The lead up to the attack
The ops group had been home, taken leave and reassembled back at Oshivelo, plenty of training had taken place and we had great equipment well looked after with great support from the tiffies. In effect we were ready to move at very short notice.
It was late April 1978 when we were effectively quarantined, no longer were we allowed to mix with other troops at Oshivelo or speak to any other person. We had Namibian soldiers amongst us whose families drove up to visit and drop of parcels, probably a 400 km one way trip only to be turned away not allowed to speak to the family member. Briefing sessions were arranged and a tent was set up in which a complete model of the target Angolan camp. We were preparing for Cassinga day.
A lot has been written about Cassinga day and is detailed on the internet, almost all the reports relate to the parabat attack deep into Angola code named Moscow, the Angolan SWAPO HQ. We the mechanised assault group were to hit the Southern Angolan SWAPO HQ about 50 km inside Angola at Chetaquera codenamed Vietnam.
Eland (Noddy cars) tend to load up their main weapons with 15 HE and 5 heat shells one of the troops were informed that they were to load 15 heat and 5 HE. Their function understood, they had to ensure that the T34 tanks posted near to the target were not able to get close to the action, there were a few looks amongst the troops when they received the order. Our troop as with all the others had two functions, the primary one was to neutralise a defensive position on the north west corner of the camp where there was a cross road and then to move on down the road covering the camps flank.
From the scale model we knew everything about the camp, where their trenches were, their gun placements, where their canteens were, sleeping areas and even toilets were located. The only item we were unsure of was the location of their underground HQ.
We had been ready to move on 1 May, to coincide with their Mayday celebrations but the start was delayed, each day we checked and re-checked everything, the 2nd May came and went and then around mid day on the 3rd we were called back to camp, re-fuel and be ready to move. Tension was in the air, it felt like just before a big rugby game. We were national service troops and had been together for sixteen months, you looked around the faces and wondered about the next 48 hours.
At the same time at Smitsdrift, proudly announced to the world the SADF was hosting one of the biggest conventional training exercises ever held. A huge call up of campers had taken place. Little did the units know that they were in reality just back up for what was happening in Ovamboland.
The raid
As the sun fell on the 3rd May 1978 the convoys moved out, clearly well organised every group in its place, past Ondangwa, up to Oshikati, we refuelled and crossed the border at first light despite the muddy conditions. The Angolan bush is heavier than on the Ovambo side, thicker trees but the mechanised unit crossed over hitting a road that approached ‘Vietnam’ from the East, rather than the heavier fortified South. Choppers buzzing overhead keeping an eye out, almost no interaction with any locals, we stopped briefly in one small town before moving on.
Canberra bombers went in ahead of the ground assault and the last thing we saw before we moved for the last time was a huge plumb of smoke over the camp. The bombs had detonated the ammo dump within the camp. Swapo gained huge sympathy from the world after the attack when they claimed that innocent refugees had been attacked, instead of food and clothing these refugees had an ammo dump in their camp.
We raced in with full fire and movement, we were the third troop in, two troops stopped to put down fire, we raced in ready to take out (or be taken out) the defensive positions on the North West corner at the road intersection. Fortunately for us the positions were not manned and before long we shot around to the road and our second positions on the western road.
There was firing from both sides with most of the action down closer to where we were. We took up a position just north of a pump station, as planned, we were the vehicle furthest to the south along the road. Other vehicles came around and passed us, not pre-planned but to help out. Two of those vehicles were hit, one by and anti tank shell and another by a large mortar. Corporal Terry Trubody was killed in the first hit, Terry Bridgeman in the second, the shrapnel penetrating the observation slot and hitting him in the head.
To be fair, although the two hit vehicles were only 20 to 30 metres from me, I never saw the hit, as gunner I was focussing on my task and in looking around through the periscopes looked in front and behind the hit vehicles. The driver on the Trubody vehicle was trooper Bello, he related the fact that he was hit in the shoulder by shrapnel from the hit, the vehicle had stalled and he and the gunner bailed out and were almost attacked by one of our own choppers who then decided to give the troops on the ground the benefit of the doubt and moved on to other targets.
The Noddy cars backed off and the Ratels of the infantry of 1 SAI shot through the camp along with the armoured support troops on the ground. In probably the only fault of the attack, the infantry had been issued with tank suits to go with their nice new armoured Ratels and then they were told not to leopard crawl around in the tank suits because they were too expensive to damage !
Anyway, one of the Ratels found the underground HQ by driving over and falling into it. One of the armoured support troops was first into the HQ, he went in with rifle pointing, I would have thrown a grenade in first but he did not. On entering there was a Cuban officer holding his pistol by the barrel in surrender.
Captured Cuban officers became prisoners of war, many studied through UNISA to keep busy and years later applied for asylum stayed on in South Africa.
We were supposed to clear the main ‘Vietnam’ camp that housed around 500 Swapo and move on to a camp nearby to the South that housed another 250 to 300. But too much time was spent clearing the first camp and we left close to night fall with about 200 prisoners from the camp on our trucks. That night was a bit worrisome, normally supported by our support troop they were busy guarding the prisoners, we had an assault group of around 250 troops, we had 200 Swapo prisoners and knew that an entire camp based nearby could have been planning an attack against us.
Next morning we moved again at first light and every vehicle had one person on air-watch. Thankfully our chopper support arrived after a while and we could consider our ration packs. I as gunner had just started opening a couple of tins for breakfast as we drove and taken my first bite of a polony sausage when the radio barked ‘Kontak, kontak…’. The mouthful turned sour. We were near the second camp and a lone Swapo soldier, probably wondering where the rest of his troops were had opened fire at one of our front vehicles. No one else was spotted and we carried on without further problems.
It was quite a few hours later that we crossed back over the border into Namibia. The border was guarded by SANDF troops from the area and for the first time in two days we could relax.
Reports quoted later about the day report that on 4 May 1978 Swapo lost 600 of their members, the SADF lost 4, two at ‘Vietnam’ and 2 of the parabats that went into ‘Moscow’ at the town of Cassinga. The day remains a public holiday in Namibia.
It is true that Swapo won the propaganda war, they claimed that refugees had been attacked, I know that those refugees had rifles, anti tank weapons, etc. In the camp that we were at, the locals were well equipped, well stocked and they had Angolan and South African currency for use on either side of the border. The two hundred troops captured and taken back to Namibia were released back to their families a few months later.
Even though I write this 34 years after the event, hundreds of memories flood back, I can see the faces of my fellow troops, some names long forgotten, others popping up. I can still smell the air after the camp was hit, I can still remember sitting awake on duty that night inside Angola listening and watching.