CHAPTER SIX

DEATH OF A GOOD MAN

The following day was perfect for making war. There were no clouds in the sky and no wind. This was a good omen as the strike aircraft should have no difficulty in finding the target, and without any other distractions, our Alouettes could maintain a perfect orbit. The bush fire hazard to those on the ground would also be reduced: Africa always burns furiously during and after a battle because of the tracers used in modern wars.

In the pre-strike briefing, we discovered an amendment to the original plan. A pair of Impala jets loaded with napalm would drop their ordinance approximately four kilometres to the west of the camp at the same time as the main bombing strike. The rationale was that the camp inhabitants would see and hear the napalm tanks explode and this, together with the subsequent firestorm, would send them all off in the opposite direction.

At first I thought this was a joke and I said so. Whoever had come up with the idea obviously knew very little about who we were up against. However, the napalm drop stood and, I felt, it reflected not only inexperience on the part of some of our commanders but a misunderstanding of the nature of the war. I pointed out that anybody on the ground in that kind of bush country would be able to see very little beyond a few hundred metres. Also, all they would hear from the napalm drop would be a faraway explosion which could just as easily be a landmine, yet someone believed the enemy would observe the strikes from four kilometres away!

The commander of Sector 10, Brigadier ‘Witkop’ (white head) Badenhorst ended up agreeing with me and said that he was going in with us. He would fly in my command-and-control helicopter because he felt he needed first-hand information about the battle. He talked of ‘future reference’. Commandant Pieterse would normally have accompanied me in the Alouette and monitor his ground forces from there. He was obviously unhappy with the decision, especially when I told him that the fuel on board would allow for only one passenger. With his immediate commander on the chopper, he would have been superfluous anyway.

At 10h30, we strolled out to the flight-line for our pre-flight inspections. All six gunships and my command-and-control chopper fired up satisfactorily for the lift-off 20 minutes later. Flying time to the target was 16 minutes: we were coordinated to arrive five minutes after the bombing strike. Just before the jets went in, I made contact with the crew of the Mirages and they said the strike time would be delayed by three minutes. This suited me as we would arrive over target while there was still a lot of confusion in the enemy camp following the bombing raid.

Colonel Dick Lord was in the lead Mirage and on the radio I heard him calling the roll-in—soon afterwards the first bombs exploded. From where the brigadier and I were flying, it was an awesome spectacle. Also, listening to the running commentary, I gathered there had been no anti-aircraft fire. Moments later I heard another voice over the radio shouting, ‘Going underneath!’ The next moment an Impala fighter passed right below me, almost like a flash, followed by the distinctive roar of a jet engine which rocked our helicopter. It was close. I’d been hovering about 150ft above the trees and there couldn’t have been much room between me and the Imps, then heading home after dropping their napalm tanks.

Our contribution started in earnest as I approached the camp from the south-west. We were abeam of the target when the familiar typing pool noise began and tracers began to flash past our nose. As leader of the formation, and with Brigadier Badenhorst sitting next to me, I fought the temptation to remain and, instead, climbed in order to determine what types of weapons were being used against us. It was then I realised that ‘incoming’ was not just small arms fire but also coming from some big stuff—12.7mms and 14.5mms. I banked hard and searched desperately for the antiaircraft site. Moments later I picked up one of the guns. It was quite easy to see as, out of a small cloud of dust kicked up by backblast, there protruded a series of pink flames about two-metres long, the distinctive ZPU 14.5mm auto-cannon signature.

By this time our formation had split to fly to our pre-planned orbits, with Pete Welman and his wingman west of the target and Mike Hill and his wingman to the east. Anderson was supposed to cover the south, but I told him to stay with me as I didn’t fancy attacking a 14.5mm gun-site with just my .303 machine gun. I also felt that with the huge volume of fire heading in our direction, it would be nice to even the odds a little. That was when I called Mission 262, our Mirage close air support pair, to do another strike on the gun position.

