The Battle of Cuito Cuanavale
I. Outnumbered by armour (A reply to William Shakespeare)
Outnumbered by armour
and by men we met the enemy,
FAPLA and Cubans under Russian leadership
and the men accompanying me
was very worried
and wished for the whole
of the seventh armoured division
to have been deployed.
I said to the men
in the armoured car with me
that if we must die here in vain,
the fewer men it be
but if we grasp the victory
the world will know
that we are brave and honourable men
capable of destroying whatever faces us.
Weary I told them that our ancestors
faced a outnumbering enemy
against Dingaan and won effectively
as they were in the hand of God
and so were we.
Colonel Deon Ferreira send us straight in,
from Rundu
(heading north-west after crossing the border)
to intercept the 47th enemy FAPLA / Cuban (armoured) brigade.
At the same time UNITA were repulsing
the16th FAPLA (infantry) brigade
north of the Lomba River
that was trying to take Cunjamba.
We were hitting hard directly from the south,
surprising the 47th enemy (armoured) Brigade,
virtually destroying it
at the junction
of the Lomba and Cuzizi Rivers
fighting with armoured cars
against tanks
hitting fast and then driving away at speed,
like on commando our ancestors did
during the Anglo Boer war
fighting day and night
till the field, the air was filled with gore
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poem by Gert Strydom
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