The South African Border War - The start of Operation Savannah and Large scale South African involvement.

With the imminent withdrawal of Portugal, the liberation forces of Angola began fighting each other in November 1974, in Luanda, but it soon led to the dividing up of the whole country.

On the 15th January 1975 a treaty between the belligerents was signed to enable 11 November 1975 as the official date of Independence and a transitional government was implemented.

This lasted all of one day and the parties were fighting one another again, trying to seize and control strategic assets before independence.

In March the FNLA with the backing of the US via 1200 troops from Zaire were approaching the capital from the North.

The soviet backed MPLA had gained control of the capitol by the 9th of July but did not look like they could hold it against the approaching CIA backed FNLA. They now called increasingly on Cuba to assist with training troops.

Cuba also assisted training PLAN or SWAPO fighters in Zambia to infiltrate SWA. Cross border counterinsurgency raids escalated as a result.

South Africa secretly bought US $14 million worth of weapons with the assistance of the CIA to arm the FNLA and UNITA. These arrived in August.

On the 9th August 1975, SA moved troops 50 km into Angola to secure the hydro-electric complex they had funded and were dependent on.

By October, with the Cuban help, the MPLA was gaining ground against UNITA in the south and center of the country and UNITA would not be able to capture the capital before independence.

It was under these circumstances that Operation Savannah was initiated.

It was to be a top secret operation where South African troops and armor were to be heavily involved in assisting UNITA while pretending to be American mercenaries.

The conscripts currently on border duty were told they were eligible for a secret mission of a couple of weeks into Angola to assist UNITA gain territory before independence but that it was to be a volunteer mission.

All those that did not want to could be excused.

Thereafter the briefing began. They were to wear green prison uniforms, only one set was necessary since they wouldn't be long etc.
They were not to wear South African uniforms, boots or carry personal firearms, equipment etc. and speak only English, while referring to home as the "States". Any South African products were to have all labels removed and all hardware carried no insignia.

They were flown too Bloemfontein in the center of South Africa to fetch and drive a convoy of Eland Armored cars to the operational area.

img source

These were then flown to Central Angola to Silva Porto (Kuito) and prepared to defend Nova Lisboa (Huambo) for UNITA.

This fighting group was code named "Foxbat"

On the 5th of October this mobile attack unit clashed with and halted the advance of the MPLA and Cubans.

Meanwhile leaderless FNLA troops that had made their way southwards were joined up with South African special forces (Recces) to create task force Zulu which crossed into Angola on the 14th October driving MPLA forces out of the Border regions and then from South Western Angola.

The MPLA was ill prepared for semi-conventional tactics and melted before the South African onslaught in the South.

Zulu advanced roughly 80 km per day, with the light armored column quickly assuming attacking positions and unleashing overwhelming firepower every time they made contact with MPLA forces. The territory the MPLA previously gained from UNITA was quickly relinquished.

Task force Zulu was incredibly successful and had advanced 3,159 km in thirty-three days and had fought twenty-one battles / skirmishes in addition to sixteen hasty and fourteen deliberate attacks. The Task Force accounted for an estimated 210 MPLA dead, 96 wounded and 50 POWs while it had suffered 5 dead and 41 wounded.

Meanwhile back home parents new nothing of their sons bleeding and spilling blood on the white sands of Southern Angola.

Most eves were on the Fall of Saigon and the events further afield, little did they know of what their own sons were facing as a strict secrecy blackout was maintained in South Africa. Meanwhile the American Ambassador to the US watched South African troop movements and battles on news channels in America.

Quoted text from Wikipedia page on ops. savanna

Other posts in this series

The piece of the cold war nobody told you about - Africa's forgotten war

The Air Battles
The SA Fighter Aircraft
The SA Bomber Aircraft
The conflicts deep roots and start
Regional Tensions
Africa's forgotten cold war - Angolan War of Independence.
Africa's forgotten cold war - Mozambican War of Independence.
Africa's forgotten cold war - Rhodesian Bush War
Africa's forgotten cold war - The Angolan War of Independence transitions to the Angolan Civil War