to his chest and swaggered about with them which annoyed the old man who could only just watch and take the abuse.
The group then took Wigglesworth captive and headed west; which was away from the border, for three days and held him in a camp.
During his abduction Wigglesworth had hidden a revolver and attempted to use it, when he was caught reaching for it he was brutally beaten by the terrorists.
After this time; the group made a forced march to Vila Manica which was hard on the old man who hurt his leg, ankle and foot in the process.
During the forced march Wigglesworth saw the lights of Umtali, antagonizingly close by as they made their way to the border.
Whenever the group stopped Wigglesworth was handcuffed to one of the terrorists as a precaution.
When his morale dropped the terrorists reminded him of his war days and said that he must resist as it was a time of war.
Wigglesworth had a hard time when he first arrived in Mozambique; he found eating sadza disgusting and his captors could only speak Portuguese.
He was moved to Chimoio sometime later by Land Rover.

At Chimoio he met up with Johannes Maartens and Jon Kennerley, there was also a gentleman who had been abducted from Melsetter by the name of James Black.
The abductees were interrogated by a ZANLA Cadre called Lameck who had been trained in China.
Jon says that this interrogator tended to write down the answers to his own questions before the abductees could reply.
The white captives were visited by many senior ZANU commanders and politicians who included Rex Nhongo, Tongogara, Tungamirai, Munangagwa and Robert Mugabe.
Mugabe asked Wigglesworth why he did not eat sadza on one occasion.
The abductees struggled with food and their health problems which were not helped by flies, mopani flies and tsetse flies and a host of mosquitoes.
The abductees also had to suffer jigger fleas, leeches, snakes, scorpions and a host of nasty insects.
Due to the constant external raids by Rhodesian security forces in the area, the group of abductees were moved to a camp in the bush near Tete on 4th October, where they remained incarcerated for the next three months.

In P.J.H. Petter-Bowyer’s book Winds of Destruction he mentions that the Rhodesian security forces were disappointed that they did not find the abductees in the camps which were attacked, however some documentation relating to them was found.

The following text has been extracted from his book: -
There was considerable disappointment in not finding the four abductees the troops had hoped to rescue. However amongst the piles and piles of captured documents, SB came upon records dated three weeks earlier in which four captured whites were listed as:
John HERNLEY. Place of residence –Bulawayo. Date of capture 5.2.78(Note ZANLA erred in their spelling, it should have read Kennerley).
Johannes Hendrik MAARTENS. Place of residence – Maringoyi Farm, Headlands. Date of capture -2.8.78.
Thomas WIGGLESWORTH. Place of residence –Odzani, Umtali. Date of capture – 2.8.78
James BLACK. Place of residence –Martin Forest, Melsetter. Date of capture -19.8.78

Military ribbons and medals belonging to Thomas Wigglesworth were recovered from the personal belongings of a CT in Nehanda camp: the location known to have been where the abductees had been held. Fortunately, sufficient evidence was obtained for the Red Cross International to bring about the release of these men from the Tembue area where they had been taken.
Here I divert for a moment. The Rhodesian’s lack of knowledge concerning its enemy, particularly ZANLA, has already been touched upon, and I have told of my absolute fear and certainty of being killed if downed in Mozambique.
The release of these men made me wonder if I might have been wrong in believing the press and some political statements that was conveyed to Rhodesians the awful hardships that the abducted men must be facing.
Upon their release all these men said that they had been very well treated, particularly by Josiah Tongogara. Since first news of their release came from press interviews in the Polana Hotel in Maputo, obviously attended by ZANU and FRELIMO officials, no notice was taken of their good reports.
But then the Rhodesian Foreign Minister PK van der Byl introduced Maartens and Black at a press conference in Salisbury. This backfired on him to some extent because he was fully expecting to hear from these men what had been fed to the public.
Instead Maartens, who was under no pressure to say the “right thing”, repeated what he said in Maputo. When relating to the return of his medals in a book he wrote about his time with ZANLA, Thomas Wigglesworth records that the “truth is stranger than fiction...”
On the 21December they were flown to Maputo and incarcerated in a cell in Nampula. The men were devastated as they thought that they were going to be freed by ZANLA.
The group was then handed over to Amnesty International for release after having been briefed by Mugabe that they would become casualties of war if they returned to Rhodesia.

They all returned to Rhodesia, and after nearly thirty years; I found out what had become of the young guy who had waved at me from the pantechnicon.

NOT LIKELY TO BE PIONEER DAY IN RHODESIA

There is not likely to be a Pioneer Day next year in Zimbabwe

The two leaders of the Patriotic Front guerrillas who are fighting for black rule in Rhodesia, Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe, flew separately last week to Addis Ababa. There they helped Ethiopia's Marxist military rulers celebrate the fourth anniversary of the overthrow of Emperor Haile Selassie I. More important, from Nkomo's and Mugabe's point of view, they had a chance to confer at length with visiting Cuban President Fidel Castro, one of their principal supporters in the six-year-old war against the Salisbury regime.

