Thread by @zenzele

The Wankie and Sipolilo 12 campaigns : The thread. #Asakhe

Formed in 1961, Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK),
its aim was to carry out sabotage against
symbols of the apartheid state.

Early attempts to infiltrate guerrillas through Botswana in 1966 and 1967
failed, largely due to the vigilance of Botswana’s own security forces.

In May 1967, a group of MK cadres led by Josiah Jele was sent to northern
Mozambique to investigate potential infiltration routes

They realised that MK would not be able to reach South Africa through Mozambique, as the southern provinces, which bordered on South
Africa, had not yet been liberated. and the Mozambican had not been sufficiently politicised to offer the logistical support to MK cadres

MK cadre were not fluent in portuguese so it was going to be easy for them to be arrested.
The only practical route was through Rhodesia.

In 1967 the leaders of ZAPU AND ANC agreed on a joint military campaign.

Oliver Tambo said:
"We have had close political relations with ZAPU and these developed into
relations at the military level until we were in a position to fight together.....

....We are facing a common enemy, fighting for a common purpose, hence a
combined force for a common onslaught against the enemy at every
point of our encounter as we march down for the liberation of our respective countries.

Rhodesia was the most suitable infiltration route
because of common political, cultural, religious and linguistic ties.(We shld use the same for economic empowerment )

As the language spoken in Matabeleland was similar to Zulu and Xhosa, the MK guerrillas would be able to communicate with the local population and
gain assistance from them while in transit.

The meeting between ZAPU and ANC lasted the whole day and there was tension.

At about 5 pm Tambo, turned to Moses Mabhida and said: ‘All of us have spoken today,Moses, but you have not said a word. What is your view on the matter?’ Mabhida said just one word: Mayihlome!

There was jubilation and Mabhida was carried shoulder high from the venue.
Tambo said: ‘Mabhida, if you say we must go to war, no one will oppose that.’
Within MK ranks, Mabhida was subsequently called Mayihlome.

A joint political & military High Command was formed. Tambo and James Chikerema, directed the political level.Joe Modise (MK commander), Akim Ndhlovu (ZIPRA commander), Archie Sibeko
(Zola Zembe, MK chief of operations), Dabengwa (ZAPU chief of intelligence),

Mjojo (General Tshali, MK chief of staff), Walter Mavuso (Mavuso Msimang,
MK chief of communications) and Chris Hani (MK commissar) assumed
responsibility at the military level.

Intelligence was left to ZAPU, due to their knowledge of the terrain . ZAPU also undertook to conduct an awareness campaign in the area of the proposed
operation so as to ensure a good reception for the MK guerrillas by local residents.

Chris Hani was to be the commissar, while John Dube of ZPRA would command the
joint MK and ZIPRA units. In honour of the ANC president, Chief Albert
Luthuli, who died in July 1967, the MK unit was called the Luthuli Detachment.

Archibald Sibeko was despatched to Tunisia to obtain weapons.

MK cadres volunteered to take part in the joint mission. In early 1967, they were moved from the camps in Tanzania to the ZAPU camp outside Lusaka

On the night of 30-31 July 1967, a group of about 80 men crossed east of Livingstone, 15 km below the Victoria Falls. This was the nucleus of the Western Front guerrilla activity that became known as
the Wankie campaign.

The point chosen for the crossing was deliberately close to the Botswana border, and the guerrillas could have retreated into that country if it became necessary.

More importantly, it was a crossing point that the
Rhodesian armed forces would have least expected the guerrillas to use, in the most dangerous stretch of the Zambezi River.

Although neither Tambo nor Modise would go to Wankie, they led the way down the cliff, followed by Nkobi, and remained on the Zambian side
of the river until all the cadres had crossed safely.

Thomas Nkobi later wrote:
Ropes had been tied to trees, and to reach the river from the bank, one had to grab the rope and cling to it. From the height we were at, you could not even see a person when he reached the river down below. ...

only the sound of something landing in water would indicate that somebody had reached the bottom.

