External recce training
4 SQUADRON’S RECCE TRAINING AREA WAS limited to ground west of where the SAS had contacted ZANLA at Matimbe Base. I had a fair idea of what we would be looking for in Mozambique but felt apprehensive about teaching my men whilst learning the ropes myself. Although I was only expected to teach pilots recce, I decided that the technicians should participate to involve them directly and to see how they took to the task. To make things manageable, separate periods of ten days were allocated to each of two halves of the squadron.
Following introductory flights to study tribal patterns near Gwelo, I took the first half of the squadron to Kariba to compare animal paths with those of humans. We then moved to Gutsa Airfield sited on the west bank of the Musengezi River at the base of the Zambezi escarpment and forty-six kilometres south of the Mozambican border.
Air Force Volunteer Reservists under Flight Lieutenant Geoff Fenn, who had his faithful old servant ‘Sixpence’ in tow, had already prepared Gutsa base for us. In addition to the tented accommodation, Geoff had set up an operations tent with radio and telecommunication facilities. The camp lay under tall mopani trees between the runway and an established Army base. At the time D Coy RAR under command of Major Bruce Hulley was there.
It was the start of winter so the weather was pleasant and relatively cool. This was important because, in the very hot conditions of the valley during summer, it would not have been possible for the Trojan aircraft to take off with full fuel and four men. As it was we had to turn right when airborne to avoid the high banks on the eastern side of the Musengezi River and climb along the course of the river until high enough to turn for Mozambique.
On our first night at Gutsa I noticed abnormal drum-beating activity both close and far off downriver. I asked Bruce Hulley what this was all about. He said that in all his previous stints at Gutsa no such drum-beating occurred other than during customary beer-drinking parties every Saturday night. Yet during this spell there had been many drums beating every single night. The abnormal activity worried him and he had made this known to Army HQ.
One night the drums stopped their perpetual throbbing because, at the request of the local tribal chief, Bruce had undertaken to shoot a troublesome crocodile. The beast had lived in a large pool on the Musengezi River for as long as the chief could remember and it had been responsible for killing a number of people. Recently the dreaded reptile had dragged a young girl screaming into the river. She was never seen again.
I accompanied Bruce and two of his men to the large boomerang-shaped pool in which the crocodile lived. We were all armed with FN rifles and Bruce had a powerful headlamp plus four hand-grenades. The intense beam of light tracked back and forth over the water and along the reeds of the far bank searching for crocodile eyes that reflect light like bright stars. There was no sign of the brute so Bruce lobbed two widely separated grenades into the water. As the grenades went in, I slipped on the steep slope of the high bank overlooking the pool and very nearly went over the sheer drop into the water just as the dull thuds from the grenades mushroomed in the water. My slide was checked in time to see the huge crocodile’s eyes light up in the beam of torchlight midway between the turbulent patches of water. We all fired together hitting the croc several times. When spray from the hail of bullets settled there was no sign of the brute, which was never seen again. Next night the drums were beating again.
4 Squadron needed to make detailed reconnaissance of almost 3,000-square nautical miles of territory. This was divided into five overlapping sectors and each crew was allocated to a sector that was changed every day to allow everyone to work every inch of the entire area twice. I flew with all crews in turn and from the sixth day roamed the entire area in my own aircraft checking on previous day reports and picking up on any information that had been missed.
Within the first four days the Ops Room map had every path, village and field plotted. The fields were marked accurately to show size and shape for future comparison. Villages were marked in two colours. One colour showed occupied villages with the number of huts in active use whilst the other colour recorded the position and size of abandoned villages.
Once the primary and obvious information had been acquired, we commenced a search for hidden habitations. This resulted in the location of a handful of hidden camps complete with bashas, which were judged to be for civilians in hiding. They were difficult to see from our operating height, which I had set at 2,000 feet above ground. All crews had been briefed that, under no circumstance, were they to descend below this height. In the event that a crew located something that needed a second opinion, they were either to call me over or ask another crew operating close by to do so.
During the morning of the seventh day, with three days still remaining before the second half of the squadron was due to arrive, John Blythe-Wood and David Rowe disobeyed my instruction. These two young officers and their two technicians located a place in a line of thick riverine bush where faint human paths (they proved to be toilet paths) suggested that there was a camp hidden under the trees. Rather than bother me, they decided to make a low pass to get a close look under the tree canopies.
I was about forty-five nautical miles away when John Blythe-Wood called to say that he was returning to base. His transmission was distorted and unusually weak but I gathered a fire had been put out, the turbo-charger had failed, level flight was being maintained and he would reach base safely. I was not concerned because John’s voice, though faint, was calm. Some time passed before I heard him call finals at Gutsa; so I put the matter out of my mind and continued my work.
It was only when I returned to base that I learned that these youngsters had been shot up as they made their fast run past the hidden camp. They had all spotted the bashas under the trees before seeing men firing at them from close range. One tracer round entered the aircraft and set fire to clothing and equipment, filling the cabin with smoke before the technicians extinguished the flames. The turbo-charger had been put out of action and only excess speed had allowed John to gain sufficient height to stagger home on limited power. Two tyres were burst though they did not know this until they touched down on landing.
Other holes in the aircraft proved that at least one machine-gunner understood how to aim-off on a moving target. Dave Rowe had a hot expended round fall into his lap but otherwise all four crewmembers escaped injury by inches. Air HQ overreacted to the incident by ordering termination of our training with instruction for me to report to Air HQ immediately.
At Air HQ I stood up for the pilots and told my seniors that I could see no advantage whatsoever in subjecting two young officers to a court martial for disobeying my instructions. I felt that they had displayed the same curiosity as any one of the Air Staff members might have done in the same circumstances. A court martial would serve no greater purpose than the harsh lesson of the incident itself and it would certainly be bad for morale throughout the squadrons. The Air Staff agreed but nine long weeks passed before approval was given to proceed with training because there had also been some questioning of my decision to include the squadron’s technicians in recce training. So again I had to go over the importance of upholding morale and a need to explore their recce potential