Speaker 1Welcome back to South African Border Wars with me, your host, Deas Latham. This is episode 66. We heard last episode about Operation Mirbosa and the shooting down of a Puma with the loss of 15 men. The SAGF was now determined to follow up the company of Swapo who had been based near the Mui River and whose anti-aircraft guns had delivered such a potent message. The Alouette gunships were circling the area on that day in August 1982 and they reported the location of a Swapo section around 10 kilometers from the smoldering Puma. This was around 30 kilometers north of Kuvulai along the Kalonga River and an Alouette gunship under the command of legendary pilot Neil Ellis and two other gunships came under fire immediately by Swapo firing what 61 Mech Commandant Roland de Vries believes were SAM-7s. Moments later, the enemy started firing the small arms RPG-7 rockets and 14.5mm anti-aircraft guns. Ellis realized that this wasn't the same section as others reported in the area, around 2 kilometers away. The target therefore was spread out but there was only one escape from the SAGF on the ground which was Swapo having to forward a site over the Kalonga River. 48 men from 3-2 Battalions Delta Company were joined by a company from 61 Mech in Rautels and they were ordered to attack the Swapo section. There were no Pumas available. They were heading for the Helicopter Administration Area from Undangwa and hadn't landed. Meanwhile, a serious ground-to-air attack and vice versa was going on along the banks of the Kalonga. The Mirages had scrambled and now arrived overhead and they were given targets by the circling Alouette pilots. The Mirages softened up the area bombarding with napalm before the soldiers of Delta Company headed through the bush into the base. Missiles continued to rain down through the smoke, into the Swapo positions. The main group of Swapo fighters retreated but they'd left to stop a group which put up heavy fire. This wasn't a quick battle. It began at around 8:30 in the morning but Swapo only began to flag after more than 7 hours. Eventually these men and women wilted in the face of the South African assault and withdrew at around 16:00. The area was cleared once more and 118 Swapo bodies were counted, including 4 women. Delta Company suffered no casualties and managed to capture 3 of the 14.5mm anti-aircraft guns Swapo had dragged the 4th away. So Operation Mirbos ended formally on August 27th, 1982 and the SADF claimed 345 Swapo dead but lost 29 of their own while the shooting down of the Puma was one of the biggest single incidents for the SADF in the entire border war. And as the South Africans were busy inside Angola, Swapo was still busy inside Ovamberland. Throughout early August, around 100 Swapo had infiltrated South West Africa although some were killed in follow-up operations by 3/2 Battalion as well as by the South West African counter-insurgency unit called Kufut. These specialists were deployed in Kaspers and years later they would end up fighting inside South African townships. Their role has been well documented and it's a rather mixed tale. However, in the early days fighting in Ovamberland, they built up a name for themselves as "motivated fighters" particularly when sent into combat or follow-ups along with 3/2 Battalion or the newly formed 101 Battalion of Ovamber soldiers. It's no surprise that Kufut became cause célèbre during the Truth Commission process after democratic elections in South Africa in 1994. The Roman Catholic Church had laid a formal complaint against the SADF and SWATF by mid-1982 accusing the soldiers of widespread atrocities. Commandant Askele Askelein Hans then announced an inquiry and the SADF made all soldiers sign a card saying they'd respect the local population and avoid violence where possible. The Board of Inquiry into Misconduct set up by Defence Chief Magnus Malan looked into 40 specific allegations, eventually finding that some were in fact true and then the SADF settled with those involved or referred matters to the police. One person appeared in court. Subsequent complaints were also addressed. The role of Kufut in these matters has been debated since 1982, but there's no doubt about some of the events because those involved admitted to the TRC in 1994 that abuses had taken place. The SADF had a difficult dance when it came to the SWATF. Soldiers from that force had beaten up members of a church congregation sent to investigate brutality, which is not the smartest act in the Defence Force Public Relations Handbook. One of the security forces was found guilty and court-martialed. When dealing with a population in Ovambaland who overwhelmingly supported SWATF, the security forces lost touch with their professional ethos at times. Rape, murder and assault was common by the security forces. A considerable number of police and soldiers were convicted in various courts through the next few years. As the cat and mouse game with SWATF developed, some of the less professional South West African and SADF troops took out their frustrations. This savage response is usually a sign of poor training and poor leadership. What's more, it did not play well with the Hearts and Minds campaign. As the Russians are discovering in Ukraine, once you let your troops' base instincts loose amongst civilians, you set up a perfect storm of individual resistance. Ovambou men, who were vacillating about whether or not to support SWATF, witnessed their sisters being raped by security forces. And from then on, they were the SADF's implacable enemies, converted to pro-SWATF in an instant. I'll come back to Kufud later and the difficult process of fighting a non-conventional and conventional war in the middle of civilians. So the South Africans were now trying to clear the area around Onjiva during the second half of 1982. The forces would be