1 Recce, volume 2. Alexander Strachan

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СКАЧАТЬ RR’s commander for five years, until December 1988.

      He excelled at organisational and management level. During his tenure as commander, there was a revolutionary change in the procurement of high-quality equipment as well as extremely advanced equipment for the Recces. He looked after the welfare of all levels of his staff, including signals, medical and maintenance staff and every other department in the unit. In his younger days, he also made his mark on the sports field by representing the Springboks and Free State as hooker.

      During 1977 Bestbier’s predecessor as commander at 1 RC, Cmdt. Jakes Swart, was doing the SA Army’s senior command and staff course in Pretoria. As a result, he was not part of the initial planning process in respect of cooperation between 1 RC and the SAS. Hence he did not have contact with the SAS’s commander, Brian Robinson, or the Selous Scouts’ commander, Ron Reid-Daly, at the beginning. Swart did, however, have considerable contact with Lt. Gen. Walls, especially during Operation Bootlace/Uric that was executed in Mozambique’s Gaza province after his staff course (see part 1, chapter 7).

      The SAS had a great shortage of manpower, and the deployments of 1 RC, 2 RC and 5 RC strengthened their hand in this regard. The Recces assisted with area operations; 1 RC operated in vast areas of responsibility in the Gaza province and dominated the areas that had been allocated to them. 1 Recce not only cooperated with the SAS in Gaza but also conducted quite a number of successful operations in support of the Mozambican resistance movement Renamo.

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      Operation Acrobat17

      Aggressive action on the Russian Front

      ‘The terrs were walking on our tracks, and luckily we had made a dogleg before we lay up. One of the terrs’ gun barrels caught on a branch and the sound alerted us. We opened fire, and shot some of them dead and wounded a few.’

      This is how SW Fourie recalls a fatal contact in early February 1978 when Lt. Kokkie du Toit’s team sabotaged the railway line in the vicinity of Madulo Pan in Mozambique’s Gaza province. Afterwards they moved to a drop zone (DZ) for a ration resupply. Near the DZ the team assumed an ambush position. Lt. Douw Steyn, the team’s demolition specialist, laid a few Claymore mines on their tracks and linked them with electrical cords to the firing device. A Frelimo group unexpectedly walked into the ambush position, and Steyn detonated the mines.

      A fierce firefight ensued and once it subsided, Du Toit deployed his team in a formation to clear the killing zone. They swept the bush in an extended line in search of wounded Frelimo soldiers – but failed to spot one who had crawled under a bush.

      ‘When the fire stopped, Kokkie walked forward and returned with one of their AK-47s,’ recounts Fourie. ‘He showed me that a branch had broken off in the barrel – the terrs probably thought the barrel would explode in the face of anyone who fired it. Then Kokkie signalled that we had to get ready to move. We were lying behind a thick tree, and he moved round it on the left and I on the right. He gave another signal leftwards … it was for the guys to spread out because we were going to sweep the killing zone.’

      The wounded Frelimo soldier under the bush easily identified Du Toit as the team leader since he gave the hand signals and controlled the team. The man fired a single shot at close range and hit him in the side. Kokkie du Toit died before his body struck the ground.

      ‘When Kokkie turned to the front, the wounded terr shot him. He spun around and fell behind me. We applied mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, but he was already dead. The bullet had gone through his right arm and heart, and I think it went out on the other side.’

      Fourie suspected that the wounded Frelimo was the same one who had earlier spotted the wire of the Claymore mine on the ground. ‘The terr was between us and the Claymore, and he followed the wire all the way to the mine. When he reached it, Douw detonated the mine. The back-blast of the Claymore had injured him. After he shot Kokkie, Joe de Villiers instantly took him out with his weapon.’

      The team then withdrew, carrying their fallen comrade’s body with them. A helicopter was not immediately available – with helicopters in short supply in the Rhodesian air force, they were constantly deployed. The team had no choice but to keep moving.

      Fourie recalls how they struggled with the stretcher: ‘We had these primitive stretchers, so four guys had to carry Kokkie. It left us with only a few guys who could shoot effectively. In later years the medical equipment improved, and they designed a stretcher that could be carried by just two guys who were able to shoot at the same time.’

      By late afternoon, a thick mist descended that made it impossible for a helicopter to collect Du Toit’s body. ‘We walked until dark and then took shelter against a koppie that was very bushy. None of us wanted to lie close to the body, and we went into all-round defence some distance away,’ Fourie relates.

      Du Toit had always carried a bottle of rum in his backpack, and that evening in the lying-up position Steyn took out the bottle and everyone drank a tot to the memory of their fallen comrade. In the dark they concealed Du Toit’s body in the dense bush in case the team unexpectedly had to start running for their lives. True to Recce tradition, they would not allow his body to fall into enemy hands.

      ‘Willy Ward was the new team leader … The next morning we couldn’t find the body, seeing that we had arrived at the place in the dark. Eventually we located Kokkie’s body by means of the smell.’

      The helicopter came in fairly early and landed close by. Du Toit’s body was airlifted out under enemy fire. Steyn, who was injured – during his tree landing after his parachute jump a branch had penetrated his boot and pierced his foot – was evacuated along with the body to the Tac HQ.

      As Frelimo soldiers were still hot on their heels, the team immediately started running again after the helicopter took off. There were now too few of them left to take on the Frelimos’ superior numbers. Eventually the team was picked up and flown to the Tac HQ, where a debriefing took place under the command of Capt. Hannes Venter.

      * * *

      Since 1976–77 Robert Mugabe’s Zanla guerrillas had been infiltrating Rhodesia on a regular basis from Mozambique’s Tete and Gaza provinces. Zanla’s strategic plan also included sabotaging the logistics routes in southern Matabeleland to South Africa from the Gaza province. During the course of 1976 the Selous Scouts attacked Frelimo-Zanla logistics bases in the Tete and Gaza provinces. In addition, they demolished or damaged parts of the railway line between Malvernia and São Jorge do Limpopo.

      Zanla assembled its troops at Xai-Xai on the Mozambican coast. After receiving training in Tanzania, the troops were transported along the coast to Xai-Xai. From there they were moved by road or by rail to Aldeia da Barragem, Frelimo’s brigade HQ in the Gaza province. As a result of the Selous Scouts’ actions, the Zanla guerrillas were forced to move to the Rhodesian border with Mozambique either by road or on foot.

      During October 1977 the Selous Scouts handed over the responsibility for combating infiltrations from the Gaza province to the SAS Rhodesia. It was in this inhospitable operational area with little water and impassable sandalwood forests that South Africa’s Recces acted militarily against Frelimo and Zanla together with the SAS.

      * * *

      The Recces’ preparations and movement to Rhodesia would invariably take place in great secrecy.18 As soon as the group commanders received the instruction to deploy operators to Rhodesia, the preparations would start. Their kit, weapons and ammunition were packed in numbered crates. The group sergeant major compiled a contents list for each crate, after which the crates were weighed. Meanwhile the operators would check and СКАЧАТЬ