OPERATIONS –THE BORDER WAR

The South African Border War, also known as the Namibian War of Independence, and sometimes connected to the Angolan Bush War, was a largely asymmetric conflict that occurred in Namibia (then South West Africa), Angola and Zambia from 26 August 1966 to 21 March 1990. It was fought between the South African Defence Force(SADF) and the People’s Liberation Army of Namibia (PLAN), an armed wing of the South West African People’s Organisation (SWAPO). The South African Border War resulted in some of the largest battles on the African continent since World War II and was closely intertwined with the Angolan Civil War.

Following several decades of unsuccessful petitioning through the United Nations and the International Court of Justice for Namibian independence, SWAPO formed the PLAN in 1962 with material assistance from the Soviet Union, the People’s Republic of China, and sympathetic African states such as Tanzania, Ghana, and Algeria. Fighting broke out between PLAN and the South African authorities in August 1966. Between 1975 and 1988 the SADF staged massive conventional raids into Angola and Zambia to eliminate PLAN’s forward operating bases. Besides the operations in Angola the SADF deployed and manned bases all over the Namibia. In addition it introduced conscription to man the conflict and in the period some 500 000 troops the area.

The Special Forces operated its own bases in the area and acted in support of the SADF in internal operations against SWAPO with many Pseudo ops and other specialised operations taking part from the 5 Recce base in Ondangwa.