Another feature of the course was the harsh punishment for any transgression, whether committed on purpose or not. Any accidental discharge of a weapon or cheating during exercises would earn the punishment of a “spes ops”, where the candidate would be taken by vehicle to the Botswana cutline 20 km away, and dropped off with his weapon, backpack and a case of ammunition weighing 25 kg, which he then had to carry back to base. This was regularly done on a Saturday evening, so the transgressor had the whole night and the next day to think about his sins while transporting his uncomfortable load back to Fort Doppies.
I had the honour of doing a “spes ops” once, but since my transgression – an accidental discharge of the LMG on the firing range – was not considered life-threatening, I was dropped off only ten kilometres out and was back in time to catch a solid night’s sleep.
During the Minor Tactics course I met Captain André “Diedies” Diedericks, the legendary Small Teams operator I had been told about years before during my time at 31 Battalion. With his long-time buddy, Neves Thomas Matias, Diedies had conducted several two-man deployments, over extended periods and extreme distances, into neighbouring countries. Diedies and his group had established a camp somewhere in the bush and were rehearsing for a deployment when I met him one Sunday during a break in our training at Fort Doppies. The guy had a very focused aura about him; in Diedies a sense of purpose combined with a delightful sense of humour. It immediately struck a chord with me. I was surprised to find that he had heard of me when I was still at 31 Battalion recce wing. He also seemed to be aware of my dream of joining Small Teams. From that first meeting I felt a close attachment to this man who had become a legend in his own lifetime.
Diedies informed me that Small Teams might soon be relocated from Pretoria to 5 Recce, based on his recommendation that the Small Teams elements of all the units should be united under one command. The three active Special Forces units – 1 Recce at Durban, 4 Recce at Langebaan and 5 Recce at Phalaborwa – each had its own field of specialisation: as the founding unit, 1 Recce harboured the Special Forces Training Commando and specialised in airborne and urban operations; 4 Recce specialised in seaborne operations; and 5 Recce focused on bush operations. Both 4 and 5 Recce also maintained an inherent airborne capability. Each of the regiments had a reconnaissance element that was meant to conduct strategic-level recce missions.
At the time Diedies and his Small Team grouping formed part of the secretive D-40, code-named Project Barnacle and based outside Pretoria (it was the forerunner to the Civil Cooperation Bureau, or CCB). But Barnacle’s undercover status would soon cause Small Teams to be relocated to one of the regiments, as the operators were constantly exposed to the overt structures of Special Forces. Diedies often had to visit Special Forces HQ for intelligence briefings and liaison, while the operators had to do their specialised military training at the Reconnaissance Regiments. For me, the planned relocation of Small Teams to Phalaborwa was good news, as I knew by then that I would be heading for 5 Recce soon after the training cycle.
From that first meeting with Diedies at Fort Doppies, a long and true friendship flowed. It continued in subsequent years when we operated together on a number of extremely demanding and dangerous Small Teams operations, and beyond that through periods of very trying times of a different nature.
I knew that I had to get to Small Teams as soon as possible, as this had been my sole purpose for joining Special Forces. I didn’t want to waste any more time. But I had to stick it out on the training cycle and get the Special Forces operator’s qualification before I could move on. Fortunately the final stages of the course went by quite quickly. There was a fantastic team spirit among the students, and we worked hard to support and motivate each other.
The last exercise – escape and evasion – flowed naturally from our perpetual fighting and moving of the previous days. We reorganised at a rendezvous way down the Western Caprivi, about 50 km southwest of Fort Doppies, where we took in a hide for the night and prepared for the next day’s “mission”. A company from 703 Battalion at Katima Mulilo was brought in to take up the chase, while local Bushmen from the Kwando would do the tracking.
The idea was that, as a Special Forces team that had been compromised deep inside enemy territory, we would evade the follow-up force while moving back to the safety of our base. The “enemy” would apply all sorts of techniques to catch us, following us back towards Fort Doppies. They had an assortment of vehicles, a helicopter and the advantage of knowing where we were heading.
Our hide was “attacked” by the instructors at 05:00 the next morning, which was the sign for us to start our evasion. The eleven students were given a thirty-minute head start, so we wasted no time in getting away. As soon as we were on the run, I split from the group, veered off to the right and started anti-tracking in a southerly direction, knowing that the follow-up would be directed at the main grouping heading northeast towards Fort Doppies. The follow-up force would certainly use the road to the left of the follow-up axis to leapfrog ahead and dispatch teams to cut us off. I also had no intention of being located by the helicopter, as that would mean certain capture.
I soon slipped off my boots and anti-tracked in my socks in a wide circle back in the direction of the starting point, and then moved a kilometre south before putting my boots back on. To the north I could hear the vehicles starting up and the troops yelling to boost their own morale, for they knew that an encounter with a trapped operator could become a messy affair. I heard the Alouette start up, and before long it moved out in the direction of Fort Doppies. It circled wide and overflew my position twice, but there was no chance of their spotting me, and I knew from the flying pattern that they didn’t have troops to call in to my location.
I used the rest of the day to jog on a bearing towards a spot on the Kwando River just south of Fort Doppies, not bothering to anti-track, as I knew that the main follow-up was now in front and some distance north of me.
Throughout the day I kept a steady pace and enjoyed the peaceful surroundings of the savanna terrain. Twice I encountered herds of elephant, but gave them a wide berth.
By late afternoon, when I finally hit the vehicle track running along the Kwando River, I turned north and headed towards camp. I knew for certain that the “enemy” would be deployed along the Chopper omuramba (named after the helicopter landing zone that was situated there) south of Fort Doppies, as that would be the point where all of us would need to cross into the base area.
I watched the area for a while from the southern edge of the omuramba, and soon realised that there was no way of crossing unseen, as the observation posts (OPs) were sited every 100 m to block us off. I also realised that there was no time to circle the area, as our cut-off time to reach the base was 18:00, which gave me barely two hours to finish.
The only chance to make it in time was to walk straight into one of the OPs, “eliminate” the guards and make a run for the base.
What I did not realise was that these guys had been on edge the whole day, and were now fairly trigger-happy, since they had had to face two or three other lunatics trying to crash through their defences. By the time I reached their position, they were all nerves, wide-eyed and ready to shoot.