[18 Pics] The Secret history of southern Africa: The Landmine wars of the Liberation Movements

[This is one of the old but important stories from the original AfricanCrisis website that I am converting on to the new site, in the new format.

The American army is encountering IEDs which have a similar aim to what they did here in Africa. But in Africa, the landmines were more indiscriminant. They killed troops and civilians. They killed whites and blacks alike. Jan]

Landmines!
It has been speculated by some that more vehicles in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) struck landmines duringthe 7 year war than by all the Allied forces in Europe in WWII from D-Day until June 1945. Between December 1972 and January 1980, 2405 vehicles struck landmines. 632 people were killed and 4,410 wereinjured. By the end of the war, things had escalated to such a degree that between 5-6 vehicles werehitting landmines every day. Note: Were it not for the prevalence of mine-protected vehicles, and for the many counter-measures taken against landmines, the casualties would have been far worse.

The "Liberators" planted landmines everywhere they could. There were even odd incidents wherea train hit a landmine and where an aircraft was blown up on its runway as it hit a landmine!

In recent years many famous people, including Lady Diana went around the world telling everyone whata terrible horror landmines are. There have even been suggestions of outlawing landmines completely.They show how mine fields still exist all over Angola and Mozambique and how they still blow people up.You get small landmines, anti-personnel mines, which are designed just to blow your foot off. And you even get powerful anti-tank landmines. One fact which is always carefully skirted around and which people neverdiscuss is: Who planted the landmines? Where did they come from?

Answer: They were planted by SWAPO (now the government of Namibia), by Zanu(PF) (now the government ofZimbabwe), by ZAPU (they were the opposition to ZANU(PF)) by Frelimo (now the government of Mozambique). Yes, landmines were a major weapon used by the Marxist black Liberation movements. Virtually all the landmines which are still out there today killingand maiming people (mostly black people) were planted by those who came to "liberate" them.

What is also never mentioned is that this effective, and yet hideous weapon was used most indiscriminantlyagainst the whites in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe). The "Liberators" (like Mugabe and Nkomo), sent theirpeople to plant landmines on every road where it was possible. You can only plant them on non-tarredroads - and there are many such roads in the rural and farming areas of Zimbabwe. Landmines were plantedeverywhere. A farmer and his family might drive to town in the family car only to hit a boosted anti-tanklandmine. What is a boosted landmine? It is one which has various other explosives packed around itto give it that extra punch. Well, if you hit a boosted anti-tank landmine with your family car there is pretty much nothing left of you or your car afterwards.


This black-owned civilian 7 ton Isuzu truck hit a landmine on a public road. Threepassengers including a child died and two others were seriously injured. (Note thecorpse lying in the foreground). These people were killed bythe very people who were supposed to be liberating them!

But those landmines, being indiscriminant, and being put on public roads did not just kill whitefarmers or their families. Tractors driven by blacks were blown up. Army vehicles would sometimes hitthem. But many 80-seater busses loaded with black people also hit them and were blown to shreds. I grewup on a farm near the main road leading from Harare to Mozambique in the east. It was common to see theremains of vehicles being towed back to Salisbury (Harare). It was so common in fact that as I look backI realise I never bothered to take photos of these things. I saw all manner of vehicles being towed backto Harare, including busses which had struck such things. My brother was in an old Bedford army truck whichstruck a landmine. Luckily they had put sandbags all over the truck. They were driving along the one minute. The next thing my brother knew was that he woke up lying in the grass. Strewn around him were allthe other soldiers who had been in the truck. His watch had stopped due to the blast. As he got to hisfeet he realised they had all been knocked unconscious for several minutes. But for those sandbags theywould all have been dead.


This 80-seater bus carrying black passengers hit a landmine

We had a totally indiscriminant landmine war waged against us, and nobody in the world bothered to say back then how inhumane it was. Nobody gave a damn.


In 1973, Mrs Margie Ward & her family struck a land mine in their Land Rover. She pulled herentire family from the wreckage to safety. Sadly, she died two days later from her injuries.

