continued from http://www.dawodu.com/omoigui28.htm
By
Nowa Omoigui
OWERRI, 1969 - PART 6
LIFE IN THE 16th BRIGADE UNDER SIEGE
“The rebels knew that we were helpless because
the main route that we used from Port Harcourt to Owerri was blocked totally and
there was no way to go in or come out. Whenever morning came as we would sit
praying, the next thing we would hear was the noise of airplanes bringing cargo
to Ojukwu and soon as that was done, throughout that night the whole area would
be on fire; bombing everywhere.“
Given this degree of sequestration, therefore, the
only option available to 3MCDO HQ and AHQ was to resupply the beleaguered
Brigade by air. In aerial logistics jargon, this is known as a “tactical
airlift in support of an isolated land battle area.” Without water,
ammunition, food rations, fuel, blankets, medical supplies, tents, spare parts
and other equipment etc, no fighting unit can sustain morale, nor remain
cohesive and effective for long.
There is some
disagreement about the duration of the Owerri air resupply effort. A one-time
Nigerian Chief of Air Staff, the late Air Marshall Ibrahim Alfa claimed the
effort actually lasted for four months while Army sources claim it lasted for
six weeks. Clearly, therefore, for at least six long weeks, inclusive of
the period from March 14th and continuing until April 19th
1969, air resupply was the method by which the 16th Brigade of 3MCDO
was logistically supported while under Biafran siege. Even then, there were
complications.
Explaining
how it all began, Colonel Etuk said:
“I got in touch with Adekunle and informed him
that things were really bad. He told me to find a location for drops and to let
him know. I never knew that as we were discussing, the rebels were picking the
message. So when that time came I told him I was going into the war zone and
that there was going to be a big flame at so and so time and at so and so point.
Of course, the rebels had got [the entire] message. Before that time the rebels
had gone down and prepared a big flame. Adekunle rang me and said his pilot had
taken off [from Port Harcourt] with all the goodies for my troops.
The poor pilot sighted that first lighting
point and dropped everything there while I sat waiting because I heard the plane
when it took off hovering around. The pilot must have been a stupid man for I
don’t know whether he couldn’t read his map to know exactly where I told my
Divisional Commander things should be dropped. The whole stock was released to
the rebels.
When I got back to the radio and then called
Adekunle and said I have not seen anything, he said, “You bastard son of a
bitch, do you think you are the only commander I have?” The pilot went back and
told him that he had delivered the goods and he said the pilot was there by him
and he claimed to have dropped everything. Of course I replied that I saw
nothing. That was the beginning of my woes, no supplies.”
What the barely four year old Nigerian Air Force (NAF)
was attempting to do at Owerri in 1969 was the resupply, by airdrop under
potential hostile fire, of an army infantry brigade of about 2,000 - 3,000 men –
whose numbers dropped as casualties mounted. It is not as simple as it might
appear on the surface.
The field of modern aerial logistics has its major
doctrinal roots in western allied experiences gained during the aerial resupply
of isolated Chinese and American troops fighting in Burma and China during World
War 2 on the one hand and the ‘Berlin Airlift’ of 1948 on the other. In the
case of the former, military cargo planes had to fly from the Assam Valley in
India, hop over the so called “Hump” of the Himalayan Mountains and then deliver
supplies to Burma and China.
However, lessons learnt from
tactical airlift operations during the
Soviet siege of the German Sixth Army at Stalingrad (1942-43), the siege by
General Giap’s Viet Minh of French troops at Dien Bien Phu (1954), and the
communist siege of US Marines at Khe Sanh (1968), better illustrate the
main difficulties.
At Stalingrad,
250,000 German soldiers were surrounded.
At Dien Bien Phu, a 16,500 man French garrison was encircled. At Khe Sanh,
about 7000 marines were bottled up. In each of these cases, the airlift
effort lasted for 60, 55, and 77 days respectively. An important distinguishing
feature, however, was that in each case there was initially an available
re-supply airfield into which aircraft could fly – under hostile fire – and
offload supplies. At Khe Sanh, (which required
235 tons per day)
this was accomplished to a large degree that helped assure the
survival of the besieged units until they were relieved. Viet Minh artillery,
however, put the airfield at Dien Bien Phu, out of action very quickly, forcing
the French to rely on aerial para-drops – which makes the Dien Bien Phu
experience similar in some respects to what happened at Owerri. At Stalingrad
(which required 500 - 750 tons of supplies
per day) and Dien Bien Phu (which required
200 tons of supplies per day) the
effort failed. Khe Sanh was a partial success, in part because of the
withdrawal of the North Vietnamese Army, once the likely diversionary purpose of
the siege of Khe Sanh - to distract attention from the Viet Cong Tet Offensive -
had been accomplished. Importantly, however, the besieged Marines received
more tonnage of supplies than they actually
required before eventually being relieved by the 1st US Cavalry
Division during Operation Pegasus.
