1 Recce, volume 2. Alexander Strachan
the troops were predominantly dressed in khaki and old Portuguese camouflage uniforms. Blaauw suggested that the women, supported by a strong escort, be led in another direction, but also westward. Savimbi immediately instructed that the women along with the goats, chickens and other animals move separately together with the escort (which was almost at company strength).
From a military perspective, their movement was now more tactical and also much quicker. ‘As I walked, my ears pricked up and I told Amilcar that I’m hearing a chopper. He said: “Yes, it’s definitely a chopper.” We clearly heard how the choppers were following our trail and landing every now and again to put down troops.’
The group accelerated their pace. About an hour later they again heard a chopper approaching and once again troops were dropped off. It was midday and incredibly hot, and the Recces were moving with their big packs on their backs. When they stopped at some point, Savimbi said: ‘Let my soldiers carry your big packs.’ Blaauw told Queiroz to reply that they were Special Forces and accustomed to carrying their own kit. The situation then became very comical because the president remarked to Queiroz: ‘Look at you. You look like a pack donkey.’ Whereupon Queiroz quipped: ‘Mr President, I may be a pack donkey, but I am my own donkey.’
Meanwhile, the enemy was still pursuing the group. At around 14:00 a MiG-21 flew over them from the west side. The group stayed under the trees. Fortunately, the area was densely wooded and not savanna veld. From within the bush they heard vehicles on their left-hand side at some stage. They heard the vehicles coming to a halt and troops getting off – they were evidently dropping stopper groups on the road. Tito’s voice was extremely urgent: ‘Come Major, come Major, we must move before we get captured.’
They now moved at an even faster pace through the bush. Savimbi’s secretary, Ana Isabel Paulino, was also part of the group. (Savimbi later married her.) She was still young, and ran with her typewriter, an old Olivetti, on her head. Behind her was a troop with a table on his head, followed by a second troop with a chair on his head. ‘It was hilarious to see them rushing through the shrubs and trees like that … Ana heading the procession with her typewriter, followed by the troop with her table, then the one with her chair. Whenever Savimbi stopped, they came to a halt in that exact order. Ana would take her seat and if Savimbi said anything, she typed it. The typed page would then be stored in a suitcase. Meanwhile the choppers were roaring over us. I couldn’t stop myself from laughing out loud.’
At some point the hostile activities abated slightly, and Blaauw used the opportunity to make radio contact with Rundu. He gave a quick situation report and told Col. Flip du Preez to be on standby to extract them as the situation was very unstable. ‘If the enemy came at us with troops from the front, we would get completely boxed in. I had barely switched off the radio when Alcides Sakala came up to me. “The president wants to see you,” he said.’
Savimbi wanted to know with whom he had spoken on the radio. Blaauw said he had given Rundu an update about their situation. ‘But you are forbidden to speak on the radio,’ Savimbi said. ‘Because the enemy in the aircraft will hear what you are saying. The MiGs can hear everything you say.’ Blaauw explained that he had spoken on a high-frequency radio (HF set) while the planes were all on very high frequency (VHF) and therefore unable to hear him. Savimbi was clearly not happy. ‘You must not do that,’ was all he said.
They continued their journey, and by the afternoon they went through a shona. Savimbi announced that they would rest there. Ana had already inserted a new page in her typewriter and started typing furiously. ‘At that stage Gert fell ill. He developed a fever and I saw at once that it was malaria, and Amilcar dosed him with a lot of malaria tablets.’
Abel, Blaauw’s bodyguard, told them there was a waterhole in the shona; they could refill their empty water bottles. Blaauw had a water bottle on his body, but the rest were all empty and in his backpack together with the radio. ‘So I just handed him the whole backpack, which was a mistake, because one doesn’t do something like that. Abel collected empty water bottles from Amilcar as well. He and a number of others then left with the water bottles and the backpack.’ They waited, but everything was dead quiet, not a sound. The next moment a fierce contact erupted, and Blaauw realised immediately that it was at the waterhole.
‘And then a troop came running up to us, breathless … he said there was a huge water pan, and that was exactly where the enemy’s follow-up group hit them while they were still collecting water!’ What about Abel, Blaauw asked Tito. ‘Abel has been killed,’ Tito replied. ‘That on top of everything,’ Blaauw thought. He realised that his backpack with the radio was now gone as well. ‘Fortunately, I had all my radio codes with me and the radio was of British origin, so it couldn’t be traced back to South Africa.’ The only problem was that Col. Jan Breytenbach’s name was written on the pamphlet in the radio bag.5
Queiroz had a back-up radio set with him, so they were not cut off from the outside world. ‘But Abel was now simply gone, dead, and along with him my backpack and the radio.’ A few Unitas had been shot dead, but a lot of them managed to run away and had gone somewhere into the bush.
The group packed up hurriedly and moved out of the temporary position at running pace. In the afternoon they halted, and Savimbi asked Blaauw urgently to request an emergency extraction by helicopter. Blaauw contacted Rundu at once. Du Preez said that on the basis of his earlier situation report, they had already sent two Pumas to Omauni to be on standby at 32 Battalion’s operational base. ‘We have to be extracted this evening because the enemy knows where we are and we are getting boxed in,’ Blaauw replied. He informed Savimbi that the choppers would be arriving to extract them at around 22:00: ‘But Mr President, how big is your group?’ Savimbi said he could not leave with fewer than 31 people. ‘I told him it was impossible; the choppers couldn’t take off with 31 people, and then there were we three South Africans as well. The choppers would come in with full fuel tanks, and they wouldn’t be able to lift that load.
‘But Savimbi told me: “I would like to extract 60 people.” Now he actually wanted to extract 60 people! I told him a Puma helicopter could take a maximum of 12 people, so this was totally out of the question. He said: “Okay, wait.” After a short while he returned: “I can’t go with less than 31; I must take out 31 people.” I told him to stand by, we would see if it was possible.’
Darkness was falling fast, and the helicopters had to take off from Omauni at about 21:00 to reach Blaauw and company by 22:00. ‘Just after this, however, we attracted probing mortar fire. They were not 100 per cent certain of our position and were therefore dropping 60-mm mortars in the spot where they suspected us to be.’
The mortar bombs made Blaauw realise that an extraction was not possible at the present time. He contacted Rundu by radio and said the word ‘abort’. The extraction was too risky because they were drawing mortar fire from all directions. As soon as the enemy heard the helicopters coming in, they would direct their fire specifically at the choppers and launch mortars at the landing zone.
The helicopters, which had already been under way, then turned back to Omauni. Blaauw convinced Savimbi that they had to break out on their own: ‘This is what we do now. We sneak out silently. We just keep on moving. We are virtually surrounded. We can break out. We just move slowly, silently so that we can break out of this circle,’ he suggested. ‘Savimbi said that this was in order. And so we set off.’
They walked all through the night. ‘By the time the sun rose, we were out of that danger zone. And we heard no sounds, we heard absolutely nothing. We heard nothing to indicate that we were being pursued, and there were no planes either.’ The group kept moving and spent the night in a kind of temporary base. Blaauw tried again to bring about the extraction. ‘I spoke to Rundu and said that nothing had happened during the day. Everything was quiet and at that point positive, so the extraction could now be done.’
But he was still saddled with the problem of 31 people Savimbi wanted to extract. Those who were not part of the group of 31 had to continue towards the Little Cunene area where there was a base. The troops simply had to keep walking and follow a westerly direction. The women were on a similar but different route. By this time they were far from Savimbi, and there was no contact with them.
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