Quote:
Originally Posted by TiroFijo
Mike, what percentage of the casualties were inflicted by the air force bombing prior to the Parabats jump?
How well trained were the SWAPO? I understand their commander fled under the attack. But I'm sure it took bronze balls to advance against AA artillery and a hugely superior (in numbers) and determined enemy in entrenched positions, no matter what level of training disparity.
There was quite a lot of propaganda by the cubans and their allies after this raid, claiming unfair attack on a refugee camp, intentional killing of non combatant women and children, and BS like that. Just like the previous Cuito Carnevale "victory". But the truth is that the south africans almost always fared amazinly well against the soviet block/cuban supported armies and guerrillas.
|
Tiro, it is hard to say because we were not counting at any time, but it was less than 100. The Alpha bombs we used were a great disappointment. They , instead of bouncing up and exploding sunk into the soft sand that the base was built on. They made a great spectacle, but caused very little damage. One can see from the photos I took, that the parade ground had only a few bodies on it. The vast majority of bodies were in the trenches which surrounded the town. Everyone I shot was in the trenches, apart from a Russian who I shot while he was trying to radio for help, he was in one of the bases buildings. There were quite a few woman soldiers, all armed and unifornmed and there were some children that SWAPO had kidnapped from SWA in order to con the UN into believing it was a refugee camp. These luckily were not harmed but we unfortunately did not have any spare capacity to take them home on our helicopters.