Lieutenant-General Peter Walls
Lieutenant-General Peter Walls, who has died aged 83, was the last commander of Ian Smith's Rhodesian armed forces; his otherwise distinguished military career ended in humiliation when he became involved in the political turmoil that surrounded Robert Mugabe's accession to power in Zimbabwe in 1980.
Last commander of Ian Smith’s Rhodesian armed forces who fought against Robert Mugabe before Zimbabwean independence in 1980
In March 1980 Lieutenant-General Peter Walls, the commander of the Rhodesian security forces, considered overthrowing the newly elected Robert Mugabe and launching an all-out assault on his guerrilla forces. Had he given the order, it would probably have provoked a racial bloodbath on a scale not seen in Africa, as he later admitted. Instead he called off the attack, embraced the new black prime minister, and became a critical factor in the astonishingly peaceful transition from white-ruled Rhodesia to Zimbabwe under a man who days before was regarded as a Marxist thug.
Walls was a natural leader, seen as a warrior hero with the common touch and a knack for blunt honesty that made him perhaps even more popular and influential with Rhodesian whites than Ian Smith, the Prime Minister.
Probably no other counter-insurgency campaign in modern times has proved as successful as that employed by the Rhodesians under Walls and his highly capable commanders. The military was able to absorb massive guerrilla incursions so that they were largely unable to impinge on the economy or on the lives of most people.
Walls was politically ahead of his time. He never conceded that the war could end the country’s political problems, and constantly reminded Smith and the white Rhodesian public that they would have to reach a settlement with the black nationalist movements.
George Peter Walls was born in Salisbury (now Harare), Rhodesia, in 1926. His father, Reginald, was a First World War pilot. After secondary school he went to Britain to join the Black Watch and secured a commission but returned home in 1948, eager to join the growing Rhodesian Army, even though it meant a drop to the rank of corporal.
From the start he was recognised as an outstanding officer. In 1950, aged 24, he was charged with raising and training C Squadron, which was made up exclusively of Rhodesians, of the Special Air Services, just resurrected to fight the communist insurgency in Malaya. The operations served as a springboard for new techniques in counter-insurgency warfare. Walls left after two years and was appointed MBE.
After a year at Camberley Staff College, he was promoted to lieutenant-colonel and in 1964 was given his defining role, the commander at its inception of the Rhodesian Light Infantry, a large, bush-canny commando assault force that was to become one of the most formidable units in the war.
It was a prescient strategy. The winds of change were whistling round white-ruled Rhodesia and with them the threat of armed struggle against such rule. Smith was determined to resist them all and UDI (the unilateral declaration of independence from Britain) was imminent. Walls flaunted his political views by getting his troops to wear paper hats at Christmas dinner with the words, RLI for UDI.
With UDI a reality a year later, Walls and the RLI were deployed on Rhodesia’s northern borders in readiness for a possible British military attack launched from Nairobi, It never came, but there were a number of clumsy incursions by poorly trained nationalist guerrillas during the next seven years that were easily dispatched by the Rhodesian forces.
Then, in December 1972, Walls had just been appointed army commander when guerrillas attacked Altena farm in northeast Rhodesia with rockets and automatic fire, and left landmines in the driveway that blew up police vehicles responding to calls for help. It signalled the start of the war in earnest.
However, tribespeople who in the past had obligingly passed on to authorities where terrorists were hiding were silent and fearful; the guerrillas had adopted a Maoist guerrilla strategy of brutal intimidation.
Walls codenamed the vast north-east corner of the country Operation Hurricane. Security forces struck at guerrillas with fire-force operations, helicopter-borne troops laying siege to guerrilla emplacements and blitzing them from ground and air, one of the most successful stratagems of the war. At the same time, detachments were secretly deployed across the border into Mozambique to strike at guerrilla incursion routes and their camps. By the end of 1974 there were a few dozen guerrillas in Hurricane, and the end of the insurgency was in sight.
But then a military coup in Portugal led to the rapid withdrawal of all Portuguese colonial forces from Mozambique, leaving Rhodesia’s 1,000km eastern border with that country wide open. At the same time the South African Prime Minister, John Vorster, had pulled the reluctant Smith into his initiative of detente with black Africa. The terms were the release of all political prisoners and a ceasefire.
Guerrillas poured in by the thousand, and Vorster’s attempt to bring Smith and the black nationalists to a settlement withered. By the time the ceasefire had fallen away, Walls admitted that the whole country was an operational area, and that not a day passed without Rhodesian forces operating in neighbouring countries.
