On 30 September 1985 the Angolan and Cuban forces operating in Angola suffered a spate of helicopter losses that effected their ability to support their troops. For a long time they were not able to understand what had happened to their valuable helicopters and...
In Angola during January 1986, Cuban intelligence services received reports from near the city of Huambo that many local village women were using parachute material to wrap their infants onto their backs. Rebel leader Jonas Savimbi and his National Union for the Total...
I was taking some time off of work at a shipyard in San Francisco and I had planned a trip to South Africa & Rhodesia for a couple of years. I was in contact with Al J. Venter from SOF magazine and Al told me what to bring over to Africa to trade with the farmers...
In the dramatic power struggle for Angola in 1987, South African Air Force Mirage F1s tackled MiG-23s in the skies above south-western Africa. Lionel Reid recounts the story Angola 1987. The Soviet and Angolan MPLA forces decided on an ambitious plan: a large-scale...
The armourer Flight Sergeant didn't like it one bit - "Captain, our orders were to load your aircraft with 72 standard HE rockets. I cannot change that on your request!' He was quite correct of course. The type of weapon used in an air attack is determined after...
Our first operation, code-named First Blood, was to destroy a temporary base in Zambia belonging to SWAPO, the guerrilla group fighting for the independence of South West Africa [now Namibia]. The base was a small transit camp, situated less than ten kilometres over...
In a previous November issue of the ‘Winged Chatter’ the official journal of the SAS C Squadron association of South Africa the President Grahame W. – former 2IC of the unit and recipient of one of only two Grand Cross of Valour ever awarded – presented his good...
Pfumo re Vanhu was formed in 1978 as a result of the internal political settlement and the establishment of Zimbabwe Rhodesia under the leadership of Bishop Abel Muzorewa. Several ZANLA (Zimbabwe African National Liberation Army) guerrillas of the Reverend Ndabaningi...
Operation Prawn: Attacks on Line of Rail: Barragem to Malvernia: August, 1976 Reconnaissance teams dropped in by free-fall parachuting and by helicopters along the line of rail, confirmed information to hand that ZANLA were making extensive and ever increasing...
The engines of a Soviet reconnaissance aircraft roared in the sky above the South Atlantic, taking off on a mission from the airfield in Fedotovo near Vologda. Behind them was the Cuban airfield of Jose Marti, then the Angolan airfield in Luanda. The target was...
This documentary film provides an insight into the Rhodesian Bush War from a soldiers perspective. You’ll hear how the army conducted its patrols and examples of contacts with enemy terrorists. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CLcCsBwFg2c
A photo of me as a (recently turned) 20-year old 2nd Lieutenant Infantryman in 1982, filling my water bottles with 'quality' water (by bush standards) at a waterhole at Umundaungilo village, Ovamboland approximately 2km from the Angolan border. These events are still...
In the context of the former Portuguese colonial empire, the territories of Guinea and Cape Verde played an important role in the maritime and air routes connecting Southern Africa, where Portugal had two important colonies: Angola and Mozambique. Furthermore, on the...
This is the short story of Fiat G.91R fighter bombers operated by the Força Aérea Portuguesa (FAP, Portuguese Air Force) in Angola [partially covered in War of Intervention in Angola Volume 1 published by Helion & Company]. None of the Fiat G.91R fighter bombers...
How rapidly times alter. As the so-called ‘Winds of Change’ swept through colonial Africa, the process of decolonisation gathered inexorable pace. Rhodesia was a prominent example. In July 1964, it experienced its first terrorist incident when a white farmer was...
Tank Killers Take on Big Game A Soviet T-55 battle tank rumbles slowly through the southern Angolan countryside, its two mates in echelon close behind. The FAPLA tank commander peers nervously at every shadow, at every oddly shaped bush and rock. He knows the South...