Be that as it may, to start with, no aerial
resupply effort can proceed without appropriate quantities and quality of
aircraft. Such aircraft include not just transport aircraft equipped to do the
job, flown by trained pilots in reasonably good weather and free from competing
obligations, but fighter escorts to protect against intercepting opposing
aircraft and bombers to suppress opposing anti-aircraft ground fire. Such
transport aircraft would need airfields to fly into, or possess the equipment
and skills for low-altitude parachute extraction, ground proximity extraction,
or para-drops of usually aluminium-based cargo pallets. To ensure a high
delivery/requirement ratio that in turn assures the appropriate tonnage per
soldier ratio, such para-dropped cargo pallets should land within designated
drop zones, preferably as close as possible to the desired combat impact zone.
When, however, the civil war began in 1967, the
NAF had only three aircraft types, namely, a few piston engine Piaggio P.149D
trainer/liaison/utility and Dornier DO-27A general purpose light transport
planes, along with some light Alouette Helicopters. When the first wartime
forward operational base was established at Makurdi under then Captain John Yisa
Doko, the inventory expanded to include not only a few Jet Provosts handed down
from Sudan and Egypt, but also two Douglas DC-3 twin-engine 21-passenger
aircraft acquired from the Nigerian Airways.
The DC-3 (and its various versions) was also known
as the Dakota, and is arguably one of the most successful and resilient aircraft
ever built. It was not seeing combat for the first time, nor was it new to
military airlift (when appropriately modified as the C-47). By 1967 it had
already seen action during the Second World War, Berlin airlift, Korean and
Vietnam Wars. The military version could accommodate 28 fully armed soldiers,
7500 pounds of cargo or 18 stretchers for casualties. Fully loaded, however,
the civilian version could carry no more than 6000 pounds of cargo.
Just as Biafran engineers had done with an old
DC-3 in their possession, NAF engineers refitted the NAF DC-3s to carry bombs
and machine guns. In addition, they were used for casualty evacuation. When
additional forward operational bases were opened at Calabar, Benin and Lagos,
the DC-3s were moved to Enugu, while subsequently acquired long range and larger
DC-4s were later based in Lagos. The DC-3s saw action over the strategic
Biafran Uli-Ihiala airstrip. They were used for nighttime high-altitude combat
air patrol, waiting patiently in holding pattern high in the clouds for relief
aircraft to arrive below. When the runway lights were briefly turned on for
incoming relief and gunrunning planes, the DC-3 would swoop down to destroy the
runway. Eleven relief aircraft were destroyed and 21 relief aircraft pilots
killed at Uli-Ihiala in this manner. In time to come, however, one of the
“Ihiala” DC-3s was redeployed to Port-Harcourt to perform tactical airlift
support for the besieged 16th Brigade at Owerri. Meanwhile, fighter
jets and bombers bombed the besieging Biafran forces.
Experience gained at Stalingrad, Dien Bien Phu and
Khe Sanh suggests that required resupply tonnage per soldier ranged from about 5
pounds per day per soldier at Stalingrad to 60 pounds per day per soldier at Khe
Sanh. During the siege of Dien Bien Phu the calculated requirement was 25 pounds
per day per French soldier. The intensity of combat, weather, terrain and the
degree of mechanization of the besieged troops account for the differences.
Using this range, and assuming the resupply of 2000 soldiers, it would have
required at least 10000 pounds and as much as 120,000 pounds
per day of accurate airdrops sustained over several months to keep the 16th
Brigade in full combat mode. With one DC-3 unable to lift more than 6000 pounds
of cargo, this would have meant 2 – 20 round-trip flights every day
in and out of potentially hostile Owerri airspace per DC-3. And Nigeria had
only two DC-3s in its inventory. This illustrative calculation shows how
potentially awesome the task was, even if drops were accurate. The projection
outlined does not even factor in the psychological effect on besieged front-line
troops knowing that they had no option for the evacuation of serious casualties.
I commented earlier that the experience of Dien
Bien Phu was relevant to Owerri. One reason is that of the three classical
examples mentioned, it was only at Dien Bien Phu that supplies and
reinforcements had to be exclusively delivered by parachute once the resupply
airstrip was destroyed by General Giap’s guerillas. The second reason for the
importance of the Dien Bien Phu experience is that the aircraft type that was
most often used for aerial resupply was the C-47, which is the military variant
of the DC-3. Because of the inverse relationship between the altitude at which
a cargo load is dropped and its degree of dispersion, particularly when
crosswinds are strong, French practice was to release cargo at low altitude,
from 2500 feet. However, as opposing anti-aircraft artillery fire became more
violent and effective, the drop height was adjusted upwards, first to 6000 feet,
and then to 8,500 feet. The effect of these high-altitude drops, as can be
surmised, was that over half of the supplies meant for the French garrison
drifted outside the drop zone into grateful Viet Minh hands. They then
proceeded, not only to eat the food rations and enjoy the blankets, but to load
high caliber artillery rounds supplied by the French Air Force into their field
guns and use them with devastating effect against the French garrison.
