Teknocrat
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COMMANDO RAID ON DAR ES SALAAM, TANZANIA 1972 BY SOUTH AFRICAN SPECIAL FORCES (RECCE) from The Silent War: South African Recce Operations 1969-1994 by Peter Stiff
FRELIMO, like half a dozen other liberation movements including the ANC, were well ensconced in Tanzania. FRELIMO's main camp was at Mbeya where training was undertaken by Cuban and Red Chinese instructors. Others were at Tunduru, Nachingwea, Lindi and on the island of Zanzibar. The Nachingwea training centre was personally handed over to FRELIMO by President Julius Nyerere. Facilities for officer training were provided for FRELIMO at the Tanzanian Army base at Nachingwea.
From 1964 onwards, after initial training in Tanzania, selected FRELIMO cadres were sent for advanced military training in Soviet training camps and special warfare schools. This included the Komsomol School in Moscow and the guerrilla warfare training school at Simferopol in the Ukraine, where courses on sabotage techniques of ten months duration were conducted.
President Nyerere had progressively transformed Tanganyika into a one party African Socialist state following the country attaining independence from Great Britain in 1961 . But his support amongst Tanganyikans, although broadly based amongst his own tribesmen, was far from universal. On 10 December 1963 the nearby island of Zanzibar became independent under the ruling Omani sultanate who had controlled it since the early 19th century. Zanzibar, known as the spice isle and the premier source of cloves, was the capital of the Swahili world, part Arab, part Indian but predominantly black African. Until Britain's Royal Navy declared a unilateral war against it in the 19th century, implementing their 'by cutlas and torch' policy - boarding and capturing the slave dhows which they torched and sank after freeing the slaves, it was the principal centre for the East African slave trade. On 12 January 1964 there was a black revolt, during which at least 5 000 Arabs, men, women and children, were mercilessly slaughtered. The wretched survivors, having had their property confiscated, their women raped and their possessions plundered, were packed into dhows and forcibly deported to Oman in the Persian Gulf by the new Cuban/Red Chinese backed Revolutionary Council. As a community the Arabs disappeared from the island. The Sultanate of Oman has never forgotten nor forgiven black Africa for this. But the spark of revolution, once it has caught, is difficult to extinguish. Seven days later, on 19 January 1964, the Tanganyikan Army mutinied under the leadership of a sergeant over pay, promotion and the post independence retention of senior British officers. They arrested and detained their officers, seized control of the airport, the radio station, police stations and State House itself. Julius Nyerere went into hiding and appealed to Great Britain for help. They answered his call and carrier-borne Royal Marines stormed ashore and broke the rebellion with professional aplomb. Control was returned to a much chastened President Nyerere, who disbanded his army.
Three months later Tanganyika and Zanzibar joined together in union. The new state, after anagramming segments of the names of both countries, became Tanzania It was said and generally accepted that Tanganyika played no part in the Zanzibar coup, but in view of the merging of the states so shortly afterwards, it becomes difficult, with the benefit of hindsight, to believe that President Nyerere's regime did not play some sort of covert role in the events. By arrangement, Julius Nyerere became president, while the fiery and brutish revolutionary leader of Zanzibar, Abeid Karume, became vice-president.
It was the intervention of British troops that had saved Nyerere's presidency, but despite this he began moving his country away from the West into the communist sphere of influence. Soviet arms, equipment and instructors arrived almost immediately and they formed and trained a new •peoples' army' for Tanzania. Its training would be taken over later by the Red Chinese. Soviet and Red Chinese arms began flooding into Dar-es- Salaam, which soon became the main port of entry for the re-export of weapons to the liberation movements of southern Africa. Tanzania's Peoples' Army was soon built up to a strength of 14 600 and equipped with Red Chinese made T-59 and T-62 tanks and artillery pieces. The air force would get Red Chinese MIG-17 and MIG-19 aircraft.5 By 1980 the strength of Tanzania's armed forces had risen to 57 000.6 Things had come a long way since the colonial days when it had little more than one infantry battalion of the Kings African Rifles.
