16

The Battle on the Lomba

… Russian, Cuban and East German battle strategists despatched one third of the mechanised force at their disposal to punch through UNITA and SADF defences and destroy Savimbi’s main base at Mavinga and capital Jamba, essentially taking control of a large swathe of south eastern Angola. In order to achieve this objective four hardened Brigades, consisting of 100 tanks and hundreds of other armoured vehicles, needed to cross the strategic Lomba River, less than 100km from their final objective. Early SADF artillery involvement in August ’87 caused FAPLA’s advance to stall and they succeeded only in getting one Battalion of the 21st Brigade across to the southern bank. To counter this the enemy sent their hardest Brigade, the 47th, around the source of the Lomba in order to get access to the southern banks, which if they cleared, would allow the Angolan forces massing at the Lomba bridgehead free passage towards their first objective – Mavinga. When the SADF ground in forces, in the form of 61 and 32 Light Infantry Battalions became involved, a month of skirmishes and battles against an enemy force of the Battalion from 21st Brigade, Tactical Group 1 and elements of the 47th Brigade evolved. Although SADF forces demonstrated their tactical nous and superior training, 21st Brigade forces were holding well-entrenched emplacements on the southern banks of the Lomba and were hard to shift whilst the dense bush and difficult terrain played a part in early contacts with Tactical Group 1 and 47th Brigade. All of this changed in dramatic fashion on October 3rd. That fateful single day earned its place as a great and memorable battle in the history of the proud SADF, it also marked the last day FAPLA commanders considered Mavinga/Jamba a potential target heralding a hasty and embarrassing withdrawal of all Angolan forces northwards, to the town of Cuito Cuanevale. It is therefore not unreasonable to award the battle fought on 3 October 1987 the honour of THE Battle on the Lomba.

(Al J. Venter, African stories by Al Venter and friends, 2013).

Almost 400 clicks in-country, Angola’s vast subtropical forests sometimes reduced visibility way too much for successful prosecution of mechanised warfare. Conversely, large trees and dense jungle bush provided our vehicles with pretty good shelter from the ever present threat posed by Angolan and Cuban fighter pilots.

The reason we didn’t have superiority in the air wasn’t because of the quality of SAAF and its pilots, it was a matter of logistics, we were a long distance from our air bases and had neither sufficient aircraft nor suitable anti-aircraft materiel to match the MiG’s or FAPLA’s Russian ground-to-air missile systems.

The MiG is a classy fighter jet, unless you’re on the wrong side of it, and was more than a match in a dogfight against our ageing French-made Mirage which had no air-to-air missile system (sanctions) and was less agile than the more modern MiG 23. Consequently the Mirage was relegated mainly to a ground-attack role. Further, FAPLA anti-aircraft capabilities were as good as those of any army in the world – the Russians had provided them with the very latest technology hot off Cold War military presses.

South Africa’s government also didn’t want to drop a plane over enemy-held territory due to certain diplomatic assurances it was making to the international community about invading sovereign airspace, nor could it afford the loss of her sanctions-limited ageing fighter-jet inventory, so SAAF pilots ran a risky hi-tech gauntlet of AA weaponry every time they screamed in above the treetops from air bases in northern SWA on drop-and-run attacks.

As a consequence of the status quo, we lacked meaningful air support and endured almost constant buzzing from Cuban and Angolan fighters pilots, while SAAF offered mainly surgical drop-and-run bombing raids onto targets identified by ourselves or other small unit forward operators.

It’s not unfair to say FAPLA owned the sky this deep in Angola which, for us, meant we lived under constant threat of aerial attack.

[In the early stages of Operation Modular, the added constraint of South African diplomatic denials regarding our participation in military operations in Angola seriously curtailed the extent to which army chiefs might otherwise have escalated actions, including of course the deployment of Olifant tanks. We understood this was because the Olifant was easily visible to satellite reconnaissance, partly why moving any of our armoured units during daylight hours was avoided whenever possible.]

As September drew to a close and the distance between 47th Brigade and the 21st bridgehead gradually narrowed we became more frequently embroiled in skirmish-type actions, particularly against the 47th; they seemed less well entrenched and would often melt away into the forest on contact.

Direct and indirect contact against 21st had been building in intensity as they gradually extended their foothold on Lomba’s southern banks. Inexorably, FAPLA continued building their head-count in the ‘area of operations’, by the end of September approximately 10,000 soldiers of various nationalities were in place. These soldiers were primarily young Angolan men whose ranks were augmented by a significant contingent of well-trained Cuban’s, a scattering of East German’s and some Russian big cheese.

The bottleneck on Lomba’s north bank was beginning to impinge on FAPLA’s plan to ‘Greet October’. By now almost a month had been lost trying to move through the area and this must really have pissed Castro off.

Meantime, Castro’s Russian and East German (Communist) backers demanded a decisive settlement while the biggest cheese Cuban General in Angola was becoming increasingly beleaguered by criticism from back home. Russian Generals are said to have despaired at their lack of success blaming the SADF’s G5 cannon and lacklustre forces at their disposal. They resolved to drive their soldiers harder and capitalise on air superiority.

At the same time, Modular participants were becoming more adept at bush warfare. Commanders ensured their intelligence-gathering and battle planning was designed to offer whatever tactical advantage they could muster against the larger, better equipped force.

Intelligence gathered from POWs indicated 47th Brigade and Tactical Group 1 were massing near the confluence of Lomba and Cuzzizi Rivers. It was now understood that 47th and TG1 had given up trying to find a way past us to reach the bridgehead so, in a change of tactic, were now attempting to find suitable river crossing to reach back over to the north bank, however, we also learned their bridge-laying capabilities were not quite equal to the task of crossing the marshy Lomba in this area.

Nearby, about five clicks NW, on the opposite side of Lomba, 59th Brigade received an urgent request to despatch more suitable bridging vehicles to expedite 47th crossing. This must’ve been picked up on by one of our Portuguese translators like Seiner (Signaller) Theo Fernandez charged with intercepting and monitoring enemy transmissions.

Setting them up and safely moving three hundred very heavy vehicles, men and materiel across Lomba would take a few days at least.

For SADF battle tacticians, this intel was 24 carat gold, if they acted promptly. Plans were developed to exploit the concentration of materiel and apparent lack of ex-filtration route.

Although somewhat depleted, the consequence of engaging SADF and UNITA forces during September, TG1, a Battalion of T-55, Battery of MRL systems and 30-40 armoured Troop carriers, was in theory more powerful than 61 Mech, while 47th Brigade was another three times the size of my unit, boasting a further squadron of tanks, multiple squadrons of armoured Troop carriers (BTR, BRDM et al) rocket launchers including, it was rumoured, the legendary SAM-8 missile system, a three vehicle weapon, the Launcher, Control Vehicle and a large flat bed truck which could carry only four of five huge rockets.

At a briefing given by a big cheese General prior to entering Angola he said, “ … no one in the West has ever seen this so called SAM-8 (SA-8) weapon system. If you capture just one of these systems we can sell it on to the USA who have said they will pick up the tab for the whole war, in fact they’d pay us a million dollars just for an operator’s handbook!”

There were a lot of rumours floating about but, as it was with all previous contacts, we wouldn’t really know the full extent of the opponent’s size, strength, capability or commitment until we got properly stuck in.

We didn’t have long to wait.

October 1st we began preparing for imminent contact with the enemy. We knew it was likely to be significant because, for the first time during Operation Modular, a fully unified 61 Mechanised Battalion Group would go into battle as a single fighting force, while 32 Battalion would stand off a short distance if their firepower was required in support or to open a new front.

After a fitful few hours sleep we woke early morning, October 2nd, adopted formations and moved out toward enemy positions.

Three or four hours later, not long after sunrise, we were ordered to stand down.

What an anti-climax, but of the best kind. 47th Brigade weren’t where they were supposed to be, or the area of intended contact was too densely wooded for mechanised action, or maybe an officer had been navigating, its merely speculation, but once we’d returned to TB we got the day off but were advised to be prepared for a rerun the very next day, October 3rd.

Battle planners coordinated a series of combined air force and artillery strikes in an effort to drive the enemy force toward what they deemed more favourable terrain closer to the river.

We had time to relax, most preparatory work done the day before when we’d topped off armaments in readiness for battle, but hadn’t fired a single shot. Diesel needed topping off and weapons were cleaned again; otherwise we just relaxed among friends for the remainder of the day As a fully re-formed 61 Mech, we were part of a much larger laager than usual and when officers were called to briefings (for battle orders) with Major Laas, Adrian Hind got a little lost, turned up late and consequently got punished later that afternoon by the Major who dealt out a rare wartime opfok. [I mention this anecdote of Danie Laas because he was haunted by it for the rest of his life, cruelly cut short by Cancer in 2014. RIP]

October 3rd started unremarkably enough; we woke at 03:00 and quietly began stowing all superfluous gear like cammo nets and sleeping bags. I pulled on the clean clothing I’d set aside for battle and everyone psyched themselves up for what was by now expected to be a significant contact. Gunners across 61 Battalion carried out final weapons checks in the eerie red glow of internal cabin and turret lighting while drivers completed vehicle checks.

As we finalised our pre-battle rituals, we were of course unaware that this was the last time Charlie’s close-knit cohort of combat troops would stand together, for five of the guys at least this was to be their final day at war; and for one of them, the final hours of his young life.

On the FAPLA’s side, many more boys were about to make the ultimate sacrifice for their country and an ideology few of them cared for.

61 Battalion, led by Charlie Squadron, supported by the combined Artillery of 20th Brigade were about to wreak military havoc of a sort not seen on the Mother Continent for over 40 years and the Ratel 90 was finally given the opportunity to prove herself as a Tank killer, and do so in such emphatic style that their direct contribution would change the course of the decade-long conflict against Communism in just one day.

It is no understatement to say 3rd of October 1987 was to be a day without equal for Charlie Squadron, our unit and history of the SADF.

As per usual, socks, underwear, tank suit and body parts were clean … just in case.

I should stress though that none of us had any intention of pegging- off (dying) and going home in a zipped up bag but this was proper war and people were dying. The stakes could not be higher, and no one took shortcuts when preparing for battle.

Crew commanders knew lives depended on split-second decisions, that their gunner’s accuracy might mean the difference between life and death, and drivers needed nerves of steel to follow orders and steer their vehicle through incoming fire and into the thick of battle.

I couldn’t contemplate living with the guilt of knowing I fucked up or failed to prepare properly contributing to the death of one of my guys. That was just about the best incentive ever to be on top of my game!

When a soldier died in battle, the SA government was not entirely candid with its populace, sometimes masking the true nature of the tragedy. Families were furnished with a bit more specific information but operational security and diplomatic constraints restricted access to the full story. On the other hand Dos Santos’s regime, often accused of snatching young conscripts from remote villages, typically shielded Angolans from the true cost of their war and therefore it is widely acknowledged that estimates of Angolan war dead are grossly inaccurate.

On the opposite side of the Atlantic, the fate of loved ones was seldom revealed to Cuba’s long-suffering citizens – they were merely pawns in Castro’s proxy war against Southern Africa’s Capitalist bastion.

[Despite Angolan dominance in the air, and the advantage of a heavy-weight Russian military inventory, conservative estimates put enemy KIA (killed-in-action) during all of Operation Modular at over 2,000, some 20 times greater than losses suffered by UNITA cadre and vastly more than the 31 SADF personnel who also made the ultimate sacrifice during Modular. None of these soldiers should be forgotten but statistics tell their own story.]

