The South African Border War - Operation Savannah - Battle of Luso
When Fighting Group Zulu began encountering more persistent resistance another 2 fighting groups were created called X-ray and Orange.
One of the most intriguing elements that these forces encountered was the "Monster of Luso".
X-ray was to be a mobile column tasked with securing central and north east Angola.
Orange was tasked to occupy the Salazar Bridge over the Cuanza River, north of Mussende and to harass the Cuban forces at Quibala, to retain a Unita stronghold at Cariango.
X-ray, like the other columns had frequent skirmishes, but the resistance was fairly easily overcome and they made good progress towards Luso, the regional capital.
Capturing Luso was important to secure the airfield and the Benguela railway line.
Bellow follows two soldiers account of the battle and the "Monster of Luso".
We fought a 3-day pitched battle, which included infantry assaults and artillery duels. The most unusual battle was fought with a huge, converted bulldozer, known as the Monster of Luso. It had recoiless rifles and many machine guns built into the blade, which was welded into a fixed position. It came towards us, firing. Our armoured cars engaged it, and we saw at least 4 shells strike home, but the bulldozer just kept on coming, though it had ceased firing. We kept up withering fire, but it seemed impervious. Just as it seemed we would have to abandon our position, it ground to a halt. Once we had secured the city and airport, we found that the first couple of 90 mm rounds from the armoured cars had killed the crew, but missed the motor entirely. The bulldozer then simply continued forward, until it got stuck in a ditch.
We remained at Luso for 5 days, secured the airport perimeter, and made that our base. It was a dreadful sight when we moved in. Hundreds of dead lying all over the airport, with shattered vehicles and aircraft, a testament to the destructive power of artillery, even if antiquated. However, most of the runways and buildings remained intact.
Another described their experience so.
A heavy rain squall had forced us away from the airport buildings and onto the runway where we sat invisible in the pouring rain. The bulldozer had led their counter attack using the rain as cover. The flashes from it’s canon fire had illuminated it against the skyline as a perfect target. I had fired four hundred rounds from my machine gun into the bull dozer. One tracer bullet then four lead bullets, leaving my machine gun barrel every half second.
The three armored cars to my right had seen the red glow of my tracer bullets striking the bull dozer and used this for their aim. The shells from their 90mm cannons had completed the kill. Still, the four hundred enemies advancing, despite losing the bulldozer, were too many for us. The Captain of the artillery sitting in the armored car with me recognized our dire situation at once. Using his radio he commanded all eight of his guns to fire at the runway.
It took mere seconds, for they had only to select the settings prepared the night before. I heard the multiple distant thumps as the shells from the 140mm guns were launched towards us. I heard the unique whistle of the incoming shells. Would we catch the enemy in the open?
This was the ultimate in high stakes gambling.
The Battle of Luso and the mop up of the surrounding areas was fought at the roughly the same time as the Battle of Bridge 14.
Other posts in this series
The piece of the cold war nobody told you about - Africa's forgotten war
The Air Battles
The SA Fighter Aircraft
The SA Bomber Aircraft
The conflicts deep roots and start
Regional Tensions
Africa's forgotten cold war - Angolan War of Independence.
Africa's forgotten cold war - Mozambican War of Independence.
Africa's forgotten cold war - Rhodesian Bush War
Africa's forgotten cold war - The Angolan War of Independence transitions to the Angolan Civil War
The South African Border War - The start of Operation Savannah and Large scale South African involvement.
The South African Border War - Operation Savannah - the wheels start coming off.
The South African Border War - Operation Savannah - Battle of Quifangondo
The South African Border War - Operation Savannah - Battle of Ebo
The South African Border War - Operation Savannah - Battle of Bridge 14
Its a shame that we have people in the world that feel they need to go to War for Land and Property.
The shame is people haven't learned other ways other than killing to resolve.. Land and Property matters, thinking by far is the best weapon:) Where are all the new thinkers? Cheers!
I don't know when people will realize that War is not a key to resolve an issue rather it brings more conflicts and contribute to insurgencies. People are still not learning from the Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan's conflicts. Living along the borders of Afghanistan, I know what's is coming next to the people of Afghanistan after American troops leave this area. Extremists would take over the country and innocent people will be slaughtered like sheep in near future. We should promote negotiations and we need to get united against warmongers and extremists.
