On 14 December 1981, members of the Umkhonto we Sizwe (MK) Transvaal Urban Machinery’s G-6 Unit under the command of Simon Thelle Mogoerane headed to the Capital Park electricity substation from their underground base on the Apies River in Hammanskraal. The other members of the unit included Jerry Mosololi and Sydney Molefe, the latter had re-joined the group having reported to Swaziland after he went missing near the Pretoria Zoo in November 1981.
At the Capital Park substation, the three placed five limpet mines before returning to base in Hammanskraal. The explosions resulted in huge damages to the substation, leaving certain parts of Pretoria without electricity for several days.
The Hammanskraal base was established on an island in the Apies River on a farm owned by a Mr Rens. The idea was to establish dugouts (underground dwellings) in the ground where they could live as cadres as well as store weapons. The practice was to dig at night, actually the top soil and to preserve that top soil and put it somewhere safe. After they had it removed and put it safe somewhere on a plastic, then begin digging again.
Normally they preferred areas where they could be able to conceal the soil that they had dug out, perhaps even had to throw it somewhere in a river. They were digging a place as big as approximately 2X3 metres wide and 2 metres deep, and only had the night to do that. During daylight, the dugout had to be closed and camouflaged because people began going up a
