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Black-ops boon for South Africa

By 1979, the old order in Rhodesia was hurtling towards its end, leaving many of its staunchest military defenders stuck in a no-man’s land where they would be ripe for the picking by the South African Defence Force, which was increasingly hungry for counter-insurgency expertise.

South Africa’s hawkish military strategists realised the writing was on the wall for the unrecognised country of ‘Zimbabwe-Rhodesia’, which came into being as part of an attempt by Ian Smith to gain international recognition by surrendering power to Bishop Abel Muzorewa’s moderate black United African National Council (UANC) on 1 June 1978. The attempt failed, as it excluded the ZANU and ZAPU extremists upon whose inclusion the international community insisted.

Meanwhile, the tempo of South Africa’s own Border War in Angola was speeding up. Guerrillas from the Peoples’ Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), the armed wing of the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO), backed by conventional forces of the People’s Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) and their Soviet, Cuban and Eastern Bloc allies, were launching increasingly daring raids into South West Africa. This pressure led to the formation of two key South African pseudo-operations units and one feared counterinsurgency battalion. In each case, the earlier British, French, and Portuguese colonial experiences and the contemporary Rhodesian experience would prove vital in determining the operational logic and functions of the units involved.

According to Lawrence Cline, a 1978 study by South Africa’s Directorate of Military Intelligence showed that 68% of all insurgent deaths in Rhodesia could be attributed to the Selous Scouts: ‘With this record, the Scouts emerged as the most potent factor in Rhodesia’s counterinsurgency campaign.’ This made the Scouts a subject of intense fascination for the South African military, which continued, as we have seen, to conduct Recce operations alongside it.

With white rule dead on the vine in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, the battle-hardened Rhodesian military and police forces turned their eyes south. For some, it was not merely a bolt-hole safe from the perceived threats of looming black-majority rule under a radical Soviet-backed regime, but also a redoubt from which to continue waging the battle to maintain white supremacy and/or defeat communist insurgency.1 The Selous Scouts’ Major Bert Sachse was one of those who made the move, joining 1 Reconnaissance Commando at the Bluff in Durban in January 1980. However, the final act had yet to be played out in Zimbabwe-Rhodesia and he was sent back as part of D-Squadron SAS for a last series of actions aimed at clearing designated zones of guerrillas, thus attempting to alter the balance of forces.2

In October 1979, Lieutenant-Colonel Pat Armstrong, the former RLI adjutant based at Mount Darwin in the experimental Special Branch pseudo-ops era before the Scouts had been set up, had taken over from Ron Reid-Daly as the Scouts’ commanding officer. It would be his distasteful duty – assisted by Major Boet Swart as his adjutant – to wind up the unit he loved.

Armstrong recalled: ‘Towards the end of 1979, intense infiltration by ZANLA and ZIPRA terrs, mainly into the Tribal Trust Lands, continued unabated. Fire Force operations were at their peak, with Selous Scouts operators working in conjunction with mainly RLI commandos and, of course, the Air Force. This was the finale of the most intense period of the Fire Force operations in the war, which had resulted in unprecedented CT [communist terrorist] and Fire Force casualties. As before, the foremost reason for the success of these operations was accurate, real-time intelligence emanating from SB-supported Selous Scouts pseudo-operations.’3

The last four major operations of the Selous Scouts that year, and the last they would ever perform under that name – code-named Dice, Dapper, Castle, and Capsule and all in December 1979 – involved clandestine counterinsurgency actions directed at ZIPRA installations and personnel in Zambia. One of these, Operation Vodka, involved a ‘softening-up’ airstrike on ZIPRA’s Mboroma Camp, followed by 42 Scouts parachuting in, swiftly defeating the guerrillas and freeing 32 prisoners. The Scouts and prisoners were airlifted back home.4

In the end, political developments had outmanoeuvred the military men, and on 21 December 1979, the Lancaster House Agree­ment between the governments of the United Kingdom and the short-lived Zimbabwe-Rhodesia, plus ZANU and ZAPU, ended the Rhodesian Bush War. The result was that Rhodesia briefly returned to British colonial rule under the governorship of Lord Christopher Soames (to whom General Peter Walls reported as the most senior Rhodesian, Muzorewa having stepped down) in preparation for a new constitution and all-race elections.