From the day we arrived at Lomba River forward positions, we lived inside an artillery and air-raid bubble and no matter how good, or lucky, we were, it was only a matter of time before a bomb, some chunk of shrapnel, or bullet got in the way of a body part. As it was, this kind of indirect action accounted for a large share of KIA on both sides.

Four weeks since entering the ‘bubble’ most crews had survived ‘miraculous’ close shaves with shrapnel of some sort. Not even Logistics and other support personnel had been spared close brushes with death.

As a newly reunified force 61 Mech was still untested in live combat but we’d all been tested in Battle Group formation. Reuniting us now represented the most powerful Allied force working as a single entity since Operation Modular kicked off.

This was a big chunk of the puzzle.

We were warned to expect fierce resistance, no surprise there, however, the surprise came when we were advised to go heavy on HEAT when preparing turret ordinance because we were likely to encounter Russian MBTs. Surprise!

At our pre-battle briefing on October 2nd, we were informed Charlie Squadron would lead up front, which the boys in the Squad believed was exactly the right call. Even though the eight 90mm guns of Bravo Company had taken their place in the 61 line-up, we were quietly confident that if anyone in our Battalion was going to square up to Russian MBT’s, it had to be the 12 guns of Charlie Squadron.

We still didn’t have SADF MBT anywhere near, in fact they were just starting to mobilize back in South Africa, my Tanker buddies were still having a last week-long pass jol before deployment – so it really was up to the 90s to face this one head on, with the full support of 61 Mech, which including those eight 90mm ‘anti-tank’ Ratels from Bravo Coy and 32 Battalion waiting in the wings if required.

Commandant Smit’s plan was for 12 Charlie Squad Ratels to lead the frontline, Alpha Company some 50 metres behind, offering additional firepower from their belt-fed 20mm buzz-saw-like armour piercing rounds when required and if the enemy was well dug-in, Alpha’s Infantrymen would stap-uit (step-out) and drop into line with Charlie Squad once more, as they had done on 16 September.

Protection of our exposed left flank fell to the boys of Bravo Company, themselves battle hardened from having spearheaded BG Charlie in the preceding weeks. It was reassuring such a strong unit was tasked with holding our left flank, we were confident they could protect us from likely enemy encirclement. No flanking force was needed on our formation’s right flank nearest Lomba because her wide marshy banks prevented offensive flanking by 47th Brigade.

As usual, our battery of 81mm mortars, the Ystervark (iron pig) anti-aircraft battery and command-and-control vehicles would trail us inside the armoured pocket while heavy artillery remained 15-20 clicks further back.

At 04:00, right on schedule, vehicle commanders checked comm’s, confirmed battle readiness and pensively awaited further orders.

A short time later, the order came: “All vehicles start”.

Adrenaline spiked.

I immediately relayed the ‘engine start’ order to David Corrie, who punched his starter switch. The powerful 12-litre, twin-turbo diesel engine roared into life, I imagined the sudden burst of black diesel fumes jetting from her large rear tailpipe as the engine shook itself awake.

The familiar roar and vibration of the two-ton engine housed in its protective steel cocoon four metres behind me was by now a most comforting and familiar sound. In fact, this was our second engine, the original had become irreparable a few weeks earlier so driver and mechanics had implanted a fresh one into 32 Alpha.

In the same moment a deep cacophony of rumbling Ratel engines mixed with the whine of hydraulic systems spooling-up erupted in the forest on all sides.

Two minutes later my helmet headset crackled again, “Charlie Squadron, move out”.

Turning the chest-mounted radio channel selector toggle switch controlling access to all three radio channels used by a crew commander, I instinctively selected the vehicle channel and relayed the order to my crewmates, “Okay, lads we’re underway, let’s move. David, follow call-sign 33 Charlie”.

After months of exhaustive training and five long weeks in Angola, it’s fair to imagine my crew, like many others, had become a well-oiled team.

Ratel drivers needed to be a particularly brave cohort. They had front-row seats but no control over targeting and shooting. Some even had to alert their crew commander to a target not spotted from the turret.

The driver who started the year on 32 Alpha dropped out early ’87 and was replaced by David Corrie, I don’t remember why the first guy left Omuthiya, I don’t think he sustained a physical injury.

Corrie was an extremely capable driver but resented being yanked from his previous role driving one of the command vehicles because relatively speaking this was pretty chilled in comparison to driving a combat vehicle on the frontline. He detested being in the army and all forms of authority but as second-incommand of our Troop of four vehicles, it often fell to me to attend to the dirty work like issuing orders or dealing out punishment [not that I dealt much out]. So for a guy like David Corrie, I was simply part of the problem.

Although Herb Zeelie, my gunner, didn’t arrive with top-gun credentials, he tried very hard in training because things didn’t come as easy for him as they did for some, more naturally gifted, gunners – He had a quick wit and dry sense of humour, I liked him right from the start and chose him for my crew, in part because he was the runt of the Squad, the sort of guy that screws up more often than most, but also I felt a bit sorry for the guy ‘cos he had learned to live with almost relentless mocking and abuse about his prominent buck teeth, which he normally took with very good humour. Nevertheless, despite being one of the weaker gunners at the start of our 12 month border tour, our frequent training exercises and saint-like patience on my part had elevated Herb to the top of his game. Herb Zeelie was capable of being as good as the best, and during the coming ten or twelve hours would prove just how good he was. Repeatedly.

Zeelie had already proven more than capable in Angola, responding unquestioningly to each targeting command more accurately than opposing gunners which is, without doubt, why I’m fortunate enough to write this account.

In previous skirmishes and battles Herb had made every target specified, never needing more than a two shots to complete a kill, never once flinching under fire.

As 61 Mech moved out, under cover of total darkness of that cool October morning, ghostly green shadows in high-tech night-vision goggles offered sketchy speckled images of the forest around us. I could very easily make out a small red tail-light in its protective steel casing on the vehicle ahead and quite readily distinguish trees or other potential hazards like trenches or ditches.

When we were first issued with these state-of-the-art ‘night-sights’, we were impressed by the level of detail they offered, even in very low-light conditions.

This, to us, was another indication the army was taking the threat of war very seriously because these expensive items were not offered up willingly and we were strengly (sternly) reminded about large truckloads of shit that would befall us if the futuristic kit got busted.

Night-sights magnified ambient light so much that if someone sucked on a cigarette at 20 paces it was as though they’d switched on a torch – and if a guy used a cigarette lighter or struck a match while wearing the cumbersome headgear a night-sun anti-aircraft spotlight got switched on, at close range temporarily blinding the wearer. It was inconceivable we’d prosecute battle wearing night-sights because the two-metre-wide muzzle flash from our cannon would undoubtedly cause the wearer temporary blindness. Also, this gear was far too bulky to wear during the sort of high-speed activity typical inside a turret during battle. All the same, cumbersome as they were, when attached to the face and helmet, night-vision goggles offered the safest way of navigating the pitch-black, heavily forested areas of south-eastern Angola when near to enemy positions and where the use of headlights would betray our position.

In terms of stealth, little could be done to mask the deep rumble and whine of our turbo-charged engines which were audible for a considerable distance, but the forest dispersed the sound making it difficult to pinpoint an exact location. We had ourselves encountered exactly the same difficulty trying to locate moving enemy vehicles at night. However the same dispersal effect did not hold true for light. The headlights of 60 or more vehicles in our convoy would have shot out from the darkness of the forest like a landing strip as they pitched and yawed over undulating terrain. We didn’t wanna make it too easy for our opponents.

As if in a choreographed ballet, the massed fighting force of 61 Mech, with Charlie Squadron at its head, emerged from the protection of Ficus trees, and as we fell into single file, the distinctive high-pitched whine of turbochargers kicked in hard to power Ratel’s 6 × 6 run-flat tyres through the soft sand.

With the exception of Ystervark (iron pig), 61 Mech fighting units were all Ratels because SADF had invested heavily in these six-wheeled vehicles in preference to tracked APCs or IFVs (infantry fighting vehicles) used by our FAPLA counterparts, for example BMP2.

Our convoy maintained a steady pace through the early hours as the inky sky gradually turned a lighter shade of blue.

Corrie, by now an expert at manoeuvring our seven-metre behemoth through powder-soft sand, responded quietly and efficiently to my instructions through his helmet headset, though his task was simplified while we needed simply to follow the deep furrows carved in the soil by four vehicles ahead of us in convoy.

Unless it was raining, or the air thick with dust, most crew commanders preferred to travel standing on the adjustable height chair, waist and upper body clear of the turret rim, only dropping onto the seat inside the turret when necessary. My hips were constantly bruised from jarring against that narrow, turret opening when moving over uneven terrain.

Obviously, in the thick of battle we adopted a much lower profile, sometimes even battening shut our commander’s cupola, particularly during artillery bombardment.

During an earlier contact, totally focussed on the target area, I’d misjudged the height of a low-hanging branch which snagged my 7.62mm turret-mounted Browning’s barrel. As we moved beneath the branch, it ripped at the weapon caused the gun barrel to violently swing into my face with such force I was briefly stunned, skin pounded white against bone next to my left eye.

Herb, whose gunner’s hatch was shut per protocol in preparation for contact, didn’t have much to do during the convoy’s three hour drive to the staging area except chain-smoke nervously and fiddle incessantly with his prized Zippo lighter. On other days when he’d fallen asleep on his gunner’s chair, it made for good sport watching his head loll drunkenly about inside the confined turret, and when travelling over rough terrain it was only a matter of time before flesh and steel connected temporarily disturbing slumber.

Pre-contact staging went smoothly and despite the overwhelming size of the predicted opposition, things felt just right that morning, as if our earlier battles and setbacks had merely been dress rehearsals for the main event, like a World Cup Final when a minnow takes on a sporting superpower – or perhaps our quiet confidence stemmed from being reunited with the full 61 Mech brotherhood.

Just after sunrise, we arrived at our staging point where we disengaged logistic support vehicles, fanning out into our prearranged, west-facing formation parallel to Lomba. As Charlie Squadron vehicles moved into line abreast, we lost visual contact with all bar two vehicles either side. Increasingly, we were forced to rely on radio contact to ascertain our positions relevant to our squad’s formation.

Photo 34 3 October 1987 61 Mech tac map at battle start.

Map courtesy Johan Schoeman at warinangola.com

From this moment on, in terms of friendly forces, I was only really aware of the bubble 50-70 metres around 32 Alpha and trusted those behind Charlie Squadron would do exactly as planned.

The sharp edge of 61 Mech’s ‘dagger’ relied absolutely on the proper functioning of its integrated parts: Intel, Artillery, Infantry, Mortars, Medics, Mechanics and Anti-aircraft defence.

Soldiers don’t think of enemy combatants in personal terms, it’s hard to do otherwise, so little cheers a combat soldier’s heart more than a call for long-range artillery and mortar boys to lob a few tons of high-explosive projectiles onto a target area to loosen things up before the party gets underway or, when equipment needs repair, to get mechanical support rapidly, and how grateful we were to the lads who drove long convoys of supplies and food; sometimes even saving us a few choice cuts of blue meat from vultures along the supply chain. Once cooked the meat tasted better than a tin of Vienna sausage-n-beans or that semen-like potato mayo we got in rat-pack #2 & #4.

Even convoys were not immune from attack so their brave contribution to our combined war effort was highly valued and respected.

“Charlie Squadron, we’re moving forward.” Cloete’s order fired yet another surge of adrenaline.

At once we began rolling forward at walking speed. I, along with the other commanders of 61 Mech, dropped a little lower into the turret, now only my chest and head were exposed above the turret opening. Crews primed themselves for imminent contact, though intelligence indicated the main body of 47 Brigade was still some two clicks ahead.

