by Al Venter
Meanwhile, while we waited for the Pumas to come in, I worked on another idea and decided that we’d change tactics slightly and drop our sweep-line to the immediate west of the camp. The stopper groups could then come in along the river line towards the south-west. There was a rather strategically placed conical hill quite close to the camp, which I thought would be ideal for the mortar team because it overlooked the base. Also, from up high the crew would be able to observe where their bombs were falling and make corrections without us having to give them guidance.
I started another circuit around the base, in part because the enemy had still not made an effort to reveal their positions. From the little I could see, they appeared fairly confident that we hadn’t seen anything, which was when some of them started to slowly crawl towards the perimeter. They had made their first move.
Flying in lazy circles above the camp and trying to act as though we were unaware of their presence was disconcerting. I was far too high and very much aware that if they did decide to use their SAMs, it could cause problems for both choppers. Then I spotted the Pumas, approaching fast from the west. Judging from the reaction below, the enemy must have heard the distinctive thumping rotors of these larger machines because some of their troops got up from where they had been lying, which was when I decided to open fire. We needed to slow down their movement; experience had shown that once one person moves in a set direction, the rest usually follow and it would have been difficult to contain large numbers.
The first rounds from our choppers stopped any stampede by the enemy forces encamped below. It also resulted in those already on their feet diving for cover. Then all hell broke loose. I heard a powerful blast towards my rear which rocked the chopper. My stomach muscles tightened when I realised they were using some heavy stuff against us. At the same moment Maranta shouted over the radio: ‘SAM launch, six o’clock!’
Out the corner of my eye I saw the distinctive thick whitish-grey smoke trail of a SAM-7 twirling up into the sky towards me. I immediately put on more bank to find the firing position, but as I turned through the half-circle, the missile speeding past harmlessly, I saw a second SAM-7 launch, this time directed at Maranta’s machine. It was my turn to shout: ‘SAM launch, nine o’clock!’
Fortunately, we were quite low, which meant that by the time I’d called, the missile was already travelling at Mach 1.5; it shot by just in front of his nose. We were now also coming under some fairly heavy weapons fire. The noise was horrific and the curtain of tracer rounds around both choppers seemed almost impenetrable.
The position from which the enemy was firing the SAMs was easy to find. There was no wind so smoke from the launch area rose lazily into the sky, highlighting the command position below. As I arrived over the launch area I saw the missile operators trying to take cover beneath the bushes: Coetzee quickly killed them all with a few well-aimed rounds.
By now our two helicopters were at the receiving end of a huge volume of firepower and RPGs were starting to make life uncomfortable. There were dozens of them, the majority air-bursting over our heads. While I consider them to be fairly ineffective against aircraft, their blasts can be awesome, especially if they explode close by: there is usually an extremely loud bang accompanied by a large puff of black smoke.
Suddenly, another missile—a Strela-2—shot past the nose of my aircraft and, again, after the firing position had been identified, Coetzee did what he had to. Moments later, the Pumas were approaching the newly designated LZ and I moved over to the position to mark it with smoke and to give the troopers a measure of top cover. The LZ was just under two kilometres from the camp and, with the breakout, I’d observed some of the enemy running in that direction. I radioed Kruger in the lead Puma and he passed it on to the others, including the officers who were about to disembark. The sweep-line, led by Jan Hougaard, was already moving forward and things seemed to be developing nicely. The next task was for the remaining Puma to drop off the mortar group and this was done without problems. Having completed their tasks, all five Pumas returned to the ‘Fluss’ to uplift stopper groups, fuel, ammunition and those personnel needed to form a mini-HAG in the area adjacent to the enemy camp.
