1 Recce. Alexander Strachan

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СКАЧАТЬ wing. All of them were qualified parachutists, but seaborne work was still a foreign concept. Hence Breytenbach sent six operators to Simon’s Town in mid-1970 to do a 12-week attack-diving course. In 1971, a second group completed the course.

      In the early days the group had various cover names, including Alpha Operational Experimental Group, Delta Test Group, Research and Development Wing of the Infantry School, and Irregular Warfare Wing. It was time for a permanent name that would preferably not reveal too much about their nature. Breytenbach suggested Parachute Commando, but the generals opted for Reconnaissance Commando. In those days this name had not yet acquired the loaded meaning it has today, and sounded quite neutral.

      Accordingly, on 1 October 1972, without fanfare or ceremony, the unit became 1 Reconnaissance Commando (1 RC) – or the Recces for short.

      Having Oudtshoorn as their base had its own administrative problems. The Infantry School’s personnel were not privy to the Recces’ real activities and kept wondering what was going on. For their part, the men of 1 RC did not like the Infantry School’s strict dress regulations and had even less of an appetite for marching in file if they wanted to go somewhere.

      The Infantry School, in turn, took a dim view of the strange group’s informal work uniforms and long hair. The fat was in the fire one morning when Koos walked past unshaven and dressed in his smocks (a loose-fitting overall). Breytenbach was in Pretoria when Koos was charged with disregarding dress regulations. He had to report for the hearing on the Monday – the same day on which Breytenbach was due back.

      On his return, Breytenbach saw that Koos was dressed in his stepouts (formal uniform) and wanted to know what was going on. Koos told him, and said he had already admitted guilt. Breytenbach, in his standard combat dress, then walked with him to the headquarters for the hearing. ‘Plead not guilty and ask if you can call a witness,’ he told him on the way. At the venue, Breytenbach waited outside. Koos followed his advice and asked to call a witness. The adjutant got extremely annoyed at this unexpected turn of events as it upset his entire argument. He changed the plea, and Breytenbach was called. He was the one who had instructed Koos to dress like that, Breytenbach stated, and the court was welcome to charge him. The charge was set aside and Koos got off scot-free.

      Jan Breytenbach did not believe in limits. The only person he probably listened to was his ‘guardian angel’, Gen. WP Louw. Breytenbach did what he wanted, when he wanted. The Infantry School found this hard to tolerate. Whenever Breytenbach wanted to do something, he would just say he had authorisation – even if that was not the case. Every time he would simply provide the same authorisation number, regardless of whether it was for requisitioning vehicles he wanted or for setting up Fort Doppies (the unit’s subsequent base). This mindset did not fit into the Infantry School’s setup where everything was done strictly by the book.

      Both groups realised this forced state of neighbourliness could not survive, and on 4 December 1970 the Recces were transferred to Southern Cape Command for administrative purposes.

      4

      Training and early operations

      In the summer of 1971 there was great excitement when the Dirty Dozen were ordered to report to Rundu in the former South West Africa (SWA – now Namibia). Their assignment was in a sealed envelope that Breytenbach was only allowed to open on his arrival at Rundu. This gave the men the idea that they were going to conduct top-secret operations against Swapo in Zambia.

      So they were rather disappointed to learn on the opening of the envelope that their assignment merely involved mapping the locations of the 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, СКАЧАТЬ