After an hour of deep concentration and glacial forward movement, our formation was halted, now only about 5-600 metres from enemy positions still invisible through spring’s fresh forest foliage.

Battle orders received the night before required us to accurately mark the location of enemy forces prior to launching a massive wave of MRL and Artillery shells to ‘clear the trees’. To do this a Company of UNITA comrades were tasked with moving forward on foot until they engaged FAPLA, marked their position and then quickly withdrew.

Minutes later scrawny UNITA troops, AK47’s and RPG’s at the ready, strode purposefully past our vehicles and disappeared in the thick bush ahead.

Tension continued to rise as the sun rose behind our vehicles possibly affording us a slight advantage over an opposition partially blinded by the morning glare.

Less than ten minutes after UNITA cadre stalked past our positions, sharp reports and crackles of gunfire erupted, the opening salvos of battle on the Lomba had been fired.

I instinctively dropped down into my turret as the rapid, automatic fire crackled and rose in intensity just ahead of us.

There was no turning back now, game on, our foe was at home, had answered the front door and, it seemed, was expecting us. The realisation sparked a flood of adrenaline, but this was no time for sweaty palms or shaky hands.

This was combat mode, adrenaline would keep us sharp.

Within a couple of minutes the chatter of automatic fire slowed and subsided as UNITA soldiers pulled back from contact.

Five agonising minutes later the fighters suddenly reappeared through the bushes ahead, ambling nonchalantly back to their vehicles as if they had just been for a relaxing stroll along the beach!

I offered the black-skinned warriors a nervous grin and a ‘thumbs-up’. Although we shared no common language everyone understood the international sign language for ‘everything’s OK’.

Hmmm, outwardly thumbs up, inwardly, why the fuck did I go AWOL last year!?

“Charlie Squadron, we’re holding for artillery ‘ripple’ bombardment. Close all hatches, now!” Captain Cloete’s clipped command crackled simultaneously in each crew commanders headset on the twelve Ratels forming our front line.

Dropping down into my turret I pulled the dome-shaped cupola closed above my head. There was nothing more to do than wait and hope our long-range ordinance was on target. We’d only once before used artillery at such close quarters and knew it could get a bit hairy, bombs landing so close we couldn’t be certain if it was enemy or friendly fire!

We waited in heavy silence for what seemed ages, but within two minutes that familiar whistling, at first almost imperceptible, rapidly becoming louder and then, crump … crump … crump as an unbroken barrage of high explosive and anti-personnel ordinance erupted in the forest no more than 100-400 metres ahead of our position.

This was good! Dead-eye mortar men, in concert with their long-range artillery and MRL counterparts, released nine well coordinated ripples of shock and awe onto enemy positions like the climax of some macabre fireworks display lasting a good three or four minutes.

As the forest fell silent once more, I stretched my right arm up, opened the cupola and locked it in the 90 degree ‘up’ position before gingerly poking my head above the ‘parapet’ to assess the target area ahead. It seemed quite a lot of forest foliage, just beyond the immediate tree-line, had been stripped clean, creating a sort of ‘no-man’s land’ clearing across which opposing forces could face off against each other.

A minute later my headset barked back to life with Cloete’s unwelcomed command, “Charlie Squadron, move out in formation … may God be with you all.”

An instant later I relayed that order to my crew

‘Okay boys this is it … let’s move out. Herb, prepare to fire’.

Today, after 20 months of training, preparation, lesser battles and small skirmishes, the final missing piece of a monstrous mechanised military jigsaw puzzle finally dropped into place. Now finally, the stage was set for The Battle on the Lomba.

We resumed our slow and controlled forward movement in flat formation, about 30 metres separating each vehicle. Troop Two (32) arrayed left-front, Troop One (31) centre and Troop Three (33) right-front. Anything that happened behind us warranted no further consideration. With my field of focus now reduced to a 180 degree arc in front of us, I maintained visual contact with at least one vehicle either side of me at all times.

The tree-line obscuring our view of the expected point of contact was now close, just 20-30 metres ahead; the area beyond that seemed remarkably sparse as a result of artillery ‘ripples’. Once we moved through the tree-line into this area we’d be fair game, visible to enemy positions with precious little cover for our large vehicles.

Ratel crews were trained to manoeuvre and ‘jockey’ into new firing positions to frustrate enemy targeting, but with so little cover it was imperative that the back and forward ‘V’ manoeuvre wasn’t performed at too sharp an angle exposing the large softer flank to enemy fire.

“Once more into the breach dear friends, once more … ”

Fellow combatants, or those who’ve experienced severe trauma, such as a car accident, will know that during the traumatic event itself, time seems to slow right down. This happens because brain function speeds up so much that things only appear to be happening much more slowly than normal. While the rules of reality are suspended in this way, the seemingly impossible tasks become quite feasible during combat.

Autopilot kicked in at about 08:00. When it switched off about eight hours later, we’d lost the life of 2nd Lieutenant Adrian Hind, his crewmates seriously injured and his Ratel destroyed. On the opposite side of the battlefield 47th Brigade and TG1 had for all intents and purposes been wiped out, no longer deemed a credible fighting force by Russian commanders, while distraught groups of survivors beat a rapid chaotic retreat. The remaining half-dozen T-55s from their Tank Squadrons were in full flight and, sadly, hundreds of soldiers lay either dead or were seriously wounded while almost 200 vehicles lay destroyed or abandoned. The bonus prize; they’d been forced to abandoned three of USSR’s never-before-seen SAM-8’s, although admittedly some were a little worse for wear thanks to our artillery’s attention.

[3 October battle on the Lomba was such a decisive and humiliating defeat for FAPLA that it resulted in severe reprimands for both the Cuban and Russian commanders who were replaced shortly afterwards; it was even rumoured to have cost the top Cuban general his life, although this was never acknowledged by the regime, his execution blamed rather on some other misdeed he was accused of back in Havana. Believe whichever version you like.

61 Mech inflicted such an overwhelming defeat on 47th Brigade that some described the clash as a ‘David Vs. Goliath’ moment. Maybe it was, but undoubtedly, training and discipline so ingrained in SADF culture was the decisive factor and, of course, a shed load of luck. Naturally, there were many other contributory factors to our overwhelming victory that day, I’ve tried to set them out as accurately as possible given my perspective on the Operation, but at this moment, I would like to give special credit to Charlie Squadron and 61 Mechanised Battalion who stood on the shoulders of giants that day and achieved something extraordinary in the annals of military history.

This should be one of the most famous victories in SA history however no-one was ever asked to tell their story, so it happens that I am uniquely well placed to share my front-row-seat view of those dramatic hours. As it should, I expect my account to cast this historic battle firmly into the limelight, generate greater interest in future and unearth more detailed insights as other front-line operators finally get an opportunity to tell their story.]

The very first moments of contact came as we approached no-man’s land seconds after a radioed warning: “All units be advised, enemy snipers have been spotted in the trees … ”

Before I’d even had time to acknowledge the warning, a crackle of automatic fire ahead marked the start of battle so seeking out snipers became a secondary consideration however they remained an ever-present deadly threat and I did my best to keep an eye on the tallest trees at my 10 o’ clock position some 2-300 meters to our left, well outside our offensive line but well inside sniper range.

In those earliest moments of contact, enemy action started tamely enough; staccato bursts from a number of light machine-gun emplacements punctuated by the occasional crump of a high-powered weapon, or mortar ranging in.

The enemy still wasn’t visible until we breached the last line of dense foliage before the field-of-fire opened up offering fairly unrestricted views of the terrain 2-300m ahead. Here, in no-man’s-land, the ripple bombardment had almost stripped the land of all life, the few trees that still standing were devoid of foliage giving them a skeletal wintry appearance.

Then, as if on a single command, the forest at the opposite tree line burst into life with a ferocity we’d never before experienced. Charlie Squad suddenly came under a sustained barrage of small-arms, mortar and artillery fire, the sheer concentration of which would’ve been overwhelming were it not for our almost instinctive response borne from countless drills during training. Everything seemed unreal, dream like. Surreal.

47th Brigade were obviously expecting us and had had sufficient time to deploy a sizeable force on their defensive frontline but, unlike earlier contacts they were less well dug-in than usual, enemy combatants kneeling or standing to fire on us behind the cover of trees on the opposite side of no-man’s land.

The opposite tree-line was fairly dense, dense enough not be able to see more than 10-20 metres into it so I couldn’t gauge what might be lurking within. If we were to make forward progress we needed to enter the exposed area immediately ahead but, the denuded, pancake-flat, terrain was so exposed, it was like a killing field we’d have to cross if we were to make any significant progress against the 47th. As Charlie entered this clearing, we came within 200 metres of the nearest identifiable enemy position.

Now it really was time for action. The fear I had felt on approach suddenly melted away, the only way through the coming mechanised maelstrom was forward. I have no shame admitting I was coldly clinically and totally prepared to unleash the most ruthlessly violent intensity of fire imaginable – whatever it took to subdue and repel FAPLA before they had opportunity to do same to me. I’m sure every crewman felt exactly the same, on both sides of the battlefield. The fighting was mercilessly brutal and un-fucking-flinchingly deadly!

Zeelie and I had been working our two turret machine guns hard in response to incoming fire as we prepared to unleash our first HE round at a soft-target position. I observed enemy soldiers darting sideways within the tree line, sometimes betrayed by muzzle flashes from their weapons, a beacon for my trusty, turret-mounted 7.62, directed by my right hand, it quickly followed any updated info on enemy activity being received by the optic nerve seemingly at some subconscious level and at the speed of light, while Herb’s 90mm cannon, with its co-axially mounted Browning, followed mine on command.

As we jockeyed positions, constantly on the move, we paused only long enough to fire a 90mm round, maybe two, before reversing a few vehicle lengths then coming forward again on a new line of attack. In this way we gradually began making incremental forward movements over no-man’s-land.

During that first half hour of action the curtain of incoming fire had not abated at all, not for a moment, if anything, things were just hottin’ up as the enemy sought to further augment their line.

Silhouettes of harder targets started to appear from the deeper background at my twelve.

SOP (standard operating protocol) recommended entering combat ‘hatches-down’, to close the cupola over the crew commander’s head, but target identification from within the turret was nigh on impossible in Angolan conditions. Three periscopes inside the turret offered a commander restricted views, a disjointed method of scanning the arc-of-fire, while a narrow two-inch-thick glass ring surrounding the cupola was light-green in colour – quite unhelpful when hunting green-camouflaged targets among green undergrowth and shaded areas.

During earlier contacts I realised my best option, ironically, was head-out-turret when target finding, then only dropping down when hearing the pock-pock-pock, like popcorn popping, of accurate incoming fire, or instinctively when a nearby crump denoted enemy Artillery boys were only a fraction of a hair from calibrating themselves a bulls-eye. Those close ones, and there were countless close ones, make the crump sound quickly followed by what sounded like a handful of rice forcefully thrown onto a marble desktop as an angry swarm of shrapnel bounced harmlessly off angled flanks.

This is why we came to love our vehicles as if a part of us. Countless shrapnel shards silenced like bees in a veld (forest) fire.

War is often punctuated by long periods of downtime, but the first hour of battle on the 3rd of October was the antithesis of that, it was like payback for the days we’d lazily loafed around in Angola while our contemporaries back in SA maintained strict camp drills. The ground around us erupted with increasing fury as the enemy’s artillery began to find their range. We were fully at the epicentre of a deadly, deafening cacophony of mechanised combat. The full might of FAPLA artillery and mortars were targeting both our frontline and support vehicles, their shells exploding in an almost unbroken rolling thunder all around us.

