Day 4 (Part 1) - Border Tour 2009 - To 'Nam and back - A nostalgic tour of the South West African ('Nam) / Angolan War Zone of the 70's and '80's
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Map of the Western Part of the Operational Area
Up early again and today we travel to the west, past quite a few bases… Ogongo, Ombalantu, Mahenene, Concor, Hurricane AFB and eventually end the day at Ruacana …. 51 Bn HQ…. with a bit of entertainment planned for later the evening…. just outside Oshakati the tar road ends and from there till Hurricane base it’s a dusty, potholed gravel road, so fasten your seatbelts and hold on for dear life. As with the rest of the operational area you constantly have to keep a lookout for stray animals.. plus reckless drivers driving mostly tired looking Ford F100 LDV’s at great speed… not paying attention to any traffic regulations or rules and generally looking as if they have a death wish…. so, if you see a cloud of dust travelling at great speed in your direction, rather pull over to the side of the road or carry the consequences… the amount of wrecks along the road tell the tale of local drivers who decided to shift their brain into neutral when they engaged first gear in their vehicles … so watch out…. you have been warned…at Mahenene we’ll buy some fresh fruit at the experimental farm… the best quality at a very good price… don’t be surprised if we witness a landmine incident or even see a sapper team clearing mines…
Ruacana Turnoff ('88) Ombalantu Base ('88)
so buckle up … your best protection against injuries, should the vehicle detonate a mine….. when detonating a mine the following will happen, in such a short space of time, that it might feel as if the vehicle had just been in a massive accident… the only difference will be loss of hearing for a while and a massive headache… when thinking back, you’ll remember a massive explosion, followed by intense heat, dust, total chaos, disorientation, the vehicle being launched into the air, a massive bang as the vehicle touches the ground, an abrupt stop, overwhelming silence and then only you’ll realize that you feel dizzy, shocked, a bit sore, but lucky to be alive…. that's if you were buckled up... if not so a "jiffybag" (bodybag), might permanently replace your sleeping bag..... not a pleasant thought....
Hippo (’78) Landmine insident (’78) Sapper at work (’78)
Mine clearing (’78) Sapper Lt with tank mine (’78) Gunship landing (’78)
these carpet sweepers are real life savers…. protected by their "supporties" they walk for kilometers everyday.. some of them totally depend on their comrades for protection as they only walk with the mine detector and a pistol .... during the mine incident as shown, the trees surrounding the area all had markings to indicate the presence of mines,
SWAPO’s way of warning the local population….but who can see this at breakneck speed …. the result – 2 people killed. Gunships are often used in this area during follow-up operations, to fly in tracker teams, as dustoff (casevc) aircraft, for trooping and as fire support during contacts and as telstars … communication and control centres…. armament ranges from 7,62mm Browning MG’s, 12,7mm (5.0) Browning MG’s or even 20mm canon fixed to the portside of the helicopters…. either Alouette 111’s or Puma’s… some are even fitted with heat dispersing covers over their engines as the one taking off as shown above…. as protection against a possible missile attack…. always a great feeling to know that you have one in the vicinity when you’re on patrol. In Border slang Alo's were often referred to as Mini's, Puma's as Taxi's and Super Frelons as Putco's....
7,62 Browning MG portside (’78) 7,62 Browning MG portside (’78)
Etaka dam, sometimes called Concordam is roughly 30km’s east of Hurricane AFB, the airport just east of Ruacana base. This lake is a main source of fish for the local population.The pumphouse, between the dam and Concor base has been revved on more than one occasion by SWAPO members, even to the extent of mortaring and cratering the area surrounding the pumphouse, actually killing an officers inside as a result of this… in the photo of the trooper holding the catfish shrapnel marks can be seen just above his head.
Etaka (Concor) dam (’79) Etaka pumphouse ('78) Landmine insident ('78)
Just south of Concor, Eunda, Etunda and Onessi can be found. Eunda is known as the place where the owner of the Cucashop brews the most potent Makelani Blitz - it kicks like a mule, leaves a bad taste in one's mouth for days and a headache that refuses to go away. She also has the only telephone in the area and is always prepared to help at a price, but remember... you never know who is also listening to your conversation.... please watch what you say.... Onessi is a SAP/Koevoet base, in an old German Fortress base just opposite the Mission station at Onessi. A great place for a cold brown one and a chat. Roughly south of Onesi is Ongulumbashe, the place were the Bushwar started…. On August 26th, 1966 a combined force of SAP and SADF members launched an attack on a SWAPO camp known as Ongulumbashe base as with most of the operations, some names pop up everytime… in this case "The Brown Man", sometimes known as "
The Carpenter" or better known as Jan Breytenbach was in overall command of this operation named Operation Blue Wildebeest…. This contact was one of many firsts in the SADF/SAP history…. http://saffer.pbwiki.com/Ongulumbashe?SearchFor=ongulumbashe&sp=1 … Jan Breytenbach is possibly the only SA soldier ever honoured with a poem written by a fellow soldier … http://saffer.pbwiki.com/Jan%20Dirk%20Breytenbach ….and still has a great following, not just in South Africa, but abroad as well… another borderfact - the SA Bushwar lasted for 23 years, from 1966 till 1989, making it one of Africa's longest conflicts, if not the longest in the world, except for the conflict in Ireland. During this war, fathers and sons were often deployed at the same time in the Operational Area, with the result that they can proudly wear the same medal, e.g. the Pro Patria medal for operational duty exceeding 60 days.....The cow as in the photograph above stepped on a landmine just south of Concor… the rest was history… steaks and minced meat all over and a massive hole in the pathway… strange about this incident was that there was no indication, e.g. marks in the trees nearby, a heap of wood or whatever left by SWAPO to indicate to the local population that a mine was close by… not that the cow would have noticed it.... this left one very cross PB (member of the local population) minus one of his herd… between Concor and Josef’s Kraal to the west is a north-south powerline…. the perfect method of communication between SWAPO members north in Angola and their cadres south in SWA… at night one can hear the sound travelling from north to south and back again as they answers in their codes … they did this by repeatedly hitting again the power pylons in pre-arranged codes… quite frightening to listen to these sounds traveling in both directions at night…. another method of communicating is heating makalani fruit/nuts over a fire and launching it into the air with a slingshot… at night one can see these homemade "flares" both north and south of the border in this area… bright red balls to communicate with their allies in the immediate area…. just west of the pylons is the north-south canal that turns east at Concor base. Initially it was designed to supply water to Owambo from the Calueque dam, north in Angola, but due to the war water was pumped from Ruacana dam into the canal. Just east of the north-south canal is the fence that runs parallel to both the canal and the high voltage powerlines…. Big Foot country… legend has it that Big Foot managed to walk on the bottom wire of the fence from Angola south into the Onessi area, trying to evade a Security Force follow-up operation… strangely this also happened in Owambo, Kavango and even in the Caprivi, so whether he really existed, nobody knows.
