The Search for Puma 164: Operation Uric and the Assault on Mapai, by Rick van Malsen and Neill Jackson

The Search for Puma 164: Operation Uric and the Assault on Mapai, by Rick van Malsen and Neill Jackson. 30° South Publishers (Pty) Ltd. Johannesburg, South Africa 2011. ISBN 9781920143572 / ISBN 978-1-920143-57-2

Rick van Malsen's and Neill Jackson's report The Search for Puma 164: Operation Uric and the Assault on Mapai is an emotional ride of sorrow, joy, tears, humbling accounts, real brothers-in-arms stuff, that puts you on scene in the Mozambican bush war of the 1979 and its remains of today.

Neill Jackson  Rick van Malsen  

[...] In November 2008, 29 years later, I was privileged to be invited to join Bob Manser's expedition in searching for the crash site of Ian Donaldson's Canberra bomber, lost over the Malvernia area in January 1977. I had come across the wreck of the Canberra in November of the same year while scurrying back to Rhodesia with a large group of Frelimo hot on our heels. My eight-man callsign had just laid a landmine on a bend in the Malvernia-Mapai road, and we were busy ambushing the position when a vulnerable-looking group of four FPLM soldiers came strolling casually around the corner. Only after engaging this group did we discover that they were merely the advance scouts for a much larger group of about 60 heavily armed Frelimo soldiers, who immediately set off in pursuit of our rapidly withdrawing callsign. They chased us the entire 20-odd kilometres back to the Rhodesian border, and it was during this escape and evasion exercise that we literally stumbled across the wreck of the Canberra. I immediately recognized it for what it was, but was wary of approaching too closely for fear of setting off any possible booby traps, or any of the bright-orange, unexploded Alpha bombs littered about the area. The aircraft was still virtually intact at the time, but there was no sign of any bodies. We continued our hasty withdrawal, and on our return to the JOC at Buffalo Range, I reported my find to the senior air force personnel at the base. For some reason, possibly because of the hectic pace of the war at that stage, no one seemed very keen to do anything about visiting the crash site. In 2008, when I heard about Bob Manser's intention to search for this Canberra crash site, I contacted him and told him my story, and said that I felt I would be able to locate the site again, despite the passing of 29-odd years. Bob obviously felt that my local knowledge would be an asset, and invited me to join his search team. As it turned out, my estimation of the position of the wreck was only about 150 metres out. However, in the intervening years, much of the wreckage of the aircraft had been removed and sold to scrap dealers, so much so, that without the willing assistance of the local population, it would have been well nigh impossible to locate the exact crash site in the limited time we had available. It became plainly obvious during the search that the local police, Frelimo militia and Mozambican civilians were more than willing to assist in the location of these war-grave sites, and bore absolutely no malice toward us, their former adversaries. It was then that I realized that it would indeed be possible to honour the pledge I had made in 1979 to return to the Mapai area in an attempt to find the last resting place of the soldiers and airmen who had so tragically lost their lives on 6 September 1979. And so the stage was set, and I began to plan for the search that would ultimately lead to the discovery of the crash site and the marking of the war graves of those brave men lost during Operation Uric. [...]

This is an excerpt from The Search for Puma 164: Operation Uric and the Assault on Mapai, by Rick van Malsen and Neill Jackson.

Title: The Search for Puma 164
Subtitle: Operation Uric and the Assault on Mapai
Authors: Rick van Malsen; Neill Jackson
Genre: Military History
Publisher: 30° South Publishers (Pty) Ltd.
Johannesburg, South Africa 2011
ISBN 9781920143572 / ISBN 978-1-920143-57-2
Softcover, 15 x 23 cm, 400 pages, 200 colour & b/w photos, sketches, map