The meeting of Castro with the Patriotic Front leaders was the latest in a series of disturbing developments in the Rhodesian debacle. Two weeks ago there was the shooting down by Nkomo's guerrillas of a Rhodesian civil airliner with a Soviet-supplied ground-to-air missile. Anger and revulsion swept the white community, and this time Prime Minister Ian Smith was included as a target of white criticism, because he had secretly conferred with Nkomo in Zambia in mid-August.

Smith had offered, in effect, to set Nkomo up as the first leader of black-ruled Zimbabwe if Nkomo would join the interim government in Salisbury and thus help to bring an end to the fighting. After the airliner incident and subsequent atrocity, whites called for martial law, general mobilization and attacks on guerrilla camps in Zambia.

At first, both Smith and Nkomo seemed to be trying to calm things down. Smith promised merely a "modified" martial law and rejected the idea of general mobilization as an unnecessary burden on the country's economy; most young whites spend six months a year in the armed forces anyway.

But Smith did pledge to "liquidate" those organizations inside Rhodesia that were associated with the external guerrilla movements. Until now, his government had boasted about its release of political detainees and the freedoms enjoyed in Rhodesia by Patriotic Front civilian sympathizers. But no more. By midweek the government had arrested more than 200 blacks thought to be linked to the guerrillas and detained them without trial. As he tried to rally his white constituency, Smith raged that Nkomo, who had readily accepted responsibility for the destruction of the Rhodesian airplane, was "a monster" who had gone "beyond the pale."

From his base in Zambia, Nkomo announced that the plan for an all-parties conference on Rhodesia, long advocated by Britain and the U.S., was "dead and buried" and that "the only way left is war." He again sought to justify the destruction of the airliner. "Having about 40 people killed in a plane crash is not pleasant," he said. "We are not rejoicing over death. But the Rhodesian armed forces are killing 30 to 40 of our people a day."

In view of these "deliberate massacres," added Nkomo, "we cannot contemplate working with them. I don't think there will be a place for them in Zimbabwe."

TIME ON DEVILS GORGE

Not since the Matabele and Mashona uprisings against Cecil Rhodes' white settlers in the 1890s had Rhodesian whites felt so threatened. For years, the very notion of black terrorism seemed inconceivable. Most tribal chiefs were docile government stooges. Those who spoke up for black nationalism were quickly clapped into prison. Early terrorist raids misfired. No longer. In recent months, wellarmed, well-trained and well-organized bands of black nationalists have been infiltrating south of the Zambezi River to launch guerrilla warfare against Rhodesia.



Ian Smith's white supremacist regime is fighting back, trying to cut out the infection before it can spread. Last week, along the shores of Lake Kariba and at remote Devil's Gorge, troops tramped through the underbrush seeking terrorists, while Rhodesian jets roared overhead, raining bombs, bullets and napalm from the skies. In Salisbury's High Court, pictures of a huge arms cache were displayed as 32 Africans went on trial, charged with possessing "weapons of war"—an offense now punishable in Rhodesia by death. All along the Zambezi, which separates Rhodesia and Zambia, the hunt was on.

To combat infiltration from Zambia, Rhodesia has beefed up its light infantry, started using dogs on border patrols and ordered an increase in aerial surveillance. Rhodesia, South Africa, and Portugal's "Overseas Provinces" of Mozambique and Angola are coordinating their security operations. South African police helicopters are helping the Rhodesians keep the border watch, and two weeks ago a South African police constable was shot to death in a border clash, becoming South Africa's first casualty of the confrontation.

Bunkers and Buried Arms. An estimated 3,000 black Rhodesians have slipped away to Zambia and Tanzania for training by Russian, Chinese, Egyptian, Algerian and Cuban guerrilla experts. Several hundred have infiltrated back across the Zambezi, digging up arms previously smuggled in and buried at preplanned locations. Guerrillas who once toted old Lee-Enfield rifles are now using Czechoslovak-made recoilless rifles and rocket launchers. They have built underground bunkers and tunnel complexes in Viet Cong style.

The increasing infiltration poses a problem not only for Rhodesia but also for President Kenneth Kaunda of Zambia, who fears Rhodesian retaliation because his country serves as a staging area for at least 1,000 guerrillas. Last week Kaunda returned from London, where he discussed the purchase of British Rapier ground-to-air missiles in order to cope with possible Rhodesian air raids. At the same time he appealed to Smith to change his "unhuman, un-Christian and ungodly" policies. "Let him think again," urged Kaunda, "and we in Zambia will be the first to shake Smith's hand." But Smith seemed in no mood for handshaking. He was intent upon crushing any trace of a black challenge to his regime.