It took the detachment two days of hard marching to reach the Wankie Game Reserve

When the detachment reached the game reserve around 2 August, it split into two units.
John Dube of ZIPRA was in command of the 57 members and Chris Hani was
the commissar charged with the responsibility of ensuring that the MK cadres
infiltrated South Africa safely

Members of this unit included Peter Mfene,Victor Dlamini, Graham Morodi, Douglas Wana, Basil February, James April,
Paul Sithole, Shooter Makasi, Castro Mashigo, Eric Nduna, Justice Mpanza,
Cletus Mzimela, Peter Mhlongo, Marana Mahlatsi, Misheak Madiba and Lennox
Lagu

The rest of the detachment, about 23 cadres under command of
ZIPRA’s MadzimbaMuto, with Andries Motsepe of MK as his deputy, moved
towards Lupane in northeastern Matabeleland. MK members in the smaller
unit included James Masimini, Charles Mhambi, Motsepe, and Comrade
Rodgers.

The first battle between the joint ANC/ZAPU unit and the Rhodesian security forces occurred on 13 August on the banks of the Nyatuwe River, between
Wankie and Dete.

According to Reid-Daly, a Rhodesian African Rifles (RAR)
patrol consisting of 18 African soldiers and a number of British South African
Policemen (BSAP) were following the tracks of the guerrillas and were
ambushed at 1.20 pm.

The battle lasted seven and a half hours, the Rhodesian forces fled, losing two African soldiers, two white BSAP officers and a
white army officer, in addition to two African soldiers being wounded. five guerrillas were killed

At the South African National Party’s annual congress in Durban on 17 August, the Deputy Minister of Police revealed for the first time that MK cadres had been among those involved in the Wankie battles.

On 19 August, six days after the first clash, Tambo and ZAPU’s vice-president, James Chikerema, announced the joint MK/ZIPRA operation.

They said
… the fighting that is presently going on in the Wankie area is indeed being carried out by a combined force of ZAPU and ANC, which marched
into the country as comrades-in-arms on a common route, each bound to its destination.

It is the determination of these combined forces to fight the common settler enemy to the finish, at any point of encounter as they
make their way to their respective fighting zones"

The second and third major battles of the Wankie campaign occurred on 21 and 22 August.
These were the first and second clashes between the unit moving towards the
south and the Rhodesian security forces.

On 13 August, with their food and
water supplies running dangerously low, John Dube and Chris Hani sent two ZIPRA members to look for replenishments. They never returned.

Fearing that the two had fallen into the hands of the enemy forces and disclosed the rest of
the unit’s position, Dube and Hani despatched five volunteers – two from
ZIPRA and three from MK to look for the missing men.

They returned without finding a trace
of their missing comrades.

members of the unit were tired and had been without food for almost eight days by 19 August, when they shared a small dove that Hani had killed
earlier in the day

On the morning of the battle,
Mzimela spotted a military radio antenna through the surrounding bush, and
awakened Gizenga Mpanza, who was sleeping next to him. In disbelief, Mpanza thought Mzimela was joking, but then a second antenna appeared, and a
third.

Then they saw rifles and black berets, but the army trucks drove past
without any sign that they knew the cadres were lying there

After the patrol moved on, Mzimela fell asleep again, only to be awakened later in the day by
gunfire. He cursed in anger, assuming that one of the ZIPRA fighters had accidentally fired again.

As he angrily demanded, ‘Who is this fool that is going to attract the attention of the army patrol?’, he heard a soldier giving the order for a hand grenade to be tossed into the bush to flush out the guerrillas. The
next sound Mzimela heard was an explosion, close by

As the Rhodesians closed in, Hani ordered the men to hold their fire, reminding them that ‘every bullet is precious’ and that they should not pull the trigger until they could see their targets clearly.

The air was thick with tension, but even though this was the first time the guerrillas had come under fire,
their nerve held.

They allowed the Rhodesians to fire randomly into the air, until a handful of soldiers stood up and called out: ‘Where are they? Can you
see them?’ At that moment, Hani gave the order to open fire.

Two of the Rhodesian soldiers fell in the first hail of automatic rifle fire. They happened to
be officers, and their loss caused pandemonium. The rest of the group scattered in all directions, leaving their weapons and food supplies behind.

There were biscuits and pure, crystal clear water’. For two weeks before the battle, the guerrillas had been competing with elephants for muddy and
dirty water.

