The Buffalo Soldiers: The story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion 1975-1993, by Jan Breytenbach.

The Buffalo Soldiers: The story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion 1975-1993, by Jan Breytenbach. Galago. Cape Town, South Africa 2009. ISBN 9781919854113 / ISBN 978-1-919854-11-3

Images from The Buffalo Soldiers: The story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion 1975-1993, by Jan Breytenbach.

The Buffalo Soldiers: The story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion 1975-1993 is the story of a unique infantry battalion, its officers, NCOs and troops. For author Jan Breytenbach it was an honour and those who followed him to have commanded such men in battle.

It was a rare joy to have experienced such loyalty and trust from men who fought shoulder to shoulder with, and often died shoulder to shoulder with, their commanders from 'racist' South Africa, commanders who could scarcely speak their language. To the men of 32-Battalion, both black and white, Angolan and South African, this book, The Buffalo Soldiers: The story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion 1975-1993, is dedicated. The Buffalo Soldiers is the story of South Africa's 32-Battalion, forged in battle from black guerrilla irregulars and white South African officers and NCOs during the South African military intervention in Angola in 1975. It was destined to become the most elite infantry unit in the South African Army's order of battle — it also became its most controversial. The author, Col Jan Breytenbach, was its founding commander. It is a soldier's story about warring in southern Angola and Namibia and about the enemies that 32-Battalion fought. It tells of insurgency and counter-insurgency, guerrilla warfare and counter-guerrilla warfare, almost conventional warfare and conventional warfare. It tells of a conflict that the world regarded as unpopular and unjust and in which South Africa was perceived as the aggressor. The South African soldiers who fought in it, however, saw it as a conflict aimed at stopping what is now Namibia from falling into the hands of the Soviet and Cuban-backed SWAPO black nationalist political organisation. They believed that after Namibia South Africa would be the next target. They saw the conflict as an extension of the Cold War, a war that was 'Cold' on the frontiers in Europe, but very 'Hot' war in Angola, in other parts of Africa and in South-East Asia. The Buffalo Soldiers is effectively the story of how the South Africans fought the Angolan War, for there was scarcely a combat fighting action during its course that did not involve 32-Battalion. 'Battalion' was a misnomer for towards the end of the Angolan War 32-Battalion was more a mini brigade with two infantry battalions, an anti-tank squadron of Ratel armoured cars with 90mm guns and anti-tank missiles, two artillery batteries and an anti-aircraft battery. With the collapse of the Soviet Union imminent the war was finally resolved in 1989 by the democratic solution of UN supervised free and fair elections in Namibia. Since then, regrettably, there has been interference by the ruling party with the democratic constitution put in place in there which has eroded much of that hard won democracy. With peace in place in Namibia the unit was withdrawn to South Africa and deployed to combat MK infiltrations into South Africa. After the ANC's unbanning in 1990, its troops were redeployed to deal with political troubles, principally between armed ANC self-defence units and armed units of the IFP. The intrusion into the townships of black foreigners who were prepared to deal with the troubles robustly and without fear or favour, did not suit either the ANC or the IFP as they could not be subverted to support local causes because they held no local tribal allegiances. This resulted in 32-Battalion becoming something of a bargaining chip at the CODESA talks where a new political dispensation was being sought for South Africa. Despite having borne the brunt of South Africa's war in Angola with the blood of its troops, the National Party Government, to its lasting shame, ordered its arbitrary disbandment in March 1993 as an act of political appeasement and 32-Battalion ceased to exist. [...]

This is an excerpt from The Buffalo Soldiers: The story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion 1975-1993, by Jan Breytenbach.

Title: The Buffalo Soldiers
Subtitle: The Story of South Africa’s 32-Battalion 1975-1993
Author: Jan Breytenbach
Publisher: Galago
Genre: Military history
Cape Town, South Africa 2009
ISBN 9781919854113 / ISBN 978-1-919854-11-3
Softcover, 14 x 17 cm, 360 pages, numerous bw- and colour photos, maps, English