The SAAF in Support of Portugal
Southern African military personnel were involved in Angola and Mozambique while the Portuguese were fighting rear-guard actions to save their African possessions. Rhodesian Special Forces were active in both countries. That followed the deployment of South African helicopter gunships to assist Portuguese troops in Angola. Former SAAF Brigadier Peter ‘Monster’ Wilkins was among the first to be tasked and this is his recollection of events.
After Operation Blouwildebees – the South African Police assault on Ongulumbashe in 1966 – South African Air Force elements were substantially involved in Southern Angola. Essentially, they went in to help the Portuguese Air Force and the clandestine arrangement survived until 1973, roughly a year before Lisbon pulled out of Africa, bags and baggage.
These operations were given various names. They included Op Bombay (1969 – 1970), Op Mexa (1971), followed by Op Atilla and Op Resgate in 1973. Two more operations have been mentioned in this context, but details are vague, except that it is believed that a pair of gunships was lost.
Initially, the main areas of operation involving gunships included northern Namibia, southern Angola and what was then Rhodesia, where SAAF pilots fought alongside their Rhodesian counterparts. The primary ‘war-horse’ for what had earlier been dubbed The Chopper Boys was the venerable Alouette III, or, in air force lingo, the ‘Alo’ – a relatively slow, seemingly frail, but nonetheless a remarkably resilient French-built helicopter which, despite being able to take innumerable hits, usually hauled their crews back to base and safety. If a round pierced the helicopter’s hydraulics or removed a rotor blade, which occasionally happened, it was another story.
Among these survivors was Dave Atkinson (known as to his buddies as ‘Double Dave’ or ‘Size Twelves’, due to his boot size). He once emerged from a significant contact with enemy guerrillas after his chopper had taken more than three dozen AK hits in and around the fuselage.
Later, as the war escalated and Lisbon had withdrawn its forces from Africa, hostilities moved up several notches during onslaughts such as Operations Savannah and Protea and, in the course of events, a lot more of Angola was covered. In fact, some of the British-built maritime Westland Wasp helicopters operating from South African navy frigates deployed as back-up measures off the Angolan coast were also involved.
Once initial deliveries of the Aerospatiale Pumas started coming through, some of these larger transport helicopters were sent to forward operational postings in Sector 10; it was in Ovamboland that the air war entered a new and more versatile phase. Pumas deployed in combat conditions were used to good effect for moving troops into forward positions or perhaps bringing up reserves of ammunition and returning the wounded to hospital at Oshakati.
After a while their numbers were supplemented by even larger Super Frelons, which, though bulky and not suited to the hot and arid conditions of the northern reaches of South West Africa or southern Angola, those machines, despite some criticism, were an asset to the war effort. As Brigadier Wilkins put it, the Super Frelon had an increased lifting capacity and a greater range than the Puma, and, by chopper standards, ‘it was also the most comfortable of SAAF helicopters’.
Affectionately known as ‘Putco’, after the public utility bus company active in Johannesburg, the Super Frelon was also involved in several military strikes into southwestern Zambia. At that stage, these machines temporarily operated from Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi. It wasn’t long before they were pulled back, in part because the machines were inordinately thirsty and their lifting capacity not proportionately much more than the average Puma.
In later years Puma helicopters were to join their Alouette counterparts in Rhodesian operations and both chopper types saw cross-border service into Mozambique.
Brigadier Wilkins continues:
Before the acquisition of Pumas by the SAAF, all military trooping was handled by the Alouette, which meant limited mobility in all departments. At best, these small choppers could take four, depending on the amount of kit, weapons and ammunition the troopies carried. The Portuguese would sometimes up that to five, six even, but then you had a good chance of stripping the gears.
Initially, all SAAF helicopters were based at the South African Air Force base at Ondangua. They were later deployed to positions further afield and that included Rundu (on the southern bank of the Okavango River which bordered on Angola) as well as to Katima Mulilo (at the eastern end of the Caprivi Strip, where the frontiers of Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia conjoined on the Zambezi River). Operations consisted mainly of stealthy day-time flights into Angola in support of Portuguese ground forces.
