Episode 61 – The Recces first Seaborne Operations and how the British High Commissioner’s Rolls Royce was blown up

[Music] Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me, your host, Deiz Lathon. This is episode 61. Today it's all about incredible sea-borne operations. Much of this week's episode has been called from a fantastic book called "I'm Fist From The Sea" top secret sea-borne wrecky operations, 1978 to 1988, by Arna Sauda-Lunt and Dostane. The South African navies reach in those years, included all the way up to Kabinder in northern Angola on the west, to Dara Salam in Tanzania on the east. These days we like it if the controls can stretch along our own border, let alone further afield, but that's a topic for another time. The first sea-borne operations carried out by the SADF was in 1972, when it targeted most of the big-resistant movement for Lima's training camp in Dara Salam, which is over 1,500 nautical miles from Durban, just out of interest. Tanzania's president, Julius Nareri, had offered for Lima's support and the South African's respondent request by the Portuguese government to plan a candleston operation. This was to support a Tanzanian foreign minister called Oscar Campona, who'd fallen out of favour with Nareri. He wanted to destabilise Tanzania and then blame the violence on Nareri, the target's low value and injuries to citizens would be avoided. Eventually, they decided the target said actually be high value, called the port of Dara Salam, which means ironically the harbor of peace. At that time, the special forces of the SADF were known as the operational experimental group and based at Otsuun under Commandant Leanne Breitembach. Operation Starlight was a plan that saw a small team being shuttle to a position off the coast of Dara Salam by submarine, then they'd paddle to the beach on kayaks. Rose and a few buildings would be mined, then the team would paddle back. Those involved in this first ever raid were Breitembach, warrant officer Trevor Floyd, Staff Sergeant's Karnas Konradian Kurs Murkroft, and two from the Navy, warrant officer Ken Bruin and Chief Petty Officer William Dui. These Navy crew were highly skilled both through qualified divers and parabets. They also had advanced skills and navigation, as you can well imagine. In late March 1972, the ships company of the SAS Emily Hubhouse submarine under Lieutenant Commander Woody Woodburn were briefed on board the SAS Tramadaris, where military intelligence officer warned them the information they were about to receive was Uber Top Secret. And so it remained long after the raid, and this is what happened. Once the training was complete, the kayaks were found to have developed leaks, so the army had to buy civilian clippers, as they were called from the father of one of the team members. These days that would be called corruption, but that was those days. The advantage of these civilian kayaks is that they looked like civilian kayaks. The old battered ones were painted army green, whereas these new ones were blue. Another problem for these men was their equipment. One of the team fell overboard while getting out of his kayak during training off Durban, the large cookri knife, the Tommy gun, which weighed nearly 5kg, without its 30-round magazine, and other paraphernalia dragged him underwater. The sub had to cut its engines, and the special forces soldier rescued, or it was the bottom of David Jones' locker for him. They changed their firearms to East Block and Country weapons, but of the six carried only two, which were AK-47s, were post-Second World War. While the Russian SKS semi-automatic rifle and PPSH-41 submachine guns were designed during World War I, but there were 1.5kg lighter than the Tommy gun. Then the navy balked at sending one of these subs so close, in short, eventually agreeing to stand off 20 nautical miles. Breitonbuck pointed out that paddling 20 nautical miles, or around 30 km one way, laying mines and paddling back in one night was pushing the paddling envelope, particularly if there was a heavy sea or wind or both. Woodburn had a separate meeting with Bradenbach, where he basically ignored his own commander's orders, and said he'd bring the sub-match closer into sure. Wink, wink. Breitonbuck said later that he thought Woodburn had what he called a Nelson touch, and of course Breitonbuck was an ex-navel officer himself, serving the fleet air arm of the British Royal Navy from 1955 to 1961. By late May 1972 they sailed off in the Emily Hobbes, or Emily, for short, with its crew believing it was just another normal exercise and patrol. Once they'd see the navigational redarts were kept secret, and all chart work was done by navigator Lieutenant Commander Raynor Hartz, not the officer on the watch. After a week, the crew of the Emily found they were in Nakala in Mozambique