The Sunday Mail
LAST week, Cde Gidza Makhanya, born Gilbert Mutyambizi, narrated how he left the country to join the liberation struggle, first into Mozambique then to Chifombo, Zambia, where he was detained on arrival for “having had a hand in the Chitepo assassination”, his 18 months’ detention in eastern Zambia, before being released to take up training. He spoke of how, then resident at Pungwe base, they could only watch as Chimoio was attacked. This week, in a continuing discussion with Garikai Mazara, he narrates how it was resolved that Chimoio had to be avenged, hence the attack on Grand Reef airbase, then notorious for being the springboard of Rhodesian ground and air attacks in Mozambique.
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Q: It must have been painful watching and not being able to help your comrades?
A: Indeed, it was. It was even more painful getting onto the scene and seeing those thousands lying either injured or dead. We helped as much as we could in burying the dead with the injured taken to either Chimoio or further to Beira for treatment. The scenes were heart-rending.
Q: The planning of the attack on Grand Reef?
A: It was resolved that Chimoio had to be avenged. We assembled troops for the purpose. We had guys who had received advanced training in conventional, semi-mobile and mobile warfare. This, plus having other weapons we didn’t have at the start, somehow reinforced our spirits and our ability to fight that battle. We assembled troops, must have been 157 in number, and we were transported to Pungwe. This was under the command of Cdes Tonderai Nyika (Paradzai Zimondi), Stephen Chocha (Augustine Chihuri) and (Aaron) Nhepera (he was a sectoral commander in Manica province, am forgetting his full name).
The initial aim was to attack that base on Christmas Day because intelligence had it that they were going to have a party. We manoeuvred, moved into Zimunya area and did what we call on-the-spot reconnaissance. Now the enemy got wind of our presence in the area, and decided to move the party forward. We got intelligence to the same effect. We had to alter our plans accordingly and had to attack Grand Reef immediately. We left Kilimanjaro Base, which was our assembly base, towards the attack though we had been spread over a number of bases, remember that area was almost a semi-liberated zone.
Grand Reef was chosen primarily because of its importance . . . it was a springboard for enemy forces by air and ground of their incursions into Mozambique. By attacking Grand Reef, it was believed it would neutralise enemy fire-power from the air and ground. It had to be destroyed totally. That was the instruction that was handed to us, the junior commanders.
I was the D-Level rank, the Detachment Commander. We started moving towards the target around 5pm. As we moved towards the target, we could see enemy helicopters flying overheard, so we had to move by dashes, zig-zag and taking cover where necessary. As we got to the target, the perimeter around the base was clear, a distance of no less than 100m, clear of any bush or grass so that they could spot any movement. But that was nothing to us. Intel had it that the fence was electrified.
We had people who had been trained in different aspects. Personally, I had an AK47 of which its bayonet can also be used as a pincer. I took the cleaning rod of the gun and ran it across the fence to check if any spark would come out and there was nothing. This raised our spirits, we cut the wires. We attacked Grand Reef in the Lima Formation, the L-shape. We attacked Grand Reef from the west, the shorter side of the L attacking the north and the longer side attacking the west.
The shorter side had our military engineers, who had the task of mining all the planes on the runway and to mine all the electric lines on our withdrawal. The rest of the force was on the long side of the L. That is where the recoilless rifle, motor 82s, HMGs, M92s and the rest of the AK arms were. All the guns were loaded with piercing bullets, mixed with general cartridges.
In layman’s language, the piercing bullets are called tracer bullets, their purpose being to ensure that your line of firing is quite visible in your eyes. That bullet, when fired, leaves a trail of light. Oh, the area was lit up, illuminated by the bullets.
Q: Approximately what time was this now, when the attack was done?
A: That was around 11pm. When the firing began, we started singing the Mbuya Nehanda song. (Breaks into song, and sobs).
Ndikafunga Mbuya Nehanda, ndinoswera ndaenda kuhondo. Ndikafunga Ambuya Nehanda ini, ndinoswera ndaenda kuhondo.
We hit them, we really hit them, we hit them very hard. You could hear them crying, “mommy, mommy” and we would reply back, “there is no mommy here, this is war”.
There is one stupid individual who tried to be brave . . . he started an armoured vehicle but we were now so close that he was just firing above us. Then one of the commanders shouted, “M90 get rid of that thing”, and M90 did its work. It was hit and neutralised there and there.
There was another machine gun which was mounted on a pillar box, and it was firing heavily. Then I said two rounds, of the recoilless rifle. One bullet was enough to neutralise it, but we had to be sure that no funny tricks would come from it. As the firing was ongoing, we could hear them shouting to each other, “run to the planes, run to the planes”, and they started running towards the planes and the planes started exploding. All the planes which were on the runway caught fire. Remember these planes were fuelled and once one caught fire, the rest would equally catch fire.
We fired until midnight, when we were told to withdraw. Of the 32 rounds of the recoilless rifle, we came out with just two rounds. So 30 were expended at Grand Reef. Unfortunately I got hit on the shoulder as we were retreating. Once we crossed the river, the engineers hit the pylons so that the water would be electrified so no-one would come after us. I was losing a lot of blood and they could not move with me overnight so I was hid amongst some rocks. The following morning they came back to take me.
It took me some three months to recover, admitted at Chimoio Hospital. I suffered a dislocation of the collar bone and up to now I have limited use of the left arm. Some shrapnel also pierced me and at times I feel it, scrapping against my heart.
Q: What happened after discharge from Chimoio Hospital?
