Meanwhile, Colonel Ferreira had decided the time had come to destroy 47 Brigade. Of the 1,400 men who had left Cuito Cuanavale two months earlier with the crack Fapla outfit, SADF intelligence estimated that some 300 were now dead and 200 wounded. The brigade was growing short of food, ammunition and fuel. Its morale was getting very thin, too. If a coup de grâce was not attempted soon by the SADF, 47 Brigade might escape across the river to regroup and re-equip itself to fight another day.
The first inkling Captain Herman Mulder got that something big was in the offing came on Sunday 27 September when he was ordered by Ferreira to transfer from 32 Battalion and perform his intelligence duties with 61 Mechanised Battalion, which had yet to see action on the scale for which it was trained and equipped.
Ferreira told Mulder, a 28-year-old, broad-shouldered career officer who had completed six years of intelligence work with 32 Battalion, he needed the best possible intelligence map he could draw up of the base area of 47 Brigade and its accompanying armoured tactical group. Mulder, abandoning his latest course of study, in the Zulu language, went to work with his full range of intelligence tools – enemy radio intercepts; reports from recce teams and artillery observation posts; air reconnaissance photography; interrogation of prisoners; assessment of UNITA intelligence reports; and interpretations of Radio Angola.
Mulder’s final report and charts told Ferreira that 47 Brigade’s main trench positions were in deep bush about four kilometres due south of the Lomba-Cuzizi confluence. But some elements had moved north into a hook-shaped area of forest protruding into the anhara; at their nearest point they were only two kilometres south of the Lomba River.
Ferreira weighed everything up and decided to launch his attack on Monday 5 October. Commandant Bok Smit’s Combat Group Alpha, composed mainly of a full range of Ratel squadrons and platoons from 61 Mech, would be the spearhead. But the combat group would be strongly reinforced by an infantry company from 32 Battalion and by four UNITA battalions, one of which would help in the attack on 47 Brigade while the others made diversionary assaults on 59 Brigade. In reserve was Combat Group Charlie, composed almost entirely of 61 Mech troops plus a few small 32 Battalion elements, under the command of Major Dawid Lotter.
On Monday 28 September Ferreira’s planning sessions with Hougaard, Smit, Lotter and Hartslief at forward HQ were interrupted by a summons to travel 70 km to Mavinga to talk to some ‘top brass’ who had pitched up in a C-130. They consisted of the State President P W Botha; Defence Minister Magnus Malan and his deputy Wynand Breytenbach; General Geldenhuys; General Liebenberg; Admiral Putter; and General Willie Meyer. Recurring visits by swarms of VIPs from the President downwards in Gucci safari suits and with bulging food hampers became the butt of bitter humour among ordinary fighting soldiers, whose sentiment was: ‘If they provided us with as many fighting reinforcements as fucking right-hand men and advisers, we would wrap this up in no time and all be home for Christmas.’
For some reason, a wave of panic had spread in Pretoria that Fapla’s 59 Brigade was about to bridge the Lomba and cross to the south bank, and that the SADF’s thin blue, orange and white line was about to break. Botha and Malan were surprised when the grime-covered Ferreira breezed in full of confidence and apparently unaware of the crisis they were sure had developed. When Meyer asked Ferreira whether he was worried about the consequences of an attempted crossing by 59 Brigade, one of those present at the conference, in a big earthen command bunker, recalled Ferreira’s eyes flashing as he replied: ‘Hell, that will be a pleasure.’
Ferreira’s upbeat mood and report impressed Botha and Malan. Geldenhuys was soon promised additional forces and funds to wage the War for Africa.
★ ★ ★
Sitting on Mucobolo Hill on Wednesday 30 September, Pierre Franken received reports from recces that a small party from 47 Brigade had made contact with 59 Brigade at the Lomba during the previous night. They passed over some seriously wounded troops and received a small consignment of food and ammunition which they carried back on their shoulders.
Franken radioed the information to Herman Mulder, who had already established from other sources that 59 Brigade had found a drift [fording place] about a kilometre to the east of the Lomba-Cuzizi confluence and had moved a TMM bridge to within three kilometres of it in the treeline to the north. Franken could also see ribbons of felled tree trunks and branches poking far out on to the anhara like lizards’ tongues from Fapla positions in the treeline on both sides of the drift.
47 and 59 Brigades were clearly building corrugated wooden highways across the marshes for their vehicles and armour. But the question Ferreira wanted answered by Mulder was: is 59 Brigade intending to push southwards, or is this road being built to permit 47 Brigade to retreat north?
Either way, the time had come to attack 47 Brigade without further delay – either before it escaped across the Lomba, or before it was reinforced on the south bank by 59 Brigade.
Ferreira ordered Commandant Smit and Major Lotter, who were getting their troops and equipment ready for the planned 5 October attack at an assembly point near a lagoon some 22 km to the southeast of the drift, to bring their preparations forward as much as possible. They would be striking at the enemy earlier than anticipated.
By 1 October Mulder was able to give Ferreira a detailed military assessment of which enemy brigade the wooden log road was being prepared for. His EW experts had intercepted and deciphered enemy communications between Cuito Cuanavale and the officer commanding 47 Brigade, Commander Silva, in which the brigade was ordered to withdraw north of the Lomba. Silva resisted, saying the brigade was still viable and would be able to push east towards Mavinga if reinforced.
