[1] The next guerrilla incursion came on 1 August 1967, when a combined force of 79 ZIPRA and South African Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) fighters[n 1] crossed the Zambezi about 20 kilometres (12 mi) east of Victoria Falls.

[4] One of the members who had become lost earlier was captured by the RAR on the road between Victoria Falls and Wankie on 3 August, and from this captive the police and security forces learned of the two groups and of their intentions.

[4] The insurgents were consistently undone in their incursions by the suspicion of Rhodesia's rural blacks, whose tribal chiefs and headmen would often work together to inform the police and security forces of the infiltrators' presence.

[5] This proved to be no exception: when a cadre visited a local kraal early on 31 August to obtain food, an old woman invited him to stay and kept him there while she sent a young girl to alert the security forces.

The next day, on 1 September, two commando troops in ambush were informed by a tractor driver that he had been given money by 14 guerrillas the previous night to buy mielie-meal for them and that they would be collecting it from him at his kraal that evening.