Included in the book with the permission of the author:

With a little help from the ‘dagga boys’
Extract from Choppertech, Leach Printers & Signs CC, Louis Trichardt, 2011,
pp 182-184
By Beaver Shaw

The incident described below took place probably on the Angwa River in the Tribal Trust Land (TTL) about 45 minutes’ flying time from Karoi. My attempt to date it makes it 6 December 1978. I was in K-Car serial number R7509 with Nigel Lamb (pilot). It was possibly airstrike 907.

Fire Force was called out from its temporary base at the junior school in Karoi to a sighting of ten to twelve terrorists by a Selous Scout observation post (OP) in the TTL adjoining the commercial farming area. It was reported that the group of terrorists were armed with AK47 rifles, an RPD machine-gun and an RPG7 rocket launcher. They were dressed in blue denims and were relaxing in the riverline after having been fed a few hours previously by local village women from a kraal about three kilometres away.

Our K-Car flew overhead of the Scout OP and pulled into an attack pattern with the Scouts speaking the gunship on to the target area. As we pulled over the riverline the terrorists began to bombshell into the thick vegetation on both sides of the riverline.

I threw smoke (a smoke-generating grenade to mark the target) and began engaging the terrorists with 20mm cannon, killing two in their camp while the remainder of the terrorists who had managed to survive the initial contact took cover and ran into thick riverine vegetation and began to give us a serious snot squirt (return fire) from a heavily overgrown reed bed on the left-hand bank of the river. I returned fire with the cannon which did not have any effect in suppressing the enemy fire, as the 20mm high explosive incendiary (HEI) rounds burst on top of the reeds and did not penetrate into the thick reeds. We were taking a lot of hits from small-arms fire and had to pull into a wider orbit to avoid being shot down. Whenever we tightened our orbit, the terrorists’ return fire became more intense.

At this stage the Rhodesian Light Infantry (RLI) Fire Force commander called for plan Alpha (which involved the supporting G-Cars dropping their troops at pre-determined positions thus giving the K-Car crew time to sort out their immediate problems). The G-Cars orbiting the contact area turned in to drop their stops both upstream and downstream of the contact area as planned. There was no need to put stop groups on the sides of the river because the surrounding bush was open other than the line of riverine vegetation. Any breakout would have been quickly stemmed by 20mm HEI rounds fired into the open by the K-Car. The RLI Fire Force commander was worried about his Fire Force troops sweeping into the reed beds ahead of their drop-off positions, and got them to sit tight in an ambush position while the Lynx was called on to drop frantan (frangible tank - the Rhodesian version of napalm). Nigel Lamb pulled the K-Car into a wide orbit to give the Lynx an opportunity to attack the terrorist position and the Lynx immediately swooped in firing .303 Brownings and 37mm unguided SNEB rockets, and then dropped a frantan which unfortunately went a little high and caused a huge fireball, followed by a plume of sooty black smoke in the riverbed, but failed to hit the terrorists in their secure position in the reeds.

A G-Car was called into the orbit to assist by putting down flushing fire with its twin .303 Browning machine-guns. We could see the tracer streaking into the reeds which only succeeded in the gooks returning intensive fire at the aircraft in the vicinity from this position. These gooks had found a really secure position and we were going to have a job at hand to root them out without taking any casualties on our side.

Earlier, as we were pulling up into the initial attack pattern, I had noticed two dagga (mud) boys (solitary old buffalo bulls who had been rejected from the herd due to their advancing years) wallowing in some swampy ground in an open area to the left of the river. These old buffalo were now milling about in the vicinity of the reed bed close to the contact area and it was obvious that they had become very agitated by all the activity, noise and smoke emanating from the contact in the area.

I had devised a plan which seemed out of the ordinary, but which could just swing things our way, and discussed it with the K-Car crew over the intercom. This plan was to attempt to drive these old dagga boys towards the terrorist position while I fired the cannon close to the buffalo without killing or wounding them in the hope it would scare and drive them into the thick reeds, which in turn would drive the terrorists out into the open where we would be able to take care of business.

The plan was accepted which resulted in me firing one 20mm round a time near the two old buffalo. As the dust from the strikes settled, the dagga boys charged for the nearest cover in that loping, bouncing run that only buffalo can do, with their tails in the air. As they entered the reed bed in which the gooks were hiding, the terrorists began to fire at the buffalo which incensed them even more. All we could see from above was the reed bed swirling as the buffalo charged at the gooks.

Stop 1 reported hearing gunfire from that area and thought the second stop group was in contact with the enemy. A few seconds later I saw three terrorists running towards Stop 1 at the top of the riverline with one of the buffalo in hot pursuit. Three terrorists were shedding themselves of their packs as they ran. I opened fire with the 20mm cannon, double tapping at the fleeing terrorists in the riverbed and dropped one as they tore away from the reed bed in an attempt to escape the enraged buffalo. The 20mm fire had unnerved one of the buffalo which once more crashed back into the reed bed where he remained. Stop 1 called on the radio to say that they had shot two of the terrorists attempting to run down the riverbed about 200 metres from the initial contact area. I don’t think these terrorists even knew or cared about the stop groups in their attempt to escape those buffalo which were now milling about in the reed bed. It was decided that it was not a good idea to sweep through the reed bed and suffer the same fate as the terrorists.

The stop groups swept the area surrounding the reed bed and the riverline and dragged the five bodies out for pick-up, together with one RPD machine-gun, two AK47 rifles, one RPG7 rocket launcher with three rockets, and an SKS rifle.

A few days later we flew over the contact area on the way to another call-out in the area and saw the dagga boys lying in the riverline chewing the cud as if nothing had happened.

The Scouts had a grandstand view of what must have been one of the strangest Fire Force contacts ever seen.