In the run-up to the April 1980 elections, units like the Selous Scouts, RAR, RLI, and others were confined to barracks, while guerrillas of the larger ZANLA and smaller ZIPRA were supposed to gather at monitored assembly points. According to Jim Parker, while the CIO’s intelligence and other higher authorities maintained that Robert Mugabe’s ZANU could not win the election, their bets being on Muzorewa’s UANC, the Selous Scouts’ pseudo-ops teams had it otherwise. On clandestine tours through the country, posing as guerrillas heading to their assembly points, these Scouts teams found that many unarmed ZANLA guerrillas and political commissars had eschewed the assembly points to conduct an aggressive and apparently successful propaganda campaign on the sugar estates and in the rural areas. Intimidation was rife, especially in ZANU-controlled areas.5

Fearing the worst, the moment Rhodesia returned to British rule, many security-force members had started resigning and relocating to South Africa, taking with them not only counter-insurgency expertise but also equipment. Cross writes that the Rhodesian chemical and biological warfare programme ‘almost certainly ceased operations by late 1979 – and the materials and records at both the Bindura and Mount Darwin forts were transferred to South Africa by February-March 1980.’ Among those who went south was Major Neil Kriel. In late 1978, he resigned his commission in the Selous Scouts. ‘I then worked with the Special Branch, still continuing with the war in Rhodesia and then in 1979 I came down to South Africa,’ he recalled decades later.6

After 15 years of bitter war that had seen civilian casualties top 6 000, security-force casualties of nearly half of that, and insurgent casualties just behind that in 1978 alone,7 the hawks in the Rhodesian establishment had a secret back-up plan: Operation Quartz. According to Parker, this was not a planned coup d’état, as it has been characterised by some, but rather a contingency to militarily eradicate Mugabe’s ZANLA at their assembly points once they lost the elections, as most of the authorities expected. Joshua Nkomo’s smaller ZIPRA would not be targeted, as his ZAPU could be expected to form a coalition with other parties to form a government in which its radical influence would be diluted.

Operation Quartz would have involved a combined Rhodesian-South African assault: after a softening up of the targets by the Rhodesian and South African Air Forces, the Rhodesian Light Infantry and Selous Scouts as well as South African Recces and Parachute Battalion soldiers would attack ZANLA assembly points. The Rhodesian SAS and elements of the Rhodesian Armoured Car Regiment, with eight ex-Soviet T-55 tanks at its disposal, were tasked with assassinating Mugabe, his deputy, and the top ZANU leadership – and with destroying its political and military headquarters.

Special Branch’s Detective Inspector Johnny de Gray Birch, formerly a major in the SAS, drew up the attack dossiers with his old SAS colleagues based on SAS and SB intelligence (both units had been unconfined and allowed to patrol the country to maintain the peace). Parker writes that Quartz was ready to go: the SAS and Police Support Unit had secretly placed homing beacons near the assembly-point targets for the bombers and jets, the South African Air Force (SAAF) planes being on standby at the Pietersburg Air Force Base and the SADF’s 1 Parachute Battalion on the ready line at a forward base just south of the border. The South African part of Operation Quartz’s contingency plans were under the umbrella of Operation Concept, the largest SADF battle group joint operation mounted to that date, and its medical component was headed by rising star Major Wouter Basson. In his judgment in the Basson trial, Judge Willie Hartzenberg determined: ‘From the cross-examination is it clear that … at the beginning of 1980, he [Basson] was put in command of the medical component of Operation Concept, which had to look after the consequences of the Rhodesia/Zimbabwe elections.’8

But at 9:00 am on 4 March 1980, the election results were announced: Mugabe’s ZANU had won by a landslide, with 63% of the vote. Nkomo’s ZAPU had received 24% and Muzorewa’s UANC just over 8%. The Selous Scouts and other battle-worn soldiers listened to the announcement in shocked silence while the guerrillas cheered. The code name ‘Quartz’ never came over the radio. Rhodesia was dead, and Zimbabwe had been born.

Hard-line Rhodesians, many with sought-after specialist military skills, packed their bags, though Armstrong claimed that ‘the majority of our troops, although nervous about their future, wished to remain in the unit under the new government’.9 At a ‘most cordial’ meeting with Mugabe, the new president assured his former enemy that there would be no settling of wartime scores with the Scouts.