Things were not going well for the guerrillas. By now the enemy had realised that they were contained, which was when they started directing heavy fire at me and Maranta, as well as mortar fire onto the troops in the sweep-line. It was quite a concerted effort and although we retaliated, there seemed to be no end to the amount of firepower they were able to bring to the party. Also, their mortar fire worried us. It wasn’t very effective, but you didn’t need a surfeit of brains to work out that some of their bombs were passing through our circling orbit: It wouldn’t have been the first time that an aircraft had been brought down ‘by accident’. Fortunately, Maranta found their position and was able to neutralise the emplacement.
Once the troops started moving through the fringes of the camp, they too came under concerted fire and their progress slowed. I radioed to the ground commander that we had the enemy boxed in and that there was no rush. Effectively, we had the rest of the day to achieve our objective and there was no need to take chances. The slower the pace, I said, the less chance of casualties.
At one stage, the fighting on the ground became so intense that Coetzee was killing isolated pockets of enemy within five or six metres of our own troops. The lethal radius of the 20mm cannon shell is five metres and our troops weren’t stupid so they kept low each time the cannon barked. In fact, the positions were even more dangerous because some of the troops had to be treated for light shrapnel wounds, picked up from the gunships, after the engagement.
Another time, two of the enemy had climbed the only tree in the area to get a better line of sight on our advancing forces. Coetzee picked them up and killed both with a single salvo. As some of the guys commented afterwards, it was like a scene from the movies.
About 20 minutes after the sweep-line had been dropped, the Pumas were back with the stopper groups. Maranta was detailed to give top cover to the trooper with ‘Blackie’ as its call sign. As the Puma came into the hover and prepared to make the drop, a fairly large squad of about of 30 enemy soldiers seemed somehow to have managed to move forward to where they reckoned the LZ had to be. Maranta’s gunner engaged the enemy and was soon involved in a fairly stiff firefight. After a few minutes, he managed to neutralise the position, but not before his chopper was damaged by small arms fire.
At that stage I was giving top cover to the Puma dropping off call sign ‘Nella’. As it came into short finals for the LZ, I picked up another group of enemy troops running along the gully in which the Puma was going to land. The sides of this natural defile were rocky and steep and the enemy soldiers could not climb out of it, although they tried. For Coetzee it was like a turkey shoot. All he had to do was fire above their heads and the ricocheting shrapnel did the rest: the guerrillas dropped, one by one.
After the Puma had taken off, several enemy troops managed to move forward to within about 50 metres of the LZ. Less than a minute after having put been down, Nella and his group found themselves in a serious firefight with a determined group of guerrillas. Worse, they were in an exposed position and there were a few anxious moments before we were able to neutralise the attackers. Once again, Coetzee’s accurate firing saved the day.
By now, both Maranta and I were short on fuel. Also, we were out of ammunition. The two Alouettes, flown by Bent and Schoeman, positioned themselves overhead and took over the dual job of controlling the sweep-line and providing top cover. Jan Hougaard had his first casualty as we were pulling out. One of his sergeants was badly wounded so Maranta landed his Alouette and uplifted the soldier. The rescue took place under heavy fire, with Maranta’s chopper landing only metres behind the sweep-line. After refuelling and rearming, both of us headed back to the battle to relieve the other two helicopters.
A lighter side to the battle—which had then been going on for about three hours—occurred when
Hougaard’s men had moved through the main camp area and were taking a breather. Their instructions were to consolidate and then sweep back through the area in a bid to gather weapons and documents and to clear up any pockets of enemy resistance that had escaped the initial advance. I landed at Hougaard’s position to discuss the next move and also to answer a call of nature. While relieving myself next to a tree, there was a loud holler from one of our soldiers, followed by a sharp explosion in the branches above me. All this was accompanied by the whistle of shrapnel flying all over the place. I got such a fright as I dived for cover that I wet myself: there was a lot of banter afterwards about me pissing my pants.
What had happened was that a lone survivor had somehow remained undetected and decided to make a last ditch stand from a nearby hollow in the rocks. I reckon that he thought he would kill the group of people I was talking to before he died. Luckily, Maranta was orbiting the area and was quickly directed over the enemy’s position, where his gunner killed the man.
