Episode 108 - Cubans start heading towards Calueque Dam and another South African POW

[Music] Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me, your host, Deis Lathom. This is episode 108. It's the 23rd of June 1988. And the South African's Cubans and Golden's Americans and Russians have gathered in Cairo for negotiations over the future of Namibia. And the Cubans were going to be seeding. The American Secretary of State for African Affairs Chester Krokka opened up a meeting by presenting the Cubans and Golden's with Victoria's comprehensive proposals. The South Africans then made themselves scarce during that presentation. Defense Minister Magnus Milen, Foreign Minister Pickboyter, was joined by the Chief of the Defense Force, Janie Heldness, as they headed off to the British Commonwealth War Cemetery at Heliopolis to lay a wreath for the fallen South Africans. They had no wreath, so they took a bowl of proteas from the first class lounge, the Boeing 747 that had brought the delegation to Cairo and had a wreath made up in the Egyptian capital. Then the South Africans headed back to the Hyatt El Salam Hotel, south of the conference. The Cuban delegation led by Jorge Caspar Cerrisque was infuriated by Victoria's suggestion that Havana moved soldiers out of southern Angola in seven months. They were even further incensed by the suggestion that you need to lead a journalist of MBB brought into a transitional government within six weeks. Riscay said if this was the case, then the system of apartheid had to be added to the agenda and negotiated at the same time. Pickboyter never wanted to stand back, suggested that Riscay's own Cuban government be placed on the agenda too for its human rights abuses, and then Chester Crocker, like all good referees, called an early half-time, so that all sides could calm down. No one mingled in Cairo that night. The South Africans were now convinced that their rooms were big, so they marched off to the bottom of the garden and huddled behind a giant colorful umbrella. Meanwhile, Crocker met with Russian representative of Ladilena Blasev, who then summoned the Cubans and the Angolans to a late-night chat behind their own colorful umbrella in a separate corner of the Cairo-hyatt garden. Miraculously, the Russian intervention led to the Cubans and Angolans managing to find a few common ideas with the South Africans, although they still differed on virtually every point. The talks hadn't completely broken down, and all sides agreed to take the documents home with them to try and find a way to get a consensus before the next meeting. As with these things, there's usually another spirit of bloodletting before everyone sees the light, and this was going to be extremely painful for the South Africans. But Pretoria did not realise, was how pushy Fidel Castro was being behind the scenes. He told Doshantosh that Havana had had enough. The island was facing its own economic headbands. He could no longer afford the 55,000 soldiers he had sent to Angola. Publicly, he castro was telling the Cubans and the world that the SAD have had walked into his trap at Quinto-Guernavali, and that the Angolans had defeated the mighty South Africans. He boasted of minimum casualties, and then mentioned something which had perturbed Pretoria, that the Cubans were marching towards the Canadian border with South West Africa. The Cubans had diminishing confidence in the MPLA government, and also realised that whatever Luwanda was saying, they could not defeat Unita. The rebel movement looked like it could continue fighting for decades longer, and the accelerating economic disaster facing Angola, and Cuba meant time was up. Despite all of this, Pretoria's political leadership really believed Castro was the danger that wouldn't go away, and could not fully appreciate what was going on behind the scenes. The National Party government had convinced itself of the utter existential threat of the Rui-Hafar, and it couldn't change its narrative at a locked itself into a militarisation cycle. Castro had warned the Russians about backing the last push into southern Angola, so to Cuba's general Rafael del Pino, calling the region a black hole. It was chewing up so many soldiers' lives. When Faplan got into so much trouble in the first battles around the Lomba, he'd sent thousands more troops from Cuba to add a bit of spine to the Angolan fighting spirit, and it had worked. He'd also replaced the Cuban conscripts, with a much more daily fiftieth division who were regulars and crack regulars at that Castro's personal force. By November 1987, 15,000 more Cubans had arrived, including their best pilots, along with the most prestigious men in the armed forces. Major general Al Nolda, Alcoa, Sanchez, reliant a kind of A-Team leadership, including Major General