The Rhodesian Civil War (1966-1979) by John Frame

Author:John Frame [Frame, John]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: New Generation Publishing
Published: 2019-03-04T08:00:00+00:00

ZANLA Nyadzonya training camp, Mozambique – areal pictures taken by RhAF Canberra. ZANLA guerrillas on parade ground. Barrack building situated to the top of the picture and amongst the trees.

After the RSF raid, depicting many hundred guerrilla casualties. (Petter-Bowyer – RhAF).

The Frontline Presidents summoned the Black Nationalist political leaders, plus the ZIPA military commanders, to Dar es Salaam for a meeting in early September in an attempt to forge unity between the political leadership and the military commanders. After a twelve hour meeting nothing was achieved other than to verify that disunity was entrenched. The meeting settled Sithole’s exclusion as leader of ZANU and that Muzorewa and Chikerema were on the outer, Nkomo held the support only of the Matabele led ZIPRA and Mugabe held the support of the Shona led ZANLA. Nyerere gave over the large Nachingwea military training camp in southern Tanzania to ZIPA that would host 5,000 guerrillas. Kaunda remained supportive of retaining the ZIPRA training camps operating in Zambia.

With Chinese guidance ZANLA learned lessons from these RSF raids and began redesigning how they set up their camps with the expectation that the RSF would now cross the border and attack them. Initially it was thought that the RSF would not cross the border in any large scale attack and so defensive camp strategy was not a consideration. However, given the real threat of aerial and ground attack, ZANLA changed its camp configurations and defences.

In early September ZIPA guerrillas crossed the Mozambique border and deliberately made their presence known. This drew the anticipated RSF response. The guerrillas withdrew across the border where a large FRELIMO ambush awaited. The RSF soldiers in hot pursuit soon found themselves in difficulty and called in a Lynx to assist them retreat. The FRELIMO had set up anti-aircraft weapons and shot down the Lynx aircraft.

Malawi had elected not to harbour ZANLA or ZIPRA guerrillas, but politically supported the cause for an independent black ruled Zimbabwe. ZAPU and ZANU leaders often visited Malawi and the CIO agents monitored movements in that country. The geographic location of Malawi with Zambia on its western border and the Mozambique Tete province to its south meant it was uniquely situated for launching observation recces against ZANLA in Tete province. Intel indicated that ZANLA was transporting large quantities of weapons to the Rhodesian north eastern border regions via a transport route that was close to the Mozambique border with Malawi. A key bridge on the route which if destroyed would hamper this transportation was outside chopper range. This posed the logistic problem of how best to deal with it. The SAS, including one American, one British and one South African, were deployed to deal with the bridge. Six SAS soldiers flew into Malawi on a South African Airways commercial aircraft, hired a vehicle and travelled to the Mozambique border where the Rhodesian Prime Minister’s official aircraft, suitably sporting a Malawian registration number, landed on a remote airstrip with the explosives. The bridge had been photographed by a Canberra and the explosives required to destroy it calculated.

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