OMUTHIYA

Commandant Dippenaar arrived at Oshakati on 5 January 1979. At that stage consisted only of the quartermaster, Lieutenant Neels Halgryn.

Dippenaar began looking for a where he could establish a home base for the unit. He and Halgryn headed for the Oshivello training ground, which was currently occupied by about 200 mechanised infantrymen of Alpha Company 1 SAI, who had come up to the border from the Tempe base at Bloemfontein under command of Major Epp van Lill and were now lying up at Oshivello.

Dippenaar did a thorough reconnaissance of the general area and found a suitable site for his field base near Oshivello. For its name he chose “Omuthiya”, an Ovambo word meaning “camel-thorn tree” – he explains that “the first visit to the camel-thorn bush, with its plentiful vaalbos (wild sage), and mopani trees here and there, made the decision a simple one, because it looked the same everywhere. Still, there was a patch of camel-thorn trees which lent character to the surroundings, and it was finally decided that they would be the central point of the bush base.”

Its one drawback was that the available water was brack, although it was believed that it would help to lighten the burden of supplying the large amounts of water the base would consume in various ways. It did not work out quite like that, and Dippenaar recalls that “eventually the carting of fresh water from Oshivello was a painful daily task.”

But that was Omuthiya’s only real drawback. Its virtues far outweighed its disadvantages, and it was destined to remain 61 Mech’s home to the very end of the border war, and become the jumping-off place for sundry external and internal operations.

Omuthiya’s location and lay-out made for maximum effectiveness. It lay just west of the Etosha Game Reserve and about 20km north of Oshivello. Nearby was the tarmacked highway leading northwards to Ondangwa and Oshakati. Within easy reach, about 120km to the south – a mere hop and skip by SWA/Namibian standards – was the major mining town of Tsumeb. North of Omuthiya was a vast, thinly populated training area which extended all the way to the international border, 150km away as the crow flies. In a nutshell, Omuthiya was located close to everything it needed to spring into action at short notice.

His plans for the layout were complete by the time 61 Mech’s first troops arrived. They were allocated space for their tents, and construction of the base commenced at the hands of a small element of engineers, with the new arrivals supplying the muscle. Dippenaar knew very well that contented soldiers made for a good unit, and so the first construction priorities were to provide two large and fully equipped ablution facilities, cement floors for the tents and a kitchen and combined mess and recreation hall large enough to cater for 1 000 officers and men.

It was a strenuous time for 61 Mech’s founder members and their leader group under Captain Fred Burger, several of whose members, such as Lieutenant Hannes van der Merwe and Lieutenant Mike Muller, were to see further service with the unit. Backing them up were the permanent staff members, such as Captain Thys Rall, the adjutant, WO1 M C Barnard, the Regimental Sergeant-Major, Staff Sergeant Henri (“Duppie”) du Plessis of the light workshop troop and not least the chief cook, Staff-Sergeant Willem van Rensburg.

Omuthiya’s location just outside the sprawling Etosha Game Reserve resulted in frequent interactions with the local wildlife, then and later. It was not unusual for elephants to wander through the lines at night, and at one stage a zebra foal took up residence between the soldier’s tents.

By November 1979 Omuthiya’s construction was complete. In its final form the lay-out comprised a combined home base, training ground and operational staging area, its neat rows of tents and some prefabricated buildings discreetly hidden from general view by the dense surrounding bush. It was designed for quick reaction-time and a minimum duplication of effort.

All members shared the base amenities and facilities, such as the messes, recreational facilities, sick bay, parade ground and logistical infrastructure. Each sub-unit had its own tented lines and staging area, where the fighting vehicles and other main armaments could be held ready to move at short notice.

On the 17th of that month Omuthiya was officially opened by the Administrator-General, Dr Gerrit Viljoen, with General Viljoen and his wife in attendance.