Operation Bucksaw was followed almost immediately by deployment of a 32 Battalion company south of the Angolan border, with Alpha, Delta and Foxtrot companies finding themselves north of the border yet again on 17 May.
At 18h00 on 27 May, Second Lieutenant H Rademeyer’s platoon from Alpha Company noted a huge pile of food about 400 m from their position east of Chana Buabuena, along with three SWAPO cadres, one carrying a PPSh carbine, one an axe and the third a Seminof rifle. The platoon opened fire, killing the man with the Seminof, while the other two escaped.
The platoon destroyed the food cache, but walked into an ambush while withdrawing. The enemy broke contact after about a minute, leaving two of their dead behind. The platoon swept the area, finding discarded AK47 ammunition and an enemy base large enough for 150 men, west of the chana, which appeared to have been evacuated a day before.
On 6 June, Corporal FH le Roux of the protection platoon at Omauni was sent with nine vehicles, one mechanic and a medical orderly to drop off two additional platoons at Beacon 29 and re-supply those deployed in the Yati Strip.
They drove along ‘Oom Willie se pad’ (Uncle Willie’s road), which linked military bases from Nkongo in the east to Etale in the west, before turning north to the cutline at Chana Oshali. In the Yati the convoy veered west, and the two platoons were dropped off just south of Beacon 29 on the morning of 7 June. Le Roux then backtracked on the same route, stopping about nine kilometres down the road to check his map. Suddenly, his driver noticed three SWAPO, armed with machine guns, to the left of the vehicle. Le Roux and his crew immediately debussed and opened fire on the trio. Almost at once the vehicles at the rear of the convoy came under fire as well, and pulled out of the line one by one to move up to the front. As they approached, Le Roux signalled to them not to stop, but to drive through the ambush at maximum speed. Up to that point, enemy fire had come only from the north, the left-hand side of the convoy.
With all the vehicles now under fire, the drivers debussed and moved into position closer to Le Roux. The 14 men had barely begun to return fire when a new attack came from the east. The corporal realised they had been caught in an L-shaped ambush, and they now found themselves under fire from 82-mm mortars aimed at predetermined targets too close to the vehicles for comfort. Le Roux ordered the drivers to return to their vehicles and get the hell out of there to the south. About a kilometre from the ambush they turned west, heading for a point two kilometres away where a platoon was known to be patrolling.
As the drivers took off, Le Roux noticed that one vehicle was not moving. He jumped into the driver’s seat and, as he turned south, saw the wounded driver lying next to the road. He stopped to pick up the wounded man, then followed the rest of the convoy at speed. Reunited with his men, Le Roux was told by one of the drivers that as they returned to their vehicles, they saw SWAPO men and some women looting food from some of the Unimogs. After firing a few shots at the looters, they fled north, leaving the food behind.
The platoon patrolling the area advanced towards the contact point and promptly came under fire themselves. Only then did Le Roux notice that two of his vehicles had remained behind, smack in the middle of the ambush. In the face of an attack by a full platoon, SWAPO fled fairly quickly, and the two damaged vehicles were recovered. The convoy regrouped and proceeded to platoon headquarters six kilometres to the south, returning to Omauni the next day.
Unfortunately, while waiting for the convoy to arrive, two 32 patrols became involved in a skirmish with one another. A platoon deployed in the Omundaungilo area was under command of the company headquarters at Elundu, while another, operating directly north of the area in the Yati, was under command of Omauni. The commander of the platoon in the Yati sent a section to the cutline to wait for Le Roux’s convoy and guide them to the temporary base. Unbeknown to them, the patrol from Elundu was following the Timo Line, and had reached a position about 100 m south when the platoon in the Yati noticed a flock of birds taking sudden flight. A convoy had been ambushed in almost exactly the same area a few weeks before, and the section leader sent two scouts to investigate.
Just a few metres south of the Timo Line, they heard noise coming from what turned out to be the Elundu patrol taking a break. Without carrying out visual confirmation, and without any command to do so, the scouts opened fire in the general direction of the sounds. The men from Elundu returned fire immediately, and it was only when their commander began shouting commands in Portuguese that the two scouts realised they had attacked their own forces. Fortunately, casualties were light, with only one of the scouts being wounded. After this, however, the two platoon commanders made regular radio contact with one another.