This time, the Mirages used their rockets against the enemy position and Anderson and I tightened our orbit to put us in a more favourable firing position. We were greeted by an amazing sight. As the jets moved away and we started moving towards the anti-aircraft position, the enemy gunners, almost like ants, swarmed out of their bunkers and again took up their positions on the guns. I understood perfectly what they were up to. The gunners would have seen the Mirages put their noses down, ready to attack with rockets, and ducked into nearby bunkers for cover. Once the rockets had detonated, they emerged from underground to man their guns again.

By then, we were one of a handful of targets over the camp and it seemed as if everybody on the ground was shooting at us: the volume of small arms fire, including dozens of RPGs, suddenly became very intense. For identification by our own forces, I had the usual illuminated panel stuck on my tail boom and, because of the volume of fire, I thought they might all be aiming at that. However, Anderson came on just then and said that he was also picking up a lot of flak.

Within moments, the battle had developed into a duel between helicopters and anti-aircraft guns, with the two Mirages returning several times in strike after strike until all ammunition was expended. The two jets actually broke all the rules in trying to silence the guns. At one stage, in a bid to improve their accuracy, their approach was so low that I was a little concerned they might collide with us in our orbit. Fortunately, they managed to destroy one of the larger gun installations before they were done

I was aware then that it would take another hour or more for the Mirages to refuel, rearm and return, so it was now up to us to knock out the two or three other installations. Also, until were we successful, Rabie and his men on the ground could not be deployed effectively, which was essential for the operation to succeed.

Anderson and his wingman did a magnificent job. They hung in above one of the gun positions and gave just about all they had back to the enemy, killing many of them in the process. It was intimidating to watch it all take place from so close. Elongated tongues of flame would reach into the air when the enemy fired at us and dozens of RPG-7s exploded all around. At that point I became concerned that we might lose a chopper and crew, which was when I ordered two of the other gunships to lend a hand. Anderson came on the radio moments later: ‘They’re gapping it now’, he shouted. ‘They’re running, ah fuck … taking the gap!’ There was relief in his voice when he shouted that the enemy was on the run. Anderson was decorated for bravery after the action.

As soon as all anti-aircraft guns had been silenced, I called in the Pumas that were transporting Rabie’s company, and they were deployed. It wasn’t all that simple. Rabie’s right and centre flanks ended up in some heavy firefights with enemy troops who had taken shelter in surrounding bunkers with entrances that were often concealed in the undergrowth. However, his unit did manage to cross open ground with only one casualty; an African soldier who took a light gunshot wound.

The Pumas returned soon enough with their airborne detachments, which were deployed into pre-planned positions towards the west. Meanwhile, a number of the guerrillas had begun to break out in that direction, and for a while I was concerned for the safety of the Pumas as the enemy, still potent in their desperate flight, had progressed almost to within sight of the LZ. In fact, once Swart and his paratroopers had deployed and formed up in a sweep-line, they immediately made contact with escaping SWAPO, and still more battles developed.

Once the enemy realised there was a stopper group in position towards the west they decided to veer northwards instead. However, that took them across a chana and open ground. Welman and his wingman flew their gunships there and quickly dealt with them.

Conditions on the ground deteriorated swiftly. An easterly wind had sprung up and fanned a succession of bush fires ignited by our bombs and tracers. The result was that Rabie and his troops were threatened from two directions—he had a raging veld fire, with flames reaching up to 10 metres or more, at his rear and a substantial guerrilla force ahead. The enemy might have been on the run, but they attacked just about everything in their path, Rabie’s men included

In a sense, it was a perfect situation to control as there was no need to urge the troops to advance. The encroaching fire took care of that option. SWAPO troops, in turn, were aware by now that they wouldn’t be able to escape towards the west and had started to put up a fierce resistance. Because of this, Rabie’s momentum had been halted and some of his troops were burnt by the encroaching flames. In fact, by the time the fire had passed through both Rabie’s and SWAPO lines and moved towards where the Parabats were operating, quite a few troops had virtually no uniform left intact as they had literally been burnt off their bodies and some of the men were left with serious burns. One section of the sweep-line had to turn tail and make a run for it to escape the flames.