In 1977 Smith unified all military and paramilitary forces as Combined Operations (COMOPS) with Walls in overall command to try to hold off the increase in incursions and attacks that were reaching toward the cities.
In February 1979 guerrillas shot down with a SAM7 missile a civilian Air Rhodesia Viscount aircraft on its way from Kariba to Salisbury, killing all 59 on board. Walls and his wife, Eunice, were booked on the next flight out of Kariba, 15 minutes later. Joshua Nkomo, Mugabe’s partner in the Patriotic Front guerrilla alliance, said the missile had been intended for Walls.
The same year, the short-lived internal settlement came into being between Smith, Bishop Abel Muzorewa (obituary, April 10, 2010) and a number of other nationalists labelled as stooges by Mugabe and Nkomo.
After a surprisingly peaceful election with an even more surprisingly big turnout for Muzorewa, Walls warned that the success of the poll had given rise to a mood of elation that was unjustified:large numbers of terrorists were still entering the country and there was still a need for a political settlement.
October brought the Thatcher Government’s settlement bid at Lancaster House. After three months Mugabe was the last to accept, under pressure from the President of Mozambique, Samora Machel. Relief for Walls from the negotiations came once with high tea for him and Eunice with the late Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother.
Walls had had his forces strike so deep inside Mozambique and Zambia, wrecking bridges, power lines, irrigation schemes, railway lines and communications installations, that neither country could tolerate further destruction. No longer could they afford to host the armies of Mugabe and Nkomo.
Elections were set for late February 1980. The Rhodesians, as well as British, US and Russian intelligence, were convinced that Mugabe would not get enough votes to outnumber Nkomo and Muzorewa, who would then form a government of national unity. Not long into the poll, the extent of the brutal tactics used by Mugabe’s guerrillas became apparent, and as the count began, showed itself in the overwhelming piles of votes for Mugabe in the counting stations.
Stunned, Walls on March 2 held a meeting with two senior Foreign Office officials, Sir Anthony Duff and Robin Renwick, demanding that the British order the elections to be set aside because of the rampant intimidation by Mugabe’s guerrillas. The officials said that there was nothing they could do and left the meeting convinced that Walls was about to carry out a coup d’état. They were aware of a massive Rhodesian troop deployment that had quietly taken place across the country, backed by aircraft and helicopters primed to hit the assembly points where about 50,000 guerrillas were massed. That night the small and lightly armed British contingent in the country were put on high alert.
Without consulting anyone, Walls sent a message to Margaret Thatcher demanding that she abrogate the election. If she did not, he said, he would reserve the right to act in the manner he thought best. Thatcher refused, in terms that have never been made public. Walls was under extreme pressure, especially from Smith, to give the signal. Instead, a few hours later, Rhodesian television broadcast live Lord Soames, the British Governor, pleading for calm, and an extraordinary address by Mugabe speaking of turning swords into ploughshares.
There was also Walls. Speaking off the cuff, he warned people to keep their nerve and a cool head, and to obey the law so that there was no threat to life or property. Anyone who stepped out of line would be dealt with effectively. The moment of danger had passed.
Shortly afterwards he and other Rhodesian service chiefs drove in convoy to Mugabe’s temporary suburban house, which had been attacked the night before, and pledged their loyalty to him. He responded warmly and soon established the Zimbabwe National High Command, comprising the top officers of the Rhodesians, Mugabe’s ZANLA and Nkomo’s ZIPRA. He appointed Walls to head it, to amalgamate the three forces.
Walls said that he had “a bloody good rapport” with the guerrilla chiefs. He and Mugabe enjoyed each other’s company and he described the new Prime Minister as the most effective of all the defence ministers he had ever worked with in Rhodesia.
The friendship ended on the eve of his retirement in late July 1980, after Walls told the BBC in an interview of his appeal to Mrs Thatcher to stop Mugabe from winning the election. Mugabe’s response was to have parliament draft a law of enforced exile, with Walls its only subject.
Deeply distressed at having to leave his country, Walls moved to South Africa, keeping well away from the public eye. He had a couple of unsuccessful business ventures and then retired, he and Eunice struggling to make ends meet in a small apartment. He made one appeal to return home for a family event, but it fell on deaf ears.
He is survived by his wife, and by four children from his first marriage.