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IN last week’s instalment, CDE WATSON KUDARO chronicled how they caught a white Rhodesian soldier and moved him to Mozambique. He continues his account by telling our Political Editor KUDA BWITITI some of the key battles that shaped the liberation struggle. Read on . . .
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Q: Tell us about your experiences in Gwanda.
A: Just before I went to Gwanda, I was involved in another interesting battle. We attacked a Rhodesian train that was carrying sugar.
Then when I went to Gwanda, I was placed into a military section whose commander was Cde Edwards. It was made up of sharpshooters. This was now in 1978. The war was raging. I worked with many decorated commanders, including Cde Duri, my detachment commander.
I was involved in a lot of battles in Gwanda.
One of my most memorable battles in Gwanda was at Sukwe.
We were in the bush when one of the mujibhas (war collaborators) told us he had seen some enemy soldiers in the area.
We asked him to accompany and show us exactly where they were.
They were relaxing on the side of the river. Their guns were on the ground beside them.
They were not expecting a battle at all. We caught them by surprise. They were about 12.
As soon as I realised they had their weapons on the ground, we attacked them. They ran in different directions, assuming we wanted to capture them. However, we killed all of them. On our side, we were 11.
Although the norm during battles was not to attack when we were outnumbered, we had the advantage because they were in our killing spot.
No one survived and they did not even get to fire back. Later on, a helicopter came. It had enemy soldiers who were following up on their colleagues. However, we made good our escape.
Q: Were there other memorable battles you were involved in when you were still in Gwanda?
A: Another battle of note was when we fought from 8am until 5pm.
Q: That was nine hours of armed combat! Please tell us more.
A: We were in an area known as Hamwa. It is between Beitbridge and Gwanda. At the time, I was now a commander of my section. We were four and we got to a village where we met a man whom we assumed was a member of the povo.
However, we realised that he had a Rhodesian pass. We decided not to let him go to get more details about him. Later, we got to know that this man sold us out to the enemy as he told them where our base was located.
Q: How did the enemy soldiers find you?
A: I was with Cde Tsuro, Cde Mannex and Cde Urayayi Mabhunu.
We were all section commanders. We were waiting to be joined by other comrades when we suddenly heard the sound of a helicopter.
First, it passed us without firing.
My instinct told me that this was a decoy. After some minutes, I realised that I was right. Several other enemy fighter planes started to hover around us.
One of the helicopters then started to fire at us. The area was filled with large rocks and caves, so I managed to hide in one of the caves.
Soon, paratroopers started to descend from the helicopters. They were flying at a low level, hunting for us.
One of our comrades who was well-trained managed to hide behind a rock to take a position to fire at the helicopters.
After firing some shots with his AK47, the enemy forces saw him.
I called out to him to come into the cave.
Soon, other comrades joined us and we were five in the cave.
However, a strange incident happened that still astounds me to this day.
One of the enemy soldiers came to the cave’s entrance.
He glanced into the cave and then immediately rushed back to tell his colleagues.
The other enemy soldiers started to advance.
They got to the cave’s entrance but, one by one, we fired at them, killing a number of them.
We also had a grenade which we threw at them, causing more fatalities on their side.
However, they continued to come in their numbers. We continued to fire at them.
We fired relentlessly, the heat of the guns scorching our hands as we fought to defend our position.
We then felt it was becoming too dangerous to continue fighting from the cave and decided to move out.
However, just some seconds after we had moved out, they fired a huge bomb at the cave. If only we had delayed to come out, we would have perished.
The huge bomb caused a huge inferno. Several trees also caught fire. Soon, much of the area was engulfed in flames.
We continued to run for dear life to escape the flames until we got to the top of the mountain. For a moment, we heaved a sigh of relief. However, the enemy soldiers were still on our trail.
One of the helicopters flew right above us. I saw one of their soldiers perched on the edge, as he aimed his gun menacingly in our direction. However, I managed to fire at him first.
Soon after, the fire continued to become more intense.
This forced the enemy planes to ascend. This allowed us to get some breathing space and continue to walk away from the enemy soldiers.
However, the enemy forces were not done; they continued to pursue us, firing heavy ammunition. I got to a point where I was affected by all the smoke, as I struggled to breathe.
Next week, Cde Kudaro concludes his account by detailing how he survived this protracted battle and the final days of the war.
Online Reporter