Conditions had also deteriorated for the helicopter gunships. Smoke had enveloped the entire area and was so dense in places that the choppers were flying in IFR conditions. There were several near misses. At the same time, it was almost impossible to spot enemy troops on the ground, with the result that close air support couldn’t happen and any kind of effective control of our sweep-lines became almost hopeless. SWAPO made good use of this mayhem and brought our circling choppers under intense fire.

Once the inferno had passed, the battle started again. By now, the two sweep-lines were working in close proximity but, in turn, giving each other even more problems. The men pushing forward were partially disorientated by what was going on around them— they were coming under enemy fire and there were more brush fires—and there was also some confusion along the lines because they were stymied by poor visibility. In fact, things became so bad at one stage that one of the officers trying to control the situation on the ground believed that there was a real danger of friendly fire casualties, especially since the encroaching lines were only about 30 metres apart. The problem was further compounded by the bush which, even after the fire had burnt away most of the undergrowth, was too thick for either of the two units to actually see each other; erratic radio communications did not help.

At one stage 32 Battalion’s sweep-line believed they were under fire, which they were, as most of the Parabat rounds were ricocheting right past them and forcing the men to go to ground. A hasty tirade from Rabie over the radio on the open net put an end to that bit of mischief. Once that phase of the battle was over, all that remained was to sweep through the enemy camp and collect weapons and ammunition, destroy food and water supplies and collect documents that might be useful to the intelligence boffins.

During the troop uplift that followed, the seven Pumas, led by Captain Cor Greef, landed on open ground near the camp, with Anderson overhead providing top cover. Just as the Pumas took off, Anderson happened to see a small bunch of enemy troops lying partially hidden beneath one of the trees, their AKs trained on the lead Puma only 50 metres away. He shot them before they were able to do any damage, but said afterwards that had they actually opened fire at such short range they would almost certainly have caused serious damage.

Overall, the attack was a success. Own forces casualties were one dead and two wounded, all from 32 Battalion. The official body count of the enemy was over 100, although the actual figure must have been higher because it didn’t take into account the many SWAPO troops who were killed in the bunkers during the bombing strikes. Quite a few weapons were recovered, together with huge quantities of ammunition. Events that day proved that the relatively flimsy little Alouette was deceptively rugged and, indeed, able to take a remarkable amount of punishment. With correct tactics and pilot tenacity, we proved that we could neutralize an anti-aircraft gun emplacement without taking undue casualties.

Before the South Africans finally vacated the area, Captain Tinus van Staden, also of 32 Battalion, was deployed with his company to ambush the camp area during the night. It was expected that the enemy would return at some stage to look for survivors and whatever weapons remained. However, this time things went awry. The enemy must have been aware that the troops were there because they hit the area with 122mm missiles from their B-10s. Fortunately, the troops had dug in for the night and there were no casualties.

The final week of Operation Meebos showed no evidence of a SWAPO presence and the 32 reconnaissance group commanded by Captain Willem Ratte was dispatched to an area near the Angolan town of Cuvelai in a bid to locate SWAPO’s B Battalion, also known as the Socialist Unit. This was a large and, by reputation, aggressive fighting element which included the enemy’s central and eastern area headquarter units.

Intelligence following our early successful attacks indicated that several fighting groups had merged. If this was true, we had to acknowledge that we would be up against a formidable force. Each SWAPO element would consist of about 150 men, giving the enemy a force of approximately 600 soldiers, all well-armed and adequately trained. From our perspective, it also meant that there would probably be half a dozen, or more, anti-aircraft batteries. By my count, that would have given them a minimum of a dozen 14.5mm guns, plus scores more in the 12.7mm range.

Ratte and his group were due for uplift at midday but the previous evening he’d reported that he was fairly certain of B Battalion’s location. He’d reported by radio that he had seen a suspicious vehicle and wanted to follow it through to where he thought the enemy might have concentrated their assets. However, his request for a 24-hour extension to clandestinely survey the area was refused, as headquarters felt that the enemy had either left the area or split into smaller units. Instead, it was decided to deploy troops to carry out area operations.

