Starting in 1976, SWAPO PLAN combatants regularly travelled south by road from Huambo through Cassinga, an abandoned Angolan mining town that was located about halfway to the battlefront at the Namibian border.

[6] The Angolan government allocated the abandoned village to SWAPO in 1976 to cope with the influx of thousands of refugees from South West Africa, estimated in May 1978 to total 3,000 to 4,000 people.

[1] Two days before the South African raid, UNICEF reported of a "well-run and well-organized" camp but "ill-equipped" to cope with the rapid refugee increase in early 1978.

[7] Medical treatment of the seriously wounded as well as the repair of equipment and the assembly of newly trained insurgents on their way to bases in the East and West Cunene Provinces all took place in Cassinga.

"[8] By the beginning of 1978 SWAPO had improved its organisation and gained strength in Owambo and the Eastern Caprivi, UNITA was under pressure from the MPLA, and it became increasingly difficult for the SADF to operate in Southern Angola.

Cassinga furthermore was located on a small hill, flanked by a river on its West side, and open fields in other directions, factors that combined to give any defenders the advantage.

The SADF decided to mount a large airborne assault on Cassinga (by now code-named "Alpha"), supported by South African Air Force (SAAF) fighter-bombers and a fleet of 17 medium-transport helicopters.

A top secret document prepared by General Magnus Malan for the then Minister of Defence, P. W. Botha, refers to Cassinga as "a large SWAPO base located 260 km north of the border.

The final composition of forces for the attack on Cassinga was therefore the following: One crew from the Canberra squadron was tasked with acquiring further photo-reconnaissance imagery,[1][page needed] some to be used in the preparation of photo-strip maps for the Tactical Low Flying (TLF) legs that the various aircraft types would undertake – there being inadequate conventional mapping of much of the region – and additional and up-to-date detailed imagery of the Cassinga environs for the Parabat drop zone and Buccaneer target planning purposes.

[1][page needed] Consequently, the air force planners overestimated the size of the DZ, believing it was long and wide enough to drop the paratroopers, when in fact it wasn't.

Playing a supporting role was a single Cessna C-185, which flew in the target area and acted as an observation post as well as a radio relay aircraft.

[15] In briefing the strike aircrew, the SAAF Chief of Staff Intelligence was specific that there was no known military formation within 80 miles, except for a detachment of 'African police' with one truck.

In debriefs, when questioned by commanders and aircrew of the 2 strike components, Canberras and Buccaneers, he insisted that the Cuban formation being just some 15 km to the south at Techamutete was 'a complete surprise and must have been deployed there in recent days'.

The MAOT set up their radios and navigational beacons at the HAA, by now code-named Whisky-Three, and signalled the all-clear for the rest of the force, consisting of the rest of the Hawk Group protection element (31 paratroopers), six medical personnel, two more members of the MAOT and eighty-six 200-litre drums of helicopter fuel, all on board a fleet of five Super Frelon and ten Puma helicopters.

The defence-suppression bombing attack by the Canberras was two minutes late, occurring at 08h02 instead of 08h00 as originally planned, because the lead navigator failing to maintain effective timing-adjustment during the 200-nautical-mile (370 km) low-level approach phase.

The weapons were devastatingly effective against the assembled groupings below, causing most of SWAPO's casualties on the day, and also destroying vehicles, POL ("Petroleum Oil Lubricants", military acronym for flammable liquids) storage tanks and soft buildings.

Of the total of thirty-two 1000 lb (450 kg) conventional bombs dropped by the four Buccaneers on the identified 'hard points', 24 scored direct hits, causing an immense amount of damage.

Resistance was fierce but short-lived, and a total of 54 bodies were counted by the platoons before they took up their position along the northern end of the base to seal off that escape route.

Brigadier Du Plessis at this time informed Colonel Breytenbach of a radio interception, indicating that the Cuban force at Techamutete was deploying.

A compromise was agreed whereby half the paratroopers would move to the LZ where 12 Puma helicopters would extract them, while the remainder would continue clearing operations, as well as to collect any and all documents of intelligence value.

It immediately opened fire on the column, destroying three BTR-152 armoured personnel carriers in the process, but then had to return to Grootfontein air force base to re-arm and refuel, leaving about 200 of the remaining paratroopers temporarily unprotected.

They also killed approximately 40 of the Cuban troops before making their 'fighting retreat' back along the road towards the Helicopter Landing Zone (HLZ) east of Cassinga where Breytenbach was organising the remaining paratroopers for final extraction.

The initial success of the SADF assault now looked like turning into a disaster with the imminent prospect of being overrun by Cuban armoured forces, 150 miles (240 km) into enemy territory.

The rockets had been omitted from the original Operation Order, but the Buccaneer Squadron Commander had fortuitously chosen to include them in the ordnance that was ferried to the Grootfontein forward air force base by C-130 Hercules, with his ground crews and maintenance spares.

In a desperate attempt to prevent the Cuban tanks from firing at the vulnerable helicopters and the assembling SA troops waiting to be picked up, the Buccaneer pilot dived his aircraft dangerously low, nearly hitting trees as he flew close over the top of the tanks in mock attacks, disorienting the crews and forcing them to break off their developing attack on the Parabats' positions.

In the ensuing chaos and panic to scramble aboard the helicopters, 40 SWAPO prisoners, intended to be taken back to South West Africa for interrogation, had to be released to lighten the aircraft.

[1] The South Africans declared the attack on Cassinga to be a great military success, even though disaster was so closely averted by the intervention of the SAAF, and in the face of a SWAPO propaganda campaign that labelled the event a massacre.

According to General Constand Viljoen, Cassinga set the strategy for the SADF for the next ten years, i.e. that of launching pre-emptive strikes at SWAPO inside Angola, even though subsequent actions would be armoured rather than air assaults.

[22] SWAPO launched Operation Revenge, a retaliatory bombardment of Katima Mulilo in the Caprivi Strip on 23 August 1978, during which 10 soldiers were killed and 10 injured as a result of a direct hit on their barracks by an 82 mm mortar bomb.

In the aftermath of the raid, SWAPO received unprecedented support in the form of humanitarian aid sent to its exile camps and offers from governments to educate Namibians in their countries.