First sip: Across the border by Norman McFarlane

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Like a good beverage, a good book holds promise from the first sip. This extract is used with the permission of NB Publishers.


About the author

Picture of Norman MacFarlane: provided

Norman McFarlane worked in human resources in the retail motor industry and ran a software company before becoming a full-time journalist in 2007. He has written for a number of publications over the years, including Wine Magazine, Classic Wine, Farmer’s Weekly and Bolander Lifestyle. He has won numerous journalism awards, including the 2008 Sanlam Business News Award.


Title: Across the border
Author: Norman MacFarlane
Publisher: Tafelberg
ISBN: 9780624093046 

Norman McFarlane was a teenager just out of high school when he was conscripted for national service and sent to Angola. Like so many other ordinary troopies, he was thrown into the horror, deprivation and banality of war during Operation Savannah (1975–1976), the apartheid regime’s secret campaign to influence the outcome of Angolan independence.

McFarlane recounts his loss of innocence in Angola, the subsequent "camps" and his journey towards finally confronting his post-traumatic stress disorder. Told with disarming honesty and humour, he gives voice to a generation of white South African men forced into a grisly, life-defining experience.


First Sip

Grootfontein

We flew to Grootfontein from Mpacha on Sunday 23 November, arriving mid-morning. I was on the first flight and the balance of the battery followed a day or so later. One of our first tasks was signing all the paperwork before heading north. We were briefed around a multi-page, poorly duplicated document that served two purposes: binding us to the Official Secrets Act, which essentially meant we had to keep our mouths zipped about everything that occurred up there, almost, but not quite, on pain of death, and extracting an acknowledgement that we were little other than mercenaries, which exonerated the SADF and the apartheid government from culpability, no matter what happened.

Stupidly, most of us signed with excited, even feverish, anticipation. We were going to war, and we were going to kick the enemy’s collective arse. We’d been fed an undiluted diet of Swart Gevaar and Rooi Gevaar propaganda over the last few days and we were, we believed, invincible. Much like the Cuban high command in the initial stages of the conflict, our high command believed that we’d be done and home, victorious, within weeks, so the chances of clearing out when we were originally supposed to – end December – seemed likely.

Savannah ended in March 1976, but we could not have guessed then that the conflict would endure for fourteen years, finally coming to an end when the Brazzaville Protocol was signed on 13 December 1988, with hostilities officially ending on 1 April 1989. As part of the agreement, South West Africa gained independence on 21 March 1990 and became Namibia.

Admin out of the way, we set about disguising the fact that we were South Africans. First order of business was to dispense with our SADF browns, which were replaced by green fatigues that looked very much like the combat gear issued to US Marines, although the quality of the kit we got wasn’t nearly as good as our browns. We were issued with two pairs of trousers, two shirts, and a cap that had a folded flap at the back secured with two press studs, which, when deployed, shaded the neck. Our vehicles, new-ancient Bedford gun tractors, recently spraycamouflaged, had been manufactured decades before and had stood largely unused in some or other vehicle park. All identifying marks had been removed to disguise their origins.

We were issued with new-ancient British QF Mk IV 25-pounder guns, manufactured in 1943, according to the legend on the brass plate affixed to the trail of our gun. They, too, had presumably slumbered in a gun park somewhere, no doubt smothered in grease to inhibit corrosion, and had been hastily hauled out and spray-camouflaged for Operation Savannah. Even the ammunition we were to use was specially manufactured by Armscor without any identifying marks, and that included the 7.62 mm ball ammunition, the latter manufactured by Pretoria Metal Pressings, which carried the legend "7.62 mm" on the base but with no sign of the characteristic "PMP" we were accustomed to seeing. Ammunition for our belt-fed 7.62 mm LMGs was, however, standard US military issue, complete with smart green steel case with acid-yellow lettering, which could be flapped open and attached to the side of the US M60 general-purpose machine gun.

Instead of the British Mills bomb "pineapple" hand grenades with which we’d been issued in 2 Sub-Area, we were given US M26 grenades. We were also issued with one M72 LAWS – light anti-armour weapons system – per gun. The M72, a one-shot 66 mm unguided anti-tank weapon, was the US military’s primary individual infantry anti-tank weapon, further confirmation of US involvement.

Later, while in Angola, we encountered many US .30 calibre M1 carbines, no doubt part of the arms package funded by the Vorster government in July to arm Unita and FNLA troops. Our rat packs, too, were purpose designed to be untraceable. Each contained the usual collection of small tins of food, but without labels. Instead, each tin had a paint spot, with various colours indicating the contents, noted on a handwritten, photocopied slip included in each rat pack.

The colours were not intuitive: cream/white did not indicate condensed milk, nor did red indicate bully beef. Inevitably, mistakes were made by the poor sods who had to dab each tin with a blob of paint, so on occasion, when you were expecting a tin of condensed milk, you’d find bully beef or perhaps peas. Each rat pack also contained a pack of three Esbit solid-fuel cubes, tea, coffee and sugar – each tied off in the corner of a flimsy plastic bag – and a pack of biscuits. Not the monogrammed rock-hard dog biscuits to which we’d become accustomed, presumably because they were identifiable as originating from SA.

Instead, we got a packet of delicious sweet-crunchy biscuits that, to me, were like a cross between shortbread and Tennis biscuits. They softened easily to make the most delicious, sweet breakfast porridge, which, unlike the traditional army dog biscuits, did not need the addition of sugar or condensed milk. The flimsy plastic bag containing the rat pack did not travel well, nor was it particularly waterproof. By the time we were resupplied while in action, the packs had travelled a great distance on the back of a truck, been tossed about unmercifully, and been rained on. In most instances, the sugar and coffee were congealed masses, and the tea soggy and unusable. To make a cup of coffee, you had to dissolve a teaspoon-worth, more or less, in hot water, then carefully rewrap the remainder of the coffee blob in plastic.

These elaborate preparations to keep our origins a secret came, however, to naught. The only countries in sub-Saharan Africa with Bedford gun tractors and British QF Mk IV 25-pounder guns were SA and Rhodesia, so we were likely to be from one or other country. Even more revealing were our brown combat boots, with the well-known tread pattern, and the SA coat of arms stamped prominently onto the side of our R1 rifles telegraphed to the world who we were and from whence we came. Some troops in other battle groups were apparently issued with canvas ankleheight takkies, hardly suitable for use in a combat zone, and others apparently had to "modify" the tread pattern on their boots to disguise them.

All these elaborate deceptions notwithstanding, the fact that we were all, well, white made it pretty obvious where we were from.  As it turned out, the rest of the world knew pretty damn quickly that the South Africans were causing mayhem in Angola, but the government managed to keep ordinary citizens – and Parliament for that matter – completely in the dark well into December, by which time there were about 3 000 troops engaged in combat in the various Ops Savannah battle groups. Since we were a flying column with a brief to engage the enemy in the eastern theatre of operations, we had to be self-contained, which meant we had to carry all our own fuel, ammunition, food and water, which required an ammo Bedford per gun, water carriers, ration trucks and fuel trucks. And that was just for India and Juliet troops of Tango battery, under the command of Maj. Thinus Brown. Battle Group X-Ray included a squadron of Eland-90 and Eland-60 armoured cars with all their necessary logistical support, and an SA Infantry mortar platoon.

It numbered, I estimate, around 300 combat personnel. That Operation Savannah was seen to be an ideal opportunity to test the SADF in combat conditions, the first time since World War II, emerged only much later. But having made the commitment to enter the war, we did so with gusto.

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