As we moved along during the following days, I started to think that the accidental discharge was perhaps not as accidental as they would like me to believe, since the contact man did not appear and the meeting with the political commissar did not materialise. But since I was constantly kept in the background and could not communicate with any of the local population, there was no way for me to determine the facts.
Eventually, after five or six days, we were set to meet the local commander. We established a hide in a thick patch of undergrowth and waited for the commander to pitch at a nearby kraal. As it got closer to the time, we moved to our meeting point close to the village. I was told to keep well back and make a break for it if things went sour. Two of the operators were assigned to stay with me.
I insisted on moving closer with the group, as my patience was wearing thin and my trust levels were falling. It went too smoothly: the team walked right in and chatted away with the “enemy”. The “commander” was there already, laughing and patting everyone on the back.
It turned out to be one of our own pseudo-teams, which had arranged to meet an important SWAPO commander (that would be the very honourable me!) moving in from Angola. In a sense I was relieved; I did not want to end up in a contact with this ill-disciplined bunch on my side – especially since I did not quite know who was enemy and who not – and I believed that we had not been compromised and would be able to continue working in the area, as the locals had no reason to believe that we were not two SWAPO elements meeting each other.
When I tried to figure out, during the debriefing afterwards, how it was possible that two teams could enter each other’s area, it was explained that the meeting place was on the border of the two so-called frozen areas, and that a lack of comms between the Tac HQs of the two teams had led to this potentially dangerous situation. I did not buy this, as it was obvious to me that the meeting had been prearranged – not by the local population, but by elements within our midst. I queried the explanation, but experienced operators explained to me that these kind of incidents happened in the shadowy world of pseudo-guerrilla operations.
The concept of frozen areas was a contentious issue during my time at 51 Commando. For a pseudo-team to deploy into an area, a warning had to be sent out a week in advance to the regular Army forces in the area, the Air Force and Koevoet, the controversial hunter unit of the police. The area would be declared “frozen”, which meant that no other elements but Special Forces could enter. Koevoet, however, often chose to ignore this and, as a result, hunted down 5 Recce teams on a number of occasions.
One good thing about the time I spent at 51 Commando was the exposure it gave me to a range of Reconnaissance Commandos. Every one of the three regiments, or elements of them, would pass through Fort Rev on operational deployments, and I had the opportunity to see all of them in action. It only made me more determined to get to Small Teams as soon as possible.
When the OC 5 Recce, Colonel James Hills, paid a visit to Fort Rev, I requested an interview and explained my situation: I was not interested in pseudo-operations, I was not cut out for that type of mission and I did not take kindly to the poor discipline of the ex-cadres. The colonel’s response was that I needed the experience and that Fort Rev needed me. I would stay at 51 Commando for a year, after which a decision would be made regarding a possible redeployment.
My stint at the commando was made bearable by the fact that I worked alongside a few highly skilled pseudo-operators, the likes of Captain Roes Terblanche, Sergeant André Meyer and Staff Sergeant Jim Lafferty. While I learned a lot from them and realised the merits of pseudo-deployments, I never liked the idea of the white team leader being kept at a distance, and I never got used to the poor tactics and relaxed ways of the ex-SWAPO soldiers. I also doubted my own ability in the field as a white person, given that I did not speak the language and didn’t have any in-depth exposure to the Ovambo culture. I would never truly fit in with the pseudo-teams, and consequently I always felt exposed.
By late 1984 André Diedericks was in the process of moving from Pretoria to Phalaborwa to establish Small Teams as a subunit of 5 Recce – soon to be named 54 Commando. Up until then Small Teams had operated under the auspices of the covert D-40, or Project Barnacle, which collected intelligence and launched disruptive actions against enemies of the state. Diedies realised that a Small Teams outfit could not function effectively in a covert environment, where any links with government or the military were denied.
All the while, I remained in contact with Diedies and continued writing letters to the OC, telling him what I was destined for and urging him to let me go, but with no luck! By now Diedies had started his own campaign to get me to 5 Recce. Since Small Teams resorted directly under the GOC Special Forces, as far as operational tasking was concerned, Diedies had a direct line to General Kat Liebenberg. At this time it also transpired that the Small Teams elements from 1 Recce were destined to move to 5 Recce, and so I knew my time was coming.
Sadly, although it was an interesting experience, I cannot claim any breathtaking operational successes during my time at 51 Commando. I never had the opportunity to do my own thing, to deploy on my own terms. I was always at the mercy of the SWAPO ex-cadres and somewhere in the background so the enemy would not recognise my white face.
My time at 51 Commando tested my personal mantra, developed so meticulously during my years at 31 Battalion, to breaking point. No longer could I say that this, and nowhere else, was where I wanted to be. But I endured because I believed it was a necessary stepping stone to get to Small Teams. I also knew that I was gaining invaluable information about the way SWAPO operated from men who had recently roamed the bush as PLAN cadres.
Another source of inspiration that made the time at Ondangwa worthwhile was the presence of Dave Drew, who was like a walking encyclopaedia and would share with me his intimate knowledge of SWAPO structures and tactics. Little did I know that Dave would soon be transferred back to 5 Recce and would serve as intelligence officer for the majority of Small Teams deployments I would be involved in over the next five years.
PART 4
Small Teams
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“Whenever a warrior decides to do something he must go all the way, but he must take responsibility for what he does. No matter what he does, he must first know why he is doing it, and then he must proceed with his actions without having doubts or remorse about them.”
1
Into the Fray
“Send men to spy out the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the people of Israel. From each tribe of their fathers you shall send a man, every one a chief among them.”
THE DAY I FINALLY drove through the gates at 5 Recce, my heart was thumping in my chest. Over the course of six months I had nagged Colonel James Hills so much to let me join the newly formed 54 Commando that eventually he had to concede. The persistent prompting by André “Diedies” Diedericks from 5 Recce also must have helped. I could hardly conceal my excitement, but at the same time I was anxious, mostly because I did not quite know what to expect.