There was no aggressive patrolling to search out FRELIMO groups and base camps. Most of the imprecise information upon which the military appeared to rely came from the aldeamento militiamen who seldom ventured beyond the fenced perimeter of their protected villages. Upon such dubious information military plans would be drawn up with detailed orders for vehicle convoys, the formations each unit would adopt when attacking and the exact timings for commencement and termination of each operation. A glance through operational orders for past events showed that conventional war methods were being employed against an elusive non-conventional enemy that was heavily schooled in the need to avoid armed confrontation in all circumstances, even when undertaking planned hit-and-run raids.
Because the brigadier sensed unspoken disapproval of his own operations, he invited the Rhodesians to illustrate to him and his staff something of the style of Rhodesian operations that he had heard were very successful. Following an impromptu briefing by Norman Walsh, who emphasised our use of aggressive ground patrols, we were briefed on a forthcoming operation we were to support.
My most vivid memory of that Portuguese operation was the length of time and effort needed to dig vehicles out of the mud along one of many poor tracks they used to get around the countryside.
In retrospect I realise that we must have appeared pretty arrogant, being so used to Rhodesian Army methods and having experienced nothing but high levels of success against our own enemies. Our contempt for the aldeamento system also sticks in my mind.
We could not accept that this system was right for Africa, possibly because our own black folk living in open villages were still providing us with intelligence on the presence of terrorists. At that time we could not visualise that, within seven years, our own situation would change so radically that we too would employ a similar system, albeit on a smaller scale.
We returned to Mozambique four times during 1969 and were always received with open arms and treated to the outstanding hospitality for which the Portuguese people in general are so well known. On my second detachment to Bene, the Portuguese were as pleasant as ever but the toilet problems had not changed one iota.
This detachment differed from the first in that we had with us three experienced RLI officers. The brigadier gave us another lengthy briefing following which he asked for a Rhodesian update briefing for the benefit of senior staff officers visiting his Brigade HQ. Norman Walsh and Captain Ron Reid-Daly made an impromptu presentation, again laying emphasis on the need for offensive patrols to seek out and destroy FRELIMO. This briefing was well received and resulted in an agreement that Portuguese soldiers would be placed under command of RLI officers to see how offensive patrolling might work in Tete Province.
After spending some time in the field, Ron Reid-Daly told us that there was nothing much wrong with the average Portuguese soldier’s fighting spirit but he lacked fire discipline, creating unnecessary noise and expenditure of ammunition. To be led from the front by Rhodesian officers was good experience for the troops at Bene. Notwithstanding language difficulties they enjoyed a new sense of confidence that made them braver soldiers through having a commander visible up front giving the silent hand signals they understood. We learned that Portuguese officers born and bred in Mozambique were greatly favoured by the troops because they also led from the front. But because they were so few in number, most troops were led by metropolitan officers who commanded from any positions but right up front. This is borne out to some extent by the very high casualty levels amongst Rhodesian Army and Mozambican-born officers when compared, pro rata, to their Europe-born equivalents.
At every opportunity and with Norman Walsh’s blessings, I pursued my interest in trying to rustle up FRELIMO targets through visual reconnaissance, which I conducted at low level. I would later discover that this was very dangerous and not an efficient way of searching large tracts of ground. Nevertheless the effort proved worthwhile and assisted in generating targets for joint actions. But so poor was the quality and so vague the physical details of river-lines and surface gradients of the maps issued to us that we concluded they must have been drawn by Vasco da Gama himself. This made low-level map-reading particularly difficult.
Operating independently out of radio range of any forces was really dangerous for my technician and me. We got ourselves into hot situations on some occasions when FRELIMO, rather than going to ground as they had been taught, chose to stand upright to fire at us. Fortunately their anti-aircraft fire was still poor though we suffered moments of terror when numerous men fired their automatic weapons at very close range as we twisted right and left passing over them at treetop level. Many hundreds of rounds were fired so we were lucky to sustain only two non-critical hits through the tail boom.
In consequence of these recce flights, we provided more intelligence to the Brigade HQ in a week than had been received in a year; or so it seemed. Two young Portuguese Air Force pilots who operated single-engined Dorniers fromthe small airstrip at Bene were interested in establishing what I was finding that they themselves had been unable to find. A comparison of maps immediately revealed that they had reported almost every location I had plotted. It was hardly surprising that they were deeply distressed by this because the very same Army officers who were happily responding to my reports had been fobbing them off, month in and month out. Nowhere on the Ops Room wall map or intelligence logs was any of the Portuguese Air Force information recorded. This was not only absolutely disgraceful from our point of view; it exposed one of the greatest flaws in Portuguese operations.
Rhodesians believed that inter-force co-operation was fundamental and of paramount importance. From time to time there were hiccups, but one force never totally ignored intelligence given by another. Because of this we found it difficult to understand how inter-force jealously or rivalry, call it what you may, within the Portuguese forces could be allowed to limit their operational effectiveness against FRELIMO. Through this spirit of non-co-operation we recognised that the threat posed to Rhodesia by FRELIMO was far more serious than we had first imagined.
As with two other RLI officers, Captain Ron Reid-Daly continued to lead a small force of Portuguese troops. Ron was a pretty tough customer with considerable experience, including combat service with the SAS in Malaya. Yet he continued to believe in the ordinary Portuguese fighting soldier and was only too happy to take on FRELIMO with these men, providing he used his own FN rifle and not the Portuguese issue 7.62mm Armalite rifle.
I located a base area early one morning from barely discernible smoke rising out of heavy riverine bush west of Bene. Ron was flown in with fifteen soldiers to check it out. Before he commenced a sweep through the area I warned Ron that this might be a civilian camp. Soon after the sweep commenced a Portuguese soldier opened fire on movement he had seen. Immediately all the Portuguese soldiers let fly causing Ron great difficulty in getting them to cease firing. He too had seen human movement just before the firing started but immediately realised these were from terrified women running for their lives. Fortunately the troops had been shooting blind and casualties were limited to a mother and her baby.