Bittersweet
Two days after the Queen V encounter, just before our flight was due to depart Durban for Omuthiya, my on again/off again girlfriend ‘Baby-G’ approached me about rekindling our relationship. For some reason I no longer felt such pressing urge to get sexual but jumped at the opportunity to get back together even though we both knew it would be another three months at least before we could be together.
Now, that would be something to look forward to.
Returning to the border in April from the three-week pass seemed just like any another farewell, a hug and a ‘see ya soon’ but, for some families this was to be their last goodbye. They didn’t know it then but this final goodbye would soon become a bittersweet moment they would cling to for the rest of their days.
As we dropped back into Grootfontein AFB, chatter on board the C-130 was remarkably different from our first landing back in December. The boys, unaware of our imminent fate, were far more relaxed this time the tail-gate opened onto the barren brown inhospitable environment.
When we got back to base at Omuthiya I wasted no time confiding in my fellow Corporals about scoring the jackpot with such a beautiful specimen just a few days earlier. I think my two conservative Afrikaaner buddies were lime-green with envy but would not have admitted it, I recall Venter admonishing me, “Hey Trinity! You don’t want to marry such a good looking girl, because every other oke is going to try neek (shag) her!”
His logic was undeniably compelling for about one second, but seemed a bit defeatist to me.
Our stories of youthful adventure and derring-do on that three-week pass were shared and retold as we resumed what were by now familiar routines of border life while focussing on the countdown to our next big mission, the next and final three-week pass home, in August.
At some stage we organised homemade entertainment for the Battalion boys.
I’d always had a penchant for amateur dramatics so was more than willing to participate by trying to get big laughs from the assembled audience that night, which included Commandant Smit, Danie Laas, RSM Snor and entire leader group in the front row. The evening’s entertainment involved some ribald joke telling, a few comedy skits and, dare I say it, some cross-dressing by Frenchie (Laurent Fritsch) and I. For some reason cross-dressing always elicits a good laugh, and I think the image of us in frocks was forever seared into the memories of the most senior staff.
Photo 16 From R-L O’Connor, Frenchie, Fraser and myself, providing 61 Mech with some cross-dressing entertainment. The Omuthiya mess hall was converted for the stage show. Wayne Fraser excellently played the part of husband to a dress-wearing wife (me) clearly over-excited to be among so many fit young men. Wayne can be seen struggling to contain my ‘provocative’ exuberance. (David Mannall)
Around the same time my folks announced they’d long wanted to see the raw beauty of SWA/Namibia for themselves so they planned a fortnight 4,000 click road-trip which included a visit to our base at Omuthiya. That night they came for dinner at the popular Omuthiya Steakhouse and Grill which Charlie Squad ‘inherited’ from our predecessors.
The purpose-built steakhouse opened alternate Friday nights. Guys from the Squad assigned to either front of house or back in the small hot kitchen. The steakhouse’s most popular dish: ‘Monkey Gland sauce’ Rump steak and chips.
Other than the cow killed by Bremer’s VW Golf front windshield, there was another unfortunate incident relating to the premature demise of local livestock. The Owambo farmer was understandably displeased and just as with the Bremer beef business, the RSM was forced to make a payment to the local dude, fair compensation for his recently deceased head of cattle.
Patrons at Omuthiya Steakhouse and Grill that next Friday night, remarked that the steaks were unusually generous in weight and full of flavour, albeit a little on the tough side.
It wasn’t all bad, it’s fair to say Chef’s on base were good and meals were pretty decent (though my judgement might be skewed a bit here ’cos I got to eat in the Officer’s mess on china plates), however, the Omuthiya Steakhouse was a roaring success; the change in diet and flavour welcome, as was the opportunity for belly-button scraping Infantrymen to treat Armoured Corps lads like a waiter.
Now that I think of it, I had a great rapport with 61 Mech chef’s, or cooks, which really came in handy at times, but the restaurant gave the boys a chance to be a bit ‘normal’, to make some food choices for themselves, even have a beer with their grub. It was all very grown-up. For Charlie boys it meant a fun change of routine, for one or two maybe even an opportunity to earn a little extra cash on the side.
