Mapai knew something was afoot and sent out many armed patrols to seek out the Rhodesian forces they knew were active somewhere to their east. They had no idea how many Rhodesian soldiers were there or what their mission was.
On D-Day, now 3 September, a helicopter force comprising SAAF Pumas (thanks to the South African Government favouring Prime Minister Muzorewa) with five Cheetahs and twenty-four G-Cars left Rhodesia at first light. They all had full fuel tanks to avoid having to refuel at the Admin Base before uplifting troops to their assigned targets. Whereas all the Rhodesians were functioning under the codename Operation Uric, the SAAF participation was titled Operation Bootlace. This was to reduce the risk of being accused by the international community of joint involvement with Zimbabwe-Rhodesia.
The helicopters were still approaching the Admin Base when a FRELIMO patrol comprising twenty-four men happened upon the base. In a sharp exchange twenty-two FRELIMO lay dead. Another was captured wounded but one managed to escape.
What with the delay due to weather, Lancaster House talks only seven days away and discovery of the Admin Base, General Walls was in a bit of a quandary. He was flying in the Command Dakota with Air Commodore Walsh and staff. Time had become more critical and some operational adjustments had to be made on the run.
SAS made up the largest component of the ground force and were flown to the huge Aldeia da Barragem target just 150 kilometres northwest of Maputo. They landed under cover of Hunter strikes against the main FRELIMO defences. Thereafter, the SAS fought through the surviving elements of the enemy force, capturing a couple of heavy anti-aircraft guns that they later put to good use. One SAS soldier was wounded during multiple encounters and a Cheetah was called forward from a secondary refuelling point just six minutes’ flying time to the north of target.
As Flight Lieutenant Dick Paxton approached for the casevac he was inadvertently routed over a FRELIMO strong point and suffered a direct hit from a missile that exploded on the main rotor gearbox. In the ensuing uncontrolled crash, technician Aircraftsman Alexander Wesson was killed outright. Dick was injured but was extremely lucky to be dragged from the wreckage by a very brave SAS Sergeant, Flash Smythe, before burning fuel engulfed and consumed the Cheetah.
By late afternoon, the SAS had completed the difficult and stressful task of setting up the charges on the road and rail bridges. Charges had also been set on at least one of the four irrigation canals’ sluice gates. Having detonated these charges, the SAS team was to hold its position until next day to confirm that both bridges were wrecked before their planned extraction.
Surprisingly, the forces at the other four bridges had been unopposed. They completed their work, confirmed their bridges destroyed, knocked hell out of all enemy transport in their immediate areas, and then flew back to the Admin Base—as intended. RLI mine-laying teams worked throughout the day along main and secondary routes.
Back at COMOPS we thought everything was running to plan. But as night fell, we learned that the SAS Barragem force and most of the RLI mine-laying teams were being recovered to the Admin. Base. This struck us as very strange indeed because they should have been on their tasks until at least the end of D-Day plus 1.
The reason for the withdrawals came as a real shock. General Walls had decided to change direction and attack Mapai. We could not understand our commander’s thinking. All along it had been agreed that conventionally defended Mapai was too strong a target to take on directly; hence the inclusion of Selous Scouts during initial planning. A prolonged period of softening and harassment had been considered of paramount importance to demoralise and weaken the defenders. But now a small force of just 200 men, mentally unprepared and armed only with light infantry weapons, was under orders to attack a much, much larger fresh force that was alert, dug-in and armed with vastly superior weapons.
The Air Force, having at most eight available Hunters and five Canberras, could not possibly hold a cab-rank to provide the ground troops with ‘on call’ heavy support. Most of the time the aircraft would be out of the area—a frightening thought indeed. There was absolutely nothing we could do about this in COMOPS other than hope and pray that General Walls knew something that we did not.
As it happened our mutually expressed fears were well founded. The nightmare that followed next day started off with the downing of a SAAF Puma well short of Mapai itself. An RPG rocket exploded behind Captain P.D. Velleman instantly killing him and his crewmen, Lieutenant N.D. Osborne and Sergeant D.W.M. Retief. There was no hope for the twelve Rhodesian soldiers aboard as the helicopter smashed through trees and broke up in a line of flaming wreckage.
The only casualty I knew well was the Army engineer Captain Charlie Small whom I had worked with on projects of mutual interest to Air Force and Army. Before his death he had played a big part in preparing the SAS for the intense bridge demolition work yet to come.
Hunters and Canberras struck and re-struck Mapai before ground forces, now depleted by 6%, landed near the target. From the outset it was clear that FRELIMO was too well established to simply pack up and run. Close-quarter contacts in the face of intense enemy fire from every conceivable type and calibre of weapon proved the Rhodesian troops’ abilities to cope with heavy enemy fire, but the target was just too large and complicated to be quickly overrun by such a small force armed only with light infantry weapons.
The intensity of anti-aircraft fire directed at attacking jets amazed even the most battle-hardened soldiers. Equally amazing, and extremely discomforting, was that these heavy weapons were turned against the troops whenever the jets were not around.
General Walls soon realised that Mapai could not be taken without committing the troops to a long period of sleepless close-quarter combat—possibly another three days. However, the inevitability of unacceptably heavy Rhodesian casualties forced him to decide on a withdrawal—not a pleasant situation for Rhodesia’s top general. Just another command cock-up in the endless list of failures by senior British generals! By nightfall the Mapai force was back in Rhodesia. The next day, remaining RLI mine-laying teams were collected and the Admin. Base was wrapped up.
Op Uric had fallen short of its primary aim of denying FRELIMO and ZANLA easy access through Gaza. One reason for this was that the road bridge over the irrigation barrage had not been rendered totally unusable because the engineers who built it had laid greater quantities of steel reinforcing than was revealed in the design plans. Had the SAS remained on target, as originally planned, they would have finished the job. The second reason was that the Hunters, wholly occupied in supporting the ground force at Mapai, had not been given opportunity to destroy vehicles trapped between the downed bridges.
This was the first occasion the RSF had failed to overrun the enemy. It was an issue that dampened spirits even more than knowing that our Government was about to face difficult times in their talks, commencing 10 September, with the devious Brits and our communist enemies. Neither ZAPU nor ZANU were any happier because they too utterly distrusted the British Government—not that this gave any comfort to us.
The international press inferred that a ceasefire followed by all-party elections in ‘Zimbabwe’ would be the outcome of the talks. Such ceasefire and political preparations for ‘one man one vote’ elections were envisaged for early 1980. Nkomo was in a worse position than Mugabe if such elections were to take place so early. ZAPU was sitting high and dry because Rhodesian forces had rendered all hope of an effective ZIPRA invasion impossible, whereas ZANU was well placed with thousands of ZANLA CTs in the country and many more immediately available to flood across the border.