Leopoldo Sinterafrius, Brigadier General Patricia de la Guardia Front, and Brigadier General Francisco Cruz Porto. These men had been in Angola earlier, helping Faplan in 1975 and 1976, and they had taken over the planning of the counter-offensives, which caused the South African-Somas trouble outside Cuito Cuenabali. By the third battle of the Tumpo, on the 23rd of March, Cuba had sent an entire regiment to the east of Cuito Cuenabali, along with a tactical tank group. While the SADF was fixating on this area, Castro made another decision along with his generals. Alcoa, Sanchez, began moving thousands of men directly south towards the South African border, directly opposite of Bambala. That was more than 400 kilometers west of the main fighting around Cuito Cuenabali. There were at least 3,500 Cubans here, and they were being monitored by the SADF. At first, Alcoa, Sanchez had kept these men more than 300 kilometers north of the Cutline, basically just inside the area they knew that the SADF couldn't bathe with the ease. Keeping them inside SADF Intelligence Island as well, and inside the reconnaissance units view. However, Alcoa, Sanchez began moving the Cubans south through the first months of 1988, and this threatened to open up a western theatre of operations to more conventional fighting, like it had in the east around Cuito. The SADF was still conducting contact operations in the west against Swapu. That side of this war had never ceased, and on April 18, the Cubans killed an SADF major who was leading a follow-up up against Swapu. Then a medical orderly was reported lost, he was part of SADF 51 battalion force. Corporal Detoury's body was found later in a shadow grave. These two deaths were signs that Swapu were increasing, and the Cubans were providing important support. Less than a month later on the Fourth of May, a Cuban company attacked members of 101 battalion inside southern Angola. The battalion was in a recon, 50 kilometers inside Angola, and near the Caneni River was ambushed by a Cuban platoon. Lance Corporal Hendracheo Corpus Fenta was killed, and Private Yuan Papinfus was listed missing. This had hardly happened to the South Africans in 23 years of fighting, things were changing. Papinfus was Julie Wilde Art in Havana, a prisoner of war, now being treated for serious wounds to his leg. It was doubly embarrassing, because Papinfus was apparently being well-retreated. The propaganda war was won on this occasion by the Cubans. Pretoria's political leadership cursed their bad luck, and demanded a retaliation for this humiliation. The South African government had forgotten its main strategy, and the truth that revenge is the meal best served cold. Commandant Yan Ho-Hot was approached and told that he should plan an attack on the Cubans in the Western Theatre, just as he had planned earlier attacks in the East. First reports, though, were not encouraging. 51 Brigade and 101 battalion NCOs and officers reported that Swapu was now being supported by Cubans and Angolans in armored cars, tanks, and even deploying artillery. The old days of the South African firepower was gone. Now, they were being outpowered as they foot patroled or conducted recon using caspers and tracks. Ho-Hot pitched up in Oshikati from Rundu, it's a 450 km flat, and that was in the late April, where military intelligence breached him, that the Swapu force was based around Tachipa. That's a small time inside Angola to the west of the Canini River, 50 km north of the cutline. Swapu was apparently congregating here for a push into a Vambbalan. Ho-Hot was under pressure to launch a direct attack on the area, using a mechanised mobile force, but he wasn't satisfied with the intel. He requested that a Vambbalan sector commander Brigadier Kruss-Sophantine agree to a couple of reky groups being sent in first to obtain more specific information. Ho-Hot was also aware of another development that had shifted the impetus in this war, that the Cubans were rebuilding the Aestrips at Kahama, which is 125 km north of the border, and Zangongo, only 65 km north. They'd also rebuilt a bridge across the Canini River at Zangongo, which had been blown up all the way back in 1981 during Operation Protier. The experienced men in the SDF knew that all of that meant, a second front was being developed, and worse, the air wall had also moved west and south towards their critical bases, including Oshikati. The Migs were already reported to be taken from Kahama no longer from LaBunga, 300 km north. For the first time, South African radar picked up MIG 23s flying within 20 km of Oshikati and on Dunga inside South West Africa, both critical SA Air Force bases. This was a shocking development, but the head of the Air Force, Colonel Dick Lord, said all these sightings were only at high