Then in July, without warning, a Company-sized contingent of soldiers arrived from Infantry School (the equivalent of Pantserskool) and set up temporary base (TB) near the perimeter fence at Omuthiya.
Photo 17 Charlie Squad boys boys are put to work at the grill by knife-wielding O’Connor at the Omuthiya Steakhouse. Colin van Aswegen (far right) wrestling with a Lion, is working hardest of all. (Len M. Robberts)
Like so often in the army, we didn’t know what the deal was but, by sheer coincidence, a good friend from Pinetown, Cpl. Kevin Reid happened to be among the group, training year one Roofies in their charge (this was a plum posting for Kevin, he’d obviously been a ‘good’ Corporal). Juslaaik (goodness) it was lekker (nice) to hang out and catch up on his news from home (such plum posting meant many free weekends to travel hither and thither – this guy was living the second year National Service I’d once aspired to).
I couldn’t help laughing when Kevin told me the story of our good friend Peter Baker (the same one I had the fairy fight with age 13) who, in truth, was somewhat hapless, even hopeless, when it came to soldiering, a little bit like American GI comic strip character Sad Sack.
Despite struggling desperately during Basic Training, Patriotic Pete was the kind of guy who had South Africa in his veins and really wanted to do his fair share in the fight against the Rooi Gevaar (Red Danger).
Second year, Pete actually requested posting to the Operational Area, and consequently found himself driving trucks up on the Caprivi Strip, the narrowest part of the country up on the north eastern border.
Back home Pete, like most of us, had been quite hard up and considered his car fuel tank to be ‘full’ if the needle just lifted itself out of the red section when the ignition was switched on. For most people, his ‘full’ was the very lowest they would comfortably allow their gauge to settle before pulling in to fill up at a petrol station. When he did ‘fill-up’ it was invariably just a few litres at a time with the brown and silver coins we’d scraped together.
This was all good and well, a reality of life for us growing up but a few weeks into his Caprivi tour his truck ran out of fuel a few clicks from base.
This was a major breach of protocol and it meant drywer inspeksie (driver inspection)’ had not been completed before his departure that day. This was a breach back in safe SA but up on the border such oversight could have pretty dire consequences.
Guys had paid the ultimate price simply cos they ran out of fuel and then got tangled with a band of insurgents on the yomp back to base.
Sad Sack abandoned his vehicle, intending to come back later with a can of diesel but, before he could cover his tracks the unit Commander chanced upon the abandoned Samil and, in a fit of Commandanting, immediately revoked Pete’s many driving licenses and demoted him to co-driver of a water bunker. Then, just a week or two later, some miscommunication between Pete and the water-bunker driver resulted in his ankle becoming snagged then crushed, by a friggin water pipe of all things!
Although Pete was gutted to be removed from the border, the upside was he’d get to spend months in rehab on ‘light duties’ back in SA which meant the likelihood of him, or anyone else around him, sustaining further injuries during National Service was significantly reduced. It also left him with significant ‘war wounds’ to show everyone he met (and I mean EVERYONE), evidence of his contribution to making our country safe from that ‘Red Danger’, as the Communist threat over the border was colloquially known.
I also learned from Kevin’s CO that his unit always made this annual pilgrimage for a two-week taste of border action for first-year troops, and this year they’d been instructed to visit Omuthiya, which seemed plausible enough to me at the time, but it wasn’t long before we discovered the real reason for their encampment right on our doorstep.
A couple days after those Infantry boys turned up, the whole Battalion was ordered to tree-aan (fall-in) on parade for an important unscheduled announcement. There was a rising sense that something was going on and this was confirmed the moment Commandant Smit stepped up to address his battle group: “ … It has become clear to the South African Government that FAPLA are preparing a major offensive … ”
What he didn’t tell us was that FAPLA were already doing a lot more than fucking preparing an offensive. By July, four Brigades and two tactical groups were already on the move. Six more Brigades were in final stages of battle readiness and preparing to move with a further two Brigades held in reserve! In manpower terms, the force despatched to route UNITA totalled at least 25,000 soldiers of mixed ability with the elite, and most heavily equipped forces, at the vanguard.