PUMA 164

30th Anniversary of the Loss of Puma 164

Sunday 06 September marks the 30th anniversary of the loss of Puma 164 during Op Uric/Bootlace, the attack on Mapai in the Gaza Province of Mozambique.
On this day two brave ladies will be travelling to the crash site, in order to pay their respects to their fallen brothers, and to the men who died with them on 06 September 1979.
The ladies are Delia Forbes, sister of LeRoy Duberly, and Sue Wentzel, sister of Peter Fox.
They will be accompanied and supported by their husbands on this difficult and emotional pilgrimage.
Please keep them in your thoughts and prayers next Sunday, and perhaps take a moment to remember the brave men at whose graveside they will be standing:

Capt Paul Velleman SAAF
Lt Nigel Osborne SAAF
Flt Sgt Dick Retief SAAF
Capt Joe du Plooy RLI
Capt Charlie Small RhEng
2Lt Bruce Burns RhEng
Sgt Michael Jones RhEng
Cpl LeRoy Duberly RhEng
L/Cpl Peter Fox RhEng
Cpl Gordon Fry RLI
Tpr Jacobus Briel RLI
Tpr Aiden Colman RLI
Tpr Mark Jeremy Crow RLI
Tpr Brian Enslin RLI
Tpr Steven King RLI
Tpr Colin Neasham RLI
Tpr David Rex Prosser RLI

"With thanksgiving, let us remember those who sacrificed their lives so that we may live on in peace.
Help us to keep them in our thoughts, and to never forget what they gave for us."
Graveside prayer read by Bob Manser and Rick van Malsen at the four crash sites which they located in Mozambique.

Spare a thought also for the families and friends of those brave men, who had to wait 30 years for their men to be finally laid to rest by their comrades-in-arms.

May they at last Rest in Peace.

MATSAI PUNCH UP ON FIREFORCE RHODESIA

G CAR 5783 19/12/1976 WILLIE KNIGHT AND BEAVER SHAW
FIREFORCE TROOPING MSUMI 2 SORTIES FLOWN
AIR TASK 565 -19/12/1976 REPULSE: - FOUR JUVENILES AT UN8738, 4 NM EAST OF MATSAI AND 40 NM NORTH EAST OF BUFFALO RANGE
LYNX 3407 PROP GELDENHUYS AND CAPT. WILSON SAS
K CAR 5817 GINGER BALDWIN AND ALAN SHIELDS
G CAR 5272 MARK KNIGHT AND BEAVER SHAW
G CAR 5729 CHRIS DICKINSON AND ROB NELSON
DAKOTA 7039 RICK CULPAN
We were called out to a sighting of twelve terrorists dressed in blue denims and armed with AK and SKS rifles which was 4 nautical miles east of Matsai and 40 nautical miles east of Buffalo Range which was to delay our departure to Bangala dam.
Ginger Baldwin and Alan Shields were in the K Car R5817 with Prop Geldenhuys in the Lynx.
Fireforce troops consisted of SAS soldiers commanded by Captain Wilson; G Cars crewed by Willie Knight and myself, Chris Dickinson and Rob Nelson.
A Paradak captained by Vic Culpan followed once we were on our way.
The SAS troopers were armed with a mixture of Rhodesian and communist issue weapons with the gunners being armed with RPD machine guns.
(Note; SAS troops were not trained for Fireforce operations as their primary task, at this time they were operating into Mozambique on external operations and agreed to stand in for the RLI who badly needed a rest for Christmas)
The SAS troops wore shorts and T shirts with webbing and wore black is beautiful camouflage cream to hide their exposed white flesh, somewhat different from the Scouts who dressed in denims and wore communist style floppy hats or baseball caps.

I was excited and scared at the same time as this was a new experience for me and events seemed to happen very fast, and I had to switch on to what was going on around me.
I listened to every word, and the crackle of the radio chatter… clutching the .303 Browning machine guns in front of me.
Willie told me to keep my (already saucer like) eyes peeled for gooks and to throw smoke to mark a target if I saw any terrorists on the ground.
I clutched a smoke generator to my flak jacket, which was bobbing like a tortoise on steroids… from my adrenalin filled heartbeat.
While circling the contact area, after the K Car had pulled up I could hear the mopani scrub whistling under my feet as we sped over it following a course at treetop level….waiting to be called by K Car to drop off our stick of SAS troops into the contact area.
K Car called… giving directions, talking us on to a clearing in the contact area to drop off our stick; I could hear the crack and chatter of the 20mm cannon firing over the radio as Ginger Baldwin spoke us on to our LZ.
Willie flared into a tiny opening amongst the scrub and I leaned out as briefed checking for obstructions (gooks) and to clear our tail, we flared and dropped off our troops in a whirl of dust and debris.
The troops deplaned running into defensive positions in the scrub thickets nearby as our G Car blasted out of the LZ in a trail of dust and debris with Willie milking the G Car’s collective lever for more power.
I had just survived my first Fireforce drop-off… without fucking up, and making a fool of myself due to my lack of experience!!!
After dropping off our stick we were directed by the K Car to refuel at an abandoned airstrip where we landed next to the Army land tail which had arrived from Buffalo range following the Fireforce and was parked near the main drag.(road)

