platoon 11

At Equestrian Centre we were doing hand grenade training with the two bike platoons one day. Safety rules were extremely strict because a grenade explosion among a group of people would be disastrous. We explained the fact that even a practice grenade was dangerous. If you held it when the det exploded, you’d lose fingers or a hand. Training was one on one when actually throwing grenades. The troops sat in a little shack while one went out and threw a grenade. He’d stand behind a low wall, you gave him the grenade, he threw it and then knelt behind the wall. After it exploded, he’d look over the wall, observe the results and, NEXT!

I picked up a used fly-off lever with an exploded det, pin and all, and screwed it into a blue practice grenade. All the troops threw practice grenades, I think we had about six live ones to throw. A bunch of okes were sitting in the shack, Staff Beets was there too, standing outside. I told him, ‘...hey Staff, have you seen how quickly you can clean out the shack?’ I took this dead practice grenade, pulled the pin, and chucked it into the shack. WHAAAAA!! They trampled each other to get out the door. Nobody, but nobody, said wait, wait, if it explodes nothing happens, it just makes a big bang. Because we had told them beforehand that a practice grenade could blow your hand off, they were all wound up. It was very funny.

I think I’ve told you the story of corporal Petersen and the snake. Fuck, that was funny. It happened at, what was the name of the place?.....Tsintsabis. The bike platoon had been out on a foot patrol for two weeks and we drove out in Buffels to pick them up. I drove one of the Buffels. When we’d picked them up, Petersen was standing next to my Buffel. He asked me if everybody was strapped in. Yes, yes, why? He said, watch. He had a big dead snake in his hand, and threw it into the Buffel. All I saw was heads and bush hats waving around in a panic and then those okes jumped over the sides. They debussed in about two seconds flat. The quickest way to empty a Buffel. One troop in the front Buffel kept his wits about him, when the troops in the second Buffel laughed at them he threw the snake into their Buffel. POOF! They climbed out just as fast, bike squad troops and a few 32 okes. Petersen was a real clown. Same thing with ratpacks. He stood on a Buffel, handing out rations. He opened the box and said, ‘…there are only nine ratpacks in here.’ He threw the ratpacks off the Buffel one by one and the okes bliksemed each other to get to them. Big fight for a ratpack. But when he was done, everybody had a ratpack and they looked around, huh? What happened? He caught them like that that two or three times. They never remembered from the time before.

We were driven to Grootfontein in a SAMIL and picked up a batch of brand new XRs at a Transport Depot. One troop crashed riding out the gate of the depot. Two days later I wrote mine off on the railway line at the back of Otavi. The road crossed the railway line at an angle, it wasn’t 90 degrees. When I crossed it, the track threw my rear wheel out to one side. There was a big rock the size of a car next to the road, my rear wheel hit that, it threw the bike the other way and flipped it. Moer toe. Speedo gone, light gone, everything, I bent that bike in two. I wasn’t even going that fast, 60 or 70.

Another funny story about that blonde oke who is dead now, what was his name? Seb Barnard, that’s it. He was shit scared of needles. All the bike squad troops had to get their blood drawn, they stood in a long queue to see the medic or nurse or whatever it was. Barnard kept moving back in the queue until he was the last one, nobody behind him. Walks into the room, sits down on the bed, but he’s as white as that wall there. He sits on the bed, when the medic takes the needle out, he falls over, BAM! Like chopping down a tree, he moered over. Tim-b-e-e-e-e-er! Pick him up, draw his blood, ‘...hey! Wake up!’ Later, we did first aid training, taught them how to insert a drip. Need a volunteer, ‘...Barnard! Come here!’ Poor Barnard, he couldn’t handle a needle.

Another thing I remember from SWASPES…we had this big drunken party at the NCOs’ club or something in Otavi, in town, next to the park. The officers club, or whatever. The next morning everybody had one moerofa babalas. The offices at SWASPES were prefab type of buildings, on steel legs, raised off the ground. We were all sleeping in there and this captain Van Niekerk chucked a thunderflash underneath the building. BOOOOOM! The okes flew out of there and ran into the bush, GONE. Another drunken party, we were playing cricket inside the recreation room at the school where we lived. Dave Ward sprayed the tennis ball we were using with mercurochrome. We hit the ball all over, the whole fucking room was full of red dots. Then Dave decided he wanted a drip so he wouldn’t have a babalas the next day. We were supposed to have some big parade the next morning. We couldn’t get the drip into him. We poked him till he looked like a porcupine, but nobody could get the drip in. He decided this is bullshit, so he cut a hole in it and drank it. We were playing with this spray can of mercurochrome and we sprayed Dave red all over. When he woke up the next morning he was red from his ankles to his wrists. When we stood on parade, everybody’s sleeves were rolled up except Dave Ward’s. Captain Van Niekerk, I think it was, told him, ‘Roll up your sleeves.’

