Episode 24 – The Angolan Army re-organises, Moscow refocuses on Africa and Mirages arrive in Ondangwa

Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me, your host, Tess Leyton. This is episode 24, and we'll hear her swap her insurgency into a Vumberland began increasing rapidly after the end of Operation Savannah in early 1976. The Angolan War was just getting going, and its future would be determined to a large extent by Cold War politics. Despite strong competition, the Soviet Union managed to re-azure its power, and its decision to intervene drastically in Angola was motivated by the perception that it had lost influence in the Third World. Moscow wanted to show support for liberation movements in Africa, and Angola was an opportunity which they exploited to the full. By the start of 1976, the USSR actually had relatively few ties remaining in Africa. Moscow had suffered setbacks in Ghana, Marli Zaire, and the Sudan, while relations with Egypt were in decline. Meanwhile the Chinese had made great strides in East Africa, particularly in Zambia and Tanzania and Beijing, was challenging Moscow openly, worse the Chinese and the Americans had actually colluded in their joint covert support for the FNLA. And for a Soviet leader, Leonard Brezhnev, a positive outcome for the Russians and Angola would be domestically important, after suffering the ignominious rejection in the other African countries the Politburo needed good news. The Soviet Cuban intervention in Angola was not a grand conspiracy, as some have described it, particularly the ex-redition military. It was a publicly visible strategy. It proved to be the product of several external factors, particularly the Cold War and internal Russian machinations, and the intervention in Angola bestowed on the USSR a new image. Moscow was now seen as a dependable ally and supporter of Black States in southern Africa. These included liberation movements like Swapu in South West Africa, and the African National Congress in South Africa. For the Americans watching all of this, it became apparent, and quite rapidly, that the Soviets were effective in long-range sea and airlift capabilities militarily. Moscow's decision-making also surprised the US, particularly when it came to Russia double guessing what the Americans would do next. Take the early decision by abrasion of descend arms, and even men into Angola opted to South Africans invaded in October 1975. Only later did it come to light that during the major Soviet Cuban escalation in the intervention in December of that year, that there was actually a brief halt for two weeks between the 9th and 25th of December. We now know that was so the Russian leadership could re-evaluate its policies, and the lack of America's public warnings that Soviet actions in Angola threatened the United States' Soviet relationship, such as it was, of course. As soon as the US Senate voted against covert aid to the FNLA and UNITA, fearing another Vietnam, the Russians resumed the operations in Angola. The Americans had blinked. Cuba was another matter entirely. There are those who believe that Fidel Castro was pursuing aims completely simply to what the Russians preferred, but that of course is ridiculous. Without Russia's powerful navy and Air Force, they funding the weapons, the purchase of their sugar at inflated prices, the Cubans would have been paddling to Angola in kayaks. From the Western point of view, the warning goal was a matter of sensitivity, given that both Zaire and Zambia relied on the Benguela railway as the main outlet for the copper belt. That's why the SEDF tried so hard to ensure that both the railway and the ports of Lobito and Benguela remained in UNITA, all the FNLA's hands, but actually failed to do that after operation Savannah. The Angolan coastline was of strategic importance in Notos plans as the control of the various sea routes was crucial in the wake of the Middle East oil crisis and wars of the early 70s. There was only one other route and that was around the Cape and up the west coast of Africa if the Suez Canal was blocked. Even now we see how important that route is after the container ship ever given Fiasco in early 2021 where it blocked the Canal for over a week. Hundreds of vessels were stuck in the Indian Ocean and in the Med with many deciding that take the longer route around the Cape when it became obvious that the Egyptians couldn't refloat the container ship quickly enough. With Portugal falling to a left-wing government in the summer of 1975, Washington was caught in an era of detente. Henry Kissinger began to talk to Lisbon through the Russians and America's position was further weakened by the Watergate crisis. Moscow now knew that the US would bend over backwards rather than take up Angola as a major issue and of course the South Africans invasion of Angola merely reinforced that