As Colonel Etuk (rtd) said, and Generals Oluleye
and Madiebo (among others) have documented, Biafran units took custody of well
over 50% of the para-dropped supplies meant for the 16th Brigade
during the siege of Owerri. Air Marshall Alfa supports Etuk’s opinion that this
was the result of inexperience on the part of federal pilots. But Alfa also
goes further to blame high-altitude drops and lack of operational coordination
between the Army and Air Force. According to him,
“The Air Force was faced with a lot of
difficulties in convincing some Army Field Commanders of the need for joint
planning and briefing, in that some Army Field Commanders who had little or no
knowledge of air operations were impervious to useful operational suggestions
from the relatively young NAF Commanders. This action often resulted in crises
of confidence which disrupted the smooth operation of the war.”
However, in addition, based on what we now know,
the guile of Biafran officers, logistic requirements of the besieging Biafran
units, and limited ability of the besieged Brigade
to support airdrop operations in an
increasingly small drop zone must be factored in. Until towards the very
end, although unaware at that time, NAF pilots tasked with the resupply of the
16th Brigade had no need to fly at high altitude because Biafran
anti-aircraft units – fully aware of their flight times and drop arrangements -
had no intention of shooting them down. Neither, even if they wanted, at that
stage of the war, was there any effective Biafran air combat or interceptor
capability. The devastating ground attack of Count Von Rosen’s MFI-9B ‘miniCOIN’
aircraft against Port-Harcourt airport during “Operation Biafra Babies” took
place on May 22nd – well after the Owerri situation had resolved
itself. Thus, maintenance of air-superiority – which is always a big concern
for military transports – was not in the picture. Airlift distance was not a
problem for federal pilots either. The airlift distance from Port-Harcourt to
Owerri was only about 40 miles. The flight from Enugu was just over 60 miles.
There is no record of Biafran commandos attempting to sabotage federal airfields
from which DC-3s were taking off for Owerri, as occurred during the siege of
Dien Bien Phu. Viet Minh commandos immobilized over 70 French transport planes
on the ground at the Cat Bi and Gia airfields to undermine tactical air resupply
of the beleaguered French garrison.
Instead, the Biafrans made arrangements to collect
from the DC-3 overflights at Owerri what they had been denied by DC-3 airfield
denial attacks at Uli-Ihiala. According to Madiebo,
“After two months of daily promises of a link-up
by Port Harcourt had failed, the enemy resorted to air dropping of ammunition
and food. What was left under enemy control in Owerri was so small that most of
what was dropped fell into Biafran hands. Any Biafran unit around Owerri which
wanted something dropped for it by the enemy, only needed to clear a bit of
bush, spread a white sheet of cloth over the clearing, and he would get a drop.
Unfortunately, due to the gross inefficiency of the enemy air-drop operations,
the very large quantity of ammunition we acquired through it was almost all
damaged and therefore useless to the Army. Gunpowder was however laboriously
extracted from the damaged ammunition for use by the BOFF and other civil
defence organisations. As a result of enemy air drops, the 14 Division was for
some time fairly well fed and thus became fitter for its operations.“
This situation was obviously frustratingly evident
to the men of the 16th Brigade. According to Colonel Etuk (rtd),
“They [NAF] used passenger aircraft to be dropping
things – so you come and see another line of battle – when this plane started
coming and hovering around town, the rebels were waiting – when they knew that
the plane was there they would be waiting for any drop that came – so it was a
battle for my troops to be able to collect these things and for the rebels to –
so it was cross-fire. So this thing continued and continued; each time the
plane took off [from Port Harcourt] everybody was ready. At times the pilot
would come but because of the firing from the rebels he would go back with all
the cargo. He couldn’t come down nor could he even go within the level at which
he should drop these things.”
The interesting thing about this scenario is that
at no time were the NAF resupply DC-3s accompanied by NAF bombers.
Tactical airdrops – usually launched in response to requests from the Divisional
Commander - occurred independently of close air-support and ground-attack
missions, which took place at other times!
Quite apart from the drama of airdrops, life in
the 16th Brigade under siege provided an opportunity to become
intimately familiar with the mettle of opposing Biafran troops. According to
Colonel Etuk (rtd),
“They [Biafrans] were more determined than the
Federal troops from my own assessment because as a field commander certain times
you move and think it was just going to be a child’s play but by the time you
get there you’ll be faced with a different situation [sic] entirely. You may,
for example, reach a point where you’ll have to dislodge three rebels. [Then]
at a point you realize [sic] that you have put up a strong battle to dislodge
them.
What about the woman who had always been
threatening my troops, a female Captain! So a number of times my boys will
come and say as soon as this woman comes she will stand just on the road like
that and with her walking stick as soon as she surfaces she will say, “Biafra
Kwenu! Biafra Kwenu!” They will follow up.
So one day, one Fulani boy came to me and said,
“Oga, Walahi! Talahi! Zai kacheta” meaning, “I will kill her.” I asked him how
he was going to do that. So when she came and started doing all that the boy
just kept quiet. He took [sic] only one round. He dropped it on the ground and
sharpened it, squeezed the sand off, tucked it in, aimed at her – because each
time she came she would do that [and] the boys would run away. The boy aimed
and got her right there and by the time we went to and recover the body – Oh! My
God! That is why I said the rebels were determined. For us to succeed in
getting this woman it was a tug of war. The rebels refused to let us carry this
woman.”
THE 16th BRIGADE’S BREAKOUT FROM
ENCIRCLEMENT