Lisbon had its own Alouette IIIs in these areas, but having to cope with three major wars in regions that stretched all the way across Africa – and were themselves half the size of Western Europe – their numbers were severely limited. Consequently, the Portuguese Air Force was hard-pressed to meet all military needs and it was axiomatic that the South Africans would be asked to help.
The fact was, the guerrilla armies then active in South Angola were our enemy too, and at the time they were giving good support to SWAPO cadres intent on infiltrating southwards into the country that was eventually to become Namibia. It was more or less taken for granted that the request would elicit a positive response from Pretoria, if only to provide the still-developing helicopters wing with combat experience. There was a cachet to the deal, though: SAAF operations inside Angola were to remain secret and the media was never to be privy to these developments.
The most active anti-Portuguese insurgent movement in the region at the time was UNITA, led by a mercurial, Swiss-educated Maoist by the name of Dr Jonas Savimbi. Based largely in the south-eastern Cuando Cubango province – which lay north of Caprivi – it made good sense to help the Portuguese, and that was where we came in.
Because the first Pumas had not yet arrived from France, we were equipped only with our modest little troopers, almost all of them unarmed Alouette IIIs and it remained that way from 1966 to 1969. The Portuguese, in contrast, fielded full-blown gunships – the same Alouette helicopters – but with 20mm cannon facing out the left rear door: we were only to receive our first gunship in the Caprivi in the third quarter of 1969.
I was operating out of Rundu at the time and I clearly remember the strict set of rules with which we were issued on arrival at the base. The thrust of it was that the restrictions imposed severely limited the versatility of the machines we operated in wartime conditions. But, as in most conflicts, the chopper crews had their own way of doing things and we soon figured out ways to get the most out of the choppers.
Bluntly put, South African air crews were not allowed ‘to take the war to the guerrillas’. Instead, we were expected to account for every single round of HE (high explo sive) fired by us. The word from Pretoria was that we were only to ‘protect our own’ and SAAF helicopters were not allowed to engage in ‘seek and destroy’ engagement. In short, we were never to be the aggressors, which, in wartime, was hogwash.
Of course, there were ways of circumventing the nonsense, that was probably the brainchild of some heavily- braided functionary who had never heard a shot fired in anger. The business ends of our HE rounds were painted green. Portuguese ones, in contrast, were orange and yellow, which made them easily distinguishable from each other. But we soon became aware that Portuguese aircrews had a singular weakness, which was the need for good South African wines, ofwhich we had a lot. It wasn’t long before we established a primitive barter system that involved trading a good bottle of wine for so many rounds of Portuguese HE: thank you very much!
That done, our gunners would insert scrounged Portuguese high explosive rounds into their ammo belts and leave a distinctive gap before inserting our own rounds, which ensured that the weapon stopped firing before our own rounds came into play. In a really hot contact, a quick pull by the gunners to reload their heavy machine-gun was a formality and the firefight would continue. We ended up using a lot less of our own ammunition to achieve the same result.
At the same time, ball or solid 20mm rounds were also studiously hoarded. Because we were officially allowed to use them for target practice, they were more freely available that HE rounds, so we jealously guarded our supplies of ball, and for good reason.
We had long ago been made aware of the fact that in heavily wooded country, such as we encountered in areas where the Portuguese forces were active, HE would explode on contact with the tree branches, often well short of the intended target sheltering below. Obviously this didn’t achieve many results. But by inserting ball rounds into the ammo belts, we had excellent penetration. Though not spectacular, ball ammo was very effective against an enemy using heavy foliage and forest cover to secrete themselves.
Interestingly, this was a lesson we used in later years, when 20mm ball ammunition would easily penetrate the hulls of armoured vehicles like Soviet BRDMs and BTRs whenever they were deployed by the Soviets against South African forces.
Our choppers were also used to torch guerrilla camps by using our Very pistols. Every Alouette had at least one of these signal guns, ostensibly for rescue purposes.
My first border trip was scheduled for an operation that was launched in September 1966, but I had a problem with my ears and was grounded for the duration. The result was that I only experienced my first operational ‘bush tour’ after I’d returned to Ondangua in May 1967. It lasted more than two months and was the first of many.