The artillery onslaught was unavoidable. We had no choice but to ignore the constant bombardment and focus only on maintaining drills and discipline – keep moving position … reload … replace machine-gun belts … clear the jammed weapon – concentrating only on those things within our control and doing it harder, faster and uglier than our opponent.

The battle soon became my most hard-core and intense combat experience. It was more open, more violent and unbroken than any previous clash SADF had seen in the operation to this point. This was the sort of large-scale battle Hollywood seeks, but mostly fails to emulate when depicting conventional warfare. In truth, the only way to prosecute this real-life gangbang was to get fucking brutal on those poor young FAPLA boys; to that end, 32 Alpha was working overtime, in perfect harmony with the other three vehicles of Troop 2. Sighting, specifying, aiming and destroying numerous soft and hard targets as they appeared. At the frontline there was no time to keep score or call in each destroyed target because the Squadron communications net was at times overloaded with chatter; we had far more urgent matters to be dealing with than taking a fucking exit poll.

On our right-front, 33 Alpha, commanded by Troop Sergeant Stephan Rossouw, found themselves within 30 or 40 metres of a trench bristling with men wielding AK47s and RPGs.

This was a good indication that 47ths defensive line was better prepared closer to the river. Perhaps they’d not expected to be attacked on such a relatively wide front and therefore were less well entrenched further away from Lomba which explained why my targets were more visible above ground level, and seemingly being bussed in by troop carrier.

Back on 33 Alpha, Rossouw’s target was too close and too low to employ his 90 mil cannon. With arm extended up out the turret he tried unsuccessfully to guide his ack-ack into the emplacement but to no avail. Of course there were no Infantry on the ground who could be called in to silence the trench. Rossouw resolved to lob a hand grenade into the enemy trench just as soon as his driver, Herman Ferreira, brought the vehicle back within range. Minutes later, as he neared the emplacement he stood high enough out of the turret to pitch the explosive ball in the face of a concentrated burst of enemy fire.

He yanked the pin and pitched for his life.

The grenade fell short.

There wasn’t time for another grenade. The angry hornet’s nest he’d tried to disturb was emboldened; 33 Alpha jockeyed position. Under intense fire, Rossouw ordered Ferreira to reverse 30-40 metres. Two RPG’s fired by the hornets narrowly missed the Ratel as her 12-litre powerhouse leapt backward toward the relative cover of a copse of trees on his six.

Ten minutes later, after fighting their way forward once more to within 30 metres of the same emplacement, Rossouw tossed a second grenade. Again, restrictions of throwing from his turret from nipple-height saw another grenade drop metres short of the angry trench.

33 Alpha was forced to withdraw and reposition, once more under withering fire, and this time the RPG and small-arms attack had been joined by a Russian BTR APC which quickly scored a direct hit on her turret destroying Warren Adams gun sight. It would take an act of real courage by that crew to stay the battle without Warren’s ability to accurately sight his gun, they could thank God we were prosecuting contact at such perilously close quarters. I’m not sure the opposition would thank God that we were so well-trained and so well united, a squadron fused in the forges of mechanised hell.

Somehow, Adams quickly managed to regain his composure moments after watching his gun sight shatter, turn his two targeting hand-wheels while using only periscopes to estimate and crudely aim his cannon at the nearby BTR. A two-shot kill.

A full 30 minutes after first engaging the trench, Rossouw got within range for a third time, close enough to lob a third grenade, this time he got it plumb into the opposition emplacement, but by now he was so caught up in the hellfire of war, so far down the ‘you or me’ wormhole, he relentlessly pursued one escaping soldier with his Browning 7.62, outpacing and then retracing the running man until Adams, his gunner, tapped his leg and suggested the job was done.

[Remarkably, Adams later told me he’d been unable to feel his legs at all during the day-long battle. They were numb the whole time which which might be explained thus: a busy 90mm gunner has no real need for his legs, so the brain, realising the legs were unnecessary appendages at this time of extreme need, rerouted resources elsewhere.]

Throughout the battle I was aware of 61 Mech sub-units behind us and to our left flank but was physically oblivious of them or of their actions. I never saw them, at best I could see two vehicles that extended to the left corner of 61’s ‘pocket’, and two or three vehicles toward the river on my right hand side. That was the extent of lateral visibility, particularly as there wasn’t much time for looking too far down our frontline, they had to do what they had to do, my focus was primarily the arc in front of my vehicle, the movement of Troop two and then thereafter the bigger Squadron picture, continually drawing mental maps about the position and status of my brethren from intelligence gleaned from radio transmissions across the front.

“Tank at my 12!!” This over the Squad-net, it was the first report of a T-55 being called in.

That caught my attention.

Suddenly, this Russian Main Battle Tank had burst through the opposing tree-line, apparently targeting 31 Charlie four or five vehicles to my right meaning it was approaching from somewhere near the centre of our formation, there was nothing at all my Troop could do about that but Gunner James Sharp riding in the right-hand turret seat on Three One (31), almost choked on his radio mike as the T-55 filled his gun sight, range less than 60m, one o’ clock!

James Sharp fired his first round. Miss! He’d never actually been trained to fire at moving targets from 50 metres – none of us had, but this close any lateral movement would need to be quickly accounted for by aiming slightly ahead of the target point which had to be accurate against such a heavily clad Tank.

The T-55 belched flame from its 100mm cannon, firing once again on 31 Charlie whose crew was busily manoeuvring in a hair-raising few moments trying to taking evasive action to dodge the long barrel signalling the T-55 gunners aim seconds before firing. Miss!

Bremer quickly pushed another HEAT round into the breach, this time Sharp made allowance for target lateral movement.

Sharp’s shot stopped the Tank dead in its tracks. A third shot caused the T-55’s barrel to droop comically. A fourth shot, for good measure, marked the first of 18 enemy Main Battle Tanks destined for destruction at The Battle on the Lomba.

The arrival of Russian MBT’s in theatre heralded a new, even deadlier phase as 47 began moving their biggest baddest boys up the frontline. These were supported by yet more lightly armoured BTRs, BRDMs and Platoons of Infantrymen.

By now, the air was thick with the stench of burnt cordite; at times micro-volcanic eruptions of earth being excavated by shells exploding nearby left clouds of dust hanging in the sky, sometimes reducing visibility to a few metres. We were in the midst of a continual explosive cacophony, like a macabre military orchestra, the deadly rattle of shrapnel and bullets on the steel body of our vehicle an almost constant reminder of the perilous predicament we were living through.

There was not a single moment of respite, we were under constant and total attack.

This mattered less, I remained absolutely focussed on the job at hand, we continued seeking and destroying targets soon as they appeared, the quicker the better; and as Rossouw demonstrated in 33 Alpha, in any way possible!

Still retaining good linear form across the front, we gradually gained new ground, continually jockeying, a 20-30m reverse, then a similar distance forwards, never staying in the same spot longer than the time required to bring Zeelie on target, release one, perhaps two bombs and then give Corrie the order to move and reset. Whatever happened, we had to aim and shoot and be on the move again in less than 45 seconds, much less if possible so as not to present the opposition with a sitting duck target; the consequence of that, almost certainly a bull’s eye.

Sometime within those first two hours of battle, I glimpsed a pair of silent fighter jets racing through my field of view just off to my two o’ clock at such a low altitude that I could barely hear them at all which offers some indication of the noise level in combat. They flew outside of target area and in any event I had precious little brain-time spare to be concerned or distracted by them. I remained focussed on my targets ahead, occasionally snatching a glance to the left of our no-man’s-land field of operations looking for snipers in the tall trees. If something moved, the Browning at my right hand was quick to follow.

“Load HEAT!” the hairs on the back of my neck prickled in nervous adrenaline overload, I had to maintain my composure, our lives depended now on making the target within the coming few seconds, I had to stay calm while Herb aligned his cross-hairs, “ … Tank 250! Eleven o’clock! Fire when ready!”

This was a close as my crew had been to a live Russian MBT.

The low-slung beast appeared initially as an apparition moving through the trees, her hatches were all down but they spotted us and were angling towards us. Herb quickly traversed his gun onto target and then … I saw the muzzle flash erupt from the MBT’s 100mm cannon.

He’d fired on us!

Missed! We had less than 15 seconds before another round followed.

At such close range it took only moments for Zeelie to make sure of his aim. “Do it Herb!” I had total belief Zeelie would hold it together and make suitable allowance for target’s movement.

BOOM!

Before 32 Alpha had fully absorbed the recoil from the low-pressure gun and settled back onto her outsized suspension coils, I saw the HEAT round strike the T-54’s hull low, near the tracks, creating only a small, almost imperceptible, white flash. The 40 tonne unit stopped dead, he must’ve hit the front drive wheel, but the gun turret was still operational.

“Hit! You fucking hit it! Fucking great shooting Herb. I’m loading another HEAT. Quick, let’s finish it!”

Herb ejected the spent shell. I slid another black-tipped anti-tank HEAT round into the open breach. The heavy breach-block slammed satisfyingly up behind the bomb. Zeelie made a minor correction on his gun, then … BOOM!

“Driver reverse!”

It had taken less than eight seconds from firing that first HEAT round to releasing the second, such rapid succession the T-54’s gunner hadn’t time to recover from our first smack to their hull and consequent rapid loss of momentum.

Zeelie’s second shot also hit true, this time higher up on the turret section of the T54, firing a molten bolt of steel through the thick turret wall. I noted a crewman, or two, rapidly evacuate the dying tank, but they posed no further threat.

There was no time for triumphalism or celebration. We’d just killed our first MBT but in context merely eliminated one of many threats to our lives, admittedly one of the most potent threats, so we had to vok-voort (push forward). The belts on both Browning needed replacing, and there were more targets to find.

I checked the terrain behind, asked Corrie to initiate a reverse manoeuvre as Herb reached down into the right-side door area, grabbed two more of our custom ‘double belt’ boxes of ammo, one for his Browning and the other he passed up to me for our external ack-ack. I ordered David take us forward again as Herb and I chambered the first round of our 400-bullet belts into the red-hot smoking barrel as we completed our umpteenth v-shape jockey manoeuvre.

Within minutes another large target appeared in our field of fire, an APC, dark green, with what appeared to be corrugated iron-sides, I’d seen one of these before, and I knew we could have it.

Still spiked adrenal production once more, I had to wonder how much of this stuff our bodies could produce to keep us sharp …

Corrie completed yet another jockey manoeuvre, I called in the enemy APC position. “Load HE. Target 250metres, twelve o’clock. Fire when ready!”

BOOM! As usual, that recoil concussion blast was like a punch in the nose, that familiar sensation we endured during training like getting slapped in the face with a heavy wet towel, now we welcomed it.

“Target eliminated! Driver reverse”.

Across the line guys were increasingly encountering heavy mechanised resistance but we were really doing it – a Squadron of medium-skinned 90mm Ratels was taking on Main Battle Tanks and heavy armour, and we were still doing OK!

It was at times slow going, but gradually we jockeyed our way further across no-man’s-land, toward the line of trees so heavily defended all morning.

Move forward, fire, reverse 20-30m then come from a cover position, or if no cover was available, simply perform manoeuvres, trying to avoid incoming fire – this was how it was for Charlie Squadron all morning, almost three hours of fluid fire-and-move action, a seemingly well-oiled machine on the chassis of 61 Battalion Group.

Anyone who was there knows that it wasn’t just the efficiency and professionalism of 61’s fighting force that would win the day, no, in the face of an unending volley of incoming ordinance we undoubtedly had had a huge dollop of luck to have survived the enemy’s robust defence that morning. There was just too much happening that was outside our control – sometimes mere millimetres separated life from death as projectiles and shrapnel fizzed continuously through the air around us. It was relentless.

