Corporal Jimmy Swan continues:

Still flying low to avoid gooks opening upon us on the way out, we relaxed. We looked back at Chimoio and it was simply gone. We were crossing Chicamba Dam and suddenly our pilot stated we had taken ground fire, he had minimal control and that he would land on a small grass island in the middle of this lake, right below us. We came down, extremely vulnerable. Our ammo was in short supply and if we came under attack we would be in trouble. Watching our buddies flying away was just not good. We landed okay and took up positions around the chopper while I met with the pilot and tech. We had taken two rounds at some stage and the aircraft was now inoperable. To be honest, our ears were still ringing so we hadn’t heard a damned thing. We now faced a dilemma—do we destroy the aircraft or wait for spares? It was getting late and we were worried. Finally, in came Father Christmas in the form of a chopper with some parts and 30 minutes later we were airborne and, with some overhead protection, we headed for home. We flew all the way back to Salisbury and landed at New Sarum.

We were dirty, tired and basically worn out. Our equipment was in a tatty state. We washed up and were then immediately informed of our next raid. We were locked up in the hangars and the briefings began …