by J H Thompson
– Brett, age 18
Impalela Island, about 180 kays from Katima Mulilo, was a dry base. No alcohol. ’Cause the guys caused trouble and were shooting at game. It was quite isolated, right in the middle of the Chobe River between Zambia, Bots and South West. There wasn’t much there, just the animals and a water-tower type thing. I arrived back on the Border and the major said to me, ‘Het jy beheer oor jou troepe?’ [Do you have control over your troops?] Obviously the correct answer was that of course I had absolute control over my troops. What else did he expect me to say? ‘Dan hoekom sit een van jou troepe in die tronk in Botswana?’ [Then why is one of your troops sitting in jail in Botswana?], he then asked me. The troop’s excuse was that he was merely helping out civilians whose boat had broken down. He’d towed them back to Chobe Lodge in Bots and they insisted on buying him a drink. That’s all. The police version was that he’d come over from the island to buy booze and they’d caught him loading ten cases of beer into the rubber duck, and they arrested him for being in Bots without a passport. We were lucky it didn’t cause a major incident.
– Paul, age 17
Our job was to patrol the North West province on the border of Botswana, where Madikwe is now, on horseback, riding up and down the border, looking for evidence of the ANC, as that was their main route from Botswana for bringing in guns. When we found spoor, we called the guys in to follow up. The horses took strain, because they were doing between 40 and 60 kilometres a day. That’s a lot to do day after day. They lost condition, and by the end of the year were pretty burnt out. Sometimes they got saddle sores and you then had to walk your horse, carrying the saddle, while the others rode. They were very fit and strong, but they had a hard time.
– Martin, age 23
There was a barge that used to cross between Sesheke in Zambia and Katima in the Caprivi. It broke free and we claimed it and kept it as ours for about nine months. That river, the Zambezi, could be very dangerous. A guy from SACC drowned trying to cross on the cable. We had to go and cut down some trees that were on this island between our observation post and Zambia. We set off in this little rubber duck. The current took us and we got washed past the island and bumped into the side of the barge. The barge floated on big pipes so that it could pass more easily through the current, and the duck got sucked between the pipes, under the barge. We’re hanging on the sides of the barge and trying not to get pulled in and under it as well. I thought I was going to die that day. The duck got sucked right through the pipes, and now we had to locate it. We found these scuff marks in the sand on the Zambian side of the river. It looked like a boat had been dragged ashore. We went into the bush and found some fishermen and their dugout. Best approach – be forceful. So we started yelling and pointing our rifles at them, demanding our boat. They are terrified and crying ‘fishy fishy fishy’. Some complaint was laid about South Africa invading Zambia – that was me. We spent a lot of time on that river. We had what we called a Swiss, quite a big boat, with twin 85s and a MAG mounted on the front, and we did river patrols to show the Zambians that if they ever crossed the river, they’d be in trouble. It wasn’t much fun just sitting in the boat. So we fished and water-skied. We used a metal catering table with fold-up legs. Not quite the same as waterskis, but it worked. We had to watch out for crocs and hippos, though. There were some big ones in that river. It was good fun.
– Paul, age 17
Once on patrol near the Botswana border, we went into this snoepie shop. It was just a little local store run by this Afrikaans tannie for farmworkers. Ten guys arrived, and the first thing they asked this tannie for was pantyhose! Here these fit young army boys arrive and they want pantyhose. You should have seen this lady’s face! Boy was she surprised. We bought her entire stock. The pantyhose helped prevent chafing. The guys would get raw between their legs if they didn’t know how to ride or weren’t riding properly. Some of the guys actually wound up with skin that wouldn’t heal, and continuously suppurated. There was no such thing as rest. A favourite thing was to put Prep gel on the chafed area. We always had it because we had to shave every day, even if we were out on patrol for weeks. So we always, thank you God, had Prep.
– Martin, age 23
Miss South Africa came up to visit and I was told to take her fishing on the Zambezi. My sister was a model and I’d met a lot of these girls, so it didn’t mean a great deal to me, and I had just come back from pass and was really tired. We were always tired. In Basics we used to say that you could fall asleep on the back of a Bedford and in the time from when your head was upright until it hit the top of your rifle barrel, you could fall into a deep sleep. I thought this Miss SA was a bit of an airhead. She was saying all sorts of things because she thought that was what was expected of her – racist comments and such. But I do think she impressed most of the lonely people she met.
