Fatfox9's Blog

Those of you that have read previous posts within this blog will recall the S Troop escapades. Although we often operated alone, on a number of occasions we were seconded to Special Forces. This post recalls an interesting little mission that I took part in with the Selous Scouts. It is important to note right at the beginning of this post that nothing within it should be construed as implying that I was a Selous Scout…….I was not. We were adding boots on the ground when these supreme warriors needed some extra fire-power or close Combat Engineer support.

At the time that this operation took place, I was based with Greys Scouts at Tswiza, together with a couple of other S Troop guys. Our primary task was a daily vehicle patrol along a dirt road (drag-road) South of Tswiza that ran in a North-East direction from Nyala, and parallel to the Mozambique border. During these patrols we would drag tyres attached to a sturdy triangular metal framework behind our vehicle. The purpose of this activity was twofold. Firstly to check for any ground-sign (soil disturbance) indicating that the enemy had crossed over the road within the previous 24 hours, and secondly to “drag” the road with the abovementioned metal framework on the return journey to smooth the road surface, making it easier to see any tracks on our next patrol. It was a simple but effective bit of improvisation.

One afternoon I was called to the Greys CO’s office and told to get my Sappers ready for a special mission the next day. There would be no drag-road task in the morning, and we were to wait for further instructions.

Around mid-morning of the next day, a small column of 5 or so Selous Scout vehicles pulled up next to our camp in a cloud of dust and diesel fumes. There was an assortment of vehicles including a “Pig” which was an armoured-up Unimog with a variety of weaponry onboard, most noticeably a 20mm cannon. There was also a couple of plain Unimog’s with mounted 12,7 and 7,62 MAG’s. They were hard men manning these vehicles, dressed in a variety of uniform combinations, longer than regulation hair and thick bushy beards. They looked the business and it was little wonder that the gooks were terrified when they came across them.

Another quick conversation with the Greys and Selous Scout boss men and I was off to places unknown with my 2 mates – being told to ride on the front vehicle. A few kilometers down the road toward Vila Salazar the vehicle commander, who I took to be the mission commander ordered a halt, and the vehicles found suitable rest-up positions and engines were switched off……again the pinging of cooling metal, the sudden silence.

The leader of the Selous Scouts called the three of under a tree and told us to sit down – he wanted to brief us on what was going on. The guys at Vila Salazar were getting pissed-off with the Freddies (Frelimo) stonking them with mortars – in fact we had had a number of KIA in the past. Our mission was to see if we could terminate the Frelimo guy who was doing their fire-control. It was believed that this guy climbed high up into a blue gum tree that was located in a plantation south west of Vila Salazar base – just inside Mozambique. Having been briefed we remounted and were told to each choose a MAG from the weapons lying on the floor of the vehicle and we were off.

Just short of Vila Salazar we turned left and travelled about 150 meters along the base perimeter fence and stopped. We were shown the gum trees and told to dismount and take up prone positions with our MAGs and ammo belts (with spares) along the fence. Our task was to spray the blue gum trees with as many rounds as possible until we ran out of ammo. One of the Scouts would initiate the firing with a 12,7mm.

Being close up to so many weapons firing at close range was damn noisy. Every one firing at the blue gum trees. Branches and leaves fell to the ground as our weapons pumped round after round into them. AKs, PKMS and all manner of weapons hammered away for about 10 minutes until we either ran out of ammo or the Scout leader gave the command to cease firing.

I never saw anyone fall out of a blue gum tree screaming on the way down unfortunately. I do remember seeing that where I had been firing through the diamond mesh fence, a number of strands had been shot through, forming an oval shape gap in the wire.

With no further ado we remounted the vehicles and they drove us back to Tswiza.

I never heard another thing about this mission which were known as Jitter Patrols……..and I could imagine why.

The stonking of Vila Salazar continued though. So it would appear that we had not been successful on terminating that damned Freddy.