The South African Special Forces stepped in and offered Armstrong the command of a new Reconnaissance Commando, to be stationed on the farm Schiettocht just outside Phalaborwa near the Kruger National Park. Armstrong visited the massive new base under construction, which would later include a 240-house satellite town, Hebron, complete with its own school, clinic, shopping mall, recreation centre, church (the multi-denominational United Church of the Conqueror),10 and cemetery. In the end, Armstrong decided rather to end his military career and take early retirement. But during April 1980, ‘I met with the officers and NCOs [non-commissioned officers] of the [Scouts] unit, many of whom intended taking up the South African offer, and subsequently called a unit parade [at which] I reminded the troops of the South African Special Forces offer, including a caveat that [black] African soldiers who chose to go to South Africa might not be able to return [home] later … This resulted in only a small number of African troops opting to go to South Africa.’11

The Scouts itself would shortly cease to exist – at least in name and intent. Incriminating documents and records were shredded and many members either vanished (some with their weapons still in hand)12 or left for South Africa before the Scouts became 4 Battalion (Holding Unit) of the RAR, the foundation of the future Zimbabwe National Army’s Parachute Battalion.

Selous Scouts Adjutant Captain Ian Scott recalled: ‘Following the elections, members of the South African Army visited André Rabie Barracks with a view to recruiting selected members of the Selous Scouts. The South African Recces were very interested in the unit’s methodology, the many years of experience in counter-guerrilla warfare, and the quality of their soldiers.’13 It was widely known that the Special Forces had a standing offer – communicated by General Loots in 1978 – that they would absorb and employ Rhodesian pseudo-operators and paratroopers should Rhodesia collapse. Curiously, according to Peter Stiff, neither prime ministers Ian Smith nor PW Botha were informed of this offer, which originally had been made exclusively to the SAS and Scouts. It was later widened to embrace specialists from the BSAP Special Branch and other units.

‘A fair number were recruited and made plans to move out of Rhodesia,’ said Scott, who later served as an operator in 5 Recce. ‘Just prior to independence, big Cecil “Vise Grips” van den Bergh14 led a convoy of 20-ton trucks through Beit Bridge [the border with South Africa]. No questions were asked at the border. At the final destination, a Special Forces base in Phalaborwa, they unloaded tons of captured ZANLA weaponry …’

This haul would come in useful in the Recce’s future pseudo-operations. Armstrong recalls that ‘the majority of Selous Scouts remained in the rebadged unit. The Training Officer, Major Geoff Atkinson, with Captain Ian Scott, the Adjutant, co-ordinated the move to South Africa of those European soldiers who joined the South African Special Forces.’

Stiff writes: ‘Many black operators, both black detectives and turned guerrillas, agreed to leave, although some changed their minds later. Most of the policemen and some of the ex-soldiers were married, while the ex-guerrillas were single. The transportation of wives and families to South Africa was arranged.’15 But Stiff notes that, when it came down to business, only 28 black Selous Scouts pseudo-operators and some support personnel made the move south under Operation Winter. The chief recruiter for the SADF was former SAS paratrooper Major Mike Curtin.

‘Not a single former guerrilla’ made the trip south – remarkable in view of the gruesome reprisals meted out to these men when they were captured by the enemy. Trooper Moses Morrison Nyati, turned guerrilla and Scouts guide on the 1976 Nyadzonya raid, had been ‘gruesomely flayed alive’ by ZANU. More than ten black Scouts were likewise abducted and surreptitiously murdered; others curiously rose in the ranks of the new Zimbabwe National Defence Force. Scott notes that ‘Boet Swart facilitated an airlift of the volunteer African soldiers and their families to South Africa’.

The TRC estimated that about 5 000 Rhodesian military personnel were recruited into the SADF during this period. ‘Apart from skilled counterinsurgency specialists, other security personnel who joined this southern exodus at independence or soon afterwards included some Special Branch police officers and intelligence personnel from the Central Intelligence Organisation.’16

Many former Scouts and SAS paratroopers retreated into the shadows in a continuation of the regional covert war to defend the tattered remnants of white-ruled Africa. On 14 March 1980, just prior to independence, about 100 Rhodesian SAS parachutists who had opted to join the South African Special Forces were incorporated as 6 Reconnaissance Commando under the command of Commandant Garth Barrett of the SAS,17 alongside 1 Reconnaissance Commando at the Bluff in Durban.

