Dingo Firestorm (20 page)

Norman remembered the pressure: ‘On chopper conversion I had pins and needles in my thumb from being so tense – it was so different.’

His instructor, Peter Petter-Bowyer, also remembered: ‘None was more frustrated by the learning process than steely-eye jet pilot Norman Walsh. He simply could not understand why he could not control the Alouette in the hover.’

Walsh quickly got the hang of it, however, and no longer needed an area the size of a rugby field to practise hovering – half a tennis court would do. After only seven days, Walsh flew the Alouette solo for the first time and his full conversion training was done in a record period of six weeks. The new squadron boss was at last a qualified helicopter pilot.

As squadron leader, Walsh often had to fly VIPs around. His passenger on one of these assignments was the rather eccentric minister of defence, P.K. van der Byl, who always sported large, expensive sunglasses. They were returning to base from a tour of the operational area, when the minister was, as usual, trying to spot enemy forces in the bush. He leant out of the doorless Alouette a bit too far and his pricey sunglasses flew off into the thick bush below. ‘Turn back, turn back – I know exactly where they are,’ Van der Byl ordered. Walsh knew that finding the sunglasses would be impossible, so he continued flying back to base. The angry minister never forgave him for disobeying a direct order.

Not long afterwards, it seemed the minister had called on nature for retribution. Walsh was flying back to New Sarum, when an eagle smashed through the Perspex windscreen of the Alouette, hitting his technician in the chest. ‘Benecke started thrashing about and went into convulsions. I had to restrain him while flying the helicopter.’ Walsh managed to get the unconscious technician back to safety and to hospital. There was a massive hole in the left side of the bubble resembling the eagle’s shape. ‘When I visited Benecke later in hospital, I saw that the eagle had left an imprint on his chest too.’

Gone was the myth that bird strikes are not hazardous to slowerflying helicopters.

Norman Walsh had fond memories of his helicopter days: ‘Choppers were probably the most rewarding aircraft to fly, because of the close association with the army and police. Having myself gone through a few courses with the army and police, counter-insurgency in particular, it was very good to get to know people on the ground and that they understood where we were coming from. It was a learning curve for everyone.’

Walsh’s affinity with the ‘people on the ground’, and having previously flown attack aircraft, equipped him to quickly become adept at calling in and accurately directing air strikes onto targets from his helicopter. In one particular operation in 1968, against a group of 30 ZIPRA guerrillas in the Chewore area of the Zambezi Valley, Walsh and his gunner, Sergeant Tinker Smithdorff, came under withering ground fire as they deployed troops to contain the enemy.

As the battle raged, an RLI soldier was injured. Walsh flew right into the firefight to evacuate the man, but his helicopter took a hit from enemy fire. Fortunately, the damage wasn’t terminal, and Walsh was able to drop the wounded soldier off for medical treatment before flying his damaged Alouette straight back into the battle, where he coolly and professionally directed frantan strikes right into the midst of the enemy. ‘It made me realise that our training was good,’ said Walsh after the battle.

Peter Walls remembered the event: ‘I had tremendous respect for this bugger who flew into a valley to support and evacuate troops – in a helicopter!’

Both Walsh and Smithdorff were awarded medals for this action. The inscription on Norman Walsh’s medal, the Bronze Cross of Rhodesia, has the following simple conclusion: ‘There is no doubt that Squadron Leader Walsh’s skill as a pilot, coupled with his complete disregard for his personal safety, contributed in no small way to the success of the action.’

This and many future actions confirmed Walsh as precisely the right person to plan and command the air attack in the massive Operation Dingo, nine years later.

Like Norman Walsh, Brian Robinson was born in South Africa and he too had a boyhood dream to become an air force pilot. Brian’s father, David ‘Robbie’ Robinson, was passionate about aviation, and piloted the Douglas Boston light bomber with the rank of major in No. 12 Squadron, SAAF during World War II. After the war, Robinson senior continued to fly as a pastime, and served for many years as president of the Durban Wings Club. This private flying club is based at Virginia Airport, an idyllic airfield almost on the beach on the wild Indian Ocean, just north of Durban. Young Brian grew up in an environment that revolved around aviation, often flying with his father in his Aero Commander and Mooney.

