This is episode 37 and we’re dealing with a Cuban counter-attack targeting the South African paratroopers still being airlifted out of Cassinga. It was the afternoon of 4th May 1978 and more than half the paratroopers had still not been evacuated from the landing Zone to the east of the shattered town. Jan Breytenbach had requested urgent close air support and had also ordered the helicopters at Whisky Three which was the Helicopter Administration area 35km east of Cassinga to return and extract his trapped paratroopers. But the Cuban armour was almost on top of them and there was no sign of any aircraft. Breytenbach withdraw into the surrounding bush and try to get to an emergency LZ setup as you heard last episode. In the meantime some eyewitnesses claim that General Viljoen, concerned now about the very real possibility of being captured, removed his badges of rank and his beret and hid them under a stone. He’d flown in on one of the first evacuation choppers and decided to remain very much against Defence Force operating procedure. The commanding officer of the entire Army should not place himself directly in harms way – even if he was trying to show that he was a courageous as the rest. And yet the MPLA and SWAPO had actually won a major victory at Cassinga. Pretoria’s political strategy had failed miserably with SWAPO about to gain a vast amount of credibility. It so happened that the World Conference for the Eradication of Racism and Racial Descrimination was about to take place in Basle, Switzerland between 18 and 21st May. SWAPO Secretary for Information and Publicity Peter Katjavivi was a speaker there and he denied the presence of any military installations or PLAN combatants at Cassinga saying it was a refugee camp.

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.

Episode Summary

Clips