Nevertheless the bombs on this attack exploded on their planned positions despite the cloud base being lower than expected. This had forced navigators Doug Pasea, Bernie Vaughan, Bill Stevens and Bill Airey to make last-minute setting corrections to bombsights late in the attack run. The Hunters patterned as planned.
According to Randy du Rand’s Air Strike Report, he struck at 1259:50B with last Hunter clearing at 1303B. This meant it had taken three minutes and ten seconds to place down all weapons, which was at least two and a half minutes too long. If Hunters had led this attack, the four Canberras could have been much closer to each other and the re-strike by Hunters could have finalised the attack in less than forty-five seconds.
To add to this unsatisfactory situation, Chris realised too late that the target was displaced 200 metres north-eastward of the position he had marked on the photographs. This meant that only two-thirds of the strike was inside the actual base. The reason for Chris’s error lay in the considerable difference between the dark-green bush lines, as they appeared to him in the month of February, and the leafless trees and bush line as it appeared on photographs taken in winter. FAC marking would have eliminated the error and Chris was wiser for his mistakes.
Three days later I also made a mistake by agreeing to fly with Hugh Slatter in a Vampire T11 to mark a target for Hunters and Canberras. Aerial photos of a camp I reported had been taken from a Canberra flying at 40,000 feet the day before but it was agreed that the target lay in such flat, featureless ground that the jets would have no chance of locating it on an unmarked first-run attack. Air HQ was always keen to try new approaches in operations and had decided that I should lead the attack in a jet instead of my puddle-jumping Trojan. Having not flown in a jet aircraft for over ten years, the speed at which ground was being covered and the height at which we flew compressed the terrain I knew so well from 2,000 feet into unfamiliar perspective.
In the long dive to the target, Hugh adjusted his aiming according to my instructions and pressed the firing button for a salvo of four 60-pound squash-head rockets, but they failed to fire! Only then did I realise we had aimed at the far end of the terrorist base and not at its centre, so I transmitted an immediate correction “Drop 500”. Fortunately Rob Gaunt, having assessed where the failed rockets would have landed, picked up the correction and fired. Hugh was pulling up steeply and turning out right to allow me to look over my shoulder to see Rob’s strike to pass further correction to Rich Culpan, Chris Dixon and Ginger Baldwin.
I had completely forgotten how to handle 6G, which locked my head awkwardly forcing me to roll my eyes hard up and right to spot the strike just before experiencing ‘grey out’. Fortunately the lead 30mm cannon strike was just where it needed to be but I could not lift my hand to the radio transmitter button on the throttle to say this. Hugh had to relay my G-stressed and awkwardly spoken words, “On target”.
Following this experience, thought was given to converting recce pilots onto Hunters so that future strikes need not involve FAC and would ensure that recce pilots could switch between ‘puddle-jumpers’ and jets without the problems I had just encountered. For Chris Weinmann this would have been a simple matter because he had recently come from Hunters. I was really keen to fly these lovely aircraft but, very reluctantly, came to the conclusion that the advantages to be gained were outweighed by the cost of training and the time it would take to position at Thornhill or New Sarum for each airstrike.
The Air Staff had been under directive from Air Marshal Mick McLaren to try every tactic possible to improve airstrike versatility and accuracy. To this end, and unknown to me, photographic reconnaissance (PR) had been flown on Mozambican targets that Chris and I had reported but not committed to airstrike.
Repeated PR had been conducted to watch for obvious changes on those targets best suited to first-run jet-strikes. Then Flight Lieutenant Bill Buckle and his Photo Reconnaissance Interpreter (PRI) team at New Sarum selected a target set in heavy bush on the east bank of a dry river where a distinctive bend with visible water made identification certain. I was called to New Sarum to look at the photographs. The PRIs were happy when I agreed the camp was much larger than when I found it two months earlier. Bill briefed the jet crews at 9 o’clock on the morning of 23 February, just two days after the attack I had led with Hugh Slatter. It went in at 1228B and worked out exactly as planned.
During March I led two successful ops against terrorists inside Rhodesia. Externally I picked up a small base near Mukumbura in which fifteen head of cattle were penned at its centre. Being so close to the border, it was decided to attack this base with Hunters at first light the following day and follow up immediately with RLI heli-borne troops. The plan was for helicopters and myself to fly from Centenary to Mukumbura where the troops would be waiting for first light lift-of.
At Centenary I was doing my pre-flight inspection with the aid of a torch when I found a yellow bone-dome hanging from the pitot-head under the port wing of my Trojan. It belonged to Flight Sergeant Ray Cox who was one of the technicians on the flight line at the time. I called him over and asked him to remove his bone-dome, then continued with my inspection.
The helicopters were lifting off as I taxiied out to the runway. Late in my take-off run I found I had to apply a great deal of right rudder to counter a strong yawing force to the left. By this time it was too late to abort take-off. Once airborne I saw the helicopter lights winking away ahead of me and continued my climb, still with heavy pressure on the right rudder to maintain balanced flight. I told the lead helicopter pilot I was experiencing some difficulty but said I would establish the cause when we reached Mukumbura.
We crossed over the escarpment as the first rays of dawn lit up the horizon on our right side. By this time my left foot was over my right foot to help maintain pressure on the right rudder pedal. I turned to look at the rotating beacons of the helicopters flying below and to my left when, with horror, I saw somebody hanging upside-down on my left wing wearing a bone-dome with its visor closed. It took a moment or two to realise there was no actual body involved; it was Ray Cox’s yellow helmet hanging on the pitot head by its chinstrap.
Foolishly I told the lead helicopter pilot the cause of my flight control problem. I could have saved myself the ribbing that came my way had I simply kept quiet and pulled ahead to land and remove the bone-dome at Mukumbura before the helicopter boys arrived.
When I marked for the Hunters, I was happy to see that the cattle-pen was empty. Helicopters were on the ground within thirty-five seconds of the lead strike and the troops were already moving in during re-strike. Unfortunately the CTs must have heard the helicopters before the noise cover of the Trojan became effective because fresh tracks of running terrorists were located going south-east towards another base I had located but discounted.
Cattle tracks heading north were aerial-tracked for no more than three kilometres were I found fifty-five head of cattle. These were rounded up by the troops and driven back into Rhodesia because, having been stolen from those few unfortunate Mozambican locals who still lived in the area, they constituted an immediate source of CT food.
Fear of landing in enemy territory
FROM THE SAS TAC HQ at Macombe, 4 Squadron pilots continued to be scrambled to assist troops deep inside hostile territory. This Air Strike Report by Chris Dickinson on 8 March 1974 gives an idea of the sort of work the youngsters were doing.