by Al Venter
Those who had been through the mill regarded the staff course as a fairly demanding nine-month effort. Also, as an air force major, I was at a disadvantage because, customarily, it was commandants [half-colonels] and above who were selected. The objective was to prepare candidates for the rank of brigadier and above. Suddenly, I saw my original objective of possibly making general’s rank became a reality.
Things didn’t start too well. My very good friend Gary Barron, who had gone from choppers to flying jets, was at headquarters at the time and was among our group as course leader. He began complaining of headaches within the first two weeks. It was obviously serious because none of the pain killers the docs gave him worked. Within three months he was dead of a brain tumour. He was young, fit and an extremely capable aviator so his death was one hell of a shock.
Of the 24 officers on the course, only four were pilots and it was clear from the start that there was an imbalance because we spoke English and the rest were all Afrikaans. Also, without making too fine a point of it, none of the other officers were blessed with the same level of mental preparedness for decisions and planning as were we four aviators, largely because it was part of our everyday job.
The staff course ended up being completely different from what I might have expected. We were required to tell the group about our lives, what we had done, our failures, what we were sorry about and a lot else. Frankly, I regarded that side of it as bullshit. I had never been one to elaborate on anything personal and wasn’t about to start then.
Some of the guys would be in tears while recounting their experiences of life, but I went in the other direction. With my black sense of humour I would tell the group about recent battles, of killing people and of seeing blood and guts everywhere when we pulled out the casualties. That was real and had shaped the lives of those of us who were involved.
I recall one woman recoiling in horror during one of my particularly gory descriptions. Pete Vivier, one of my flying pals, in contrast, egged me on because, being a pilot too, he understood perfectly what I was talking about. He’d also been through that crap quite often. In the end we two weren’t invited to take part in any more of these ‘bleeding heart’ discussions. I think they must have regarded us as crass. The consensus was that the majority in the group couldn’t understand how anybody could sink to such a depth of depravity. ‘Fuck! What was war all about?’ I asked. But I never did get an answer.
It didn’t take me long to appreciate the extent of the mismatch. I was amazed at the inability of the jam-stealers and technical people among us to appreciate a situation for what it was and to make a snap decision. There were some officers on the staff course who didn’t know what the hell they were doing. Most were apprehensive when I was made a Syndicate Leader, largely because I didn’t take myself all that seriously. I was perceived as simply too casual in my approach to things.
Then I started having second thoughts about the value of a staff course qualification. I couldn’t help feeling that my processes of ratiocination were being downgraded to their level. Also, I deplored being conditioned to think the way they did and Pete and I went over this a couple of times. At one debriefing, I confronted the CDS on this issue. A Mirage pilot himself, he couldn’t avoid agreeing with us. However, he also had his reservations. One of the purposes of the staff course, he declared, was that everybody was taught to think along the same lines. I replied that the real objective was that they wanted me to destroy my own individuality. It was like something out of George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty-Four.
Soon, my enthusiasm waned and I started coasting. I kept thinking about the higher staff echelons in the SADF. What was the thinking at the uppermost levels? For instance, some of the operations across the border in Angola were a nightmare because of a patent lack of cohesive planning. I ended up fairly disillusioned about the quality and capabilities of the majority of senior military commanders with whom I had come into contact. However, that didn’t detract from my feelings about the really good ones with whom I’d worked and who were still very much around. My conclusion was that brilliant minds were being dragged back by a bunch of Neanderthals.
To cap it all, towards the end of the course, we were getting lectures on the geo-politics of the region. Some very controversial figures were invited to address us, including a number of bleed-ing-heart liberal types who were telling us that what we were doing in Angola was all wrong. They claimed, totally without justification because none of them had ever been near the place, that those Afrikaners with whom I was dealing believed they had a covenant with God that told them what they were doing with regard to people with other skin colour was right. It came as a bit of a shock to listen to them.
By the time I left Swartkops, about all that had been achieved was the complete undermining of all the confidence I’d ever had in the political system. By realising that the apartheid politics that I had been so avidly supporting were totally wrong, I’d become a maverick. Curiously, it wasn’t an overnight transition. It took quite a while to get me there.
One of the SAAF Pumas on the ground during Operation Super to bring in ammunition and take out casualties. Photo: Neall Ellis Collection
That was when I started to rebel, subtly at first and then quite blatantly. I’d totally lost faith in the course and its purpose to create decision-makers and even began wearing my veldskoene with no socks, except when I was flying, even to quite important social events at the base. Also, I resented having to don suits on more formal occasions and it wasn’t long before I was upbraided for my non-conformist attitude. I often wonder whether I would ever have moved up to staff rank after that fiasco. I doubt it.
The outcome was that I’d become a misfit. The war on the border continued and I went on working as one of the senior gunship pilots in the air force. Somehow though, I couldn’t help feeling that somewhere along the way I’d lost the initiative, and when the opposing sides in Angola called it quits, I was actually quite happy.
These were difficult times for South Africa in other respects, but with the release of Nelson Mandela from prison and the abolition of apartheid, my spirits were heightened. I knew, too, that there were others out there who thought as I did. At the same time, a future in the SADF suddenly became sticky.