– Anonymous
I was based at Rundu, and we used to watch the Canberra bombers make frequent passes when they took off and landed. This was so that no one, neither us nor them, could know for certain how many planes went out and came back, or never came back. I caught a lift on a Dak to go to Mpacha. It had a beautiful bar built around a tree. I know, ’cause I built it in ’82. I thought I’d go visit and have a drink just for old time’s sake. The flight out was non-eventful, but on the return trip, in a different aircraft and with a different crew, we flew very, very low and fast over the bush, because they’d spotted what may have been a SAM-7 missile on their way in. It was Friday the 13th, and I thought I was going to die just because I’d wanted a dop and a trip down memory lane.
– Paul, age 22
Under Attack
On 23 August 1978, out of the blue, a helicopter landed and we were briefed by an officer that there was going to be trouble at Katima Mulilo, which wasn’t our base, but we needed to go and give the guys a hand. A lot of the guys from the rest of the battalion were going to be there. Flying into Katima Mulilo and over Ngwezi, the adjacent township, I noticed and commented that Ngwezi was empty. Katima was a town, with civilians, women and children. Each civilian home had a bomb shelter at the bottom of the garden. It was above ground, not below, and consisted of a massive Armco half pipe covered with sandbags, cement, more sandbags, cement, and then even more sandbags. It would absorb most stuff, although a direct hit could cause a few problems. I turned to the officer and asked him why there wasn’t a soul about in Ngwezi. He was surprised I’d noticed and remarked on it. Of course I had, it was my job. We landed and went for a briefing with the commandant, who at the time was looking after the intelligence in that area. He said he had received intel that there was a possibility of an attack on the base and the surrounding bases that night, and that we needed to brief the troops. I told my guys to sleep in foxholes and ‘stand to’ at last light and at first light in case of an attack. It is a military norm up on the Border to ‘stand to’. During this, a regimental sergeant major comes around and tells us we are all a bunch of wussies and we don’t need to sleep in foxholes that night. We should all be sleeping in our beds, ’cause no one would dare attack us. So we find ourselves beds in the bungalows and move in there.
At 01h05 they started rocketing us from across the Zambezi, from the Sesheke side. The first rocket landed just outside the camp’s perimeter. I woke up, started screaming at the guys, grabbed my kit and dived into the nearest foxhole. Then I realised one of my buddies wasn’t with me. The second rocket landed just outside the bungalow, in amongst the tents. They were 122-mm rockets, or Red-eyes, as we used to call them. Red-eyes are designed to terrorise and create massive damage to buildings. They are weapons that induce fear. They make a terrifying screaming noise as this red flame races towards you. If they land in an open field, they might kill you because a lot of shrapnel flies around. Inside a bungalow, in such a confined space, they create utter devastation. If you’re below ground, you’re fine. I realised one of my buddies wasn’t with me. I flew back inside the bungalow and grabbed R. Believe it or not, he was s
leeping! R slept very deeply. I grabbed him and, as I picked him up, a rocket came through the bungalow in front of me and exploded. It was a long bungalow, over a hundred guys in it, and the rocket hit at the front of it, where all the newcomers, the chefs and engineers were. There were bodies and bits and pieces everywhere. R was knocked out of my arms and I dived for him. I thought he was dead, because I felt a lot of wetness on me which I thought was blood. He was fine; the blast had just knocked him out. I grabbed him and we flew outside and dived into a foxhole, which by this time was full. So we found ourselves another foxhole and we lay there as they bombarded us for a long time. I then started moving around to find my guys and warn them that the ground forces might attack. In conventional warfare, the enemy normally bombarded us to shake us up, then shot the hell out of us with the big stuff, and then the infantry would be sent in. We all got ready, and then I heard the heavy machine guns, the 50-calibre guns, our guys, on the banks of the Zambezi, go off. What went through my mind was that the enemy was now crossing the river in boats and that’s why our guys had opened up. Then the mortar camp, which was outside Katima, opened up. The thing that worried me was that the big guns, our artillery, on the western side of Katima near a place called Wenela, hadn’t opened up. I heard a little airplane in the sky and I thought, that’s it – the guys are spotting. Meanwhile, the bombardment carried on and on and on, and there was a lot of screaming and shouting from the bungalow. So R and I went back there to have a look. There were guys putting out the fire, and bodies everywhere. The rocket attack intensified and pushed us back into the holes. We got out again, started fighting fires and getting men out, and then the big guns opened up and the entire western horizon lit up. Our guys had got going at last. The incoming fire started withering away. It got quieter and quieter, and we knew that either our big guns were being effective, or the enemy was holding back before an infantry attack.
