bottles at a water hole, we had a seriously close shave with an elephant bull. My buddy was sitting opposite me at the water’s edge, watching my back from the other side of the water hole, when I suddenly saw an elephant emerging from the brush right behind him. I didn’t even have time to shout. But he saw my frightened face and jumped. At that point the elephant still hadn’t seen him. His startled shout and quick reaction probably saved his life, as the elephant got as much of a fright as he did and charged away into the bush.
In the end, we were well in time for the RV. The rest of the selection group was found a day later, after they had started discharging flares and generally making themselves noticed by firing into the air. They had run out of water on the first day and got lost, as they did not keep count of the minor cutlines they had to cross during the night. To give them a reasonable chance (as the instructors did not really know what had happened), they were put back on the course. They were moved by vehicle to an RV further along the route the selection course would cover, and in the process did a much shorter selection than us.
The selection continued for another week. I lost count of the days and of how many candidates were left. To this day I do not know what distance we covered during the course. I also did not care how many guys properly passed the selection, because, as it soon turned out, after our selection and the Minor Tactics course, the first operational deployment sorted out the ones that were not cut out for the job.
I learned two critically important things during that week. The first was something I had already started to understand the day I had to dig the grave in the cemetery outside Ariamsvlei: never even think of giving up, because then you will. The second was: do what you believe is right, without compromise, and never blindly follow the crowd. These truths became my guiding principles during my Special Forces operational career.
I did three selection courses in my life: the first at 31 Battalion, the second at the Parachute Battalion – the infamous PT (physical training) course – and finally the Special Forces selection course. Looking back, I can honestly say that the first one was the toughest, by far. I can also declare that never on one of them did I even consider quitting. And I also know that, in a certain sense, there was an element of fun to all of them.
After a week of fattening up at Omega, our training started in earnest. During our recuperation week, we were issued with “special ops” kit – old alpine rucksacks, SWAPO webbing and an assortment of foreign weapons – AK-47s, RPDs, RPGs and some Eastern Bloc pistols.
The Monday morning after the rest week, we reported to the recce wing HQ and loaded our kit on the Unimog trucks lined up on the road. We drove out to Fort Vreeslik (Fort Terrible), the recce wing’s training base hidden in the lush Caprivi bush some fourteen kilometres south of Omega. Three highly experienced and tough-looking instructors from the (then) Reconnaissance Commandos had arrived from Fort Doppies, the Special Forces training base on the banks of the Kwando River (Cuando in Angola), to present our Minor Tactics training.
The training turned out to be an experience in itself. I had always marvelled at the term “tactics”, unsure of what it really meant, and what people could actually teach me about tactics. The course leader and his two instructors finally enlightened me. For four weeks we were drilled in the finer techniques of patrolling, anti-tracking, approaching and penetrating a target, contact drills, ambushing, evasion and reconnaissance. Finally, a week before the course was supposed to end, we terminated it ourselves.
One morning at 02:00 I was rudely awakened by AK-47 shots and some fierce shouting and swearing. When I tried to get out of my self-built lean-to shelter, frightened out of my wits, I found it blocked by the instructors. The next moment a smoke grenade was lobbed into the confined space, and I had no option but to evacuate the shelter, taking a thatched wall and some of the instructor’s T-shirt with me. By this time the entire base seemed to have erupted in chaos. Apparently, the instructors were not happy with our performance and had decided to show us some real action. The “action” was of course induced by a healthy dose of Red Heart rum – at the time the standard Recce beverage. Earlier that night we had watched as the three instructors steadily downed two bottles between them.
Smoke from the grenades filled the air, an RPG launcher went off and the rocket exploded in the branches of a tree some distance from the base. Everyone was shooting everywhere. I decided to put our recently acquired evacuation drills to the test, and ran blindly into the bush. Most of the guys were already there, having fled the base and reorganised in an open area to the west. Since there was still a lot of random shooting, we withdrew into the thick bush and bedded down for the rest of the night. By early morning we had made up our minds; as some of the guys were still missing, we would walk back to Omega and just call it quits, as everyone had had enough of the real-action treatment.
The officer commanding (OC) of the unit was not entirely happy with the turn of events. The instructors were called in to base and requested to return to Fort Doppies. Before they left, the course leader, a battle-hardened young officer from 1 Recce approached me and said, “Stadler, I expected more from you. I am really disappointed.”
Unfortunately I was too young and inexperienced to challenge him. I turned away and left it at that. But at least I knew that I wouldn’t be deterred from joining the recce wing by a pack of drunkards chasing me around.
Our unit commander reported the incident to the OC 1 Recce, who did not take kindly to it. Sadly, it created a lot of animosity between 31 Battalion and Special Forces, and led to a mutual distrust that lasted as long as the Bushman unit existed.
However, the whole affair did have a positive outcome. All the students returned to Fort Vreeslik and did a second Minor Tactics course under the capable leadership of Lieutenant Frannie du Toit (who had recruited me for 31 Battalion) and his team of operators running the recce wing. This time we did the Minor Tactics course with the very same Bushmen who would deploy with us. We slept, ate and trained with them for another four weeks, absorbing everything they could teach us about bush warfare.
In Angola, many of these Bushman soldiers had been “Fletchas” while the majority of us were still at school. The Fletchas, or Flechas (arrows), were Portuguese Special Forces units created during the colonial war. They operated as platoon-sized subunits consisting of local tribesmen and rebel defectors who specialised in tracking, reconnaissance and pseudo-terrorist operations. Many of them joined the SADF after Angolan independence.
There was a wealth of information to be gained from them. Their extraordinary knowledge of the bush was especially helpful, as we soon discovered during the training and subsequently during operations. I used every opportunity to learn from the Bushmen. Our instructors’ considerable knowledge and dedication were also an inspiration. Frannie and his team were mature and professional, and guided us with great patience through the intricate paces of the course.
To this day I maintain that the minor tactics training I received during those few weeks in the remote areas of the Western Caprivi ranked among the highest-quality training ever presented in our defence force. I absorbed every single bit of information and made an effort to become one with the bush.
Frannie, in my eyes a military scholar of the first order, believed the bush provided you with everything you needed to gain the tactical advantage against an adversary – provided your eyes were open to the opportunities it offered. He encouraged me to read all the classic works of irregular warfare, including F Spencer Chapman’s The Jungle is Neutral, a book that would guide our thinking and in a certain sense become the recce wing’s doctrine for the years that I served at 31 Battalion.
2
Bush Baptism
IN SEPTEMBER 1978 the United Nations (UN) Security Council approved Resolution 435, which provided for a cessation of hostilities on South West Africa’s borders with Angola and Zambia. The South African forces in the area had to be reduced to 1 500 over a period of three months, and elections would be held, overseen by the United Nations Transition Assistance Group, or UNTAG. A demilitarised zone was to be introduced, but this never transpired because SWAPO continued its incursions into South West Africa.
Operational sectors