We had landed close to the parked convoy and while Willie shut down our chopper I ran over to a fuel truck and collect a 44 gallon drum of Jet A1 to refuel my chopper.
I dumped the drum from the back of the truck onto an old tyre and rolled it by hand over some rough ground to the helicopter and struggled to lift it to an upright position.
(I was a lightweight in those days and used to battle to lift fuel drums on my own);
I checked the Jet A1 Aviation fuel for water and once satisfied that we were good to refuel I connected the chopper’s portable, 2 stroke putt-putt refueller; and began refuelling.
While refuelling Willie and I ate ration pack bully beef and mustard on biscuits for breakfast listening on the net for instructions from K Car which was orbiting the contact area.
After some time K Car instructed us to return to pick up our sticks and terrorist bodies which consisted of four AMJ, (African Male Juveniles) known as mujibas. (terrorist trainee’s)
We wound up the G Car and headed back into the contact area and were instructed by K Car to land and shut down to uplift bodies of the four Mujibas killed in the fire fight.
After landing in the LZ which was indicated by the SAS troops throwing orange smoke to indicate the LZ, Willie shut down the chopper, and I removed black polythene body bags from the front of the helicopter to stuff the dead mujiba’s into.
The Mujiba’s had been dragged into the centre of the LZ and were lying on their backs in a tangle of blood and gore, the smell and sights of these torn and shattered human bodies was nauseating, and I fought back the bile and nausea emanating from the back of my throat, as we stuffed their pathetic remains into the body bags.
Little did I know that as the Rhodesian war continued…I would have a bitter hatred for Mujibas and what they stood for….


I realised from that moment on, that war is not what one sees in movies; there is no glory in being smashed by a cannon shell or bullet in the African bush, it’s just a lonely gory death.
We uplifted these bodies to Buffalo range airport, where we landed at a secluded part of the airfield where we delivered our body bag parcels to Special Branch policemen, who were awaiting our arrival.
That evening, I scrubbed the helicopter with the sickly smelling Jeyes Fluid… until my hands bled; yet I could not get rid of the thought that the smell of blood and death which permeated from everywhere… including my own clothes and hands… supper was out of the question.

CANADIAN TOURISTS SHOT AT VIC FALLS

This was all a most interesting development. As a young boy being brought up in Rhodesia, I remember standing at Victoria Falls and looking North across the Zambezi river at Zambia. Two young Canadian girls, tourists, standing right where I was standing, had recently been shot dead by soldiers from the Zambian side. These were just the most recent examples of an on-going terrorist campaign against Rhodesia.

So, as I looked North across the Zambezi, I remember feeling the same sense of fascination mixed with horror and apprehension that I had felt when looking across the barbed wire and mine fields, separating East and West Germany. Zambia was the enemy! "I will never be able to stand on that side of the border," I thought.

Can anyone assist with more information on this incident?
Gordon

VIC FALLS BRIDGE FAILURE

1975: Rhodesia peace talks fail
Talks between the Rhodesian Government and the African National Council (ANC) have collapsed acrimoniously.
Negotiations to bring about a cease fire in the civil war broke up after Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith refused to grant immunity to African nationalist leaders attending the talks.

"It would involve people who are well-known terrorist leaders who bear responsibility for the murders and other atrocities which have been perpetrated in this country," Mr Smith said.

The ANC leader, Bishop Abel Muzorewa, said any hope of achieving a settlement depended on Mr Smith being prepared to compromise.

"If Mr Smith cannot go with us on very small things like this (diplomatic immunity), we think he cannot be serious," Bishop Muzorewa said.

No compromise

The talks were held in a railway carriage on the Victoria Falls Bridge midway between Rhodesia and Zambia.

The presidents of South Africa and Zambia, the principal allies of Rhodesia and the ANC respectively, acted as mediators at the talks.

But after nine-and-a-half hours of discussions they were unable to find a compromise to save the negotiations.

Mr Smith is now expected to employ tough new military measures against the guerrillas.

The guerrillas, mainly members of the Zimbabwe African National Union (Zanu), are said to have been training several thousand men in Zambia and Mozambique.

Mr Smith will also try to win support among "moderate" African leaders for a phased transition to black rule.

RHODESIA 1977

1977: Smith keeps power in Rhodesia
Ian Smith's ruling Rhodesian Front has won an overwhelming victory in the country's general election.
The party made a clean sweep of all the 50 seats reserved for whites in the 66-seat parliament.

The result represents a decisive defeat for 12 right-wingers who split from Mr Smith's party because of his plans for constitutional change.

Mr Smith advocates a phased introduction to black-majority rule.

Last year he accepted a US plan to introduce black rule to Rhodesia within two years.

However, the newly-formed Rhodesian Action Party campaigned on an anti-majority rule platform.

Their defeat in all the seats they contested is seen as strengthening Mr Smith's position.

Ideas being proposed by Britain and America which call for a swift transition to black rule were backed by the left-of-centre National Unifying Force.

Nobody but a fool would disregard the kind of result we witnessed today

Ian Smith

At the polls their candidates were also trounced by the Rhodesian Front.

Speaking after the election count, Mr Smith told journalists he believed the scale of his victory would give him more leverage to produce an internal settlement.

"I am satisfied it has strengthened my hand tremendously. Nobody but a fool would disregard the kind of result we witnessed today," Mr Smith said.

But the prime minister promised to give the Anglo-American proposals careful consideration.

Mr Smith said: "No matter how unpalatable at first sight, we will give them very careful thorough consideration and investigation before attempting to pass judgement."

In spite of Mr Smith's preference for a phased handover to black rule, Wednesday's election is widely expected to be the last time a white-majority parliament will be returned in Rhodesia.

Under the current voting system, the country's 85,000 white voters elect 50 white MPs.

