Dirico
Come mid-January, I was thrown right into the deep end. Falcon called me to his office and briefed me on the offensive operation being planned against the Angolan town of Dirico. It was midway between Rundu and the Caprivi to the east, nestled in the confluence of a river that ran down from the north to join the mighty Kavango River that formed the border. We were to attack 400 Angolan army troops (FAPLA), with approximately 350 men, in a clandestine operation – we were supposedly to be UNITA guerrilla troops who were fighting the Angolan government. The plan was to cross the river in assault boats in the early hours of the morning, attacking the trenches in a frontal infantry assault at first light. I left Falcon’s office in a daze. The enormity of the responsibility that I had in planning the communications fit for the entire Battalion hit me like a steam train. I was disturbed by the fact that I was to be part of an organisation planning to attack and annihilate over 400 men. In addition, they belonged to a regular army battalion of a neighbouring country with which we were not officially at war. I was so overwhelmed by it all I couldn’t even think about drafting my signals orders till the next morning. I sat at my desk staring into the middle distance for a while and then walked quietly alongside the runway as the sun went down, collecting my thoughts, considering what lay ahead.
In the morning, I put aside my emotions and produced my first set of signals orders for an offensive operation. After a few adjustments these were signed off by the OC. All the senior officers had moved down to our training area at Buffalo Base in the Caprivi and I was tasked with collating the complete set of battle orders, including my signals orders. I was due to be flown by a Kudu light aircraft down to Buffalo, mid-afternoon. But I misplaced the folder containing the battle orders as they somehow went missing in the morning and as my panic rose, I could see myself not just being court-martialled, but shot! They eventually turned up in the nick of time, being found in the intelligence room somewhere.
We flew uncharacteristically high (about 6,000 feet) as heading east we were not transiting a ‘hot’ or hostile area this side of the border. I finally found time to read my first letter from my girlfriend back home. Sitting high in the sky, the African bush stretched away endlessly in hues of purple-grey, as the sun sank golden-orange towards the horizon. Alone in the back of the aircraft and faced with the prospect of going into battle for the first time, it was with much emotion that my mind was drawn to loved ones back home … after all, this was why we were fighting the war up here … wasn’t it?
It was with great relief that I handed the battle orders over to a senior officer when we landed at the bush strip at last light. The orders were presented that evening to the officers and NCOs by Commandant Ferreira and he asked me to present the signals orders, with no warning … dropping me firmly into the deep end!
We left in a convoy of Buffels in the morning. I was heading for the command vehicle when I realised that I had never fired a shot with my brand new R1 (FN) rifle. I quickly rushed around to the back of the Tiffies’ workshop, where there was a deep pit, and fired a full magazine into the opposite sand wall. The automatic rifle worked flawlessly, I just hoped that it would be accurate out to a hundred metres on its factory settings as I just didn’t have time to set the sights. I climbed up into the Buffel and sat wiping the factory grease off the rifle. It was to serve me well in the year to come, never letting me down with a stoppage or misfire. I looked after it with a passion and I was to owe my life to both its reliability and deadly accuracy.
We arrived at the area opposite the garrison town of Dirico shortly after nightfall and began moving quietly into position. With the Battalion deployed on the Namibian side of the Kavango, ready to assault in raiding craft just before dawn, I found to my horror that no-one could use the HF radios due to interference on the frequencies I’d been allocated. I had naïvely and blindly accepted that the frequencies supplied by Sector HQ would work – so I hadn’t tested them, a procedure we hadn’t been adequately trained to do back in South Africa. At about three o’clock in the morning, I was summoned to the group of officers sitting under the bushes with Commandant Ferreira. He spoke quietly and menacingly from the starlit shadows. “Seiner, if you don’t get comms in the next thirty minutes, I’m throwing you out of the Battalion”.