As soon as he finished school, Brian headed for Pretoria to undergo the pilot selection process at the SAAF Gymnasium in the suburb of Valhalla. When he wasn’t marching around the parade ground, called the Sahara, he was excelling at sport. This proved useful for Robinson, as pilot selection was biased against English-speakers in those days, but being good at sport counted in his favour. Robinson won the Transvaal three-metre board-diving championship and was selected to play rugby for Transvaal Under-19s as a centre alongside Syd Nomis, a promising player who would go on to play for the Springboks in 55 Tests.

Brian was soaring. He was superbly fit and ready for the pilot aptitude tests, decompression tests and a very extensive medical examination. It should be a shoe-in for the rugby player. Soon the young man would be following in his father’s footsteps. At least, that’s what it seemed like, until he had his eyes tested.

To Brian’s shock and dismay, the medical team found that he had a very slight red–green colour deficiency, which meant a failed medical. The young man’s dream was well and truly shattered. ‘I was devastated. The only jobs open to me in the SAAF were cook, clerk or musician, so I borrowed 10 quid from my dad and bought myself out.’

Robinson slowly picked himself up and found a job with a timber merchant. The company needed someone to travel to neighbouring Rhodesia to relieve the depot manager in Salisbury on a temporary basis.

Two things about Rhodesia immediately impressed Robinson: they had television and played rugby on Sundays. In South Africa at the time, the ruling Calvinistic National Party prohibited television, which it regarded as an evil black box. Sport and most other unholy activities were banned on Sundays.

‘One day, walking down First Street in Salisbury, I came across an army recruitment office,’ recalls Robinson. ‘The poster showed some bod jumping out of an aircraft. They suggested I go on an officer’s selection course as a civvy. If I failed, I could walk away without any obligations. If I passed, I could either go to Sandhurst or Gwelo.’

Robinson passed easily – the slight colour blindness was not an issue this time – and went to the school of infantry in Gwelo. Although not in the air, he was back in his element. He sailed through officer selection and was commissioned into the RLI as a second lieutenant. The ‘bod jumping out of an aircraft’ poster still played on Brian Robinson’s mind, however. He needed to be near aircraft even if he couldn’t pilot them legally.

After a year with the RLI, Robinson saw an opportunity to join the SAS when C Squadron, 22 SAS Regiment, under Major Dudley Coventry, was moved from Ndola in Zambia to Salisbury at the end of the federation. Robinson grabbed the chance, and joined the SAS as a second lieutenant.

It wasn’t long before Robinson was sent to England on attachment to the mother unit, 22 SAS Regiment, Hereford. Attachments were normal in colonial times. Robinson’s arrival in England coincided with the period when the new Federation of Malaya was squaring up to Indonesia over the control of Borneo. President Sukarno of Indonesia objected to the northern part of Borneo, the three regions known as Sabah, Brunei and Sarawak, joining the Federation of Malaya. Indonesia already controlled the biggest chunk of Borneo, the southern part, called Kalimantan. Sukarno wanted the whole island.

In December 1962, armed Indonesian insurgents tried to take power in Brunei. This was followed by incursions of armed bands of insurgents that engaged in propaganda and sabotage missions, which led to what was known as Konfrontasi – a confrontation that would last until 1966.

Looking after its former colonial interests in Malaysia, Britain responded by sending in 22 SAS’s A Squadron. With only 100 men to defend 1 500 kilometres of border between northern and southern Borneo, the SAS deployed four-man teams to work very large areas, with the help of friendly locals, or ‘border scouts’, to disrupt Indonesian forces and supply lines behind enemy lines.

The men would deploy into Kalimantan for three-week spells, each man carrying his own supplies – dehydrated food, water and ammunition. Because of their small numbers, the SAS focused on clandestine warfare, gathering intelligence, disrupting enemy supply lines and occasionally hitting Indonesian troops and then vanishing into the jungle – a technique known as ‘shoot and scoot’.

This type of warfare was very effective and made life tough for the insurgents; it also avoided dragging Britain into overt war with Indonesia.

Brian Robinson studied in detail the SAS tactical deployment methods for Borneo while he was in Hereford. Then it was time for him to try it out first-hand in Borneo. But it was November 1965, and history intervened. ‘I was actually on the flight manifest to go to Borneo with one of the squadrons of 22 SAS, when Prime Minister Ian Smith declared UDI.’