Over a three year period, I completed more than two dozen postings to the Operational Area, some as long as three months and others, mostly on Pumas, for perhaps a week. Over a thousand of my operational hours were on Alouettes, with about 300 on Pumas. As the saying goes, it was many hours of boredom, interspersed by a few hairy moments of terror when we came under fire.
The first really ‘hot’ operations to which I was subjected came in 1968, when we were supposed to act solely in a supportive role for the Portuguese Air Force. While the troopers were initially not armed, they were later fitted with light machine-guns for self-protection. Additionally, the flight engineer carried an automatic rifle, whereas the pilots would take a 9mm pistol as well as a hand machine carbine (HMC), or perhaps an Israeli Uzzi on board with us.
We would load up a couple of eager-for-combat Angolan soldiers – usually commandos or Airborne Forces – termed Grupos Especiais Pára-Quedistas in local lingo – and they would lead us in the general direction of what they would claim were ‘known’ insurgent camps. It was all very much a hit-or-miss affair. Once arrived, in theory, we were required to circle overhead while the Portuguese gunships would go straight in. Frankly, this wasn’t our idea of fighting a war and the SAAF crews wouldn’t waste much time before getting involved.
The upshot of it all was that there was a good deal of illegal firing from our choppers, which often included the pilots who would sometimes join in the fray. Most quickly mastered the art of keeping the cyclic stick between their knees steady and firing at the enemy from their little side windows with their hand machine carbines.
That said, these were still early days in the bush war and the guerrillas rarely looked too threatening, which meant that we usually had things our own way: this was no Vietnam. When they did fire back, it was invariably inaccurate and usually ‘blind’, firing their guns over their shoulder or on the run. Their first mistake was actually to display their weapons, so we knew exactly which individuals running about on the ground below us needed to be picked off …
On these cross-border operations into South Angola, we usually set out of Rundu with a squadron of six Alouettes.
Five of the troopers would form into a ‘V’ or ‘Vic’ formation, though this was usually quite loose, individual choppers being a kilometre or more apart throughout the flight. The lone gunship would slot in behind this formation, riding shotgun and keeping all the troopers in view. Because of the weapon and the amount of ammunition on board, this helicopter was much heavier than the others and also the slowest. It was left to its pilot to call a power setting for the leader to use.
Progress once across the Okavango River and northwards into the vast and almost featureless Angolan landscape was sometimes very slow, especially when the choppers were still heavy with fuel. Returning to base half-empty, in contrast, was a breeze. In-between, we billeted at established Portuguese bases in the interior.
The weight problem was a consistent problem, as the ops were usually three weeks long and we had to take with us just about everything we might need. Another problem was the shortage – in some areas, the non-existence – of drinking water and most times we had to take our own. For weight reasons, this was usually limited to a five-gallon canister per crew member.
With the crew, their clothes and water for three weeks, as well as the 20mm cannon and up to 480 rounds of ammunition weight was a perennial problem. Maximum fuel to keep the gunship within limits was usually 600 pounds (60 percent) for ops. But due to the shortage of infrastructure in Angola, one needed at least that much for the heavy ferry flights too, so flying out of Rundu we were always overweight. The legs between refuelling points were each about 1½ hours flying, so it was the gunship that set the pace and from the rear.
Most of our ops in Angola were pre-planned between the Portuguese army officers and our SAAF Air Liaison Officer or ALO, usually a major who was based in Angola with the Portuguese at Cuito Cuanavale.
The usual scenario was to fly troops into specific areas, close, but not too close, to known guerrilla camps. If the choppers ventured too close and were heard approaching by the enemy the operation could be compromised, in which case the guerrilla camp would be found deserted. Or, the troops could disembark into an ambush. Most of our initial trooping consequently was not into heavily contested combat zones: that came with later Rhodesian ops and when the Angolan war escalated.
Nonetheless, occasional shots were fired at us and the odd bullet-hole punched into an Alouette, even in those early days.