They stripped the dead Rhodesian soldiers of their camouflage uniforms and personal items like watches, and the commanders divided the food and water they had recovered among the hungry and thirsty men.

For the first time in weeks, they had a decent meal, including cheese, biltong, tinned
food and other rations. It was a feast for the guerrilla fighters, and afterwards,
they resumed their march to the south

21 August around 5pm was scanning the surrounding terrain through binoculars captured earlier from the Rhodesians, he spotted enemy forces advancing on their position.

The commanders ordered the cadres to aim for
the commander and the radio operator, and to hold their fire until the Rhodesians drew close to their position

when the troops were about 100 m from them, the
order to open fire rang out

Black members of the Rhodesian security forces tried to lure the ANC/ZAPU fighters into the
open by standing up and pretending to flee from the battle

When the guerrilla
commanders noticed that only black soldiers were running away, they recognised this as a ploy to expose themselves.

Hani and Dube ordered some of the comrades to toss grenades at the enemy position. There were screams and the rest of the Rhodesian men withdraw in disarray. The Luthuli Detachment had won its second battle, and was once again rewarded by retrieving abandoned food & ammunition

Later that night the unit left Tsholotsho and marched towards Plumtree on the Rhodesia-Botswana border

One evening, John Dube, the unit commander, changed into a captured army camouflage uniform and went ahead of the unit, alone. Disappearing into
the forest, he evidently stumbled on a small group of white people wearing civilian clothes

He assumed that they were tourists and greeted them in Ndebele/Zulu, calling out, sanibona bomzala (hello my cousins). One of the men
immediately went for his rifle and started shooting at Dube

The rest of the unit heard the shots and saw Dube running towards them, sweating. When
they asked what had happened, he did not reply Hani swiftly ordered the cadres to take up combat positions, just as the Rhodesians came running into their encampment, and a battle ensued.

One of the battle casualties was Major S Thomas Morgan Thomas, a highly decorated Rhodesian soldier

The next day, the guerrillas ambushed a Rhodesian platoon led by Lieutenant Smith, killing both him and a warrant officer, Timitiya, the second in
command. The rest of the patrol fled, leaving behind their weapons and equipment, which the guerrillas duly collected.

The next evening the commanders of the MK/ZIPRA unit decided to attack the Rhodesian camp . Chris Hani, James April, Douglas Wana, Victor Dlamini and
Jack Simelane were among those chosen for the operation.

They leopardcrawled through the bush to a position from which they threw several hand
grenades into the camp, then opened fire with their AK47s and LMGs.

The cadres had underestimated the number of Rhodesians in the camp and had to
call for reinforcements, with whose help they were able to rout the Rhodesians. The latter fled after a 30-minute battle, leaving weapons and equipment
behind that the guerrillas collected.

After this battle, the guerrilla unit was running low on ammunition. Resupply from Lusaka was out of the question, and fearing that the Rhodesians
would return with an even larger force, they decided to cross the border into northern Botswana after burying their dead.

Hani asserted that the intention
was ‘to retreat to strategic parts of Botswana, refresh ourselves, heal those
who were ill or wounded, acquire food supplies and then proceed with our
original objective’

Tshali said they had never intended making their way to
Botswana, but just happened to find themselves close to the border. Hani and a few members of the unit went ahead to reconnoitre & became separated from the rest of the unit.

They would not be reunited until after their arrest in
Botswana

Mzimela claimed that he and the six guerrillas with him only realised they had crossed into Botswana when they were confronted by the police

Nqose pointed out that if one was moving south through Rhodesia without knowing
the terrain or having reliable maps, one would inevitably end up in Botswana. Mpanza, on the other hand, recalled moving deliberately towards Botswana

There are various accounts of how different sections of the unit got to Botswana

It is difficult to determine how many casualties were suffered on both sides during the Wankie campaign. Rhodesia put the total guerrilla casualties at 30
dead and 20 captured, with seven members of the Rhodesian security forces
killed and 13 wounded.

Some said 40 ‘terrorists’ were
killed and 20 arrested after escaping into Botswana.

Source: The ROAD TO DEMOCRACY IN SOUTH AFRICA. Next thread :Battle of the Gorges.

On that Revolutionary note Good night: #Asakhe