All this was going through my mind as I was getting my troops together. I realised that I had lost a couple of guys. There were ten dead. The one guy’s head was lying at my feet. One guy, K, who grew up on a farm very close to where I did, was killed. His father and mother were good friends of my parents. I was holding him and we thought he would hang on even though he’d lost an arm and a leg. But he died after the attack, while I was holding him. It was very emotional when K died.
Early the next morning, we launched a counter-attack with Parabats and guys from other units who had come in. Those of us who could stand and run and shoot, went in. We went in west of Katima, at a little Zambian town on a bend on the river. Some of us crossed the river, while some of the Parabats were dropped behind enemy lines, and we started mopping-up operations. It was intensive fighting, but the fight had gone out of the terrs. What had happened was that the Zambian Defence Force had joined forces with SWAPO to give us a go. I reckon there must have been around 600 of them. They had batteries of Stalin Organs, 120-mm mortars and machine-gun posts. We shot up a truck that was pulling provisions, so it seemed like they were coming in en masse. I was only a corporal so I never got to see all the intel, but they seemed to be pretty well organised. It was thanks to our big guns opening up and flattening them. The next day was also pretty chaotic. We came and went, and went and came, and shot at whatever we could. I remember bringing back 16 bodies myself. We laid the bodies on the parade ground and proceeded to cut off their fingers with bolt cutters, because Intelligence wanted their fingerprints and they were too lazy – well, maybe that’s the wrong word – but they didn’t want to come out and take fingerprints from bodies that were already affected with rigor mortis. So we had to cut them off and take them packets of fingers. At the time you don’t care. You are so angry with these people. You just see K’s face and the other guys who’d got blown to pieces and you just didn’t care. And that’s the bad thing about those sorts of actions and war: you lose your self-respect and you don’t feel emotion for or empathy with anyone. The person you fought has a mother and father back home too, and they are only fighting for the freedom of their country. You don’t think about that at the time. That comes later. At that time you’re quite happy that the son of a bitch is dead, because he tried to kill you. A lot of people are not proud. Not proud of having pulled a trigger. I have friends who saw a lot of action in the seventies and eighties, the really elite guys, like those in 32 Battalion, who were absolutely awesome, awesome soldiers. We talk about things among ourselves, but even then, only superficially. Even now, 30 years on, if you get into the emotional side of things, we’ll change the subject or watch rugby or get a beer or something.
– Ric, age 18
I lost respect from my fellow troeps and won it back in Nkongo. It was a small base, as it was only battalion strength, and it was mainly built underground. Above ground there wasn’t much more than tents. We were busy constructing improvements on the base. Someone asked me to go up onto the kitchen roof to fetch something. I ran up the ladder and across the newly built roof, and as I reached the peak and looked over the other side, I just froze. It took five okes to bring me down off that roof. Before that I hadn’t even known I had a fear of heights. I’d been in helicopters, hanging out the door and it hadn’t bothered me, but now? I was so scared I couldn’t move. In the army, and especially on the Border, you couldn’t show weakness. I had, and now guys avoided me. Okes who before used to walk past and greet me now avoided me altogether and would move away from me if they saw me walking towards them. It was bad enough that I was a Catholic and English, but now I had shown a weakness. I had lost their respect.
