Operation Nickel

Below is a short excerpt from Chapter Five in my latest book, Follow My Tracks: Combat Tracking & Pseudo Operations - Recollections. Chapter Five covers Operation Nickel in Rhodesia during 1967. Op Nickel was launched by the Rhodesian Security Forces after a combined group totalling 70 insurgents belonging to the Zimbabwe Peoples Revolutionary Army (ZPRA), and the South African ANC's armed wing uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), crossed into Rhodesia from Zambia in August 1967.

During 1967 the Rhodesian Security Forces considered the poorly patrolled Batoka Gorge on the Zambezi River, south east of Victoria Falls, a natural barrier which would be too formidable for insurgents intent on infiltrating into Rhodesia to cross. They were proven wrong.

The crossing from Zambia was made in the steep-sided, exceedingly rugged Batoka Gorge, south east of Victoria Falls. Rhodesian Security Force thinking at the time was that Batoka Gorge was a natural, and formidable barrier, which was deemed too difficult to cross. As a direct result only limited attention was given to it by Security Force patrols. It would prove to be a costly error.

At that time too, during the early phases of the Rhodesian Bush War, combat tracking by the Security Forces was yet to come into its own as a counterinsurgency tactic. During Operation Nickel trackers used were usually drawn from tribal communities, and in the pay of the British South Africa Police (the Rhodesian police force was known by the acronym BSAP). The BSAP dated from Rhodesia's earlier 1890s historical period. BSAP scent dogs were also used during these early stages, and throughout the bush war.

As a form of anti-tracking the Lobengula Group had actually been walking in each other’s footsteps, and as a result, when the follow-up troops entered the position thinking they were only following five insurgents, they were completely unaware they were being watched from about thirty metres away by 21 determined and motivated ZIPRA and MK terrorists. Readers need to form a mental image of the terrain, which would have been undulating, sandy, and pebble covered ground with dry grass underfoot and scrub mopane woodland, mixed with dense scattered combretum thickets.

In 1967 during Operation Nickel BSAP scent and attack dogs were used by the BSAP during insurgent follow-ups. Ultimately though, and as the war situation worsened, the use of scent and attack dogs in the Rhodesian Bush War was unfortunately limited. For some reason certain of those in decision making positions deemed our climate too hot, plus various other factors. And yet in the heat and humidity of Vietnam, Australian and US Forces made good use of dogs. Human trackers during Operation Nickel were in the main, tribal trackers in the employ of the BSAP.

Due to the time of the year all of the vegetation would have still had limited leaf cover, although dry, brown, and noisy underfoot. Visibility through the 180° arc across their front for those following what they believed to be five sets of insurgent tracks would have been exceedingly limited due to this dry leaf cover. Looking through ‘bush’ and not ‘at it’ is a learned skill that can only come with practice, and that early in the country’s counterinsurgency war I doubt many soldiers, black or white, had yet honed this extremely important skill.

After observing an insurgent’s resting place police S/O Tiffin and the African tracker led Hosking’s and the remainder of the patrol into the tangled thickets on the Inyantue River bank to examine more closely what they had seen, and it was at that precise moment the insurgents ...

Chapter Five continues in the book. Follow My Tracks: Combat Tracking & Pseudo Ops - Recollections. The book is available worldwide in paperback, and as an eBook with linked audio on Amazon.com South African buyers should be able to purchase it via Takealot.com      

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