During the mid to late 1970s, the purported presence of M41 Walker Bulldog tanks in the South African Defence Force (SADF) aroused international interest, especially when press reports suggested they had been used as part of "Operation Savannah", a controversial 1975 South African military incursion into Angola. In 1977, an economist named Sean Gervasi at the Fernand Braudel Center claimed that the SADF was in possession of 100 M41s. Similar figures were subsequently repeated in a variety of literature and academic sources.