As it turned out, and despite my and Ashton’s naïve predictions when we first landed at Grootfontein eight months earlier was that the Angolan Government had done anything but capitulate after their ’85 setback. With the help of Fidel Castro and a superpower in supernova, FAPLA quickly acquired unprecedented stockpiles of ultra-modern technology and ships crammed full of ‘last season’ Soviet hardware.
It is widely acknowledged that Cuban and Russian ‘Specialists’ provided intensive training for around 60–100,000 Angolan combat troops and that active Cuban Air force combat pilots significantly augmented the skill level of the Angolan Air Force and intelligence gathering capabilities across the full spectrum of military operations were greatly enhanced. Some 100,000 Cuban conscripts were brought to Angola during the war years.
Photo 19 Desert convoy. View over the spare tyre on Ratel roof. (Barry Taylor)
Very senior Russian Generals assumed responsibility for command and control. We were told these were the most senior serving officers to lead combat outside USSR since WW2. They were taking this seriously and without a shadow of doubt this was a Communist-led, Communist sponsored conflict.
This was the Rooi Gevaar (Red Danger) we’d been warned about, up until now I’d thought it was all just right-wing propaganda.
Commandant Smit continued, “The Battalion will immediately prepare for full combat readiness. We move out at 02:00 tomorrow travelling 350km to the border crossing near Rundu to await further orders … ”
I felt blood drain from my face as the implications of those few words sunk in, but Smit wasn’t finished, “ … This also means your three-week pass has been revoked, please write a final letter home to your family which Commanding Officers will hold until you return.”
My mind was racing!
Fear was forgotten, or perhaps overshadowed by the massive disappointment felt by most lads at the unbidden sudden forfeit of our scheduled few weeks of freedom.
“Fucking hell no, not the three-week pass! What the fuck? That’s surely not legal … ” the guys muttered among themselves gawping at each other in stunned disbelief.
We were quickly dismissed from the parade ground with no time to properly digest the news before the Captain and Quartermaster (the only two career staff in Charlie Squad at the time) began issuing orders to the JL’s, which we in turn relayed to our troops.
Fuck! This unwelcomed news sent a shiver down my spine and injected a large dose of urgent tension into my being.
We knew what we needed to do but we’d never done it on this scale or at such short notice. Balsaks (kitbags) were stuffed with meagre belongings, Troop transport trucks got loaded with tons of ammunition, in fact we pretty much emptied everything from the armoury. We loaded a truck full of spare tyres and another with food rations. Water and fuel bunkers were replenished, using safe hose-handling techniques, unlike Sad Sack. A few of us tapped our chef friends up for some priceless wet rations.
Before departing we gathered near the Squadron tents to evaluate what we knew.
Some guys were jawing about it being illegal to snatch the three-week pass, countered by others saying, “ … anything is legal if the government says it is, right?!”
To a man we were pissed-off at the loss of freedom but there was an electric sense of anticipation. After almost eight months on the border, it now seemed we might get a sniff of proper action.
Despite the grumbling, we really had no alternative. The die, it seemed, had been cast so we wrote our ‘last’ letters home, closed the side flaps on our tents and mounted up.
At 02:00, the first of 150 fully laden vehicles, carrying or crewed by a little over 400 young men, began a mass exodus from Omuthiya. 61 Mechanised Battalion Group was on the move.
Years later the Infantry Corporal pal of mine, recounted their astonishment when his contingent woke the following morning to discover our entire unit had decamped. The arrival of Kevin’s unit at Omuthiya had been no coincidence, their mission: base security.
As the sun rose over the vanguard of our convoy, it seemed as if we were untouchable, an integral part of an impressive rubber and steel armoured snake stretching almost as far as the eye could see. Drivers maintained a steady 80km/h while crew commanders and gunners stood waist high out their turrets enjoying the cool crisp morning air.
61 Mech’s lumbering behemoths totally dominated the deserted narrow tarmac lifeline that served remote border outposts along the north-eastern SWA/Angola border. All these places I’d never paid much attention to before, Rundu, Oshakati, Ondangwa, Ruacana, Sectors ‘One Zero’ and ‘Two Zero’, places of strategic military importance in a war that seemed increasingly to be heading our way.
