Living the High Life in Angola

Contribution from Neville Desselss

During the Angolan bush war, the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA) was supported by the South African government, and our Hercules was chartered to transport Aid to their teams up in Angola. Their headquarters were in Southern Angola at a place called Jamba.

I was the contact person for UNITA and dealt with a guy who went by the codename “Bravo Victor”. We would liaise to arrange the flights and other details, and we became well acquainted over the years.

Just after the war ended and elecvtions were due to be help, a Captain, Flight Engineer, and myself, were sent into Angola to undertake airfield inspections. I’ll omit the names of the others to protect the innocent! A couple of airfields there had been damaged during the war and we were sent to see if the Hercules could still land on the undamaged sections.

We hitched a lift on one of our Hercules and were dropped off at a very remote airstrip in Angola. There was no terminal building to speak of, no runway markings, aboslutely nada! As we arrived, people just appeared out of the bush, off-loaded the aircraft, and disappeared back into the thicket.

We climbed off to do our inspections and the Herc left us departing back to Johannesburg.

At that point we were totally “stok-siel alleen”, with no communication and no-one in sight. The only thing we were told was that a light aircraft would arrive to collect us and take us to the airfield where we were due to do our  inspections.

Eventually, after what seemed many hours, but was probably only one hour, we heard this aircraft approaching – it was a twin Commanche. The pilot got out, introduced himslef and told us he was to take us to inspect these airfields.

We had no idea who this guy was, but our options were pretty limited, so we hopped on board. The captain sat up front with the Pilot and the Flight Engineer and I took up seats in the back. Half an hour into the flight, one of the engines started to cough and splutter in a rather alarming manner.

As it turns out, the pilot had forgotten to switch tanks and, much to our relief, the issue was sorted out rather rapidly.

We did a number of airfield inspections and ended up at their “camp” on the banks of the Cubango River. The South Africans had built a clinic of sorts out there.

It was actually the most perfect setting. Cold beer was available, there were flyrods for Tiger fishing – it was an idyllic lifestyle.

The following day, we flew on to Jamba where we were met by UNITA officials, and I finally got to meet my contact “Bravo Victor”. Jamba was a bush village with no modern amenities or tall buildings – bush huts were the norm.

I was escorted to the VIP quarters. I was treated to a bedroom with a mosquito net and there was an en-suite shower. Hot water wan’t really required in the sweltering conditions, but the accommodations were really comfortable none-the-less.

Unfortunately, our Captain and Flight Engineer were not quite as fortunately. They ended up sharing a small hut, where they had to stand in a zinc bath and use a bucket to wash themselves! Needless to say that didn’t go down too well!