I continued with Kevin Peinke and Mark Knight to Estima where Rob Gaunt was already set up. He introduced the elderly, good-looking and immaculately dressed Brigade Commander who made it clear to all of us that he was a cavalryman, which in his view placed him amongst the ultra-elite.
Following a short planning session with the Army and Air Force officers of the assault force, we were invited to the open-sided thatched bar of the Officers’ Club for refreshments and lunch. It was there that the brigadier offered me a bottle of any drink I chose for every live FRELIMO base my youngsters and I could offer his troops. It seemed to me that he did not believe we were all we had been cracked up to be by his superiors in Lourenço Marques. The brigadier said my choice of the cognac Antiqua was a good one.
After lunch Kevin and Mark helped sort out our maps before accompanying me on a familiarisation flight to get a first feel for the area of Operation Marble. We spent a lot of time over the Cabora Bassa Dam site and westward along the northern bank of the Zambezi River whose shoreline was changing as the water backed up slowly from the new dam wall. Kevin was to operate in the area next to Chris and south of the same line of latitude I had marked on Chris Weinmann’s maps. Mark was to fly with me for a day or two on extended recce training.
On 7 April, we were routing north through the area assigned for Mark when we happened upon a large FRELIMO base. I had no doubts that it was occupied and called for the assault force to meet us at one of the river junctions we had selected for RV purposes. The brigadier could not believe we had found a target so soon after take off on our first mission.
Because of language difficulties the plan was to lead the assault force Pumas and Alouette gunships from the selected RV directly to target. The Trojan task was to provide noise cover to the approaching helicopters and mark the target with thirty-six Sneb rockets. Thereafter control would pass to the two gunships, both armed with 20mm side-firing cannons. When the gunships ran out of ammunition they would pass control to the ground force commander.
Having continued northwestward to get beyond sight and sound range of the FRELIMO base, I followed a long circuitous route to get back south to the RV point where we waited for the airborne force. Mark and I were green with envy when we saw it approaching us. In this single lift the four Pumas were carrying more troops than could be carried by all the helicopters in Rhodesia. As for the two 20mm gunships, we simply did not have any then.
As agreed, the helicopters held a loose formation to my left so that I could watch them all the way. I marked target with a raking salvo of rockets and pulled up to see how the Portuguese handled themselves. Coming around in long line astern for a left-hand orbit around the base, the two gunships went into action immediately because there were FRELIMO people running in all directions. The time was about 10:15.
All four Pumas dropped their troops south of the target but so close together I could not believe it. They then lifted, turned about in the hover and disappeared the way they had come. The gunships were busy but made no attempt to stop FRELIMO breaking northward.
Never before had I seen so many armed terrorists. Down at about 1,500 feet, flying a little higher than the gunships, I could see everyone was armed, some with RPG rocket launchers. I was so sorry that I had expended my rockets because there were tight groups which remained stationary to fire at the two gunships whenever they came close and then moved on. The gunships concentrated on buildings that caught fire immediately. Their crews had either not seen the concentrations of terrorists I could see so clearly or had chosen to ignore them. At the end of their second orbit all ammunition had been expended so they rolled out and disappeared in the direction the Pumas had gone.
I watched at least six large groups of FRELIMO move away in good order. They were paying no attention to my aircraft so far as I could see. Over one kilometre to the south of the FRELIMO groups, the assault troops were still being shaken out into an extended sweep line before commencing a painfully slow advance towards the base. At least fifteen minutes had elapsed from the time they were dropped to the time the troops reached the southern edge of the base. By then every FRELIMO group had melted away into the bush farthest from the troops. I left the area in disgust because this, the target of my dreams, had been totally wasted.
Instead of continuing on with our recce, we flew back to Estima to reload rocket pods and tell Rob Gaunt of the frustrating balls-up Mark and I had witnessed. Then, whilst positioning to continue our recce, we found that the Pumas were already back at the FRELIMO base, uplifting assault troops and captured equipment. It was not yet 12:00. All structures in the camp were burning; so that was that! No follow up on tracks as might be expected. Just packing up and going home!
The clear blue cloudless sky conditions and the presence of Strela made me move up to 6,000 feet above ground. Moving on from the smoke-covered base, we picked up strong trails leading northwestward. The route given by a number of converging and diverging pathways was a cakewalk and we found four more large bases along the line, all of which were in use. Tucked away in the densest cover either side of the tracks were many small camps linked to fields of maize, rapoko and cassava; obviously civilians were giving FRELIMO succour and hiding from the Portuguese.
With no protection against the heat-seeking sensors of Strela missiles, and flying in perfect conditions for these weapons, I watched for them every second. If I spotted one coming up, my plan was to cut power and roll upside down to screen off the hot exhaust stubs. At the time I did not know that the paint over the entire surface of my Trojan could be ‘seen’ by these weapons and that my plan was utterly worthless.
Having worked for some time I had become quite relaxed when, out of the corner of my eye, I picked up a near vertical zigzag line of faint greyish white smoke. It ran through a position we had passed in orbit about thirty seconds earlier. Immediately I thought of Strela and looked up the line of barely discernible smoke to see if there was evidence of an airburst where Strela should self-destruct at around 13,000 feet. I could see nothing and soon lost the smoke trail altogether. When in later times I actually saw Strela missiles in flight, I realised that the trail I had seen here was definitely from a Strela that had been fired at us. The operator almost certainly fired when the aircraft was passing too close to the sun, which attracted the missile’s sensor to itself. This may very well have been the first Strela to be launched against a Rhodesian Air Force aircraft. Unfortunately it was not to be the last.
At half-hourly intervals Chris, Kevin and I exchanged information on how each of us was doing. By the end of our first day we had accumulated nine major bases between the three of us but made no call on the assault force because there was need to debrief on the first operation and make plans to improve tactics.
Back at Estima we found an elated brigadier who ceremoniously handed me a bottle of Antiqua. I was completely disarmed by all the Portuguese officers’ congratulations to 4 Squadron for setting up such a ‘magnificent operation’. They were tickled pink by the tally of sixteen FRELIMO dead and the largest haul of captured FRELIMO equipment in Tete to date. This included four 14.5mm anti-aircraft guns.
The assault commander said my Trojan had been under intense fire from the time the gunships left until I cleared back to base. He expounded on the bravery Mark and I had shown and how this had impressed and endeared us to his troops. We neither let on that we had been unaware of the fire nor that the Trojan had taken no hits.