Co- published in 2011 by: Helion & Company Limited CONTENTS 26 Willow Road Solihull West Midlands B91 1UE G lossary 2 England I ntroduction 2 Tel. 0121 705 3393 Fax 0121 711 4 075 email: info@ helion.co.uk Chapter 1: Background to the battle 4 website: www.helion.co.uk Chapter 2: Planning and Operation Bruilof 7 and Chapter 3: Training at De Brug 10 Chapter 4 : Skillie Human’s disturbing premonition and the jump 14 30° South Publishers ( Pty) Ltd. 16 I vy Road Chapter 5: The assault begins 21 Pinetown 36 10 Chapter 6 : The battle 24 South Africa email: info@ 30degreessouth.co.za Chapter 7: Cassinga Base is taken 34 website: www.30degreessouth.co.za Chapter 8: Cubans to the rescue 39 Chapter 9: G oing home 43 Text © Mike McWilliams, 2011 Photographs © Mike McWilliams 2011, Chapter 10: A Potemkin refugee camp: debunking SWAPO claims 4 6 except where individually credited. Designed & typeset by 30° South Afterword 54 Publishers ( Pty) Ltd., South Africa Appendix I : The T- 10 parachute system 55 Cover design by 30° South Publishers Appendix I I : Weapons used at the Battle of Cassinga 55 ( Pty) Ltd., South Africa Reprinted in 2012 by Pinetown Printers, Appendix I I I : Vehicles used at the Battle of Cassinga 59 Durban Appendix I V: SAAF aircraft used at the Battle of Cassinga 61 I SBN 978- 1- 9076 77- 39- 7 British Library Cataloguing- in- Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored, manipulated in any retrieval system, or Tunisia transmitted in any mechanical, electronic Morocco form or by any other means, without the Algeria Libya prior written authority of the publishers, Western Egypt Sahara except for short extracts in media reviews. Any person who engages in Mauritania any unauthorized activity in relation to Mali Niger Eritrea Senegal this publication shall be liable to criminal Chad The G ambia Sudan prosecution and claims for civil and Burkina Faso Djibouti criminal damages. G uinea Bissau G uinea Nigeria Cô te Central Ethiopia Sierra Leone D’I voire African G hana A note on the photographs Liberia Republic Cameroon Benin Most of the colour photographs in this Togo Somalia Equatorial Uganda book were taken with an Olympus OM1, G uinea K enya G abon Democratic Republic Rwanda mm single lens refle camera he Congo of the Burundi lenses used were a 50mm Olympus Congo Tanzania f1.2, a 70 – 220 Soligor f2.4 zoom lens ith macro he film used as oda colour print film, ith Angola Malawi the eception of the first spool of gfa Z ambia colour transparency film he Z imbabwe Mozambique monochrome shots were taken with an Namibia SADF- issue K odak 35mm SLR camera Botswana Madagascar and issue film of unnon Swaziland speed. Lesotho South Africa The cover photograph of the author under canopy over Cassinga was taken by Sergeant Des Steenkamp, a member of A Company in the attack group. AFRI CA@ WAR VOLUME 3: BATTLE FOR CASSI NG A—SOUTH AFRI CA’S CONTROVERSI AL CROSS- BORDER RAI D, ANG OLA 1978 GLOSSARY AFB airforce base (Popular Movement for the Liberation of ANC African National Congress Angola) Bde Brigade NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organization Bn Battalion NSM national serviceman Coy Company Pl Platoon DTA Democratic Turnhalle Alliance PLAN People’s Liberation Army of Namibia, DZ drop zone SWAPO’s armed wing EW electronic warfare POW prisoner of war FAPLA Forças Armadas Populares para a Libertação de PWC personal weapons container Angola (Popular Armed Forces for the RAP Regimental Aid Post Liberation of Angola) RPG rocket-propelled grenade FNLA Frente Nacional para a Libertação de Angola SAAF South African Air Force (National Front for the Liberation of Angola) SADF South African Defence Force (pre-1994) HAA Helicopter Administration Area SANDF South African National Defence Force HE high exposive (post 1994) HQ headquarters SWAPO South West Africa People’s Organization intrep intelligence report TRC Truth and Reconciliation Commission JARIC Joint Air Reconnaissance Intelligence Centre UN United Nations LZ landing zone UNHCR United Nations High Commission for MAOT Mobile Air Operations Team Refugees MK Umkhonto we Sizwe (Spear of the Nation), the UNICEF United Nations Children’s Fund. armed wing of the ANC UNITA União Nacional para a Independência Total de MP Military Police Angola (National Union for the Total MPLA Movimento Popular para a Libertaçao de Angola Independence of Angola) INTRODUCTION Exactly 33 years have passed since the battle of Cassinga. This reliving the battle and its many has enabled all sides in the conflict to view it, and its outcomes, controversies. The various sides with a certain dispassionate perspective. This is a soldier’s story cannot even reach agreement from a military historian’s viewpoint. It is an insight into the battle as to how to spell the name