By Chakamwe Chakamwe

RHODESIAN racists always give the impression that the raids they mounted against freedom fighters during the Zimbabwe liberation war were always a success.
Far from it.
As a matter of fact, the majority of their raids ended up being either costly failures or complete disasters.
Below we look at some very good examples of Rhodesian raids which failed dismally.
P.J.H. Petter – Bowyer a top Rhodesian Airforce Commander gives us the first example of a raid which became a complete disaster.
Rhodesian intelligence relayed information that a large group of ZANLA soldiers had assembled at a place called ‘Madulo Pan’ inside Mozambique.
This place is on the south of the main Mozambique railway line to Maputo.
From a Zimbabwe point of view, it is near places like Gonarezhou and Chiredzi in the Lowveld.
The Rhodesian Airforce decided to hit the ZANLA soldiers at Madulo Pan before they had crossed the border into Zimbabwe.
For the Rhodesians to achieve maximum surprise, they decided to bomb the ZANLA base camp at Madulo Pan during darkness – between 3am and 4am
And so on January 10 1978, the airforce made up of Canberra bombers, Hunter jets and Dakota planes crossed the border into Mozambique and attacked.
After the attack the Rhodesians had no doubt they had annihilated all the ZANLA freedom fighters at their camp.
No wonder when daylight came, one of their commanders one Captain Richard Pomford decided to overfly the area in a helicopter to carry out a simple mopping up operation.
Wrong.
He had got himself into the mouth of a crocodile.
This is what his mop up operation turned out to be.
“Instead they were met by anti-aircraft fire of such intensity that they had to back off for the hunters to strike.
“At the same time one Ian Donaldson who was piloting one of the Canberra bombers earlier on was called back to assist.”
Which he did to his greatest regret.
As he joined in the strike once more on Madulo Pan he got into great trouble.
“Rhodesian forces based at Vila Salazar (which was not very far from Madulo Pan) – – witnessed extremely heavy anti-aircraft fire with masses of tracer being directed at Ian Donalson’s Canberra before it rolled sharply and dived into the ground from where a huge fire was seen to rise.
“Ian Donaldson, Dave Hawkes and Rob Warracker died instantly”
The Rhodesians decided to run for it.
“In the face of this unexpected opposition by a force that was obviously much larger than his own, Richard Pormford (that commander in the helicopter) called off the assault to avoid unnecessary casualties.”
But the above decision was too late.
As the planes were on the run back to Rhodesia one of the Dakotas – a massive plane got into real trouble.
P.J.H. Petter- Bowyer who was one of the commanders on that operation had decided to fly his plane back all the way to Harare because it had lots of fuel.
However, as he came to Chiredzi he decided to check with the airforce base at Buffalo Range whether from the information they were getting at their station, every plane except the Ian Donaldson Canberra had flown back safely to Zimbabwe.
To his horror, he was told that one of the Dakotas, which should have arrived at Buffalo Range three hours back had not yet been accounted for.
And so P.J.H. Petter and his crew made a u-turn and went to Buffalo Range.
On arrival there this is what awaited them.
“I had just reached the (Buffalo Range) airfield when we were told that a survivor had just reached a working party in the sugarcane fields (of Chiredzi) and reported that the Dakota had crashed (having been hit at Madulo Pan) on the banks of a large river.”
The Rhodesian raid to Madulo Pan had turned out to be a complete disaster.
After the Rhodesians had attacked the Chimoio ZANLA camp on November 23 1977, in an operation that had been fairly successful on their part, they developed very big egos.
And so they decided to attack the second biggest ZANLA military camp in Mozambique called Tembwe in the province of Tete only two days after Chimoio on November 25 1977.
Once again, they went big as far as helicopters and bombers that were sent to destroy that camp were concerned.
However, the numbers involved were less that those which were employed at Chimoio.
But the ZANLA freedom fighters based at that camp Tembwe had other ideas.
They had got wind that the Chimoio ZANLA camp had been destroyed by Rhodesians.
And so instead of staying put in the old Tembwe Camp they abandoned it quickly and established another new one called Tembwe Two away from the old Tembwe.
But the foolish Rhodesians did not know that new development. Therefore on November 25 1977 they attacked the old camp hoping to kill thousands of ZANLA freedom fighters.
But they found nobody home.
Nobody.
Zero.
Instead they bombed bare ground and the surrounding vegetation like hell.
The number of bombs they dropped were so numerous that the entire parade square of the old camp which the bombers had found vacant ended up looking completely devastated.
“The entire parade site itself was crowded with partially embedded pink tails (from dropped bombs) that had separated from steel shafts now buried below surface.”
What a costly fiasco this turned out to be.
It made the Rhodesians look very foolish indeed.
However, despite the above laughable operation, the Rhodesians decided to attack the new Tembwe Camp.
The air strike was ordered on July 30 1978.
That air attack if it was successful was to be followed by a ground assault.
“The attack went at 08hrs on Sunday July 30.
“Almost immediately One Schule (who was on the ground to direct the planes onto the target) came up to me (Ron Reid Daly leader of the Selous Scouts who were also involved in the operation) on his set irritably enquiring why the airforce were not answering his calls.
“He asked me to relay with some urgency that 50 terrorists (freedom fighters) from Tembwe Two) were escaping away.”
But nothing happened.
“To make things worse, the paratroopers were dropped at the wrong dropping zone.
“The drop zones used were miles from the terrorists (freedom fighters) complex.
“It had not been a good operation and a great deal of acrimony and inter-unit squabbling resulted.”
Again this was another costly failed raid.
A fiasco.
A lemon.
It is therefore important to remember that despite Rhodesian lies, many of the raids they mounted against freedom fighters were either costly failures or terrible disasters.