and secured alongside a Portuguese Navy Corvette. Six senior officers embarked on the Emily from the Portuguese vessel, including Second World War V, Fritz Lutz, who was ex-director of South African military intelligence. The Emily sailed shortly afterwards. On the 11th of June 1972 the sub-closed in on the port of Dara Salam to conduct periscope reconnaissance. They headed through a series of dangerous reefs, evaded the fishing boats, and then that night surfaced about five nautical miles out. The Navy top brass would have had a fit if they knew. At Hoppas 9.09 the sub-on its electric engines reached three nautical miles off the port, and through the periscope, the commander spotted the conondoning lighthouse the kayaks would use as the run into the beach at Insembazi Bay. Operators climbed into the kayaks and hit the beach in less than an hour thanks to woody wood burns flouting of the rules. The two Navy divers remained behind on the beach ready to provide support, and the four operators and civilian clothing then moved up the road carrying their heavy hold-alls. They were going to mine the Salanda bridge over the Insembazi estuary that linked the residential area north of Dara Salam to the commercial centre and the harbour. After a few hours they were now in full view of the early morning traffic when they lay the chargers, but no one paid them any attention. Then they mined a power parlour, then finally the four walked down Independence Avenue, and spotted a black rose-roise. Facing a mine under its engine. The operators withdrew to the beach, then all six pushed off the three kayaks of two men each heading back to the sub. The wind was behind their backs, and they made good time out to sea, but when they arrived at the Emily pick-up point, the sub was gone. The kayaks now drifted eastwards out to sea. It was 4.30am, sun rise two hours away. Unthankfully the subsurface snorting through its air-operated head valve. As they moved off, the Emily somehow snagged a small fishing boat. Its net was being dragged below. The boat was also waterlogged. Eventually two divers had to cut the boat loose. Meanwhile the officers were monitoring local radio and heard that the blasts had caused panic and destroyed the British High Commissioner's Royals' voice. No one had been killed or wounded. Their return to Cape Town often epic six weeks, with the newspapers running stories that three blasts had damaged the bridge, while the British High Commissioner's roles had been at the wrong place at the wrong time. The SEDF were happy about this. They planned to bomb Tanzania's main oil refinery shortly afterwards, but after a number of attempts gave that up. They had a listening of breakdowns and made mistakes, including planning one of the attacks on the day of an OAU meeting in Dara Salam, which meant the air and sea space was far too busy. Defence Minister PW Boehr thought they'd managed to get away with the attempt to detect on Tanzania and oil refineries without notice, but then found out through British intelligence that the Tanzanians had spotted a canberra that was overflying and set up an anti-aircraft missile battery to the east of the harbour entrance at Kigamboni Point. There would be no more attacks there, but all of these events gave the SEDF tactical thinkers a big idea. There was an urgent need for a special force, and on the 30th of August 1972, a letter was signed authorising the creation of a new permanent force unit to be known as one reconnaissance commander, one reki to its friends and its enemies. Comodan Jan Braetemuch was its first officer commanding when it was established on the 1st of October 1972. It didn't mess around in those days, letter ordering the startle one reki received end August, one reki set up a month later. The unit was based on the concept of the British and Redision special air service, the SAS, but reconnaissance commander was chosen to hide its purpose. Eventually it reserved citizen force unit was set up called two reconnaissance commander. Things moved more slowly until Operation Savannah in 1975, which proved there was a need for special forces operational units and proper training. While that up was underway, a sub-unit for sea-borne operations were set up at Solzbri Island in the middle of Durban Harbour in March 1976. It was a modest start, Major Malcolm Kinghorn was OC, he had one senior NCO and two six man teams. The senior staff officer special operations structure then developed into a full-blown special forces HQ with Air Force and Navy officers attached. Three reconnaissance commander was formed in May 1976, at least on paper, and would use special forces members for tasks outside of one reki scope. When the dust from Savannah settled, the SED of Nude had to set up special forces for each of the airborne maritime and then intelligence ops. On Rikki