Schulie
CAPTAIN CHRIS SCHULENBURG, KNOWN AS Schulie, served with the RLI and SAS until he returned to his native South Africa when his contract with the Army expired. He was later invited by Ron Reid-Daly to re-join the Rhodesian forces for service with the Selous Scouts to exploit his special talent in ground reconnaissance conducted in the manner Schulie considered essential.
Arising from his specialist recce work with the SAS, Schulie had been awarded the Silver Cross of Rhodesia for valour—but he could not buckle down to SAS four-man recce principles. Schulie wanted to conduct recce on his own, believing this to be safer and more efficient. Ron Reid-Daly was more amenable to this view than the SAS; though Ron insisted that one man, of Schulie’s own choosing, must always accompany him. Somewhat reluctantly Schulie agreed and conducted a number of successful two-man recce patrols. Initially he used a white soldier as his partner until he came to the conclusion that a black soldier was a more sensible option. The reconnaissance forays worked well enough and neither man suffered undue stress until things went badly wrong early in November 1976.
Two recce teams were tasked to provide early warning of FRELIMO and CT movements for a Selous Scouts vehicleborne force. At an appropriate time these teams were to harass FRELIMO—a diversionary tactic. One team worked north of the Scouts force while Schulie and his partner worked to the south. Schulie and his black companion (Steven was the name I heard the helicopter crews use) had descended into Mozambique by HALO entry. They were in position when the vehicle-borne force was moving in to attack the ZANLA staging base at Jorge do Limpopo on the Maputo rail line to Rhodesia. When he judged the time was right, Schulie deliberately made his presence known to FRELIMO but, in so doing, he attracted much greater reaction than he expected. Using Claymore and other anti-personnel devices, Schulie inflicted serious casualties on his pursuers who became so angry that they re-doubled their efforts and force levels in a determined attempt to take out the troublesome Rhodesians running through the bush ahead of them.
Schulie and Steven became separated during their running retreat under fire. Thanks to superb strength and fitness, Schulie managed to evade the large force that had no difficulty following his tracks in the soft dry sand of the region. By nightfall FRELIMO slowed to a crawl but no radio contact could be made with Schulie and Steven so Selous Scouts approached Air HQ for assistance. Late at night Schulie was barely able to give his position to the high-flying Canberra sent to find him because his radio batteries were almost flat. It was only then that Selous Scouts learned that Steven, who did not have a radio, was missing.
I heard the story of Schulie’s hot extraction from the helicopter crew who rescued him. Although I cannot remember who they were, their story remains clear in my memory.
The pick-up at first light occurred when the FRELIMO follow-up force was dangerously close to the open pan where Schulie said he would be waiting. Heavy fire was directed at the helicopter during entry and exit from the pick-up point. Once clear the pilot flew low over bush heading for the railway line. On reaching it he flew just far enough away to keep the railway in sight. Schulie was not too happy about this but the pilot refused to move away, which turned out to be very fortunate. Some distance on a man on the line was seen to be jumping up and down waving a white object over his head. When close enough, Schulie realised this was Steven. He was many miles from where Schulie had last seen him, yet there he was waving his map madly.
The pilot said that Schulie was so overcome with relief and joy that he leapt out of the aircraft before touch-down and ran up to Steven to give him a powerful hug that lifted the lighterbuilt man clean off his feet. Once inside the helicopter, Schulie unceremoniously commandeered the aircrew water bottle and poured it down his companion’s parched throat. Thereafter the two Scouts looked at each other laughing and occasionally patting each other in expressions of immeasurable friendship and relief. This was the same team that was called upon to mark a major ZANLA target for an Alpha bomb night attack by a formation of Canberras.
Madula Pan
RADIO INTERCEPTS GAVE WARNING OF a large group of ZANLA CTs in transit to Rhodesia. It was established that they would be at Madula Pan on the night of 11/12 January 1977. This pan lay close to and south of the main Maputo rail line and air reconnaissance photos confirmed the location as having been used by previous groups. It was no more than a transit point without shelters of any kind but it covered a large expanse of bush at the southeastern edge of the almost dry Madula Pan.
The size of the Madula Pan target required a formation attack by three Canberras to cover the entire rest-up area. Randy du Rand was keen to conduct the attack at night to ensure maximum surprise at a time when all CTs could be expected to be in their base. So Schulie and Captain Rob Warraker met with 5 Squadron, Norman Walsh and me to discuss and plan the strike. Schulie’s role was twofold; to confirm ZANLA was resident in the expected position and to position RAMS and outer marker flares for the Canberra strike.
A large tree on the southern edge of the pan was selected for the RAMS inner flare. This looked like a good site in terms of distance from target and bush cover to shield the bright light when the flare ignited shortly before strike. Selecting a position for the outer flare, which Schulie would ignite manually, was no easy matter. The density of bush and trees on a back-bearing from the inner marker was fairly even, which would make identification of a specific position very difficult. Eventually a particular group of trees was chosen which Schulie felt he should be able to find in the forecast weather condition of halfmoon and a clear sky.
A first-light follow-up attack was to be made at 05:00 by an RLI Fireforce with paratroopers. This meant the airstrike needed to be made as late as possible. But since it was known that CTs tended to rise at 04:00 and disperse for fear of dawn attacks, 04:00 was the time chosen to strike. A delay of one hour between airstrike and ground follow-up was not ideal but it was considered acceptable. An extra Canberra with a full Alpha load, two pairs of Hunters and two Lynx were to be on airborne standby to assist Fireforce.
Because there was time to do so, it was decided that a realistic rehearsal should be conducted at 04:00 on 6 January in similar terrain inside Rhodesia. This was to familiarise Schulie with the handling and positioning the flares and to allow Randy to practise the low-level formation attack. Following their flight from New Sarum to the NDB at Chiredzi, the Canberra formation planned to descend to its IP at 2,000 feet above ground. From the IP, the formation would accelerate to 350 knots during a second descent to their attack height where Randy would be at 300 feet above ground with his two wingmen stepped up 100 and 200 feet above him and spaced 100 metres to his left and right. Schulie, acting alone, made a HALO descent during the evening before the practice strike into an area that was known to contain CTs near the selected target. He laid the flares and the Canberras strike went in as planned.