Our speaker will be will be the well-known photographer/photo-journalist, Cloete Breytenbach, who had the unforgettable experience of spending long periods of time in the bush deep inside Angola, documenting the Angolan War from the perspective of one of the three main contenders for political control in the war-ravaged country, UNITA (União Nacional para a Independência Total de Angola - National Union for the Total Independence of Angola). This inevitably also led to getting to know one of the most perplexing and enigmatic personalities in the Angolan Civil War - Dr Jonas Savimbi - on a personal basis. Not only his brother, Col Jan Breytenbach of 32 Batallion/Recce fame, but also Mr Cloete Breytenbach contributed to the South African literature on the Border War / Angolan War by way of a little-known history of the Angolan War, as well a photographic record of his time spent in the bush, called Savimbi's Angola (1979 - alas, long out of print and much sought after by collectors of SA's Border War literature). The two Breytenbach brothers mentioned, recently undertook a "trip down memory lane" to revisit some the Angolan battlefields of yesteryear - the memories of which are captured on an Afrikaans-language Video Disc (DVD) currently on sale (available from the speaker and selected outlets).
Johan Schoeman of the War In Angola in Miniature website will have a static display of 1/300th scale miniatures (in a 1:1 ratio) of the SADF's 61 Mechanised Battalion Group's vehicles and equipment as compared to a typical tank-heavy reinforced FAPLA Infantry Brigade such as 47 Brigade and the Tactical Group which were both destroyed by a 61 Mech Battle Group in the Battle at the Lomba River of 3 October 1987. He will also have a number of both volumes of the "Grensoorlog" DVDs for sale.
Meetings are held on the 2nd Thursday evening of each month at 8-00pm (unless the 2nd Thursday is on a public holiday).
Meetings are held at:
S.A.Legion's Rosedale Complex
Lower Nursery Road
Off Alma Road
Rosebank
Cape Town
Contact:Bob Buser, (Treasurer/Scribe), Tel Home (evenings): (021) 689-1639; Email: bobbuser@webafrica.org.za
Non-members welcome!
A fee is charged for non-members