Death Flight. Michael Schmidt
officer, Major Bert Sachse, still sporting the clean-shaven chin of a British-styled officer, as well as with fellow ex-Legionnaire Desblé, who by that stage had developed the greasy, bearded appearance of the Selous Scouts that earned them the nickname ‘Walking Armpits’.
Pessarra was secretly an informant for the CIA, which he jokingly called ‘Christians In Action’ or simply ‘the Christians’. The CIA ran a clandestine intelligence-gathering operation in Rhodesia through an unofficial ‘US Consulate’ in Salisbury under Charles Robert Moore. Moore was the supposedly retired former US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs and former Ambassador to Mali, Cameroon, and Guinea. Although the US withdrew most of its consular staff in 1965 after UDI and shut its Salisbury consulate in March 1970 after Rhodesia declared itself a republic, the administration of President Jimmy Carter assisted Britain in seeking a peaceful solution to the Bush War in the late 1970s.
The Washington Post reported that, in November 1978, ‘Britain signalled its concern about the rapid deterioration [of conditions in Rhodesia] by informally proposing to Washington a joint emergency evacuation plan to airlift out the roughly 165 000 British passport-holders and the 2 000 Americans now in Rhodesia …’5 As Gerald Horne notes, perhaps thousands of US mercenaries flooded into Rhodesia to gain experience in fighting the communists. He writes that Robert Moore was ‘the mercenaries’ best friend’.6
Horne, citing The Rhodesia Herald, states that ‘both the John Birch Society and the American Nazi Party developed linkages in post-UDI Rhodesia’. Hence the need for a skeleton, hush-hush US presence in Rhodesia.
6
‘The doctored bodies are in the back’
On Sunday 5 March 1978, Sergeant Chris Pessarra was stationed in his dispatchers’ tent alongside the airstrip at Buffalo Range.1 It had drizzled in the early morning, but by 2:00 pm the temperature under an almost totally overcast, thunderheaded sky had soared to over 30oC and had burned most of the remaining moisture off the runway.2 At the end of the runway, two twin-prop Dakotas sat immobile, there having been no call-outs that day for parachute fire-force squads from the Rhodesian Light Infantry or Rhodesian African Rifles.
Two pilots, a civilian Air Rhodesia pilot completing his six weeks’ flying for the Air Force reserves as a para fire-force pilot and reporting to Pessarra, and Carlos da Silveira, a Portuguese pilot serving in the Rhodesian Air Force, were trying to cool their heels in the 60% humidity along with their co-pilots.3
Da Silveira, with his big black moustache and curly locks, was a renowned Dakota pilot. Once, on a mission to Zaka, Mozambique, to recover parachutists after a fire-force drop, heavy rains had created ‘a small lake’ in a large dip in the middle of the runway. According to an eyewitness account from Kevin Mulligan, Da Silveira faced a tough decision. If he waited for the water to drain away, he risked a possible mortar attack on the aircraft as an estimated 50 guerrillas were active in the area. In the end, he decided to risk taking off through the water.
‘As Carlos would only take an empty Dak, we all lined up to watch the take-off,’ Mulligan recalls. ‘He brought those Pratt and Whitneys up to full throttle, then stomped off the brakes and let her roll. She picked up speed, rolling downhill at a good lick until she hit the water. The aircraft disappeared in a huge burst of spray, staggered out of the other end like a wet dog, and then painfully slowly picked up speed again. The trees at the far end of the runway seemed very close as he finally pulled her up and swept over the top. Carlos dipped his wings to huge cheers from the stunned onlookers!’4
Back at Buffalo Range, Pessarra’s reverie was interrupted by the arrival at his tent of his old Legionnaire mate, Jean-Michel Desblé, who told him that the Scouts needed ‘five parachutes’.