Gen Joep Joubert, a seasoned veteran of hostilities in Angola from the early days, who had been one of my mentors throughout my career, called me one day to say that for the time being all air force promotions were frozen. The order had gone as high as the Air Force Council. In short, he confided, there was no real future for me or anybody else like me in the SAAF. The air force wouldn’t disappear, he said, but there would be no new commands, except dead-end jobs like flying desks. However, there was an option, he suggested: ‘Take the package.’ He was talking about the air force retirement package, which was actually quite lucrative for somebody like me who had served for so many years. That is what I did not very long afterwards, and for the first time in decades, at the age of 40, I was out of uniform and in Civvy Street.
CHAPTER EIGHT
NEW DIRECTIONS—DANGEROUS CHALLENGES
Leaving the air force was an enormous challenge. It was the only real life Neall knew. The men and women in uniform who had been part of his life for decades, almost since leaving school, were not only like family, they were his family.
But I’d made the break and I knew that I couldn’t go back. Anyway, I had good money in the bank, my entire pension. Unfortunately that didn’t last because, like so many military people who had little experience of the world outside, I was soon persuaded to part with most of it by investing in a sharp-edged fishing venture and that was that—money all gone
It was a catastrophe. I could see everything going wrong and there was nothing I could do about it, which was when I started getting panicky. Meanwhile Zelda, a nurse, had been working intermittently and at that time wasn’t earning. She went back to her old nursing career, starting with a fairly good job in Hermanus. It took her away from
home most of the time, although she would join me for weekends at the Arniston fishing village where we were living. Apart from what she earned, there was nothing else coming in which complicated things somewhat because we had the two elder children at boarding school at Bredasdorp. Things were starting to get tough.
I was finally offered a job by Richard Devine, a friend from way back, who had made his packet in horse racing. He had a farm just outside Paarl exporting flowers and fruit to Europe. He also had seven or eight hectares of carrots, some of which became my responsibility. However, I wasn’t earning much—R3,000 a month (about $700 at the time)—and it was difficult because the children still had to be educated. Somehow we managed though.
I’d see Pumas from the air force base at Ysterplaat flying over the valley where I lived, and my heart would leap. Still, I kept at it for about 18 months until Zelda asked me: ‘why don’t you go back to flying?’
With the war in the Balkans gathering pace, things were tense in Europe at the time and I’d been following events carefully. A couple of weeks after the NATO bombings of August 1995, Slade Healy, an old air force chopper pilot pal of mine, called and made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. He said he’d been in the Balkans flying Mi-17 helicopters for a bunch of rebels in Bosnia and was looking for some willing hands to join him. The money was good—$6,000 up front with an additional $1,000 an hour flying time. Obviously there were risks, but then that was what it was all about, were his words. I spoke to Zelda about the prospect and she said I should go. It was what I wanted to do anyway. She declared she’d manage on her own until things were more settled. Richard arrived at the farm the following morning and I told him I was leaving. I was stagnating and just had to make the move, I stated, which was the truth.
Shortly after I’d spoken to Slade, I got the call from Johannesburg. ‘How does flying for a crazy bunch of Islamic militants appeal to you?’ asked a fellow named Mario, Slade’s colleague. I’d worked with Mario in the past while flying combat in Angola and he was one of the most experienced pilots in the game. My reply was guarded: ‘Depends on which bunch of Muslims.’ I wasn’t exactly hesitant, but I didn’t want to sound overenthusiastic. After all, the Balkans had already acquired the kind of reputation that caused most freelancers to shy away, not only because of the lack of money but the word coming out of there was that most of the equipment was sub-standard and poorly maintained. Even worse was the fact that both sides had little regard for the fundamental ethics of combat. The Geneva Convention might have been a parlour game and everybody knew that you’d be fortunate to survive if you managed to live through being shot down and were taken prisoner. The odds were stacked against us. I was also testy because of the experiences of some of my friends who had volunteered to fly in the Balkans: some hadn’t been paid, others were killed.
‘There is a limit to what I will do for money’, I told Mario.
‘This is different, though’, said the other man. ‘You’ll be working for Muslim separatists in Bosnia. They’re a tough bunch and they’re reliable.’ Mario went on to describe the mission.
‘Done!’ replied Nellis, unequivocal because he trusted Mario, although they still hadn’t discussed money.
‘Where do you want me?’ he asked.
‘Jan Smuts, at four this afternoon’, came the reply.
That was a tall order, since the main international airport in Johannesburg was a two-hour flight away, with another hour on the road to Cape Town’s airport, and Nellis still had to make his booking. However, he got going anyway.
Mario had said that Nellis would be working with friends on the new assignment. Two of them, Jakes Jacobs and Jaco Klopper, were still serving members of the South African Air Force. They would have to take ‘unofficial’ leave and wouldn’t be telling their bosses where they were heading or what they’d be doing. As in any regular force, flying combat for a foreign government was what the Americans like to call an effective career terminator. Others in the team were Phil Scott, Pete Minnaar, and Mike Hill, all veteran former SAAF chopper crews with years of combat experience. Hill had been a member of the team in one of the final phases of the war in Angola when Nellis was commanding the chopper wing.
