Dingo Firestorm (25 page)

PB, flying in the admin base helicopter 10 places back from the leader, describes the U-turn: ‘Helicopters flying the loop caused by this diversion presented an impressive sight.’

Norman Walsh was getting very worried: ‘I had emphasised again and again the need for precise timing. Now we were blowing the timing because of the unexpected weather.’

If the helicopters were late, ZANLA would have plenty of time to escape through the two uncovered sides of Brian Robinson’s carefully planned box. Walsh knew that if they did not find a way through soon, the consequences might be disastrous. Not only would the helitroops be late, but the G-cars would have insufficient fuel to drop the troops and make it back to the admin base. They would either have to get back to Lake Alexander or route via the admin base to refuel. Furthermore, there would be no airborne commanders to direct the troops and air strikes. Operation Dingo had hit a serious and unplanned hurdle.

While the helicopters were struggling to find a way into Mozambique, the Canberras had just taken off, the DC-8 jetliner was taxiing, and down in the Midlands, Rich Brand was signalling the start for his Hunter Squadron. All was going to plan, except for the main helicopter force.

General Peter Walls, sitting at his desk in the command Dak, was blissfully unaware that the helicopters had encountered problems entering Mozambique. Harold Griffiths was due to break radio silence only when the helicopter formation crossed the border. This message was due at 07:18, failing which the alarm bells would start ringing loudly in the command Dak.

It was looking desperate for the helicopters; there was no way out of Rhodesia. PB describes what happened next: ‘Griff shouted that he had a break. He turned hard left ahead of us and we all followed through this gap. We got through, but only just. It closed so fast that I think the last few helicopters in the line actually went through some mist.’

Brian Robinson was anxiously mulling over in his mind the consequences of the helicopters being late. Nevertheless, he still had time to admire the skills of the formation leader: ‘The armada of helicopters was going up a re-entrant which was 8/8 clampers [complete cloud cover]. Squadron Leader Griff Griffiths had to do a 180-degree turn and map read his way to the target – all on a 1 : 50 000 scale map, with no door on the heli, no time to get out rulers and protractors, and no GPS.’

Walsh and Robinson were intensely relieved to see the brighter daylight of Mozambique ahead, but they knew the slack that Griff had built into the timing had gone. At 07:20, just two minutes after due time, Griff made the short call ‘Alpha Seven crossing’, which let those who needed to know that the helicopter assault force had crossed the border and all was well.

Once over the low ground of Mozambique, the shape of the helicopter formation changed as the 10 G-cars moved into line abreast forming the front of the formation.

After the last gaggle of helicopters had left New Sarum for Lake Alexander just after 05:00, the apron at New Sarum was abuzz. Next to get airborne, at 06:00, would be the six Paradaks of Silver Section, followed by the command Dakota carrying General Peter Walls and his command team.

Preparation for the 06:00 departure of the Daks had begun well before first light. The men of the Parachute Training School woke up from a fitful sleep on coir mattresses on the hangar floor at 04:00 to start sorting 144 parachutes. The men were soon milling about in the cold hangar, arranging the chutes into six areas, 24 chutes per group. The parachute jump instructors recorded the unique number of each parachute on a manifest so that the chute’s history and the name of the packer were traceable. The parachute jump instructors, assisted by two army dispatchers, laid out the chutes in two rows of 12 for the paratroopers sitting on the starboard and port sides of the Dak. The commanding officer of the PTS, Derek de Kock, mucked in too – he would be flying in the lead Dak.

At 05:15, 144 SAS and RLI troops filed into the PTS hangar. It looked chaotic, but each commander knew exactly which group of parachutes was his. The men lined up in reverse order of jumping, first in last out, and donned their chutes. The dispatchers checked each man front and back, numbered them off and marched them to the waiting Dakotas. As they marched across the apron, one of the paratroopers, Colour Sergeant John Norman of the RLI, proudly looked down at his brand-new para boots, which his father had recently sent to him from Australia. It was last time he would wear those boots.

The parachute jump instructors had already left to do preflight checks of the equipment in the Dakota cabins. Sergeant Kevin Milligan made his way to his Dakota, where he met his pilot, Flight Lieutenant Vic Culpan. Milligan hopped inside to check the seats and belts, the static line cables, and the like, while Culpan and his co-pilot did an external check of the old machine.