I was only hit once and didn’t know about it until after we’d touched down back at base, when a bullet-hole was discovered in the panel behind the fuel tank: nothing vital was struck. In fact, we hadn’t even seen any guerrillas during that sortie!
One pilot, Geoff Clark, was shot in the thumb, but none of our Alouettes were downed by guerrilla fire in the early days.
However, we were required to operate in an environment of ‘ever-present danger’, with the gunship pulling ahead prior to the landing, to seek out a safe-looking landing zone or LZ. If an enemy presence was detected, it would be its job to flush them out.
Because weight was always a critical factor, wind direction was important, which meant that when the troopers were on a long approach, the gunship would drop a smoke grenade into the intended area, give the lead trooper his LZ and his wind and allow him to make the necessary adjustments.
Drops were usually done beyond the tree line, as the choppers were usually too heavy for hover landings. Open ground between the trees and the many rivers in south-east Angola, was usually suitable for getting five troopers into a landing. They were taken in reasonably close proximity to one another, largely to ensure that troops were not too spread out.
The technique for landing, especially when heavy and while dropping troops, was to use whatever help was available.
Smoke grenades were an accurate indication of the wind, but the actual landings needed to be well timed: each chopper took advantage of the previous chopper’s down-wash, essentially to conserve fuel. As a chopper landed, its down-wash would sometimes become a bit of an up-wash and add impetus to the wind factor; if the chopper behind had its timing right, wind factor would be increased, and that made for an easier landing and used less fuel.
The guys with whom we were operating were solid professionals: pilots like Hobart Houghton, Johan Ströh, Glen Williams, Gary Barron and Fritz Pieksma. They would get their timing spot-on and an entire drop would go off so smoothly and quickly that the gunship needed a single circuit and in very little time there were 20 soldiers deposited safely onto firm ground – literally 30 seconds or so.
There were a few difficult moments, of course. Sometimes, on arrival over the LZ, one or two choppers would find that there were obstructions in the grass, like tree stumps or anthills. For the troops this would necessitate a deplaning in the hover.
Because speed was of the essence and there was often a chopper right behind you, also wanting to get airborne immediately, we practised for this. Our flight engineers – who doubled as our gunners- taught the troops to slide the side doors open on final approach. This was done by way of hand signals, essentially showing both thumbs in a repeated reverse movement. The next signal was similar, but with thumbs pointed outwards – in other words, ‘get the hell out’.
The regular Portuguese soldier, a youthful conscript, and many of them still in their teens, were really all that stood between Lisbon winning or losing everything in Africa.
Prior to being sent out to serve their two-year terms of military service, which, in the remote African context could be pretty demanding and rigorous, the majority had hardly been aware that the ‘Dark Continent’ even existed. Never mind that their country dominated two very substantial chunks of it that, cumulatively, were dozens of times the size of their home country. Unlike Angola – and Mozambique with a coastline that stretched more than 3,000 kilometres up the East African littoral – Portuguese Guinea (Guiné-Bissau today) was small fry, but conditions there – in a terrain composed mainly of low-lying mangrove swamps and semi-habitable jungle – were among the harshest of all the postings. Also, the enemy, Amilcar Cabral’s PAIGC, was way ahead the most determined.
It was clear to us that apart from the odd exception, these youngsters weren’t interested in what was clearly a colonial conflict, with Lisbon seeking to dominate huge swathes of the African continent, as it had done for the past five centuries.
These fellows were certainly not looking for a fight and some were so inexperienced in bush craft that they could quite easily misread the map and trek away from the targeted guerrilla camp after being put down by the choppers, instead of towards it. That meant that pick-ups after the supposed firefight required dollops of patience and, often enough, extra fuel, so that the necessary search could be conducted to find the troops who were nowhere near the designated LZ where we were supposed to fetch them. Those were the boys from the metrópole, as it was customarily phrased: and meant, of course, the Metropolis, or Europe.
Troops from Angola itself, in contrast were very different. These soldiers, black and white, had a stake in the country for which they were fighting. They knew Africa and were aware that if they didn’t counter subversion, they’d be out of it, very much like the South African troops who followed in their wake not long afterwards in South West Africa.