Throughout the battle, we had Impala ground strike jets orbiting the area for additional close air support. They came in handy when, towards the end of it all, our ground troops encountered a particularly aggressive group of insurgents who had managed to keep our forces at bay. I decided to call in a strike from the Impalas. After passing on the relevant target information and marking it with smoke, I eased away from the area to give the jets a clear run in. I waited and waited some more, but after some minutes there was still no sign of the jets. Still on the radio, I asked them where they were and when they’d be moving in for the strike.
The retort was abrupt: ‘We’ve been orbiting the position you gave us, but can’t find any evidence of the battle or see your smoke. Are you sure that you’re in the right valley?’
Although most of the enemy force had been neutralised, there were still a few pockets of die-hards. Before we could call it a day and do a final body count, they had to be dealt with. It was then that Hougaard lost two more men, a black soldier and one of his platoon commanders, Lt Nel (Nella), who was posthumously awarded the Honoris Crux (Silver) decoration for bravery. Nella was always regarded as an outstanding soldier, his leadership exemplary. He’d accounted for numerous kills during the action, some of his contacts virtually at point-blank range.
Clearing up took us well into the afternoon and it was only at about four that afternoon—two hours before sunset—that we were satisfied that the guerrillas had either been neutralised or had escaped. The final body count was 187 dead and one captured. The prisoner was the camp cook who, we found out soon enough, was not too interested in making war. Total kills (including the results of the contact two days before) were 201 dead and seven captured.
Troops moving through the area in the days that followed discovered an enormous number of weapons concealed in the rocky slopes of the surrounding mountains. One arms cache alone had 1,000 anti-tank TM-57 mines and anti-personnel rifle grenades. There were also more than 300 mortar bombs in 82mm calibre, ten more SAMs and scores of AK-47s. Not a bad haul when one considers that the operation was supposed to be a ‘jolly’ and that I’d intended going fishing.
As a direct result of the attack, SWAPO’s subsequently disclosed plans for establishing an infiltration route through the Kaokoveld to the west of Sector 10 in Ovamboland took a powerful knock, something from which they were not able to recover for several years.
South African Air Force Alouette helicopter gunship hovering over defences at a military base adjacent to the Angolan frontier. The photo at left shows air force engineers servicing a Puma chopper at an Author’s collection
Dead and dying insurgents brought back to base in South West Africa aboard a Puma helicopter. Author’s collection
The Soviet SAM-6 (‘Gainful’ in NATO parlance) was one of the deadliest Soviet ‘command guidance’ missiles in the war and accounted for several hits. Having been ‘blooded’ in the Middle East and South East Asia, its most telling advantage was that it was mobile, could be fired at a range of almost 35 kilometres and achieve altitudes of 50,000 ft. Source: Pierre Victor
Soviet anti-aircraft missiles such as this sophisticated SAM-8 which was captured on the battlefield by South African forces were a regular threat to SAAF planes providing ground support during combat operations inside Angola. Source: Pierre Victor
Sukhoi Su-27. Because of its racially-dominated apartheid policies, the South Africans had no answer to sophisticated jet fighter/bombers such as this Sukhoi Su-27 which Moscow sold to the Angolans but which were flown either by Eastern Bloc pilots or by Cubans. Source: Pierre Victor
South African Air Force Impala jet fighter/trainer of the type to which Neall Ellis converted during training. These planes played a useful ground-support role during the war. Photo: courtesy of the late Herman Potgieter
munitions captured by the 32 Battalion strike force during Operation Super (see Chapter 4). Among items taken were large numbers of Soviet TM-57 antitank mines as well as batches of SAM-7 (Strela) super sonic hand-held anti aircraft missiles, three of which were fired at Nellis’ helicopter. Author’s collection