joined by a combat team from 61 Mech and Irland 90 armoured cars. Their task was locating and destroying the Eastern Front tactical base. They were then deployed to the South African tactical headquarters of Swapur, in an area around 15km north of Beacon 11 on the Katlan, stretching to the Western Front tactical HQ all the way near the Kineni River. Little did they know that in May 1982, one of the most important Russians to fight in Angola had arrived to advise the MPLA government in Luanda. Lieutenant General Konstantin Korochkin was formerly known as the chief military advisor to the Angolan government and was a veteran of the Soviet-Afghanistan war. He was also described as the most outstanding Soviet officer to serve in Angola and followed Lieutenant General Georgy Petrovsky into the position. Throughout the border war, just under 1,000 Soviet officers were deployed in operational and training command posts in Angola while around 200 soldiers from the Democratic Republic of Germany ran signals and intel services for FOPLA. But it was the Cubans who were making the biggest difference just by pure dint of the number of troops. Remember we heard in one of the earliest podcasts in this series how Fidel Castro was trying to withdraw Cubans by the end of 1976 when his Operation Carlota, as he called it, was deemed a success. Furthermore, Luanda did not want a situation where Cubans replaced the Portuguese as new colonials and the MPLA wanted them out. That was until the SADF's airborne assault on Kasinga in 1978. Castro by then had sent 36,000 troops. In 1977 Castro told East Germany's Erich Honecker that he had reduced the numbers over the next year to around 15,000, but then Kasinga changed all that. At the same time, Castro was no fool. He ordered his men into the cities to garrison the urban areas and to act as escorts and convoys with the vast majority far away from the conflict. This was going to change by the end of the border war, particularly in the battle for Vito Cannavale, but we'll get to that in later podcasts. Most Cubans were stationed around Luanda in the late 70s and early 80s, while those in southern Angola were arraigned along the railway line between Namibia on the Atlantic coast and Menunga, just over 700km east into the interior and 250km away from the South West African border, also well away from the Issa Dia. But by 1982 Castro was becoming more bombastic. While it's true most of his men and some Cuban women soldiers were based in the central and coastal regions, a few hundred had been moved south. We've met them already in our story. These were always equipped with tanks, artillery, and quite sophisticated radar and air defences, and Castro told everyone he met that the Cubans formed a shield against the South African threat. So his posture was really defensive, but he warned Pretoria that if the SADF moved deeper into Angola. They would fight what he called "the fascist and racist South African mercenaries" and he threatened to invade South West Africa more than once. But Castro knew that he did not want to become embroiled in his own version of Vietnam, so his troops only really began fighting against UNITA much later, in 1987. One of the main reasons that Castro wanted to avoid fighting against the South Africans was his fear of the SA Air Force. He knew the power of the air force. He constantly resisted pressure from Moscow to fight against UNITA on behalf of the MPLA. A battle we will hear about in a few minutes. few episodes would be proof of this, when buccaneers and Canberras, escorted by Mirage interceptors, were to destroy the town of Cangamba. For Castro, that was case in point. There, the Air Force attacked with assistance from the SAGF artillery armed with a battery of 120mm mortars, but the point remains, the SAF was a serious threat to Castro's mix. Fidel Castro had a very good reason to be cautious. Back home, the war was not fully supported by his people, despite his rampant propaganda and total control of the media. He knew that if thousands of his soldiers died, Angola would indeed turn into his Vietnam. There are some analysts who believe that Angola was Castro's Vietnam, but this is stretching things. He dabbled there, and did not experience anywhere near the same casualty rate the Americans faced in Vietnam, nor did he have to worry about the political effect in the short term, being a one-party Marxist state. He didn't have to concern himself with elections and other irritations, unlike the Americans. And unlike the Russians, he didn't have to face the Taliban, who didn't seem to value their own lives and their suicidal attacks on Russian high-end helicopters. Behind the scenes, the negotiations for possible peaceful resolution to this war were stuttering along. In July 1982, Pic Boite had told journalists in Windhoek that there was supposedly a ceasefire agreement which could begin on the 15th of August. But the SADF was busy in Angola by then, so they were not ready to pull back. At the UN, reports emerged that Pretoria was now no longer demanding a Cuban pullout from Angola as a precondition for their own withdrawal, but Swapo's spokesman, Theo Ben Gurirab, was rather non-committal. "I don't think it's possible," he said about the ceasefire. "It is certainly not true that all parties have agreed." It would be September of 1982 before the UN Security Council gave the ceasefire their blessing, but the fighting continued in the meantime. South Africa had introduced another demand, saying that Swapo based in Angola and Zambia must be disarmed before talks could start. But the frontline African states were now wary of this ongoing civil war in Angola and the border war. They had been speaking to the Americans and knew that one of the core principles of peace was a Cuban withdrawal. Washington had fixated on this, as you can well