One of our duties while at SAP COIN Base Ongha was to guard Echo Tower. It was a water tower and reservoir on the water pipeline that ran past our base from Ondangwa to Alpha Tower in the north. We took turns to guard it in groups, made up of two white and 10 black base members for a week at a time. We were dropped off one morning by some of our base colleagues and the first thing we did was to climb up the tower and look out over the terrain. It was flat as far as we could see, with dry, dead vegetation. The sand was brilliantly white, soft and powdery. From up there we could see the convoys coming out of Angola and travelling down the road towards Ondangwa. Day and night the convoys drove past. Soviet trucks full of Soviet military hardware, Cuban trucks laden with Soviet hardware. Soviet tanks, Cuban equipment, Soviet equipment, guns, cannon – all the hardware of war was moving past in a huge cloud of dust. Something was happening in Angola. There must be fighting and we must be beating them up, we thought, judging by the amount of equipment that had been captured. In fact, Operation Protea in Angola was drawing to a close. A few thousand South African soldiers were deployed in Angola during the operation, which lasted from 23 August to 4 September 1981, and its purpose was to destroy the SWAPO command and training centre at Xangongo and its bases at Xangongo and Ongiva. The destruction of the two bases would ruin SWAPO’s ability to perform operations on the north-western front and make them realise that they were no longer safe in southern Angola. Operation Protea also proved that the Soviets were involved with SWAPO and enabled the South African forces to seize thousands of tons of military hardware worth over 200 million US dollars, as well as vast quantities of small arms and ammunition. This included tanks, anti-aircraft guns, armoured vehicles, trucks and other logistical vehicles. No less than 1 000 members of SWAPO and FAPLA, the Angolan army, were killed during the operation, while 38 prisoners were captured, including 10 SWAPO members. South Africa lost only 10 men. The fact that SWAPO had acquired tanks and armoured personnel carriers indicated that the organisation was going to try to change its tactics from guerilla to conventional warfare in South West Africa. Operation Protea, which caused major setbacks for SWAPO, was quickly followed by Operation Daisy.
Posted on: Mon, 28 Jul 2014 11:35:24 +0000
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