This may be obvious to you, but war is extremely profitable for a small amount of people. If a resource is desired, creating instability in the region is crucial to the war-mongerers.
It's why we celebrate our soldiers back in the US. This is crucial to the narrative that war is needed. If you can get the young to believe that war is glorious, then you can get them to volunteer to sign up and go to war for you.
Unfortunately, it isn't until after they go that they see the true face of the conflict.
Oil.
Yeah, the people profiting from the constant war do not care about the costs paid by the peasants. They use wars as a turn on their world war board game. Nations are just sections of the board, and the resources those sections provide are the incentives.
No one seems to care about war when it is elsewhere. They don't care because it isn't their children being droned. It isn't their loved ones being murdered by artillery. The war isn't in their neighborhood, so they just don't give a damn. Humans, as a species, are quite disgusting as a majority for that reason.
As @crewjohn said, war is very profitable for certain groups of people. It is used to secure resources, steal gold, and change the imaginary lines (borders) between nations (tax farms). Most people have no idea though, or they just don't care. Again, it isn't their children being murdered.
You are right, exploitation of innocent people in order to get an access to their resources is a hidden part of country's policies. There is no doubt that all the soldiers who participate in wars have one agenda in their mind that's Die for the motherland and It's noble to do so but that small amount of people you have mentioned I'll call them elitist who also have one agenda that's to make themselves much stronger than ever even if it needs to take someone's life or land they will go for it.
100% Agree.
How do you resolve a situation to get what is rightfully yours if the other side absolutely refuses the common decency to hand it back. I once lent a guy something, I was talking to him for like 3 or 4 days asking for it back, it never came so I went in his place and got it on my own, long story short he didn't like that so he fought me and I beat his ass and then he wanted to get a knife, some crazy kurdish muslim fuck whose honour won't let him lose so that he needs to knife somebody. Thankfully I didn't get stabbed but it was a close call.
Almost all wars are for land and property. And it is sad.
Same thing is happening in Nigeria now they want to divide the country and get biafra but only war can make it happen.why can't people live in peace an harmony again it hurts when me alot when innocent people die because of others mistake and selfish interest
Exactly, and all of these wars in this region hardly accomplished anything.
Great history lesson, quite an interesting topic there. You really spent time doing your research. Steemit is such a great platform to learn about so many different things, its amazing. Thanks for posting and keep up the great work!
War solve only one problem. It determines who had more weapons.
It's kind of difficult to follow your writing style..its shame Africa is being exploited so badly in some parts, we need another Marcus Garvey to the rescue to restore the pan-african movement so the more poorer parts of Africa can become more financially independent.
I don't know when people will realize that War is not a key to resolve an issue rather it brings more conflicts and contribute to insurgencies. People are still not learning from the Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan's conflicts. Living along the borders of Afghanistan, I know what's is coming next to the people of Afghanistan after American troops leave this area. Extremists would take over the country and innocent people will be slaughtered like sheep in near future. We should promote negotiation
Death of countless lives......and to what purpose?
The Bane of wars!
@gavvet The Monster of Luso was a sad twist on the "swords into plowshares" concept.
Hopefully S.A. has recovered and can manage to remain a sovereign state in light of the increased interventionist policies of the West.
South Africa is in deep ttnoubl
South Africa is in deep trouble. The ANC government is totally corrupt and are stealing everything in sight. There is state capture taking place of the economy and communist policies being put in place. You cannot believe that a country can be destroyed in 23 years the way the ANC has managed to do that brilliantly. The interventionist policies of the West has created a monster.
Well, yeah, that was kind of my point.
And pretty much everything else in your comment describes "the West" although here it's been more like, hmm, yeah the timing works out too.
Another excellent write up and bringing this forgotten history to our attention. That bulldozer was probably quite a sight when it was in action. But those 140mm artillery had to be one of the scariest sounds coming at you. Thanks for sharing this!
It seems that humans will never evolve and will keep killing each other for what?
Love the encounter with the monster of Luso.