During that year at Oudtshoorn I learned a lot about myself, especially about my own strengths and weaknesses. I realised that, compared with most of the young servicemen around me, I started functioning well once the pressure was on and the going got really tough. I learned to keep my mouth shut and laugh inwardly at the way the instructors created artificial pressure to test us.
Towards the end of the year, the time came for the dreaded Vasbyt 5, a route march and series of tests through the Swartberg mountain range over a five-day period. It was designed to test our endurance and was quite tough. The second evening of the exercise, the whole company got together and established a temporary base (TB) in a pine forest, the purpose of which was to show us a new recruiting film for the Recces, entitled Durf en Daad (Courage and Action). I was hooked. That night it became my ultimate, and this time expressed, goal to be a Recce.
On the evening of day three, as we topped a rise high up in the mountains, it started snowing. The instructors panicked, because we did not have the gear for surviving subzero temperatures at night, so they called all the platoons together and moved us by truck down into Die Hel, a remote and secluded valley in the Swartberg range.
Everyone was fairly drained on the last day of the march. No one wanted to carry the Bren (machine gun) and the high-frequency (HF) radio any more. At one of the rest breaks that last evening, the guy who had been carrying the Bren just left it lying, not bothering to hand it over to anyone. A strapping farm boy in my section just looked at me, picked up the radio he had been carrying, and said, “Tough shit, Jakes, jy wil mos Recces toe gaan [Tough shit, Jakes, you’re the one wanting to join the Recces],” and started slogging on.
Between the two of us we carried the Bren and the radio throughout that night to the final destination, a farmhouse in a beautiful valley deep in the mountains. Late in the night, as we walked in the darkness under a lane of trees, the smell of fresh oranges suddenly filled the air. As I reached up, my fingers touched the fruit. Without even taking our kit off, we picked some of the oranges, which turned out to be ripe, and ate them – peel and all – as we continued on our way. The fruit invigorated us and we finished the last few kilometres refreshed and in good spirits. A few years later, under vastly different circumstances, I would have a similar experience during an extremely sensitive Small Team operation near the town of Lubango in Angola.
When the different Army units started recruiting among the junior leader candidates at Oudtshoorn in October of 1978, I carefully considered my options. I was told outright by my colleagues that joining the Recces was not an option. They were the real killing machines – professional soldiers who had a different attitude to life. Back then I was skinny, with a pimpled baby-face, and looked much younger than I was. I wouldn’t fit, they told me.
A wonderful opportunity, which turned out to be my greatest break in life, presented itself when a recruitment team from 31 Battalion, a Bushman unit based in the Western Caprivi, visited the Infantry School. The unit also happened to have a very successful reconnaissance wing that was responsible for tactical reconnaissance in small groups, while the regular companies would deploy in the offensive search-and-destroy mode.
Frannie du Toit, the fierce-looking lieutenant from the recruiting team, made up my mind for me when he said that I would have it all in one – reconnaissance operations with the Bushmen and living right there in the Caprivi bush. The next three years at 31 Battalion would be the finest time of my career.
While the operations might have been of a tactical nature and not conducted at the professional level I later got to know as a Special Forces operator, that period was formative in many respects. I had to dodge some bullets, and I saw death for the first time. I saw people not capable of handling the pressures of combat, but I also met many who were. I worked with a number of outstanding soldiers who made a lasting impression on me. And, most importantly, I was exposed to numerous missions and, albeit by trial and error, developed a unique concept for conducting reconnaissance operations.
PART 2
The Bushmen
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“You can do anything with enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the sparkle in your eyes, the swing in your gait. It is the grip of your hand, the irresistible surge of your will, the energy to execute your ideas. Enthusiasts are fighters. They have fortitude. They have staying qualities. Enthusiasm is at the bottom of all progress. With it there is accomplishment. Without it there are only alibis…”
1
Into the Unknown
IN NOVEMBER 1978 a C-130 military transport aircraft carried two groups of adventurous youngsters to the theatre of war. One group had volunteered for 32 Battalion, a unit of ex-FNLA soldiers founded by Colonel Jan Breytenbach and moulded into an all-black South African combat unit; and then there was my group, which was headed for 31 Battalion at the military town of Omega in the Caprivi.
Led by white officers and a mix of white and Bushman non-commissioned officers (NCOs), 31 Battalion had been formed by Colonel Delville Linford, one of those rare characters who did things in an utterly unorthodox style – and got away with it. Although I never met him, since he had already left the unit when I arrived, his photos were everywhere and his influence was still tangible.
We were a mixed group of candidate officers (COs) and lance corporals fresh from the Infantry School. Upon arrival at Rundu we boarded a Kwêvoël (a 10-ton truck with a mine-protected cab) for the journey to Omega. It turned out to be an unforgettable experience. Everyone was somewhat scared of what lay ahead. We sat on top of our kit and watched the bush rushing past. Piled up against the cab were bags of maize. From the rush of air a fine maize dust constantly sifted down on us. Suddenly a thunderstorm broke – typical summer weather in the Caprivi, as we were soon to discover during operations in the bush. But it was not long before the sun broke through the clouds and our clothes started to dry on our bodies – with the maize still sticking to our clothes and faces. We were delivered to Omega as a Kwêvoël-load of freshly baked bread – walking rather stiffly and smelling like a bakery!
Captain Frans “Gor-Gor” Gunther introduced us to 31 Battalion and put us through a brief initiation. He was an impressive character with an overpowering personality and an equally dominating moustache. Rumour had it that the sides of his moustache would droop if he was in a bad mood but stand out firmly if he was happy with your performance. I had the good fortune never to see the great moustache drooping. Over the next three years I would have the pleasure of deploying with my recce team along with Frans Gunther’s C Company.
After the weeklong introduction to the base, candidates for the reconnaissance wing were separated from those who would join the regular companies. While the latter attended an induction course to learn how to handle their Bushman platoons in counterinsurgency warfare, eighteen of us went on selection for the recce wing.
In the mid-1970s the need for a tactical reconnaissance capability led to the formation of reconnaissance platoons at the infantry units permanently based in the operational area of the Border War. At the time, 31 and 32 battalions were the first to deploy tactical recce teams into Zambia and Angola, with the aim of locating SWAPO bases situated across the border in what were believed by SWAPO to be “safe” areas.