The Red Chinese had gained much prestige and influence over the Tanzanians by their offer to build the nearly 2 000-km long Great Uhuru Railway' or TanZam Railway, connecting Zambia with Dar-es-Salaam. It was designed to cut the reliance of the black north on the transport routes of the white south. This influence soon became sinister. During the early years of Red Chinese aid programmes, it was common for them to conceal their projects behind high fences or hedges. The Chinese aid workers either assumed or were given powers to arrest or eject strangers straying into these areas. One such victim of this secrecy, a Nigerian postgraduate student, Alaba Orgunsawo, was given a visa to visit Tanzania to conduct research for his thesis on the subject of China in Africa. He was arrested in Dar es Salaam without reason and illegally detained for thirty-nine days in conditions he described as inhuman and animalistic'. Orgunsawo, later a professor of international relations, accompanied Nigerian President, General Gowon, on his visit to Peking (Beijing) in 1974.
In the early 1970s more rumblings of dissatisfaction came from Tanzanians opposed to Nyerere's one-party dictatorial rule. Vice President Abeid was assassinated in April 1972 by a Zanzibar army officer bearing a grudge. Another dissident was Oscar Kambona, a non Marxist former government minister. The Portuguese, who had established friendly relations with him before he fell from grace and fled the country, regarded him as a moderate.
Despite displays of Iberian nonchalance in Lisbon, it had become obvious by 1972 to both the Portuguese field commanders in Mozambique and to the South Africans, that the rear base and training facilities extended to FRELIMO by President Julius Nyerere, were the critical factors influencing their ability to escalate the guerrilla war in Mozambique. Kambona's situation was discussed by Portuguese Military Intelligence and officers from the SADF's Chief of Staff (Intelligence) and they jointly concluded that if they could engineer the downfall of Julius Nyerere, there was a good chance, with some cunning
maneuvering that Kambona could be positioned to succeed him as president. If this occurred, it was likely he would decide Tanzania's interests would best be served by ceasing military support for FRELIMO. It was agreed that as a first move, an effort should be made to demonstrate to the Tanzanians that Oscar Kambona's supporters were becoming militant. There was a need to stage incidents on an escalating basis to, hopefully, stir the fires of insurrection.
It was agreed the Recces would undertake the task and the first target area would be Dar es Salaam. In broad terms the plan was for a submarine to drop a Reece team out at sea off Dar es Salaam. Under the cover of darkness they would canoe into a deserted beach, make their way into town and set explosive charges with time delays on a few low grade targets, after which they would return to the beach, canoe back out to sea and rendezvous with the submarine for pick-up.
Britain's Royal Navy had finally closed its South Atlantic Station in 1965 and withdrawn from the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean in 1968, which left South Africa to look after its own naval interests in the region. This came as no surprise because since the declaration of republican status in 1960 and the country's exit from the Commonwealth, it had become increasingly clear the day would come when South Africa would have no option but to rely entirely on its own military and naval resources.
An analysis indicated that the purchase of a submarine flotilla would be the most effective and the least expensive strike force the South African Navy could afford or man. The British Government declined an order for the vessels to be built in Britain, 10 so three 869 ton Daphne class submarines were ordered from Dubigeon shipbuilders in France.
The SAS Maria van Riebeeck was delivered in July 1970, the SAS Emily Hobhouse in February 1971 and the SAS Johanna van der Merwe in August 1971. They carried crews of fifty-one and were designed for a medium rather than a long range role, because it was envisaged they would be needed only in South Africa's coastal waters. Nevertheless, they still had a range of 4 500 nautical miles. In the future, however, they would far surpass any range their designers had in mind. Until then the Recces' seaborne wing had existed in name only, but with the Tanzanian operation pending, Jan Breytenbach selected a six-man team consisting of himself, Sergeant Major Trevor Floyd, Staff Sergeant Kenass Conradie, Sergeant Koos Moorcraft and two attached naval men, Warrant Officer Ken Brewin and Petty Officer Willie Dewey.(Jan Breytenbach is the founder of the South African Special Forces Brigade, as the first commander of 1 Reconnaissance Commando, the first unit founded within the South African Special Forces. He was also appointed as the first commander of the 32 Battalion, known colloquially as "Buffalo Battalion", as well as 44 Parachute Brigade).