‘Home grown’ Angolan troops were usually either Commandos – sometimes Comandos Africanos – or Airborne and they meant business. We could immediately see that they were a pretty handy bunch of fighters who enjoyed getting into a scrap when the occasion arose. As with Portuguese chopper pilots with whom we operated, they simply relished their bits of combat, especially since they always had a gunship or two hovering nearby to add something to the outcome.
Also, their basic intelligence was invariably more reliable than the kind of information provided by regular Portuguese army officers with whom we came into contact. Like the conscripts under them, their only interest was in staying alive: if they could avoid confrontation with the guerrillas, they would take the gap.
Many of the contacts that resulted with the elite Portuguese units were sporadic. Some would last only minutes, others perhaps half an hour. No matter how long, there were usually a number of dead or wounded enemy soldiers left on the ground after their compadres had fled. So, with the pick-up effected we’d head back to base with our satisfied ‘customers’, together with a variety of booty acquired by them, usually firearms.
This practice was almost always frowned upon by the Portuguese army officers back at base because it wasn’t part of their ‘plan’. But the ebullient Portuguese chopper pilots would be quite adept at calming things down and eventually singing everyone’s praises for what happened during this ‘sudden and unexpected’ occurrence of ‘discovering’ a guerrilla camp ‘somewhere out there in the bush’.
Our main base of operations in the Cuando Cubango region of Angola was the town of Cuito Cuanavale, not long afterwards to become a major staging post for FAPLA, the military wing of the Marxist MPLA. That came after the country had been handed over as a one-party state to the newly-formed Luanda government without elections or a referendum by the departing Portuguese.
The Portuguese Air Force fielded some great pilots, real characters who were brave and totally dedicated to their cause. One example was a fellow by the name of Vidal, who seemed to have the inordinate ability to find enemy camps in the kind of bush country that seemed to go on uninterrupted from one horizon to the other.
We were operating from Cangamba and when he got up from the breakfast table and moments later all but fell over. We knew he’d had a touch of malaria but weren’t aware that it was quite so serious. The man could barely stand unaided. Still, this didn’t deter him from heading out to the airstrip, getting into his Alouette and heading into the bush. The operation that day was a marked success, in large part due to Vidal’s efforts at egging on his own pilots: there were dozens of guerrillas killed and lots of captures.
Vidal was a remarkable character, always ready for a scrap. Our Cessna had flown me in to Cangombe before an operation to assist in the planning, which was when we made contact for the first time. Some operations would last a week or two and then the Portuguese squadron from Luso, the Saltimbancos, would take over from us for another few weeks, or vice versa.
The Portuguese officers were busy with the operation when I popped in, but everything seemed to be pretty quiet. The day had turned into a proverbial ‘Lemon’.
Meantime, Vidal and another pilot by the name of ‘Jailbird’ – he was called that by his colleagues because, with his head shaved clean, his mates thought he resembled an Alcatraz inmate – were convinced that the planners, all of them ‘full time jam stealers’ from Portugal, were not really interested in ‘mixing’ it with the enemy. It was actually not difficult to sense the reticence of these backroom boys: they were very much more were interested in getting back to the mess for the day and the grog.
Undeterred, Vidal offered to take me up in his Alouette gunship, for what he termed would be ‘an armed recce’!
In a discreet briefing after the planning session, he said that he had a bit of surprise for me, because he’d had info about a large insurgent camp not far into the interior and he was eager that he and Jailbird hit it with their two gunships before dark. The troopers would follow afterwards. Initially, he said, there would be only the two of us, plus Jailbird and his gunner, who was part of the plan. Those flying the trooping choppers believed that they were heading out on a routine reconnaissance mission. As the Portuguese gunships always ranged far ahead of the troopers, Vidal felt confident that nothing would appear amiss.
Once in the air, Vidal suggested that I fly his gunship, while he took up a position behind the gun. At least, that is what he told his colonel. So we got airborne and were on our way to the DZ for the ‘dead’ drop, when Vidal steered me off to the left, away from the troopers. About 20 minutes later we arrived over the camp.
