Forward Deployment
The decision to deploy the Monitoring Force was made on 24 December 1979, and the forward deployment took place over the next three days with the Ceasefire coming into effect at 2359 + 1, on 28 December. This was an extremely tense time as no one knew how the communist guerillas in the operational areas might act. Perhaps fortunately for the Monitoring Force, the world at large was starved for news coverage and a great many reporters were in Rhodesia. They were spread widely throughout the country, and their efforts tended to keep everyone honest. During the forward deploment phase the weather was atrocious and RAF aircrew flew missions that would never have been authorised under normal circumstances. There were a number of contacts during this phase of the operation, including: A Rhodesian Escort AFV (Crocodile) was destroyed by a mine near Bulawayo, an RAF Puma helicopter crashed killing the 3-man aircrew, a Hercules aircraft was shot up by small arms fire near Umtali, and an RV Team was ambushed in the Zambezi Valley but escaped without casualties.
Read more about this topic: Operation Midford