page_title: Battle of Cassinga
section_title: Air movements
hierarchical_section_title: Battle of Cassinga / Attack / 04h00 – 09h00 / Air movements
caption_attribution_description: Canberra T.4 no. 458 at AFB Ysterplaat, during the SAAF anniversary air show
context_page_description: The Battle of Cassinga, Cassinga Raid or Kassinga Massacre was a controversial South African airborne attack on a South West Africa People's Organization camp at the town of Cassinga, Angola on 4 May 1978. Conducted as one of the three major actions of Operation Reindeer during the South African Border War, it was the South African Army's first major air assault operation.
  Claims continue that Cassinga was a refugee camp, rather than a military camp, and that consequently the raid was a massacre of civilians rather than a highly successful military operation.
  While there are extensive records covering the SADF's planning and actions around the operation, no SWAPO records other than photographic evidence of the mass grave exist.
context_section_description: The first to move on the morning of the attack were the paratroopers of the Composite Para Bn, who got up at 04h00 and began fitting their weapons, equipment and parachutes.
  At 05h19, the four Buccaneers bombers took off from AFB Waterkloof, followed at 05h43 by the faster Canberra. The heavily laden 'Buccs' could fly only at medium altitude, so their true airspeed (TAS) was considerably lower than that of the 'Cans', flying over 10,000 feet (3,000 m) higher. One of the Buccaneers went to an air force base nearer to the Angolan border in order to refuel and act as a close air support (CAS) aircraft, while the fifth aircraft of the Buccaneer strike force was delayed due to a brake problem, leaving four Buccaneers available for the initial strike.
  At 06h00 the eight transport aircraft carrying the paratroopers became airborne. Two of the Transall C-160s, carrying the reserve company of 116 paratroopers, peeled off and entered a holding pattern just south of the border so as to be available to drop reinforcements during the battle. The remaining six transports continued on towards a holding point some miles east of Cassinga.
  At about 06h30, the ELINT/EW Douglas DC-4 became airborne and settled into a holding pattern just south of the border. At the same time, a flight of two Puma helicopters, under the command of Major John Church, took off from 'a jungle night-stop' to fly to a clearing 22 km east of Cassinga in order to set up a Helicopter Administration Area (HAA), where the helicopters used in the operation could refuel. On board the two helicopters were Commandant James Kriel, the commander of the South African Air Force's Mobile Air Operations Team (MAOT) and his signaller, as well as Major James Hills, commander of Bravo Company, 1 Bn, along with one ten-man section from the two Hawk Groups he would be using to protect the HAA. Also in the two helicopters were six 200-litre drums of helicopter fuel, and, to the consternation of Hills, the Chief of the South African Army, Lieutenant-General Constand Viljoen.
  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 HAA was then completed, and the 17 helicopters refuelled and waited for the call to extract the paratroopers after the completion of the attack.
  Also at around 07h00 the solitary Cessna C-185 took off and began flying towards Cassinga. Its role in the operation was to be an airborne observation post, giving the all-clear for the paratrooper drop, as well as being a radio-relay aircraft (known as "Telstar duty" in the SAAF). It would later be forced to withdraw due to sustained anti-aircraft fire. At around 07h50 two Mirage III fighter aircraft took off, heading straight for Cassinga.
caption: SAAF Canberra bomber
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