altitude. Still, the men on the ground were looking up and not seeing any South African Air Force attempts at attacking these Migs. There's a kind of obtuse comment made by some inside the Air Force about all of this saying that they knew that the Cuban pilots wanted to test the South African response time, so they didn't respond. That's a dumb comment. Sorry folks, the real reason is that the Air Force, according to its reports and documents, just didn't have what Colonel Lord called "suitable fighters" to try and take on the mix. By the first week of May in 1988, Hohart had set up his tactical HQ in Toronto, which was right on the Angolan border, directly south of Kahama. You wanted to send three to battalion's four-man teams towards Tichipa, but this was going to be far more difficult than it looked. And that involved the environment. The idea was to send Sergeant Beatforri with three men into the Devangulo mountain range about 20 kilometres to the west of Tichipa, then that moved to its left or further west and approached from the north, the area likely to be least monitored. Forri had six days to complete this task, which sounds fair until you take a look at the map. This is almost totally open ground. There's very little cover. And worse, the civilians in the area were utterly opposed to the South Africans. And many were also in local civil defence organisations. Forri had to move at night in the semi desert with its rocks and clumps of small bushes. There was no water and no food. So these men carried large packs, and then split up just before daybreak to Lalo. It was exhausting work. After three days, forri realised that his team was in no condition to do a proper wrecky, even if they made it to Tichipa, so he asked to pull the mission. Hocha agreed, disappointed, but knew that if any of the wreckies had been captured like Papinfus, it would have been more propaganda material for the Cubans and the Angolans, so the choppers were sent to extricate forri and his men. The S-A-DF believed the Cubans were accelerating their buildup and working in tandem with Swarper. Intel was picked up that the Cubans were actually moving south down the Coneini River Valley, and were now only 25 kilometres north of the important Caluca Dam. That was 12 kilometres inside Angola, but a vital water point, four ofumberland, and the S-A-DF had controlled the dam since 1975. Then something took place politically that changed the maths of the war. As Hocha had pondered his options, in the north, on the 27th of April, Major General Francisco Cruz-Porsier was killed by his own side. That's because he was trying to follow in another Cuban General's footsteps, Brigadier General Del Pinio, in attempting to defect to the United States with a group of officers. This was quite a story. American CIA and intelligence had arranged for the General, and about 26 others, onboard an Antonov-24, to be granted asylum in the US. So Borcia planned this mission, and named it after the other Cuban Revolutionary loved so much, almost as much as Castro, Kanilo, Cienfuegos. He took off on a routine flight from Juanbo, but it turned towards the South-West African border soon after takeoff. What he didn't know was that the radio frequency used for the operation had been detected, and the pilot was duty-ordered back to Juanbo, but he refused. Then Mig-23s were scrambled, and shot down the Antonov. Hochheit was told shortly after this that the Cubans were trying to make a point, and escalate the war in the South-West, something which General Del Pinio, now safe in his home in the US, said would never happen. It's hard to imagine now what was going on. Pretoria believed Castro's blaster, but his own men, were in two mines. They were afraid of taking on the SDF directly, but the men along the cut line had nowhere of testing all these hypotheses. There was no way that the SDF could take the chance of ruling out any Cuban attack on this strategic dam, given all the attention the area was receiving, it was actually growing more likely. What was going on? Where were the Cubans? What were they building? Hochheit had to find out, so after Sergeant Furi had recovered from his previous wrecky, he was sent to the South-East of Tejipa. This was flat, rolling countryside, with more thickets to use, but it was also more heavily patrolled by the Angolans. The vegetation was also found in isolated clumps, which actually made it easier to track possible trails between these hardouts. Pablo was moving tanks around this area in groups of four, and these tanks would be sent to literally tear up the little clumps of vegetation, their tracks driving back and forth until they'd crushed everything inside, taking shelter somewhere here during the day was going to be extremely dangerous. The wreckies left from an area downriver