The usual on-air banter between crew commanders was replaced with debate about the likelihood of breaking international treaties by crossing into Angola when we reached Bittersoet (Bittersweet), the insertion point.
Photo 20 61 Mech – Charlie Squad (3-series) vehicles can be seen among the massed mechanised force preparing for inspection parade while awaiting final orders. (Len M. Robberts)
The other big talking point was the contentious issue of Ratel 90’s leading an offensive against Russian MBT’s. Once again we tended to agree that without the Olifant MBT in-theatre, there was no way 90mm would be expected to go into Tank battles, so we were pretty much in agreement that the FAPLA threat probably wasn’t all that significant. Arriving at Rundu four hours later was something of an eye-opener. The remote border outpost was a remarkable place, like a small town but all of it under sandbags, where civilians lived alongside career military officers in bagged up residential areas. National Servicemen rotated in to maintain base security and provide outreach work into the local area, mostly in response to PLAN insurgent activities.
Bunkers reinforced with sandbags, watchtowers on high alert, this was the sort of place where sleeping on guard duty was a seriously unhealthy proposition, and this particular far-flung outpost had been the subject of more than its fair share of terrorist activity over the years.
This was the nearest we’d been to the cut-line that demarcated Angola’s actual border as determined by the international community in 1927.
61 Mech set up a TB at Bittersoet just up the track from Rundu near the Kavango (Cubango) river. Genie Corps (Engineers), which coincidentally included yet another school pal Ronnie Campbell, built an impressive temporary bridge over the fast flowing river, this was obviously the place we would cross-over.
Within days our initial excitement gave way to boredom as we awaited the order to enter Angola.
After a week we decided the government must’ve changed its mind and was no longer prepared to risk international condemnation by inserting such a high profile unit as Six One into Angola.
Two days later, our ‘expert’ predictions appeared to be borne out when we received orders to return to Omuthiya at best speed.
It seemed we were standing down.
The relief among the Squadron was palpable; smoke from celebratory Chesterfield cigarettes clogged the air, most of us chuffed at our last minute reprieve.
Unknown to us, not all boys in the Battalion had been given the same order.
Sierra (Artillery Battery), commanded by Major Theo Wilken, was to depart last and instead of heading home, headed north, into Angola, but not with their conspicuous (from a spy satellite point of view) long-range G5 155mm towed Howitzers, rather they were sent in with much smaller 120mm M5 portable mortar to minimise SADF profile in Angola (for diplomatic reasons).
Perhaps, quite legitimately, SADF military planners thought they might be able to help UNITA stop the FAPLA advance with some mobile artillery action.
Protected by our cousins from 32 Battalion, Sierra Battery began the long slow trek through inhospitable terrain toward an otherwise unremarkable river called Lomba, about 350 clicks North of Bittersoet where SADF forward operators were already gathering intelligence on enemy strength and positions.
Charlie Squad was given only need-to-know stuff, and at this stage we apparently didn’t need to know that the big cheese had been aware for some months of reports relating to this “surge of military activity” near the country’s capital Luanda, and of the “massive mobilisation” of enemy forces and, more recently, that light Infantry UNITA forward operatives were being swamped by a tank-led tsunami of heavily armoured FAPLA Brigades rumbling southward from Cuito Cuanevale.
So, at about the same time, as 61 Mech’s ‘nearly were war veterans’ departed Bittersoet for Omuthiya in celebratory mood, we really thought we’d been let off the hook, believing our war was over, before it had even begun.
Speculation mounted about a likely reinstatement of that treasured three-week pass unceremoniously ripped from us ten days earlier.
