1 Recce. Alexander Strachan

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ up. Loots requested him to assemble a three-man team for the mission. Breytenbach’s first choice was Yogi Potgieter, who had passed the Rhodesian SAS selection course with him in 1967. Trevor Floyd (of 1 Parachute Battalion) was his next choice. He asked Trevor to nominate another person, which was how FC van Zyl (a fellow paratrooper and Trevor’s bosom buddy) became the third member.

      Breytenbach kept his team in the dark about their destination right until the end. We’re going to Angola to train Portuguese soldiers, he said.

      Breytenbach first went to Biafra on his own to do a recce. The mission required thorough planning as the entire area was besieged. For security reasons he flew via Paris, France, to Gabon. Jack Mulloch, who was based in Rhodesia and owned his own fleet of DC-7 aircraft, piloted Breytenbach personally on his first flight from Gabon to Biafra. They took off after dark and flew at a dangerously low altitude to evade the Nigerian radar and attack aircraft. Finally they touched down at Biafra’s Uli airport without incident.

      The Biafrans thought Breytenbach would help them solve all their problems, and welcomed him cordially. They seemed to be well set up militarily. It was only when he insisted on inspecting the ‘front’ that he found out the deployment on the Imo River left much to be desired. Instead of waging a guerrilla war, which would have seemed advisable in the light of their military shortcomings, the Biafran officers had set themselves up for a conventional war. Breytenbach was amazed that they were still managing to hold out.

      In South Africa, Trevor, FC and Yogi were still under the impression that they were bound for Angola. Trevor and FC were on a course when they were instructed to buy civilian clothes and report to Breytenbach in Pretoria. Trevor purchased a white suit with a matching hat. The outfit made him look like a ‘Mexican gangster’, he said. But he reckoned he was dressed appropriately to blend in inconspicuously with his fellow travellers on the intended journey.

      On the eve of their departure Breytenbach surprised them with the news that they were not going to Angola, but to Biafra. None of them had ever heard of Biafra. When he explained that it was in Nigeria, they did not know where that was either. Moreover, they had to fly there via France.

      Yogi, who was the last to depart, joined the group in France, and they flew together to Libreville, Gabon. Everything went smoothly, except that – without anyone being consulted on the matter – an unknown British member with the codename ‘Spuds’ had been allocated to their team.

      In Biafra, much training and reorganising lay in store for them. The Biafrans had traditionally only trained officers. The particular officer would then select his own troops, train them himself, and they would go off to fight. The officers could show Breytenbach with great precision on a map where the enemy was and where their own troops’ positions were located. But whenever he reconnoitred the positions himself, he could not find a single soldier at the designated place.

      The South African training team embarked with great zeal on the task of training the Biafran Organisation of Freedom Fighters (BOFF) as guerrillas. With Malloch’s support, South African military materials and equipment were flown weekly to Uli airport: consignments of ammunition, 7,62-mm rifles, machine guns, mortars, landmines and anti-personnel mines. The team discovered to their surprise that there were indeed some troops who displayed considerable potential and perseverance.

      To test whether the training had been successful, Breytenbach decided to deploy his team with the troops. He and Trevor reconnoitred the hostile Nigerian territory themselves. Thus the team became involved in battles on the banks of the Imo River where Breytenbach was wounded in the abdomen. But the injury could not have been too serious, as Yogi’s medical knowledge was sufficient to treat him.

      Landing at Uli airport was a complicated process since the runway lights were turned off permanently for safety reasons. The pilot had to fly over the radio beacon from a particular direction and line up the plane with a runway he could not see because it was shrouded in darkness. At the last moment he would give his call sign and request ‘Lights, please!’. The runway lights would then be switched on very briefly, the pilot would land quickly, and the lights were immediately turned off again. On the ground, torches were used to guide the aircraft to where it had to stop.

      The South Africans were given weekends off, and they would take turns to fly to Libreville in Gabon on Friday evenings. They would then spend the weekend in that city and only fly back to Uli on Sunday evening.

      When it was Trevor’s turn to go, he ran into French soldiers who were enthusiastically celebrating the feast day of St Michael (the patron saint of all paratroopers), whom the French call Saint Michel. He had never heard of this custom, and was amazed at how they partied with total abandon. On top of that, some lucky souls who were also named Michel got another couple of days off. Trevor wasted no time and immediately joined the French in their festivities.

      By Sunday evening when he had to return to Uli, he was still much the worse for wear and missed the flight. It was only on the Monday that he managed to get a flight back. An irate Breytenbach demanded an explanation for his gallivanting and late arrival. Trevor gave them a glowing account of the Saint Michel festivities and how generously the French had included him in their celebrations.

      The following weekend, Breytenbach and FC departed for Libreville with great expectations of participating in the festivities. But they had to return with their hopes dashed, as the event was only celebrated once a year.

      That was Trevor’s first Saint Michel. The following year they celebrated the occasion at Oudtshoorn with a jump along with some members of 1 Parachute Battalion.4 This partying on St Michael’s Day subsequently became an annual institution among the group of Recces.

      With the odds so heavily stacked against them, the Biafrans were unable to make much headway against the rest of Nigeria. By the end of 1969 their war effort started waning, and it became clear that the South African team would have to be withdrawn soon.

      Breytenbach and Trevor were the only two South Africans still left at Uli airport on the final day. A DC-7 aircraft, piloted by Ed Davis, landed on the runway to deliver the last supplies to Biafra. The local population must have sensed that the end was near and had started congregating in the airport area from early that morning. Some distance away, Col. Ojukwu’s plane stood totally isolated – he, too, was on his way out.

      These two aircraft were the only functioning planes at the airport that day. While the last cargo was being unloaded from the DC-7 in great haste, Breytenbach quickly went off to Ojukwu’s plane to bid him farewell and make the final arrangements before his departure.

      Meanwhile Trevor was getting increasingly anxious about the panicky crowd who had pinned their hopes on the DC-7 aircraft to escape from the advancing Nigerian army. This force was now barely a kilometre away from the airfield. There was no space in the plane to evacuate so many refugees, and it would in any case be unable to take off with such a heavy load.

      Trevor wanted to try nonetheless to rescue some of the Red Cross workers. So he opened the door of the plane and let himself down with a rope. The moment the crowd saw him everybody surged forward, trying to get into the plane. No, he said, nobody could board yet because they were still unloading cargo. He did manage to get the message through to members of the Red Cross that they would be hauled up with the rope. Trevor was overwhelmed by the hopelessness of the situation. Out of desperation, he announced that they were still waiting for the pilot, and that nothing could happen until he arrived.

      Among the crowd was a colonel who asked if his young daughter could stand at the front of the queue. Trevor agreed that she could be the first to board, but his eyes kept searching for Breytenbach who was apparently being delayed. The desperate mob could not be kept in check much longer, and the situation was getting more critical by the second. But Breytenbach was still missing and Trevor knew he could СКАЧАТЬ