they unsure of exactly where their comrades were, they were often unable to see the enemy in the bush. One Eland was shot out, but the others killed enemy fighters by the dozen.
But the battle was far from over. Having reached the objective south of Chetequera, Van Lill had his soldiers debus and move on foot. But he now discovered that his rapid advance had missed quite a number of SWAPO fighters, who started firing at his force from the rear. He had no option: the attack had to be launched all over again, this time in the opposite, northerly direction. And because most of the enemy were concentrated here, it meant heavy going. Van Lill received reinforcements in the form of a mechanised platoon from Combat Team 3. A group of five Alouette III helicopter gunships also joined in the fight, picking off the enemy from the air with their 20-mm cannon. Two were hit by the defenders and had to return to base.
Van Lill witnessed one of his troops grabbing an insurgent’s rifle and slapping him hard in the face. When an alarmed Van Lill asked the soldier what the hell he was doing, the man showed him that the enemy fighter had a stoppage, and that he was thus in no danger.
At about 15h15, the base was at last in South African control, after which the rear echelon could move in to resupply the combat teams and render medical aid to wounded SADF and SWAPO personnel. Several women were among the prisoners, many of them clad only in underclothes. Apparently, they had been engaged in calisthenics when the attack started. “What struck me,” Van Lill commented many years later, “was that the women were far braver than the men”.[66]
The final South African casualty figure was 2 dead and 10 wounded, while more than 200 SWAPO fighters were killed and another 200 were taken prisoner. Among the prisoners were four panic-stricken young women, discovered in a hut, frantically reading aloud from the Bible. “It was not a pleasant task,” Bestbier commented.[67]
It was now too late to attack the SWAPO base at Mahama, as planned. The combat group therefore stayed in the bush overnight and returned to their base at Oshivello in Ovamboland the next day.
Cassinga and Chetequera were the most important parts of Operation Reindeer, but there were a number of other attacks on SWAPO bases. Two combat teams under Commandant Chris Serfontein (for some reason generally known as “Swart Hand” or Black Hand) and Joep Joubert, supported by a 140-mm G-2 battery under Major Piet Uys, took on five SWAPO bases near the border, namely, Windhoek, Dombondola 1 and 2, Chatua and Haimona. Additionally, five companies of 32 Battalion under Major (later Brigadier General) Eddie Viljoen would take care of 17 smaller bases further eastwards. All these attacks were unsuccessful, as the bases proved to have been hurriedly evacuated.[68]
Lessons learnt
Tactically, the airborne assault on Cassinga elicited much interest, especially among the airborne community. The United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union, France, Germany and Israel all had considerable airborne forces, some being airlifted by helicopter, others still parachute-trained. (A group of Israeli officers even visited South Africa – as Jannie Geldenhuys put it – to “find out how the hell we managed to do that operation”. The leader of the visitors was Colonel Dan Shomron, commander of the famed Entebbe raid of 1976.)[69]
Cassinga’s tactical and operational influence on the Border War itself was, however, next to nil. This was despite the establishment of 44 Parachute Brigade, consisting of three (later four) parachute battalions, with a 120-mm mortar battery and other support troops, all parachute-trained. Provided the SAAF had enough airlift capacity (which was not the case), the whole brigade could be dropped behind enemy lines to create mayhem. But that was not to be. For the remainder of the war, paratroopers were mostly used either as motorised infantry on cross-border operations, or as Romeo Mike (see Chapter 9) reaction forces in the counterinsurgency war in northern SWA. Although the brigade’s enthusiastic commanders, colonels Jan Breytenbach, Frank Bestbier, Archie Moore and Mac Alexander, attempted to sell the airborne concept to the SADF high command,[70] the way Cassinga had teetered on the brink of a disaster probably weighed too heavily on the generals’ minds. So, like the German Oberkommando der Wehrmacht following the parachute assault on Crete in May 1941, the high command came to the conclusion that large-scale parachute operations were too risky.
The landward attack on Chetequera, the baptism of fire for the Ratel, was in fact much more meaningful than Cassinga as a template for future attacks. Chetequera became the prototype of the later large-scale cross-border operations into Angola. The army analysed the performance of the Ratel closely and made several changes to the vehicle based on the experience at Chetequera.[71]
Another problem that cropped up at Cassinga as well as Chetequera was the inadequacy of the South African radio system. Not only did the “pongos” (the army guys) on the ground find it difficult to communicate with supporting aircraft, they also had problems contacting each other. This complicated things unnecessarily. The problem would be solved with new radio equipment, which was procured later.
Operationally, the operation was not as successful as had been hoped. Still, according to the SADF figures, 856 SWAPO fighters were killed and more than 200 taken prisoner (at Chetequera), which meant that SWAPO had lost about a third of its ready military force.[72] But Jan Breytenbach writes of “a general relaxation on the part of the South Africans with no follow-through to maintain the initiative”,[73] thereby disregarding an important military principle. Indeed, until July there was a drastic decrease in insurgent activity south of the border, but in the absence of a follow-up, it flared up again considerably.[74]
Another operational consequence was that SWAPO also learnt a few important lessons. Cassinga in particular had been laid out as an orthodox military base, with buildings, roads and a parade ground. Hereafter, bases were spread out over much bigger areas, with covered bunkers replacing buildings and everything being camouflaged. This would make things much more difficult for the South Africans in forthcoming operations. Also, the bases were moved around, which meant that the SADF’s intelligence picture became outdated rather quickly.[75]
Another consequence of the operation was the establishment of a permanent mechanised unit in northern SWA, to be used in cross-border operations. Battle Group Juliet was an ad hoc unit, put together especially for the attack on Chetequera. After the event, the idea was to store the equipment at Grootfontein, to be used by another ad hoc unit when the need arose. But obviously this was not as good as having a permanent unit in the area.
And so in October 1978 General Constand Viljoen appointed the first commander of a permanent mechanised conventional warfare unit in the operational area: Commandant Johann “Dippies” Dippenaar. The unit, known as 61 Mechanised Battalion Group, came into being on 1 January 1979, and consisted of two mechanised infantry companies in Ratel 20s, an armoured car troop in Eland 90s (later Ratel 90s) seconded from 1 Special Service Battalion (1 SSB) in Bloemfontein, a 140-mm G-2 battery from 4 Artillery Field Regiment, a support company and a combat engineer troop from 16 Maintenance Unit. In later years, a tank squadron would also be added. The unit was established at a somewhat remote area in Ovamboland, Omuthiya, where the members could shoot, move and exercise to their hearts’ content.[76]
Clearly, 61 Mech was a new kind of unit. Instead of the orthodox infantry battalions or armoured/artillery regiments being brought together only on a divisional level, here was an all-arms unit on battalion/regimental level. The unit would have its baptism of fire in June 1980 with Operation Sceptic, and would thereafter be part of every single large cross-border operation until the end of the war. It would also become the template for other similar units – 2 SAI, 4 SAI and 8 SAI – which, in spite of the word “infantry” in their names, could also be classified as mechanised.
Strategically, Reindeer’s results were mixed. On the propaganda front, it was a disaster for South Africa. An SADF analysis found that media reporting during the first week was mainly neutral and factual, but then became negative. This was partly due to the fact that South Africa allowed SWAPO and Angola to capture the propaganda high ground
