In remote areas there were no cumbersome gooseneck flares, so a crude system of marking the airstrip was used. Invariably there were Army or Police vehicles at the strips into which 4 Squadron aircraft were called, so we used these as runway markers. Two vehicles were placed on the runway centre line, one at each end of the runway. With head and taillights on, the vehicles faced the direction the ground forces wished a pilot to land. On his approach for landing, a pilot saw the rear lights of both vehicles and the headlights of the first vehicle, when bright enough, helped him judge the round out for landing.
Though this method was successfully employed it required great skill in judgement and I considered it too dangerous to continue. What was needed was something along the lines of the gooseneck flares to mark an entire runway; so I produced small one-time disposable mini-flares for all ground forces to carry as standard equipment.
I acquired empty half-pint paint tins with metal bungs and screw caps. Each tin was filled with paraffin and a round wick was inserted into the paraffin through a hole in the metal bung. The screw cap trapped the outside of the wick and sealed in the paraffin until removed for use. Night-landing trials with these mini-flares were successful and eliminated any need for vehicles that were, themselves, hazardous obstructions on any runway.
Boxes containing twelve filled, sealed and ready-to-use mini-flares and a box of sealed matches were issued to Army and Police with simple instructions on how to lay them out on a 1,000-metre runway. For the most part their introduction into the field made night landings at remote airfields simpler and safer. However, there were two incidents that raised serious questions about some ground forces’ understanding of air operations and their ability to interpret the simplest of instructions. The first was when I was called out late one night to casevac an SAP man from Sipolilo to Salisbury. We were told that the man had suffered a heart attack and was in such a bad state that he had to be taken to Salisbury urgently.
When I arrived over Sipolilo, the runway flare line was so short it appeared as if I was flying at 30,000 feet, when in fact I was only 1,500 feet above ground. The callsign on the ground had great difficulty speaking understandable English and I could not understand his fast-spoken Afrikaans. Eventually I was able to understand that all the flares had been incorrectly laid between two 100-metre markers instead of one flare on each of the ten 100-metre markers along one side of the runway. After a while the flares were relayed correctly and I made a normal landing. But when I taxiied to waiting vehicles, I was greeted with the sight of the ‘heart attack’ victim walking briskly and unaided to the aircraft.
The second incident ended in tragedy near the end of my tour with 4 Squadron. During the night of 17 December 1974, Brian Murdoch was called to uplift two Army casualties from Mushumbi Pools airstrip in the Zambezi Valley. The callsign concerned were either unaware of the mini-flares they were carrying as standard equipment or were too lazy to find them. Whatever the case, they used vehicles to mark the runway.
Brian landed on the wet muddy strip, then turned around and taxiied back to the vehicle over which he had passed on landing. The vehicle that had been at the far end of the runway had, for some reason, been right next to the Trojan during the loading of the casevac. When Brian was ready to take off, this vehicle repositioned but, through ignorance, the driver did not go all the way to the end of the runway. He stopped some 300 metres short of the runway’s end next to a large puddle of water “to make sure the pilot missed it.”
In the wet conditions that prevailed, a Trojan needed the full length of Mushumbi Pools runway but Brian had no way of knowing the ignorant driver had shortened this. It can only be guessed that Brian was forced to heave the aircraft into the air too early by yanking down full flap; but he did not achieve sufficient height to prevent his nose wheel from striking the vehicle. The low-powered engine was hard-pressed to propel the bulky Trojan at the best of times, but full flap and impact with the vehicle placed Brian, flying on instruments, in a no-win situation. The aircraft was observed to change course to the right before crashing into a riverbed where Brian, Corporal Parker and Lance-Corporal Povey died instantly. Had the callsign used the mini-flares, which we later established they had, this wasteful tragedy would not have occurred.
Improving tactics
TEN MONTHS PRIOR TO HIS DEATH, I had instructed Brian Murdoch along with Chris Weinmann on internal and external recce. From this time on I progressively worked through all the squadron pilots, which was both necessary and frustrating. It became clear that only one in fifteen pilots had any hope of succeeding in visual recce work because it required stamina and patience for lengthy flights and, above all, an earnest desire to locate CTs. Too many pilots were quite happy to sit back at base waiting in comfort for calls to action. Such calls came in response to CT actions from RSF men in observation posts on hilltops, from recce pilots and more and more from Selous Scouts pseudo operators, though at the time these were being attributed to normal ops because few people knew of Selous Scouts’ secret penetration into terrorist networks. However, this changed when deployments of pseudo groups was made by helicopters because this brought helicopter crews into direct contact with the pseudo terrorists and exposed their ops areas. To retain the highest degree of secrecy possible, Selous Scouts ‘forts’ were built at Air Force FAFs. From the high security walls of forts, the pseudos were driven in closed vehicles to the end of a runway or a suitable secure area close by for helicopter uplift to their operational area drop-off points.
It was during recce training with Chris and Brian that we located a ‘live CT camp’, which led to a successful follow-up operation. This was on 15 February when the three of us split up to strike with three fixed-wing aircraft ahead of helicopters bringing in RLI ground troops.
Every air action involving expenditure of weapons necessitated the submission to Air HQ of an Air Strike Report. ASRs tended to be very matter-of-fact in style so they failed to convey any sense of excitement and fear, nor tell of the hard sweat and toil of troops on the ground.
The ASR raised for this specific operation is used to illustrate the composition and handwritten contents of ASRs. Excluded from this and all other ASRs in this book are the accompanying technical details and weapon expenditure schedules. The exact words recorded in manuscript by officers in the field and up the chain of command in Air HQ, are reproduced without regard to grammatical errors.
1. As a result of 4 Squadron’s visual recce training a number of terrorist bases and suspected bases were located. A terrorist base a US 468605 appeared to be occupied at 151415B. Lt Col Southey and Flt Lt Bennie were briefed on the situation at 1500 at which time it was decided that immediate action should be taken.
2. Five helicopters were on hand as well as the recce Trojan that was armed. Two Provosts were called for and flown by pilots Weinmann and Murdoch who were familiar with the target lay out.
3. The Trojan was flown by OC 4 Squadron at 2000’ agl and 200 yds ahead of the two Provosts. The five helicopters with assault and stop troops followed immediately behind the Provosts. Take off and lift off occurred as planned at 151615B.