Operation Birch

The security forces set up a JOC at Mangula at 09:30 on 19 January with 1 Commando present. A tracking team led by Lieutenant Nigel Henson first made contact around noon on 21 January, when concealed ZIPRA cadres from Gang 2 fired upon them with an RPD machine-gun and AK-47 and SKS rifles. Henson's men withdrew and 1 Commando set up stop points around the contact area to contain the guerrillas during the day; night-ambush positions were then set up as darkness fell. The RLI moved up again at dawn the next day and met the insurgents at 07:30, when a stick of five 1 Commando men led by Lieutenant Bruce Snelgar was sighted in an area of thick bush by three guerrillas from Gang 2. The cadres caught Snelgar's stick by surprise, opening fire with a heavy burst of RPD bullets. Snelgar and Trooper McMaster were wounded and Trooper Anthony Brading was shot dead. In the battle which ensued all three ZIPRA fighters were killed with no further loss to the RLI.^[1]

Over the next few days PATU and RLI patrols arrested five insurgents, two of whom were deserters. One of these defected and agreed to guide the security forces to the ZIPRA base camp, where he said there were two guerrillas waiting for him to return, unaware of his desertion and subsequent defection. Shown the way by the ex-cadre an RLI patrol attacked the camp on 24 January and killed one of the two; the other fled and was captured a few days later. The members of Gang 1 were now all killed or captured while only one was outstanding from Gang 2. Gangs 3 and 4 were revealed to be near Sipolilo on 21 January by a black shopkeeper, and two Gang 3 members were encountered by Henson's troop on 24 January. Henson himself opened fire and killed one, who it emerged was the Gang 3 commander. His troop then followed about 10 terrorists until 26 January, when they lost the insurgents' tracks.^[1]

RLI patrols were intensified further over the following days, with 3 Commando being brought in to assist around Sipolilo. 13 Troop, 3 Commando, under Sergeant Phil Raath, encountered the 10 terrorists at a kraal near Bakasa, north of Sipolilo, on 31 January, and killed one; the other nine fled.^[1] Later that day a patrol led by Corporal Dennis Croukamp captured Phinias Majuru, the ZIPRA Director of Operations. "It was only a week later after the patrol was over that we learnt who it was we had captured," Croukamp writes. "It was Joshua Nkomo's Chief of Operations. The equivalent of a very senior staff officer, he was in the country trying to determine why ZIPRA was being so unsuccessful and he was on his way back with recommendations, clipboard and all."^[2] The remaining ZIPRA fighters scattered and escaped the area over the following week, the Rhodesian Security Forces losing track of each one. On 9 February 1970 local security force presence was reduced to police, one helicopter and one RLI Commando. A member of Gang 3 was arrested by the Portuguese in Mozambique the next day, but without further developments over the next month, Operation Birch shut down on 5 March 1970.

Two more members of Gang 4 were detained by police in Mukumbura township on 21 March, and three days later the Portuguese killed one and captured another. The final account for Operation Birch, which had countered the last ZIPRA incursion for six years, was seven cadres killed, thirteen captured and two outstanding.^[1] "From 1970 onward, ZAPU played no part in the terrorist war," writes Lieutenant-Colonel R. E. H. Lockley. "They were in a state of disarray following their decisive defeats within Rhodesia, so they took the opportunity of consolidating their position by sending their terrorists outside the country on extended courses to Russia, Cuba and North Korea. This situation with ZAPU continued until 1976. ... There were no incursions in 1970 worthy of note."^[3]

• Binda, Alexandre (May 2008). The Saints: The Rhodesian Light Infantry. Johannesburg: 30° South Publishers. ISBN 978-1-920143-07-7.
• Croukamp, Dennis E. W. (December 2005). Only My Friends Call Me "Crouks": Rhodesian reconnaissance specialist. Cape Town: Pseudo Publishing. ISBN 978-0-620-29392-1.
• Lockley, Lt-Col R. E. H. (July 1990). "A brief operational history of the campaign in Rhodesia from 1964 to 1978". The Lion & Tusk. 2 (1). Southampton: Rhodesian Army Association. Archived from the original on 25 May 2022. THIS LINK IS DEAD