Prologue
1 Minter, William (ed.), Operation Timber: Pages from the Savimbi Dossier, African World Press Inc., Trenton, New Jersey, 1988, p.2.
2 Van der Waals, Brigadier-General Willem S. (Kaas), Portugal’s War in Angola 1961-1974, Protea Books, Pretoria, 2011.
3 Porch, Douglas, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, Croom Helm, London, 1977.
4 Desmond Clark, J., J.D. Fage, Roland Oliver, Richard Gray, John Flint and G.N Sanderson (eds.), The Cambridge History of Africa Volume 8 c.1940 – c.1995, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986.
5 Cann, John P., Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War 1961-1974, Hailer Publishing, St Petersburg FL, 2005.
6 Several factors motivated the early navigators to explore beyond Europe’s real or imagined frontiers. The first was the knowledge that somewhere beyond the horizon – towards the East especially - there were other great civilizations and cultures that were not only immensely enticing, but were prosperous, outward looking and had an awful lot to offer. Make contact and there are fortunes to be made, was the dictum. It was these early voyages of discovery that ultimately caused Lisbon to establish a series of ‘replenishing posts’ along the African coastline that became the basis of Portugal’s colonial empire. Thus came into being countries that we recognise today as Angola, Mozambique and Guiné-Bissau.
7 Stiff, Peter, Silent War: SA Recce Operations 1986-1994, Galago Books, Alberton, 1994.
8 Introduction to Staying Alive: A Southern African Survival Handbook, by Ron Reid-Daly, Ashanti Publishing, Rivonia, 1990.
9 Personal communications with Captain John Cann US Navy (Rtd), March 2013.
Chapter 3
1 Venter, Al J., The Terror Fighters, Purnell, Cape Town, 1969.
2 Venter, Al J., Portugal’s War in Guiné-Bissau, Munger Africana Library, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 1973. Also published under the titled Portugal’s Guerrilla War by Malherbe, Cape Town, 1973.
Chapter 5
1 Even when aircraft and helicopters were acquired, usually from the French, there were enough radical movements back in the Metropolis to ensure that some of it was never deployed to Africa. A dozen Aerospatiale troop-carrying Puma helicopters – the same machines used by South Africa in its Border Wars - were sabotaged near Lisbon shortly before they were due to be shipped to Angola and Portuguese Guinea in the later stages of the war.
2 Chapman, F. Spencer, The Jungle is Neutral: A Soldier’s Two-Year Escape from the Japanese Army, The Lyons Press, 2003.
1 The mercenary-led war against Savimbi’s rebel forces – involving Executive Outcomes - is dealt with in some detail in the author’s War Dog: Fighting Other People’s Wars, Casemate Publishers, Philadelphia, 2007, Chapters 15 to 18, pp.340-444.
2 During the final phase of the Portuguese Army’s withdrawal from Angola, the author travelled from Luanda to Nova Lisboa (since renamed Huambo) to join Daniel Chipenda’s Chipa Esquadrao as a mercenary, largely in order to get the story he was after (see photo). The relationship did not last long. South African Army units had meantime invaded northwards from South West Africa (Namibia today) and had made inroads almost as far north as Luanda. Obviously, his presence as a South African journalist impeded progress since the entire operation was supposed to be covert.
3 Marcum, John A., The Angolan Revolution, Volume II: Exile Politics and Guerrilla Warfare (1962-1976), MIT Press, Cambridge MA, 1978.
Chapter 7
1 Military jargon for Situation Reports.
2 Several hundred RPG-7s were used, almost like artillery barrages to bring the US Army Black Hawks down in the Mogadishu contact that crippled two helicopters and eventually left 18 American servicemen dead.
3 African beer made from fermented maize or sorghum, to which anything can be added to make it potent, including drain cleaner.
Chapter 9
1 In the Eye of the Storm: Longmans, London, 1972 and before that The Liberation of Guiné, Penguin African Library, 1969, both by Basil Davidson.