Then from the Ratel to my left, 32 Charlie, Bobby Robbello screamed over the Troop net, “Ek kan nie skiet, ek kan nie skiet” (I can’t shoot, I can’t shoot!)

What the fuck??!

My first thought was that his gun or gunner had frozen, but how could that be … they’d just taken out an RPG installation. I later found out that accurate small-arms fire from another position had struck the crew commander’s Browning, sparing Robbello from being hit, but the near-death experience had momentarily rendered him incapable of command.

Robbello came back online, “Tank targeting me at my twelve o’clock, 60 metres!”

Standing nipples-high in my turret I couldn’t immediately see 32 Charlie but knew we were nearest to them on their right flank, nor could I see the tank apparently directly ahead of them either, but called back, “OK Bobby, we’re coming in … ” still unable to envisage the scenario in his turret, or why this competent crew were struggling to handle this one.

“Driver forward ten o’clock, 60 metres, fast!” I barked, “load HEAT!” The manoeuvre was high risk, the angle of approach exposed our right flank but no large-calibre weapons seemed to be targeting us just then, but whatever, there was no time to waste, three brothers’ lives were at stake. The ball-grabbing, ear-biting squabble, between Bobby and I in the dust at Omuthiya all those months ago was just an amusing anecdote from a very different past.

Unquestioningly the crew instantly followed my barked order, my every sense hyper-alert, searching only for adeadly MBT targeting 32C.

As we angled forward ahead from the side of 32 Charlie’s position, Gunner Wilco Brooks finally released the HE (High Explosive) round they had in the pipe, deployed smoke grenades from the turret pods while driver Eugene Mostert rapidly jockeyed left and blindly backwards to avoid incoming fire.

In the confusion that persisted in 32 Charlie’s turret, Brooks continued to use his woefully inadequate Browning against the tank. For me, his tracer rounds offered an almost unbroken red line, pointed directly where I needed to focus my attention.

I immediately joined him, pouring a continuous stream of fire from my turret-mounted 7.62 machine gun, hoping to distract the T-55 crew and simultaneously guide Zeelie on to his next target.

“Gunner, follow my tracer rounds. Very short range target. Fire now, fire now!” BOOM! Bomb away and smack on target.

“You fucking beauty Herb, you got it, let’s go again!”

It was unbelievable. We’d proven T-55’s were not impervious to well-placed 90mm warheads and, it seemed, we were more than capable of beating them in close-quarters combat by taking advantage of our superior manoeuvrability.

Selecting the Squad-net from the toggle switch at my chest I opened the radio channel and called the strike in, ‘Three Zero, this is Three Two Alpha, threat neutralised!”

32 Charlie’s crew pulled themselves ogether and we continued pushing forward with no let up in intensity of contact while artillery elements on both sides raised the operating temperature of their pipes beyond recommended levels.

On our left flank, Bravo Company were called into action to defend a tactical encirclement action supported by APC’s in an attempt to open a smaller, second front on the left side of our pocket.

This was by far our greatest single contact on Modular. No previous contact had lasted this long, nor had we ever been in clear striking distance of such unrelenting high value targets.

Conversely, FAPLA boys had nowhere to run, they were committed to protecting their bridging area over Lomba which is why they weren’t pulling back from their own line in the sand, this was their last line of defence.

When it seemed we’d knocked a tooth out the opponents mouth he quickly moved reinforcements to repair the gap with a new, even tougher tooth. They seemed to be highly mobile, appearing from rearward positions in deeper bush to move rapidly into frontal, offensive positions. One moment, the area of denuded forest was clear as far as I could make out, and on the very next scan, a group of soldiers or rogue vehicle suddenly materialised to join the fray.

Finally, in the middle of ongoing actions across the front Commandant Smit ordered a tactical withdrawal which was near perfect timing because 47th Brigade’s resilience defence and willingness to replace fallen soldiers and destroyed materiel had kept Charlie’s crews busy, by this stage most of our turrets were running critically low on 90 mil munitions.

We continued attracting enemy fire like moths to a flame as we withdrew across the denuded killing ground we’d slowly jockeyed over during the morning’s action.

We’d probably only made forward gains of 150-200 metres from the tree-line where it had all begun and as we moved through that line and moved into the relative safety of the following tree line, a euphoric high flooded me completely.

The relief among the lads too was palpable as we realised we’d all survived a most incredible assault. The further we moved back from contact, the more self-congratulatory we became.

Once we’d completed our controlled withdrawal to safety – about 1,000m from the front – our jovial mood was quickly extinguished when Brad ‘hairdryer’ Saunders informed us our Captain had been summoned to Commandant Smit’s Battalion Command Ratel. Whatever they were discussing it was clearly not for radio channel chit chat!

There was immediate speculation that the cheese wanted to capitalise on our successful morning and send us back in for more of the same. It was hard to disagree with this assessment, battle conditions, or environment, were the best they’d been since we’d arrived in Angola.

Crews across the battalion began refuelling and replenishing their vehicles, many of which bore testament to the narrowness of the margin between life and death at war. Black scars were evident on almost every Charlie Squad vehicle, where a tank round or similar had struck at too shallow an angle to detonate, or penetrate, and harmlessly slid down the side of the vehicle, sometime leaving streaks of a metre or more. Every vehicle was speckled with tiny gouges on their skin; tattoos left by whizzing shrapnel.

Drivers replaced the odd bomb damaged run-flat tyre while gunners cleared thousands of spent 7.62mm bullet casings from their vehicles and prepared new 400-round belts while the commanders discussed tactics.

Charlie’s men seemed quite ebullient; we’d all seen and targeted tanks, sometimes double-teaming them to good effect, we were fully operational and felt very much in ascendancy. I didn’t want to go back, but nor too did I fear going back, not then.

Our early speculation turned out to be accurate. On Squad-net Cloete conveyed Commandant Smit’s commendation of our steadfast and heroic actions that morning before despatching us onto the frontline once more. My Charlie Squad buddies were, like me, too deep in autopilot (or in shock) to have much emotional response to the risk of going back in. We were going in, end of story.

Less than an hour since tactical withdrawal, 61 Mech drivers started their engines again, Charlie Squad returned to her place at the vanguard, this time moving toward the target area more rapidly and far more confident of the location and capability of 47th Brigade.

Unfortunately, this wasn’t the ending 47th had in mind for Battle on the Lomba, opposition forces hadn’t been resting idly on their laurels during 61’s hour-long lunch break, anything but, these guys were feeling the hurt from being pinned by ground forces under a shower of SADF Artillery.

So the cold harsh reality was these guys were in some very deep shit. FAPLA, I understand, deployed one of three armoured Battalion’s during the morning but they’d been mauled by a demonstration of mobility, rate of fire and accuracy from 61 Mechanised Battalion’s well-trained soldiers.

47th Brigade was cornered. They couldn’t ‘melt’ such a large force into the forests behind them as they’d done when we encountered smaller enemy contingents during the previous three weeks. Apparently their only escape route was over the restricted river crossing which was so slow going it could handle only a handful of vehicles per hour. They had to defend this position, their lives depended on it.

Clearly, there was an imperative that their valuable, and still secret, SAM-8 anti-aircraft technology and other hi-tech weapon systems were evacuated. They could not be allowed to fall into enemy hands.

FAPLA had no choice but to stand and fight, return maximum fire and defend their position.

Now, 59th Brigade, just five clicks NNE of Lomba were asked to provide additional artillery support.

So, while we’d been brewing coffee and washing grime from our faces, 47th Brigade had reinforced their frontline with another full Battalion.

As we moved back into no-man’s-land the tempo of incoming fire quickly reached that familiar deadly crescendo once more.

Rested and watered, Charlie Squad adopted their drills, moving, targeting, firing, moving …

The afternoon session quickly opened with more reports of direct action against T-55s and BTRs.

If we considered ourselves battle-hardened prior to October 3rd then, by enduring that morning’s combat shit we could, to a man, possibly now be considered ‘accomplished’ warriors. I’d like to think an observer riding in my vehicle would’ve noted the controlled coolness presented by the crew of 32 Alpha as she rode headlong into lava-flow-like heat and killer-cacophony of cold war combat.

My crew just picked up where we’d left off, as if the half-time break hadn’t occurred, except now, turret replete with full compliment of 29 bombs and thousands more Browning 7.62mm rounds double belted and awaiting their Call of Duty in Angola.

The early afternoon action yielded more high value targets than had shown themselves during the morning as we begun to squeeze FAPLA through their defensive line towards the Lomba River. Consequently, the increasingly beleaguered 47th poured in ever more heavy-metal resources in a desperate attempt to hold us off until they could facilitate safe ex-filtration.

Within two hours, maybe 90 minutes, since resuming contact, I became aware turret ordinance was almost depleted, testament to the increased rate of fire onto enemy positions and vehicles, but this time there was to be no fall back reprieve, leading me to consider the unthinkable, breaking off mid-contact for resupply.

The thought of leaving the other crews, my brothers, was unwelcome. Any fear I’d felt before the commencement of battle had long since been replaced by absolute commitment and dedication to the task and to my people. I’d become so deeply immersed in battle I really did not want to be leaving my Squad, so it was with regret I was forced to disengage from battle.

Sentimental bollocks aside, unless we withdrew, 32Alpha would be left defending herself with 7.62mm popcorn.

“Herb, take the shot, David we’re pulling back to resupply”.

Opening the Troop net, I informed O’Connor what I was up to, “Three Two, this is Three Two Alpha, I’m withdrawing to replenish my turret!’

“Three Two Alpha affirm.” A curt the response from 2nd Lt. Michael O’Connor, who was understandably focussed on his own field-of-fire.

Corrie immediately initiated fast reverse.

I should’ve mentioned this earlier … a Ratel driver has no rear-view capabilities; externally mounted side mirrors had no place in bush warfare, they’d be torn off within seconds, so the driver mainly relied on someone else’s guidance when reversing, like a ‘banksman’. With head poking above turret, I relayed information to David who skilfully manoeuvred us around obstacles, particularly large trees.

As we withdrew, Herb gainfully laid down a continuous stream of 7.62mm from his co-axially mounted Browning, only stopping briefly to reload a fresh 400-round belt. We had to try keep FAPLA boys’ heads down as much as possible because they seemed to have an unending supply of RPG’s, but had to stand or kneel to launch them.

I was uncertain how far to reverse to replenish the turret ‘safely’.

I knew from experience during training, the time we permanently altered our barrel colour pink, the reloading exercise required one of us to be exposed outside the vehicle for a few minutes, but I also knew the farther we pulled back, the longer we’d be out of line.

Bombs and bullets whizzing and pinging, branches snapping off trees, we’d still only reversed 20-30 metres when, inexplicably, David suddenly tramped on his brake pedal immediately retarding the Ratel’s reward momentum. In the same instant I shouted through my helmet mouthpiece, “Keep going, keep going Dave, terrain clear!”

Corrie responded immediately by flooring it again and just as the 18-ton hulk’s automatic gearbox regained pressure and our reverse momentum resumed, I watched in ultra slo-mo as a mortar round exploded less than four metres from my exposed face, directly on top of my Ratel’s roof.

My fucking luck it landed inside the spare wheel hub locked atop the three engine hatches and was also shielded from shrapnel by the thick domed cupola that had remained in an upright position throughout the ground assault phase of contact, but then my legs just buckled beneath me, hardly believing I was still alive. Thirty Two Alpha rocked down heavily under the force of what must’ve been an 82mm mortar round.

With a shudder, I immediately realised Corries’s momentary deceleration had altered the vehicle’s location at the moment of impact … had he not slowed … shit, that was another close call! Later David confirmed the distance we had not travelled during our momentary loss of rearward momentum was approximately the same distance the bomb needed us to travel for a direct hit on our turret.