Fuck! He might as well have just punched me in the face! Being thrown out of the unit was one thing, but for me there were few insults that ranked with being called Seiner (the Afrikaans word for Signaller). That was what I was, but it was the tone with which it was used that got me going … insinuating we were good-for-nothing “jam stealers” sitting safely back in base. But there again … no comms … he was right … I was clearly deep in the shit and had no clue how I was to get myself out of it. I rushed around fiddling with antennas and different radios – not much helped. I even prayed, hard, making all sorts of promises to the Big Fella. To this day I still do not know how, but before my allotted time was up, we were able to communicate, albeit with our voices sounding not unlike the Donald Duck cartoon character. A little later, with barely half an hour to go before boarding the assault craft, the attack was called off by the brass in Pretoria. Apparently, it seems most of the garrison were reported not to be in the base, but I am not convinced that this was the real reason.
I was tasked to remain behind with the three CSI (Chief Staff Intelligence) operatives while Lt Willem Ratte and his team went in to blow the bridge leading to the town. I arrived at the little fishing hut where Commandant Oelschig and his operatives were bunked. Oelschig was an energetic, intelligent and resourceful officer with an enthusiastic spring to his step. The hut was nestled amongst the trees on the Kavango River opposite Dirico, overlooking the confluence of the two rivers. They took one look at me, brand new everything … rifle, camouflage combat fatigues (as worn by Three-Two when on external Ops) and my green Machilla (an H frame back-pack used exclusively by the Battalion). I was out to show that I was tough, I could hack it, and that I could take anything. Being permanent force soldiers, they had seen this all before. They decided to teach me a lesson I have never forgotten … “Any fool can be uncomfortable in the bush”. They had sheets on their camp beds, hot meals and ice with their drinks in the evenings. I was left to sleep outside the hut on the sand, drinking warm water from my water bottles and scratching through very basic rat-packs for my meals. I wasn’t even allowed to sit on any of their camp chairs, but left to sit in the sand with my back against a rough tree … listening to the enticing chink of ice in their glasses! I ignored my discomforts and with grudging respect, accepted their ‘initiation’.
With the CSI guys comfortably ensconced in their beds, I spent long hours alone sitting outside in the bush with my rifle across my lap, peering out over the big river. Somewhere just out there, in the vast reed beds that bordered the river on all sides, Willem and his team were packing explosives under the bridge. In the breathless, starlit night, I wondered how they were doing, hoping they would pull it off safely as they were uncomfortably close to the enemy base. I also got to thinking about those back home, why we were fighting the war and pondering what the year ahead held in store for me. As if in reply, the reeds that were standing silvery-still in the moonlight, would mysteriously move in unison as a breeze gently brushed their tips in restless, rolling waves that were seemingly everywhere and yet nowhere. It was both soothing and disturbing … provided explanations that were questions, hinted at hidden strengths and lurking dangers … and the reeds seemed to be rustling as if in a whisper. Ever since that night on the banks of that mysterious river, the magic of the wind whispering in the reeds has for me epitomized the very soul of Three-Two.
Willem Ratte and his men had been ferried by Zodiacs (inflatable raiding craft) across the main Kavango River early one evening, and had then walked through the marshy countryside of the eastern bank of the Cuito River to the road. They then walked west along the road to the bridge, where Trooper Joao stepped on an old Anti-Personnel mine. Fortunately for him, only the detonator went off; the main charge failed to explode. On getting to the river, they had assembled the canvas and wood Klepper canoes which they had carried with them. Undertaking an initial close target inspection of the bridge that night, they then rowed quietly down the river to hide in the reeds, well concealed and out of range of the Dirico garrison. After lying up for the day and preparing their explosives, they returned after last light to the bridge, and began attaching the charges to the bridge pillars.
One of the guys with Willem told me later that he was posted as lookout on the bridge on that final night. At just after midnight, he was instructed to shoot the FAPLA sentry with his silenced AK-47 which was equipped with a night sight. This he duly did, but things got progressively tenser as he then despatched the relief sentry, and then the sentry who ambled lazily down to see what had become of the first two. It was with great relief that he was summoned to join the rest of the team in the boats down below. Quietly slipping away in their Klepper canoes they rendezvoused with the Zodiacs further down the river.
Just before dawn, we saw the brilliant and searing white flash of the explosion on the horizon, long before we heard the echoing boom that thundered down over the reed beds and across the wide expanse of river.