Episode 31 – D-Day and Operation Reindeer begins

This is episode 31 and it’s the start of Operation Reindeer – the twin assaults on Cassinga and Chetequera in Angola on May 4th 1978. Colonel Jan Breytenbach was the most important of these leading fighting forces on the ground at Cassinga code-named Alpha assisted by Commandant Deon Ferreira. SWAPOs code name for Cassinga was Moscow by the way so I will sometimes refer to it by that name. Seventeen medium-transport helicopters were going to be used to airlift the paratroopers out of Cassinga after they were airdropped in – and you know by now this would be the first major airborne attack carried out by the SADF anywhere. On May 2nd the South African government of John Vorster finally gave the go-ahead for Operation Reindeer on 2 May two days before the SADF would launch its invasion. The date was calculated to follow a United Nations Security Council debate on South West Africa. According to government officials later, this was to avoid making things difficult for the Big Five western nations who had been tacitly supporting Pretoria at the UN. The other target was Chetequera which was 30 kilometers from the cutline. Major Frank Bestbier was commanding the ground forces there.