The significance of Randy’s last paragraph will become apparent shortly.
Schulie and Steven had heard the deep rumble from the open bomb bays then saw the aircraft brightly illuminated by the outer flare as they flashed over their position. Even at two kilometres from the ZANLA base, the roar that came to Schulie and Steven from multiple Alpha bomb explosions impressed the two Scouts enormously.
Whilst they waited for the flare to stop burning, Schulie heard the Canberras climbing and turning for Salisbury. Then the sound of human screaming and shouting came across the quiet bush from the ZANLA camp. Schulie had to recover both flares for burial well away from Madula Pan. As he did this, he realised that ZANLA had taken a pounding because of the troubled noises that continued to reach him. He was well out of the way by the time the helicopters arrived with the assault force.
From what they had heard from the high-flying Canberra the lead K-Car crew, carrying assault force commander Captain Richard Pomford, expected to oversee a simple mopping-up operation. Instead they were met by anti-aircraft fire of such intensity that they had to back off and call for the Hunters to strike. At the same time, Ian Donaldson, who was about to turn back to Buffalo Range in the reserve Canberra, was asked to give assistance.
Ian made a high-rate descent and, for a reason that will never be known for certain, broke through low stratus cloud directly over Malvernia. It must have had something to do with canopy misting following the dive from the freezing conditions at high altitude into warm air with both engine throttles closed. This, coupled with a glaring sunrise ahead of the aircraft flight line, might have been the reason Don did not see the railway line which, had he done so, he would undoubtedly have avoided.
Rhodesian forces based at Vila Salazar just across the border from Malvernia witnessed extremely heavy anti-aircraft fire with masses of tracer being directed at the Canberra before it rolled sharply and dived into the ground from where a huge fireball was seen to rise. Ian Donaldson, Dave Hawkes and Rob Warraker died instantly.
The FRELIMO force at Malvernia had obviously been aware of the air attack at Madula Pan and was fully alerted when Ian inadvertently passed over them in perfect range for every one of many heavy and light guns. Some airbursts were seen which suggests RPG rockets may also have been launched at the aircraft.
Back at Madula Pan, fire from the ground continued to be so intense that the helicopters and Dakota retained their troops, hoping for the Canberra and Hunters to make a difference. They did not know of the Canberra’s fate at the time. However, Selous Scouts Major Bert Sachse, flying as an observer in a Lynx, had watched a number of Hunter strikes before he realised what had gone wrong. His assessment was later confirmed by radio intercepts on FRELIMO’s command channels.
A large FRELIMO mobile force happened to have spent the night very close to Madula Pan on the road running next to the railway line. These troops were mounting their vehicles to continue their journey when they heard the bomb strike go in on Madula Pan. The whole force turned to investigate and give assistance to their ZANLA comrades who they knew were based at Madula Pan. They arrived before first light to find ZANLA had suffered many casualties and were in a state of panic and disarray. In addition to aiding the wounded, FRELIMO prepared defences for the assault they knew would come with the dawn.
In the face of this unexpected opposition by a force that was obviously much larger than his own, Richard Pomford called off the assault to avoid unnecessary casualties and Randy returned with three Canberras to deliver eighteen 500-pound bombs onto the target for good measure. He would have much preferred to deliver that load onto Malvernia in response to the downing of one of his Canberras; but airstrikes on any Mozambican town were taboo.
First radio intercepts reported that ZANLA had suffered six dead and seventy wounded during the night attack. These figures were later updated by FRELIMO with final figures being ten dead and 102 wounded from a force of 120 CTs at Madula Pan. The majority of wounded were described as ‘amputees’, having lost limbs.
Five months after this, the RLI parachuted into Madula Pan in support of Selous Scouts who were mauling ZANLA and FRELIMO forces close by. It was interesting to learn from them that, though there were no ZANLA in residence at the time, the whole camp area was littered with many human skulls and bones. Presumably these were mainly from FRELIMO men caught in the Hunter and Canberra attacks.
The Air Force reaction to first casualty reports on the Madula strike was one of great disappointment, particularly by Randy du Rand. We had become so preoccupied with kills that wounding was almost totally discounted in assessing airstrike effectiveness. Randy even advocated reverting to the conventional bombs that we knew did little more than cost us dearly in precious foreign currency.
I was very distressed by all of this until Group Captain Norman Walsh told Air Marshal McLaren that he believed the Alpha bombs had done a much better job than anyone realised. His opinion was later fully supported by the Army and Special Branch who expressed a different viewpoint from that initially expounded by many Air Force officers. Selous Scouts were the first to expand on this view in writing. Ron Reid-Daly’s contention was that the Alpha bombs had done a much better job by inflicting 90% living casualties with 10% kills than would have been the case if the figures were reversed. Air Staff opinion changed but Randy remained sceptical.
The Scouts recognised that dead CTs were either abandoned or buried and forgotten whereas the living wounded presented an unwanted burden by tying up other forces and vehicles in long-range evacuation to rear hospitals. Along the way other CTs and FRELIMO would see these casualties returning from the border, creating a negative impact on morale. Mozambique’s medical facilities had become totally overstretched and CTs with missing limbs and tall war stories had to be cared for. This all created a dilemma for ZANLA who kept war invalids in separate camps away from other cadres.
The Air Force Commander made it clear that he was delighted with the first Madula Pan strike because it was our best single result to date. It had cost a fraction of the followup air weapons costs with no foreign currency implications. However his greatest concern at that time was to recover the bodies and bomblets from the downed Canberra, providing this could be done without further loss of life.
For three days the Army made a number of attempts to get to the crash site but vastly superior FRELIMO forces, hellbent on protecting a prize that lay so tantalisingly close to our border, repelled these attempts.
Then radio intercepts revealed that the bodies had been found, large quantities of ‘ball bombs’ had been collected and, together with Canberra wreckage, all was being loaded on vehicles for transfer to Maputo. In consequence, recovery attempts were called off.
When we were still developing Alpha bombs, Bev and I decided to stamp the fuses with Chinese hieroglyphics that translated to ‘Made in North Korea’. Whatever the FRELIMO Government made of this when they studied bomblets, later piled next to aircraft wreckage, is not known but national radio and media coverage gave out that the bomblets had been manufactured in the ‘Racist Republic of South Africa’ and that the aircraft had been ‘a gift to the enemy from the British Colonialist Government’.