But when a mere 250,000 whites in the middle of Southern Africa are fighting with their lives theymake a plan. Here is one of the little inventions we came up with in the 1970's. Take a look at aPookie below:

The Pookie

When the landmines were taking a very heavy toll and we were in danger of losing, someone cameup with a bright idea. Roads hundreds of kilometres long were mined. There just were not enoughpeople nor enough time for people to walk on foot with mine detectors. So someone wondered if youcould build a vehicle which could drive over a landmine without setting it off. Then you would mount a metal-detector on it. They needed a vehicle which was light and which could have its weightspread out over a wide area. They went and got hold of used Formula One racing car tyres and putit on a small vehicle powered by a VW engine. The result was a Pookie!!

Rhodesia was under a lot of strain and money was tight. The only source of Formula One racingtyres was the South African Grand Prix. Each year, army personnel from Rhodesia (dressed in plainclothes) would go to South Africa and buy up used racing car tyres. The South Africans couldn't understand what these crazy Rhodesians were up to!!

The first real live trial of the Pookie was on a long stretch of road known to be filled with landmines.The Pookie drove along and detected each mine. Upon detection the vehicle was stopped and the landmineswere lifted. The Pookie was a roaring success. Only approximately five were ever built and they wereRhodesia's Secret Weapon against landmines. In a few hours the Pookies could detect and remove landmineswhich had been carried by humans for hundreds of miles and which had taken a long time to lay. Pookieswere so important that their location was a military secret and nobody knew which roads they were goingto sweep next. They could undo many weeks of labour by Marxist terrorists in a very short time.

Here is a Pookie from another angle. Note the metal detector hanging between the front & back wheels:-

The Pookie


The Pookie Troop


The Pookie at War! (Here we see a Pookie leading an army column across mine-infested terrain intoMozambique on a cross-border raid to hit the enemy in their camps. This is no different to whatAmerica did in Afghanistan after WTC. Note, behind the Pookie is a tank. Rhodesia could not afford tobuy tanks. The few tanks they had were actually Russian tanks captured on cross-border raids... As you cansee this Russian tank is now doing service in the Rhodesian Army!)


Funny Pookies! (Even in war there is time for a bit of fun. These Pookies were "dressed up"for the Jacaranda Festival and were humorously named "Jacaranda" & "Jill". Note: Those "pipes"sticking out at 45 degree angles are actually anti-ambush devices - a type of a shotgun).

When the Russians finally discovered that their entire landmine strategy was ineffective they went towork devising a new type of landmine which contained no metal. So they invented the plastic landmine.When the new mines were planted, the situation once more became critical.

Again the engineers thought and thought. Eventually somebody wondered: If you can't detect plastic,can you detect a hole dug in the hard soil? So, using early, primitive computer logic, they deviseda "detector" which bounced sound waves into the ground and then analysed the reflection. The littlecomputer then used its logic to determine when it thought there was a "hole". Note, the soil on theroads is tightly packed, but when you dig a hole for a landmine, no matter how tightly you pack it,it is not as dense as the rest of the road. The Pookies were never again as effective as they hadbeen originally. Note, electrically detonated landmines were also used, but that is another story.Nevertheless, they did manage to get reasonable success - though with many morefalse alarms than before. So in the end, the Marxist Liberators were not able to defeat us using landmines alone.

Let me mention a few other things about the little Pookie. You will note it is very small becauseit only carried one person, the driver. The Pookies often drove in front of convoys. They drovequite far ahead because they needed a decent stopping distance in case they detected landmines. It was found, with practise, that a Pookie could travel along at 80 Km/Hr (48 mph) and stilleffectively detect mines! It would then stop and the convoy would also stop behind it. Due to this,the Pookie was thus always vulnerable to ambush. So it was armoured and the driver was protectedwith bullet-proof glass. The shape of his compartment was in a V just in case a landmine went off.The wheels were some distance from the base so that the blast effects would be some distance fromthe driver and so the wheel could fly off if need be. Nobody ever died in a Pookie.

Pookies were in demand all over Rhodesia. Then Robert Mugabe's "Liberators" took to planting landmineson airstrips.

