Operation Mars (Portugal)

Operation Mars was a military operation in the Mozambican War of Independence. The operation consisted of an attack to the Provincial Base Gungunhana, in the region of Niassa, carried out in April of 1968, by the 4th Company of Commandos.

This operation originates in an earlier one, Operation Corvo III, in which information was obtained on the location of that base, and on a meeting that would take place there with Frelimo military leaders in Niassa. In total secrecy, Operation Mars was organised whose aim was to surprise these leaders.

In all, the force of attack was constituted by three groups of commandos of 19 men and a group of militias with 26 men. These men followed by air to New Coimbra, arriving on 27 March. They left on the following day, on foot, and arrived on the 1st April near Gungunhana Provincial Base; on that same day, two aircraft, one Do 27 and one T-6, departed from Vila Cabral, to bombard the base. After conquering the objective, and of seizing diverse material of war, the commandos returned to the base, on the 10th April. In terms of victims of the operation, 22 guerrillas were killed; on the Portuguese side one soldier was killed, an officer killed by a mine.