The Reece operators were landlubbers who knew little about the sea, but a lot about special operations. The sailors, conversely, knew a lot about the sea and nothing about special operations - so they made a good combination. There were no instruction books available to assist them in conducting waterborne operations and there was no one to ask because no special relationships existed with seaborne Special Forces of other nations. Jan Breytenbach was forced to rely on the only source he could find - a book titled Cockleshell Heroes. 11 It dealt with Operation Frankton, a successful raid conducted in October 1942 against Axis shipping in Bordeaux harbour by the Royal Marine's Boom Patrol Detachment, commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Blondie Hasler. The team spent five hairy days canoeing one hundred and ten kilometres up the Gironde River. They successfully struck their targets, but some team members were captured and summarily executed by the Nazis in terms of Hitler's infamous Commando Order.
The Recces trained for four months working out of Mossel Bay, using French supplied two-man Klepper canoes and Zodiacs and Geminis belonging to the South African Navy. Without outside expertise to rely on they worked themselves up from zero to the standard expected of the British Special Boat Squadron. They were greenhorns, so out of ignorance they took many unnecessary risks, going far out to sea at night in their kayaks, both in rough waters and in calm waters, in wind and in rain. They learned their sea navigating skills the hard way.
Once at Mossel Bay someone spotted them far out to sea and reported it to the sea rescue people. They promptly sounded the alarm and came out to save them. The lifeboat men disapprovingly told the operators they were in extreme danger because of the rough seas, particularly as it was getting dark. They urged them to head for the shore. The Recces thanked them for their concern, but told them to leave them alone. After gaining sufficient competence in the handling of small boats, they were attached to the submarine, SAS Emily Hobhouse, skippered by Lieutenant-Commander Woody Woodburne. He would command the operation itself and later, as a Vice Admiral, take command the South African Navy in the 1990s. Training continued with the operators practicing the skills of stripping the Kleppers down on the submarine's casing, stowing them aboard, reassembling them and mastering the techniques of launching them in rough seas Lieutenant-Commander Woodburne and his crew practiced infiltration exercises with the SAS Emily Hobhouse at all sorts of unlikely places up and down South Africa's coastline. The Recces launched their kayaks, landed and attacked mock targets and returned aboard. They became increasingly competent as the months passed.
It had been many years since a South African naval ship had docked at Dar es Salaam, so little first hand knowledge of the port was available, except what could be gleaned from charts. Unfortunately, only those of 1946 vintage were available. The Chief of the Navy, Vice Admiral. Flame' Johnson, was concerned about the growth of coral reefs in the port's vicinity. He had read somewhere that coral grew as much as twelve centimeters per year. If this was so it followed that the depths of the channels between the various coral islands had changed beyond recognition in twenty-six years. This would clearly endanger a submarine. There were numerous arguments about the growth rate of coral. Few believed there had been sufficient change to imperil the submarine, but Admiral Johnson did and he was the boss.
He finally gave consent from the naval side for the operation to go ahead, conditional on the assault team being dropped twenty nautical miles out to sea from Dar es Salaam. Jan Breytenbach believed this was ridiculous. To paddle twenty nautical miles, perhaps against the wind and in adverse weather conditions would probably deprive the team of sufficient time on target. Also, the farther out to sea they were dropped, the more dangerous it would be for the operators. Lieutenant Commander Woody Woodburne, however, in the Nelsonian tradition, told Jan Breytenbach he would turn a blind eye to the
order should it became evident that strict compliance would endanger the Reece team or place the operation in a situation where it might have to be aborted.