However, just eight black MPs are elected to represent the country's 6m black people - because only 7,000 of them are eligible to vote.

Ian Smith has been Rhodesia's prime minister since 1964.

He unilaterally declared independence from Britain the following year.

HOUSE DEBATE ON RHODESIA 1978

RhodesiaHC Deb 01 August 1978 vol 955 cc228-9W 228W
§ Mr. Lee asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs how many black people have been killed as a result of military activities in the course of the war in Rhodesia during the last 12 months, irrespective of the side upon which such persons appeared to have been ranged, and how many white people and how many of other ethnic groups.

§ Mr. Rowlands We have no means of verifying the number of categories of 229W casualties, but figures published recently give the following breakdown of deaths for this year: Guerrillas 1,167
Black civilians 688
Security forces 134
White civilians 124

OP URIC REQUEST

The members of the team which located the crash site of the SAAF Puma shot down during Op Uric in September 1979, are attempting to contact the next of kin of all of the victims, to inform them of the discovery of the Puma crash site near Mapai, and of the fact that we have erected a cross on the graves discovered there.
Could I please ask you to appeal to your ORAFs members for any information that will assist in contacting family members or friends of these men.

We are still attemping to locate family or friends of the following men:

Flight Sergeant Dick Retief: SAAF
2nd Lieutenant Bruce Fraser Burns: Rh Engineers
Sergeant Michael Alan Jones: Rh Engineers
Trooper Jacobus Alwyn Briel: RLI
Trooper Mark Jeremy Crow: RLI
Trooper Steven Eric King: RLI
Trooper David Rex Prosser: RLI

Any assistance in contacting the families fo these men will be most welcome.
Many thanks for your assistance with this project.

Please mail Neill Jackson on neillj@vodamail.co.za and copy orafs11@gmail.com with any information that you think may assist to locate these people.

A request to other Rhodesian Associations please consider distrubuting this appeal to their members.



Posted: Aug 26, 2009

THE BUFFALO INCIDENT

THE BUFFALO INCIDENT

Possibly Air strike 907 - 7/12/1978.
Fire force was called out from its temporary base at the junior school in Karoi to a sighting of 10-12 terrorists by a Selous Scout O.P. in the Tribal trust lands adjoining the commercial farming area.
The group of terrorists was reported to be armed with AK47 rifles an RPD machine gun and an RPG 7 rocket launcher; they were dressed in blue denims and were relaxing in the river line after having been fed by local village women.
There was a kraal about three kilometers away and this is where the women had brought food from a few hours previously.

Our K Car flew overhead of Scout O.P. and pulled into an attack pattern with the Scouts speaking the gunship onto the target area. As we pulled over the river line the terrorists began to bombshell into the thick vegetation on both sides of the river line.
I threw smoke (Smoke generating grenade to mark the target) and began engaging the Terrorists with 20 mm cannon fire killing two in their camp while the remainder of the Terrorists who had managed to survive the initial contact took cover and ran into thick riverine vegetation and began to give us a serious snotsquirt (return fire) from a heavily overgrown reed bed on the left hand bank of the river.
I returned fire with the cannon which did not have any effect of suppressing the enemy fire as the 20mm HEI rounds burst on top of the reeds and did not penetrate into the thick reeds.
We were taking a lot of hits from small arms fire and had to pull in to a wider orbit to avoid being shot down.
Whenever we tightened our orbit the Terrorist return fire became more intense.
At this stage the RLI fire force commander called for plan Alpha (this is when the supporting G Cars drop their troops at pre determined positions which gives the K Car crew time to sort out their immediate problems) the G Cars orbiting the contact area turned in to drop their stops on both upstream and downstream of the contact area as planned.
There was no need to put stop groups on the sides of the river because the surrounding bush was open other than the line of riverine vegetation, any break out would have been quickly stemmed by 20mm HEI rounds fired into the open by the K Car.
The FF commander (RLI) was worried about his fire force troops sweeping into the reed beds ahead of their drop off positions and got them to sit tight in an ambush position while the Lynx was called on to drop frantan. (Frantan is the Rhodesian version of napalm)
Nigel pulled the K Car into a wide orbit to give the Lynx an opportunity to attack the Terrorist position and the Lynx immediately swooped in firing .303 Browning’s and Sneb (68 mm unguided rockets) rockets followed by frantan, which unfortunately went a little high and caused a huge fireball followed by a plume of sooty black smoke in the riverbed but failed hit the Terrorists their secure position in the reeds.
A G Car was called into the orbit to assist by putting down flushing fire with its twin .303 Browning machine guns, we could see the tracer streaking into the reeds which just caused the Terrorists to return intense fire at the aircraft in the vicinity from this position.. These gooks had found a really secure position and we were going to have a job at hand to rout them without taking any casualties on our side.
Earlier I had noticed some old Buffalo Dagga boys wallowing in some swampy ground (Dagga boys as we called solitary old buffalo bulls who had been ejected from the herd due to their advancing years) in an open area to the left of the river as we were pulling up into the initial attack pattern.
These two old buffalo were now milling about in the vicinity of the reed bed close to the contact area and by now it was obvious that they had become very agitated by all the activity, noise and smoke emanating from the contact in the area.
I had devised a plan which seemed out of ordinary but could just swing things our way and discussed it with the K Car crew over the intercom.
This plan was to attempt to drive these old Dagga Boys towards the Terrorist position with me firing the cannon close to the Buffalo without killing or wounding them in the hope it would scare and drive the Buffalo into the thick reeds; which in turn would drive the Terrorists out into the open where we would be able to take care of business.
Plan accepted which resulted in me firing a round at a time of 20 mm near the two old buffalo.
As the dust from the strikes settled the Dagga boys charged for the nearest cover, in that loping, bouncing run that only buffalo can do, with their tails in the air.
As they entered the reed bed in which the CT’s were hiding the Terrorists began to fire at the buffalo which incensed them more, all we could see from overhead was the reed bed swirling as the buffalo charged at the pop, pop of the AK fire.