Rhodesia had rebelled against the Crown, and this meant Robinson and his fellow Rhodesians were no longer welcome in Britain. Robinson found himself on a long-haul flight, but heading south instead of east. He was on his way back to Salisbury and life in the Rhodesian SAS. Life would change dramatically in the wake of UDI as sanctions bit and the black nationalists chose war in a conflict that would last 14 years.

Robinson would go on to become the longest-serving officer commanding of the Rhodesian SAS, from 1972 to 1978. His natural flair when it came to outsmarting the enemy coupled with his knowledge of the SAS’s counter-insurgency techniques used in Borneo would play a significant part in that war.

Eight months before Operation Dingo, Brian Robinson’s passion, flying, very nearly cost him his life. An SAS callsign in Mozambique was under fire from the enemy and desperately trying to break contact and slip away. In the process, they lost long-range radio contact with SAS HQ. Robinson knew there was only one way he could make contact – by using line-of-sight VHF radio. The only way to do this was by air. The RhAF provided a plane for him from FAF 5, the forward airfield at Mtoko.

It was the Ides of March – a particularly dark night falling right between the last quarter and the new phase of the moon. Robinson and his pilot, Air Sub Lieutenant John Kidson, clambered aboard their Lynx aircraft. The Lynx was a French-built Cessna 337 (the model number reflecting the wing area in square feet).

Kidson started the Lynx’s two engines, one at the front and one aft, which gave the Lynx its other name, ‘push and pull’, sometimes derogatorily translated to ‘huff and puff’ or ‘suck and blow’. Kidson chose Runway 09, facing east. It was a logical choice, as the threshold was much closer to dispersal than the other end, and he would already be pointing towards Mozambique.

There was plenty of hard-surfaced runway ahead of them – 1 100 metres of it, with a very gentle downhill slope towards the other end. After the end of the runway, however, the ground rises gradually to 11 metres above runway level, but by this point an aircraft should be well established in a climb much steeper than the angle of the sloping ground.

On a dark night with no visual reference after the runway lights disappear, it is imperative to establish a positive and sustained rate of climb, using nothing but the aircraft instruments. The pilot immediately and systematically scans all the critical instruments. One of these shows the aircraft rate of climb, the vertical speed indicator, or VSI, a sensitive pressure device showing climb or descent in feet per minute. If the aircraft is climbing, the needle points up from the neutral nine o’clock position, and vice versa.

Kidson lined up on the runway facing east, completed his preflight checks, applied full power and released the brakes.

‘We probably got airborne halfway down the runway,’ recalled Robinson. ‘We were airborne for at least 20 seconds. I was about to ask Kidson what the hell was going on with the VSI sitting at the six o’clock position, when we flew into the ground on the other side of the road.’

It seems the Lynx had taken off normally, climbed a bit and then started descending until it ploughed into the rising ground just on the other side of the Mtoko–Mrewa main road. The Lynx quickly ground to a halt.

Kidson shouted, ‘Get out, get out!’ but his door was jammed. Robinson reacted immediately: ‘Amazing how fire helps with the unlocking sequence of the door. The plane actually exploded as we made a hot exit.’

Both men were very lucky to get out alive. Kidson had bruised ribs and Robinson needed 15 stitches to close a head wound, and treatment for burns to his face. The aircraft was destroyed by fire.

Always ready to make light of a serious situation, Robinson commented later: ‘I believe I raised the morale of the squadron for at least 10 minutes, until they found out I had survived!’

‘Are you fucking mad?’

–
ANONYMOUS SOLDIER

Bringing over 200 people together, quarantining them from the outside world and then telling them nothing breeds frustration, anxiety and speculation. ‘Are we going to colonise Zambia?’ ‘Are we going to occupy Maputo?’ These were just some of the theories flying about. People wanted to know.

The anxiety kept building and when the side door to the Radio Section hangar was opened at 13:00 on Wednesday 22 November 1977, the tension was electric.

Peter Petter-Bowyer remembers walking in: ‘We came in and there were tiered seats on the left and at the rear and there was this huge target laid out on the floor. It was in proper relief, so where there was a dip in the ground, the model replicated the same thing.’