CHAPTER FOUR

SOVIET SAMS VERSUS HELICOPTERS IN THE BUSH WAR

The message landed on Neall Ellis’ desk at the Ondangua Air Force Base on 8 May 1982. It was succinct: ‘your mission: to provide top cover to the Pumas during the recce drop at last light on the 9th and then to be on standby for close air support for the duration of the operation.’

At a subsequent briefing, the intelligence officer told the crews attending that a ‘source’ had reported an unconfirmed SWAPO presence in the Cambino area, approximately ten kilometres north of Iona, a small, obscure village in a barren wasteland. The area was a remote and desolate semi-desert about 30km north-east of the Marienfluss Valley in north-west Kaokoveld. This barely populated area was extremely difficult to get to overland because there were no proper roads.

Initially, it was explained, the plan was for a reconnaissance patrol to be dropped by chopper into the vicinity to determine whether there was a SWAPO insurgent presence or not. Nellis had been sceptical from the start. He argued that the area was simply too remote and there was no ‘local pops’ (local population).

While the ops officer was giving his briefing, I began speculating how big a ‘lemon’ we were going to have. A ‘lemon’, roughly defined, is a mission where no contact is made with the enemy, which means no kills. However, as I was aware, not all ‘lemons’ were unpleasant: the Atlantic Ocean was less than 20 minutes’ flying time to the west and I’d never fished off that coast before. The mouth of the Kunene River was supposed to be one of the best locations for some of the big deepwater ‘uns’ on the west coast. While trying to work out where I could borrow a fishing rod, the ops officer broke my reverie by asking me if I had any questions. We both knew that he had caught me off guard.

After sorting out a few domestic arrangements, my highly experienced wingman, Captain Angelo Maranta, and I were satisfied. We knew what was expected of us and left the briefing room to prepare for a late-morning take-off for the ‘Fluss’ the following day.

Interestingly, I had been in the Marienfluss a few years earlier and had found it to be one of the most beautiful places I had ever seen. When I visited it again in 1975 it was one vast valley, approximately 120km in length and perhaps 15 clicks wide. The memory that remained with me for many years was suddenly coming upon that expanse of beautiful waist-high, golden grassland with wildlife grazing everywhere. There were gemsbok (oryx), wildebeest, eland, and even elephant, all seemingly unaffected by civilization. However, this time, I was in for a shock. Long before we’d landed I could see that the valley had transmogrified into a barren stretch of desert. There was no grass and no animals of any description.

Our tactical headquarters, or TAC HQ as we would call it, was situated alongside the runway, shielded on both sides by two rows of rusty old 44-gallon drums half buried in the sand. A lifeless windsock flew alongside and by that, surrounded by a ring of whitewashed stones, stood three nondescript army issue tents. This was to be our home for the next couple of days. The trouble was, there wasn’t a tree in sight, which meant that there was be no shade to give relief from the stifling desert heat of late summer.

Our commander was an army man, Captain Vissie Verster, and the reconnaissance patrol leader introduced himself as Sergeant Jose Dennison. He had ten men under him, he said, all of them seasoned fighters. Captain Jan Hougaard headed the modest, 32-strong 32 Battalion attack group. At that stage, the air force helicopter complement consisted of a pair each of Alouettes and Puma transport helicopters. Also mustered was a Bosbok single-engine light aircraft, which would act as ‘Telstar’ for relaying communications back to HQ while everybody was working in ‘Injun Country’. Its role would become crucial once our flight paths took us across the Angolan border.

The morning of the 9th was spent going over planning details with the patrol. Aspects such as radio frequencies were dealt with, including alternative frequencies in the event of jamming by the enemy, battle frequencies, etc. Final briefings were held on escape and evasion for aircrew in the event of any of us being shot down; rendezvous points if crew became separated; and what recognition aids were being carried by the troops and aircrew.

The drop was timed for just before last light, at a point northwest of the suspect area. There, inside Angola, aerial photos showed that a road had been built that followed a river pass through the mountains. Once the patrol had been dropped, they were to mine the road at the entrance to the pass, the idea being that should our chopper drop have been picked up by the enemy, any hostile force entering the pass would detonate the mine and the patrol would be warned.

The drop inserting Dennison and his men was carried out without incident and all aircraft returned to base to wait for the patrol’s report. Not long afterwards, shortly after nine, when we’d all settled down around the fire for the evening’s usual session of war stories under the stars, we heard a muffled explosion to the north. Somebody had detonated a mine.

‘Contact!’ shouted one of the officers and there was a crazy rush to the ops tent to find out if Dennison was OK and if he could tell us what was going on. He reported back almost immediately: a large Mercedes truck had passed him heading in towards the pass, from which he had just emerged and it appeared to have detonated one of the landmines. At the same time, it became clear that the entire operation had had its priorities enhanced. Early intelligence reports had indicated enemy activity in the area, but there was little substantive proof, which is why it came as such a surprise when a large SWAPO force was suddenly encountered in an area that had been largely passive before. There was obviously some strength to the original intelligence report that there was a suspected SWAPO camp in the Cambino area.