situation. The Soviets capitalized on the South African intervention by proving that the Americans had been on the ground alongside the SEDF supporting the FNLA unit of forces. By November 1975, a few days after Operation Savannah began, Moscow formally recognized the MPLA and publicly withdrew support from the unit. Moscow then pressurized the OEU to recognize the MPLA, which up to January 1976 they had not. The OEU's charter included the line, "No State should recognize any liberation movement in the event of the latter declaring unilateral independence." Which is precisely what the MPLA did. As we heard last episode, by January the MPLA was recognized as the new government of Angola and set the state for ongoing war where the most important characteristic was access to higher volumes of high-quality weapons. The SEDF had faced these and as we know had begun rearming itself immediately, such was the shock of facing better artillery and weapons systems. It must be said that success in Angola led the Russians to completely overestimate their own power and then they invaded Afghanistan in 1978. There was a period in hiatus, if you like, where Russia eclipsed Washington's international diplomatic mission while the Americans peered innuendly weakened by both the fall of Saigon and Richard Nixon. Starting in 1976, the strategic doctrines of the two superpowers underwent a dramatic shift. For the US, it was a period of nuclear parity and conventional inferiority. They had limited options as their own internal politics were ribbon. Just as an aside, it looks similar today with the Afghanistan pull out by the Americans that have seen the Taliban rush back in and America's right and left-wing hatred of each other compounding a confused situation back home. The Angolans began to reorganize their army along conventional Soviet lines and this was one of the weaknesses that the SEDF would attack through the coming border war years. The Soviet structure you see was rigid and the style of training lacked in the effect of counterinsurgency capability and now Soviet advisors were attached to every single Angolan brigade. The Angolan Air Force or force aerated popular Angola or FAPA lacked just about everything so the Cubans, East Europeans and other African pilots ended up filling the gap and the Soviets actually ran Angolian air logistics until late in the 1980s. We need to say that of all the independence movements the MPLA was actually the weakest at this point. So by dominating the weakest local political movement, Russia had managed a major dual strategic victory. Lastly it increased Soviet credibility in supporting insurgency globally and secondly it ensured a constant ideological and financial dependency by sustaining this weak government in power that would also become one of the most corrupt in the world. UNITO was case in point although being hammed into the southeast it was a major force that continued fighting the MPLA despite its massive Russian support all the way through to Namibian independence in 1990. Yes, the SED have helped but don't be fooled by the one-eyed racists who say that without the white soldiers fighting for Jonas Savimbi, UNITO would have collapsed in months. It wouldn't have. By early 1976, UNITO had established an insurgency in the Central Highlands, regrouping in the B.A. province and extending its power southwards into Kwanda, Kubango. The army was reorganised into France and military regions followed a guerrilla strategy that the Vietcong would have recognised. The new Kwanza Manifesto included hit and run attacks on economically important infrastructures such as the Benguela Railroad. UNITO also managed to exploit the Bapola competition by also tapping into southern African regional politics and leaning of course heavily on South Africa. Meanwhile, the South Africans were also reorganising and rebuilding. Apart from the coming changes to the national service call-up of white males, Pretoria realised that it had to develop black soldiers. In 1975, the South African Cape Corps was designated as a combat unit for the first time and by the start of Operation Savannah, 190 of these men were in South West Africa fighting in counter insurgency operations. The navy followed shortly afterwards, while the army established what you could call "ethnic-based" infantry battalions, sort of "military-bunter stuns", I suppose. The first units of black troops were the "chependa" faction of the FNLA that joined the formerly "whites-only" three-two battalion, while three-one battalion was formally created out of Foxbets Bravo Battle Group of Bushmen. 