The Rhodesian SAS was disbanded on 31 December 1980. A telegraph from 22 SAS in Britain paid the following tribute. ‘Farewell to a much-admired sister unit. Your professionalism and fighting expertise have always been second to none throughout the history of the Rhodesian SAS. C Sqn still remains vacant in 22 SAS orbat [order of battle].’18

A former MI6 agent, the late Nigel Morgan, told this author in July 2018 that at the last British SAS dinner he attended, he had been informed that the Rhodesian C-Squadron SAS was still considered to be in the regiment’s order of battle, a highly unusual honour for a disbanded unit.

In April 1980, a group of former Selous Scouts who opted to come south were incorporated as 7 Reconnaissance Commando at the new Special Forces base outside Phalaborwa. The name was soon changed to 3 Reconnaissance Commando to avoid confusion with 7 South African Infantry Battalion, also stationed at Phalaborwa. The 3 Recce name also replaced that of the defunct small-teams 3 Recce from the 1970s. Small-teams capacity was, however, retained in other units of the SADF and the auxiliary South West Africa Territorial Force (SWATF).

Scott recalls that he was briefed at Special Forces HQ, on the 13th floor of the Zanza building in Pretoria, where he, Major Geoff Atkinson, and Major Boet Swart put together the new unit. Peter Stiff says Swart, operating out of the Zanza building, was the unit’s de facto OC while it was being consolidated and building of the Phalaborwa base was completed, but Atkinson took over as soon as it was fully formed.

Scott gives initial 7 Recce numbers of about 40 white and 30 black ex-Scouts under the command of Atkinson, who would later be replaced by Barrett.19 Paul Els indicates that 3 Recce’s numbers soon swelled to about 120.20 All the new Rhodesian recruits were required to get their wings, or at least convert to the SADF parachute system. Training was conducted at the military airfield at Dukuduku in northeastern Zululand.

According to Stiff, various white Selous Scouts ‘drifted in’ and signed up at 3/7 Recce over the next few months. These included Lieutenant Jean-Michel Desblé, Lieutenant Piet van der Riet, Colour Sergeant Noel Robey and Scouts Recce Group 2IC Captain Tim Bax. ‘During the next few months, there was a trickle of experienced black policemen and soldiers from such units as the BSA Police and the Rhodesian African Rifles, who crossed the Limpopo River to seek a future in South Africa.’ Most of the men were routed through Phalaborwa. Some enlisted and some ‘went on their way to other things’, Stiff writes.21

Integration of the markedly ‘English’ Rhodesians into the majority Afrikaans-speaking SADF Special Forces was far from smooth, and cultural dissonance and other grudges would lead to most Rhodesians resigning from the SADF after their initial contracted year or few years thereafter – with some notable exceptions, which will be discussed later.

Major Peter Schofield, a former British Red Devils freefall display team leader turned 1 Recce operator, contrasts the long-haired and bearded – but supremely disciplined – Rhodesian ex-SAS soldiers with their sloppy South African Recce counterparts: ‘The first day they [the Rhodesians] came on parade, about a week after they’d come south, with 1 Recce, when they were going to form up 6 Reconnaissance Commando … they formed up out of sight and they marched on as a unit with their commanding officer, little Garth Barrett, … and the RSM with his pace stick and his two coloured sergeants22 with their pace sticks … they were immaculate. They marched on, their drill was perfect, they halted, turned, faced 1 Recce that was a shambles. The RSM was a scruffy bugger with long hair. He was a tough cookie, Trevor Floyd, but he was an ugly piece of work. And the moment they marched on and I saw them march on like that, I said to myself, guys, you’ve just blown it. You are finished, you are stone dead in the South African Defence Force. It was so resented that they were so smart, that they were so disciplined, that they were so organised.’23

Although, Stiff notes, the ex-C-Squadron SAS men got on exceptionally well with their 1 Recce comrades at the Bluff, as they had a camaraderie dating back to their days together with D-Squadron SAS, there were some serious cultural ‘minefields’ to cross: the Rhodesians didn’t speak any Afrikaans, did not hold morning church parades as the South Africans did (considering a man’s religion to be a private matter), and came from a background in which many of their grandfathers had fought the Boers. To the Rhodesians, the Anglo-Boer Wars were ancient history, but to the Afrikaners, the experiences of the British concentration camps and scorched-earth policy were an intense and painful part of their families’ living memories. In the event, despite the expense the SADF had gone to to expand the Bluff base and build the new one at Phalaborwa, it is curious that neither the ex-Scouts 3 Recce nor the ex-SAS 6 Recce ever received any official unit colours or flashes.