The way Mario explained it, the men would be handling a pair of Bosnian Mi-8s in ground support roles in outlying areas such as Gorazde, Bihac, and other enclaves. Since the Serbian Army had isolated most Islamic settlements from the world outside, either by laying siege or ambushing all the approaches, these people used helicopters to bring in supplies.
Although the South African pilots finally settled on the financial details and agreed to go, the assignment worried Nellis as it did the others, although Nellis did not discover this until they later discussed it. For a start, this was an unusually hazardous undertaking with a few twists to it. It would be winter by the time they arrived, and winters in Yugoslavia could be harsh. Because much of the flying would be over the mountains, the terrain would be difficult to traverse, especially when cloud cover obscured towns, which could happen for weeks at a time, and high ground constantly loomed over them.
Then came the bloody-minded Serbs, whose territory they would have to traverse in their aircraft and whose arsenal included some of the most sophisticated anti-aircraft weapons available. Only after they reached Bosnia were they to discover that the choppers had no navigational aids to speak of, and that almost all the flying was at night. It was a tough call!
Still, the pay was excellent and all the ‘volunteers’ were broke. Weather allowing, the men would be required to fly as many missions as they could, two a day if possible. They would get an extra $500 for each sortie completed, and, as was agreed up front with Mario, operational flights would be in tandem with two Mi-8s to a mission, very much as they had operated in Africa. If one of the machines was forced down, the other could pick up survivors.
In Johannesburg, Nellis and the others were briefed by Slade Healy. He had just returned to South Africa, having flown for the Bosnians. It was his job to negotiate terms for this new group of aviators and he told them that his link in the Balkans was a fellow by the name of Zarif: a ‘heavy Muslim political character from Zenica’, were his words.
It was also Healy who warned Nellis and company at that first briefing that the job was not easy. He used the word ‘precarious’, emphasizing the threat by detailing his first flight from Zenica, a city north-west of Sarajevo. That mission had been planned to reach Gorazde, then completely surrounded by Serbian forces.
‘Our chopper took some heavy ground fire, much of it sustained’, Healy explained, adding that there was a lot more battle damage than they would have liked before they were able to make it safely into a landing zone in the mountains. Also, the crew had to fly in both directions using night vision goggles. ‘This is going to be hard work’, he declared. However, it seemed worth it, considering that South Africa was in a recession. Universally, this kind of freelance military activity was in short supply just then, so it was a welcome opportunity for them all.
Healy also cautioned the new arrivals about the machines they would be flying. Since none of them had piloted Mi-8s before, they wouldn’t have time to conventionally convert to the Russian helicopters before going operational. It wasn’t an ideal situation, he cautioned, but there wasn’t any other way. He also hinted that if they didn’t accept the contract, there would be others who would.
Arriving at Zagreb, the Croatian capital, was an experience for the men. Nellis recalled that it was the first time he’d been out of Africa, so he was excited at the prospect of something different.
The group was met on arrival by Zarif, a short, slim man with a moustache, and taken to a small, dismal hotel where he arranged dinner. He left them to spend the night on their own, and in Nellis’ view this combination of events did not bode well for the future. The following morning they were driven to a Croatian Army military airfield on the outskirts of town, where they boarded an Mi-8MTV destined for Zenica. Once there, they would be taken to
the Bosnian front line, said Zarif.
Along the way, their helicopter halted briefly in Banja Luka to pick up a couple of mysterious characters dressed totally in black. With their faces hidden behind balaclavas, they were obviously the local version of Special Forces. They didn’t utter a greeting or a word throughout, which wasn’t that unusual. Neall recalls that many of the troops the South Africans encountered in the following days were dressed in black and were uncommunicative. What really worried him was that these people didn’t look or act like professionals, especially considering that this was a country at war. The men didn’t have that seasoned military look about them, either in appear ance or in the way they handled their weapons. For all that, wherever they landed there was a lot of military hardware about, including tanks and former Soviet APCs, 20mm cannon, 14.5mm heavy machine guns and 23mm quads (four-barrelled, heavy machine guns). Seeing all that made it really hit home that there was some really serious fighting going on.
While heading to their final destination, they were able to check out the terrain in which they would be operating. It was bleak and mountainous with little tree cover. Generally, recalls Nellis, it was all quite uninviting and not the kind of country that made hostilities easy.
The first afternoon after they arrived, after several stops along the way, the group landed at Zenica and were taken to a house by the river, a couple of kilometres from the local military headquarters. Zarif said that it would be their home for the duration. While there was a rumbling of artillery in the mountains, there was not much evidence of fighting around town, although most of the buildings were scarred by shell fire. Whenever a UN vehicle came past the people would shout abuse at their blue helmeted occupants and hurl rocks. Neall recalls that ‘it was all pretty sinister, actually, especially since this was our first exposure to the world of Islam’.