From the beginning of July, there was one of the sudden lulls in enemy activity that the troops had come to recognise as the calm before a storm. For three weeks not a sign of enemy movement was detected by any of the platoons. Then, on 24 July, Second Lieutenant H Fourie took a patrol out of the Yati Strip to Chana Oanga, where SWAPO had set up a temporary base. Assuming that the guerrillas were still in the area and had spotted his patrol, Fourie bombarded the base with 30 60-mm mortar bombs, firing another ten in the direction of the most likely escape route before withdrawing from the area. Unfortunately, Fourie and his platoon fell into a predictable routine while on patrol, and this did not escape the enemy’s unseen but not unseeing eyes. On 28 July, the platoon found itself on the receiving end of a heavy 82-mm bombardment, and was lucky not to sustain any casualties. On the same day, Corporal Eloff’s patrol was moving south to the Yati when they walked into a well-laid ambush north of Chana Oanga. An estimated 17 SWAPO were waiting in an L-formation along a dirt track, but, as usual, after a brief exchange of fire, they scattered both north and south. Follow-up operations over four kilometres revealed marks indicating that SWAPO were dragging either two dead or wounded soldiers with them.
Lieutenant Burman had concentrated his platoon’s efforts around Chana Namixi, and was determined to gain domination of the area. At 12h05 on 28 July, the platoon went to replenish their water supplies in the chana, but Burman felt it prudent to first lay an ambush south-east of the waterholes, just in case the enemy was overcome by thirst at the same time. While lying in wait they saw some members of the local population, and after a while a group of herdboys arrived, driving scrawny cattle before them. After a brief conversation with one of the adults, one of the herdboys left.
Shortly afterwards, three SWAPO guerrillas appeared from the north and made themselves comfortable under a shady tree directly opposite Burman’s ambush. A few minutes later, another six SWAPO, all toting machine guns, made their appearance too. Burman waited until all nine were at the waterhole before opening fire, but what he had not allowed for was the presence of more SWAPO in the bush to the north. They returned fire with machine guns, RPG 7 rockets and AK47s, deliberately firing the rockets into the trees under which Burman and his men had taken cover, thus effectively achieving an airburst, which resulted in several men being showered with shrapnel that lodged in their heads and upper bodies.
Rifleman Fernando, the 30 Browning machine-gunner, poured one long burst of fire after another at the enemy position, while Rifleman Gabriel dropped high-explosive 60-mm mortar shells on the SWAPO group with devastating accuracy.
Burman had difficulty restraining his troops from rushing headlong into a premature frontal attack, but as soon as the SWAPO fire began to abate, the platoon moved forward in short dashes, covering one another as they went. The enemy turned and ran, hotly pursued for 200 m before the men from 32 turned back to make sure the area was clear. Seven SWAPO bodies were found, and their weapons and ammunition duly collected for future use. One of Burman’s men had been seriously wounded and required evacuation. It was strict SADF policy at the time that no helicopters were to cross the border under any circumstances, but on this occasion, after a great deal of pressure had been applied by the right people in the right places, an exception was made and a helicopter was sent from Eenhana to pick up the wounded man and the captured equipment.
The platoon stayed in their ambush position, and at 14h00 a sentry reported that SWAPO cadres were approaching. About five minutes later an enemy patrol walking in a semicircle formation appeared. Thirty minutes later the firefight was still raging, with SWAPO using 82-mm mortars in addition to small arms. Burman’s platoon began to run out of ammunition and were forced to use some of the weapons captured during the earlier contact.
About a kilometre to the south, a platoon under the command of Corporal Pieters heard the gunfire and immediately moved to the aid of their comrades. Approaching from the south they launched their attack on the enemy’s eastern flank, and thanks to the arrival of the reinforcements the enemy force eventually fled.
What made this contact different from previous encounters was the standard of leadership and control shown by the enemy. At the debriefing, just about everyone involved in the firefight confirmed seeing two white men directing the attack from the centre of the semicircle.
Eight members of 32 were wounded, but having flouted the standing regulations once that day already, there was no way Omauni could persuade Eenhana to send helicopters to evacuate them, so the wounded men were bodily carried back to the Yati Strip, the group arriving towards evening.
From August, the area around Namixi was swarming with SWAPO, groups of up to 200 being reported on the move, and on the 19th, platoons led by lieutenants Burman and Van der Westhuizen laid an ambush at Chana Bau. At 15h30, a herd of cattle driven by a boy aged about ten appeared, along with ten SWAPO. The troops misjudged their position, opening fire before the guerrillas were in the kill zone, and only the herdboy was killed. Six members of the platoon were wounded by RPG 7 shrapnel when SWAPO returned fire. The platoons withdrew to the south and set up a temporary base in the Yati Strip.
At 10h00 the next day, their temporary position came under bombardment from 82-mm mortars and 75-mm and 82-mm recoilless guns. The bombs fell short, but the reaction force was summoned from Eenhana, Major Dave Mentz arriving with an 81-mm mortar group. With an Alouette acting as aerial observer, the mortarists were right on the mark, and as the battle died down the Alouette reported the enemy moving north in vehicles, taking their hardware with them.
Seiljag 2 ended on 9 September, when the deployed troops were relieved by fresh companies from Buffalo Base.