Chapter 11
1 Clark, Desmond J., Roland Anthony Oliver, J. D. Fage, A. D. Roberts (eds.), The Cambridge History of Africa, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1986.
2 Umkhonto We Sizwe (Spear of the Nation) was founded partly in response to the Sharpeville Massacre of March 1960. Its leader, Nelson Mandela, was arrested shortly after its manifesto was published and sentenced to life in prison. He was released in 1990, with the end of apartheid.
3 Cann, John P., Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War 1961-1974, Hailer Publishing, St Petersburg FL, 2005.
4 Israel, like Egypt, still receives a bountiful $2 billion a year from the United States, originally agreed under the Camp David Accords, the framework for peace in the Middle East negotiated in 1978.
5 Van der Waals, W.S (Kaas), Portugal’s War in Angola 1961-1974, Protea Books, Pretoria, 2011.
Chapter 12
1 Porch, Douglas, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution; Croom Helm, London, 1973.
2 Venter, Al J., Report on Portugal’s War in Guiné-Bissau, Munger Africana Library, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. Also published in South Africa under the title Portugal’s Guerrilla War, Malherbe, Cape Town, both in 1973.
Chapter 13
1 Cann, Captain John, US Navy (Rtd).
2 Venter, Al J., Portugal’s Guerrilla War: The Campaign for Africa, Malherbe, Cape Town, 1973 and later published as a monograph by the Munger Africana Library, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena.
3 Cann, Captain John, US Navy (Rtd).
4 Castanheira, José Pedro, “Memórias da Guerra e da Paz: Spínola” [Memories of War and Peace: Spínola], Expresso Revista (30 April 1994), p.26.
Chapter 14
1 Guilherme Almor de Alpoim Calvão, correspondence with J.P. Cann, 9 May 2005, Cascais.
2 Afonso, Aniceto and Carlos de Matos Gomes, Guerra Colonial [Colonial War] (Lisbon: Notícias, 2000), p.79.
3 Carvalheira, José Alberto Lopes, “Acção da Marinha em Águas Interiors (Guiné),” 7 Telo, p.585.
4 Ibid.
5 Ibid., 6.
6 Afonso and Matos Gomes, p.81.
7 João Bernardo “Nino” Vieira, correspondence with Rui Demba Djassi and Domingos Ramos, 3 March 1964, undisclosed PAIGC base in southern Guiné, typewritten transcript furnished by Guilherme Almor de Alpoim Calvão in correspondence with the author, 9 May 2005, Cascais.
8 Afonso and Matos Gomes, p.81.
9 Ibid., p.80.
10 Guilherme Almor de Alpoim Calvão, correspondence with the author, 22 June 2005, Cascais.
11 Guilherme Almor de Alpoim Calvão, correspondence with the author, 9 May 2005, Cascais.
12 Afonso and Matos Gomes, p.81.
13 The tache d’huile technique was perfected by Louis-Hubert Lyautey during his Moroccan campaigns of the early Twentieth Century in which he progressively reoccupied hostile territory by offering Arab tribes French protection and access to commerce and social help. His expansion on a broad social-military front with the notion of building an Arab nation succeeded where his predecessors had relied on subjugation by the military column.
14 Indeed, an FAP Neptune landed at the remote N’Riquinha airstrip in south-eastern Angola while this author was briefly embedded at the base, then under the command of Captain (later Major) Vitor Alves, who was to become a prominent player in the army putsch of April 1974.
Chapter 16
1 Ration Pack.
Chapter 19
1 Venter, Al J., Portugal’s War in Guiné-Bissau, Munger Africana Library, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, 1973.
