Mike McWilliams

I was rather puzzled by this book at first. The front cover subtitle is “South Africa’s Controversial Cross-Border Raid, Angola 1978” and the author is listed as “Mike McWilliams”. As a read, I kept looking for accounts of the Cassinga paratroop raid. It gradually came clear that what the book is actually about is a much later – 1987 – South African and UINTA operations against FAPLA and Cuba near the town of Cuito Cuanavale in Angola, and the author Is Leopold Scholtz. Obviously what happened is the text was bound with the wrong cover.

Author Scholtz describes himself in the preface as a professional historian, but seems to have spent most of his career as a journalist. He served in both the pre- and post-[i]apartheid[/i] South African military. This book was published in 2016 about events that occurred in 1987 and 1988.

A chapter on background notes the roots of the conflict; South Africa accepted the independence of Angola (although I imagine without a lot of enthusiasm) but didn’t want things to spill over into Southwest Africa (now Namibia). The South Africa supported UINTA inside Angola and allowed it “safe havens” across the Southwest Africa border; the Soviets and their Cuban proxy supported the Angolan government and its military arm, the FAPLA. In 1987, the FAPLA undertook an offensive against UINTA and South Africa sent troops to UINTA’s support combat occurred in the area west of the town of Cuito Cuanavale.

Scholtz makes it clear that this was not a counterinsurgency operation against guerilla forces; the FAPLA may have been guerillas when they were fighting the Portuguese but now they (and the Cubans) were a conventional mechanized army equipped with T-55 tanks, BTR-60 infantry vehicles, and MiG-21 and -23 aircraft. The Angolans had air superiority - due to air base locations and superior aircraft; a shorter logistical chain; and massive resupply from the USSR.

However – even though Scholtz is biased in favor of the South Africans – it’s pretty clear that they had tactical and operational superiority. The book is abundantly illustrated with pictures of destroyed and captured Angolan equipment, and UINTA maintained its presence along the Southwest African border. Both sides claimed victory, of course, with the Angolan/Cubans announcing that Cuito Cuanavale was an “African Stalingrad” for the South Africans. Scholtz dismisses this as “drivel”, with South Africa taking very light equipment and personnel loses. In fact Scholtz is pretty hard on all the governments involved, with pre-independence Portugal a “fascist dictatorship”, Angola a Marxist dictatorship, Fidel Castro a “brutal dictator” and the South African government militarily naïve in not committing enough troops to achieve a decisive victory.

Good maps of the various battles. Abundant color illustrations – although none of the actual fighting; they mostly show South Africans or UINTA troops standing around destroyed or captured Angolan vehicles. A short bibliography. I’ve already mentioned the misbound cover. Worth reading as an account of a Cold War conflict that I expect everybody involved would like to forget.… (altro)