Troop deployment was scheduled for early afternoon that day. All our pilots attended the briefing and Captain Ratte suggested that, because of the anti-aircraft potential, the Pumas should avoid the area where he suspected the enemy might be encamped. Two Alouettes were tasked to give the larger helicopters top cover during the drop. Flown by Captain Mike Hill and Lieutenant Chris Louw, they would go straight in, hoping to pick up evidence of an enemy presence. Altogether, there were eight Pumas tasked, split into two groups of four each, with an adequate time gap allowed between each formation.

Then it happened; a catastrophe that was not altogether unexpected. ‘What surprised me,’ said Nellis a long time afterwards, ‘was that it took so long in coming.’

At approximately 14h25 on that day, while routing into the area, the Pumas, loaded with troops, unwittingly flew over the chana where the long-looked-for SWAPO concentration had deployed their anti-aircraft guns. At first glance, it would appear that all the weapons had been gathered into an open clearing, but were positioned too close to one another, which would inhibit the crews manning them from firing all of them at the same time. The leader of the flight was Captain A. J. Botha. Captain Ian Solomon was at the controls of another of the Pumas and he described what took place:

We were following the Alouettes to the landing zone and my machine was in number three position, just behind that of Captain John Twaddle. As far as we were concerned, the main action was over, so we’d assumed a loose ‘V’ formation. Some of the choppers were over the chana, but my course overlapped some bush at its southern verge. Twaddle’s flight course was straight down the chana itself.

We purposely kept our profile low, just above the trees. Suddenly, I was surprised by a long tongue of flame and curtains of tracer emanating from the bush towards our left: we were obviously under some pretty heavy anti-aircraft and small arms fire. Then, quite unexpectedly, because I’d never seen anything like it before, I saw John’s aircraft pitch up. For a moment or two, it assumed a nose-high attitude and then its tail boom separated and somersaulted through the air. Almost simultaneously the Puma rolled onto its back and dived nose first into the ground, after which it exploded.

I recall that we were doing something like 160 knots, so it all happened very quickly: that was one of the reasons why I wasn’t able to see what weapons were being fired at us. One moment John was there, the next he was gone.

The shooting down of a Puma, together with everybody in it, was an enormous loss to the South African forces. All the aircrew, Captain John Twaddle, Lieutenant Andre Pietersen and Flight Engineer Sergeant ‘Grobbies’ Grobbelaar, together with 12 National Servicemen, all paratroopers, were killed.

Hill and Louw immediately turned their gunships around and flew towards the area in the hope of rescuing survivors. Lieutenant Louw described what happened:

While heading back to the LZ, we heard Cor Greef shout over the radio that number five in the formation had gone down. Mike [Hill] immediately ordered us to turn around and fly to the crash area. There was no missing the crash site: a thick column of black smoke spiralled up from the area.

At this stage, we weren’t sure why the Puma had gone down, or even whether it had been targeted. There was some conjecture that there might have been mechanical failure, or possibly pilot’s error. I say that because until then there had been no obvious SWAPO presence.

We were still about a kilometre from the crash when Sergeant Major Thomas, my flight engineer, shouted over the intercom that he had the enemy visual, and that surprised me. I immediately put the chopper into a hard bank to the left to bring his gun in line, which was when, directly below us, I saw a group of about 30 guerrillas running towards the downed helicopter. Thomas didn’t wait for orders and immediately began shooting at them.

During the turn, our chopper took a number of hits, which is when you tend to look at your instruments to see that everything is still working properly. It wasn’t: the rotor RPM was winding down and I knew that I had to take immediate action before an engine cut. I told the crew to prepare for an emergency landing and started talking the machine down to force-land in the open area alongside a chana directly ahead.

Thomas, apart from being our gunner, was also the flight engineer and he came through on the mike to say that the engine was working perfectly. I could hear that his voice was tense as he urged me to get the hell out of there. But I was already in the flare and only a few feet above the ground. After taking power, I flew the Alouette close to the ground for some distance and headed past the wreck.