Neall Ellis prior to take-off on Operation Super, which he controlled from the air. Author’s collection
South African Air Force Puma helicopter about to touch down in barren country adjacent to the Angolan border. Author’s collection
Troops attached to Koevoet—the police counter- terrorism unit— prepare their weapons prior to an operation in Ovamboland. Author’s collection
South African Air Force Puma and Alouette helicopters at a temporary base inside Angola. Author’s collection
Combat casualty brought back to base out of Angola by chopper. Author’s collection
A well-shorn Neall Ellis and his Mi-24 ‘office’ at Cockerill Barracks, Freetown, Sierra Leone. Photo: Neall Ellis
The cause of the guerrilla struggle in Sierra Leone was overwhelming government corruption and nepotism, but diamonds ended up playing a seminal role in the struggle. Open air diamondiferous diggings such as these were to be found just about everywhere we flew operationally. With the first rains, the holes would be filled with water. Photo: Neall Ellis Members of the Ethiopian technical team—sometimes with good Russian support—kept at least one of the gunships in the air most of the time. Repairs were done piecemeal and—in spite of tropical conditions—in the open. Both Photos: Neall Ellis
Members of the Ethiopian technical team—sometimes with good Russian support—kept at least one of the gunships in the air most of the time. Repairs were done piecemeal and—in spite of tropical conditions—in the open. Both Photos: Neall Ellis
Neall Ellis’ Mi-24 helicopter gunship on the helipad at Freetown’s Aberdeen military base preparing for take-off during counter-insurgency operations. Author’s collection
Nellis with Hind crew members and ground staff at military headquarters, Freetown. Author’s collection
Nellis served for a time with the South African mercenary group Executive Outcomes: one of the EO troops with grenade launcher mounted on a vehicle in Freetown. Author’s collection
Chopper pilot’s eye view of Freetown, one of the largest cities in the region. Author’s collection
Air-to-ground rockets being loaded onto pods attached to Mi-24 winglets at the Freetown helipad. Author’s collection
While Nellis’ gunship dominated Sierra Leone air space, Executive Outcomes troops cleared rebels from their positions throughout much of the country. Sierra Leone was an extremely difficult country in which to fight a war. Author’s collection
Wounded Sierra Leone soldiers ferried back to Freetown in Nellis’ Mi-24. Author’s collection
View from one of the Hind’s port-side windows while on operations in Sierra Leone. One of the chopper’s two rocket pods can be seen, below left. Author’s collection
British forces enter a suspect village in Sierra Leone. Author’s collection
Author Al Venter flew combat missions in Sierra Leone while spending time with
mercenary forces in Sierra Leone, gathering material for Britain’s Jane’s Information Group. He is seen here, prior to take-off, in the gunner’s seat on board the only serviceable Mi-24 helicopter gunship in Sierra Leone at the time. Photo: Neall Ellis
Civilians massacred, raped, killed and disfigured by RUF rebel cadres, one of many senseless killings that took place during the war. Photo: Cobus Claassens
Neall Ellis’ Soviet-built Mi-24 being prepared for an operational flight at Cockerill Barracks. Conditions were primitive, with one of the Hinds often having to provide parts for the other to maintain a strike capability. Photo: Neall Ellis
2004, Nellis had to teach himself to fly this West land Sikorsky Commando MkIIC originally donated to Sierra Leone by the Emir of Qatar to President Kabbah for advice given on a border dispute with one of the Qatar neighbours. It is seen here taking off from Freetown docks. Photo: Neall Ellis
One of Sierra Leone’s Mi-24s flown by former SAAF pilot Cassie Nel going up in flames after it had crashed. One of its engines exploded: pieces of shattered turbine blades went through the hot turbine section and caused the good engine also to burn. Nel was able to auto-rotate and carry out an emergency landing, but a female British soldier in the monitoring force died when a shattered turbine blade passed through the cabin roof and entered her cranium. Afterwards, all that was left of the once-proud Russian Mi-24 helicopter were these charred ashes. Photos: Cassie Nel