The pilots climbed up the small steps and entered the rear of the Dakota just as the paratroops arrived. The Dakota is a taildragger (there is no nose wheel), which means that when not flying, the cabin floor tilts aft at quite a steep angle. The pilots hauled themselves up the steep incline to the flight deck, passing two rows of rudimentary folding canvas seats, one on each side of the fuselage, for the paratroops. There was no first, business or even economy class – the paratroops would sit in two long rows facing each other. There was no superfluous padding, just bare ribs and skin and a hard metal floor. At the flight deck, the pilots settled down and prepared for the flight.

At 05:40, the Dak leader, Bob d’Hotman, pressed his transmit button and called, ‘Silver Section, check in.’ The response was quick – ‘two, three, four, five, six’. Soon, the gurgling and wheezing of the starter motors interrupted by loud coughs and pops added to the din as the ancient Pratt & Whitney radial engines burst into life in a cloud of white smoke. The command Dak also fired up.

At 05:45, D’Hotman led the Dakotas out across the main runway onto the taxiway for the slow trip to the take-off point on Runway 06. It was a sight not seen since World War II, a line of Dakotas laden with paratroops going to war.

Moving well forward on the runway to allow space for the rest of the Dakotas to line up behind him, D’Hotman advanced the throttles to full power while his co-pilot ensured that the throttle, propeller pitch and mixture levers were all fully forward – balls to the wall. The engines roared, shaking the whole machine.

‘As we took off, the paras were quiet. Conversation is difficult for any length of time because of the noise. Most closed their eyes and rested, or tried to,’ recalled Milligan.

D’Hotman pedalled on the rudder bar to keep the long machine straight; then, as the speed increased, he eased the control column forward, bringing the tail wheel off the ground. Not too much, or the propellers would strike the runway; not too little, or the aircraft would lift off too early.

At the right speed, the grand old bird eased off the runway. Once the aircraft was climbing, it was time to raise the undercarriage and reduce power. The vibration and noise eased as D’Hotman coarsened the pitch to reduce the propeller speed. This had a calming effect on the paratroops, albeit a temporary one. D’Hotman started a slow bank to the right so that the rest of the Daks could take the inside lane to catch him.

He glanced through the right window at a house on Delport Farm, its white walls glistening through the msasa trees. This was Bob’s house, conveniently situated away from suburbia, but close to work. His wife, Trish, would have no idea that this was anything other than hubby and his colleagues doing a routine early-morning parachute drop or a bit of circuit training … until five more Dakotas flew over the farmhouse in rapid succession.

The next aircraft to leave New Sarum was one of the most important to the operation, the DC-7. Every single helicopter was relying on its cargo – 16 000 litres of helicopter fuel contained in 80 drums, which would be dispatched along with ammunition for the K-cars by parachute into the admin base. The DC-7 also carried another important cargo, of the human kind – 16 RLI paratroops whose responsibility was to protect the base from hostile forces.

The Douglas DC-7 was the last and largest piston-powered airliner to be built. The four-engine machine was capable of maintaining a cruise speed of 550 km/h. It was the first airliner to fly non-stop from New York to London. This particular DC-7 was cobbled together from parts of two former KLM Dutch Airlines DC-7s to haul freight for Air Trans Africa. The aircraft was transferred to the RhAF in 1976. Jack Malloch, an active air force reserve pilot, was at the controls, assisted by Squadron Leader George Alexander.

Twenty-five minutes after the last Dakota had blended into the morning sun, the DC-7 roared down the runway. As the aircraft eased into the sky and past the hangars on the civilian side of the runway, another Douglas aircraft was preparing for flight. This was a DC-8, the jet-powered successor to the DC-7, also hauling freight for Air Trans Africa. The DC-8’s mission was to create deception. It would fly reasonably high over the target at H minus 4 (exactly four minutes before the Hunters would open the attack on New Farm), making a lot of noise. After the DC-7 had departed, New Sarum fell silent, but not for long. At 06:45, Squadron Leader Chris Dixon led his Canberra Green Section from the crew room to their aircraft – four pilots and four navigators. Dixon eased his way into the awkward hatch on the side of the aircraft’s belly, and pulled himself up into the cockpit of his English Electric Canberra light bomber.