Any kind of inspection just then, with all that incoming, had to be cursory, but everybody on board was certain that nobody could have survived. Worse, there was already a large group of about 100 insurgents, elated at their success, dancing around the wreck. They were jumping up and down with their rifles held high above their heads and whooping, primitive style. Those on board who were closest to this spectacle started shooting as we sped past but, fortunately, possibly because of their elation, their return fire wasn’t accurate. We weren’t hit again. We cleared the area and Hill escorted us to the mini-HAG, which was about a dozen kilometres away. After we landed we inspected our own damage.

I believe there were two aspects that saved the lives of Thomas and me that day. The first, was that the flight engineer urged me to continue flying when I wanted to land, and the second was that, because of my inexperience, I flew so very low past the wreckage. There were some big guns in the immediate vicinity of the crash site but the enemy wasn’t able to depress their guns sufficiently to target us. All the AAA had been assembled on a slight ridge to our right, and as we flew past, you couldn’t miss their efforts to try to lower their barrels. They probably did in the end but we were gone in a flash.

A more experienced pilot would probably have gained a bit of height, and probably presented a better target and so also have become a casualty. But it was not to be.

As soon as word got back to the temporary helicopter base, Major Kiewiet Marais scrambled all the remaining gunships. Mike Hill refuelled, topped up on ammunition and also returned to the scene with an absurd hope that somebody might have lived through an experience that was clearly terminal. Hill was later awarded an Honoris Crux for bravery, while Louw got the Southern Cross Medal for his efforts in nursing his helicopter back to base.

When Nellis arrived in the area, he could see the wreck, but he also couldn’t get close. Enemy 14.5s were firing in all directions and it was difficult to pin-point their positions as there was still a lot of smoke from the brush fires around and a subsequent fuel explosion from the downed Puma had made visual identification almost impossible.

Well aware that we would retaliate, most of the SWAPO guerrillas had dispersed, which meant that the South African choppers were at the receiving end of small arms fire several kilometres from the crash site. The enemy also seemed to have a hefty supply of MANPADS, mainly SAM-7s. Three F1 Mirages from Ondangua, armed with rockets, were tasked to provide close air support but, because of the low visibility, accurate forward air control wasn’t possible. Neall takes over the story.

Somebody had to call closure pretty soon, I felt, because if things went on like this, we’d probably lose another aircraft as enemy ground fire had picked up markedly. For their part, the guerrillas had tasted blood and they wanted more. That was when I decided that all aircraft should return to base. I’d decided that we’d go into an immediate planning session for what was still regarded as a rescue attempt.

Time was running out. It didn’t take long for the commanders to decide that it wouldn’t be possible to deploy troops before last light. Instead, it was decided to leave Willem Ratte and his recce teams to observe conditions along the Colonga River in the hopes of perhaps detecting a SWAPO withdrawal. It was a typical SWAPO tactic to leave the area as soon as they had been compromised and it was likely that if they were not already heading north, they would soon be doing so.

A hopeful sign was that a number of the aviators had reported seeing a large herd of cattle near the contact area. We were aware that the guerrillas often took small herds of livestock with them as a mobile food source. Find the cattle, it was argued, and you’d find the enemy. Observation post elements still out in the field were tasked with keeping a wary lookout for any animals on the hoof.

We rose early the next day to be on standby just in case the remnants of the guerrilla force were observed. Among the men, both air crew and ground forces, there was a powerful groundswell of anger at the loss of the aircraft and its occupants. Revenge was very definitely on the cards.

Normally, the camp would take time to get its act together at the start of the day, but that was definitely not the case that morning. The reaction force troops were ready and waiting at the LZ just before first light, even though the Pumas weren’t due for hours. I was tasked with a pair of gunships as escorts for a 08h00 take-off to get Pieterse to the crash site. His job was to coordinate his troops as well as a 61 Mechanised Brigade armoured unit advancing from the south.

