Episode 19 – The SADF conducts an off-the-record briefing and the start of the struggle to control Bridge 14

This is episode 19 and we’re dealing with the fallout after the Battle of Ebo, and the preamble to the next battle for Bridge 14. As the battle of Ebo ended, terrible news emerged about the shooting down of one of the crucial spotter planes. Remember last episode I mentioned Captain Williamson who helped locate the missing 5 South Africans mechanised troops who’d managed to survive their Eland’s being knocked out – then trying to walk back to Cela. Captain Williamson’s Cessna 185 was shot hit by ground fire on the 25th November leading to the loss of all three on board including Lieutenant Thompson and Captain Taljaard close to Ebo a few days after the battle ended. Ebo was the first defeat for the SADF inside Angola and drove home three major weaknesses which defence HQ realised had to be fixed and quickly. First was a lack of highly mobile heavy artillery and air cover. Ebo had shown that a well-setup Fapla position with Cuban and Russian technical assistance could not be easily overcome. As we’re going to hear, re-equipping the SADF would be difficult because South Africa was already facing military and other sanctions because of apartheid – and because they refused to allow free elections in South West Africa. Second was intelligence. The information was patchy and the SADF began to actively recruit more Portuguese army refugees who crossed the border from Angola. The third weakness was in how the citizen force was being deployed. The draft system at this time was a lottery which meant that soldiers spent a year in the army and were then rotated back to civvy street. As we head to towards the end of Operation Savannah there was to be one more major battle inside Angola and it involved something called Bridge 14 which took place on the 9th December 1975.