Stop 1 reported hearing gunfire from that area and thought the second stop group was in contact with the enemy.
A few seconds later I saw three Terrorists running towards Stop 1 at the top of the river line with one of the Buffalo in hot pursuit. These three Terrorists were shedding themselves of their packs as they ran.
I opened fire with the 20mm cannon double tapping at the fleeing Terrorists in the riverbed and dropped one, as they tore away from the reed bed in an attempt to escape the enraged Buffalo.
The 20 mm fire had unnerved one of the Buffalo and he crashed back into the reed bed once more and he remained there.
Stop 1 called on the radio to say that they had shot two of the terrorists attempting to run down the riverbed about 200 meters from the initial contact area.
I don’t think these Terrorists even knew or cared about the Stop groups in their attempt to escape those Buffalo.
The old Dagga boys were now milling in the reed bed and it was decided that it was not a good idea to sweep through the reed bed and suffer the same fate as the Terrorists.
The stop groups swept the area surrounding the reed bed and the river line and dragged the five bodies out for pick up together with one RPD machine gun two AK47 rifles one RPG 7 Rocket launcher with three rockets and an SKS rifle.
A few days later we flew over the contact area on the way to another call out in the area and saw the Dagga boys lying in the river line chewing the cud as if nothing had happened.
The Scouts who had a grandstand view of what must have been one of the strangest Fire force contact ever seen.
I wish that I had marked more information about this incident in my logbook but one did not think of the future in those days.
(This incident happened in the TTL about 45minutes flying time from Karoi and my attempt to work the date out makes it to be 6 December 1978 and 1 was in K Car serial numberR7509 with Nigel Lamb and was probably on the Angwa river)

MONTE CASSINO ONE VIEW

Trooper Dave Hughes version of the Monte Cassino action as written to me, Dave is a train driver in Canada now:-.
It's 0330hrs - red eye, head 'bobbing' express time.

Rain beats against my windshield, the rivulets streaming down the bullet-proof glass like tears from a wounded behemoth's eye.

Westbound, swallowed up somewhere in the lush green fields between London and Windsor, Ontario 8,800 horsepower struggle mightily beneath my feet, heaving our 7,000ft - 8,000ton train into the yawning abyss of darkness ahead.

Lightning flashes, in no particular rhythm, drowning out the feeble glow from the locomotive headlight - illuminating the landscape and interior of the cab. Out of the corner of my eye I see the conductor staring glassy eyed out the window.

Another flash, the terrain bathed in an eerie glow - does he see what I see?

Row upon row of zigzag slit trenches cut through ochre earth. Soviet 12.7mm DSHK A/A and Portuguese 7.92mm MG-34's cradled in sinewy black arms stare back at me. Selous Scout Trooper Gert O'Neil, his ash-white body tended by a very brave (and still unknown) Selous Scout officer lies very still beside my Eland 90 AFV, call sign 42Alpha.

My tracer fire reaches out, pummelling the 12.7 and MG-34 top covers and receivers, rendering them useless - impotent. A gnarled black forearm, hand clutching a Soviet RPK with bi-pod and 40rd magazine rises out of the trench directly in front of me. It's followed disembody, by a lanky 'terr' sporting an 'afro' hairdo nearly two feet across. He is the first African I have seen with an 'afro'.

Rising to his full 6' plus height he reaches down, grabs the RPK and begins to stride quickly from left-to-right no more than 25 feet from my position. Pressing the firing button my co-ax Browning 7.62mm belt-fed machinegun staccatos into life. I swing the turret clockwise simultaneously raising the muzzle as 1-in-3 tracer punctuates the oven-hot air!

In seconds, that seem an eternity, my fire and 'terr' collide. Tracer streaks through his 'afro' setting the hair alight as he drops straight into the trench from where he had just arisen. A Selous Scout throws a grenade into the slit and an enormous orange sheet of flame billows out of the earth. (This one’s for you 'Gertie'!)

"Ash, (my vehicle commander) did you see that - I just nailed a 'gook"! Too busy loading the Browning and taking orders over the radio Ash hasn't seen what I just saw either.

Another flash, unseen by the now sleeping conductor.

What does it take to dissect 10, or 15 men? The pathologist, smiling while holding his scalpel will tell you it takes time son, - time.