This was no ordinary insurgent base, I soon discovered. It was, from what I could see from where we were perched, actually a very large and well laid out army base under the trees. There were even some rather untypical benches – probably for ‘lectures’ which was a feature of all insurgent bases, only this facility suggested that there were an awful lot of ‘students’. Once the target had been confirmed, the turkey shoot began.
We were much lower than the usual 800 feet (on Vidal’s insistence) and yes, as he’d enthusiastically declared earlier, it was a lot easier to pick up and knock off targets from lower down! But that wasn’t the problem: finding targets was, as very few, if any of the guerrillas, fired back and we couldn’t clearly make out much of value on the ground from where we hovered. Still, it was a job that needed to be done.
One of the guerrillas, obviously a good deal braver than the rest, actually did shoot at us, but from the cover provided by one of the larger forest trees. So Vidal called in Jailbird, who took out the recalcitrant from the other side. Otherwise Jailbird did his own thing – there was more than enough room to do so, while Vidal and I went after a few other options including stragglers heading for thick bush.
The idea was that at some stage I would take my turn behind the gun, but by now Vidal seemed that he’d forgotten. Then I took the helicopters into a clearing and landed and he quickly got the message. But by then it was almost over: we were out of ammunition and the troopers had been called in to land the troops whose job it was to clean up the camp. A stack of documents and weapons were uncovered and loaded on board. They also took back several prisoners.
The operation that day was certainly far more successful than any of the other ‘official’ operations I witnessed while I spent time with the Portuguese. But, of course, I was not ‘officially’ involved and I’m certain that Vidal and Jailbird got a massive rocket for their enterprise from their commander.
Looking back, it was obvious that the entire effort was make-shift and the planning, consequently, poor. For the rest of the 10 days that our six Alouettes worked with the Portuguese, we plucked only lemons. Clearly, at the behest of Vidal and ‘Jailbird’, they’d got the message and moved further into the bush.
One of the fixed-winged aircraft fielded by the Portuguese Air Force in Angola and its other African military theatres was the Lockheed PV Ventura – known as the ‘Pee-Vee’ in Angola. It had a reputation of good power in reserve and versatility, which one might expect from the Americans, who gave the machines to Lisbon in the first place. But, said one of the Portuguese pilots, ‘beware the high wing loading if you have an engine cut.’
We were at Cuito once, when a PV was doing engine run-ups prior to going on a bombing raid. Initially, whenever the throttle was opened up, the starboard engine kept backfiring. Then the technicians would shut it down, work on it some more and fire it up again.
This rigmarole was repeated several times and went on until the pilot arrived, resplendent in a magnificent blood-red silk scarf and flying overalls that were so well pressed that he might have been heading out for a night on the town.
A few more adjustments followed, now with him at the controls, and then the other PV started up as well. That meant that we all congregated at the edge of the runway for what was certain to be an occasion. We watched with great interest as the bomb-laden PVs rolled away for an uphill – into the wind – take-off.
The ‘good’ plane dutifully waited for the ailing ‘aircraft’ to go first, which it did, after a perfunctory final engine run-up before rolling. Then, to nobody’s surprise, the first backfire sounded, just as the tail came up. There was a little wiggle at the far end of the runway, the plane went tail down again and finally its engines opened up with a roar! After three more backfires the pilot got airborne, followed soon afterwards by his wing man. Then, in echelon, they turned into the sun and headed for their raid. They were obviously aware that we were all watching.
Everything must have gone off as expected, because they were back at the base within an hour, gun-ports whistling.
The PVs carried an impressive array of weapons, not all of them standard. There might be a mixture of anything from .303 and .50 Browning to 7.62mm NATO and 12,7mm guns – all in the nose of the plane. Several times I did a count and found that there could be anything from six to a dozen guns per PV, depending on availability. These were taped before departure, but once used, would whistle gaily to herald the standard beat-up after a raid. When the pilot of this large, noisy airframe swaggered up to his audience afterwards, we asked him whether the thought or the possibility of an engine cut on take-off, uphill, with a sick, backfiring motor didn’t worry him.
‘Oh no!’ he said in fractured English. ‘Long runway and if I ‘ave an ‘undred knots, it is no problem!’