had survived and were transmitting via the beacon. As part of the camp attack forces, I was stationed at Mount Darwin with 20 troops as a para reserve. Once it was realised that we were not going to be needed in the main Tembue attack, ComOps decided to send us back to the crash site to investigate the emergency signal emanating from there. For this we were given 4 G-Cars and a K-Car flown by Ian Harvey. The flight to the crash site was one of the more memorable flights I had, in that we flew at between 8000 to 10000 feet AGL and very spread out - not at the normal tree top level that we normally flew at. This made us very visible from the ground and resulted in us attracting quite a lot of ground fire from various ZANLA / FRELIMO positions en- route. This fire was well short of us but made sure none of us got bored! At the crash site we were joined by two Hunters overhead as top cover. We could see from the air the downed chopper lying in a gulley and the FRELIMO camp about 250 metres away from where the downed aircraft lay. This camp now appeared to be abandoned. After circling the area for a period of time, and being ever wary of a trap, we were put on the ground some distance away from the crash site. With "Harvs" (Ian Harvey) and the Hunters overhead, we then swept forward onto the crash site. The G-Cars meanwhile recovered back to Rhodesia to refuel. On getting close enough to see the actual aircraft, I held the sweep line whilst I surveyed the site through binoculars. The aircraft was upright and had pan caked straight into the side of a shallow gulley. The tail boom had snapped but was still attached to the fuselage, the blades had broken off, and both wheel struts had snapped off. Otherwise the aircraft looked basically intact. Surprisingly the bodies of both Francois and his tech were seen still to be in the aircraft. At this stage, I was convinced the aircraft and the bodies had been booby trapped, so put the troops in all round defence and then went forward alone to the aircraft, checking carefully for trip wires and ground disturbance (AP mines). Close to, and all around the aircraft was FRELIMO spoor. In the aircraft, I found that Francois was still strapped in his seat and the tech lying on the back bench, still attached to the airframe by his monkey chain. Because of the threat of booby traps, I decided to tie a rope to the tech, with a view to pulling him out of the aircraft whilst I was adequately protected by a tree. I asked my Sergeant, Red Kerr to come and give me a hand. However like most good plans, this did not work and no matter how hard we pulled we could not dislodge the tech. Red then made a very valid observation. All personal weapons, aircraft weapons, maps, codes, headsets, watches etc were still on the aircraft/bodies His reasoning was, that if the enemy had spent time booby trapping the bodies, then surely these items would have been removed and stolen? He reckoned that FRELIMO had got such a fright, that all they did was check the crew were dead and then took off before the wrath of Rhodesia descended on them! I agreed with his thoughts and we then went forward to remove the bodies. I reported to "Harvs" what we had found and suggested that he should go and refuel, arrange to bring some air force techs forward with the G cars to recover the downed aircraft, as it was, in my totally unqualified opinion, totally fixable! I informed him that we, as the ground forces, were more than happy to wait at the crash site, for a couple of days if necessary, whilst a recovery program was put in place and then to protect the techs whilst they did their work. 'Harvs disagreed, and instructed me to recover all weapons and maps, and then to destroy the rest. This was done with the minimum of fuss and as the G-Cars returned, I had the very unpleasant task of tossing a couple of white phosphorous grenades into the air intake and cockpit to destroy a magnificent machine that every brown job in Rhodesia worshiped. Flight Lieutenant G. H. F. du Toit – Award of MFC (Op) On the 12th January 1978 during a major contact with terrorists, the airborne Army Commander was wounded and was unable to continue to control the battle. Flight Lieutenant du Toit, flying a helicopter, then took over command of all the Army stop groups and deployed them to surround and cut off the terrorists. For the remainder of the day-long battle, during which he flew for 6 hours, Flight Lieutenant du Toit continued to command the operation, demonstrating a high degree of competence and determination throughout the day. Murefu, P.C., Rifleman, Fifth Battalion (Rhodesia)