Photo 21 Camping in the relatively civilised Rundu-Bittersoet area awaiting the “Go” command. (Len M. Robberts)
Map Angola and Northern Namibia (SWA) detailing Lomba river region – SE Angola. FAPLA reached Lomba, held their position there until getting knocked back into the pocket and then later harried back to Cuito Cuanevale. Map courtesy Johan Schoeman at warinangola.com
Photo 22 Golf Battery’s awesome G5 cannons ready for departure into Angola – very conspicuous even before they began belching 155mm projectiles at marathon range. (Len M. Robberts)
Unsurprisingly, the 350 click journey back to base was a good opportunity for a little light relief and tomfoolery. The snaking steel convoy became quite stretched out on the return leg so we interpreted the order to ‘make best speed back to Omuthiya’ quite literally. I jumped into the driver’s cabin to see what the 18 ton beast was capable of on open road eventually topping out just shy of 130km/h in a breathtakingly foolish display of ‘heroics’. The Ratel stands tall and has a relatively high centre of gravity due to the weight of the 90mm turret – the slightest over-correction on the steering at that speed could have had catastrophic consequences, but the adrenaline rush …
The celebratory mood dissipated as quickly as a desert morning mist on our return to Omuthiya when the full truth of 61’s potential involvement in the war was finally made clear to us.
The day after we arrived back from Bittersoet, we were marched just north of the base, lined up – as if facing a firing Squad – then given five seconds to take cover in the shallow two-foot trench behind us. Seconds later three appointed officers opened fire at us with automatic weapons!
It seemed quite a surreal scenario because, for one, we’d never been shot at with live ammo and two, because I had to fight a strange urge to stand up during the attack. To a man we were peppered with dust and shrapnel pinging off the adjacent trench wall, there was absolutely no doubt that they were firing directly at the trench and not above our heads.
When it ended less than a minute later, we were surprised to find there’d only been a small number of very minor shrapnel wounds among the Squad, one infantry guy took a bullet in the arse. This had to be a loosener for fireworks to come.
By now, whispers were rife about Sierra’s mysterious vanishing act; some speculated that they had indeed crossed the border into Angola even though we could see their guns and tractors in the vehicle park, my old school mate Don Bisset from Sierra was nowhere to be found, they must’ve been sent in.
Once again we were called onto parade where RSM Kemp brought us to attention before handing over to a serious-looking Commandant Smit who announced, “There will be, no demobilisation. Sierra Battery entered Angola today and the full weight of 61 Battle Group will be joining them within two weeks. Until then we are to undertake full-scale Battalion training exercises in preparation for what is expected to be contact with enemy forces.”
Fuck it! Right there, that was the death knell of our three-week pass but that loss was nothing in comparison to what lay ahead, we now knew the truth, we were heading right into a war zone.
During the next week we lived in the bush off-base, as we’d done many times before, participating in the largest, most complex battle drills we’d experienced. The Lohatla (Army Battle School) trip I missed in ’86 would’ve probably been on a similar scale, but unlike Lohatla there were no limits on munitions use here.
The ‘gloves came off’, artillery fire was brought in at close quarters and infantry boys walked their skinny asses off. More than ever, coordinated map work was essential to ensure every unit moved in on a target area in concert, we seemed to be doing a lot of pincer-type actions and during ‘fire and move’ exercises we had the big guns shedding their load so close we had to close hatches. That’s a bit nerve-wracking to say the least but there was a ripple of excitement in the unit when the G6 cannon was introduced as stand-in replacement for Sierra Battery.
The futuristic looking G6 was a fully integrated mobile 155mm howitzer developed by SA engineers at ARMSCOR – fresh off the test ground with flying colours, they were the stars of the show at Omuthiya but were as yet unproven in the unrelentingly harsh Angolan terrain.
These 40-tonne artillery giants, with their unprecedented speed, range and accuracy, boasted a two-minute launch window from the moment it arrived on location to firing their first shot. In artillery terms this was light speed, so to me, with these futuristic beasts on our team it seemed we’d have a massive advantage over an enemy that couldn’t get anywhere near us. That felt good, reassuring, even though at this stage I had no idea how well equipped the other guys were.
The weapon boasted impressive features including:
• 40km effective range of fire
• Auto-loader, which dramatically improved the rate of fire, and most notably
• Transition from moving to stop-and-fire in under two minutes
We noticed mounting pressure on senior officers; battle orders crackled through our headsets in terse clipped commands, poor form or tactics were kakked on (shat on).
