In September 1976, a group of terrorists attacked a farm in the
Southeast of the country. At the time, the SAS happened to be in the area, and
coincidentally there was a Dakota complete with crew, PJIs, and parachutes,
positioned at nearby Buffalo Range. These attackers were heading, at speed, for
the Mozambique border, chased by a tracker team assisted by an Alloutte III
Helicopter of #7 Sqn
Because the direction of their flight was obvious, it was decided to
drop the SAS across their line of escape in the hope of setting up an ambush
before they reached the border.
There was no rush on this occasion. The troops were kitted up and we
climbed aboard the Dakota and took off. We kept away from the follow-up area
but remained in radio contact with the #7 Sqn chopper to follow the progress of
the tracking team. George Alexander was the Dakota skipper and was content to
stooge around at a reasonable altitude until somebody gave us a call. We were
orbiting at about 6000 feet or so, where it was reasonably cool and not too
bumpy.
At about 3pm we got the call to drop the troops onto a DZ chosen by us
from the Dakota. The drop was to be some way in front of the fleeing terrorists
so we were given grid references for their line of flight and their approximate
position.
We found the area and I went into the cockpit to pick out a suitable DZ.
I spotted a relatively flat area with only a few trees on it. There also
appeared to be some sort of path, possibly a game trail, leading towards the
border. It seemed to be the right place to drop the troops.
Soon the stick was on the ground, without injury. The troops set up
ambush positions, and did not have long to wait before the terrorist group
arrived, moving as fast as they could towards the Mozambique border. Needless
to say, the gooks were quickly, and thoroughly, overwhelmed. We surrounded the
bastards and killed them using the Allouette III helicopter to direct the
battle from above . It was a comparatively simple, ruthlessly effective
process.
Until the end of 1975, the only paratroops in the Rhodesian Army were
those of the SAS. They were occasionally used as airborne infantry in various
operational theatres but this was not their intended role. The SAS were
supposed to create havoc in the enemy’s back yard, not do Fire Force work
But the success of this one parachute drop demonstrated the use of
properly trained paratroopers was vital if an enemy group was to be surrounded
and killed. It became the impetus to train every member of the regular
Rhodesian Army and later selected territorials would also be trained. We did
not have enough helicopters to ambush fleeing guerrillas. But we could use paratroopers to saturate an area with friendly soldiers.
One Dakota could carry up to six helicopter loads of troops, but was usually
restricted to five loads from the bush airstrips. In addition if paratroopers
were dropped into a Fire Force contact they could be quickly repositioned by
the helicopters as required.
Prior to this we had experimented with the SAS, trialing various
strategies.
One of these methods was to use three Dakota aircraft in formation,
which would split up and form a triangle around the terrorist group. The
triangle would ideally be equilateral with sides of 1000 meters in length, and
in theory take only about half a minute to form. This proved too unwieldy, and
could not be altered at short notice.
Another problem was to get three Dakotas to approach an area quietly, so
as not to alert the enemy. The only way this could be done was to fly in close
to the ground, then spring up at the final moment to the drop height of 500
feet, and split up to form the triangle – not an easy maneuver. But still, we
tried it a few times with the SAS, as a form of continuation training.
As always, the PTS were master of improvisation and during practice sessions,
when we did not have any SAS paratroopers to play with, we tossed out toilet
rolls to simulate soldiers. This gave us a reasonable idea of how effective a
particular formation drop would be for vertical envelopment. We could roughly see
how long a stick of twenty would be if they jumped at one second intervals at
the usual 95 knots drop speed. It was up to the PJI dispatching the stick to
ensure the speed at which each paratrooper exited the aircraft was in
accordance with the briefing. This would determine the distance covered by each
man and consequently the length of the stick.
This sort of disciplined aircraft drill was practiced at PTS, and its
achievement was a credit, not only to the PJIs, but also to the troops of the
Rhodesian Army. Under normal conditions, once a stick of troops is on the way
out of the door, it is extremely hard to slow them down. Usually a stick of
twenty would leave the aircraft in about ten seconds or even less if the DZ was
tight. To slow them down to one per second took discipline, skill, and courage
by the paratroopers and sometimes brute force by the dispatchers, who would
physically grab each man and hold him until it was time to go.
The
political situation was complicated. But as far as we were concerned, we were protecting
our homeland from terrorists who attacked
isolated and vulnerable targets. This is why lethally effective Fire
Force attacks were used - we wanted vengeance - to eliminate the enemy not
merely wound them. If we wounded the enemy we would need to fix them up, feed
them, guard them, and finally put them on trial. So Fire Force - surround the bastards and kill
them.
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