The War for Africa: Twelve Months that Transformed a Continent;

The story of the Cuban-South African war in Angola in 1987€“88 through the eyes of the South Africans who fought in it.

The Angolan Civil War lasted over a quarter of a century, from 1975 to 2002. Beginning as a power struggle between two former liberation movements, the MPLA and UNITA, it became a Cold War struggle with involvement from the Soviet Union, Cuba, South Africa and the USA.

This book examines the height of the Cuban-South African fighting in Angola in 1987€“88, when 3,000 South African soldiers and about 8,000 UNITA guerrilla fighters fought in alliance against the Cubans and the armed forces of the Marxist MPLA government, a force of over 50,000 men. Bridgland pieced together the course of the war, fought in one of the world€s most remote and wild terrains, by interviewing the South Africans who fought it, and many of their accounts are woven into the narrative.

This classic account of a Cold War struggle and its momentous consequences for the participants and across the continent, is released in a new edition with a new preface and epilogue.

Table of Contents

Preface
Prologue

PART 1: GENERAL SHAGANOVITCH€S OFFENSIVE
The Prelude
The South Africans move in
Sniffing out the enemy
Fapla€s advance continues

PART 2: THE DEFENCE
South Africa steps things up
South Africa€s first disaster
Enter the Falcon
The first land battle
The Second €˜Rumble on the Lomba€

PART 3: THE STING
Waiting and watching
Recce hardships
The Air Force gears up
War in the air
Laying the trap
Fancy tricks and dirty tricks
The Cavalry €“ 61 Mech €“ rides to the rescue
Softening up 47 Brigade
The trap closes
The destruction of 47 Brigade
Booty from the battlefield
Fapla€s offensive ends

PART 4: THE STALEMATE
Forward beyond the Lomba
The reinforcements arrive

PART 5: THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE
The attack on 16 Brigade
€˜Destroy the G-5S!€
Fapla€s Great Escape: The Chambinga Gallop

PART 6: THE SIDESHOW
Begging for permission to destroy the enemy

PART 7: INTO 1988. OPERATION HOOPER €“ THE COUNTER-OFFENSIVE CONTINUED
The attack on 21 Brigade: 13 January 1988
Throwing something at the Cuito River Bridge
The attack on 59 Brigade: 14 February 1988
The attack on Highpoint 1251

PART 8: THE SIDESHOW (CONTINUED)
The attack on Menongue

PART 9: THE THREE BATTLES FOR THE TUMPO TRIANGLE
Mike Muller leads the First Tumpo Attack: 25 February 1988
Mike Muller leads the Second Tumpo Attack: 29 February 1988
Jaw-jaw begins to supplant war-war
Gerhard Louw leads the Third Tumpo Attack: 23 March 1988

PART 10: THE DENOUEMENT
More jaw-jaw
Fidel€s last hurrah!

Epilogue
Postscript: UNITA
Timeline
Glossary
Select Bibliography