Operation Noah

From Great North Road

Tony Bruce during Operation Noah.

This article was written and the photographs provided for the GNR by Tony Bruce, author of the books The East Wind, To Taunt a Wounded Tiger, A Lie to Comfort the Dying and The Gatekeeper of Lies, all of which are available at his Web site, Glendambo Publishing. Tony writes: "It's been such a long time, yet some things stick in the mind as if they happened yesterday. Others, mainly small details, are blurred and you'll have to accept that I can stand corrected on the odd detail." (Article written June 2002.)

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Memories of "Operation Noah": 1959

Flooding of an island during Operation Noah.

At the time "Operation Noah" began I was a member of the Game Preservation and Hunting Association of Northern Rhodesia (a title I still consider a great oxymoron). At a monthly meeting of the GP&HA a call for volunteers from our branch was discussed. As I was the youngest by at least 30 years all eyes turned in my direction and, as I was both a coward and desperately wanted to impress this group of older men (many who were WW2 veterans), I swallowed hard and agreed to go. I convinced a friend from schooldays, Johnny Woodlands (who still lives, I've heard, in Chingola), to join me. We set off in John's Opel Sedan and drove the 300+ miles to the Government offices in Lusaka. Here we had to sign a release form, promising not to hold the Queen (that meant anyone in NRG) accountable for our deaths and agreeing to have the recovery and transport of our corpses paid out of our bank accounts. Such were the times!

After driving to Kariba we met Tad Edelman, the game ranger in charge of rescue operations on the Northern shore of the rapidly-rising lake. At this time the dam was not fully completed, and we crossed to the Southern side by a road suspension bridge across the gorge below the dam. The town of Kariba was populated mainly by Italian workers from the firm Impresit, and clashes on a Saturday night at the dance hall when we came into Kariba to unwind were frequent. I cannot remember if we followed Tad's Land Rover down to the Nahoon river camp in the Zambezi Valley, or if we all piled into the Land Rover -- I suspect the latter, for the road was barely a bush track and seemed to go on forever. One of our tasks every couple of days was to take a group of axe-wielding game guards to cut up trees pushed down over the road by elephants crossing on their way to drink at the lake. It was almost if the elephants were punishing us for putting the road in.

The days were long. Often up before dawn, we had breakfast and were on the water by 7:00 am. Tad and Tom Philips (perhaps Phillips), the other game ranger, would make a plan (usually the night before) of which islands were the most important to clear. They used topographical maps supplied by the NRG Land Survey Office. The Northern operation had two large, welded metal, open boats powered by twin outboard motors (memory says they were Mercury 25 HP outboards, but I cannot be certain), and a fast, wooden-hulled smaller runabout (called the "Ndege" or "Ndeke") that Tad and Hans van Schreven, the junior ranger, used as a control boat. Approaching the selected island we pushed through the tangle of half-submerged trees poking through the water, the branches of which snagged boats and clothing causing much cursing.

Warthog.

Once ashore the stop group, which included John, myself and a large group of game guards carrying the capture nets, would spread out across as much of the middle of the island as possible. We hung the nets, made of nylon stockings, braided and tied into a 4-inch mesh 30 feet (or longer) long and 8-10 feet high, on trees. The nets fell, curtain like, across the area selected and were joined side to side. Our stop group then took up positions behind the nets hiding in bushes as best as possible. The drive group with Tad, Tom or Hans and a few game guards with rifles and thunder flashes would take one boat and go to the point farthest away from the nets.

Tad's group then came ashore making a hell of a racket, driving the terrified game towards where we waited. We could hear the game crashing towards us, for most of the islands were fairly small. This was the time of greatest tension, for anything could be coming at us. It usually turned out our catch was impala, bushbuck, kudu, warthog and a variety of smaller antelopes. The method of capture was straightforward: The nets had been camouflaged and the animals saw them too late to stop and ploughed straight in. This was our cue to leap out from the hiding places and pull the nets down over the animals if the nets had not already fallen. Holding the animal down under the net, a game guard quickly wrapped a nylon-stocking rope around the front and back legs before we untangled ourselves and the animal from the net. Once tied, the animals were hurried to the boats and loaded until the gunwales were almost awash. The reason for speed was to minimise shock -- the longer the animal was tied, the greater the risk of death.

Kudu corpse floating in Lake Kariba.

The loaded boats set off for the mainland and, on arrival, stood off about 50 feet from the shore. Each animal was then swung over the side, the ties holding their legs immobile pulled loose, and the animal dropped into the water. As they'd seen the shore they usually swam strongly into the shallows and raced off into the surrounding bush. I say "usually", for we had the odd beast that was determined to go in the opposite direction and we had to turn the boats and herd them like cattle in the right direction. On one occasion a bloody-minded zebra, having been shepherded swimming with some bigger animals across, kept trying to bite chunks out of the boat. The zebra ended up having a noose put around its neck and towed into deeper water until exhausted, and then brought back to the shallows were it stumbled ashore. Every minute counted as the water rose feet every day, and we were sometimes too late as islands sank beneath the rising water and all we found were floating corpses. (See the kudu photo.)

One evening, after a long day, we were sitting in a circle around the campfire. That day on one of the afternoon clearings we'd snagged too many antelope to transport as quickly as desired, and by the time we got to the last batch one female bushbuck (on release from the boat) simply sank beneath the water and had to be rescued. We brought her back into the boat, wrapped her in blankets and, as the light was fading, returned to camp. We laid the bushbuck under a tree and forgot it was there. Now as we sat drinking our coffee getting ready to turn in for the night the bushbuck staggered to her feet. In the guttering light of the campfire and pressure lamps hung on trees, we watched in silence as she walked, unsteadily at first then more surely, around the ring of sitting game rangers and volunteers. She made three turns around the circle, moving slowly and without fear with the grace only great ballet dancers or beautiful animals have. Finally she turned into the darkness and disappeared from view. Tad Edelman, the chief game ranger and an unsentimental man, let out a long breath, making us all realise that we too had been holding ours. "She was thanking us -- my God -- she was thanking us," he said unbelievingly.

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