Episode 60 – Tsumeb farmers suffer repeated blows as SWAPOs Operation Typhoon sows destruction in the Triangle of Death

We left off last episode with SWAPOs Operation Typhoon under way inside the Triangle of Death, that area between Tsumeb, Otavi and Grootfontein. Forty two members of this operation had hidden at Effense Chana and taken out a Ratel, three were killed by Alouette gunships in the follow up action, but the others got away, heading northwards to safety in Angola. Eleven members of the security forces were dead, about a dozen injured. This was not a normal SWAPO assault on the farming area, it was a concerted and well planned operation, the tactics had altered. There were still 105 other SWAPO guerrilla’s on the move in the Triangle or nearby and 61 Mech trackers were trying to pick up their trail before they did even more damage. Joining them were a vengeful group of farmers from the Triangle, including the man we met last week, Kaalvoet Izak, who writer Deon Lamprecht describes as die vegtende Boere van Tsumeb – the fighting farmers of Tsumeb. Others were Dave Keyser and Reinhard Friederich, and in her farm house at Koedoesvlei, Tantie Pompie who’s husband Daantjie had died during the Effense Chana ambush. AT 61 Mech HQ, Roland de Vries was determined to stop SWAPO, and headed to Tsumeb aerodrome two days after the ambush to meet reinforcements being flown in. Captain Jan Malan and his Alpha company were back in the field. You can say it’s a bit like falling off a horse – his company had seen the Ratel destroyed, their men killed, but he and his men had to get back on the horse immediately – no sitting around at 61 Mech HQ – Tsintsabis, drowning their sorrows. SWAPO wasn’t hanging around either. Two days after their successful ambush, they shot and killed a farm worker just north of Tsintsabis, toying with the security forces – here we are, they seemed to be saying, come and get us. Then a short while later Rifleman JDG du Toit died in a contact with SWAPO in the same area.