On 1 October Silva was ordered to begin the withdrawal or face a court martial. One message said: ‘No excuses will be accepted, especially if the Russians are caught.’ It was the first concrete evidence Mulder had obtained of a Soviet presence with 47 Brigade, though he had assumed from past precedent that there would be seven or more Soviet military advisers at the brigade HQ.
On Friday 2 October Franken reported that work parties from 47 Brigade had fully extended the wooden road out two kilometres across the marshes to the drift. Vehicles were assembling in the treeline, while to the south of this marshalling area, well inside the bush, the rest of the brigade had dug into new trenches within striking distance of the wooden road. Franken also spotted three T-55 tanks from 59 Brigade just inside the treeline on the northern side which obviously intended to give 47 Brigade support in its retreat across the Lomba.
Then he saw several score of trucks, missile carriers and armoured cars moving into an assembly area right on the treeline to the southeast of the drift across the open anhara. They were obviously preparing to begin an orderly retreat back to the north, covered by the guns of 47 Brigade’s own infantry, a little further back in the treeline, and the heavy artillery of Fapla’s 59 and 21 Brigades.
Franken, Lieutenant May, Sergeant Da Trinidada and their men and the supporting UNITA scouts on Mucobolo Hill now played an absolutely vital role in holding up 47 Brigade’s retreat while Smit and Lotter continued working around the clock to get their combat groups ready for the big attack.
‘Through our binoculars, we estimated that there were more than 100 vehicles spread out in the assembly area,’ said Franken. ‘We brought down more or less constant G-5 and MRL bombardments on the vehicle groups and over the infantry concentrations. Herman Mulder radioed me to say that Colonel Ferreira was very happy because he was now convinced that 47 Brigade was feeling very lonely.
‘Then a couple of hours before dusk (on 2 October) some small groups of vehicles made a break across the anhara towards the drift. Unnoticed by us, 59 Brigade had got the TMM bridge into place, reinforced by lots of logs.
‘The first vehicles to arrive at the bridge included two Sam-9s. They were the first to attempt to cross, which was logical because they needed a good air defence system on the northern bank to protect the full crossing when it got underway’.
[The Soviet Sam-9 is a tactical short-range air defence system, firing ‘Gaskin’ surface-to-air missiles with ranges of eight kilometres from four launcher tubes mounted on top of the chassis and body of a BRDM-2 amphibious armoured car.]
Franken redirected the G-5 fire to the bridgehead and the little knots of vehicles gathering near it.
‘In the process of adjusting you bring in fire from just one gun before all eight in the battery begin to shoot,’ he said. ‘It was interesting. The orientation gunner fired his first round and the shell fell well off line. I gave him a correction to make to the right. His next round fell precisely on top of a BTR-60 armoured personnel carrier, destroying it completely. I doubt whether anyone aboard it survived. A shot like that requires a lot of skill and training, but it needs a bit of luck as well!
‘That caused a lot of fright among the Fapla forces. The vehicles moved away in two directions from the burning BTR, and there I think I made a mistake by trying to divide the G-5 fire between both groups. One managed to regroup and retreat back across the anhara to the bush, and one of the Sam-9s managed to cross the bridge to safety on the north bank.
‘Then I saw the second Sam-9 approaching the bridge, so I brought down concentrated fire on and around the TMM. We hit the Sam-9 as it rolled heavily across. That blocked the bridge to other vehicles. One of the T-55 tanks of 59 Brigade came down to try to recover the Sam-9, but they couldn’t pull it out because they were hampered by our shelling.’
★ ★ ★
An odd incident occurred up on Mucobolo Hill. As Franken brought down the heavy bombardment on the bridgehead, Da Trinidada suggested that he take out a reconnaissance patrol for some five kilometres because Fapla was bound to realise there was an SADF OP (observation post) directing the shelling and send out a team of their own to try to locate and destroy it.
‘I went out with two of my team,’ said Da Trinidada. ‘We’d gone about four kilometres when we saw men moving in the bush ahead. The bush was quite thick there so we kept moving forward until we were about 100 metres from them, and then we suddenly realised they were Fapla. They stopped dead in their tracks at almost the same moment: they’d obviously sensed we were SADF. It was a surprise for us, and it was a surprise for them. But, strangely, neither of us opened fire. We both just turned around and walked away. We reported to Major Franken and told him that we would have to be very careful.’
But there was little time left to think about being careful.
One of the most important land battles in South Africa’s history was about to begin.
★ ★ ★
Through the night of 2 to 3 October Franken, using passive night vision equipment, could still see the outlines of vehicles and people working at the bridgehead. ‘Every time we saw movement we brought down fire on them to stop them recovering anything or getting across,’ he said. ‘During the night we shot out a few vehicles and there were big fireballs lighting up the darkness. And then a couple of hours before dawn the 47 Brigade vehicles finally tired of trying to establish the bridgehead and retreated back across the anhara to the treeline. I went to sleep for the first time in 48 hours, and asked to be woken again the moment there was any sign of movement.’
An hour later Franken was rudely shaken from a deep sleep. The man on watch had heard the distant rumble of scores of armoured cars, and the noise was getting nearer.
61 Mechanised Battalion was on its way to attack 47 Brigade.