Back at base I saw that the baby had been shot through the flesh of one buttock and his mother had been grazed in her flank by the same round. Kindly medical attention was given to mother and child before they were taken to an aldeamento along with all the other women brought in from the bush camp. Like so many of their kind, they had been in hiding from both FRELIMO and the Portuguese forces. Hearing this, I felt really guilty for being responsible for bringing them into Portuguese custody.
Whilst the two casualties were still being attended, a Portuguese major asked who had initiated the fire. One soldier pointed to Ron Reid-Daly intimating that he had been the first to fire. Ron’s fiery temper showed deep red in his taut face as he literally threw his rifle into the hands of the surprised major saying, “Judge this for yourself.” The embarrassed major sniffed at Ron’s FN rifle and realised that it had not been fired at all. Then, followed a severe blasting for indiscipline by all the soldiers, the unfortunate soldier who had pointed to Ron was taken off for twenty-one days’ detention.
I was not involved with other deployments to Tete that year as I had new pilots to instruct. But during one of these a very unpleasant incident occurred when, following a particular action, helicopters were recovering troops and taking civilians back to the Army base. Flying Officer Hugh Slatter landed when only five soldiers and two young African women remained. The five Portuguese soldiers made a dash for the helicopter and boarded. Hugh shook his head and hand-signalled that the two women must be lifted out first; another helicopter would return to collect the soldiers.
A Portuguese sergeant returned negative gestures then, before Hugh or his technician realised what was happening, stepped out of the helicopter shot both women dead where they stood and casually returned to his seat. Hugh’s horror and rage was such that he was simultaneously crying, screaming and drawing his pistol to shoot the sergeant. Seeing the danger, Hugh’s technician intervened and persuaded him to let the matter be handled at base. Hugh reluctantly agreed but, upon landing, he tendered his ‘immediate resignation’ to Air HQ by signal. There was a general revolt by the Rhodesians aircrews causing considerable embarrassment to the Brigade HQ staff. The Portuguese sergeant was arrested and charged with murder whilst communications went back and forth between the Mozambican and Rhodesian authorities. Though the Rhodesians were persuaded to stay on in Tete, Hugh refused point-blank to do so, preferring to face court martial rather than operate with the “murdering Portuguese forces”. He was flown back to Salisbury where considerable effort was needed to persuade him to withdraw his resignation.
Our experiences in Mozambique concerned us deeply because everyone realised that military failure in that country would have serious consequences for Rhodesia’s security. We also felt deeply for the Mozambican people, black and white, who knew their country’s future was being mishandled by their metropolitan government 10,000 kilometres away.
Judging by the results that were jointly achieved during our detachments to Tete, a continuous presence of Rhodesian forces operating with Portuguese forces would have made all the difference in curbing FRELIMO and denying ZANU and ZAPU use of the Tete Province. In fact, if we had been granted continuous access along the Zambezi River’s southern bank within Tete province this would have met our strategic needs. It would have allowed us to extend our border-control operations eastwards to capitalise on the successes we had achieved along this same river at home. Unfortunately, politics disallowed this critical advantage and history records the consequences.
Tripper operations continued on and off and Peter Briscoe had this to say to author Beryl Salt about one attachment to Portuguese forces at Chicoa in late1970:
We formed a detachment based on Chicoa on the south bank of the Zambezi just west of the Cabora Bassa Gorge. Chicoa was a hellhole. We anticipated a lengthy stay and we had learnt to take our own field kitchen and cooks. It was the rainy season and the afternoons were punctuated with the usual thunderstorms. Cleanliness was a problem so we rigged up showers. These were serviced by a tank of water that was filled from the waters of the Zambezi. However, the water was chocolate brown and we ended up dirtier after the shower than before. So we found the answer—wait for a rainstorm, strip naked, bring out the soap and shampoo and use Mother Nature. Except for our feet and ankles we were clean. The only person who enjoyed shower time more than we did, was the postmistress who watched from a distance.
The thing we envied most about the Portuguese Air Force stationed at Chicoa was that their Alouette helicopter had a 20mm cannon. Compared with our 7.62 machine-gun this was a real killing machine. It was patently apparent that they had little or no idea how to operate this weapon or even service it and this was graphically demonstrated one morning when the gunner’s replacement arrived. The new incumbent had never seen a weapon like this before and was given a quick tutorial. The tutor, demonstrating how to load the gun, pulled back the moving parts and released the breechblock. He had, however, forgotten to clear the weapon. It picked up a 20mm round that went off with a fearful bang, travelled across the open ground towards the Portuguese camp, entered a tent and hit the cook who was taking his post-breakfast siesta. It removed a large part of his skull and he was casevaced to Tete by chopper. That evening the commander came over to tell us that the cook was dead. Seeing the looks of dismay on our faces, he immediately qualified his remark by saying, “Oh, don’t worry, he was a ‘sheet’ cook anyway!” We were stunned by this callous disregard for human life, but it was typical of the overall attitude.
As there seemed to be little action at one stage, we threatened to pack up camp and return to Rhodesia, which was bad news for the Portuguese Army colonel. We had just been to a scene where there had been a report of a Fred (FRELIMO) camp but it was a ‘lemon’. The Portuguese had to return by vehicle. No sooner had we landed back at Chicoa than the Portuguese Army colonel came running to our camp, in itself an unusual sight. Panting and puffing he approached Wing Commander Ozzie Penton, and, scarcely able to contain himself, he blurted out what was to become the most famous words ever uttered at Chicoa. “Colonel Penton, good news, good news, we have been ambushed!” Ozzie’s face was a picture. Recovering, he looked at the Colonel and said, “Well Colonel, if that is good news, what the hell is the bad news?” We deployed the troops but rain had washed the tracks away.
One morning Captain Neves, their OC, gave the whole company a pep-talk, telling them that convoys were going to be sent out on the three roads that led out of Chicoa to locate mines. This was a good plan—except for one small drawback—the intention was to discover the mines by hitting them. The plan also required volunteers to drive the vehicles. As these vehicles were not mine-protected, the volunteers were, in effect, going to their deaths. The troops got into a huddle and a group of volunteers stepped forward to loud applause from their comrades. They boarded the vehicles and drove off. Within the hour we were called on to pick up the casualties and drop trackers to search for spoor but, even in the case of freshly laid mines, the rains soon washed any evidence away. The young people lost their lives needlessly but this did not seem to bother the officers. After a few days the exercise was called off—there were no more vehicles. There was one concession, however. The drivers of the Bedford trucks were allowed to remove the bonnets because if they hit a land mine the bonnets would flip back and crush the driver!