[3] Having been alerted to the de Borchgraves' new location through sympathetic farmworkers, guerrillas from the original cadre requested permission from ZANLA to carry out another attack.

News of the second attack reached Second Lieutenant Ian Buttenshaw and Sachse around midnight, and they deployed immediately, but having discovered a mine near Altena they disembarked from the vehicles 1 kilometre (0.62 mi) from Whistlefield and made the final approach on foot.

The tracks of the ZANLA fighters were discovered on 27 December on the western side of the farm and the trackers asked Buttenshaw and Sachse to bring the vehicles carrying the heavy equipment around to meet them.

In their haste, Nhongo's cadres had not attempted to conceal their tracks as they headed west, towards the Musengezi river—Buttenshaw's pursuant RLI men, therefore, realised how quickly the guerrillas were moving and sped up their chase.

Soon after setting out that morning, they discovered an unarmed, wounded ZANLA fighter who had been shot in the arm by the SAS in the initial contact two days earlier.

[6] The effectiveness of ZANLA's adopted Maoist tactics was demonstrated in particular by the element of surprise they were now able to use against the security forces, and by the ability they had achieved to melt seamlessly into the local population between strikes.

Rather than having the tribesmen actively volunteer information about insurgent movements and locations, as had happened during previous infiltrations,[7] the Rhodesian Security Forces now met an increasingly silent and sometimes hostile welcome from the rural blacks.

More farm attacks took place over the following weeks, during December 1972 and January 1973, leading the security forces to set up Operation Hurricane in northern Mashonaland.