Not long after that, the base was attacked at night. I was a number one mortar man and with Base Protection. We had three mortar pits that could fire up to a range of five kilometres, or seven if you threw a cup of diesel down the tube and used maximum loading. You couldn’t do that too often or you’d damage the tube, but, man, it gave off an awesome flash, an absolutely stunning and beautiful flash! We were being attacked from three sides, but we were well – very well – equipped. We had snotneuse – 40-mm American grenade launchers – as well as 50-calibre machine guns and 30-mm Browning LMGs from the US. We even had Jeeps with anti-tank recoilless guns on them! We had lots of stuff. We even had napalm before it was banned. That came in a long bomb, shaped like a rocket. If you open it up, it’s filled with a green jelly-like substance that smells like petrol. Our white phosphorous grenades were worse than napalm anyway. I was with HQ Platoon, part of Base Protection, and we had a specific fire plan for predetermined areas from where we thought an attack might be launched. Mortars are falling all around, we’ve got guys all over the place, on the walls, in the pits, but our position is secure. Next thing we hear these guys screaming for help over the radio. It’s a platoon that has camped about two kays outside the base. This was common practice, because at night the base was locked down and returning patrols had to camp outside until morning. Coincidentally, SWAPO had located the patrol outside the base and were mortaring them, as well as our base. They were not nearly as well armed as us and only had light weapons, not enough to defend themselves from the terrs who were mortaring them from about a kay and a half away. I lined up my Mills sight. All the while, mortars are going off and I’m listening to the co-ordinates that are being screamed over the radio and I’m calculating. If I’m out by even one degree, it will make a huge difference to where the mortar lands and I could kill our guys stuck out there. The Mills sight is extremely accurate, but you do need to know how to use it and that takes training. It’s very mathematical. What was amazing was that I could concentrate on what I had to do and make alterations and calculations as co-ordinates changed, even with all the mortars raining down and all the other weapons firing. From your training, you know which weapon is firing and you can immediately identify it. This thing kicks in and you become like a machine with only two concerns: your buddies and the destruction of the enemy. We got the patrol safely back into base that night and I earned back my respect.
– Clint, age 18
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br /> I remember a funny incident during one of the battles on the Border. During a rocket attack, a rocket came through the bungalow roof. It knocked over a whole lot of these steel lockers – kaste. One of the chefs leapt up out of bed, but was knocked down by and trapped inside this six-foot locker – the door must have been open as it fell over. It was heavy and pinned him to the ground, but not on top of him: it enveloped him. The rocket must have landed about three metres away from him, and I kid you not, he was unscathed; only his ears took a hammering from the explosion. The kas was buckled and bent and scorched from the fire, but this guy? He was unhurt – just warmed up a little from the flames. The next day he was back to cooking. It was very funny in hindsight.
– Ric, age 18
I wasn’t that interested in the army or in helping the government; I wanted to study. At that time, you could go to jail if you refused to go to the army. So I had to do my army training, but I was determined not to waste the time. I studied for my Honours in Finance and Marketing at Wits while doing my two years’ National Service. My goal was to get transferred from Pretoria, where I was called up to do my Basics in Personnel Services, to Wits Command, as it was close to the university. I’d heard from a friend who was at Wits Command that there was a job going there. I applied, and even though they wanted me because of my computer experience – remember, this was the eighties, so not everyone was familiar with or knowledgeable about computers – it still took months before the transfer was approved. The colonel at Wits Command, who wanted me there, was head of the entire Personnel Services for the Witwatersrand, and even he wasn’t able to get the transfer authorised quickly. That’s the way the army worked.
Finally the transfer orders came through. I arrived at Wits Command early one morning, during morning parade, which was why I couldn’t find out who I was supposed to report to or where I was supposed to go. I was wandering around between the two main buildings being unsuccessfully directed all over the place by various people. I went and asked this guy at an office adjacent to one of the perimeter gates where I should go. The gates were huge reinforced metal sheets that blocked off access to the road that cut through the whole command block. He told me that I should head back into the main building. I walked a short distance and turned into a stairwell. I was on the landing of the stairs, not yet on the first floor, when I felt the ground shudder. Before I could comprehend what was happening, the large cottage windowpanes above and behind me exploded inwards. I suddenly found myself at the top of the stairs, lying on the floor, and, like a good BCom student, still clutching my briefcase.