Many people gave me help during my research for The War for Africa. Not all can be listed, but most of them were generous with their time and refreshingly straightforward. The following gave me particularly rich interviews: Commandant Jan Hougaard, Sergeant Mac da Trinidada, Lieutenant Tshisukila Tukayula (‘TT’) de Abreu, Captain Herman Mulder, Commandant Robert Hartslief, Commandant Mike Muller, Major Tinus van Staden, Captain Arthur Piercey, Commandant Gerhard Louw, Colonel Deon Ferreira, Captain Piet van Zyl, Colonel Dick Lord, Major Laurence Maree, Sergeant Piet Fourie, Major Pierre Franken, Colonel Jean Lausberg, Captain Reg van Eeden and General Jannie Geldenhuys.
I also drew heavily on my personal interviews with Cuban Air Force General Rafael Del Pino Diaz.
The wisdom and insights of Paul Trewhela, the writer and polemicist who was a prisoner of the apartheid government in Johannesburg and Pretoria for three years in the 1960s for his membership of the banned South African Communist Party, was invaluable.
I owe special thanks also to my original publisher, Al Venter, for his constant encouragement and his determination that I should meet my deadline. For this new edition I greatly enjoyed working with Casemate commissioning editor Ruth Sheppard.
The debt I owe to Tito Chingunji, the former foreign secretary and number three in the hierarchy of UNITA, is beyond measure. He was an unusually kind man and close friend who taught me most of what I know about Angola. Tito, his wife, Raquel, their four small children and Tito’s entire extended family of about 50 people were executed on the orders of UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi for the most bizarre of reasons. I miss Tito badly to this day.
Finally, the author Sue Armstrong was an unpaid critic and sub-editor to whom my debt is very great.