This is episode 42 – it’s 1979 and all hell is breaking loose as the Rhodesian Bush war reaches it apogee and SWAPO increases its incursions into OVamboland and into the Death triangle further south. In this episode we’ll meet an extraordinary woman called Tannie Pompie, real name Pompie van der Westhuizen. She has been lauded and memorialised by retired members of the SADF for good reason. It’s not every day that civilians play such a crucial role in communications in the midst of a war and Tannie Pompie was one of those indefatigable figures that history produces every now and then. By February 1979 SWAPO incursions became known as the Winter Games in a kind of counter-intuitive symbolic phraseology because these were now taking place mainly in summer. But it was during the rainy season – so the Winter Games as they were known accelerated starting at this point. The Triangle of death lay between Tsumeb, Otavi and Grootfontein. The triangle starts around 80 kilometers south east of Etosha Pan, and is well watered making the bush thick and extremely useful as cover if you’re planning attacks on farms – which was precisely what SWAPO was doing. The people of the Triangle of Death farmed a variety of crops. The Roodts on the farm Wildernis for example produced watermelons, others farmed cattle and some had game parks. These are large farms for the most part, isolated and exposed. So on May 8th 1979 Willem and Lena Roodt loaded their bakkie full of watermelons and headed off to Tsumeb. They left Granny and two youngsters behind, their son who was three and their daughter who was slightly older. The old lady and the children would not survive the day.

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