Josef’s Kraal is a series of huts, cattle camps and maize field running in a north-south direction, making it quite difficult to patrol in an east-west direction in the area without anyone of his extended family noticing the movements of the security forces. Everybody suspects that he plays the game and supplies both sides with information, but nobody can prove this… but never in the area surrounding his kraal have mines ever explode or have suspicious looking tracks ever been seen … makes you wonder… his own series of huts bordered on the east-west road… an ideal position to observe all security force movements along this road…
to be continued.......
Day 4 (Part 2) - Border Tour 2009 - To 'Nam and back - A nostalgic tour of the South West African ('Nam) / Angolan War Zone of the 70's and '80's
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Owambo Kraal (’78) Eating Area (’77)
While at Josef’s kraal, let’s have a look at the typical Owambo kraal…
as with all kraals throughout Africa it is surrounded by a fence of branches to protect the crops, livestock and the inhabitants from animals, both wild animals and cattle from neighbouring areas. These kraals, actually a series of connected kraals all belong to a single family or extended family…. with the men living to one side and the women and children having their own huts….in between these two living area will be the cooking area and storage area where the previous season’s harvest is stored in massive woven storage baskets. …the children look after the cattle during the day, the women tend to the crops, while the men keep themselves busy with drinking mahango beer and just doing nothing. If these huts are close to rivers, watu’s (wooden boats carved from tree trunks) are used as transport or to catch fish…. these watu’s, pulled by oxen, are used during the dry season as transport. Different areas have different customs, but generally drinking mahango beer during the rituals form the basis of all these customs. Later we'll have the opportunity to taste both the mahango beer and Makalani blitz.
Seboe Cattle ('77) Rfn. Boetie Turck's Casevac Puma ('77)
L/Cpl Rossouw’s Casevac (’77) Casevac Puma (’77)
The casevac photos were taken on 23 June 1977 after 2 SADF members were tasked to escort a civilian from Ruacana to Oshakati… the civilian driver swerved out for a dog in the road and rolled the vehicle… the Puma casevaced a seriously injured Rfn George "Boetie" Turck to Grootfontein. The other SADF member L/Cpl. Rossouw was not seriously injured and was discharged a few days later from the clinic in Ruacana Town. Rfn. Turck was left paralyzed as a result of the accident and passed away on 23 May 1988.
Ruacana Turnoff ('88) Ruacana Turnoff ('88)
Hurrican AFB is just east of Ruacana Town base, houses all types of military personnel and the largest AFB in the western part of the operational area. From here we’ll fly over the Kaokoveld and bases to the west tomorrow, but first let’s visit the base in Ruacana town for some chow and entertainment. Ruacana Town base is the HQ of 51 Bn… being to the western side of town, it’s surrounded by a high fence, trenches, bomb shelters and protected by 81mm mortars. All around Ruacana Town Ack-Ack towers can be seen as well as bunkers that are manned 24 hours a day by guards, quite a well protected town, if taken into account that the pirameter is further protected by anything from automatic claymore mines, to jumping jacks and all kinds of nasty APM’s. For tonight we have flown in The Bats, Clive Bruce and Gene Rockwell for your entertainment… so relax… enjoy the concert… you will be shown to your tents as well as the mess where we’ll all enjoy a heart military supper…
Angola in the distance (’83) Ruacana Base (’83)
Hurricane AFB (’78) Viscount with entertainment group (’77)
after that the pub will be open as usual till 21h00 and lights out will be at 22h00, but remember stand too at 19h00 and the base protection firing plan at 21h30… quite something to see and hear…. tomorrow morning we’ll depart just after coffee and rusks at 07h30… see you then.
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The Bats & Gene Rockwell ('77) Clive Bruce ('77) Pieter Geel [Rfn. P.J. Geel was killed during a contact at Ruacana on 29 February 1980 and is buried in the Stikland Cemetery, Bellville]
Another Border casualty on no ROH available, until photographs were submitted to the South African War Grave Project and still not on the official SADF/SANDF Roll of Honour The cross on the South West African / Namibian map indicates a place , very close to Ruacana, but on the S.W.A. side of the border.... the word "gesneuwel" indicates that he was a Border Conflict casualty..... unfortunately this grave as many graves in other cemeteries has been damaged.... Andre Nell , born 3 July 1959, died on 25 March 1983 ... and is buried in the Stikland Cemetery, Bellville .... we will remember him. To be Continued ..... Day 5 .... Kaokoveld.... Ruacana dam.... Sodoliet.... Opuwo... Chitado .... and then into Angola |