We were flying low as we headed out to the area, when suddenly I picked up one of the 32 Battalion call signs on the radio. It was call sign ‘CL’, who reported that he had visual on a large herd of cattle moving in a northerly direction towards the Colonga River. I radioed Pieterse and told him that I was heading there to investigate. Without waiting for an acknowledgement, I flew down the length of the river in a westerly direction. As we passed a riverside position about 30km north of Cuvelai, I spotted movement out of the corner of my eye. I had just turned my head when the distinctive smoke trail of a SAM-7 passed straight through the middle of our loose ‘V’ formation about 800ft above the ground.

I immediately turned back and headed towards the launch site: Smoke from the missile launch still hung thickly on the ground and thus the action had started. I was still some distance away when the first rattle from the ‘typing pool’ began its clatter, but this time it was accompanied by a veritable wall of tracer fire. More disturbing, there were also the long pink flames of 14.5mm antiaircraft fire together with blasts from RPGs. It was an awesome experience, and quite unusual for some of the crews because another four SAM-7s were launched in our direction, which was unheard of. They all missed.

We went into an orbit around the position and could now clearly see the AAA installations. Even though the sun was still quite low on the horizon, the dark shadows under the trees only accentuated the muzzle flashes. I counted at least a dozen positions, which meant that at least four detachments were moving together, which was a sizeable force in any war. I passed on the message that we had found the main SWAPO group and that they were attempting to escape towards the north. I also reported that they were bunched together, but even then, the entire group was spread over an area of about two kilometres square. If that first antiaircraft missile hadn’t been launched, we’d have flown over the detachments and not been any the wiser.

The remaining gunships were scrambled and ordered to head towards us. I also requested additional support from the squadrons of strike aircraft on standby at the air base. Unfortunately, the Pumas transporting the Parabats still had not arrived and I knew we wouldn’t be able to contain this large a gathering of enemy troops once the contact had been initiated. In fact, the troopers with the Parabat stopper groups arrived on the scene only two hours after battle had been joined.

For once, the jets did a good job. In fact, they excelled. Between the Mirages and the gunships, all the enemy’s anti-aircraft guns were taken out in just a few initial attacks. It was impressive watching the Mirages go in and launch their rockets and then, after pulling out of their dives, we’d sometimes see two SAM-7s hurtling at their exhausts.

At one stage, there seemed to be so many RPG bursts within our orbits that it became a cause for concern. I told the others that one of the helicopters would be hit sooner or later. To complicate matters, the RPG self-destruct air bursts were at the same height as our orbits, and that was unusual. It took me a little time to work out that the air bursts were not from RPGs, but from the self-destruct mechanisms in the 30mm shells fired by the Mirage F1s on the lead-up to their attacks. We were sitting at about 1,200ft to make it more difficult for the enemy gunners, yet our people were lobbing 30mm shells in our direction.

Once all the anti-aircraft fire had been silenced, we moved towards the main body of the enemy and started selecting individual targets. Sometimes, this would be groups of insurgents who had gathered in strength and were covering all approaches. At other times it would be two or three enemy troops who, although fleeing the scene desperately, were still not afraid to mix it with their pursuers. There were scores of these elements and because the survivors were desperate, these contacts soon became the most vicious exchanges of fire of the campaign so far. While the guerrillas might have been hurt in our attacks, there was still an awful lot of small arms fire on all sides, along with volleys of RPG rockets directed at the choppers.

The aviators and their gunners settled down quickly, especially after it became clear that none of the aircraft were taking strikes.

The SWAPO commanders must have realised that we were determined to avenge our losses so they were quite literally fighting for their lives, which made them particularly aggressive.

Once the Pumas got there with the first wave of troops, these men were dropped towards the west which seemed to be the direction the remaining SWAPO cadres had taken for their breakout. Lieutenant Harry Ferreira of 32 Battalion was dropped along the river and Lieutenant Tinus van Staden was deposited, with his unit, to the north-west of the area. It was the job of Major Jab Swart and his Parabats to cover the north-east and they did so with meticulous aggression, in a bid to settle scores. However, brush fires in the tinder-dry grass started to present problems again. Some of Ferreira’s men were trapped by flames towards the west along the river and several men with serious burns had to be taken out by chopper. Because of the proximity of the river, these grasslands were lush and fertile, but also dry because it hadn’t rained in a while, and in places the flames were more than 10 metres high. Visibility also dropped as a result of the fires, which meant that the choppers were forced to come down to almost ground level in search of targets. Many enemy soldiers were killed after they had sought shelter under bushes.