in Durban was the Sunday. airborne and urban anti-terrorist operations. Two reiki in Petorea was a unit on paper to be used for special tasks. Three reiki was also based in Petorea and was also a paper section at first to a sign personnel when and when necessary and was largely non-operational. Four reiki and Lungaban in the western Cape would conduct maritime spec-ups and five reiki in Dukuduku, northern Natal, would work with Allied guerrilla forces such as Renama of Mozambique. They moved to Palaboa by 1918. Things changed quite radically in that year because Robert Mogavi came to power in Zimbabwe and a large number of Saluzkarts and SAS operators moved to South Africa. The Saluz ended up in three reiki and a new unit, six reiki was established to take in the SAS operators. Then both sets of specialists were absorbed into one, two and three reiki after a while. In 1981, special forces were formed under direct command of the chief of the SEDF and were now regarded as extremely important strategic assets. Direct action missions would predominate but they'd also be heavily involved in strategic intelligence gathering, disrupting enemies command and control, logistics and high valued target destruction. The big problem at first was that virtually no one could pass the demanding tests to join. The success rate hovered between 5 and 16% and these tests were only physical. Various studies then conducted by the SEDF reveal they were wasting their time by focusing exclusively on the physical tests. Their needed operators were IQs above 115 and that immediately excluded 80% of the population. Emotional intelligence tests were also initiated so by the early 1980s the criteria for applicants changed. Because now a one week pre-selection phase instead of the three week course smaller groups were involved and applicants were able to retrain and given a second opportunity. Following selection they'd have four weeks of light infantry training and the troops would be closely monitored for how they handle pressure, how the energy levels worked, salt motivation, task management, judgement, initiative and adaptability and how they worked in a team. Following this more scientific approach the dropout rates fell to around 25%. Eventually there would be a final three day selection phase and around 70% passed that. Sometimes the number did slide to 50% but that's better than 5%. The RECI Rookie candidates would then begin proper training which would take eight months basic operators course at one RECI including parachute, water orientation, drop zones, bushcraft, backing, survival and rural and urban warfare tactics. If they passed all of the courses the new RECI would be appointed to a team usually in the slot that matched areas in which they'd performed best during training. Later they could choose further specialised training. Obscuring what was going on from prying eyes was one of the major challenges the RECI's faced. The sailors and the submariners would take note when the special forces rocked up. They knew they were in for a few interesting weeks. It was up to four reconnaissance commander to undertake most of the special forces seaborn operations and they started with a few kayaks and the small zodiac marked two inflatable boat at Salisbury Island in Durban Harbour. In 1979 it moved to Lungabain and was turned into a multi-racial organisation. Delivering the RECI's two their targets was the SA Navy with its all important Daphne class French submarines. The SA S Maria Fann-Maribik, Emily Hobbhaus both arrived in 1971 and then the SA S Yana Fann-Amerva in 1972. They patrolled up to 28 days along the coast with a range of 4000 nautical miles and they were just in time because the SA had a few projects in mind. We'll get back to that in a moment. Then in 1975 six RECI of class missile armed fast attack craft were brought from the Israelis. It was these two forms of delivery systems, the RECI of P-boats and the subs that are going to interest us the most in the next couple of podcasts as you hear about the spec ops conducted through the next few years. We'll catch up to 1982 as we go. The subs were based at SA S Yugur Bivan which was a nine story complex in Simonstein. But the crew of 45 it was barely room for anyone else on the submarine particularly since they used the hot bunk system rotating bunk based on ships. Equipment was the biggest headache. The operators could fit into a tiny space but the boats and other paraphernalia couldn't. So now we turn to the earliest sea-born operations after the Tanzanian arting which was called Groza. They were going to reconoit the area around Mocha Mides or Namibay as it's known today along with Porto Alexandre or Tomboa today and Baya Dostigrish in Angola. Eight members of four recu were selected under major Malcolm Kinghorn and included a doctor who'd handled