Wounded Major Hoskins’ E Company of RAR was taken over by Major Ray Howden who, together with A Company under Major Taffy Marchant, established a forward base at Limpandi Dam near the southwestern corner of the game reserve. Murray Hofmeyr was attached to this base to facilitate troop deployments for operations along the Gwabazobuya River and the Botswanan border that formed a funnel through which the main terrorist group was expected to pass. From Shapi Pans two tracker combat units were deployed to locate and neutralise the five terrorists who had survived Ian Wardle’s contact.
Out of the blue a South African Police (SAP) Alouette III helicopter arrived at Shapi Pans. The first thing I noticed about the SAP helicopter was that it was fitted with a Becker Homer, which we had not yet received. The South African Air Force pilot, Lieutenant ‘Weasel’ Wesley, was seconded to SAP to fly Police-owned helicopters. He told us that he had been sent from Katimo Mulilo in South West Africa and that additional SAP helicopters were to follow. This was because of South African ANC terrorists being involved with ZAPU.
For two days after Ian Wardle’s contact, things were quiet at Shapi Pans, so I took opportunity to visit Paul Grobelaar’s large mobile processing factory that handled all elephant and buffalo carcasses from a game-culling operation that was in progress in the Wankie Game Reserve. This unpleasant periodic slaughter of animals was necessary to control population growth but it needed Paul’s support to ensure that no destroyed animal was wasted and that everything was put to good use.
Paul had a small Cessna 140, which he flew to locate small herds of around twenty elephants. Two game-rangers were then directed to the selected herd. They walked in from downwind to get right in amongst the herd before shooting the babies first as this had the effect of stopping the adults from running off. Taking out the adults necessitated fast shooting and rocksteady nerves whilst the great brutes were rushing around screaming in angry panic, often charging the men. Because of their marksmanship and knowledge of vital points from every angle, it was almost unheard of for a ranger to have to use a second shot to finish off a wounded jumbo. They really hated the task but insisted on doing the culling themselves. Because they loved the animals so much, they refused to leave it to other hunters. They dared not fail to eliminate every member of the selected group because any elephant escaping the slaughter would certainly induce panic in neighbouring herds.
Two baby jumbos that had been orphaned by ivory poachers roamed around the camp at Shapi Pans. They loved people and were a bit of a nuisance. Though small in elephant terms, they were amazingly powerful and would push one around seeking to be fed and scratched. Their interest in helicopters was a bit of a worry, but apart from leaving snotty marks on the vision panels they did no damage. Years later, in 1982, I saw these same two elephants. By then they were almost full grown at Ozzie Bristow’s Lion and Cheetah Park near Harare (new name for Salisbury).
I had known and feared Willie de Beer from school cadet camp days at Inkomo Barracks where he was Regimental Sergeant-Major. Now retired from the Army and serving as a ranger with National Parks, Willie offered to take me on a buffalo-culling operation that, because of Op Nickel, was being done by day. Buffalo were normally culled at night using powerful searchlights in specially designed vehicles. The one we used had 40mm holes in its metal sides, showing how dangerous a buffalo bull’s horns could be.
A young ranger aged about thirty by the name of van Heeden drove the vehicle, with Willie and me sharing the front seat. Four black game-ranger-trackers were standing behind us holding a rail that ran around the rear section of the open vehicle. We were a long way southeast of Shapi Pans searching the sandy road for fresh buffalo spoor when one of the trackers pointed to the road and said there were boot tracks of someone moving in the opposite direction to ourselves. We stopped and without hesitation the tracker said that these had been made no more than two minutes earlier.
I recognised the sole pattern immediately. It was the wellknown figure 8 pattern of boots issued to terrorists. Sand was still trickling at the edge of the spoor. Realising that we had passed close to a terrorist who was obviously trying to make his way back to Zambia, I warned the rangers there was the possibility that other terrorists were with him walking off the line of road. We turned around and had only gone a short distance following the spoor when it moved left off the road into the bush.
Willie, ignoring my advice to keep moving, climbed out of the vehicle and followed the tracks a short distance armed only with a dart gun that was intended to anaesthetise buffalo. He shouted out to the unseen terrorist to surrender. Nothing happened so Willie returned to the vehicle. I recommended that I drive the vehicle and drop off the young ranger with one of the trackers in an ambush position once we were down the road and out of sight. This was agreed. When we had gone about 150 metres and had thick bush on our left, I moved the gear lever to neutral whilst maintained engine revs and applied gentle hand-braking. The two men dismounted and we continued on to Shapi to collect troops.
When we returned after sunset a dead terrorist lay on the road. He had appeared as soon as we left and had run across the road, waited a while, then run diagonally across to the other side. His next crossing would be straight towards the hidden ranger who stood up and called to the terrorist to surrender. The unfortunate terrorist raised his weapon but knew nothing of the .375 magnum bullet that removed one vertebra from his neck. Van Heeden said he had aimed for the neck because he understood it was important for identification purposes not to damage a face.
The young ranger was deeply concerned that he might be placed on a murder charge and was feeling guilty because the SKS rifle this man was armed with had only one round of ammunition in it. When studies of papers and a notebook in the terrorist’s possession proved that he had been at Inyatue, the ranger accepted the legal situation but he remained shaken and depressed for having killed a human being.
On this same day, tracks of the five survivors from Ian Wardle’s contact were found and followed into thick bush close to the National Parks southeastern border game fence. A call to the terrorists to surrender was answered with automatic fire. Under covering fire, the RAR officer crawled forward and lobbed in a phosphorus grenade. This single grenade spewed phosphorus over all five terrorists whose smouldering bodies were found close together during a sweep through the site.
Earlier in the day, an RAR patrol spotted two terrorists collecting water from Leasha Pan. Long-range fire was initiated too early when these two men spotted the troops. One broke north and the other south. The man who ran north was ignored by the troops but was killed later that day by the game ranger. Tracks of the second moved south and led RAR trackers to a resting place from which about sixty terrorists had departed in a hurry.
Disastrous twenty-four hours
TRACKERS MOVED FAST ALONG THE trail that showed the terrorists had moved at a run for a considerable distance through open scrubland. When the trackers reached the point where the terrorists had broken through the game fence, Lieutenant Nick Smith arrived to take command of the follow-up along with extra troops flown in by Hoffy.