1 Recce, volume 2. Alexander Strachan
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Fourie suspected that the wounded Frelimo was the same one who had earlier spotted the wire of the Claymore mine on the ground. ‘The terr was between us and the Claymore, and he followed the wire all the way to the mine. When he reached it, Douw detonated the mine. The back-blast of the Claymore had injured him. After he shot Kokkie, Joe de Villiers instantly took him out with his weapon.’
The team then withdrew, carrying their fallen comrade’s body with them. A helicopter was not immediately available – with helicopters in short supply in the Rhodesian air force, they were constantly deployed. The team had no choice but to keep moving.
Fourie recalls how they struggled with the stretcher: ‘We had these primitive stretchers, so four guys had to carry Kokkie. It left us with only a few guys who could shoot effectively. In later years the medical equipment improved, and they designed a stretcher that could be carried by just two guys who were able to shoot at the same time.’
By late afternoon, a thick mist descended that made it impossible for a helicopter to collect Du Toit’s body. ‘We walked until dark and then took shelter against a koppie that was very bushy. None of us wanted to lie close to the body, and we went into all-round defence some distance away,’ Fourie relates.
Du Toit had always carried a bottle of rum in his backpack, and that evening in the lying-up position Steyn took out the bottle and everyone drank a tot to the memory of their fallen comrade. In the dark they concealed Du Toit’s body in the dense bush in case the team unexpectedly had to start running for their lives. True to Recce tradition, they would not allow his body to fall into enemy hands.
‘Willy Ward was the new team leader … The next morning we couldn’t find the body, seeing that we had arrived at the place in the dark. Eventually we located Kokkie’s body by means of the smell.’
The helicopter came in fairly early and landed close by. Du Toit’s body was airlifted out under enemy fire. Steyn, who was injured – during his tree landing after his parachute jump a branch had penetrated his boot and pierced his foot – was evacuated along with the body to the Tac HQ.
As Frelimo soldiers were still hot on their heels, the team immediately started running again after the helicopter took off. There were now too few of them left to take on the Frelimos’ superior numbers. Eventually the team was picked up and flown to the Tac HQ, where a debriefing took place under the command of Capt. Hannes Venter.
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Since 1976–77 Robert Mugabe’s Zanla guerrillas had been infiltrating Rhodesia on a regular basis from Mozambique’s Tete and Gaza provinces. Zanla’s strategic plan also included sabotaging the logistics routes in southern Matabeleland to South Africa from the Gaza province. During the course of 1976 the Selous Scouts attacked Frelimo-Zanla logistics bases in the Tete and Gaza provinces. In addition, they demolished or damaged parts of the railway line between Malvernia and São Jorge do Limpopo.
Zanla assembled its troops at Xai-Xai on the Mozambican coast. After receiving training in Tanzania, the troops were transported along the coast to Xai-Xai. From there they were moved by road or by rail to Aldeia da Barragem, Frelimo’s brigade HQ in the Gaza province. As a result of the Selous Scouts’ actions, the Zanla guerrillas were forced to move to the Rhodesian border with Mozambique either by road or on foot.
During October 1977 the Selous Scouts handed over the responsibility for combating infiltrations from the Gaza province to the SAS Rhodesia. It was in this inhospitable operational area with little water and impassable sandalwood forests that South Africa’s Recces acted militarily against Frelimo and Zanla together with the SAS.
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The Recces’ preparations and movement to Rhodesia would invariably take place in great secrecy.18 As soon as the group commanders received the instruction to deploy operators to Rhodesia, the preparations would start. Their kit, weapons and ammunition were packed in numbered crates. The group sergeant major compiled a contents list for each crate, after which the crates were weighed. Meanwhile the operators would check and prepare their personal combat gear for the deployment.
Operational security (OPSEC) was maintained, and no one in the unit would know where the group was headed – nor did anyone ask questions. Maj. Wessel Maree, 1 Recce’s logistics officer, remembers OPSEC as follows:
‘Due to the operators’ constant training, we as support personnel never knew if the training was for a specific reason (operational) or normal training. Certain operators would be in the unit at morning parade and then vanish for a certain period only to return weeks or months later. 1.1 Commando had their own storage facilities and storeman, and it was possible for them to deploy without the rest of the unit knowing. Nobody ever knew what exactly the operators’ programme and tasking would be from day to day.’
For security reasons, the movement to Rhodesia mostly took place at night, except for the first deployment, when it happened in daytime. In civilian dress, the groups would move to Durban’s military airport with all their gear. Dakota planes of the SA Air Force were used to fly the groups to Rhodesia. Once the pilots reported that they were in Rhodesian airspace, the operators would remove their Rhodesian combat uniforms from their carry bags and put them on. The civilian clothes would then be stored in the carry bags.
In the case of the first deployment, 1 RC’s Bravo Group under the command of Capt. Hannes Venter flew during the day in two Dakotas from Durban to the Buffalo Range airfield near Chiredzi in Rhodesia. After crossing the Limpopo River, the planes maintained an altitude of about 90 m above the ground, which was within range of AK-47 fire. The pilots were inexperienced and reckoned they were flying low enough. Moreover, they flew in formation, with the second Dakota flying a plane length diagonally behind the first one.
This made the planes very vulnerable, and Venter asked the commander of the Dakota, Capt. Jaap du Preez, to rather fly at tree-top level. Du Preez disregarded this request. On the return flight they followed the same route, and just before the Limpopo River they came under heavy AK-47 fire. Du Preez’s Dakota was riddled with bullet holes. Consequently, this was the last time the Dakotas did not fly at tree-top level.
After deployments the groups were picked up again in Rhodesia at the forward tactical airfield and flown to Durban’s air force base. As soon as the plane entered South African airspace, the operators would swap the Rhodesian uniforms for their civilian clothes. They generally arrived at Durban’s air force base during the night. Before sunrise, the operators would be back at their base on the Bluff – while the rest of the unit had not even reported for the day’s work.
Sometimes the Recce groups would fly directly from Durban to the forward tactical airfields such as Mabalauta, provided that the runways there were suitable for the Dakotas to land and take off with a heavy load.
Prior to the 1 Recce deployments, Venter and WO2 MJ (Yogi) Potgieter had visited the SAS, the Selous Scouts and the RLI to learn more about the Rhodesians’ operational methods, equipment, planning, execution and so on. During this three-week information tour they made use of the opportunity to visit the Tac HQs as well. While Venter was with the Selous Scouts, he moved around with their commander, Lt. Col. Ron Reid-Daly. Among other things they visited a Joint Operational Centre (JOC), and Reid-Daly told all and sundry that Venter was his adjutant and that he had recruited him from the reserves. It was an awkward situation, but everyone seemed to accept Reid-Daly’s explanation and no questions were asked.
From December 1977 to December 1979, groups from 1 Recce were deployed on an almost full-time basis in Mozambique’s Gaza province. Among the operators this region was known as the Russian Front on account of the large number of Russian and East German advisers who were deployed with the enemy forces. Operations were executed in Zambia and elsewhere as well, but on a smaller scale.
The Russian Front also owed its name to the harshness of the terrain and the aggressive Frelimo follow-up actions. During the Second World War the German soldiers had referred to the Eastern Front as the Russian Front, and it was considered a punishment to be deployed there. Likewise, the Rhodesians called Gaza the Russian Front in tongue-in-cheek fashion.
In the course of the two-year period, about 143