1 Air Combat Information Group (ACIG): Guiné (Portuguese Guinea) by Tom Cooper and Pedro Alvin, November 13, 2003.
2 COIN: The Portuguese in Africa 1959-75, Robert Craig Johnson, worldatwar/chandelle/v3/v3n2portcoin.html.
3 Venter, Al J: The Chopper Boys, Stackpole Books (US), Greenhill Books (UK) and Southern Publishing (South Africa) 1993
Chapter 22
1 Though Stockwell only arrived in the Congo after the Portuguese wars had ended, his outspoken observations do provide a significant insight into the machinations that went on during that period: a fascinating read in all departments. Stockwell was extremely critical of what the CIA was trying to achieve in Africa: he finally left the agency in disgust and went on to become one of its most outspoken critics.
2 Venter, Al J., War Stories by Al J. Venter and Friends (Protea Books, Pretoria, 2011) and The Chopper Boys, Stackpole Books, US and Greenhill Books, London, to be reissued as a new edition by Helion and Company in the UK in 2014.
3 Quimbo or Kimbo – An African village in south-east Angola.
Chapter 23
1 Cann, John P., Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War 1961-1974, Hailer Publishing, St Petersburg FL, 2005.
2 For insurance purposes, essentially, the conflict in Malaya, though it lasted years, was never declared to be a full-blown war. It remained an ‘emergency’ throughout.
3 John P. Cann, Ibid.
4 Beckett, Ian and Pimlott, John (eds.), Armed Forces and Modern Counter Insurgency, Croom Helm, London, 1985.
5 Porch, Douglas, The Portuguese Armed Forces and the Revolution, Croom Helm, London, 1977.
Chapter 24
1 Personal interview with Lt Colonel Ron Reid-Dale, founder –commander of the Selous Scouts at his False Bay, Cape home in 2004.
Chapter 25
1 Greene, T.N., The Guerrilla and How to Fight Him: Selections from the Marine Corps Gazette, Praeger, New York, 1967.
2 Cann, John P., Counterinsurgency in Africa: The Portuguese Way of War 1961-1974, Hailer Publishing, St Petersburg FL, 2005
3 Venter, Al J., Portugal’s Guerrilla War: The Campaign for Africa, Cape Town, 1974, also published by the Munger Africana Library, Pasadena, California as Report on Portugal’s War in Guiné-Bissau: California Institute of Technology.
1 Paper presented at the Portuguese/African Encounters: An Interdisciplinary Congress, Brown University, Providence MA, April 2002. An earlier version that focused on the Mozambican case was presented at the Second Congress of African Studies in the Iberian World, held in Madrid, Spain, in September 1999 and published as João Paulo Borges Coelho, “Tropas negras na Guerra colonial: O caso de Moçambique, in José Ramón Trujillo, ed., Africa hacia el siglo XXI (Madrid: Sial Ediciones, Colección Casa de África 12, 2001). Permission to use this material in this volume granted personally to Al J. Venter during his visit to Maputo in March 2012.
2 Revista Militar 41 (7) (15 April 1989).
3 Cann, John P., Contra-insurreição em África, 1961-1974. O modo português de fazer a guerra. Estoril: Edições Atena, Portugal 1998.
4 See David Martelo, Pessoal e orçamentos. Esforço de guerra, in Afonso and Gomes, Guerra colonial, pp.519-20.
5 According to Ferraz de Freitas, Conquista da adesão das populações (Lourenço Marques: SCCIM, 1965), p.6, ordering is based exclusively on physical power and provokes the repulsion of culturally different populations, and for this reason its efficiency tends to decrease in proportion to the decline of the physical power of the one who exerts it. On the contrary, commanding requires knowledge and ability to handle the ‘social forces,’ is based on participation, and promotes adhesion of the commanded. As to accionamento, it was defined as ‘the set of moves one needs to take to make sure that the population works with us and becomes prejudiced towards the propaganda of the enemy (…). [Through accionamento] we attract the populations into our orbit, integrate them in our environment, in our culture, in our civilisation and nationality (…). This would be one of our purposes. The other is to make them work actively with us in detecting and combating subversion (…)’ (GDT/Serviços Distritais de Administração Civil, 1966:45, Arquivo Histórico de Moçambique, Secção Especial, n° 237). For the psycho-social work with local communities in central Mozambique, namely in organising popular operations conducted by traditional authorities to detect guerrilla movements, see João Paulo Borges Coelho, “A ‘Primeira Frente’ de Tete e o Malawi”, Arquivo (15) (1994) 72.
