The Port Harcourt Volunteer

For once, I decided to use my 'number six' and see how I could protect myself and my remaining soldiers. Overnight, we had dug trenches. To satisfy the commanders who insisted that the onslaught must continue, I asked my troops to raise their guns and fire in the air without making any move. The idea was that the commanders in the rear would hear the sound of our guns and conclude that we were engaged in battle. That I hoped would satisfy them while I kept my remaining soldiers alive. We had been in the sector for about three weeks and we had sustained the battle every single day since. I had lost my battalion commander and my company commander amongst several officers and men. We had inflicted some injury on the Nigerian troops as well and we had gained some grounds. But I had become weary and fatigued. So we relaxed in the trenches and kept firing into the air.

We did that for a whole day. The next morning, we resumed. Somewhere about mid-morning, I got tired of this game. It was not in my character to play these kinds of games. I ordered my troops to stop shooting and wasting bullets. I got together a select platoon of soldiers and decided to go on a fire fighting expedition from the right flank.

From our last frontal assault that ended in the great losses, we knew the exact location of the Nigerian troops. So we went as close as we could from the right, in a formation that extended behind their deployment. We opened a flurry of rapid fire. What happened next astonished me beyond measure!

As we maintained fire in what was basically a harassing attack from the flank, the Nigerian troops jumped out from their trenches and began to run back. One after another, they jumped out and headed back ostensibly to their next line of defence. I sensed a vulnerability that we could explore. I moved this platoon quickly back to the rest of the team in the trenches and roused them. We began a hot chase of the Nigerian soldiers who because of the rapidity of our fire and chase, jumped over their second line of defense and continued the flight till they got to Ngwa High School on the Aba-Owerri road. By this time, the news of the 'cave in' of the Nigerian troops in our front had reached the brigade headquarters and tons of reinforcement followed. Troops from the surrounding locations in the sector who hitherto were either taking it easy or had similar difficulty penetrating their fronts, all joined and in a matter of hours, we had covered over seven kilometres. It was unbelievable! How could this happen? From the benefit of hindsight, it can be deduced that the troops on the Nigerian side had been 'softened' by the six months of inactivity on the front when they engaged in trading with Biafran troops in an unwritten truce. When we arrived and began the onslaught, they were taken aback, but the consistent 3-weeks of onslaught had put so much pressure on them from all sides. Our fire fight from the flank which went behind them was the last straw, I believe. They panicked, presuming we were in a bid to cut them off. They must have decided to make a tactical withdrawal to their second line of defense but our hot chase gave them no chance, as we were on their backs, and they got completely disorganized and fled, leaving behind plenty of equipment, ammunition and stores.

We got to Ngwa high School and had the temptation to halt but I decided against it. I was already thinking of their counter attack and knew that Ngwa High school like the Enugu Campus of the University of Nigeria was fully well mapped and on the radar. I convinced everybody, including my superior officers who had gathered to join a 'winning team', that we must push further and deploy completely outside the precincts of Ngwa High School...