Episode 43 – Sonja Dressel shoots up a PLAN platoon and political change sweeps southern Africa

[Music] Welcome back to the South African Border Wars with me, your host, Des Leyton. This is episode 43, and we're into 1980. Last episode we met Dunny Bumpy Pond of Estes, and touched on growing signs of plan action through late 1979. 1980 was going to be a momentous year in Border War history, and from now on the combat ramps up along with the casualties on all sides. Up until now, the SEDF had been winging it using a pastiche of military techniques backed up by a somewhat haphazard political agenda. To outsiders, it appeared that the National Party was organised and focused, but the real situation inside was far more chaotic. Then PW Butter took over from BJ Foster, and the Hawks in the party won out in 1980. Not that Foster appeared soft and gentle to outsiders, but in terms of the overall political strategy he'd been advocating, a negotiated settlement from the immediate position while Butter preferred a future negotiated settlement from a future position of military strength. When he was going to hopelessly underestimate, was the melting ice blocks of the Cold War, as we all know, but that's historical hindsight, it's easy to be 2020 after the fact. In 1980, when he took over the helm as Prime Minister, Russia and America were locked in a titanic struggle across planet Earth. It was communism versus capitalism, and you had to pick aside. The US didn't like apartheid, it was creating internal political divisions in America, and eventually even the capitalists there, the corporate and other bondholders, would force investors out of South Africa. And yet, the US liked Russia even less. South Africa turned into a kind of island of white supremacy and a continent of black post-colonial power. A sea of political change was washing up against this island, as it began to be eroded from both within and without, by those demanding black voting rights. In South West Africa, hardcore apartheid had already hindered, at least in the larger cities, which is a fact not readily understood by former SID vets who fought there. As an SIDF instructor in 1982, for example, I centred a ventricotel bar with German and African-speaking Namibians talking politics, and their black and coloured wives and partners sat alongside, sipping cocktails. South West Africa had already abolished the dreaded Blacks-only past law system in 1975, along with the job-reservation system of white's first and the hated laws forbidding mixed marriages and sex across the colour line. In 1978, the principle of equal pay for equal work had been accepted, ventric bars were awash with mixed-raced couples enjoying life. This led to a kind of exaggerated contradiction when northern South West Africa seemed suspended in a kind of time warp in their separate time capsule, once in the South people kind of got on with a modernising state. Even the National Party knew of this because at the time and in a top secret assessment sign by Director General of National Intelligence, Dr. Neil Barnard, the Pretoria government concluded that white South West Africans had to be convinced they cannot demand the same as the whites in the RSA. Back home, they could expect a party to work for them, but not in SWA. And that they had to make compromises while the big chasm between white and black aspirations had to be taken into account in the formation of what Pretoria was calling a United Front. That implies something of significance was facing this group that needed a United Front and of course that thing of significance was something called Swapo. Lurking at the back of Dr. Barnard's mind was the fact there is no military solution to any conflict in the world, there is only a political solution. A war is a tool used to shape a peace and that peace has the characteristics of those who are victorious in that war, for the S.A.D. of the use of only white troops was obviously no longer viable. Black, coloured and Indian South Africans were now being trained in various sectors of the military. In 1975 the South African Cape Corps became a combat unit and 190 men ended up in the operational area by year end. The Navy followed suit particularly with coloured and Indian intakes. Three two battalions ex-FNLA fighters were joined by black soldiers shortly afterwards, then three one battalion were sand trackers dominated, one or one battalion of Avambua speakers, two or one battalion of East Capriviens, two or two battalion from Okavango, two or three battalion from West Caprivi and nine one one battalion which was ethnically mixed. At the same time the police counterinsurgency unit which would end its life so unofficiously under a cloud of torture and abuse kufut so many blacks joined over the next few years. It was established in 1979 and thanks to rear for suggesting a few things with regard to this police unit. So the various black units grew from now on. By 1985 they would make up more than 50% of the total armed forces and eventually more than 90% of the 30,000 men who'd make up the SWA territorial force were black. PW Butter was now in charge back in South Africa. He was Prime Minister and he viewed the Soviet Union as the greatest threat in the region more so than the Chinese who were funding his involvement in anti-colonial struggles. Remember this was before the Constitution was changed to make Butter a president. Leonard Brezener had publicly stated in 1977 that the USSR was interested in both the treasure of oil in the Middle East and the mineral wealth of Central and Southern Africa. I'll explain how the Congo plutonium was in demand along with copper, cobalt, iron and other minerals and of course the gold of South Africa. Butter's Minister of Defence Magnus Malin regularly reminded journalists of