Today the ZANU government of Zimbabwe celebrates the start of its Chimurenga war on 28 April, the anniversary date of the ‘Battle of Chinhoyi’ where “a gallant force fought against impossible odds in which the Rhodesian enemy used thousands of Army troops and powerful helicopter gunships." What they conveniently forget is the expediency of their actions in committing the young men of the Armageddon Group before they had been given adequate training for their mission.
These unfortunate young men were launched way too early, simply to provide proof of ZANU’s active involvement in Rhodesia simply to sweeten Organisation of African Unity (OAU) attitudes to their cause because, at the time, OAU only supported their rival ZAPU. Nevertheless, I personally agree with ZANU that 28 April 1966 was the true date of the commencement of the bush war in Rhodesia. Many historians give it as 22 December 1972, thereby ignoring all the Offensive actions and combat-related deaths before this date.
Helicopter projects
JUST PRIOR TO THE SINOIA operation there had been embryonic moves to mount a side-firing MAG machine-gun to our Alouette helicopters. Ozzie Penton as OC Flying Wing had insisted that Hoffy take the MAG along with him even though no firing trial had been conducted. The actual fit was no more than a simple bipod fixed to the step on the port side of the cabin. There was no rigidity in this arrangement nor were there any means of ensuring that ejected cartridge cases and belt links were retained within the safety of the cabin. This was important because these loose items, if allowed to enter into the slipstream, could cause serious damage or total failure of the fast-spinning tail rotor. Hoffy had been lucky that none of the 147 cases and links had struck his tail rotor. All the same, I took it upon myself to design, build and test a decent mounting for a 7.62mm MAG machine-gun and to fit a gunsight suited to side-firing in forward flight. During the time of this project I also looked into changing the way we refuelled our helicopters
Throughout my training away from base and during the Sinoia experience, I found refuelling to be irksome and way too slow. We were using a hand-operated wobble pump that Africans called the ‘kamena kawena’ pump. Loosely translated this meant ‘for me, for you’ in Chilapalapa; a bastardised language that continues to be the common lingo for multi-ethnic communications on South Africa’s gold mines.
The kamena kawena Pump was packed in a large metal trunk stored next to the fuel tank behind the cabin’s rear wall. To refuel, the pump had to be removed from the fuel-soaked trunk. It had then to be assembled by one member of the crew whilst the other rolled a drum of fuel to the aircraft, heave it onto its base and remove the sealed bung. The pump stack-pipe was dropped into the drum, the flexible pipe nozzle inserted into the helicopter fuel tank and hand pumping commenced. Even with technician and pilot taking turn in pumping, it was a tiring business. Once the drum was empty, the process was reversed; by which time one’s hands and overalls were stained and stinking of fuel.
We only had eight helicopters and could ill-afford a slow turn-around and the physical stresses that repeated refuelling induced during intense operations. Too often a pilot needed to be briefed or debriefed between flights meaning that his technician had to do the entire refuelling job on his own; a situation of considerable embarrassment to many pilots. There had to be a simple way of overcoming this.
My contention was that the aircraft should be a slave unto itself. I started by testing the jet engine at idling rpm, when rotor blades were static, and found that six psi of air pressure could be continuously tapped from a P2 pressure plug located on the engine casing just aft of the compressor assembly. By using a compressed air cylinder with pressure regulated to six psi, it was easy enough to prove that, by pressurising a fuel drum, the fuel could be forced to flow up a pipeline into a helicopter’s fuel tank. It was also established that a drum of fuel could be pumped more rapidly this way than by a kamena kawena pump. I then approached Shell and BP who supplied our fuel and was assured that pressurising a drum to six psi was entirely safe.
My Squadron Commander John Rogers and OC Flying Wing Ozzie Penton supported my intention to produce a prototype refueller, as did the Air Staff. However, I met with opposition from one senior officer of the technical Staff at Air HQ. He told me how during WWII Spitfires had to be hand-refuelled from four-gallon jerry cans in the hot desert sun and, anyway, refuelling with engine running was totally unacceptable.
The strict rule of not running engines whilst refuelling with highly volatile aviation gas was fundamentally sound, but it did not seem to fit with the low volatility of non-atomised refined paraffin (or diesel). I simply could not believe my ears about the ‘jerry can’ coming twenty years after WWII. However, what I thought did not alter the fact that I had not gained official approval to proceed with the project.
So as not to implicate OC Flying or my Squadron Commander, I carried on in secret by designing and producing a pressure-refuelling pump. This could not have been done without the willing assistance of Master Technician Frank Oliver who ran Station Workshops and who did the necessary machine work out of working hours. The unit we produced was really quite simple. A pressure line from the P2 pressure plug (the six psi static pressure point) conveyed pressure air into a head on the stack-pipe. With the stack-pipe inserted into a drum the head sealed the drum’s bunghole when a handle bar on its side was rotated through ninety degrees. The pressure air then forced fuel up the stack-pipe and into the helicopter fuel tank via a standard flexible hose. The effort required was minimal.
Both refuelling and gun-mounting projects were interrupted by a series of Police and Army ATOPs (Anti-Terrorist Operations) exercises that had obviously been generated by interest in the lessons learned during the Sinoia operation. One of these exercises was with the RAR (Rhodesian African Rifles) Battalion at Mphoengs close to our southwestern border. Apart from some interesting flying, this short detachment sticks in my mind because of an embarrassing incident. The RAR camp was set in heavy riverine bush where full blackout procedures were enforced. Screening inside the large Officers’ Mess marquee allowed dim lights to be used at the bar and dinner table. It was in this mess that I first witnessed RAR’s insistence on maximum comfort in the field. Because the Battalion Commander was present, the Battalion’s silver and starched tablecloths were laid for all meals.
In the absence of moonlight I found it difficult to navigate my way through the bush to my tent. I was awaked to the call of nature one night and decided not to try and find my way to the loo but to spend a penny on what appeared to be an anthill under bush close to my tent. I was half way through my need when ‘the anthill’ moved and cursed in N’debele. I was deeply embarrassed, but the soldier who rose from under his wet blanket laughed when he realised what had happened. He called to his mates saying he had been “urinated upon by a Bru-Jop." Blue Job was the army nickname for Air Force people.
Just after this, during a period of flying training in the Chimanimani mountains, Mark Smithdorff and I met up with Major Dudley Coventry, commander of C Squadron Special Air Services. I had only seen this strongly built officer a few times at New Sarum when he and his SAS men were undergoing routine parachute training. In this Dudley stood out a mile because he wore glasses that were secured by thick Elastoplast strips to his nose and temples to prevent the windblast from removing his all-important visual aid.