Shrouded in secrecy due to the covert nature of their work, the legendary Recces have fascinated South Africans for years. Now one of these elite soldiers has written a tell-all book about the extraordinary missions he embarked on and the nail-biting action he experienced in the Border War. Shortly after passing the infamously gruelling Special Forces selection course in the early 1980s, Koos Stadler joined the so-called Small Teams group at 5 Reconnaissance Regiment. This subunit was made up of two-man teams and was responsible for numerous secret and highly dangerous missions deep behind enemy lines. With only one team member, Stadler was sent to blow up railway lines and enemy fighter jets in the south of Angola. As he crawled in and out of enemy-infested territory, he stared death in the face many times.
“By late 1986 the idea of destroying FAPLA MiG-21s and -23s on the runways of the air bases at Menongue and Lubango had been on the cards for months. Legendary Small Teams operator Captain André “Diedies” Diedericks of 5 Reconnaissance Regiment was certain he could convince the army bosses to send a small team to do the job, as it was virtually impossible to infiltrate a fighting patrol onto either of the targets.
Both airfields were exceptionally well protected, had open cultivated lands for kilometres around them and had a spread of FAPLA, Cuban and SWAPO deployments in the vicinity.
At that point, the MiGs ensured that FAPLA had air superiority in southern Angola. They had the advantage of holding time, or time-over-target, as they had a mere 60 to 80 km to fly to the combat zones. Menongue would be the first target, mainly because fighters were operating from there against the South African forces deployed at Cuito Cuanavale, but also because it was considered an “easier” target than Lubango.
For the Menongue target we decided that three of us, Diedies, fellow operator Neves Matias and I, would approach the outskirts of town, and that Neves would remain on the high ground to maintain radio comms with the Tactical HQ while Diedies and I did the final penetration.
A few days after arriving at Rundu, we were called for a rather disconcerting intelligence update. According to information gleaned from UNITA, the MiGs were allegedly guarded by FAPLA troops who slept underneath them.
Two Pumas transported us to a UNITA base approximately 80 km southeast of Menongue where we had to wait a while for our transport and for the right moon phase. At the drop-off point the UNITA soldiers who accompanied us established a temporary base where they would wait for our return. The doctor remained with them, while Diedies, Neves and I started the approach to the target.
Even though the Menongue airfield might have been easier to penetrate than Lubango, it was an exceptionally difficult target to reach due to the open fields surrounding the town. Furthermore, the Angolan militia, a uniformed citizen force equipped with rifles, had the nasty habit of patrolling from kraal to kraal, occasionally shooting, apparently at random and at no specific target. This was quite nerve-racking to a team hidden in the undergrowth.
During the planning and rehearsals, Diedies and I had agreed that I would navigate to the target, while he would lead the way once inside. The standard procedure by that time was that he would be in front without night-vision goggles, relying on his senses only, while I would bring up the rear with night vision. The reason for this was that the person with the night sights would be temporarily blinded every time he removed the instrument from the eyes.
At first light we found ourselves on the edge of the cultivated lands. Hiding places were scarce, but we managed to crawl under a thicket, where Diedies covered me up with leaves and grass, then crawled in close for me to cover him. We were lieing close together on our backs, the one's head by the other's feet, weapons at the ready. This provided us with good all-round observation. For drinking water, each had a tube leading from the water bag inside the kit. For nourishment we would snack on energy bars or nuts at the quietest time of day - when the sun was at its highest and sound and smell did not travel far.
The biggest challenge was waiting for the day to pass. Boredom can bring on all kinds of negative thoughts, and the fear of being compromised is an ever-present companion. That day proved to be a particularly demanding one. There was much shooting and yelling all around us, to such an extent that we thought our tracks had been discovered.
By about 09:00 two youngsters made their appearance and climbed a tree overlooking our hide. The next moment they started chopping away at the higher branches and spent the whole day trimming the tree away to a stump. Most of the time one of the tree-choppers was almost directly above us.
Late that afternoon we heard considerable jet aircraft activity in the direction of our target, which made us wonder whether they had been scrambled for a mission.
It was not yet dark when we crawled out of our hiding place and started moving. Time was of the essence - we had to be on target by 01:00. We had set 02:00 as final cut-off to move out, because it would take three hours to get back to the tree line before first light. We had just started moving when we bumped into an old man returning from his fields. Diedies kept his cool and spoke to him in Portuguese, urging him to get back to his house as it was getting late. Luckily he didn't put up an argument and scuttled off.
By midnight we had reached the river just east of the runway. The aerial photography had not told us how deep and marshy it was, and it took more than two hours to cross. At some point during the crossing one of my feet got stuck in the mud and my anti-track cover got left behind.
After crossing the river, we followed a road that led straight to the runway, and soon bumped into a checkpoint with some guards, complete with a boom gate and a dug-in tank in a defensive firing position. It took us an hour to skirt the position, moving extremely slowly as we did not know if there were any troops lying in trenches.