I put that to one side and forced myself to peer back out the turret once more and guide us safely as we continued reversing through no-man’s-land. The area we were leaving, the area we’d fought over all day, resembled the apocalyptic Tunguska meteor event with so many flattened and stripped-bare trees.

Two or three hundred metres back from the frontline, realising there was no place that would offer great cover or protection from the maelstrom, I halted. “OK David stop here. There’s no good cover nearby to do this. Open left door … let me know if anything changes at your twelve.”

In a flash I unplugged my comm’s jack from the channel selector attached to my chest with webbing harness, jumped off the top of the turret, landing cat-like on the ground two and a half meters below. Before the pneumatic steel door fully opened I noticed new black streaks along the side of our vehicle, evidence of more near misses.

Disregarding nearby explosions, my attention was focussed solely on selecting appropriate ordinance, unlocking bomb catches and passing each ten kilogram round up to Herb in the turret, one at a time.

Working at hyper speed, Zeelie slid and locked each bomb in place. Helpfully, David twisted around in his seat to clear a number of spent 90mm shells cluttering our turret floor area. Loose casings could trap the turret mechanism, effectively jamming and delaying a turret traverse they should always be manually ejected from the turret but in the madness of the preceding action there hadn’t always been opportunity to do so after every shot. To me it seemed we were taking forever to fully replenish the turret, but in reality it took no more than three minutes, maybe less.

I clambered up the side of the vehicle, back into my turret … tank helmet on … comm’s check with crew. “David, close left door” and then, “Floor it!” By the time the left door slammed and locked we were already racing back into action.

“Three Two, Three Two Alpha, we’re coming back in, I’ll take up my standard position in line.”

Less than a minute later we were back in formation and immediately coming under attack from a group of infantry at 200 metres, some of them still exiting a nearby APC and taking cover behind a large tree adjacent their vehicle. Then my attention was drawn to a black dot travelling toward us, almost in slow motion. Gradually, the dot grew larger and larger until my brain finally fathomed the dot was headed directly at my head!

There was no time to move the vehicle, nothing I could do to change our fate. My legs gave way, it was all I could do in the second before it struck. As I dropped down into the turret I looked up just as a distinctive green tube spun lazily overhead, missing my open hatch-cover by no more than a few centimetres.

“Fucking RPG! Fuck me that was close!”

But this was not the time to dwell on implications that would have followed a direct hit. “New target acquired! Gunner, load HE, large tree, 200 metres, follow tracer, fire now!”

BOOM! Recoil … slap-in-face sensation.

“OK, great shot, the tree is gone, let’s take their vehicle, I’m loading HEAT, fire when ready!”

Without a flicker of emotion, the enemy Infantrymen no longer represented a threat so we moved smoothly on to finding the next target.

The Squadron was experiencing the ugly logic of warfare at first hand – kill or be killed. Across the frontline battle raged, 61 Mech continued bringing shedloads of ugly to 47th Brigade who, for their part, were desperately clinging to their territory in defence of the river crossing.

Then we started to lose vehicles from our own formation, not from enemy action directly, but from a technical issue with the 90mm cannons. The 90 mil cannon recoil uses internal gas chambers to return the barrel to its correct starting position after each round is fired. As part of regular maintenance, guns would be re-gassed but the toll of such long battles began to render a number of guns inoperable. As the gas depleted we would have to physically push the barrel forward, manually drop the breach block wasting precious seconds, not great in rapid fire conditions.

Troop two was by now one gun down when, in the fog of battle, Three Two (32) Commander Mike O’Connor opened comm’s on troop-net sounding panicked, “All units, I’m taking MBT fire but can’t locate target!”

O’Connor closed his hatch some time earlier after catching shrapnel with his shoulder, but operating hatch down made target discovery very tricky in these conditions. Van Niekerk, his driver, jockeyed constantly, stalling for time, spoiling the enemy’s aim while trying to pinpoint the tank through periscopes.

By now, the crew of 32Alpha and I were like a single organism working together in near perfect harmony. We’d survived five hours on war’s insane stage, the number of close-calls and near misses impossible to calculate. Perhaps beginning to feel invincible, I was absolutely committed to ruthless and immediate prosecution of the mission and the defence of my team. My response to the crew was instant, “Let’s get this one!”

“Three Two, Three Two Alpha, we’re moving forward from your three o’clock now.”

Lesser targets temporarily forgotten, the elusive MBT became my primary target as we quickly moved some 60-80 metres diagonally down range, forward of O’Connor’s area of operation.

The forward rush gave me a different perspective on the terrain and almost immediately a large bush caught my attention, it looked an ideal size to shelter an MBT-sized lump, confirmed seconds later by a bright flash seemingly erupting from within the foliage.

They were indeed firing on 32, but just missed!

Within seconds of 32’s urgent call I’d spotted a section of 100mm barrel protruding from a bush, obviously connected to a tank. Now Three Two had less than 15 seconds before enemy tank crews reloaded and reacquired the jockeying target.

The MBT’s position behind the bush meant her crew were blind to our rush from what would’ve been their ten o’clock position.

With a HEAT round already chambered, locked and loaded, David halted on my command. By now the back end of the T-55 was visible and I immediately lit it up with 7.62mm tracers.

“Gunner new target, ten o’clock, 60 metres, follow tracers … ”

In the few seconds of delay as he refined his aim, I silently willed Zeelie to make his shot count before that T-55 had chance to release another round on O’Connor’s Ratel. “Fire when ready!”

Herb squeezed the firing button at his right thumb. BOOM!

Still pouring ack-ack fire into the bush, I ignored the slap in the face and watched as a split second later a flash lit the T-55.

I ripped the spent shell casing from the breach, slammed in another HEAT round, then Zeelie made sure of his aim before releasing a second quick-fire shot. “Driver reverse!” Before we completed the jockey manoeuvre, a larger explosion ripped the turret clean off the tank’s hull. It rose in the air a little, flipping over before toppling upside down like a stranded turtle lying next to the stricken hull.

“Three Two, this is Three Two Alpha, target eliminated.”

[In 1989 I was awarded the Military Merit Medal (MMM) for ‘services of a high order’ in relation to ‘bravery in combat’ associated with this battle. Specifics remain unclear because I missed a presentation event hosted by our State President and only learned of this prestigious award a quarter century later. Such accolade must be shared with my crew who risked as much].

We saw that same broken tank again a few weeks later, or at least, we saw a black and white photo of it on propaganda leaflets used against FAPLA.

O’Connor dropped off from the front line after this incident further reducing our troop to two vehicles, but my risky forward push to eliminate the T-55 left me feeling we could hold the new territory we’d just gained, within 20 minutes of fire and move we found ourselves moving ever deeper into enemy territory, past the stricken T-55 turtle-turret. We were now some 500 metres nearer to 47th Brigade than so many exhausting hours before at the start of the longest day. To me it seemed that enemy resistance was finally crumbling, certainly where I was, farthest from the river.

Meanwhile Troops Three and One were still meeting somewhat heavier resistance due to being closer to the river and the bridging point, but, from my turret it appeared we’d exhausted the enemy’s defence, I was finally nearing the main tree line from which 47th had mounted such stubborn defence.

Despite not knowing what lay too far into the tree line we continued to make cautiously slow steady progress deeper into former enemy-held territory.

The in-battle analysis was that Charlie Squad had destroyed dozens of hard targets including at least a Squadron of T-55. 32 Alpha herself credited with, or contributing to the destruction of three MBT and a handful of armoured targets while our anti-tank boys on the left flank racked up a significant number of hard targets including some T-55s.

Things were running so well, 61 Mech seemed unstoppable.

Then, just at that moment, as if to castrate my boyish triumphalism …

Someone once said that if you gave an infinite number of monkeys an infinite number of typewriters they’d eventually create the works of William Shakespeare. In our case, there were seemingly an infinite number of projectiles being hurled at us by any infinite number of humans [in fact, there were less than 2,500 men attached with the 47th and TG1 in total], and they fired or launched countless thousands of projectiles, each with sufficient kinetic energy to slice a Ratel open like a pikstel knife through a bully beef tin lid.

Throughout the long hours of battle that day, there was not a second of silence, the never-ending, high-explosive soundtrack played endlessly on a loop and for any one of us, the music could’ve stopped at any moment.

[It is generally accepted – certainly from an SADF perspective – that lads on the opposition team were less well trained, less disciplined and apparently less well nourished than us. Propaganda suggested many Angolans were fighting unwillingly against fellow countrymen and for a cause they hardly believed in. I’m sure many joined willingly to improve life opportunities, nevertheless stories abounded of conscript snatching from rural villages where such crimes could carry on unnoticed. It was also said that crewmen were limited to one cup of rice per day, and that tank drivers were shackled inside their vehicle to prevent them deserting during combat. Whatever the truth might be, I never witnessed dead tank drivers still shackled in the closet.]

It was, therefore, little short of miraculous that by mid-afternoon on 3 October, 61 Mech had survived the maelstrom unleashed by 47th Brigade and TG1 without sustaining any serious physical injuries.

Behind our opponent’s frontline, more than 70 enemy vehicles were already destroyed or abandoned due to direct and indirect action. Their number of dead was difficult to ascertain but by now would be measured in hundreds.

On our left flank, the defensive shield made up of Bravo Company was holding rock solid, the eight 90mm crews of Seven One (71) and Seven Two (72) unequivocally earning their ‘anti-tank stripes’ that day.

If miracles do occur, they seemed to be occurring a whole lot more for us than for the guys on the opposite side – perhaps the commie-backed enemy had pissed off the God of Miracle provision, but the longer battle raged, the greater the inevitability our enemy would make a miracle of their own.

Lucky, miraculous or otherwise, any FAPLA kill shot was not going to be ‘much ado about nothing’, not from our perspective anyway.

And then it finally happened!

Through the dense fog of war, the dreaded call came over Squad-net: “Thirty Three has taken a direct hit … ”

“Fuck! Adrian’s vehicle, what’s the situation, the crew?”

Saunders came back, “we’re waiting to establish … ” Command crewmen (30) were clearly stressed, this was bad, I’d not heard this stress-level from three-zero before and the unfilled silences spoke volumes as to the chaos that must’ve ensued. We remained silent, allowing them time to do their thing, “ … they’ve been immobilised,” then, “ … a crew member is sitting outside on top of the vehicle, he’s a sitting duck!”

I’m imagining the next report will say ‘and now he’s been shot off the Ratel’. I couldn’t understand what the fuck he was doing, sitting outside fully exposed on the turret in the middle of battle, it was suicide!

This frightful incident was playing out some 250–300m right of my position and, in the circumstances, too far away to get directly involved, this was a moment you simply trusted your contemporaries to perform. Those within reach of the stricken vehicle immediately sprung into action.

Gunner James Sharp, on three-one some 50 metres from three-three, was close enough to witness the dramatic incident unfold.

Seconds after a large explosion ripped under the Ratel’s left front nose plate, 33’s gunner hatch popped open, Kurt ‘Stompie’ Oelofse leapt from his turret sprinting towards our back line, apparently not stopping until a Buffel (Buffalo) – mine-hardened open-top troop transport – scooped him up.

Moments later, Hind, the crew commander, who’d somehow managed to clamber down the side of his Ratel, clearly wounded and confused, staggered and stumbled … laterally across the field of battle, up the line toward my side of the front. Of course, he’d never make it that far.

The whole Battalion twitched at the news.

