Table of Contents

Author's note ix

Acknowledgements xi

Maps

South-east Africa, 1977 xvi

Helicopter routes to Chimoio and Tembue xvii

The attack on New Farm, Chimoio xviii

The attack on Tembue xix

Prologue 1

Part 1 The gathering storm 3

1 Stirrings at home 5

2 The birth of ZANU and UDI 10

3 The Silver Queen sows a seed 15

4 ZANU starts the Second Chimurenga 20

5 New strategy for ZANLA 29

6 Lessons from Sinoia 33

7 Tete Province 38

8 Tongogara's Phase 1 41

9 Phase 2: The hit-and-run war begins 44

10 Hurricane and Tete 49

11 Détente and the Carnation Revolution 58

12 ZANU falls apart 61

13 Mugabe heads east 64

14 Mosi-oa-Tunya 69

15 Meat-axe diplomacy 73

16 Geneva 79

17 Finding Chimoio 83

18 Planning Dingo 89

19 The Year of the Fire Snake: 1977 95

20 ComOps is formed 102

21 Autumn in spring 105

22 Walls between the SAS and RLI 109

23 Secret is secret 112

24 There's a kind of hush 118

25 The Dingo commanders 120

26 The Dingo briefing 130

Part 2 Zulu 1: Chimoio 139

27 Short Handle 141

28 D-day 144

29 Brand - the marksman 146

30 Lake Alexander 155

31 New Sarum 160

32 The magnificent seven 165

33 The mass paradrop 175

34 Cover Point chaos 184

35 Long Stop 187

36 Rubbernecking and the sweep 193

37 Pit-stop bingo 201

38 Centre Wicket 204

39 Sleepless in Chimoio 209

Part 3 Zulu 2: Tembue 213

40 Lightning over the Saudi desert 215

41 Tembue by train 218

42 Mount Darwin, P minus 1 224

43 P-day 226

44 Square Ring 234

45 The battle 235

46 The mystery of the empty parade square 239

Epilogue 245

Glossary and abbreviations 253

Select bibliography 256

Index 257