This is what is left of a small plane from the African Development Fund which struck a landmine on an airstrip. The pilot and three passengers were killed. Again, people were killed who were actuallytrying to help the blacks!

It was not feasible to provide Pookies for the many landing strips and airfields in the bush. Sothey put metal detectors on a bicyle frame.

This bicyle-mounted mine-detector was named the FU-2. One can't help if there was some sort of message in the name! Note the car battery to power the detector.

It should be noted that Rhodesian mine-protected vehicles got a boost from some experiments whichhad been going on in South Africa. The South Africans were having landmine problems in South WestAfrica (Namibia). Their line of thinking was in the opposite direction to that of the Pookie. Ratherthan developing a vehicle to move over landmines without setting them off, they were trying to inventa vehicle to find them and to set them off! So they needed a vehicle which could survive landmineblasts.


A Prototype of the "Spinnekop" (Spider)


The "Spinnekop" (Spider) - the final product. (Note it has a mine-detector right at the front)

Here is a selection of the many vehicles developed and used in Rhodesia with differing success. They had typically African names like: the Hyena, the Crocodile, the Hippo, the Leopard, etc.


The Leopard. (Note the roll-bars & the V-shaped body to take the blast)


The Cougar. (Note the turret fitted for airfield patrol duty. It also has bullet-proofglass windows)


The Rhino. (Originally developed for the Police to use. Note the roll-bars and armour plating.)


The Kudu. (Note the ribbed sides to deflect bullets when the vehicle is ambushed. The sloping front is to deflect bullets from the front to protect the engine)


A Kudu - after hitting a landmine

The South Africans then went and built the ultimate anti-landmine vehicle, the Casspir. This verytough and advanced vehicle is now sold across the world. This vehicle has the enviable reputation thateven though it has struck landmines, not one person has ever died in it because of a landmine!


The Casspir

Across the world, people fear landmines, but nobody mentions that the most effective anti-landminemeasures developed came from the small numbers of white people living in Rhodesia and South Africa.Others may fear landmines but we lived with them and overcame them with our meagre resources!

I have many other stories I can tell, and if people are interested I'll put it up and show youwhat white people in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) went through to survive against amazing odds - andalso South Africa and Namibia.

The Russians and Chinese tried many things. In the end, the Chinese guerilla tactics were themost difficult to counter.



Posted By: Jan
AfricanCrisis Webmaster
Author of: Government by Deception

     

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Readers' Comments

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Date Posted: Wednesday 14-Oct-2009
As an ex Rhodesian, I remember these vehicles well, drove some of them. We had some truly unique and wonderful people and our troopies were second to NONE. Thank you for the memories and great photo's. The Americans are now producing their version of our mine protected vehicles. Of course, it is "bigger and better", but their mission is different.

Charles Slement
Houston
USA

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Date Posted: Sunday 16-Aug-2009
Excellent article and pictures
I visited the blog below (before finding your story) which has a posting of the latest anti-landmine vehicle (Puma) being manufactured in Pretoria East South Africa

http://eebenbarlowsmilitaryandsecurityblog.bl...

It made me google for more information as I still have photo's taken by me of a spook anti landmine vehicle which we used in Rhodesia during the bush war (Hyena). As a South African I volunteered to do border duties in Rhodesia in 1974/75 (many other South Africans did as well).

I also have n photo of a "Big daddy"(Bedford Truck) packed with sandbags and thick rubber mat with a bench mounted in the centre at the back of the vehicle. We sat back to back facing the side of the road while being transported from point A to B. Rhodesians fixed and made anything work which we could not fix during the bush war.

I still regard them as being the best Bush fighters in the world. Hospital and loving people I shall never forget.

These vehicles were all life savers and made it easier to do the job, not only in Rhodesia, but in South West Africa as well. Having the right and best equipment is important for any armed forces to do the job.

Thank you for the article it brought back some good memories!

Tango
Johannesburg
South Africa

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Date Posted: Thursday 09-Jul-2009
The clods sending British soldiers to be blown up in useless vehicles in Afghanistan should read this piece. Excellent thanks very much.

Peter H.
Moray
Scotland