Commandant Smit immediately ordered a Battalion vuur-gordel (fire-belt or plan) – a bit like in the movies where the guy says ‘you go, I’ll cover you … ’ but this wasn’t just a few pea shooters, this was anentire fucking Battalion! I mean this was like nothing that had probably ever been launched in the history of Bush War, probably in Africa since Rommel and Co.

Bok Smit’s vuur-gordel call unleashed every single gun, cannon and artillery asset we had at our disposal, unleashing all the dogs of war onto 47th Brigade.

The guns of Lomba brought a barrage of continuous fire onto enemy positions designed to create a corridor for crew and vehicle recovery.

On the front, Charlie Squad immediately raised the tempo, aiming our ordinance at an area in the pocket just ahead of 33 while the guns of Alpha Coy rushed up to our line, and apparently in some cases rushed through the 90mm line in their eagerness to join the fray and, at last, free their killer buzz-saw.

As Zeelie fired a second shot toward our two o’ clock and I dropped back down quickly releasing the next round from its turret housing … ‘CRACK’! At almost the same instant I heard that sound – a sharp pain stung the upper area of my back.

“Arggh!” I momentarily shat myself, thinking this was going downhill fast, “Fuck! I’ve been hit!”

Despite Zeelie’s grimy face, his skin beneath the grime was suddenly white as a sheet as he looked up at me from his gun sight, brown eyes wide as saucers, “Wat gaan ons doen Korporaal?” (What should we do Corporal?)

Thinking on his feet, Corrie launched a blind reverse but after a long few moments of total shitting myself, thinking, is this is how it all ends for me?

My life wasn’t flashing before my eyes. I knew this was survivable and realised the pain was getting no worse. I turned in the turret so Herb could inspect my back.

“I can’t see blood,” said Herb.

That’s when I realised I’d been very lucky … again. “No wait, wait David, I’m OK. Let’s go back in!”

We hadn’t reversed much more than twenty metres before halting, then immediately moving forward again, resuming our fire plan in support of the recovery action.

I’d just dodged a bullet, a sniper maybe. I was convinced the loud sharp ‘crack’ was the result of a bullet ricocheting and not bomb fragmentation, which makes a different sound altogether. I tried to keep my profile as low as possible until we located and silenced the sharpshooting threat.

We were being obviously being fired upon once more but I couldn’t see enemy positions or threats, so they had to be dug in or sniping from up a tree somewhere. I admonished myself for losing sight of the immediate target area during the vuur-gordel, thinking we had the area ahead of us well buttoned down. The crack sounded especially loud and close, it seemed as if the bullet had bounced off the upright commander’s cupola.

I believed that dropping in to the turret a split second before a bullet’s trajectory harmlessly bisected the space my face had occupied just moments before; logic dictated that a tiny shard had probably ricocheted off the cupola and found its way through my thick tank suit (thankfully through a reinforced section) before coming to rest just under the skin over my shoulder-blade.

[The flesh wound healed quickly, however the reason I never spotted that near-dead-eye-dick shooter was trickier to pin down than a gaggle of silver-tongued weasel-worded politicians. Took almost 25 years to establish the true story of this near-death experience, and actually this incident had the potential to wipe out the whole crew, not just me – I won’t make you wait as long.]

During my 30 second shrapnel induced distraction, crew commanders nearest Three-Three descended like a pack of dogs on the rogue tank, destroyed it and simultaneously launched white smoke grenades blanketing the area in front of Adrian Hind’s vehicle as an Alpha Company 20mm Ratel moved forward to within 30 metres of his stricken vehicle. Doors opened and out poured the troops it was carrying, among them an old school pal, Rifleman Graham Green. Green sprinted forward under enemy fire towards the staggering falling figure of Adrian Hind.

By sheer coincidence Graham had been in my class at High School and I knew him as an excellent runner – he’d always been quicker than me on the High School Cross-Country team when we competed for our age-group cup but now he literally was running for his life.

The combined guns of 61 Mech continued laying down a heavy blanket of fire which lasted some twenty minutes during the recovery operation.

Later that night, accounts of the incident were somewhat confusing; some suggested Adrian had fired five shots at the oncoming T-55 without jockeying once! Someone else suggested they’d ‘seen’ the projectile travelling toward the vehicle which suggested a slower-moving projectile, such as an RPG, but the extent of the damage indicated something far more powerful.

A T-55 MBT could quite easily pop a Ratel open with almost any sort of direct hit but it took them many hours of combat, and the loss of more than a Squadron of their own tanks, for 47th Brigade to achieve this single direct hit on Charlie’s nimble Ratel crews.

It is widely acknowledged and accepted that we had a weaker cannon and much thinner armour plate than the T-55. To survive a direct encounter our gunnery needed to be more accurate, we had to be quicker on the fire/reload cycle … and the shot had to count! A hit on a T-55’s track or exposed gearing normally immobilised the platform but the ideal strike, on the seam, between hull and turret, could very well destroy the tank. In such close-quarters encounters, the 90mm HEAT round proved it had sufficient power to punch through thick turret walls too which, as it turned out, were less thick than advertised in the sales brochure we’d been shown in Tempe.

Sometimes, it’s true, 90mm crews might’ve dropped the hammer four or five times before totally subduing a ‘T’ but if a crew required so many shots they could absolutely not be fired from the same standing position. If a target was not neutralised with two shots, the crew commander had to reposition, they had to fuck with the opposite gunner. Always!

Guys who saw the damage to 33 said the bomb must’ve skimmed the ground under its nose and then struck the suspension housing as it exploded upwards through her mine-hardened underbelly. As the blast entered the driver’s cabin, it sheared three fingers off Glen Woodhouse’s left hand holding the gear-shift lever, his right hand on the steering wheel and destroyed the left side of his face before continuing up into the turret area, mainly into the crew commander’s position on the left hand side.

‘Stompie’ Oelofse, got lucky and only had a finger torn off by the shower of shrapnel that briefly defied the laws of gravity as it burst up into their turret. Instinctively he opened the hatch above his head, evacuated their vehicle and bolted a few hundred meters back to the relative safety of a vehicle that had been lurking behind the front-line of 61s pocket.

A design flaw of a 90mm turret atop Ratel body was the large 90mm cannon prevented a driver hatch from opening when pointed forward therefore, SOP decreed that a gunner should always traverse his weapon 30-40 degrees left or right to allow driver egress but, with Adrian mortally wounded and Stompie making best speed to safety, severely injured Glen Woodhouse was forced to painfully reach back into Stompie’s evacuated gunner’s compartment and slowly turn the flywheel to traverse the gun far enough that he could release the hatch above his head and slowly extricate himself from his badly damaged vehicle.

Woodhouse was so shell-shocked, instead of finding cover he simply sat heavily atop the turret, dazed, staring blankly ahead as the battle continued to unfold around him.

Then, still oblivious to any peril, believing his wet face was caused by him sweating profusely, he jumped down intending to wash his face from his Ratel water tank. He’d not yet realised he’d lost an eye and a sizeable chunk of his face. The ‘sweat’ he felt was his own fresh blood.

By now, Adrian was barely clinging to life, staggering, falling then picking himself up again to continue stumbling across our frontline before falling once more. The storm of steel shards inside the Ratel had peppered his body causing grievous internal injuries that would end his life in minutes.

Hind hadn’t been at the top of his game that day, suffering from a bout of gyppo guts (diarrhoea) most of the night, I later learned he’d needed a number of pit-stops on final approach during the early morning. It’s very likely that by midafternoon he was mildly dehydrated at least, which might account for some, less than optimum, decisions that day.

Graham Green reached the mortally wounded Adrian and physically carried his near lifeless body back to the safety of his Ratel. Graham was later awarded Honoris Crux for conspicuous bravery under fire.

Zeelie and I continued laying down a blanket of fire, listening to reports of the recovery operation, at that stage still hoping for a good outcome, but then two other issues came to my attention. Firstly, our rapid-fire action was rapidly depleting our turret ordinance again and secondly, Corrie warned me that his engine was starting to overheat.

I quickly forgot about these challenges when Cloete piped up a few moments later, “All units, break off contact, we’re pulling back.”

My immediate emotion was one of frustration – we were so close to smashing enemy lines. One more push and we’d overrun them. I wasn’t ready to stop, not now!

Medics attending the seriously wounded guys called for blood group matches. Danie Laas was a match for Stompie Oelofse and he later recounted the encounter he had with the Major, this lowly cannon-fodder gunner, chatting with Battalion 2IC as the latter’s blood flowed directly from top to bottom of our organisation.

Major Laas offered Stompie a cigarette which he gratefully accepted. Laas lit one before passing it to the gunner’s unbandaged hand. This simple gesture meant so much to the young Trooper it became an indelible highlight of his two year National Service.

Emboldened, Oelofse then pleaded with the Major to provide him with a new vehicle, “Majoor, die fokken tenk het vir my Luitenant fokken dood geskiet, ek wil terug ingaan en vir hulle opfok, sal Majoor aseblief vir my crew commander wees.” (Major, this fucking Tank fucking shot dead my Lieutenant, I want to go back in and fuck them up, will you act as my crew commander please?) [Incredibly, this last anecdote was a moment indelibly seared in the mind of Danie Laas himself. Before he succumbed to Cancer in 2014 he shared this unique memory he’d retained through the course of a long and proud military career. Interestingly, Stompie had no memory of this side of the conversation when I shared this anecdote with him 27 years later but was understandably deeply moved when I told him.]

The remaining vehicles of Charlie Squad drew together in a small laager, adrenaline still flowing strongly, as exhausted cordite-blackened crews shared their relief at having survived, tempered with genuine sadness at the news of Adrian’s sudden death and injuries to his crew.

It was unbelievable so many of us had survived total onslaught by 47th Brigade unscathed but we never gave much thought to the scale of human tragedy wrought upon on the 47th and TG1 that day.

They were enemy targets, nothing more.

Estimates of their losses by day’s end were that 500 perished or sustained seriously injured during Battle on the Lomba.

Quite honestly, the scale of human suffering among enemy forces had little or no emotional resonance for me at that time, it wasn’t that I wanted them to die or suffer injury, it just didn’t seem to matter. At all.

While we were catching our breath, discussing possible next orders, radio reports started coming in from our intel boys that sounded almost jubilant, “ … the enemy seems to be fleeing, abandoning their vehicles and even swimming across Lomba … ”. Then, “ … we’re seeing guys sitting on a hill just over the river, they’ve thrown down their weapons and just crying … ”. This was bad for them.

Charlie Squadron boys were elated at the news; 61 Mech had hammered a much larger opponent and our 90mm crews had rewritten the book on mechanised warfare – they’d confronted and pulverised a couple of Squadron’s MBT and more into submission.

After enduring seven or eight hours of hard defence, we later learned 61’s intensive fire-plan action thrown down during recovery of 33, was the straw that finally snapped the spirit of FAPLA’s beleaguered 47th. True, they managed to score one painful blow against 61 Mech, but when my Battalion twitched in response to that blow we effectively obliterated all vestiges of lingering resolve the soldiers and commanders might have had to stand and fight.

The nature of their flight was perhaps best exemplified by a Tank commander who, in his desperation to reach the north bank, ordered his driver to build up speed and launch the 40-ton beast across the river at its narrowest point.

He made it. About half-way.

Then, a second tank commander slowly steered his T-55 onto the body of the first stranded tank, using his stricken comrade’s turret as a bridge. That didn’t work either, a second Russian MBT ended its war in cold Lomba.

Exactly how much of 47th remained operational was difficult to ascertain but those who reached the north bank, could not get away from us fast enough.

Shortly after reaching the draw-back position, Cragg the Medic cut a silver sliver of shrapnel out my back.