‘No I can’t captain.’

‘Roll up your sleeves!’

‘No, I can’t captain.’

‘How many extras do you want?’

‘No, I can’t captain.’

Well, he rolled them up, and stood there on parade with bright red arms. Ja, old Dave was always a ringleader when we drank.

While I was at SWASPES with the bike platoon, we got a call from a farmer one day. He had picked up a hand grenade in one of his mealie or wheat fields, whatever. He was 50, 60 kays out. I took Barnard and three other troops with me. They rode right on my arse. When we stopped at the farmer’s gate where you turned off the road, I told them, ‘...If one of you bastards crash into me I’m going to moer you.’ We were on a nice farm tweespoor road and at one point it turned and formed this little island in the road. Just beyond the island was a gate. When I stopped, the others were right behind me. They almost ran into each other. Opened the gate, rode through, saw the farmer. It was an M26 grenade, one of our people must have dropped it somehow. I took it from him and we left. Now, we’re not playing around, we’re doing 80, 90 on the tweespoor. The last time I looked around Barnard was very close behind me, maybe ten metres away. When we got to the island in the road I remembered about the gate. I stopped, put the bike on its sidestand and ran into the bush. Barnard was touching distance behind me. He came around the corner and saw my bike, and I had promised to bliksem him if he crashed into me. He ducked off the road and went through a six strand barbed wire fence. Ching-ching-ching-ching! The others made a panic stop. When we rode back to Spes his browns hung off him like streamers. Let that be a lesson to you, I told you not to follow that close!

There were many gates in the roads on the farms around Otavi and Tsumeb. We were on the way somewhere, had to go find this one specific oke’s farm. I was in the lead and Schubert was 200 or so metres behind me with the troops behind him. I simply decided fuck it, I’m not eating dust today, they can follow me. Somebody else can be the tail-end charlie. We’re not fucking around, we’re doing 100, 110 on the dirt road. I’m trying to see the farm numbers and names. We were in the vicinity of the farm we were looking for. I saw a farmer’s bakkie out of the corner of my eye. He drove onto the road on the other side of a gate up ahead. I yelled and waved, ‘...Stop!’ I wanted to talk to him. He realised someone was shouting at him and he stopped, but he was on the other side of the gate. The gate was closed so I stopped and yelled at him, ‘...Wait! Open the gate!’ and ran back up the road to wave down the other fuckers jaaging towards me. I expected the farmer to open the gate but he was moving slowly. Next thing I saw was this bike appearing out of the bush and dust. Schubert wasn’t paying attention, gate was closed, WHACK! He bent that fucking gate in a V. The farmer was lying on his back pissing himself. He thought it was the funniest thing he’d ever seen. Schubert’s all fucked up, I yelled at the farmer, ‘...Open the fucking gate!’ He opened it, woof-woof-woof-woof, all the troops went through the gate at high speed. The farmer thought it was one moerofa joke.

Item desIn early 1982 we were heavily involved during the annual SWAPO farm invasion south of Ovamboland. We spent months chasing terrs in the dense bush around Tsumeb and Otavi, doing follow-ups and tracking. We were given a briefing one time about booby-trapped gates because we went through many gates every day. Shortly afterwards 2/Lt. Schubert and I drove out to a local farm in his VW Golf and spent the evening with the people there. Schubert was from Otjiwarongo, down the road from Otavi, seems it was somebody he knew, I forget the details. We left late at night, in civvies and carrying R4s. I remember I wore shorts, flip-flops, and my old red fleece jersey. There we were, driving down this farm tweespoor at night, it’s cold as fuck and we’re pissed as newts, expecting to get ambushed any second. No worries. We stopped at about the fourth gate and I got out to open it. No two farm gates close the same way and I was fiddling with the wires, illuminated by the car’s headlights. Nothing unusual, but for some reason the lecture about booby-trapped gates popped into my alcohol-soaked brain at that moment. Like a startled cat I jumped, hit the ground three metres away in a cloud of dust, and threw a rooster tail of sand as I leopard crawled around the car.

‘Hey Herbert! The fucking gate’s booby trapped!!’

Of course it wasn’t. The loot about rolled the car he was laughing so hard. I was dusty and bloody. He laughed at me for weeks over that one. Made my name poes, luckily no witnesses except him. Fuck me, I hit the ground hard that night. I remember that very well.cription