A particularly disturbing order came from headquarters later that morning. During the course of the battle, the herd of cattle was found to have been corralled in a chana to the north-east of the contact area. There must have been almost 600 of these animals. Since SWAPO placed great store on their mobile meat supply and, because of the lack of food in these southern areas, their loss would obviously be a great blow. The gunships were instructed to kill the cattle, every single one of them!

Some of the pilots refused. As Nellis explained afterwards, he understood where they were coming from so after killing or maiming about 100 of these poor creatures he gave the order to stop firing. He remembers that it was an appalling scene down below.

In some cases, our 20mm shells had blown off legs and the animals, covered in blood and bellowing in severe pain, were hobbling around with their shattered legs dragging behind. I asked Swart to send a few of his men in to despatch the maimed animals so they spent the best part of an afternoon running after wounded animals and delivering the coup de grace. When we finally uplifted the troops and returned to the TAC HQ the men were generally elated at the overall success of the battle but the cattle incident dampened spirits.

The final body count for that day was 116 SWAPO dead and two captured. Of particular satisfaction was the fact that we were able to capture quite a few enemy heavy weapons and a huge amount of ammunition. Our forces suffered no casualties, not a single man wounded. I made the point in the subsequent debrief that had we been able to get our men on the ground sooner, the real tally would have been closer to 400 of the enemy killed.

There was an incredible amount of chopper activity as the war dragged on. In fact, because the SAAF Mirages and Buccaneers were no match for the modern Soviet fighter aircraft that had been phased into the conflict by the Soviets, it was left to the Pumas and Alouettes to do much of the donkey work, sometimes at night. Without these helicopters, this guerrilla struggle would have taken a very different turn. Nellis comments:

Operating out of Ongongo in Western Ovamboland, there would usually be a pair of gunships deployed to a forward base and on standby for a Koevoet¹call-out. Sometimes there would be certain areas partitioned off as ‘no-go areas’, such as the training area during Operation Silver, a Chief of Staff Intelligence effort to develop and train Dr Jonas Savimbi’s Special Forces. However, as in any struggle, nothing on the ground remained static for long.

At one stage, intelligence came through of suspected insurgent movement in an area where nothing was supposed to be happening. I was flying back to base and spotted a group of more than a dozen people, obviously troops because they were armed and walking military-style, in single file. I radioed back to base, but they knew nothing of any deployment of either UNITA or other friendly forces in that area, so I checked again with headquarters: still nothing. I had no option but to go in on the attack. The men on the ground started running for cover but it was too late. They ended up taking a lot of casualties. I killed eight and wounded six, all seriously. It turned out that they were all UNITA troops. It was a catastrophe and a terrible price to pay for some desk jockey’s laxity back at base.

Another time, working in South Angola with my wingman Bakkies Smit and gunner/engineer Lange Pretorius, we were called out after 32 Battalion had been involved in a serious firefight in the vicinity of Xangongo, one of the biggest towns on the Kunene River and a provincial capital during Portuguese colonial times.

It was already late afternoon and we were told to provide close air support but, as usual, being 32, they didn’t give us the whole story. Had they done so the air force almost certainly wouldn’t have allowed us to participate in an action that was heavily weighted against us. Not long after we arrived over the grid reference, we suddenly found ourselves circling a large enemy camp and picking up intense ground fire that included RPGs, 12.7s, 14.5s and AKs all at the same time. It was withering, intimidating and more than a little frightening. Of course, we retaliated but our machines were taking quite a few hits.

I’d just entered our second orbit when there was an immense blast right alongside the helicopter. Bakkies came through on the radio and said we were on fire. Looking at our shadow on the ground, with the sun directly overhead in a brilliant clear sky, there was no mistaking the huge plume of smoke emerging from our Alouette.

