The SA Special Forces Brigade lately celebrated its fiftieth anniversary, capping a protracted and illustrious historical past crammed with terribly powerful coaching, nearly inconceivable operations in addition to, sadly, heavy losses.
Special Forces within the fashionable sense return to World Struggle Two. The British had been prolific in creating irregular items, however the best-known had been the Army Commandos and the Particular Air Service (SAS), the successor to the Lengthy Vary Desert Group. The US (United States) based, amongst different items, the Alamo Scouts and the Marine Raiders.
Most items had been disbanded on the struggle’s finish with the Chilly Struggle resulting in many being resurrected. The British SAS had been re-constituted in 1952 to struggle a Communist insurgency in Malaya, whereas America based the US Army Special Forces (Inexperienced Berets) in the identical yr; US Navy Sea Air Land (SEAL) particular warfare items adopted in 1962. The rise of terrorist assaults, notably the Munich Bloodbath on the 1972 Olympics, noticed many international locations creating related forces, together with the German Grenzschutsgruppe 9 (Border Safety Group 9), higher generally known as GSG-9 and Israel’s Sayeret Matkal, made well-known by its rescue of Jewish hostages from Uganda’s Entebbe airport in 1976.
South Africa’s Special Forces had been based by Basic Fritz Loots with then Commandant (Lieutenant Colonel) Jan Breytenbach and a small cadre at Oudtshoorn, web site of the Infantry Faculty, in an unofficial capability in 1970. The unit went underneath varied cowl names, such because the Alpha Operation Group and the Irregular Warfare Wing of Infantry Faculty. Opposition within the Army noticed Loots take early retirement, however the story was not over.
On 1 October 1972, the unit was named the Reconnaissance Commando, though its commander, the legendary Breytenbach, most popular Parachute Commando. The unit was formally named 1 Reconnaissance Commando in 1974, with Loots again in control of Special Forces. On this interval, the time period “Special Forces” was not synonymous with the Reconnaissance Commando as a unit, however the “recces” had been subordinate to Special Forces, which included different items together with 32 Battalion. In 1975, 1 Recce Commando moved to the Bluff in Durban and comprised an operational commando and the “TRG”, or coaching wing.
Because the Border Struggle intensified, extra commandos had been added, 2 Recce being a Citizen Power (reserve) unit; 3 to six Commandos had been added round 1980, however 3 and 6, made up of ex-Rhodesian troopers, had been disbanded, leaving 1, 2, 4 and 5 Reconnaissance Commandos. Additional adjustments happened within the command construction in 1981, with items re-designated as regiments. In 1992, 2 Recce Regiment was disbanded, however the reserve part stays and is made up of retired Special Forces members prepared to serve within the Reserve Power.
Following the transition to democracy, there was confusion and media stories spoke of Recce regiments being disbanded, however in 1995 the items had been positioned in within the SA Nationwide Defence Power (SANDF) construction as Special Forces Regiments (SFRs).
The founding regiment, 1 SFR, was disbanded in 1997, leaving 5 SFR, primarily based in Phalaborwa in Limpopo, to accommodate the land-based part and 4 SFR because the seaborne ingredient at Langebaan in Saldanha Bay in Western Cape. SF Headquarters was moved to Swartkop Recreation Reserve (generally known as “Speskop”) exterior Pretoria.
The coaching of South Africa’s Special Forces is very powerful and the SA Special Forces Affiliation states that about six p.c of those that begin choice full the total coaching. This quantity is even decrease when all who initially utilized for pre-selection and had been rejected is included.
In contrast to many militaries, South African Special Forces operators, nonetheless generally known as “recces” from the unique title, are skilled to function not solely on land, but in addition deal with riverine and open water environments, because of the low variety of operators. This demand to coach in each “airward” and “seaward” environments goes again to the beginnings of the unit. In the present day, an operator can, having accomplished the coaching cycle and been deployed for a while, request additional specialist coaching.
The first perform of the Special Forces Regiments stays reconnaissance, to be the eyes and ears of the navy, of which there are a lot of examples.
One is the 1987 commentary of Soviet, Cuban and FAPLA build-up for Operation Salute to October. The Recces gave the then SADF (SA Defence Power) early warning, permitting time for a navy response within the type of a traditional marketing campaign underneath Operation Moduler.
Reconnaissance and long-term commentary of key roads and railways is a vital Special Forces job (in a lot of southern Africa, infrastructure is sparse, making these strains of communication extraordinarily essential.) When the necessity arose, Recces had been tasked with both guiding in plane or destroying roads, railways, bridges, tunnels or energy provides.
Some 300 operations had been undertaken throughout the struggle in Angola alone, in response to the SA Special Forces Affiliation (SASFA) web site. Many had been deliberate as strategic assaults on communication strains or factors. In 1986, for instance, Operation Second Congress was launched by a mixed Angola, Cuban and Soviet power, geared toward destroying UNITA, a guerrilla motion aligned with the West and with South Africa. Operation Drosdy, a raid from the ocean on the strategic port of Namibe in southern Angola in June 1986, sank two Soviet ships and destroyed an oil farm, depriving the assault marketing campaign of gasoline.
These demanding and harmful operations, although attaining nice successes, had a price. Proportionally, the Recces had the very best casualty charges of any SADF unit within the conflicts in Namibia and Angola. Indicative of that is that the primary South African soldier to die in that struggle was a Recce (in 1974) and the final was additionally a Recce (1989).
After political adjustments main as much as the 1994 elections, the now-renamed Special Forces Regiments continued coaching – which paid off in March 2013 close to the capital of the Central African Republic (CAR) Bangui. A small group of about 200 South African troopers, each paratroopers and Special Forces, had been attacked by 1000’s of Séléka rebels, invading the nation from Chad within the north. A sequence of operating battles ensued, with the CAR navy withdrawing and French forces holding solely the airport. Ultimately, SANDF troops suffered 13 paratroops killed and 27 different troopers wounded, whereas inflicting no less than 5 000 (some estimates say 7 000) casualties on Séléka. In a tribute to the Parabats and Recces, Séléka requested for a ceasefire and the French unit held a parade for the misplaced South Africans.
In the present day, the Special Forces Brigade falls instantly underneath CJ Ops (Chief of Joint Operations) and are in the identical constructing advanced at Speskop, together with administrative help workers. Choice and fundamental coaching is carried out by the Special Forces Faculty at Murrayhill, north of Pretoria; the Provide Unit is at Wallmansthal, whereas 4 and 5 SFRs proceed to work from their bases. Special Forces Reserves are deployed the place wanted.
To anybody who has served within the navy, the South African Special Forces are deeply revered and oft envied. The report over the previous 50 years of the unit’s existence tends to indicate that the motto of 5 SFR, We Worry Naught however God, may very well be that of the Special Forces Brigade as an entire.