Brezener's comments. Butter told Parliament repeatedly and starting soon after he was installed as Prime Minister that the Kremlin sought to gain a foothold in Africa by destabilizing the region. At the same time in a political irony newly installed independent African nations were making the same allegations about Washington. Russian and American military intelligence also believed that Swapper would eventually grind the SED of down over the coming years and both were determined to support their allies in Africa. The other United Front had launched in Southern Africa and was going to morph shortly to include Zimbabwe but already included Zambia Botswana and Mozambique. How long would South Africa last? In the heavy days of 1980 it seemed not long at all, at least according to the organisation of African unity which thought Pretoria would be defeated within 10 years possibly 5. The world was out to get Pretoria at least according to the Nationalists and they fostered a feeling inside the country of self-righteous indignation and yet they also knew that South West Africa steady march towards becoming Namibia was inevitable. In 1977 Foreign Affairs Minister Putta told then Redition Prime Minister Insmith that in so many words during a visit to Salisbury. South Africa was hoping that a group of politicians aligned to anyone but Swapper would manage to win a majority in any future Namibian election. This of course completely underestimated the will of the majority of Namibians who were tired of a minority controlling their economy, whatever advantages they received from being a vassal state of South Africa. As a troupe I personally was highly aware in 1981 that Swapper were preferred by the inhabitants, whatever propaganda was being fed at the time and wrote that down in my diary. As I've said the border war was an attempt to win time so that Swapper could be weakened before any election. As time went on and as we're going to see it was actually an opposite effect. Curiously the hardliners 100 years before in the Boer War had thought that the same thing could take place when taking on the British. Keep fighting and eventually the L-break… well they didn't… and another did Swapper. What was happening was not military strategy, it was security strategy. Keep the enemy at bay long enough and then muddle through to some kind of future negotiated solution. The elephant in the room of course was South Africa's own internal fight against the ANC and PAC, this clouded all their decisions. General Yani Helden has the command of SEDO forces in South West at this point was also very clear about the strategic motives. He was always in idyllog first and in his book "At the Front" he points out that time is neutral, it favors no one. Only those who used time optimally succeed and South Africa would extend the change of government in Namibia as long as possible. Soviet Russia they believed would run out of steam in Angola then withdraw. It did run out of steam of course by 1989 and the Berlin Wall fell and the USSR disintegrated. However by then the South African apartheid system had run out of even more steam as Swiss banks refused to roll over interest on their debt and the Americans had had enough of apartheid and investment agencies began pulling their cash out of the country in once. Back to the Board of War. Pretoria spoke of the communist threat, side-stepping mention of apartheid. The war was all about stopping the Reds, not the Blacks. It was a fight against communist dictatorship. The good guys said the nationalists and epitomised by foreign minister put his quirky moustache raised bushy arboros. A multi-party democracy facing off against the Cubans, Russians and Eastern Europeans. [BLANK_AUDIO] He was evil promoters of landmines, bombs and shopping centers and murdered farmers. To say this was schizophrenic as putting it mildly, a country that had borrowed its own black majority from voting, except inside their insidious little rural backwaters called Buntestuns, claiming Swapu in nasty and horrible, turned into stand-up comedian ammunition worldwide. However, it was no laughing matter. Swapu Sam Newyoma had said publicly that he thought voting was overrated, and wanted an MPLA-star military solution for Namibia. Revolutionaries don't like sharing their little red berets. Just look at our current guerrilla chic movement of South Africa, the EFF, for an example of that. And now, something was on the move north of the border that shook the nationalists, the Zimbabwe redigia negotiations. In Mozambique things had begun to change in the mid-70s, where South Africa accepted Frelimo rule begrudgingly, because Victoria knew it could wield a very different weapon against Mabuto. Economics. Mozambique was integrated in South Africa's economic power, unlike Angola. Mabuto was dependent on South African expertise as the port city sought to unshackle itself from the power of the Vittvatersron Finance economy. A large portion of Mozambique's working population were migrant workers who crossed in and out of South Africa. It was only after white redigia fell in 1980, and the ANC started increasing incursions from Mozambique, then South Africa began to support renombo openly. By 1984, South Africa forced Mozambique into a non-aggression pact, whereas Angola was a different kettle of fish entirely. Angola ran its own railway, had oil and virtually no migrant workers in South Africa, or South West Africa, and could afford to thumb their noses at the boos. So in February 1980 in the Triangle of Death, that zone between Crude Fontaine, Tumib and Otavi, the farmers were gearing up for what was going to be an escalation of the war. Dhani Bombi von der Bastelsen was going to be shaken once more by reports of an attack on a farm close by. In February 1980, a few squads