The SAS Emily Hobhouse sailed from Simonstown and set a course for the Portuguese naval base at Nacala in the Baia de Fernao Veloso, Mozambique. Final preparations were completed with the Portuguese and the submarine resumed its passage north. This time it ran submerged, using its snorkel.
On D-day at 23:00 the six-man team and their three canoes were dropped off ten nautical miles out to sea. The Kleppers were launched in rough seas without incident and they set off to paddle toward the distant winking lights of Dar es Salaam. They passed the lighthouse to their left, a distinctive landmark built on a thickly bushed coral island about a kilometre in diameter. A high wind blew from the shore and with the rough seas the going was hard. They knew the longer they took to reach the target beach, the less time they would have ashore.
Afterwards, the arrangement was for them to rendezvous with the submarine at a pickup point eight nautical miles from the shore, between 04:00 and 04:30. If they missed the rendezvous, they would head for an alternative pick-up point. If they failed to keep that rendezvous, they would paddle to the lighthouse island, conceal the Kleppers and lie up in the thick bush until the next night, when they would try again at an alternative rendezvous point. Finally, in the event they missed being picked up, they would return home the hard way, paddling 500-km down the coast to the safety of a Portuguese military base in Mo9ambique. Food for such a trip would not have been a major problem, but the provision of fresh water might have proved critical.
The sandy landing beach (Seaview/Feri) was north of the estuary where the port of Dar es Salaam was situated. It was an area crowded with fishing boats, which necessitated the operators keeping a sharp look out. In the roads about two nautical miles outside the harbour, a number of merchant ships were anchored and patiently awaiting permission to dock and unload their cargoes. The port was not renowned for its speed and efficiency and unloading often took several weeks. There was a naval base farther down the river estuary on the southern side at which were six Shanghai Class motor gunboats supplied to the Tanzanian Navy by the Red Chinese. They posed no particular danger, however, as according to intelligence reports it was rare for them to leave port.
They eventually reached the target beach, which as expected was dark and deserted. The sailors, Ken Brewin and Willie Dewey, concealed the canoes as best they could and remained at the beach as guards. They were armed with AK-47s. The four operators stripped off their outer clothing, revealing civilian clothes beneath. Before departing the submarine they had blackened-up with “Black is Beautiful” cream, but the breaking seas had washed most of it off by the time they reached the beach. It was dark anyway, so Jan Breytenbach decided it was of little consequence. Each man had a bag which concealed their AK-47s and untraceable British-made World War-2 vintage limpet mines. They set off inland at a brisk walk for their first target, a bridge (Selander) crossing the river (Msimbazi Creek) dividing Dar es Salaam's commercial district from the residential area and a Sun and Sands Hotel (later converted into Selander Police Station). Despite the lateness of the hour there were far more people about on the streets than expected.
Fortunately, they took little notice of the four white intruders. On reaching the bridge they laid sufficient clams to demolish it. All charges were fitted with two-day time pencils, set to detonate intermittently during the next day. From (Selander) bridge they headed for their next target, the power lines. After setting bomb charges they moved around town seeking targets of opportunity. One was the British High Commissioner's Rolls Royce (at the Kenyatta Drive High Commissioner’s Residence), which had a charge attached to its engine block. When finished, they returned to the beach where Ken Brewin and Willie Dewey were anxiously awaiting them. The wind was still high, but on the return trip this worked in their favour and they soon made up the time they had lost on the forward trip. They reached the coordinates of the rendezvous point with time to spare. They waited until 04:30 but there was no sign of the SAS Emily Hobhouse. Jan Breytenbach was about to order a move to the alternative pick-up point, when they detected what appeared to be distant but intermittent murmurs of a ship's diesel engines.