But I know differently - I know it takes but seconds. One twenty second burst of fire from every machinegun in our column. Six 7.62mm Brownings (each firing 650 rounds per minute) from Elands 42, 42Alpha and 42Bravo plus two sets of twin .50 calibre aircraft Brownings (each firing 2,000 rounds per minute) from Selous Scouts armoured 'Pigs' 74 and 74Alpha swivel and fire upon a group of 10 or 15 ZANLA who have shown up on the edge of our battlefield like spectators at a cricket match.

Seeing our guns bearing down on them they turn to flee but we show no mercy, Trooper Gert O'Neil's body having just been removed from the trench lines.

At 75 yards a wall of fire renders them obscenely before my eyes into their constituent parts - flesh to bones to dust: molecules; atoms. Standing up out of the hatch I continue depressing the firing button until there is nothing but the sound of a waterfall of empty .50 caliber cases and links cascading onto the metal floors of 74 and 74Alpha as our guns run dry.

We are truly dangerous men.

Another flash, my conductor momentarily awakened after nearly falling out of his chair rearranges his position and promptly falls back asleep.

A vast green canopy unfolds before 42Alpha. In the distance Monte Cassino stands castle-like, honey-combed with caves sited with crew served anti-aircraft weapons. Massive explosions rock my ears as shells from 20mm Yugoslav multi-barrelled cannon explode around us. To my left and right in line-abreast Selous Scouts soldiers lay flat, their bodies moulded into the rock just inches below the crest of the hill.

20mm rounds impact into the rock face! Some are armour-piercing - they glance off the ancient surface and rocket over the prone bodies of the Scouts. Some are high-explosive - they detonate with a brilliant orange flash that sounds like a shotgun going off beside my ear and I am inside the crew compartment of an AFV! "What must it be like for the Scouts outside," I think?

"Shit, a 20mm cannon will penetrate this vehicle"!

Ash orders Roland (our 17 year old driver) to reverse the car. His foot slips off the clutch and we stall, fully exposed on the rock face directly in the line-of-fire of the 20mm. The only problem is - we have a faulty starter solenoid on this vehicle. When it's hot the starter won't turn over until the solenoid cools - usually about 15 minutes! Grimly, I search through the gunner’s scope for the source of the fire, now homing in on us for the kill.

"Follow the tracer back to the source - damn, it doesn't start to burn until it's far enough from the 20mm that I can't follow it back - make a wild ass guess then"!

"Ash, load an HE round", I shout! "HE - loaded", he replies! I set the range cursor at the second farthest setting and lay the gun on the most likely area the enemy fire appears to emanate from. Bang - the car reverberates wildly! "That's not our cannon firing", I think? Roland screams, "I'm hit - I'm hit!" "Where", asks Ash? "It's my arm, shit my arm", cries Roland!

A 20mm shell has gone through our front fender, sand channels, skimmed over the left front wheel, struck the driver’s door and ricocheted through the left rear fender (just missing the left rear wheel) exiting the vehicle. (Elvis is not in this building!) Roland's elbow was resting against the driver’s door when the round impacted - the vibration through the armour has given him a nasty bruise but his arm is still intact and working. By the end of the week Roland, exhausted by the continuous fighting, will come down with a serious case of battle fatigue - it will be months before the 17 year-old will be right again.

Back to the main gun: "firing - now", I cry through the helmet inter-com! Roland applies the brakes as the 90mm round explodes out the gun tube! Our 6 ton AFV rocks violently backward - the back blast from the muzzle jarring our tightly clenched teeth.

"Clank - clunk", a spent case ejects out the breech-block; the heady scent of gunpowder fills the interior. "Clank", Ash has reloaded another HE round before the first shot falls into the jungle canopy short of Cassino's ramparts. "Damn, that 20mm has to be in Cassino" I curse, as another fusillade of enemy fire pounds our position! Raising the elevation beyond its' farthest range of 2,200 meters I lay the gun on Monte Cassino's sheer rock walls in line with the angry tracer speeding towards us.

"Firing - now", our 20lb HE projectile arcs gracefully towards Cassino, this time exploding like a brilliant orange balloon half-way up the rock cliff!

More return fire, a crash of metal-upon-metal from the turret roof. "There goes the top-mount Browning - shit"! In a close range action it's our only means of engaging the opposition other than with our personal sidearms.

All fire stops - an uncanny silence fills the void. Ash orders Roland to try the starter. "Vroom", our tiny 4-cylinder Chevy Vega motor returns to life. "Driver - reverse", commands Ash! Backing over the crest of the hill we find shelter in the defilade.

Rain fades, clouds break. An opaque moon casts shadows in the bush surrounding the glistening rails. Moonlight softens the age lines etched on the sleeping conductor’s craggy face.

An unrecognizable form, hiding behind a small bush fills my gun-scope. "Ash, I have a target but I can't tell if it's a 'gook' or one of our guys"? As if to answer my question the "form" rolls from behind the shrub into the roadway 25 yards in front of us - revealing brand new East German camo-fatigues, full webbing and shiny new AK-47 with 30rd mag.

"Firing - now", - my burst of 15rds of 7.62mm from the co-ax tears into the prone figure. Every bullet finds its' mark, (the co-ax has a rock-solid mount and scope!) each impact recorded as an involuntary, violent convulsive jerk by the now very-dead ZANLA 'terr'.