of plan guerrillas crossed the cutline with one thing on their mind, to kill a few white civilians. It was a new strategy to drive the farmers off the land, but it had the opposite effect. So this stick targeted the farm La Rochelle inside of Umba Land, first, which was owned by Kali Dupriya and his wife Connie. But the farmers spotted the attackers and opened fire in them with his hunting rifle, which came with a telescopic sight, killing three. The two others fled. There were few incidents again for a week then, on the 22nd of February, that Dressel family were up and about in the morning, aware that something was amiss. Just their dogs began barking constantly, then they tried the landline, but the telephone was dead. They knew that it was likely they were about to come under attack. Their farm called Harabib was 43 km south of Khrutfantane and help was hours away. Eberot Dressel made the fatal mistake of opening his front door to find out what was going on and was shot dead in a hail of AK-47 bullets. His 16-year-old daughter Sonja had figured out that there were five men who climbed over their fence and managed to grab her father's G3 automatic rifle. She had a few magazines of ammunition and then began to run from window to window firing constantly. The insurgents thought that there were more people in the house and their attack wavered. Minutes later, the AK-47s fell silent and Sonja sat in the house awaiting another strike, shaky. More minutes took by and then an hour. Finally, an SDF response team showed up and follow-up investigations to swap assorters were found dead nearby. Three others had fled. Sonja Dressel, the 16-year-old, had managed to fight off a combat train group of guerrilla vases. The three others were tracked down and killed in follow-up operations. Sonja received a medal for bravery from the SD police. While both she and Khalid Uprere, the hunting rifle crackshot, were paid 4,000 and 6,000 man respectively, 2,000 per swapo killed. At the time the story circulated and gave locals something to cheer, but if you think about it, a young teen having to shoot down attackers in her own house was indicative of just how the triangle of death was living up to its name. Things were definitely going to get worse because soon afterwards the SDF intelligence received troubling news. 800 swapo guerrillas were going to be moved from Zambia to the western Angolan front, to Kundini province. Raging for them was 3-2 battalion, the semi-secret group of FNLA soldiers now bolstered by more black fighters from inside southwest. Their commandant, Dion Verrera, was nicknamed the Falcon and many, many stories abound about his capacity to wage war. During 1979, which was his first year in command, global interest in the Angolan war grew even as the Soviets invaded Afghanistan. In fact, even more so. Russia had regarded their success in supporting the MPLA in Angola as a leading case for getting involved in other people's wars and made the fatal mistake of thinking Afghanistan would be a pushover. It wouldn't be the last. Fappla began to build a new stronghold at Kaundra to spot 3-2's attentions in southern Angola. Next door in Rhodesia, the Lancaster House agreement was finally signed in December 1979, and one man, one vote majority rule was established with an election planned within weeks. In Pretoria, P.W. W. and the Minister of Defence Magnus Malun were fully aware that Zanu P. have led by Robert Mogabi was likely to win the election after independence. The elections were set for 14th of February 1980, Valentine's Day. Meanwhile, the SDD had already launched an attack on Swapper that was designed to inflict maximum casualties. It was known as Operation Driuhuk Triangle, and followed weeks of radio interceptions indicating that Swapper was stockpiling weapons and supplies for a possible attack on Yenhana or Elundu up against their Angolan border. This was going to be one of the most intense ops involving 3-2 battalion with firefights taking place daily and confrontations with large groups of Swapper companies. First SDD of troops were mobilized from Elundu in something called Operation Hammer, where they swept the area north of their base and two kilometers over the cutline into Angola. At the same time, 3-2 battalion was assigned to the area north of Beacon 21. As I mentioned earlier, Ferreira was a soldier taking command directly of action in the field and led Echo and Foxtrot companies, as well as two reconnaissance teams into Angola on the 4th of February 1980. Echo was deployed over a 10 kilometer area east of Chide, which is south east of Anjiva. Foxtrot was deployed further south and the two wrecky teams were airlifted by a chopper 14 kilometers to the northeast. As they hit the ground jumping from the Puma, Swapper guerrillas spotted them in open fire. The Puma pilot reported fresh vehicle tracks to the north of the drop zone and the wreckies moved into position to try and ambush, remember was driving around. Echo Company 1st and 4th platoons ran into Swapper north east of Namakunde, which is on the main road south from Anjiva and in the firefight killed two guerrillas. By the 6th of February, the platoons found an empty base nearby and that evening they ran into more Swapper, we'd taken shelter in a village. There were too many civilians around to conduct proper operations but in the short firefight, a single Swapper soldier was killed. And at about the same time that day a land rover passed the wrecky position driven by a looked like a Cuban or a Russian. As the wreckies moved towards the road, five Swapper soldiers could be seen through the bush and three were shot down, two others escaped. For some reason, the man in the land rover headed back along the same road an hour and a half later and was killed instantly when the