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<div style="background:#fff;border:#bbb dashed 1px;padding:5px"><a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=399441" style="color:#000;text-decoration:none"><div style="margin:10px 0"><strong>The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale</strong></div><div style="margin:10px 0">I. Outnumbered by armour (A reply to William Shakespeare) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Outnumbered by armour <br>and by men we met the enemy, <br>FAPLA and Cubans under Russian leadership<br>and the men accompanying me <br>was very worried<br>and wished for the whole <br>of the seventh armoured division<br>to have been deployed.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">I said to the men <br>in the armoured car with me <br>that if we must die here in vain, <br>the fewer men it be<br>but if we grasp the victory<br>the world will know<br>that we are brave and honourable men<br>capable of destroying whatever faces us.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Weary I told them that our ancestors<br>faced a outnumbering enemy<br>against Dingaan and won effectively<br>as they were in the hand of God<br>and so were we.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Colonel Deon Ferreira send us straight in, <br>from Rundu<br>(heading north-west after crossing the border) <br>to intercept the 47th enemy FAPLA / Cuban (armoured) brigade.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">At the same time UNITA were repulsing <br>the16th FAPLA (infantry) brigade <br>north of the Lomba River<br>that was trying to take Cunjamba.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">We were hitting hard directly from the south, <br>surprising the 47th enemy (armoured) Brigade, <br>virtually destroying it<br>at the junction <br>of the Lomba and Cuzizi Rivers </div><div style="margin:10px 0">fighting with armoured cars <br>against tanks<br>hitting fast and then driving away at speed, <br>like on commando our ancestors did<br>during the Anglo Boer war<br>fighting day and night<br>till the field, the air was filled with gore</div><div style="margin:10px 0">and when more pressure came, <br>more enemy armour rolled in<br>our own main battle tanks joined in, <br>howitzer guns started firing in support<br>from many miles away, <br>assisted by reconnaissance commandos<br>for accurate targeting</div><div style="margin:10px 0">It was the greatest slaughtering, <br>as battles go a terrible, terrible thing<br>for our enemy<br>while we wiped them out<br>and found ten abandoned enemy tanks<br>left in the bush, in pristine condition <br>with the men operating them running away</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Shortly after these victories<br>our forces along with those of UNITA<br>destroyed the remaining FAPLA / Cuban forces<br>in the Lomba-Cuzizi-Conzumbia aria<br>and on the offensive <br>drove back the other enemy brigades<br>for a distance of one hundred and twenty miles<br>in bloody battles up to Cuito Cuanavale</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> l’Envoi<br>and now on a hill outside Pretoria <br>the new government <br>has constructed a monument<br>called Freedom Park</div><div style="margin:10px 0">to celebrate a victory, <br>thinking that with lies<br>they can change history, <br>are even trying to find some Cubans<br>to place the names of them on a honour wall<br>as heroes and victors </div><div style="margin:10px 0">while they had lost<br>at a terrible cost of men and machines<br>and incredibly <br>some people believe them.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">[References: Before Agincourt by William Shakespeare.]</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br>II. Legends and victories in Angola of which the truth is vague (in answer to Johan Myburg) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">No person that wasn’t there<br>can grasp the extent, of the impact<br>of the Cuban brigades</div><div style="margin:10px 0">the air bridge that the Russians had build<br>with new armour and weapons from Moscow, <br>the deadly danger that attacks<br>of the 47th (armoured) ,59th (mechanized) ,16th (infantry) , <br>and 21st (infantry) ,25th (infantry) , enemy brigades held</div><div style="margin:10px 0">when almost a hundred T-55 tanks<br>and hundreds of BTR-armoured cars<br>came driving shooting out of the bush<br>(supported by MIG-23 fighter bombers) , </div><div style="margin:10px 0">knows how it is when Ratel-90 armoured cars <br>have to come to a standstill, <br>to fire upon moving and shooting targets<br>and in that hour of hell</div><div style="margin:10px 0">the truth about a giant victory against<br>Cuba wasn’t vague, <br>the whole of the 47th FAPLA / Cuban (armoured) brigade<br>was totally obliterated, <br>ninety-four enemy tanks was shot out, <br>almost three hundred armoured cars were reduced to scrap<br>four thousand five hundred and eighty enemies were killed<br>nine MIG fighter jets were shot down</div><div style="margin:10px 0">against the lost of only three South African tanks, <br>eleven armoured cars and troop carriers, <br>one Mirage fighter jet<br>and thirty-one South African soldiers.