peter
Colonel (Rtd) Ernest Mganda Dube
NYAKASIKANA villages lay right at the geographical locality that has the Kazangarare-Karoi gravel road entering into Jim Barks’ farm.
The south of the road stretches through the villages of Karoro which has a road running to Chief Chundu (next to Vuti west) while the immediate south of the road emerges to the villages of Nyakasikana up to Sabhuku Shumbayawonda (not the Headman of Kapiri Hill).
Save for just crossing quickly to either Karoro or Mwami, the area needed a risky decision to manoeuvre through due to the fact that it was very unfriendly to guerrillas. This was probably because it was too close for our comfort to play around as it was an enemy dominance. Some of the locals were working in the farms, police garrison and many were having their off-springs as civil servants.
Around early 1979 we had the group of Aleck aka Murungu, (a coloured combatant) probably a former section under Lieutenant Salazah, operating in Karoro hence covering this area. The unit, on this particular ambush task, around February 1979, if my memory serves me well, had invited us to force multiply them.
We then met them after asking the villagers of Karoro about their whereabouts. The ambush was laid, I remember, at a place where the trees were sparse but grassy green, and to the north-east ran a village that cut through a rough rolling geographical landmass having a long stretch of hilly country dissected by many streams flowing into River Chewore. That separates Chief Chundu settlements from those of Karoro villages.
We had the determination to wait and kill, starting early in the morning from 8am throughout the scorching sunrays. I never saw civilians passing through our ambush and therefore not sure what the villagers’ activities in the area were like.
We had agreed that once the ambush and enemy killing was done, our unit was to re-group back at the kwaHotera general area while the second option was the hill behind kwaMushonga homestead along River Mampofu. Those operating in Karoro had their own arrangement as well.
Between 2pm and 3pm the sound of enemy vehicles started reaching our ears. As usual the norm on starting the fire-fight, the bazooka or rifle grenade armed with an anti-tank piercing incendiary grenade were the two weapon systems. Off the bazooka whistled as it hit the moving truck. Three and more bazooka shells landed with the sharp-shoot by Godie “umArab” (Lemon Mampundu Ngwenya or Ndebele . . . no longer sure) using his Yugoslavian rifle grenade. We were sure that the enemy got the right hit.
In the fog of fire, I could not see what my left role player firing the bazooka was doing. After 30 minutes or so we were done and the commander called for a cessation of fire and pull-off. As arranged my group quickly crossed the road and marched away to KwaMdara Hotera countryside. At night, while resting at a halt, the news went around that Aleck “Murungu” was heard crying for help after his 3rd bazooka shell firing.
He had his whole face burnt out by his bazooka, so they said. I had never heard anything of that kind. After a week or so, the correct report reached us that Cde Aleck “Murungu” had since returned to Feira, Zambia, to nurse his left hand fingers that got burnt during the fire-fight. Oh, tough luck, Murungu, that was one of the challenges of trying to fire so many shells at lightning speed. Out of the fog of boom sounds that disturbed the hands’ dexterity and mind working relationship, Aleck did not realise that he was still holding the shell when his right index finger pulled the trigger and thus, the whole finger tarsal of the left hand was left open after the bazooka fire swept away his fingers’ flesh leaving the bones visible.
Cde Murungu eventually withdrew to the rear for medical attention and subsequently recovered well up to this day. Bravo to you brother and comrade in arms; “Conio” in Spaniola, “Avante, Tolo amania, Aluta Continua!”
Col (Rtd) Dube is now a political scientist who operated under the pseudonym Cde Bookless Chizororo in Mashonaland West and at the closing stages of the war was redeployed to Matabeleland South.
Bongani Ndlovu