| One our bloodiest battles.
I was positioned at the 7 o'clock 50-100m behind 33 Charlie,Adrians Ratel 90, in 30 bevels ratel.
He was in the process of laying down fire and getting ready to "wissel" position.Earlier he had reported seeing a tank and im sure this is what he was firing at.
His driver Glen Woodhouse was about to back up when the left front side exploded in front of the wheel.
the blast went upward and into the ratel, almost directly in front of Adrians position in the left turret,, exposing him to the full blast. Glen also took some of the blast, and Stompie the gunner could only have received minor cuts, as he bailed out the right turret confused and came hurdling past our vehicle with what looked like missing fingers, as he tried to keep it still and kept looking at it. I briefly informed our Capt. Cloete of the situation as he was talking to HQ command somewhere behind us. I dont think he heard,so i ordered my driver forward to 33C ,as the gunner and officer were still in the motionless vehicle. At that point i saw Adrian dismounting the turret from the left side,fall to the ground, get up walk toward the ystervark only 20 meters or so left of his position, but fell again.Before we pulled up left and behind 33c, i noticed Glen appear around the back right side of his ratel, very dissoriented and tried to find the water spout to the vehicles left water tank.Apparently he could not get out of the hatch above him as the turret was covering it, so he pulled himself through the turret and out the right side door. Our sqaudron was still in full contact ,with mortar,tank ,heavy and small weapons fire exploding everywhere,i could hear schrapnel pinging of the sides of our vehicle and chipping pieces of the glass through the viewing ports.As we were approaching, i opened our right side door and bailed out rushing towards Glen who now had decided to plonk himself down right there next to his ratel.At first glance i could barely make out his face as the whole right side was covered with blood. I yelled at him to get up(knowing how tall and big he was)so i could get under his shoulder and guide him back to our vehicle.he was clearly in bad shape as i struggled to hold his weight and stagger in that typical thick angola sand.
as we approached our rightside door Jaque De Wet , my driver was holding the hydrolics to the door, i shoved Glen into the tight space inside that door so Jaque could close it and clammberd over Glen to get to the back where i had stashed a bunch of bandages and dressings. The stench of blood was nausiating as i tendended to Glens wounds,blood was spraying everywhere as he panicked for air claiming he couldnt breath. As he reached for the gun ports to open them i noticed his blood soaked hands were missing all their fingers and blood kept pumping out all over the ports making his hands slip off the handels. he was oozing blood from neck wounds,mouth and nose,his ear eye and eye socket were missing , so i quickly covered these and his hands and wrapped them with bandages, all the time he was gasping for air and panicking that he couldnt breath. i turned to Jaque and told him to speed it up,at this point he was already reversing while being directed by Cpt.Cloete and gunner Wiied.
i think at one point we actually got bogged on a tree stump Jaque had to try several times to rock the vehicle off. We eventually made it back to the medic unimog and dropped Glen off for further attention.Minutes later he cassually came down the ramp and proceeded to pee right there in front of all of us and then casually walk back into the unimog.He must have got a very good dose of morphine!!!
Our laughter was suddenly interrupted by the roar of a mig 23 as it flew directly over us literally tree top height, and we found ourselves mouths wide open staring into the flaming black ass with red stars underside, so close you could feel the heat from that single fiery jet engine.Reality set in and we were ready to roll on again!!
I never heard or saw Stompie or Glen again
Glen was an avid motocross bike rider. |
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