101 battalion was composed of avambos, 201 battalion ended up as a motorised infantry brigade, and a large number of black southwest Africans joined the police counter insurgency unit called "Kufut". This unit would go into so-conage and torture in South Africa in the dying days of apartheid, but at this point they were counter insurgent operators. While three-two battalion and Kufut remained inside the SEDF, the others would become part of what was known as the "South West African Territorial Force" or "Swatt of", but only in 1980. All this rearming and hiring of soldiers comes with a prostag. In 1962, the South African Army's budget was 72 million rand, or less than a percent of GDP. That rose quickly to over a billion rand in 1976, and by 1979, it had grown to 2.6 billion or 5% of GDP. Victoria was cut off from the rest of the world through sanctions and it was at this point that the old saying a bull marker plan resonated. Initially South Africa created its own arms industry through the state owned entity called Arms Core. In development already was the soon to be feared long-range 155mm G5 and self-propelled G6 gun houses amongst other daily weapons. This led to South Africa making alliances with other pariah states, Taiwan, Chile, and Israel amongst others. So it's no coincidence that the Cheetah, which was a South African conversion of the Mirage 3 aircraft, looks a lot like the Israeli Kaffiru. In May 1976 and 23 years after the end of the Korean War, number 2 squadron was called on to fly the first operational mission of the border war. Intelligence reports on the Angolan army were received at Khrut Fentaine. After Colonel Dan Ziemann was given authority for three cross-border missions and number 2 squadron was given the task of carrying out this attack. The reason was, these intelligence reports were starting to indicate that the Russians had installed SA2 and SA3 missile launches in southern Angola. On the 14th of May 1976, Commandant Ali Holmes led a formation of four Mirage 3s on the ferry flight from Bartokluv Air Force Base in Pretoria to on Dungua via a refueling stop at Khrut Fentaine. These didn't go according to plan with the planes experiencing a problem after the point of no return. The belly tank on Holmes' aircraft failed to feed fuel. He dropped the tank and climbed to gain maximum distance. Pilots who flew Mirage's were obsessive about fuel. The aircraft swallowed gallons in minutes and every aviator knew how critical jet fuel management was. Holmes managed to make it to Khrut Fentaine where it was found he had only 20 gallons left a tiny amount for the Mirage. As we're going to hear in the series, the Mirage was a fabulous fighter plane, but its major weakness was small fuel tanks and southern Africa is a big place. The Mirages were tasked with flying three recon missions into Angola and this would not be easy. MiG-21 activity was normal in the area they were to cover and it was decided that Holmes and Major Barry Moody would fly as escort for the photographic Mirage 3R2Z flown alternatively by a major Steve Ferreira and skilly hotdog. The daylight flat was an east-west route from Menok, Kucchi, Kavango, Matala, Lubango and Namibu, with a third of the long route covered each mission. The first sortie duly took off early on the 16th of May and the second to the following day. They went for a bit of a shock on the second flat. Moody flew the Mirage R2Z over the surveillance points where the missiles were supposed to be based and indeed his radar gave a locked-on warning signal, triggering high speed maneuvering out of the area. Later, they realised it was a false alarm. After these flats, the planes flew from Kurt Fontaine back to Vatuklif and indeed photographic results which shown entire series of SA-2 and SA-3 fixed missile sites had been built by the MPLA. Many of these men had been involved in the SA-F was advanced flying school at Petersburg. There were three flats set up there. 27 in Paolo Mark I and Mark II introduced pilots to combat flying. Then there were 16 sabers, where selected pilots received advanced weaponry and combat training and 30 Mirages, both dual and single-seaters, where experienced and Paolo pilots would be taught ground attack and air-fighting techniques. By now, a series of permanent battalion bases had been set up along the border in South West Africa. Their locations determined by local circumstances or suspected swap of crossing points. Endless patrols had been carried out for the past year and these had led to skirmishes with planned insurgents, along with hearts and minds patrols to try and convince local Orvambor to avoid joining Swapur. Citizen Force and Commander Force battalions were called up more regularly, but the system was still incredibly inefficient. There were only in place for two months before being rotated back home and this led to constant travel and refresher training, not our deal when troops need to become acclimatized as quickly as possible. Swapur of course was aware of these rotations and began to time their border crossings to coincide with SADF changing personnel. No one stayed