of the Kuluka Dam on board two Mercedes-Benz trucks, and headed as close as they dared towards Tejipa during a daring daylight move. At last light for re-in-the-men jumped off the tracks, hoping not to be spotted, while the two vehicles headed home. The four wreckies walked all night, then laid up in the day. They moved like this for three days until reaching an area around four kilometres east of Tejipa. It was 9am on the fourth day, when the men who were lying prone in one of the clumps of bush and the grass saw two fabulous soldiers behind them. Being under orders to take prisoners, they jumped up, but one of the fucker men sprinted off, the other was rooted to the spot. Facing him were four South Africans who looked like devils. They were here long and matted, black as beautiful polish over their faces and arms. "We scared him," said Ferry. Now they had a problem. The other man was going to alert authorities, and patrols would be sent, so they moved with their prisoner as quickly as possible in a southerly direction. While they went, they questioned the prisoner. Then at around 4pm, the artillery and Tejipa opened fire, hitting the area that vacated. That night, the South Africans made their prisoner lead them back to the base, taking an extraordinary chance. They followed the bed of the Tejipa River, which flows eastwards through the little town. It was a new moon, so everything was dark. The fapler prisoner was terrified and made no noise. Then they began to hear Cuban voices, people speaking in Spanish. Ferry said later he was shaking, extremely tense, but that moment was extremely important. They had had no confirmation until then that the Cubans were this far south. Now they knew with certainty, castra's men were a few kilometres away from the Kolukedam. These were conventional soldiers, who were eating noisily, clanging their food, and after picking up a few more bits of information, the South Africans and their POW moved towards the perimeter, then they stumbled on trenches. Ferry suddenly realised with a jolt that they'd gone through the entire outer wall of the defences without knowing it. They managed to make it out, then walked around 10 kilometres south east of the town. Ferry was excited about the POW surely, the man was going to provide them with more details, and possibly turn into another one of the Angolans who decided to fight for the SDF. He radioed HQ and received a bit of a shock. I could hardly believe it when they told me to let the prisoner go. Ferry was stunned. He has refused to say why his superiors met the Koluk, but he did, as he was ordered and watched, as the POW disappeared into a nearby sauna. What was worrying him in particular at that moment was the sign of a large patrol in the dust, so without further ado, the wrecky team moved off south, making another four kilometres that night, then laying up. They heard Spanish voices again on the road even further south, something that is owned HQ found difficult to believe, but they did believe him, despite their apparent surprise. Not only did they believe him, but added his intel into the growing pile of documents it seemed to indicate that Del Pino may have been wrong. The Cuban numbers had escalated from 2000 to close to 10,000 in southwestern Angola between November 1987 and June 1988. Some of these were patrolling within 20 kilometres of the cut line, and there weren't just any old troops. These were the crack 50th division, backed up by up to 100 tanks, including advanced T64s. They also moved mobile radars to the south, along with anti-aircraft missiles, including SAM-8s and SAM-13s. A full artillery regiment was stationed in the southwest. That was just the start. Besides these men, the Cubans had begun to integrate their units with Swapra's movements, and they had taken over the role that Foupler had played as shields. Cuban historians, though, say this was all done to force the South Africans to the table to negotiate. It would never have tried to invade South West Africa at all, knowing that the locals would fight to thin nail had they tried. But imagine if you can hearing all of this at the time, the mix in the air, the Cubans on the ground, the strategic dams so close to all this heavy firepower, and the fact that the dam was actually inside Angola, not South West Africa. You could forgive anyone for believing the worst. But unfortunately, for 11 South Africans, the worst was yet to come, as they went to test just how much control the Cubans had gained over the area. That is for next episode. Please rate the podcast on iTunes. It helps raise the visibility of the series. If you want to contact me, head of to abwarpodcross.com. There's a contact form on the homepage, or you can direct message me on Twitter @deaslayson. Until next, putzins. (soft music)