This is episode 44 – it’s the run up to Operation Sceptic in 1980 – or what many folks call Ops Smokeshell. That’s because the main target – Chifufua was code-named Smokeshell or QFL depending on what report you read, but there were other targets too. Before that operation there were a few other incidents across the fighting front. One involved a formation of Impala’s armed with rockets that ended up strafing what they thought was a SWAPO position in Ovamboland – however when they were debriefed, it was clear that they’d entered into Angolan territory and shot up an unknown location inside the territory. Then in 1980 UNITA leader Jonas Savimbi decided his men would capture the towns and hold them. So on 14th April UNITA took Cuangar on the Cubango River – literally on the border. This marked the beginning of a new phase in UNITAs strategy where they planned to hold the entire southern Angolan region if possible. Savimbi approached the SADF and asked for assistance in attacking Savate to drive FAPLA further north west. It was one of their main bases 75 kilometers inside Angola. As you’re going to hear, the South Africans were led to believe it was lightly defended - but that was totally incorrect.

Desmond Latham

Much has been written about the South African Border war which is also known as the Namibian War of Independence. While the fighting was ostensibly about Namibia, most of the significant battles were fought inside Namibia’s northern neighbour, Angola. South Africa’s 23 year border war has been almost forgotten as the Cold War ebbed away and bygones were swept under the political carpet. South African politicians, particularly the ANC and the National Party, decided during negotiations to end years of conflict that the Truth and Reconciliation commission would focus on the internal struggle inside South Africa. For most conscripts in the South African Defence Force, the SADF, they completed matric and then were drafted into the military. For SWAPO or UNITA or the MPLA army FAPLA it was a similar experience but defined largely by a political awakening and usually linked to information spread through villages and in towns. This was a young person’s war which most wars are – after all the most disposable members of society are its young men. Nor was it simply a war between white and black. IT was more a conflict on the ground between red and green. Communism and Capitalism. The other reality was despite being a low-key war, it was high intensity and at times featured by unconventional warfare as well as conventional. At times SADF soldiers would be on foot, walking patrols or SWAPO on foot, launching attacks across the border. But there were motorised heavy vehicles, tanks, artillery, air bombardments and mechanised units rolling into attack each other. For some that was a nightmare, for others, freedom. At times youngsters from the suburbs of Pretoria or Durban were fighting experienced soldiers from Russia and Cuba. For veterans the territory would come to be known as “Nam” as the experience replicated the American experience in Vietnam to some extent.

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