Excitement rippled through our camp and while we were left, beers in hand, speculating about what was going on, the captain spoke to his boss back in Oshakati on the radio. There was an uneasy sense of foreboding about what the morrow would hold for us.

We spent the next day on standby, speculating about whether the team still in the field—and on the wrong side of the border— would run into any enemy patrols sent out to investigate the mine incident. There was nothing to report from the recce team that evening and our enthusiasm started to dampen. A heavy rainstorm followed and went on for much of the night: it was quite an experience hearing the mighty Kunene River—barely two kilometres away—roaring in flood through the mountains.

The following morning saw an early start. Major Paula Kruger, the Puma chief, suggested that we plan a recce along the length of the Kunene River in the area and search for possible insurgent crossing points. Half seriously, he said that the food in the camp lacked the kind of vitamins that could only be found in ocean fish and black mussels. For that reason, he said, the recce would have to go all the way to the sea at the mouth of the river. His choice of ‘vehicle’ was one of the Pumas and he said he’d also use the opportunity to show some of the cooks and bottle washers what the area looked like from a helicopter.

We took off in good spirits, looking forward to a cool ocean breeze along the beach. However, about 10 minutes into the flight, Kruger passed a headset back towards me and indicated that he wanted to talk. Things had suddenly become serious, he declared. Dennison and his men had a SWAPO patrol of platoon strength in sight and, by all accounts, contact was imminent. It seemed that things were finally happening.

Our immediate problem was to get to Dennison and his patrol before the enemy found them. If that was not possible, their presence could not only be seriously compromised, but they would be heavily outnumbered. If we got to them too late we could end up having to evacuate the entire recce team—or at least those that had survived—to the Sector 10 hospital.

Back at the TAC HQ, we found Verster perplexed. Dennison had just come through by radio and said that they were being attacked. Apparently, the enemy had picked up their tracks and chased them down: there was simply no avoiding a contact.

After a quick briefing about the possible deployment of troops, we took off, the Pumas coming along behind with our 32 Battalion reaction force troops, all 16 of them. Because the Alouettes were much slower than the Pumas, we timed it so that we’d arrive at the destination before the larger helicopters so that we could reconnoitre the area. The sudden arrival of Pumas, we felt, could only compromise the contact as the insurgents knew that troops were likely to be deployed if large choppers started orbiting their position. Also, our Pumas were only lightly armed and were vulnerable to small arms fire. Under the circumstances, it was wise to give the gunships time to check things out and perhaps fine-tune what was still a tentative battle plan, before the Pumas dropped their loads.

Just after take-off, a very unhappy Dennison came through again on the radio. The SWAPO patrol was approximately 18 strong and had begun to fire on his position with light mortars. He was taking evasive measures, he said, but didn’t have time to elaborate. After roughly 20 minutes flying time, we arrived over the area and could see evidence of battle below us. The bush had started to burn and that served us well as a homing beacon to where the contact had taken place. The only comment heard from Jose Dennison as we arrived overhead was a sarcastic: ‘If you’d have come yesterday, you might have been of some help.’

By then Dennison and his team had taken up a position on a small hill, about 100 metres high. Situated adjacent to a large rocky ridgeline, with steep cliffs overhanging the contact area, the top was flat and easily defensible. He didn’t need to indicate any enemy positions: bush cover was sparse and the enemy could easily be spotted, sprawled out flat on their stomachs with their weapons extended in Dennison’s direction. For a moment or two I thought they all looked like the little toy soldiers at play, inert and harmless. The insurgents were in a position half way up the hill, the nearest only 40 metres from Dennison’s position. They had spread out and were steadily advancing towards the reconnaissance squad, using well-disciplined fire and movement tactics.

We had to decide quickly what we were going to. There was only one section of heliborne troops, so the Puma deployment would be restricted to a single sweep-line with no stopper groups. If SWAPO could be duped into thinking that our small company was a much larger force, our sweep-line might initially act as a stopper group. Once the main punch-up was over, the men on the ground could then go through the contact area and mop up any remaining resistance.

I instructed Sergeant Steve Coetzee, my flight engineer, to target the rear end of the attacking force with his heavy machine gun (HMG). That would create confusion because they would be caught in the crossfire between the gunships and our own forces. Once that became apparent, confusion in the SWAPO ranks was bound to follow and they would try to pull out. The enemy’s retreat line could then quickly be ascertained and our troops pushed into position

Both gunships attacking the SWAPO group from the rear, along with the original recce team firing down from their hilltop position, had an immediate effect. The insurgents broke in the direction of open ground, which offered far less cover than before, trapping their entire squad in the open ground. Within a minute they had started to panic and their actions became desperate and totally uncoordinated. Shortly afterwards, the Pumas dropped their troops who were deployed in the direction of the breakout. Meanwhile, Coetzee and Angelo Maranta’s gunner were picking off targets at will.