around long enough to build a comprehensive knowledge of the locals and the landscape. Attempts were made at long-winded handovers to try and fool the scape, but this is not a clever way to deal with the counter insurgency. Still, the use of a civilian army to fool the standing army need was regarded as a valid concept almost a hundred years after the war. And the SADF was adapting quickly on the ground. It would become the strangest war this army ever fought, with black tribesmen recruited as soldiers, trackers and guards. Bushmen were hired renown for the superbability to follow an indecipherable trail. Dogs were being used to snuff out landmines and soldiers renown on horses and motorbikes. It was almost a necronistic. Soldiers on horseback moving through the south-east African bush, like something out of a historical movie, but it was a clever move as these animals gave the soldiers a great elevated view and of course they were virtually silent. The border war was still very low intensity, with most troops never firing their weapon in anger or experiencing hot battles. Intermittent contacts were reported here and there, mines would be detonated and what the SADF called "Shoot and Scooter Tanks" were carried out by Swapu. The armoured cars were being used mainly as base defenses and on patrols, paratroopers were dropped from helicopters as quick reaction forces, and the newly formed 3-2 battalion had been deployed to the border and saw constant action. For the MPLA's armed ring plan, the fact that the Cubans were now right up against the border was a boon. As I said, the incursions increased noticeably after March 1976. The SADF responded immediately and in May and June of 1976 a number of firefights took place. By the end of June, 70 planned insurgents had been killed, wounded or captured in operations and the SADF suffered 17 casualties. 22 of the planned casualties had been as they tried to re-enter Angola from South West Africa. The fact that it was dry season meant it was far easier to find Swapu on the ground in Abambaland. Then in mid-July another 26 planned insurgents died in a skirmish with the SADF. The South Africans were also able to seize a large number of weapons and ammunition in these contacts. One SADF soldier died and five had been wounded through July. This was a period of some success for the South Africans but also tainted by accusations that crossed border massacres of civilians was taking place. In July the MPLA accused the SADF of flattening three villages, the Enzambia said 24 civilians had died and 45 were wounded in an attack by the South Africans at a place called Siolola. Pitoria rejected these reports as propaganda but Zambia took the complaint to the United Nations which heard the matter on the 27th of July. The hearing though turned into an embarrassing moment for Zambia's foreign minister as it transpired the village was actually a Swapu transit camp 30 kilometers from the Caprivi border. There was much debate in South Africa's foreign minister book Burtard defended Pitoria's actions, neither side making much headway in what was he said he said series of comments. Liberia then suggested a fact-finding mission be sent immediately to Siolola and Burtard said the South Africans would support it however the Zambians did not, instead the security council voted to condemn Pitoria for its armed attack. At the same time as this diplomatic turbulence the Caprivi had actually turned into a quiet zone of the border war. Swapu had direct access to a Vambalan further west now and the SADF patrols were effective in Caprivi as well as local residents who had responded well to the Hanson Mons campaign. The Liberation movement for the Caprivi known as the Caprivi African National Union or Karnu was also indulging in an ongoing dispute with plan and Swapu. The relationship had been deteriorating for some time as Karnu wanted plan to fight with them inside the Caprivi strip instead of heading off to Vambalan. Still, there was some calm in the border in August and September 1976 except for one incident. Ratham and Eugene De Lunga took a wrong turn driving an army vehicle to a refugee camp and ended up inside Angola and inside an MPLA prison. No GPS and those days I'm afraid nor Google Maps. In October the South Africans were beginning to build the Jutty strip, an area of cleared land one kilometre wide and 420 kilometres long, following what was known as the Cutline or the border with Angola. This was an area fed still for the barbed wire two metres high and was a free fire zone. Anyone seen moving in it would be shot first, questions asked later. But things would change though in December 1976 as we're going to hear next episode. Please rate the podcast on your platform of choice and you can contact me on Twitter @deslaatham or through the website abwarpodcast.com. Until next, Kala Poonhava.