imagine, considering their obsession with Havana. So the frontline states were suggesting that they would support a Cuban withdrawal, but it should not be directly linked to any southwest African Namibian settlement. In turn, Washington would recognize the Luanda government and provide aid. South Africa would then stop attacking Angola, stop supporting UNITA, and Washington would pressurize Pretoria to follow through. Suddenly, there was optimism, even amongst the Americans. The nationalist government was hedging in Pretoria. There was a flaw in the frontline states' compromise, and it involved SADF operations into Angola. Luanda did not have the political will to stop Swapo from operating inside its territory, so the ceasefire date was moot. What usually forces a ceasefire is one or both sides to be really hurting, financially or militarily or politically, or all of the above, before they agree to stop fighting. None of the players at this point were willing to stop the war. None were willing to make a painful compromise, because the pain of war was still regarded as less painful than the pain of compromise. The SADF still held Zangonga and Onjiva in southern Angola. They had created a buffer zone against Swapo inside enemy territory. And then, in October 1982, a second MiG was shot down. Between the 3rd and 8th of October 1982, it was three squadrons turned to deploy to Andangwa, and the Canberras were back on photography duty over a limited area called Small Area Coverage, or SAC. The town of Kahama was the focus. Two Mirage F1s were to escort a single Canberra flown by Commandant Bertus Berger and his navigator Captain Franz Conradi. Major Johan Rankin flew a Mirage F1. His wingman was Captain Kubus Turin, and they rendezvoused with the Canberra at 11:20. Dayton radar provided an opportunity for the SADF to move to Andangua from Andangua. The SADF and Mirage F1s were deployed to Andangua, and the Canberras were back on photography duty over a limited area called Small Area Coverage, or SAC. The town of Kahama was the focus. Two Mirage F1s were to escort a single Canberra flown by Commandant Bertus Berger and his navigator Captain Franz Conradi. Major Johan Rankin provided control as they headed for Kahama. Things were going to shift gear very quickly from here on. Dayton picked up approaching enemy aircraft, so the Canberra detached from the mission and turned south, heading home. The F1s climbed to 30,000 feet, still heading north, but couldn't fly faster than Mach 0.95 while they carried external fuel tanks. And now the MiGs and the Mirages were facing off nose to nose and approaching each other at twice the speed of sound. The 12 nautical mile separation took a few seconds to close, and Rankin picked up two MiG-21s at the same level, by now five nautical miles away, and almost as he realized what they were, they had flashed past him on his right. The F1s jettisoned their drop tanks, hit their afterburners, and started a hard right turn in pursuit. It was around then that Rankin and Turin realized that the MiGs had fired missiles at them. Their closing speed meant these missiles could not be guided. As the F1s completed their 180-degree turn, they spotted the MiGs turning gently to the right, still at supersonic speed and beginning to out-distance the Mirages. They were almost out of range, but then Rankin tried a trick. He switched his intercept radar to transmit, hoping the MiG pilots would take evasive action, believing a missile was locked on and lose speed. And that's exactly what happened. Both MiGs reversed their turns, which allowed the Mirages to cut the corner and the range closed. What pilots have to do, now, is perform an energy acceleration to reach Mach 1.3, then enter a rough curve of pursuit and judge the range, wait for the radar to lock onto the target, and fire their Matra 550 infrared missile. Problem is, Rankin couldn't wait, so he fired before the radar locked on. The missile was on its way, then it wasn't. It reached all burnt range and dropped into the bush below. Rankin was still closing range, however, and fired his second missile from half the distance. The MiG dipped into a descending Split-S maneuver, and the Matra exploded just behind it. The MiG was hit, but still flew, trailing smoke as it rolled left and dropped out of sight. That MiG, by the way, made it back to base. It was damaged in the emergency landing because its undercarriage wouldn't lower, but the pilot and the aircraft survived. Meanwhile, Rankin closed in on the second MiG, which also dived in the Split-S to the left. The Mirage was an easy match in the dive, catching up swiftly, and Rankin opened fire with his 30mm Defer cannons from less than 300 meters behind the MiG. It exploded directly in front of him, and there was no time for evasive action. The Mirage passed through the middle of the fireball, and the F1's engine had a compressor stall. Rankin cut the engine and did a hot relight, and then the Mirage was back in business, and both Rankin and Turin flew back to base. As I mentioned in Episode 65, the SADF, meanwhile, was planning another major incursion into Angola called Operation Ascari. This took place at the end of 1983, but the run-up to the invasion of Southern Angola has its origin in the previous major op, Protea, of 1981. The effect of Ascari was to lead SWAPO's Sam Neuma to approach the United Nations Secretary General with an appeal for a ceasefire, and in this case, the Pretoria government was in agreement. But Moscow appear to have other ideas, as you're going to hear. Please rate the podcast on iTunes, it makes the series more visible, or you can head off to the website abwarpodcast.com and email me from there, or direct message me on Twitter @deslatham. Until next, goodbye. Transcription by ESO; translation by —
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