wreckies fired an RPG 7 into the vehicle and it exploded. The co-driver managed to escape, running off into the bush but he died of his injuries that night and was found lying nearby. Right now three two battalions companies were about to head into a far more challenging situation. The next day, in the seventh of February, Foxtrot Company's first platoon was attacked by around 40 Swapper soldiers and they were pinned down, eventually calling for gunship support. Then Swapper melted away. At seven that night, echo company decided it was time to fill the water bottles and headed to Chano Uexa, our war zone hole, only to run into another Swapper group and the gunfight won, died and the rest of the group escaped. The next morning there were a number of contacts starting with an explosion, 16 kilometres north east of Chide. Two Swapper guerrillas had triggered an automatic ambush, laid with antipersonal mines and both died. 25 Swapper soldiers appeared shortly afterwards, possibly reacting to the explosion and exchanged fire with the reconnaissance teams. Then a four man wrecky team bumped into a group of Swapper on the road east of Chide and the South Africans were hopelessly heart-numbered. Gunships were called in once more and shut up the Swapper group, killing three and just before two that same afternoon on the 8th of February, the wrecky team called Whiskey Romeo were in a lap on a road 18 kilometres north of Chide and they realised the enemy was moving close by. Gunships were called in once more and Lieutenant Villamirata of the wreckies decided to investigate further than found a group of 40 Swapper and intense gun battle developed with the other wrecked gunship blending a hand and eventually 13 Swapper were killed. The wreckies took one wounded rifleman Jay Antonio was hit and evacuated along with three Swapper prisoners. The three were in a mood to talk. They explained that Swapper's 150 strong detachment headquarters was at Anaseche, 16 kilometres north of Chide and east. While this may have been false information, intelligence believed they were telling the truth and from the 9th of February onwards, the SEDF only operated at company strength. Fortunately so, because during one of the sweeps, echo company found the tracks of a 75mm recoilers gun leading south from China Henge on the 10th of February. Then on the 11th of February, Foxstraight Company's third platoon made contact with a group of 40 swappers, 12 kilometres south east of Chide. Gunship swooped in once more and two swappers were killed during that attack, the rest broke into smaller groups and headed north. It was time to man the main road from Chide to Namagunde, and then all companies in the field were warned, they probably need to remain inside and go for another 10 days. It was a short while later that they received the hotening news that other attacks were shelved and the units were through south led by the wreckies. The latest one strange anomaly, as that travelled, a number of young men were seen moving in the area, which was unusual as most of the men who lived in that area had long since left to join Swappo. However, these men were unarmed and they were left alone, but it was suspicious to say the least. While the ups went well, things were not looking good for the acidity of overall. In February 1980, 42 landmines had been registered in Avambaland, a new record. Not only that, but there was valid intelligence report that the Russians were pressurising Swappo to intensify the war, and the 800 planned fighters moved westward from Zambia was proof of Moscow's growing frustration. Then attempts were made to infiltrate Kalkal and further west, which had never happened, and the hydroelectric works that were attacked. That was a blow to the acidity of Anne, south-west African territorial force, as it supplied power to Norton, south-west Africa. Swappo was clearly far from a beaten enemy, whatever Janik Elnay said, as we heard last episode. The guerrilla movement was ready for a large scale offensive, but the acidity of wasn't sure where and when. Furthermore, Victoria's strategic position weakened. To the North, Robert Mugabe and Joshua and Koma's patriotic front won the overwhelming majority in the news and barbie elections of February, and that meant a valuable ally was gone. It also meant the international focus shifted to south-west Africa, now that the Redision Bush War was over. Back in National Party headquarters, there was much soul-searching. Why had the Redisions capitulated so quickly? The war hawks and the cabinet took center stage. Maybe if it was because the Redisions hadn't launched cross-border raids early enough, nor did they do it effectively. At least, that was the view communicated by Magnus Malan. The South Africans obviously had to launch a series of cross-border raids. If their premise was correct, they'd need to conduct a major offensive into Angola as soon as possible. And as we're going to hear in next episode, that was the impetus for Operation Sceptic, R.K.R. Smokschel. Thanks to various listeners, including Dion, there seemed to be a number of really informative unique photographs from his time in south-west. Before he ended up heading on to other things, further afield, they say a picture tells a thousand words, and Dion's images are worth millions, so thanks. And Andy, whose brothers Milo and Sandy spend time in the SEDF, and says the podcasts are helping him full gaps, as he goes about his life in Colorado, USA. Thanks for the support sir. As mentioned, thanks to R.K.R. again, and Heddy, who's been a source of inspiration, don't forget to check out the site, warinangola.com, for maps and background. If you'd like to contact me, you can do it through the site, abwarpodcast.com, or direct message me on Twitter. Until next, goodbye.