possible casualties on board the sub. SA S Emily Hobhouse and a commander Dolph Oyer was the delivery sub and this was classified top secret. On midnight on 28 May 1979 the team boarded the Emily and Saldana Bay and then headed off to Mocha Mides which took eight days sailing. They arrived there at 0400 hours on the 4th of June and tried to make out the port through the periscope but the thick mist hindered things. Eventually the fog lifted and the sub entered the bay at 1400 hours, taking photos through the periscope then withdrawing off the Girol River mouth north of the port. They were looking for landing sites and after dark surfaced and launched the two Zerdiac Mark II inflatables. The reckeys checked the north of the ore exporting key then moved south with one group landing about 500 meters south of that key. They took a check out the Berro River and the Mocha Mides harbour area. They were on their road with the sub at 0200 hours dragging their boats on board and stowing them and the Emily withdrew out to sea. Their reconnaissance was a success and they'd learned something important. As those staying points out they saw that the western end of the ore key and ore loading area was well lit while the rest of the key was not and the pier there was low enough to be climbed from small Zerdiacs. Each landings were better at Porto Salazar and the Berro River mouth because there was no cover closer to Mocha Mides. On to the Girol River mouth where the Zerdiacs were launched again this time two swimmers conducted reconnaissance of the beach. We saw high cliffs on both sides of the river. The only access here was the flood plain with little cover for 100 meters from the surf to the scrubber. One of the reckeys was prepping his AK-47 in the forward mess of the sub a little later and somehow let off a burst of four rounds. No one was hit he received a written warning. More recons were conducted of Porto Alexandre and here Soviet fishing traitors were spotted. Once the usual photographs were taken and the two teams had done their work the Emily continued south to Bayo Dostigrish arriving on the 8th of June. There were even more Soviet traitors around that bay, 16 recounted. At night the Zerdiacs hit the sea once again and two swimmers checked for landing areas and a foot patrol was conducted to the inner bay. It was time now to head home. The first major recon ended on the 12th of June when the submarines arrived at Balfa Bay. The next major special operation was already underway. The SAS Yana van der Mertver and a commander Evert Krunovolt sailed up the east coast on the 15th of June, part of Operation Extend. In order to grow so the idea was to recon the east coast around Nakala and Porto de Mozambique in the north of the country. Intelligence gathering was the aim because the SEDF had been told by the redisions that equipment was being landed at Nakala and possibly Porto de Mozambique to be used by Robert Mugabe Zapu, the precursor to Zaloo. It was strictly a seaward recon, no landings were planned and four reiki underwater off Sajili Duplosi and Lieutenant Doc Buck joined the Yohana at Durban on the 19th of June where the sub was bunkered and more water was taken on board. The redisions were going to conduct aerial recon along the coast in a Canberra at the same time and the days agreed were the 27th of June to the 5th of July. For possible sea rescues should the plane be shot down or experienced technical difficulties and the crew had to eject. The Yohana took up position on the 1st of July carrying out periscope runs and photo shoots taking notes of shipping movements. The Soviet flag was flying at Nakala Airport and some reports indicated they were assembling MIG aircraft there. After a few more days of photos and recon offshore the sub headed home and arrived in Durban on 6th July. These were low level ops but the SEDF had an escalation in mind and it involved the assassination of Robert McGarby at his residence in Maputo. It was known as Operation Lark the SEDF were going to support an 8 man team of the redision SAS as they went after the Zarpu leader mainly because he had refused to begin peace negotiations with the Salisby. McGarby's Maputo residence was in a plush residential area around 500 meters from the beach and the redisions had been monitoring him for some time. The plan was for four wreckies to land the redision team from a submarine once the Maputo spy confirmed the target would be home and the attack was scheduled for November We'll hear more about what happened next in episode 62. Please rate the podcast on iTunes. It helps escalate the visibility of the story. If you have any comments, head over to my website abwarpodcast.com. There's a link to send emails if you want to chat. And you can direct message me on Twitter @desolate. Until next, goodbye. [MUSIC PLAYING]