By 03:00 we reached the eastern end of the runway. It was already an hour past our cut-off time and we hadn't even seen an aircraft. We decided there and then to get out before daylight. I led the way, and we were still inside the base when the first faint light of day appeared in the east. We covered the last two kilometres to the relative safety of the tree line in broad daylight, praying that we wouldn't encounter security patrols that early in the morning.
By 06:00 we moved into dense bush and just kept going. Diedies was out of water and we had to share my half-litre. We had been going for thirty-six hours, and it was starting to take its toll. By 09:00 Diedies was severely dehydrated and I was in no position to assist him.
At last we were forced to sit down for a brief rest. As we looked back on our route, Diedies managed to say, through parched lips, “Kosie'tjie, hierdie is kak [This is a load of crap].” “Dit was laaste. Ek kruip nie weer in terr basisse rond nie. Nooit weer nie! [Never again. I'm not going to crawl around terrorist bases ever again].”
I couldn't agree more, and I told him so. Then we each popped one of the performance-enhancing amphetamines we used to carry for such emergencies, and used the induced energy to cover distance. About four hours later, as the midday heat was at its most intense and the drugs started to wear off, Diedies suddenly stopped. Clearly at the end of his tether, he sat down and called me back.
Finding it almost impossible to speak, my colleague croaked, “I've given it some thought. What if we go back tomorrow night? We are now familiar with the target and with the shortest route to it. We know where to cross the river. We know where the guard post is. We can do it.”
I was flabbergasted. He was completely spent, and yet was already making plans to return to the target.
“Just think about it; they don't know about us,” Diedies maintained. “We have all the advantage we need.”
Such was the nature of the man. Even his most exhausted moments he would look at a situation with the clearest perspective and force his mind to look beyond his physical suffering.
“Okay,” I finally said, “I'll think about it, but first let's find the rest of the guys.”
We popped another amphetamine pill and kept moving. By the time we found the first UNITA guys that afternoon, Diedies was leaning on me for support, barely able to walk. Neves had already moved back, not knowing whether we'd been captured or not, and was happy to see us safe.
The doctor immediately put Diedies on a drip and suggested we each take a Valium to get some decent sleep. Over a hot meal we discussed the prospect of approaching the target again the following night. Neves had, in the meantime, made comms and given the Tac HQ a brief rundown of the situation. I prepared a message on Diedies' instructions, motivating for a second penetration attempt.
Before last light we again heard much aircraft activity in the direction of Menongue. It sounded like fighters taking off. I took my Valium and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.
Diedies and I were up before first light.
We decided to leave Neves at the temporary base, where he could maintain radio comms with the Tac HQ and, if necessary, orchestrate a search and rescue. We were off just after first light, and this time I wasted no time in navigating to the best position for us to penetrate.
We did much better on time, and by 20:00 that night I had skirted the marshy river area where we had wasted so much time two nights before.
Diedies took the lead after the river. As adept as I was at map and compass work, he had a knack for memorising a target and working it along the planned penetration route. This time we reached the runway by 02:00.
We kept going, maintaining a low profile on the runway. Suddenly I heard a noise behind us and pushed Diedies down firmly. It was the strangest noise, as if a light steel object was being rolled rapidly in our direction. The next moment a dog came trotting past us on the runway, not noticing us even though we were barely three metres away. It ran past us and disappeared, leaving two shaken but very relieved operators on the tarmac.
We reached the hardstand in front of the main terminal building. As there was some light coming from the buildings, I could see quite clearly with the night-vision goggles. But there were no jets. The only two aircraft I could see were a smallish prop job and an Mi-17 transport helicopter, nothing else.
“I see no MiGs,” I said in a whisper.
“What do you mean, no MiGs? We're not looking in the right place …”
He pulled out his night vision from the special harness and brought it to his face. No fighter planes. Then it hit us, right there in the dark, on the tarmac, deep in the Angolan war zone. They didn't put troops under the MiGs to guard them; they actually flew the aircraft out to a safe place every night! That was the jet activity we had heard the two previous nights.
We were devastated to realise that all our efforts and our mission were in vain. We approached the transport on the tarmac and saw that it was unserviceable. When I quietly suggested to Diedies that we should plant devices on the two aircraft, he just waved his arms; it would have been futile to give the game away at that point. All that remained was to exfiltrate quietly and rethink the whole operation. We moved out fast.
Shortly after our return we received confirmation via the intelligence channel that FAPLA evacuated the fighters every afternoon from Menongue to Bié, which was considered safer. This was excellent information, fresh and accurate, but unfortunately three weeks too late.”
* This is an extract from Recce by Koos Stadler published by Tafelberg and sold at a recommended retail price of R225.
Author bio
Koos Stadler is a former Special Forces colonel in the SANDF and a recipient of the Honoris Crux (bronze) for bravery. He was involved in numerous strategic operations behind enemy lines for five years of the Border War as a member of one of the Recces’ legendary small teams.