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whoever views the truth of this victory as vague<br>hasn’t got a clue<br>of what had happened there<br>(probably had hidden as a religious pastor <br>somewhere in the rearguard, <br>or were away at home) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Whoever believes the false propaganda <br>distributed by the new government <br>and the Cubans, <br>are without proper knowledge<br>and disputes the bravery<br>of the undefeated soldiers <br>of the 61 mechanised<br>and 32 South African battalion groups.</div><div style="margin:10px 0"> l’Envoi<br>Still it’s strange <br>that the Cuban general Ochoa Sanchez<br>(who was the supreme commander of this conflict) <br>was executed in Cuba.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">[References: Stigtingsdag (Founder’s day) by Johan Myburg: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“maar duisend-en-een angolese verhale<br>van brigades kubane<br>sages van seges waarvan<br>waarheid maar vaag is”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">My translation into English: </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“but a thousand and one Angolan stories<br>of brigades of Cubans<br>legends of victories of which<br>the truth is but vague”</div><div style="margin:10px 0">The battle at Cuito Cuanavale: “The results of the campaign up to April 1988 were 4,785 killed on the Cuban/Faplan side, with 94 tanks and hundreds of combat vehicles destroyed, against 31 South Africans killed in action,3 tanks destroyed (SADF tanks entered the war after the Lomba River campaign) and 11 SADF armoured cars and troop carriers lost. A total of 9 Migs were destroyed and only 1 SAAF Mirage shot down.” (General) Jannie Geldenhuys. (1994) : At the front. Jonathan Ball Publishers. P240. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">“The South African force, under the command of Colonel Deon Ferreira, was tasked with carrying out three operations (1) Operation Modular - The aim of which was to halt and reverse the FAPLA / Cuban advance on the UNITA strongholds of Mavinga and Jamba, (2) Operation Hooper - The aim of which was to inflict maximum casualties on the retreating FAPLA / Cuban forces after they had been halted and (3) Operation Packer - The aim of which was to force the FAPLA / Cuban forces to retreat to the west of the Cuito River.” Nortje, Piet (2003) .32 Battalion. Zebra Press.</div><div style="margin:10px 0">'In early October the Soviet-Fapla offensive was smashed at the Lomba River near Mavinga. It turned into a headlong retreat over the 120 miles back to the primary launching point at Cuito Cuanavale. In some of the bloodiest battles of the entire civil war, a combined force of some 8,000 UNITA fighters and 4,000 SADF troops destroyed one Fapla brigade and mauled several others out of a total Fapla force of some 18,000 engaged in the three-pronged offensive. Estimates of Fapla losses ranged upward of 4,000 killed and wounded. This offensive had been a Soviet conception from start to finish. Senior Soviet officers played a central role in its execution.... Huge quantities of Soviet equipment were destroyed or fell into UNITA and SADF hands when Fapla broke into a disorganized retreat... The 1987 military campaign represented a stunning humiliation for the Soviet Union, its arms and its strategy.... As of mid-November, the UNITA/SADF force had destroyed the Cuito Cuanavale airfield and pinned down thousands of FAPLA's best remaining units clinging onto the town's defensive perimeters.' Crocker, Chester A. (1992) High Noon in Southern Africa: Making Peace in a Rough Neighbourhood. (Crocker was U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs during the Reagan Administration.) </div><div style="margin:10px 0">John Turner claims that: “following their losses, the Cubans were convinced that further military confrontation with the SADF would not succeed.” Turner, John W. (1998) . Continent Ablaze; The Insurgency Wars in Africa,1960 to the Present. Cassell Plc. </div><div style="margin:10px 0">Comments made by a Soviet adviser to the Cubans in Angola: 'The people's armed forces for the liberation of Angola have not been able either, even with the help of the Cubans, to decisively defeat the enemy and drive him out of the territory or the country.” M. Ponomariov, Krasnaya Zvezda Magazine; 20 May 1988.]</div><div style="margin:10px 0"><br /></a><br />poem by <a href="http://en.citatepedia.ro/by.php?a=Gert+Strydom">Gert Strydom</a><div class=q>
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<script type="text/javascript" src="//s7.addthis.com/js/300/addthis_widget.js#pubid=citatepedia" async="async"></script><div style="display:inline-block" class="addthis_sharing_toolbox" data-url="http://en.citatepedia.ro/comments.php?id=399441" data-title="The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale de Gert Strydom" data-description="I. Outnumbered by armour (A reply to William Shakespeare) 

Outnumbered by armour 
and by men we met the enemy, 
FAPLA and Cubans under Russian leadership
and the men accompanying me 
was very worried
and wished for the whole 
of the seventh armou..."></div>
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