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As the Soviet Union teetered on the edge of collapse during the late 1980s, and America prepared to claim its victory, a bloody war still raged in Southern Africa, where proxy forces from both sides vied for control of Angola. The result was the largest battle on the dark continent since Al Alamein, with forces from both sides paying in blood what U.S.-Soviet diplomats were otherwise spending in diplomacy.

The socialist government of Angola and its army, FAPLA, fully stocked with Soviet weapons, had only to wipe out a massive resistance group, UNITA, secretly supplied by the U.S, in order to claim full sovereignty over the country. A giant FAPLA offensive so threatened to succeed in overcoming UNITA that apartheid-era South Africa stepped in to protect its own interests. The white army crossing the border prompted the Angolan government to call on their own foreign reinforcements—the army of Communist Cuba’s.

Thus began the epic battle of Cuito Cuanavale, largely unknown in the U.S., but which raged for three months in the entirely odd match-up of South African Boers vs. Castro’s armed forces, which for the first time in the Cold War proved what it could achieve. And it turned out the Cubans were very good.

The South Africans were no slouches at warfare themselves, but had suffered under a boycott of weapons since 1977. The Cubans and Angolan troops, instead, had the latest Soviet weapons, easily delivered. But UNITA had its secret U.S. supply line and the South Africans knew how to fight, mainly at a disadvantage in air power for lack of spare parts. Meantime the Cubans overcame their logistic difficulties with an impressive airlift of troops over the Atlantic, while the Boers simply needed to drive next door.

As a case study of ferocious fighting between East and West—albeit proxies for the great powers on all sides—this book unveils a remarkable episode of the end-game of the Cold War largely unknown to the public. The Angolans on both sides suffered heavily, but it was the apartheid South Africans versus Castro’s armed forces that provides utter fascination in one of history’s rare match-ups.

Paperback / 232 pages 54 b/w photos

Published December 2013

 

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M
M.W.
5/5

Very interesting perspective on battle Good read

R
R.
Good easy reading

Overall an easy read with many facts, anecdotes and good broad account of the battle at Cuito Cuanavale. To an outsider this may have been a frivolous battle but the author does it justice by putting in perspective the involvement of all the forces and puppet masters behind the battle. Sadly though I found the absence of maps of Southern Africa and the general area in Angola severely lacking. Photos of some of the key figures e.g. Savimbi, Ben Ben, and SA Generals may have also benefitted the reader. Also, the closer to the end the more tired the proof reader must have become. General spelling and Afrikaans to English translations could have been better. That said, still a good read.