Charlie Squad gunners were actually having the best of times. A new collection of car wrecks and tractor tyre emplacements had been installed to replicate enemy positions or stationery targets, all of them placed in clearings and quite visible from a distance of 500m or more.
One afternoon we were in the thick of ‘contact’ when my Troop of four Ratel’s (Troop 2) was ordered to break off and take up new positions on a hillock at our nine o’ clock over-looking ‘enemy’ installations, to open a new front.
We broke ranks, retreated a short distance from the fray, then made our way over the back of a hillock.
From our cover positions within the vegetation we had a perfect line of sight to the targets; theoretically we weren’t taking any incoming fire having snuck up on the enemy’s flank, we then begun to unleashed a barrage of rapid 90mm fire unlike anything we’d practised before. Unconcerned by the life saving tactic of fire-and-move, we maintained position for almost an hour and completely emptied the remaining 60 rounds of the total 71 bomb payload (29 in turret, 42 located in retro-fitted bomb racks in vehicle). Herb Zeelie, my gunner, was having a blast, merrily overkilling the shit out of the targets.
At that rate of fire, turret ordinance ran low quickly so I agreed to jump down off the vehicle and pass bombs into the turret from the bomb racks inside the left-hand side door. The gunner and I replenished our turret while driver David Corey did his best to clear 7.62mm and 90mm spent shell casings cluttering the turret floor which we hadn’t cleared.
Within four minutes we were cleared, reloaded and ready to return to the action, pneumatic side door hissing shut.
Corey moved our vehicle to a new position on the line. I called up the next target to Zeelie and from then on he and I simply tried to fire as many rounds as we could before ceasefire was ordered. As it transpired we exhausted our bomb racks well before the cease-fire was called!
Although unsanctioned, our rapid load-and-fire drill provided invaluable training. Prior to this we’d probably never fired more than a turret-load (29 rounds) in a single mock battle or training day at the shooting range. We learned how important it was to ensure correct combinations of payload to ensure we weren’t left with too many Skroot (anti-personnel buckshot) or HE (High Explosive) bombs, when what might actually be required on the target area might be HEAT (High Explosive Anti-Tank) ammo. We also discovered that so many 90mm recoil blasts left us feeling we’d been slapped repeatedly with a wet towel on sunburned face, but ironically, the most important lesson we learned was not to waste munitions because we’d exhausted our supply before the ceasefire had been called and in a proper contact situation that would probably be a nightmare. Our last two bombs in the turret that day were Skroot, and then finally we ended up unable to defend ourselves with anything more than our two 1948 model 7.62mm Browning. Like taking a knife to a gun fight!
Nonetheless we were quite chuffed with our high-speed antics, the only way to have exceeded the 71 bomb payload would’ve been to rearm the Ratel during a day’s combat and that was never known to have been necessary. Replenishing our vehicles was normally scheduled to occur at the end of each day’s training action.
Gunner Herb Zeelie bagged something of a record for himself that day because no one we knew of in the Squad had ever fired a full 90mm Ratel payload in a single day’s action.
As it turned out that record would tumble within six weeks.
Other than honing our gunnery skills there was a more obvious side effect to our high-speed gunnery that afternoon. The extreme heat generated by 71 rounds altered the molecular structure of the army-issue shade of brown paint on the three-metre-long barrel changing it light pink.
The vehicle was my responsibility, Bremer had been made to pay 10% of the costs to repair his rolled Ratel during hand-brake turn training on the Shona a few months earlier. I fervently hoped my barrel wasn’t seriously effected and would return to the correct shade of brown when it cooled down a few hours later, but that never happened.
Messing around on the shooting range was obviously discouraged, so when it came time to rearm the vehicles later that evening, it had to be done somewhat surreptitiously to avoid alerting the Captain we’d run through our entire payload. It would’ve been hard to explain to him how we legitimately fired so many rounds during a single afternoon’s contact.
Harder still would be explaining away the heat-bleached pink paintwork, we’d never seen this happen to any other 90mm gun either at Zeerust or School of Armour and it was a little disconcerting.