Who was he - what the fuck did he roll out in front of us like that for", I wonder? He never answers, even now nearly a quarter of a century later. By the week’s end, stripped of rifle, magazines and full medical kit he carried in his pack his body will be reduced to the thickness of a comb by the combined passage of our AFV's over the corpse.

So hardened we have become, so immune to the suffering of others we refer to the incident with gallows-like humour as the time the 'terr' invented a new disco-dance. We call it doing the 'funky chicken'.

"Fuck, that’s a level crossing - why isn't the whistle blowing"? Now, even I am asleep - eyes wide open taking in the view ahead!
BURNING ZANLA TERR CAMP OP MIRACLE –PHOTO DAVE HUGHES

My late whistle wailing, our train thunders through the crossing headlight shining on the sole occupant of the only car stopped at the gates. Our eyes meet for an instant - an eternity, as we flash by.

Do you see - what I see, now?

MIKE BORLACE AND MIKE UPTON

MIKE BORLACE AND MIKE UPTON
On the 27 March 1976 Mike Borlace and Mike Upton were operating in a K Car with the Mtoko based fireforce which was despatched to Mudzi near the Mozambique border for an operation which turned out to be a lemon (failure).
The fireforce were told to return to Mtoko on the 27 March which they did carrying sticks of RAR troopers and an RAR major in the K Car, the remainder of the fireforce set sail for Mtoko by land tail.
On arrival at Mtoko the fireforce were told that they were to be deployed immediately to a sighting of 25 ZANLA terrorists spotted by a Selous Scout OP on a kopje at Kathana which was 25 km to the North of Mtoko and was in a frozen area.
The plan was for the fireforce to attack the terrorist position with the heliborne RAR troops and pick up the remainder of the troops by G Car from the land tail as required.
Mike Borlace was leading Amber Section which consisted of two G Cars with K Car being commanded by a South African pilot who was not very experienced in Rhodesian fireforce operations. The K Car was an Operation Polo (SAAF loan) helicopter. This small fireforce was supported by a Lynx armed with 68mm Sneb rockets and Frantan bombs.
The Selous Scout call sign who were positioned on a ridge talked the fireforce on to the target area which was a thickly wooded kopje surrounded by open country and fields in a wide valley.
The fireforce approached from the north overflew the Scout OP and ran in to the target with K Car pulling up to a height of 800 feet above the ground. When K Car pulled up things started to go wrong when the K Car pilot made a map reading error which could not be rectified by the other aircraft as the pilot was keying his mike and jamming all transmissions.
The two Amber Section G Cars headed for the correct target kopje and set up a left hand orbit around it and after an initial orbit a group of terrorists were spotted from the G Cars. Mike Borlace flying in Amber 1 told Mike Upton to engage the terrorists with his MAG 7.62 machine gun with Amber 2 also engaging the same group.
The ZANLA terrorists on the ground opened up with accurate small arms fire and RPG 7 rockets at the two G Cars orbiting their position.
Amber section once again attempted to raise K Car to no avail and in an attempt to attract K Car’s attention threw smoke to mark the target area. K Car was yelling at the Scout call sign on the ground and it was clear that the K Car pilot was getting flustered with the Scout on the ground who was also confused with the situation on the ground. After some time a more senior Scout came onto the net and informed the K Car of the contact in progress with Amber section. K car broke off and headed for the correct target area and began firing at the kopje.
Amber 1 at this time was taking an incredible amount of small arms fire but as luck would have it no one was hit in the G Car.
The ZANLA terrorists opened up on K Car wounding the RAR major on board.
Once again Amber 1 the G Car took a huge snot squirt from the terrorists with an AK round striking the G Cars ammunition belt putting the MAG out of action, Mike Upton grabbed an FN from one of the RAR troopers and continued firing at the enemy troops below.
The Lynx circling overhead the contact area acted as a Telstar and radioed a sitrep to JOC who in turn deployed the Mount Darwin fireforce which consisted of a K Car and four G Cars to assist. It would take the Darwin fireforce just over half an hour to get to the contact area.
The terrorist’s bomb shelled with some of them running away from the kopje and into the valley.
Amber 1 was struck by small arms fire in the transmission and hydraulics and Mike Borlace was forced to land the stricken G Car in an open area about a kilometre from the contact site. As soon as the G Car landed the RAR stick on board formed a sweep line.
Amber 2 by this time had uplifted the seriously wounded RAR major and casevacked him to Mtoko. (He died from his wounds later). Unfortunately K Car also had to leave the area as it was low on fuel and ammunition.
Mike took over from the ground and spoke the Lynx on to the target to put down rocket and Frantan to keep the ZANLA terrorists down.
The G Car crew then joined the RAR troops in the sweep line and headed off to the contact area.
The Darwin fireforce arrived about an hour after the initial contact with an experienced K Car pilot in control and an RLI fireforce on board to assist the RAR troops already deployed in Stops on the ground.
Once the RLI sticks were deployed there were a few fleeting contacts with sticks on the ground killing a number of ZANLA terrorists. Sweep lines found four dead terrorists on the kopje at the initial contact area.