First Frantans fell well short against the mountain face. Tony and Ken returned to FAF 2 for more Frantans, which they managed to drop into the riverbed itself then progressed in two steps nearer to the pinned-down troops. Unbeknown to Tony and Ken, terrorists were taking casualties from their fery strikes even before they reached their intended strike point.
By this time Major Southey and Jerry Strong, having sustained two wounded casualties, had pulled their callsign back using the Provosts attacks and smoke grenades to cover their withdrawal. But the callsign they had attempted to relieve remained pinned down, even after the last of sixteen Frantans had been expended. Because of this, Hunters and Vampires on airborne standby over the area could not be used before dark. Meanwhile more Frantans were flown to FAF 2 from New Sarum.
It was not until 19:30 that the callsign, which had been pinned down for over eight hours, managed to move out under cover of darkness with its casualties. RLI, PATU and South African Police callsigns set up ambush positions in the riverbed base and on the high ground as helicopters came in to lift out the RLI casualties. In doing this, Norman Walsh and Peter Nicholls faced great difficulty because of steep mountainsides and the blackness of the night in conditions of thick haze.
As soon as the landing light was switched on, it lit up the haze ahead making visual contact with ground impossible until dangerously low and close. Fortunately Norman noticed that, when flying to one side of Peter, he could see the ground quite clearly where Peter’s light was aimed, whereas Peter himself was blinded by his own reflected light. Norman told Peter to switch off his landing light whilst he flew high at ninety degrees to Peter’s flight path and illuminated the landing area.
Norman, blinded by his own white pool of illuminated haze whilst flying high enough to clear all high ground, could just make out Peter’s bright red rotating beacon lights which helped him point his landing light onto the area ahead of Peter’s flight line. Now Peter could see the ground clearly all the way and only needed to switch on his own landing light for the landing itself. This worked like a charm so, having collected casualties, Peter climbed and gave the same assistance to Norman. This virtually eliminated the dangers of approaching high ground at night. The same procedure was later used successfully in many night operations where Trojan aircraft, equipped with a handheld searchlight accompanied single helicopters for casualty evacuations at night from difficult terrain.
No contact was made with terrorists during the night. Tony Smit and Ken Law dropped a few 600,000-candlepower flares before midnight to help troops search for movement but none was seen. At 06:10 next morning Tony and Ken placed down four more Frantans on the terrorist position that had been so troublesome the previous day. Then Jerry Strong led a sweep up the river. There was no resistance because the terrorist survivors had made good their escape over the high groundbetween ambush positions. Twelve dead terrorists were found, most burnt by Frantans.
Sergeant Major ‘Bangstick’ Turle in the meanwhile was leading a tracker-combat callsign on the trail of survivors whose tracks were found to be moving south over the high ground, then across the main Kariba road into flat ground east of Kariba Airfield. As the callsign was approaching a dry riverbed, the sergeant-major smelt the unmistakable stench of rotting flesh. One hundred metres farther on he came upon the terrorists and took out all ten ZAPU, without casualties to his callsign. Most of the dead terrorists had been burnt by Frantan, which accounted for the early warning stench.
Twenty-seven ZAPU had been killed and one captured. Another was thought to have escaped but in reality, though listed in capture documents as a member of the group, he was the SB plant.
Tracker dogs proven
FOLLOWING AIR HQ APPROVAL TO progress the radio tracker dog project, BSAP Dog Section Officer Ted Spencer and his dog Jill joined Peter Allen and me. From the outset Jill, a Doberman Pinscher-Bloodhound cross, worked well with Beau. But Beau refused to be outdone by the bitch that was a much faster tracker. He stubbornly insisted on working every inch of every trail himself.
The route the Op Griffin terrorists had followed from the Zambezi River up to where contact occurred offered us the most difficult testing ground for the dogs. In August the area was very hot and dry giving the worst possible condition for scent tracking. Accompanied by Wing Commander Porky MacLaughlin from Air HQ, the original trackers of Op Griffin commenced a moonlight retrace of the terrorists’ route and timing from the point where tracks had originally been detected. By dawn they were moving along the valley on the high ground.
Keeping to the same timings of the original follow-up operation, the dogs were placed on tracks at 08:30 when the sun was high and ground conditions were already hot. Jill set off on the trail immediately but Beau had to cast back and forth across the trail, so poor was the scent. Jill never moved more than 100 metres before stopping and looking back to wait for Beau to catch up. This went on for a while until Jill ran into a herd of elephants giving her such a fright that she rushed back to Beau. Beau took no notice of Jill, now following him, and led her straight through the elephants which, in spite of the helicopter’s presence overhead, all turned to watch the dogs pass by. Then a young bull with trunk high, and presumably trumpeting, gave chase for a short distance before breaking away. Beau had never seen an elephant before, so we were surprised and delighted by his apparent nonchalance as he passed through before Jill resumed the lead.
During the steep climb up the escarpment, it was very noticeable that the dogs were moving faster. Peter Allen attributed this to improved scent retention by higher grass and larger areas of shade. When they came out onto the open ground at the top of the escarpment Jill ran straight into a bull rhino, which immediately charged, sending her helter skelter back to Beau. Beau saw the big fellow coming and ran in a semicircle, which Jill and the Rhino followed.
Once the rhino broke off his chase we thought the game was over, particularly when we saw Beau plunge into a waterhole with Jill in tow. Both dogs submerged their bodies and enjoyed a long drink. We were considering landing to pick them up when Beau ran out of the water, shook himself vigorously, and started casting for scent. Again, Jill followed suit and, of greatest importance, the radio links were still working. They had to range more than 200 metres across the original line of movement before Beau picked up the trail and Jill, as always, moved off ahead of him. I picked up the steep riverline into which the terrorists had turned from the valley in which the dogs were still running strongly. Both dogs disappeared into thick riverine bush and we watched anxiously for them to reappear in the rocky river-line itself. Instead we spotted them coming out of the trees well beyond and continuing to run along the side of the open valley.
Again I wondered if we should recall the dogs, particularly as I was running low on fuel. But then they turned into the next gully running into the mountain. At this point both dogs went to ground and Beau gave his funny yelp. Just ahead of the dogs we saw Porky MacLaughlin and his group. The men who tracked the Griffin terrorists had taken more than twenty-four hours to cover the same ground that these two dogs had run in a little under one-and-a-half hours.