Photo 35 Ops Medic and his tool kit. (Barry Taylor)

O’Connor’s wound was similar but had just penetrated his deltoid muscle and was apparently less easily treated in the field. For some reason he was offered casualty evacuation for a surgical procedure to remove the steel splinter.

Before O’Connor left, he pulled me aside to thank me for saving his crew from the T-55 – he was in no doubt the action of 32 Alpha had been decisive in the contact. Despite this accolade I have to admit a small part of me was regretful my wound also hadn’t been severe enough to warrant cassevac. I wasn’t certain I’d get so lucky next time we clashed with FAPLA.

Despite this I happily returned from the ambulance to resume my role as Troop Sergeant for Troop Two, which otherwise faced losing both Troop leaders in a single day. A complete change in leadership, in such intense environs, would likely lead to the auld-hand vs. greenhorn thing or, the ‘us vs. them’ thing.

If O’Connor and I had both departed October 3rd, one way or another, I’d like to believe the lack of continuity would’ve been a blow to morale, although I suspect that in the heat of combat Troop Two would’ve responded well to a new commander particularly if he demonstrated good leadership and held his nerve in combat.

Five minutes later a request was issued from Battalion Command seeking a posse of fully functioning vehicles from Charlie Squad to join an expeditionary force made up of Bravo’s Coy’s ATK 90mms who were somewhat fresher than us from their day protecting our flank, and an entourage from Battalion HQ.

The expeditionary force was to move forward in similar, but smaller, formation, this time with Bravo taking the lead, to move onto the target area once more to mop up any remaining resistance, evaluate the battlefield, record abandoned equipment for recovery by UNITA and, hopefully, locate a SAM-8 missile system for recovery to USA.

By now, almost 45 minutes since exiting the field of play, my bloodlust had abated. Fear began to resurface at the thought of going back in a third time despite knowing the target had been softened up like an overripe box of tomatoes dropped off the back of a Samil truck travelling at 120km/h on tarred road.

We returned to our bomb-streaked vehicles to prepare, immediately noting four or five perfectly round puncture holes in the rear of 32 Alpha. We didn’t give it too much thought at first because we also noticed that just one of our Ratel run-flat tyres was still inflated, the remainder pancake-flat, shredded by shrapnel – we needed a five-tyre change.

Our spare tyre on the roof above her engine compartment hadn’t fared any better after absorbing a direct hit from that 82mm mortar and partly shielding me from serious harm, so the spare was well fucked too. I contemplated going back in on the run-flats, not ideal, but we certainly couldn’t change so many tyres at short notice, so we’d have to limp in, perhaps, I thought, ignominiously trailing the Bravo boys which kinda sucked ’cos I was sure their Major would be seeking all the credit, but what alternative?

We mounted up, Corrie jumped back into his driver’s cabin and found he was unable to get the engine to fire up, it seemed the earlier over-heating issue had clearly worsened. Now we paused, disembarked and on closer inspection discovered some of those neat round holes in Alpha’s rear-end we’d noticed earlier had punched through the steel fins or grill, entered her engine compartment and punctured through her radiator. We obviously couldn’t see how deep into the engine they’d burrowed. We knew a radiator was repairable in the field by our well-equipped mechanics, just not immediately, forcing our exclusion from participation in the final assault on 47.

Some tried suggesting the mysterious, perfectly round holes could only have occurred if, at some stage, we’d presented our rear to the enemy – which never happened. Just the mention of such poor form would piss me and my crew off! We knew what we’d done that day, even if others were unable to acknowledge it.

No one suggested this was shrapnel damage, the holes were perfectly shaped, one of them punctured clear through our rear cabin exit-door offering a possible explanation as to the cause of shrapnel in my back, but I still preferred my theory of a bullet ricocheting off my cupola.

It begun to dawn on me that perhaps we’d been hit by friendly fire. But others said, if this were true we’d not have survived a 20mm tungsten-tipped round bouncing around inside cabin area. Admittedly this was quite a compelling counter-argument.

In context to all that had happened during the day, this was a minor issue, we’d survived, no-one had got hurt and the incident was buried.

[25 years later, an Alpha Coy crewman whose 20mm Ratel was in formation behind Charlie’s frontline area and directly behind 32 Alpha’s area of operation acknowledged the event, so by piecing together his account with my experience, this is what I believe transpired that afternoon: I’d made extremely good forward progress on the left front, in fact, by getting ahead of Charlie Ratels on my right I knew we were, in effect, beginning to wheel our front line in toward the river as the enemy softened ahead of us. Sensing the pulse of battle it appeared we could now begin to squeeze them down onto the river itself, but, and this is the big but, I was too far from the centre line to be observed by my command vehicle and this new, deeper line was neither matched by those on my right nor, crucially, by those 20mm Ratels behind me who were taking their lead from Alpha Coy’s centre-line some 50m off Charlie’s six. I didn’t want to call my progress in for two reasons. Firstly, the guys were very busy trying to effect recovery of 33 and secondly, I wasn’t sure we wouldn’t get yanked back into line by Cloete and I really didn’t want that to happen because we were breaking through, I wanted to keep pressing along with the remaining Troop Two vehicle I had drawn in with me. I estimate Thirty Two Alpha were at least 100m but probably no more than 200m ahead of Alpha Coy centre-line, over such distance in those conditions it is possible an unsighted twitchy 20mm gunner, or crew commander, momentarily mistook our Ratel’s movement for an enemy vehicle.]

Gentle post-war rhetoric aside, these fucking idiots fired a one second-long salvo from their deadly buzz-saw right up our ass! Thank fuck only one of the rounds pierced the rear-door right below the large white letters ‘32A’, clearly marking us as a friend! The armour piercing round easily penetrated steel plate, entered our cabin, luckily smashed into the right bulkhead which redirected the bulk of kinetic energy and resultant shrapnel toward the left bulkhead.

Fortunately only a sample size of the 20mm slug found flesh and helped explain the silver colour of the shard Dion Cragg sliced out my back. The expeditionary force returned to the frontline, quickly moving through no-man’s land and beyond the final tree line I’d been hoping to breach. Apparently they met with little or no resistance at all, rather had to restrain themselves from the senseless slaughter of the by now defenceless groups of FAPLA boys fleeing across the river. Commandant Smit’s vehicle followed closely behind the advancing force during the final assault, even Dominee (Church Priest or Minister) hitched a ride into ‘action’ and, it was rumoured, had insisted that Smit order his men to “ … finish off the survivors”. Bok Smit a consumate professional soldier had no political or social axe to grind. He had followed orders as dictated by the big cheese but those orders did not include wanton slaughter of defenceless humans.

Apparently the Dominee didn’t enjoy being slapped down which led to a falling-out between the two men and may also explain why the Battalion got a new Dominee a week later.

In retrospect, despite my rising fear, I regretted not being able to drive through that final tree line to see first hand the objective we’d risked our lives for but, as it transpired, Thirty Two Alpha’s war was drawing to a close.

Mechanics established that her buzz-sawed engine was too severely damaged and unrepairable in the field after all.

She’d been mine for ten months, so many adventures during training and Comm-Ops, cold nights in her warm interior, long unending nights in her familiar turret and working on her engine, it’s not too soppy to say the three of us were loath to give up our pink-barrelled 32A with her familiar engine and turbo whine.

She’d not only shielded us from thousands of bullets and countless bombs, she felt like an integral part of our crew. We almost loved the thing, but she was badly fucked so we had no choice but to source a replacement.

The expeditionary force returned about 90 minutes later and then, finally, the exhausted Battalion withdrew about 10 clicks SE from Lomba before setting up TB for the night.

We were exhausted, other than that brief post-combat natter and a moment of silence for our fallen friend, I have no recollection of the evening of 3rd October.

The following morning, against normal protocol, ‘Troop Sergeant’ Corporals of C-Squad were invited to Smit’s Battalion conference normally reserved for officers and senior NCOs.

We wondered if we might cop shit over the 33 affair – some said the recovery was a little chaotic – but I was more concerned that my unsanctioned push up the left might’ve been noticed.

We needn’t have concerned ourselves, it was nothing of the sort. Instead, it was a brand new experience for us/me.

Battalion 2IC Major Danie Laas, a proud Armour man himself, strode powerfully toward us as we approached. He seemed electric, more alive than I’d ever seen him, his eyes blazing as he gathered my hand up into both of his tug-o-war-hardened paws and shook my whole arm, right up to the shoulder, like a piston.

For the first time in my army ‘career’ I experienced genuine heart-felt respect from a senior officer – a deep and sincere admiration I felt would last a lifetime and from a man I greatly admired. Undoubtedly, one of my most treasured moments of National Service.

Standing alongside his command vehicle, Commandant Smit said prayers for the guys of 33. Once done, he turned away from us, took a long look at the magnetic board on which hung the tactical map of the Lomba ‘pocket’.

The tactical map had on it the location of four nearby FAPLA Brigades, (16th, 21st, 47th, 59th) each denoted by a different colour magnet. 66th Brigade was also denoted on the board but they were too far up inside the pocket near Cuito Cuanevale to be of any sort of threat to us now.

After a good few seconds Smit looked back over his shoulder at us with an expression that bordered on what I can only describe as … disbelief, then, he swept his right hand dramatically over the tactical map, his long fingers flicked the black magnetic marker representing 47th with just enough force to break the bond between magnet and steel causing it to tumble to the ground before turning back to face us, saying these immortal words: “Men. As of last night, 47th Brigade and Tactical Group One ceased to exist … they no longer represent a credible military force!”

Fucking hell man! Smit’s words brought a sudden attack of goose-bumps, we knew we’d done well but it was stunning to discover we’d effectively annihilated a heavily Armoured force larger than a Brigade.

We were blown away!

The remaining 47th combatants, some of whom were forced to swim to make good their escape across Lomba, headed north and were absorbed into 59th Brigade. Only a small percentage of materiel made safe crossing while more than 180 vehicles were destroyed or abandoned by close of play that day.

For Troopers of Charlie, 3 October contact [we didn’t think of it as the Battle on Lomba at that stage] was something of a blur that had passed in a flash even though time seemed almost to stand still for large chunks of it. A day during which we’d fought uncompromisingly, never considering retreat we just kept pushing so hard against the mechanised giant, a seemingly immovable force, that we finally and unequivocally destroyed it.

From a personal point of view I characterise the day thus:

32 Alpha – three mismatched lads who worked extremely well together, unflinching and resolute when it mattered most, apparently setting a record for the highest number of 90mm rounds fired in a single action, ever.

Troop 32 – overcame a number of strong challenges, made good gains through to enemy positions on left-front.

Charlie Squadron – was THE frontline that day; we faced and destroyed more than a Squadron of tanks and dozens of armoured vehicles. While incurring some casualties, we confronted a far greater force than had ever been envisaged when Ratel 90 was conceived and triumphed – a real-life David and Goliath epic!

But before I get carried away with Charlie Squad hubris … none of any of this could’ve worked without the formidable might of 61 Mechanised Battalion Group including the 90mm APC Platoons on our left flank and those providing direct and indirect support behind the frontline. On this day 32 Battalion were waiting in the wings to offer support but they stood down ready to lead the next clash.

[Hundreds of enemy combatants died and I pay tribute to their sacrifice and of course to my brother-in-arms Adrian Hind who might not have been best suited to warfare, but the man, and his crew, showed extreme courage. When the chips fell, they were always right up there, leading Troop 3, facing the bombardment, never flinching from their task of targeting and eliminating enemy forces in defence of our country.

In standing up to the mighty 47th, Adrian, Glen and Stompie had shown immense bravery under fire and deserve an equal share of plaudits for 61 Mechanised Battalion Group’s achievements on that fateful day, 3 October, 1987.]