61 Mech | 61 Mech

Report back on the progress with the 61 Mech book

Ariel Hugo is coordinating the writing of the 61 Mech Battalion Group book and reports that Willem Steenkamp is making good progress.

Willem Steenkamp presented the first 17 draft chapters covering the general background about mechanised warfare, the induction of Battle Group Juliet in 1978 up to the year 1980 when our unit was involved in the bloody battles during Op Sceptic to the book committee for consideration and review. What an impressive piece of work!

Part of the writers’ brief is to include as many eyewitness accounts of our soldiers, and so far Willem Steenkamp has succeeded magnificently in getting these reports interwoven into the story line

He was able to capture the core of what we as soldiers at the sharp point experienced by sourcing the stories that you have submitted to our member site – stories that came from the horse’s mouth as to speak, as you can see from this short extract from chapter 13 describing the attack of platoon 1 Bravo company during Op Sceptic where 12 members of this platoon perished

_“Chapter 13
Death and wounds
Louw charged diagonally through the anti-aircraft complex, to the right of the gun Braithwaite’s Two One Bravo had just knocked out, and passed the 23mm ZSU in the centre without being shot at (probably because its crew did not see Two One coming through the thick bush till it was too late). Inside the Ratel, Hentze ran into another problem. His R1 rifle had long had a penchant for jamming, but he had thought this had been solved. But now it jammed again. He hunched over it, trying frantically to clear the stoppage.
“By this time some of the guys had started throwing grenades. I looked back at Venter, he was wide-eyed and gesturing towards the SWAPO soldiers. I looked back at Joubert as he held a grenade. I shouted at him to throw the grenade. I was afraid he might drop it if we hit a tree or a trench. He laughed as he threw it.”
Two One got almost all the way through the anti-aircraft complex without suffering damage, but when Louw came abreast of the lower left-hand 14.5mm gun its crew fired a burst of seven shots at point-blank range through the turret, the radios and the left door.
To Bornman the AA gun’s shots “sounded like a big motorcycle’s accelerator when you open it up quickly and then let it go. That’s how fast they fired … I still remember that I said: `Hier’s hulle!’ (here they are). Next moment I saw the red flames in the Ratel, on the left, and immediately I shouted into the headset: `We’re hit!’”
Hentze remembers that “the next moment there was an orange flash. There may have been an explosion as well. It was hard to tell how fast the events were taking place. For a moment I was totally unaware of where we were. I was still trying to determine if I had been hit. A small piece of shrapnel had hit me in my left hand; my arm was bleeding from the scratches caused by the tree branches. I later found small pieces of shrapnel in my hand and my face, these were like pepper grains and were small enough not to cause any damage.”
A 14.5mm round had hit a hand grenade — probably one in a rack on the inside of the door. It exploded, instantly killing Rifleman Loubser, the signaller, who was sitting on the jump-seat just forward of the left door which would normally have been occupied by Hentze. Rifleman Chris Raats was sitting behind him and remembers “a great fire between Loubser and myself. I couldn’t see him at all, and my right arm was burning.”
Louw immediately ordered the occupants to bail out and take cover in some near-by empty trenches; crammed as it was with ammunition, grenades and claymores, the Ratel was now little more than a time-bomb waiting to go off. Before getting out himself, he tried to reach down to grab his rifle, but “all I could see was flames, and in the process I burnt my left arm badly.” The explosion inside the Ratel had also left him with minor shrapnel wounds in his left leg, although “I only noticed them the following day, when I realised something was wrong with my leg.”_

This graphic account was only possible because Paul Louw, Torur Hentze, Chris Raats and Willie Bornman took the time to sit down, recount what happened on that fateful day and wrote it down before submitting it for publication on our member site at www.61Mech.org.za

Please write your story/stories before 31 October 2013

You can help us make the 61 Mech book something real special by disciplining yourself to sit down to write what you experienced while serving at 61 Mech Battalion Group – operations, exercises, training, vryetydsbestryding in the base, interesting characters, impressions of our equipment like the Ratel, funny incidents, sad incidents, scary incidents, the move from Omuthiya to Rooikop, Lohathla, townships service – we want to hear what you felt and thought

Before the 61 Mech book will go to the printers we will for one last time go through all the stories published on our member site and if you have submitted your stories and/or photos after 31 October 2013 those stories will also be able to sneak into the book. But why wait until then?

You can suport the 61 Mech book project with your financial contributions too

We are fortunate to have the best authors involved in the writing of the 61 Mech book – Willem Steenkamp, Helmoed Rohmer-Heitman and Leopold Scholtz are household names in matters pertaining to the Border war and they are the best of the best to tell our special story

Our current budget for the writing of the 61 Mech book is somewhat depleted, but from our annual membership fees we were able to fund R60 000 so far.

You can firstly help us by joining the 61 Mech Veterans Association either for R150 per annum as 61 Mech Veteran or R200 as 61 Mech Supporter/Associate, or by renewing your existing membership. You can also pay a special 10 year fee of R1 000 as 61 Mech Veteran or R1 500 as 61 Mech Supporter/Associate which will then be your lifelong membership of the 61 Mech Veterans Association. In all these instances you will qualify for the red 61 MVA messie which confirms your commitment to the 61 Mech Veterans Association and its causes as a paid up member in good standing

The second way in which you can support the 61 Mech book project is by making a donation of whatever amount into our bank account, with the banking details here below

Account name – 61 Mech Battalion Group Veterans Association
Bank – Standard Bank
Branch – Northcliff, Johannesburg
Branch code – 630522 of 006 305
Account number – 00 329 366 1
Reference – YOUR NAME/61 MECH BOOK

Some of our veterans already make donations of R100 per month and we are very much indebted to them for their kind support. Others surprised us with once off amounts that can only be described as generous

No matter what amount you decide to donate to the 61 Mech book project, once off or monthly, big or small, be assured that we wil put it to good use so that the 61 Mech book will compliment our unit’s proud history

If you may have any enquiries you are welcome to contact Ariel Hugo at hugo@unifruit.co.za