Uncertain if it was the wind playing tricks, they strained their ears, eventually concluding the intermittence resulted from the submerged submarine 'snorting' as the snorkel's non return valve opened and closed as waves crashed over it. They waited patiently and were eventually rewarded by the submarine surfacing next to them. Woody Woodburne had been concerned he had missed them. He was late because an unfortunate Tanzanian fisherman had caught a bigger fish in his nets than he had ever dreamed of - a South African submarine! Sadly for the skipper and his crew, their boat was dragged beneath the waves by the submarine's forward impetus and all souls aboard were lost. By the time the submariners became aware something was wrong, it was too late to do anything about it. They surfaced to find the submarine tangled in fishing nets and the wreckage of the boat. Clearing this had caused the delay.
They remained at sea off Dar es Salaam the next day, waiting for the charges to detonate and monitoring Tanzanian radio transmissions. There was chaos at the port as reports of explosions came in progressively throughout the day. The charge on the engine block of the British High Commissioner's car exploded during the afternoon when it was parked in the town centre. There were signs of panic and it was clear many Tanzanians believed war had broken out. The Tanzanian ruling party developed the jitters and news reports indicated there was a general belief that insurgents led by Oscar Kambona had commenced an armed insurrection.
The Chief of Staff (Intelligence) and Portuguese Military Intelligence, after assessing intelligence reports, concluded the operation had worked well and had created the effects intended. It was important to build on success, so they jointly recommended a second operation to escalate ‘Oscar Kambona's war'. This time the proposed target was more ambitious ... the Dar es Salaam oil refinery. Navy chief, Vice Admiral Flame Johnson, however, was not charmed. He believed he had been lucky to get the Emily Hobhouse back intact and insisted the uncharted coral reefs around Dar es Salaam posed too serious a risk to the safety of his submarine to try again. The army wanted to continue, but the chief of the SADF came down in favour of Admiral Johnson, believing he could not override him on a matter concerning the safety of a ship, which, after all, was his direct responsibility.
So no further raids were mounted. Lieutenant Commander Woodburne and Commandant Breytenbach were both awarded the Van Riebeeck Decoration for their parts in the operation. The rest got Van Riebeeck Medals. Lieutenant Commander Woodburne's citation read: “Lieutenant Commander Lambert Woodburne distinguished himself by displaying outstanding leadership, perseverance and devotion to duty in a special task of a delicate and dangerous nature during 1972.
“One occasion, during that year, he was placed in command of an extremely sensitive special task in the interest of the security of the State, in the execution of which a great deal had to be relied upon his own judgement and initiative and which demanded positive. He tackled and executed this difficult task with great courage and daring and, with his personal example, inspired the other members of the team that took part in the task. His positive leadership, his perseverence in the face of great odds and his outstanding devotion to duty undoubtedly played a decisive role in the successful execution of the
task.”
Commandant Breytenbach's citation read: “Commandant Jan Breytenbach distinguished himself by his cool and calm actions in dangerous situations in special tasks he was responsible for during 1972. His personal example, tough perseverance and exceptional leadership inspired his men to calmly and successfully execute extremely difficult and dangerous tasks with equal perseverance.”
“On occasion, he was placed in charge of a small group of specially selected men who were to execute an exceptionally delicate and dangerous task in the interests of the security of the Republic of South Africa. The execution of this very sensitive task required exceptional experience, expertise, physical and emotional effort, as well as courage and perseverance.”
“On a later occasion, he was again in command of a few men who were to execute a second extremely delicate and dangerous task. Due to a lack of the correct equipment and of the necessary intelligence for the planning of the task, his own judgement and ability to improvise had to be relied upon”
“In both cases Commandant Breytenbach planned and executed the tasks with courage, insight and responsibility. His exceptional leadership and the manner in which he inspired his men, by his personal example of courage and perseverance, were decisive factors in the successful completion of the tasks”
Details of these awards were never released by the military authorities. Nor was it revealed, or even hinted at, that a raid on Dar es Salaam had been mounted.