6 João Paulo Borges Coelho, ‘Protected Villages and Communal Villages in the Mozambican Province of Tete (1968-1982): A History of State Resettlement Policies, Development and War’ (PhD. Dissertation: Department of Social and Economic Studies, University of Bradford, 1993), p.165 and passim.
7 Venter, Al J., War Stories by Al J. Venter and Friends, Protea Books, Pretoria, 2011, Chapter 10: Ron Reid-Daly: ‘A Tribute to the Man and his Scouts’, pp.178-206.
Appendix C
1 António Lobato, Liberdade ou Evasão [Freedom or Evasion] (Amadora: Erasmos Editora, 1996), 172.
2 Ibid., 172–177.
3 Alpoim Calvão, 57.
4 Ibid., 57–58.
5 LFG Sagitário (P 1131) was one of the final two vessels of the Argos class launches and was completed in September 1965 at the Arsenal do Alfeite, Lisbon. The other was LFG Centauro (P 1130).
6 Alpoim Calvão, 58.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 59.
9 José Freire Antunes, A Guerra de África 1961-1974 [The African War 1961–1974] (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 1996), 513.
10 Alpoim Calvão, 59.
11 Ibid.
12 Abou Camará, an ex-PAIGC sailor, was enlisted in the fuzileiros as part of the Portuguese policy of rehabilitating former insurgents. He was later assigned to DFE 21, a Destacamento de Fuzileiros Especiais Africanos (Detachment of African Special Fuzileiros), which was established in February 1970. He was to participate in Mar Verde and be awarded the Cruz de Guerra for his heroism.
13 Alpoim Calvão, 60.
14 The M20 Bazooka is a World War II-vintage 88.9mm rocket-propelled grenade launcher with a maximum range of 800 meters and a recommended moving target acquisition range of 185 meters.
15 Alpoim Calvão, 62.
16 The PPSh-41 (Pistolet-Pulemet Shpagina, from the Russian, and 41 from the 1941 date of manufacture) was the result of two national catastrophes for the Soviet Union. The first was the Winter War with Finland in 1939–1940 when the Finns used submachine guns with devastating effect during close combat in the forests, and the second was the German invasion of 1941 when the Soviets lost in the retreats both huge quantities of small arms and much of their engineering capability. There then arose an urgent demand for a light and simple weapon capable of a high volume of fire, and the answer to this was the PPSh-41, designed by Georgii Shpagin. It was much cheaper and quicker to make than the preceding models and was finished roughly. The barrel was still chromed, however, and there was never any doubt about its effectiveness. About five million PPSh guns had been made by 1945, and the Soviets adapted their infantry tactics to take full advantage of such huge numbers. In the Soviet Union, the PPSh went out of service in the late 1950s, but it has been supplied in enormous quantities to the satellite and procommunist countries, so that it will be seen for many years.
17 Alpoim Calvão, 63.
18 Ibid., 64.
19 Ibid., 64-65.
20 José Manuel Saraiva, “Asslto a Conakry” [Assault on Conakry], Revista do Expresso (23 November 1996): 97–98.
21 Jean-Paul Alata, Prison D’Afrique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1976); Lobato, 97.
22 Saraiva, 96.
23 Saturnino Monteiro, 198.
24 Alpoim Calvão, 65.
25 Ibid., 71.
26 António Luís Marinho, Operação Mar Verde [Operation Green Sea] (Lisbon: Temas e Debates, 2006), 108.
27 Alpoim Calvão, 72
28 Guilherme Almor de Alpoim Calvão, interview by the author, 14 March 1997, Lisbon.
29 Alpoim Calvão, 76.
30 Raúl Eugénio Dias da Cunha e Silva, “21st Detachment of Special Marines, Operation ‘Green Sea,’ Relating to the Period from 170300 to 252000 November 1970,” after action report written at the headquarters of DFE 21, Buba, Guiné, 30 November 1970, TMs [photocopy], 2.