‘Obviously, Jean and I have known each other a long time. I could tell by his demeanour that something was not correct,’ Pessarra recalled. ‘I simply asked him, “Jean, where’s the sit-rep [situation report] requirements for the five parachutes from [Air Force HQ at] New Sarum?” … and he said, “There’s none; just give them to us.” Well, obviously, this is … when the war was extremely heavy and during the day, the PJIs [parachute jump instructors] would put out the para fire-forces, the RLI or the RAR … Then, if there were ops going in – usually the SAS operated out of Buffalo Range and Recce operated at Buffalo Range where they would have their ops in the evening – they would fly another Dak down from New Sarum to take care of them, or the Dak used during the fire-force would take care of them if they had a relief pilot crew … So obviously this all goes through the FAF [operations] room, the base commander there, and I hadn’t received anything.’
This was critical, as PJIs had the responsibility for all parachute-related equipment – and the safety of the parachutists until the point at which they dropped out of the aircraft.
Pessarra continued: ‘So Jean says, “No, it’s supposed to be off the books.” Well, we had strict orders at that time … and obviously I wasn’t about to turn over five parachutes for them to disappear, especially to the Scouts, and get my ass in the crack. I knew Jean, and I knew obviously something was up. I told Jean I wouldn’t do it.’
About an hour later, at around 3:00 pm, Desblé showed up again, this time accompanied by base commander Major Bert Sachse. Pessarra also gave him short shrift: ‘Bert Sachse tried to browbeat me into releasing five parachutes and I very diplomatically told him to fuck off. He and I had words and he fucked off.’
Speaking to this author 32 years later, Sachse clearly had fond memories of Desblé, calling him ‘a specialist reconnaissance-type guy … one man by himself getting us information’, but remembered Da Silveira only as ‘a Portuguese pilot that flew for … 3 Squadron’. He claimed he could not recall Pessarra at all.5 Da Silveira had allegedly been approached by Sachse and Desblé earlier in the afternoon and, concerned with the irregularity of the demand for the chutes, went to speak to Pessarra who refused to hand over the parachutes without authorisation from New Sarum. ‘My main [para fire-force] pilot … came to me … and I said, “Look, what’s going on?” and he said, “Something’s going on, they’re not talking about it, they want five parachutes but they don’t want the PJI on board …”’
‘A lot of people go under very strange circumstances’
At about 4:40 pm, Pessarra saw two Land Rovers pull up near the Dakota at the far end of the airfield. About an hour later, he wandered down to take a closer look. ‘There was a covered Land Rover that had two Scouts in the front seat … they were commercial, full-covered Land Rovers … [in the other] there’s a Scout driver. And I saw Desblé walk over and in the front seat I recognised one of the American intelligence officers who was unofficial in Rhodesia at this time, his name is Davis; he was not well-known but he was well-known in the trade as the person who worked for the Christians [CIA] there, getting all the information, but he operated between Rhodesia, Zambia and South Africa. I knew – he had been pointed out to me by an American intelligence officer – that I was supposed to stay away from him; they did not want him to know of my presence, but I was supposed to be aware of his, which made me suspicious.
‘In the back right-hand seat,’ he claimed, ‘was [SADF medic Major Wouter] Basson, a guy with a beard, hell of a bit more hair, he looked like a German hunter out on safari; that’s my first impression of him. I was within about ten feet from him; they saw me, I saw them very clearly.’
Pessarra’s identification of Basson at Buffalo Range is deeply controversial. Basson and his legal counsel have consistently and strenuously denied he was ever in Southern Rhodesia, claiming he was not yet in the military but still studying medicine in South Africa at this time. However, Basson testified on 31 July 1991 before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) inquiry into the apartheid chemical and biological warfare programme that he had joined the SADF in January 1975, more than three years before the Buffalo Range incident.6
‘I have the MBChB, I obtained that in 1973. I have a master’s degree in Physiology and Biochemistry in 1978. I obtained MMed in 1980 … In January 1975, I joined the Defence Force,’ he stated before the TRC.
A former medic who wishes