In those days I used to fly with no socks. It was desert boots (veldskoene in South African parlance) only. We had all been taught during training that if there was a fire on board, it would come through the hold at the base of the bulkhead behind us. However, I couldn’t help sensing an imaginary heat around my ankles and was suddenly quite alarmed: we had flames below us. It didn’t make sense, but then few things do when that sort of thing happens. So I wasted little time in auto-rotating down, which was when I saw a veritable army of black enemy troops careering across the countryside in our direction. They thought they had shot us down and were heading our way to claim their prize.

It was a macabre situation and I, along with the rest of the crew, wanted out of there. Therefore, I wound up the chopper once more and limped cross country for another 10 or 12 clicks, engine revs oscillating furiously, which was when I had to go into full auto-rotation. Our rotor cable had been nicked somewhere along the way and it snapped. We were pretty low by then and went into a couple of revolutions before hitting the ground.

It was pure luck that one of my standard operating procedures was always to call for fuel as soon as I was heading out: I had done that earlier because I knew we wouldn’t have had enough get us back home again, all the way from Xangongo. Consequently, there was a pair of Pumas nearby with our drums and they took us on board. I was fine, but Lange had a hurt back, nothing serious though. The Alouette was recovered that evening, slung unceremoniously under a Puma all the way back to Ongongo. They techs counted 54 holes in my machine. The real damage had been caused by an RPG-7 grenade that exploded alongside the engine, cutting the oil line, causing it to spray onto the red-hot engine exhaust—hence the smoke and our belief that we were on fire.

I was ordered back to headquarters at Ondangua and, because it had been a pretty nasty experience, they wanted to evacuate me back to Pretoria. The base doctor maintained that I was in a state of ‘traumatic shock’, which was bullshit so I refused. Finally, I managed to convince the ops guys that I was ‘all systems go’ and that if the camp near Xangongo needed to be taken out, I’d personally lead the force in there to do the dirty deed. The other only notable event to emerge from that little scrape was that I never again flew without socks!

We had more fun and games during Operation Protea which launched in August 1981. I was on an operational conversion course in South Africa when an Alouette got shot down. I was immediately ordered back to Bloemfontein, from where I would leave for the operational area the next morning.

By the time I reached Ondangua again, most of the fireworks were over and the Angolan Army was in retreat, heading north and away from the South African threat. However, there were still lots of pockets of resistance about, especially around Xangongo again, where the main spans of the bridge across the Kunene had been dropped into the river.

On that sortie, I was flying on the far side of the river, towards Cahama, where I was able to destroy my first enemy tank. It wasn’t one of the Soviet T-54/55s or T-62s, which were regarded as fairly sophisticated in those days, but was actually a German WWII-era T-34. I could see that it was armed with an 85mm gun and that it had company. There were a lot more Angolan tanks in the vicinity, all of which had taken up ambush positions. They were probably waiting either for a South African or a UNITA convoy to pass or for all our aircraft go home for the night so that they could escape northwards with their comrades.

We’d actually only spotted the T-34 after it had started to move, and I made my decision. I had to add a Soviet tank to my list of ‘conquests’. Normally, the 20mm ammunition that we carried for our cannon was all high explosive, but I knew those charges would never penetrate the tank’s armour, which was more than two inches thick in places, so I concocted something else. I’d always made a point, when working in remote areas, of taking on board a dozen or so rounds of ball ammo. Therefore, I instructed our flight engineer to remove all the HE rounds and use those hard points instead. I then told him to aim at the rear of the tank, where we could see black exhaust fumes and he fired the lot into the engine grill, disabling it.

At the end of it, Operation Protea was like many other strategic raids launched by the South African military into Angola during the 24-year war. As usual, the enemy suffered huge losses, substantial quantities of war booty were captured (and handed over to UNITA to use in their own efforts to gain ground against the Luanda regime), and the SADF—usually at the behest of angry American and UN protests—pulled back behind its own frontiers. Having achieved a bit of breathing space, Pretoria immediately started planning for the next season’s war against SWAPO and its Angolan allies.