of itself, from ‘the sharp end’, and demonstrates once and for all who what was an old Portuguese was really in command of the offensive. It debunks the idea that local government centre. The Cassinga was a refugee camp and analyzes, for the first time, why Namibians spell it with a ‘K’ and it has been so important for SWAPO to maintain that façade for so everyone else with a ‘C’, as in long. Lastly, it is a paean to combatants on both sides, both living Cassinga. This book will use the and dead. ‘Cassinga’ spelling because that The main players were the South West Africa People’s is how it was spelt on the marker Organization (SWAPO); their armed wing, the People’s in the centre of the town, and Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN); the South African Defence also on the large distance marker Force (SADF); the Cuban military training and advisory cadres on the road leading to the town. The author presumes that the and, to a lesser extent, the Angolan army, Forças Armadas Populares Portuguese know the correct spelling, because they named the de Libertação de Angola (FAPLA) and, on the fringes, South Africa’s town in the first place. African National Congress’s (ANC) armed wing, Umkhonto we Another talking point, in South Africa at least, was who was Sizwe (MK). in command of the attacking force. Brigadier du Plessis claimed The controversy over the battle still rages, with each anniversary at one time to have been the commander, but everyone else, commemorated in Namibia with a public holiday called Kassinga including SWAPO, knows that Colonel Jan Breytenbach was the Day and in South Africa, 4 May, Cassinga Day. In South Africa it is commander on the day. The author attended the orders group and commemorated both as a great feat of arms and as a remembrance all orders were personally hand written, circulated and presented day for all paratroopers who lost their lives during the long bush by Colonel Breytenbach. war. Most anniversaries are accompanied by the press and media The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission Volume 2, 2 I NTRODUCTI ON and female, in and out of uniform. This has meant that the exceptionally brave conduct of the SWAPO/PLAN soldiers has never been recognized by their own people; rather, they have been depicted as cowering refugees instead of the brave and resourceful fighters they really were. The South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), a body not kindly disposed toward the SADF, found not one shred of evidence that there was a massacre of civilians or refugees at Cassinga, or that the paratroopers An aerial photograph of Cassinga. Town marker. had in any way breached the standard rules of engagement in the execution of their task. However, the TRC did find that the raid was an infringement on the sovereignty of Angola and that the use by the South African Air Force of cluster bombs was contrary to United Nations codes of practice, where unexploded ordnance could harm innocent people long after a battle. These were the only negative aspects the TRC could find, despite Cassinga being one of the most eagerly anticipated ‘atrocity’ investigations during the lengthy TRC process. Soldiers and families from all sides today still question the reason why their friends and Sam Nujoma. Col Jan Breytenbach at left. loved ones died fighting the ‘bush war’ and at Source: Wikicommons Source: Pathfinder Company Cassinga in particular. The only answer which Chapter 2, ‘The State Outside South Africa between 1960 and 1990’ makes any sense all these years later is that the states: “General Ian Gleeson (101 Task Force), Colonel ‘Blackie’ de conflict allowed Namibia (formerly South West Africa, or SWA) Swardt (SAAF) and Colonel ‘Giep’ Booysen (SA Medical Services) to join the nations of the world as an equal partner. The leader of were in overall command of the actual operation and responsible for SWAPO, Sam Nujoma, vowed that he and his organization would its planning. Fighting forces on the ground at Kassinga were led by take Namibia/South West Africa through the barrel of the gun. Colonel Jan Breytenbach (32 Battalion), and Commandant Deon For many years SWAPO was not interested in either a negotiated Ferreira, and at Chetequera by Major Frank Bestbier.” settlement or democratic elections. Their clear objective was to seize Whether Cassinga was a refugee camp or a military base has power by force and run the country as a communist dictatorship. It always been a bone of contention. There was even a Master’s thesis was only through a series of setbacks, such as the destruction of his written by a former paratroop officer which was sympathetic to military headquarters at Cassinga, that Nujoma was finally forced the notion that a massacre of refugees took place.