A: I was posted to Marizhondo base, just north of Chimoio. It was a very small base, it wasn’t an operational base, it was more of a rest base. It must have been late 1977 or early 1978. Then amongst a group of about 100, we were sent to Romania for specialised training. After some months of basic warfare training, we were sent to specialised colleges, and I went to do signals, which is military communication. We spent about nine months in Romania. I had the likes of Cdes Jackson, Edzai, Mannex Madanhi, Masenda, Levis Ngoro and Rafael (who was the youngest of us all and we used to call him Copii, which is Romanian for small thing).
After Romania we came back to Marizhondo and I was now base commander. Then we got attacked again. They had this stupid idea of attacking us whenever we got new armament, hell knows how they knew we had received new armament.
Q: Is this to say among yourselves, there were sellouts?
A: You never know, you never know. That is the problem with guerrilla warfare, it encompasses everybody. One is not written on the forehead who he/she is. You cannot easily identify that person. I remember the late General Tongogara was hit on his arm during that attack on Marizhondo. Around 7.30am they attacked and I was still recording the rifles I had distributed, noting down the serial numbers, which gun went to whom. I just heard the sound of guns, and I could tell it was the sound of a 12.7 barrel and I knew we were under attack. I looked at my watch and instantly knew it was an attack, most of their attacks were in the mornings. Check all bases which were attacked by Rhodesians, it was always in the morning.
Upon getting out of my poshto, the F16 was fast approaching and it had dropped its first bomb. From the tactics we had been taught, an aeroplane will not bomb where it has bombed before. So I just jumped into that hole and I got hit here on the leg.
Q: Were you armed or you had left your gun in the poshto?
A: I was with my gun. You don’t leave your gun, that thing is better than your wife. When you are into that thing, it becomes a part of you, the moment you stand up, you stand up with it. When you leave it, you feel it that you have left it behind. Usually in an act of war, you don’t leave your gun, it has to be by you, always. The nearest anti-air gun to me was some 150 to 200 metres away so I had to get to it. The area between me and the gun was so open, I had to group myself around a muroro tree and take cover under it. I could see the helicopter coming directly towards me and I could easily see the black idiot, with his HMG.
My aim was, see there is a thing which happens when you fire a gun, when you fire it, it twitches so I was looking for that twitch. And if I had seen that twitch, I was going to hit him but fortunately they didn’t see me. As they passed over me, I started running towards the anti-air gun. As I was running, I didn’t feel that I had been hit but as I was crossing the Marizhondo River that is when I felt the pain because of the water. I had to cut the sleeve of my shirt and tie my ankle.
I then got to the defence position and then went checking on other defence positions. I went to check on the kitchen, because usually with the morning attacks, they would hit the kitchen. On this day, everyone had been fed and there was no-one at the kitchen.
Then as I was moving from the kitchen, I heard a female voice but I could not see the person because of tall grass. It would cry and stop, cry and stop. I called out, “this is Cde Gidza”, but she would go quiet, maybe she was doubting, thinking it could be the enemy ground force. I slowly moved towards the voice and when she saw me, she called me out. She had to be amputated, because her leg had been hit by fragments, it was hanging by the outside ligament.
After the planes had the first and second wave of attacks, the reconnaissance planes were high above, trying to figure out what was happening below. I looked for Cde Tongogara and briefed him on the situation. He said let us move towards those mountains and ask Frelimo for help, which they always provided. They came from Chimoio with heat-seeking missiles and hit some of the planes. We pulled everybody out and moved about seven kilometres from the base whilst the senior commanders decided what to do next. We stayed at the temporary base for about two or three weeks.
Then word came that we had to move closer to home. The late General Vitalis Zvinavashe, Sheba Gava, we used to call him. I have a lot of respect for that man, he was my friend. He came and addressed us, “we are now moving to Mavonde”.
Q: Before we get to Mavonde, let us revisit Grand Reef. Were there any casualties, any deaths?
A: On our part, we lost one man. The man we lost, Game Kufanenzara, was commanding the 82mm mortars and me who was injured. That is all, out of the 157 men we had.
Q: And at Marizhondo, were there any casualties?
A: That girl I spoke about, the late General (Tongo) who had a scratch on his arm and myself. Those were the only injuries we had, no deaths.
Q: Mavonde?
A: Let me finish Grand Reef. We hit them hard, so hard that Smith had to fly in from Salisbury. They used these road graders, you see those mounds of earth you see there, at Grand Reef, those are the graves of Rhodesians. They could not carry any bodies. We are talking of weapons that could hit. If we talk of the recoilless rifle, if you put what we call a delay action fuse, it barrels down into the ground and kind of ferments. When it explodes, it would be disaster.
Smith cried, he was in gumboots because it was blood all over the area. We used to move with radios and we could listen to the news as it was read by this stupid lady, who do they call her? Caroline Thorneycroft. When she pronounced the word “terrorists” you would never love her anymore. She was very stupid.
But they ended up respecting us, they ended up calling us guerrillas. She would read the 7.45pm bulletin every day, what they called the War Communique, which was a 24-hour report, sort of, of the war situation.
Quite a chunk of Manicaland, it had become a free zone. We could move any time, without any fear. After Grand Reef, we hit Penhalonga, we hit Ruda, in fact any airstrip along the border, we neutralised. We had liberated zones say some 60km into Rhodesia from the border, people could move at will.
Q: What was the number of casualties on the Rhodesian side?
A: They could not mention. She never mentioned the number but said the loss was heavy. Even aircraft, the loss was heavy. They never gave outright figures. They were suppressing information on their side and exaggerating figures on our side.
Don’t miss the next and final instalment where Cde Gidza tackles the decisive Mavonde battle. Smith was pinning his negotiating chances at Lancaster House on the success of this battle and Rex Nhongo, the Zanla commander of Mavonde, knew exactly what it meant, losing that battle.