A crew commander was ultimately responsible for whatever happened on or to, his vehicle but, as it turned out, Cloete had far fatter fish to fry than to concern himself with our pink-barrelled excess, or perhaps, they somehow knew this experience would soon pay real lifesaving dividends long after the fun of mock battles had been forgotten.
Some of Charlie’s boys enjoying a few beers listening to U2. Just a typical night circa June 1987 at 61 Mech. (Photo Warren Adams). Standing from left to right: Kurt (Stompie) Oelofse (gunner 33, injured 3 October), Warren Adams (gunner 33A), Dave Chester (Logistics driver), Gary Pearman-White (gunner 33C, seriously injured during MiG attack on 8 October), Glen Woodhouse (driver 33, seriously injured on 3 October), Wayne Fraser (echelon Sergeant and former crew commander of ill-fated 33C. Seated: Frikkie (Bees) De Jäger (driver 33C, killed in action 8 October 1987), Raymond Clark (driver 33B)
Gunnery training at School of Armour. The 90mm turret atop the ‘Noddy’ car. (School of Armour)
1st pass out after Basic Training. (Elizabeth Mannall)
Part way through Officer training. (Elizabeth Mannall)
Back home – Alive! (Graham Mannall)
2nd LT Hind (KIA) (call-sign 33) in command of King Tiger as our convoy hogs the highway. (Len M. Robberts)
Owamboland desert convoy from the Sergeant Major’s perspective. (Barry Taylor)
View from the 90mm turret as 53 Battalion Assault Pioneers (Storm Pioneer) mine one of the richest seams of subterranean explosive material in the world. (Barry Taylor)
Innocent victim of Angola’s long civil war. Ratels; 101 Battalion. (Barry Taylor)
UNITA fighters take up the lead in preparation for Battle Group Alpha’s very first attack on FAPLA. (Len M. Robberts)
UNITA 106mm recoilless anti-tank unit moving past us during a stop. (Len M. Robberts)
Battle planning and operational update deep in Angola. (Len M. Robberts)
Charlie Squadron on the move. (Len M. Robberts)
An enemy logistics vehicle feels HEAT as Charlie Squad move into the Chambinga Highlands near Cuito Cuanavale. (Martin Bremer)
View through the commanders’ cupola during an attack on 49th Brigade, the thick glass made target finding extremely challenging in the dense forest. (Len M. Robberts)
Tired after a long day in the saddle. (Anthony de Robillard)
L/Cpls Donald Brown, James Sharp with Trooper vd Merwe. (Martin Bremer)
Treacherous travelling through wet season conditions, note the vehicle column has cut deep furrows in the mud. (Len M. Robberts)
The Brigade bell liberated from the 47th following their capitulation on 3rd Oct 1987. Fittingly, it now forms a centrepiece to the Hind Memorial at the Johannesburg War Museum. (Martin Bremer)
31 Charlie destroyed and burned out following 8 October MiG strike. (Len M. Robberts)
Charlie Squadron and the Assault Pioneer Platoon. This photo was hastily taken circa 10 October ‘before we lost more guys’. (Len M. Robberts)
Olifant tank joins the party in November. (Martin Bremer)
Gunner holds two 90mm rounds while being reminded of the price of poor gunnery. (Barry Taylor)
This may be after drinking the Omuthiya Special. Cpl Venter and I getting chummy with Assault Pioneer LT Len Robberts standing on right. (Len M. Robberts)
Survivor. Angolan grime scrubbed away on our final day at Omuthiya. Posing at the NCOs’ tent, our bedroom on base. (Dave Mannall)
Map 1 First clash against 21st Brigade at the Lomba crossing: 9/10 September 1987. (George Anderson, adapted with permission from Johan Schoeman at www.warinangola.com)
Map 2 The destruction of 47 Brigade: 3 October 1987. (George Anderson, adapted with permission from Johan Schoeman at www.warinangola.com)
Map 3 The massive attack by 4 SAI and the Olifant squad on 16th Brigade – 9 November 1987. (George Anderson, adapted with permission from Johan Schoeman at www.warinangola.com)
Map 4 Final attacks of Operation Modular 25/26 November 1987. (George Anderson, adapted with permission from Johan Schoeman at www.warinangola.com)