31 Alpoim Calvão, 76–77.
32 Aniceto Afonso and Carlos de Matos Gomes, Guerra Colonial [Colonial War] (Lisbon: Notícias, 1998), 503. Januário Lopes and his men were ordered shot by Sékou Touré shortly after the UN investigative team had interviewed them.
33 Alpoim Calvão, 81.
34 Lobato, 175.
35 Guilherme Almor de Alpoim Calvão, interview and correspondence with the author, 3 February 1998, Lisbon. The force destroyed quite a number of military vehicles and damaged some official buildings and civil infrastructure. As the force carried only small demolition charges and not the explosives needed for heavy blasting, the damage was initially light. The PAIGC buildings were very insubstantial structures, and five of them were severely damaged during the exchange of fire when looking for Amílcar Cabral. The fighting, however, continued for three or four days after the Portuguese force departed, and further damage occurred during that period.
36 Alata, 51.
37 Ibid., 89.
38 Guilherme Almor de Alpoim Calvão, correspondence with the author, 29 January 1998, Lisbon. Alpoim Calvão in his correspondence describes the adventure of one of his men, Francisco Nhanque, who arrived late at the departure rendezvous in Conakry because he had been celebrating Sékou Touré’s impending fall with some bystanders. On seeing that the force had departed, he did not hesitate to leap into the sea and begin to swim westwards after the distant ships. Eventually, as he progressed about three miles out to sea, he was rescued by a passing Dutch freighter bound for Monrovia, Liberia. On arrival there, he requested and received political asylum. He located a job at a bar owned by a Brazilian, with whom he had established a rapport as a fellow Portuguese speaker. There was no Portuguese embassy or consulate in Liberia at the time. After several years, he had saved enough money to purchase an airline ticket, and he flew to the Canary Islands. He worked a further year to save for the fare to Lisbon, and when he arrived there, the airport authorities, on hearing his story, telephoned Alpoim Calvão for confirmation. Alpoim Calvão rushed to the airport to greet this fine soldier who had been reported missing in action in a war long since concluded.
39 Saraiva, 104.
40 José Freire Antunes, “Calvão evoca Conakry: «Às 9 da manhã eu tinha a cidade nas mãos» 
[Calvão remembers Conakry: “At 9 in the morning I held the city in my hands.”], Semanário (10 December 1988): 16.
41 Ahmed Sékou Touré, L’Agression Portugaise contra la Republic de Guiné (Conakry: Livre Blanc, 1970).
42 José Freire Antunes, “Invasão de Conakry, Novembro de 1970: A ‘Baía dos Porcos’ do General Spínola” [Invasion of Conakry, November of 1970: The “Bay of Pigs” of General Spínola], Semanário (29 October 1988): 21.
43 Ibid.
44 Castanheira, 28–30.
45 Castanheira, 28.
46 There are many reports of Senegalese crossing the border into Guiné to take advantage of the medical care administered to the local population there. Senghor undoubtedly knew of this generosity.
47 Castanheira, 30–31; António de Spínola, País sem Rumo [Country without Direction] (Lisbon: Editorial SCIRE, 1978), 25–28.
48 Alpoim Calvão, 88–96.
49 Castanheira, 31; Alpoim Calvão, 89.
50 J.C. Moura da Fonseca, Viagens e Históras da Marinha [Voyages and Stories of the Navy] (Lisbon: Edições Culturais da Marinha, 1995), 120–121.
51 Eduardo Dâmaso and Adelino Gomes, “Falecidos por Fuzilamento” [Death by Shooting], Pública (30 June 1996): 48.
52 Ibid.
53 Ibid., 47.