G-Car (Gee)—trooping and general purpose—Rhodesian
Z-Car (Zed)—trooping and general purpose—SAAF
The first action out of Mount Darwin occurred on 21 June 1974. John Annan, flying the gunship with Sergeant Garry Whittal as his gunner, led four trooper helicopters and a Provost. Two G-Cars were crewed by Squadron Leader Eddie Wilkinson (OC 7 Squadron) with Sergeant Pete McCabe and Flight Lieutenant Ken Law with Flight Sergeant Farrell. Two Z-Cars were crewed by Captain du Plessis with Sergeant Hulatt, and Lieutenant Anderson with Sergeant Veldman. Air Lieutenant Steve Baldwin flew the Provost.
The ASR is typically brief. It reads:
1. K-Car led four troopers in an assault on a position where an observation post reported seeing 6 terrorists being fed. Troopships landed assault force in vicinity of kraal to southeast of terrorist position. K-Car engaged terrorists in a passing attack pattern to cover the landing.
2. Position of terrorists was exactly as given, but approximately 20 terrorists were seen. K-Car engaged terrorists as they split up and ran. Then assisted by a Provost and the troopships, the terrorists were engaged for approximately 20 minutes until all had “gone to ground”. The aircraft continued to orbit the area in order to limit terrorist movement while ground forces moved into the contact area.
3. Approximately 15 ters seen to fall during strikes, but several of these were seen to move again afterwards.
4. Return fire was heard on many occasions but the aircraft were only hit twice. (Provost one round, Zed car 3 rounds)
5. Good surprise was achieved due to an approach route screened by hills and the Provost providing some screening of the helicopter noise during the approach.
John said, “Return fire was heard on many occasions…” Bearing in mind the high level of noise inside a helicopter and the marked reduction in surrounding noises when wearing padded earphones under a ‘bone-dome’, the sound level of sharp supersonic cracks from rounds passing close to a helicopter was substantially diminished. In fact passing machine-gun rounds sounded something like a swarm of bees striking the windscreen of a fast moving motorcar. So when helicopter crew heard this, they knew rounds were passing either through their craft or very close to it.
Wing Commander Roy Morris was OC FAF 4 at the time. His comments were:
The reaction with all available effort was quick and efficient. Full credit must go to all aircrew involved with this most successful operation which lasted for 4 hours. The participation of the two South Africans, Capt du Plessis and Lt Anderson is worthy of special mention. Their enthusiasm and high standard of professionalism was most commendable. The general co-ordination of all parties involved (Support Gp – RLI, 4 Sqn and helicopters of 7 Sqn) was first class. Of a group of approx. 35, some 25 were accounted for. A first class show highlighting the effectiveness of helicopter firepower. This action accounted for 20 CTs dead and 5 wounded. Most of the dead and all of the wounded had been accounted for by the 20mm gunship, which was operated by Garry Whittal. He had only just arrived at Mount Darwin on crew changeover having never fired the 20mm cannon before. His squadron had planned for him to do this on arrival at Mount Darwin. However, the Fireforce call came too early so his first experience with the weapon was made in anger. He did well!
In his ASR a couple of days later, Flight Lieutenant George Wrigley, flying K-Car, with Sergeant Pete McCabe as his gunner, made this observation:
The group was engaged and ters were seen to fall but rise and run again. It was frustrating to watch groups of 5 – 6 with rounds burst amongst them. Many managed to recover enough to clear from the contact area before the troops had swept through. It is felt, however, that 70–80% suffered hits of some degree.
As I had witnessed in Mozambique, the 20mm rounds were bursting below surface where the full effect of shrapnel was lost. Whereas this troubled the Air Force, the Selous Scouts were very pleased because the number of CTs captured wounded helped swell their ‘tame ter’ ranks. The Selous Scouts had learned very early on how easy it was to denude CTs of politically induced hullabaloo and bring them back to being themselves again.
Although most shrapnel was lost into the ground, a limited number of low-grade bits of 20mm shell casing burst steeply upward. Any CT close enough to a below surface burst was usually subjected to minor wounding of legs, buttocks and groin. Occasionally large pieces of casing caused death or serious injury. Gunners soon learned that a direct hit on a CT, effectively an airburst, was disastrous for him and others in his proximity, but this was difficult to achieve with the slow-firing cannon. Good gunners, of which there were many, learned to aim for hard surfaces such as rock and large trees to induce lethal effect and often withheld fire until CTs moved close to such surfaces.
Initially, every fifth 20mm round in the 20mm ammunition belt was a tracer round which proved to be unnecessary for air-to-ground firing. The highly visible flash from each exploding round was more than sufficient for sighting corrections, so tracer rounds were removed.
Tol Janeke had just taken over the post of OC FAF 4 when Selous Scouts initiated an action that ran smoother than any previous Scouts call. On 28 September Air Lieutenant Roger Watt, flying K-Car with Flight Sergeant Norman Farrell, led two G-Cars and three Z-Cars to a CT base whose location had not been precisely identified. Roger’s ASR gives references to his accompanying sketch of the action. Since the sketch is not reproduced here, the references appear as blanks in this otherwise verbatim report:
1. I was the pilot of the K-Car detailed to lead an assault on a suspect terrorist base camp at approx. US504754 as indicated by Selous Scouts. The helicopter formation approached the area from the East preceded by a Trojan at about 1,500 feet AGL to act as a noise decoy, and a Provost followed behind in support.
2. On arrival in the area the Scouts told me that the camp was on the southern bank of the river, but they weren’t sure exactly where. I got into an orbit in the centre of the area and asked Yellow 2 to orbit to the East and Yellow 6 to the West, while the rest of the formation just did a wide orbit of the area.
3. After a visual search of the area for about 5 minutes, the Army Commander and I decided to deplane the troops to search out the odd suspicious area. The sticks were dropped off at……… and were instructed to move to………
4. I then sent Yellow 2,3 & 4 back to Mt. Darwin to take part in another planned assault, while Yellow 5 & 6 and I remained in the area. After a further 5-8 minutes nothing had occurred so I sent Yellow 5 & 6 to Dotito to refuel.
5. At this stage my tech saw birds fly out of a thickly wooded ravine, but I decided not to fire into the area, as we could not see anything and were therefore uncertain whether the birds had been scared off or not, and also that stick No 2 was soon going to search the area anyway.
6. After a further 5 minutes I was orbiting Stick 4 when stick 2 called “Contact”. I immediately flew to the area and found out that the stick leader had a slight leg wound, and that he had killed 2 terrs.
7. As we got to the contact area I saw a group of 5 terrs running along the southern bank in an easterly direction. We opened fire on them and immediately killed one at……… The other four ran into a small river and started running south, but we killed all four at……… We then saw two terrs running along the river in an easterly direction and killed both of them.