A few minutes later, the leader of No. 2 Squadron, Steve Kesby, led the last group of pilots out onto the apron. This was the de Havilland Vampire section, callsign Venom, which would attack the recruits’ camp seven kilometres north of the ZANLA HQ, also at H-hour, then take over from the Hunters as they ran out of ammo. There were seven Vampire jets parked on the apron; these 1940s vintage birds would fill a firepower gap nicely in the operation.

‘To carry out the required tasks for Op Dingo,’ recalled Kesby, ‘HQ needed six aircraft, four FB9s for the initial attack, supported by two T11s [two-seat trainers]. We would operate in three sections as top cover after the attack.’

The extra Vampire was a spare in case there was a problem with any of the other machines. The two trainers, the T11s, were easily distinguished by their much larger nose and canopy sections. They raised a few eyebrows. Why, some thought, were trainer aircraft on the mission? The answer lay in necessity and the privileges of rank. Group Captain Tol Janeke, the commanding officer of Thornhill Airbase, and Group Captain Hugh Slatter, officer commanding flying at Thornhill, had ‘jammed’ their way onto the mission.

‘Whenever we could,’ recalled Slatter, ‘we would “scrounge” any “leftover” aircraft and join the operation. Who says rank doesn’t have its privileges? But I found the T11 very uncomfortable for me because of the ejection seat and my relatively short back and long legs, and I sort of hung forward in the seat, which made for some discomfort, especially when pulling “G”.’

The two senior officers would fly in support of Venom Section, and also relieve the Hunters from top-cover duties. They had their own callsign – Voodoo.

The four Canberras were ready to start. Before sanctions, these jet bombers were usually started by means of a cartridge, an expensive explosive device resembling the cartridge of a gigantic starter pistol. The explosion, a rapid expansion of gases, would spin a starting turbine, which, in turn, rotated the main engine fast enough to get it started. But at about £100 per bang, these cartridges were expensive. In typical Rhodesian fashion, some innovative person decided that the same thing could be achieved with air, which was free but for the small cost of the electricity used to compress it. The result was a compressed air starter. But because the four Canberras had to start simultaneously on that day, the old cartridge system was used.

As Chris Dixon signalled the start with a twirl of his left index finger, he pressed the No. 1 engine start button with his right index finger. The cartridge fired with a loud hiss and a cloud of black smoke as the explosive charge sent highly compressed gas into the jet’s starting turbine, spooling the main engine to 1 100 rpm, sufficient to start the Rolls-Royce Avon engine. More ear-piercing hisses of the cartridges reverberated as the other Canberras followed suit.

As the eight engines of the Canberras stabilised into their loud jet turbine sound, an altogether different sound engulfed the apron as the de Havilland Goblin engines of the ancient Vampires screamed into life.

The Canberras would fly to the target at low level, passing about 15 kilometres north of Lake Alexander. The Vampires, on the other hand, would climb to 20 000 feet – a fuel-conserving measure that enabled them to take over from the Hunters when their fuel ran low. The last aircraft to leave New Sarum just behind the Canberras and Vampires was the big DC-8 cargo liner.

The air armada, virtually the entire Rhodesian Air Force (only the slow and noisy Trojans were left out), was on its way to deal Mugabe’s nerve centre a massive blow.

A gentle easterly breeze stirred the silence that now enveloped New Sarum. The aprons were empty; the ground crews were inside having a well-deserved cup of tea.

The silence did not last long, however. Soon the Canberra and Vampire ground crews were out again, busily preparing to rearm and refuel the aircraft when they returned from Chimoio.

H-hour, the time the attack on Chimoio New Farm would commence, was 07:45 on Wednesday 23 November 1977. Opening the attack would be the RhAF’s top marksman, the commander of No. 1 (Hunter) Squadron, Rich Brand.

In air force parlance, the word ‘walk’ describes both a time and an action. The leader sets the walk time, which signals precisely when the crews should leave the crew room and make their way to their jets. The walk is the first physical step on the way to the target. Brand set the walk time for Operation Dingo by working back from H-hour, 07:45. He knew the straight-line distance from Thornhill to Chimoio was 388 kilometres, which, at the Hunter’s low-level cruise speed of 420 knots (778 km/h), was 30 minutes’ flying time.