1 Recce. Alexander Strachan
waterholes in south-eastern Angola and the western Caprivi for future operational purposes. This exercise was named Operation Da Gama.
For two months they patrolled the area in six Sabre vehicles (Land Rovers that had been modified for military use) and plotted the waterholes. In the process they became well acquainted with their Portuguese neighbours and also discovered that the Rhodesians had started operating in Mozambique. Thereafter the whole group returned to Oudtshoorn. While this might have been an ‘unexciting operation’, the knowledge and experience they gained in the process would stand them in good stead in future.
Each era produced its own quota of controversies. One of these gave rise to the founding of Fort Doppies, the Recces’ later famous base in the then Caprivi. In the early 1970s, Operation Dingo6 (also known as Plathond) took place. The Bureau for State Security (commonly known as BOSS) decided that a group of dissidents from Zambia should receive military training in the hope that they would destabilise the position of the Zambian president, Kenneth Kaunda. This group, who had fled from Zambia to Angola, were flown to the Caprivi by the Portuguese security police with the assistance of BOSS.
The Recces were tasked with training the group in guerrilla warfare. Since Oudtshoorn was too much of a security risk for such clandestine training, they retreated to the remote wilderness of the western Caprivi. This region, which abounded in elephants, rhinos, buffalo, hippos and crocodiles, was the ideal place for Breytenbach and his team to set up a base. The base was initially called Elephant Camp because of the many elephant trails that ran through it. The camp would later be renamed Fort Doppies.7 It was nonetheless in the vicinity of Elephant Camp that Breytenbach’s team of Recces trained the group of Zambian exiles (now equipped with communist kit and weapons).
Nine months later Breytenbach returned to the area to inspect the training. He found only the training team there, with no sign of the Zambians. He was told that they had been recalled to Zambia on high authority for an urgent operation; and that they were by no means ready for operational deployment. The Zambian armed forces were waiting for them across the Zambezi River, where they were intercepted and mown down in a well-laid ambush.
The Recces’ training was occasionally accompanied by unexpected mishaps. In December 1971 Breytenbach and the ten members of the Oudtshoorn group were due to do a water jump with diving equipment in the Swartvlei Lake. They were joined by two members of the Navy’s diving school, WO2 Ken Brewin and Chief Petty Officer Willy Dewey. These two would later participate with the Recces in the first seaborne operation, which involved a sabotage mission in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
The water jump was scheduled to take place about a week before everyone went on their annual leave. The group eagerly looked forward to the exercise. Spurred on by Trevor Floyd, some of the men also made plans for a jaunt of their own afterwards. They would stay on for another week to do what they called ‘fun diving’. Among other activities, they intended to move up and down the coast spearfishing. Plans were concocted for this holiday to fund itself. One idea was to pick up lead sinkers on the beach and sell them for booze money. Another was to detonate charges in the sea pools that would cause dead fish to float to the surface. They would then braai some of the fish and sell the rest to the nearest butchery.
1 Parachute Battalion supplied the aircraft and parachutes. Shortly before the jump, everyone switched over to oxygen. They were due to continue with the diving exercise after the water landing, and were equipped with oxygear designed for attack diving. With this breathing apparatus, the attack diver’s presence can remain undetected because there are no air bubbles that rise to the surface.
But things started going wrong right from the start. When the Dakota’s green light went on, they jumped out one after the other. The moment Trevor exited, the slipstream grabbed his equipment and he found himself hanging upside down from the parachute’s suspension lines. Luckily, he managed to extricate himself and landed safely in the water.
Fires van Vuuren was the third to jump. Close to the surface he readied himself to ‘get out as for water’, as they say in parachuting lingo. This meant he had to get out of his harness the moment his feet hit the water, otherwise he could become entangled and the canopy would collect water and drag him down. Fires’ diving goggles were fogged up, however, which prevented him from judging the distance properly. At about 10 m from the surface, which was still far too high, he was already falling out of his harness. He hit the water with such force that the straps with which the oxygear was attached to his body snapped on impact, and the expensive apparatus disappeared under the water.
A fuming Breytenbach could not believe his ears when he heard this. ‘Next thing, the dispatchers will probably tell me the Dakota is missing!’ was his indignant reaction.
This bad news immediately put a damper on the group’s enthusiasm. They had only seven oxygear sets, and now they were told on top of it that one such set cost the same as a Volkswagen. In the wink of an eye the whole adventure had turned into a nightmare. They had to drop everything else and search for the missing oxygear.
‘Get that thing!’ Breytenbach ordered. ‘No one’s leaving here until you’ve found it!’
There were only five days left before their leave was due to start. Breytenbach’s instruction meant that they would now have to search for the apparatus in their holiday time. For one of the men, John More, it was even worse – he was supposed to leave for Europe on his honeymoon the following morning. His successful appeal to Breytenbach resulted in him being the only member to be excused from the search. More rushed to Oudtshoorn to collect his luggage and flew via Port Elizabeth to catch his flight in Johannesburg. As his plane flew over the Swartvlei Lake, lo and behold, he saw through the window the men still searching incessantly for the oxygear.
Day after day they toiled, but in vain. They found nothing. The two naval divers showed them how to use rope lines and conduct the search systematically. They slept in a caravan park at night and lived on canned food: bully beef, vegetables, and endless tins of peas. Their pocket money was fast running out since there were no fish or sinkers they could sell. Fires became quieter by the day. He was suddenly the most unpopular member of the group, and the others did not feel like talking to him anyway.
The whole week was devoted to the search, and before the final dive on the Friday afternoon the oxygear still had not been found. Breytenbach then played another card: ‘I suppose you’re all going on holiday now and I have to stay behind on my own to sort out your mess!’ Whereupon he asked for volunteers to dive with him during the holiday. Koos Moorcroft, Kenaas Conradie, Dewald de Beer, Jimmy Oberholzer, Fires and Dave Tippett agreed to join him in continuing the search. They had no money for a holiday in any case. The Special Forces soldiers did not earn much in those days and did not receive the present-day allowances either.
Late that Friday afternoon they did their last dive of the day. During this desperate attempt, Koos spotted a piece of rubber in the water next to the swimming line. On closer inspection, he saw that it was indeed the mouthpiece of the oxygear. He immediately dived down, felt all around him with his hands, and, to his own disbelief, touched the oxygear apparatus! As he surfaced with it and the men saw what he was holding, their relief was indescribable.
Sometimes things went awry during operations too, and in one case this was to the Recces’ great relief. BOSS had received intelligence that a Norwegian vessel was transporting a shipment of mines and explosive systems to Tanzania. The consignment would be unloaded there and then brought to Mozambique and Rhodesia by convoy. This was one of the routes used to supply ammunition to the Mozambican liberation movement Frelimo.
The South Africans knew when the ship was due to dock in Durban harbour, and Breytenbach, Trevor, Koos and Kenaas were instructed to plant mines on the ship. An expert from BOSS prepared the mines for them. These were still the old kind of magnetic mines that functioned with obsolete delay mechanisms. With a ‘balsak’ (a canvas bag in which troops stored their kit) filled with mines, the team approached the ship from Salisbury Island in Durban harbour and attached the devices to the hull.
The ship was scheduled to leave the same evening, and the mines had been set to detonate once the vessel reached the open sea. Unbeknown to the operators, the ship’s captain had received permission from the harbour master to stay over for