The story of Blessing Fungai Musamirapamwe alias Cde Magamba Hamadzapera
FOR six months I received advanced training in heavy artillery in Romania at Cinki Military Camp.
Romania was among the countries that hosted guerillas, ensuring they received advanced military training that made them a lethal force.
Rhodesian propaganda that guerillas were poorly trained and would be easy to defeat crumbled as a result of fighters who were skilled and capable of facing the enemy head-on.
Upon completion of training, I was deployed to Mavonde, a ZANLA military base in Mozambique, but close to the Zimbabwean boarder.
One summer evening in September 1979, Cde Smart was given an order to test-fire an anti-air 4 barrel.
Unbeknown to us, 24 hours later, we would engage in one of the biggest battles of the liberation struggle, the Battle of Mavonde/Monte Cassino.
Mavonde was one of the biggest bases near the then Rhodesia and it made the Rhodies uneasy.
So they made plans to decimate the base.
On the day of the Mavonde attack, I was at Base One which was close to Monte Cassino where I manned the 12,5 anti-air heavy machine gun.
While I was at my station, two jet fighters flew over the base at around 7am and instantly, I knew an attack was imminent.
In no time the jets returned, dropping bombs on Mt Casino, destroying the 14,5 barrel machine gun.
The dropping of the bombs spelt the beginning of the battle.
With the heavy machine guns, we matched the fire power of the jets.
The Rhodies obviously had not anticipated heavy fire from the guerillas, but we were duly up to the task and the base would not be easily overrun.
I handled the heavy machine gun with precision because I had been adequately trained.
At around 7pm the fighting stopped with the Rhodesians retreating.
However, we knew that the Rhodesians would return.
And we would be ready for them.
The morning came with a heavy mist and it was so thick that we could hardly see anything.
As the mist cleared we saw a convoy of armoured cars painted in FRELIMO colours.
We thought the FRELIMO soldiers had come to reinforce us, but little did we know it was the enemy in disguise.
As they reached Base Two, we realised they were Rhodesians in a battle formation.
We opened fire and I was on the heavy machine gun.
Paratroopers were dropped by Dakotas.
We brought down one of the Dakotas with a 20mm double barrel anti-air machine gun forcing the other Dakota to retreat.
Soon we realised we were running out of ammunition.
I suggested that we find a cave to hide in while we waited for reinforcement.
As we looked for a cave, we stumbled upon five children who were coming from Nyanga.
The oldest of the children was about 10 years old.
We took them with us and together hid in a cave that we found.
Before long the children started begging for water.
It looked like they had not had a drop of water during their journey.
Cde Jekanyika and I decided to venture out of the cave to find some water.
Fortunately we found a water source nearby.
As usual, we first checked for living insects in the well to see if the water was not poisoned.
As we made our way back to the cave, we were spotted by spotter jets.
They opened fire, but missed.
We crawled back to the cave with only one container of water that we gave to the children.
We had to vacate the cave as the spotter jets would inform the ground force of our position.
In broad day light, we left the cave, but some of our comrades refused preferring to move during the night as was the norm during the war.
I left the cave with Cde Davi, Mabhunu, Todd and Chaza together with the children.
We took turns to carry the children.
After an hour of walking, we ended up in a burnt area with no cover.
Two helicopters appeared and hovered above us.
It was clear this was our end.
I cocked my gun ready to shoot.
I could easily see the Rhodesian on the copter’s machine gun, but strangely the Rhodesians didn’t spot us.
At that moment, I told Cde Jekanyika I would see Zimbabwe because twice I had escaped death that had stared me in the face.
Compiled by Emergencey Mwale-Kamtande