![]() On a first leg, an unmarked C130 flew our team and the equipment to Cape Town. The RPD, webbing and kit bag I took home the night before left her possibly guessing. Three days later, at pre-dawn, my girlfriend Leslie dropped me off outside the gates of the New Sarum Air Force Base. Other members were never told and, for that matter, they never asked. One of several unspoken rules within the Squadron was that the discussion of a job, any job, upcoming or past was strictly barred outside the group directly involved. The lid of secrecy as always was sealed tight. Meanwhile Bob Mckenzie, aboard a Canberra bomber, flew high altitude reconnaissance passes over the target. The first training stage was rapidly covered, supplemented by honing skills on lock picking, vehicle hot wiring, extra incendiary techniques and lectures on petroleum related matters. The operational readiness of the unit shortened the reaction time from the issue of order. On a sunny winter morning at the Kabrit Barracks in Salisbury, the chosen twenty men team left the briefing room fired up for the upcoming job. Credits for the success of the operation were to subsequently be chalked up to the MNR. ![]() ![]() The selected target was to be the oil storage facilities on the Indian Ocean port of Beira.Ĭaptain Bob McKenzie’s ‘A’ Squadron from the Rhodesian SAS was tasked to pull it off. Being sons of the land alone was not quite enough. If its goodwill and bravery were not to be questioned, however, the same could not be said of its training and discipline. The snag was the doubtful ability of the MNR to carry it out satisfactorily. To ensure success, the operation demanded a proper organizational frame work. Spooking the freds carried the perks of a substantial economic impact. An objective deep inside the freds comfort zone thought by them to be out of the MNR access range was to be hit. Upping the antes, the Com-ops conceived a particularly ambitious operation aimed at grabbing the headlines. Bearing PR in mind, Com-ops began to actively support its actions in carrying out a sustained campaign of attacks. Meanwhile, Com-Ops was seeking ways to bolster the MNR image among the local population and discredit the propaganda of the freds. Rhodesian SAS hit the Fuel Depot in Beira, Mozambique LePetitĭespite not letting up and aggressively taking on the freds, the results of their dispersed efforts were met with limited success. Labelled the ‘armed bandits’ by Samora Machel, the Resistancia Nacional Mocambicana -Renamo or MNR -was formed. Tribal identities played a non negligible role. They incorporated the different rebel groups roaming the land. On the heels of the chaotic departure of the Portuguese, an anti-Frelimo movement was set up by the Rhodesians and the South Africans. The same barely paid lip service to the setting up of re-education camps where tens of thousands of dissidents were routinely butchered. These self declared liberation movements were fueled by a hodge-podge of opportunistic, half baked Marxist ideology and organized corruption patronizingly sanctioned and funded by the sanctimonious deluded western pseudo intelligentsia. In pursuance of this agenda, the freds openly began to host and assist terror groups in staging their infiltration into Rhodesia. Internationally shunned Rhodesia saw the marching spread of communism heading its way as an existential threat. The Rhodesian Central Intel Organization had been monitoring with increasing alarm the developments next door, keeping tabs on the cargo deliveries of Soviet weaponry through the main ports. The result was a gradually laid back response, which in turn favored the spreading influence of the freds.įor the landlocked Rhodesians, Mozambique, with its long beaches of fine sand and abundant sea food, until then a favorite family week-end destination became happy days to be remembered as heaved silent sighs. Despite a military upper hand, politics eventually sapped a moral commitment. The Portuguese saw a deteriorating internal security, which eventually spiraled out of control. The previous decade, their badly stretched military resources were faced with Soviet bankrolled Samora Machel -the useful proxy stooge- with his ever encroaching Frente de Libertacao de Mocambique, Frelimo -or freds. They were sent packing in a panic, ending overnight almost five hundred years of presence. Rhodesian SAS hit the Fuel Depot in Beira, Mozambique Henri LePetitīy Henri LePettit, Feature, Photos copyrightĪfter the mid-70’s Carnation Revolution when the socialists were voted in back home, the Portuguese ditched their foothold in Mozambique. Rhodesian SAS hit the Fuel Depot in Beira, Mozambique LePetit Copyright
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