MK G-6 Unit Launch Attacks from the Apies River Underground Base

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 and down and then they could see them.

The following night they had to take out the soil and start digging again until they managed to reach the level that they wanted. And thereafter they had some corrugated iron, which they put on top and which they supported by some logs as pillars, which were pillars normally used for roofing.

After then, they had to put back the pillars and the soil that was preserved back on top and then they brought back what they called “camouflage”. Normally “camouflage” would be made from the leaves that they got from the trees to try and make the place as original as possible.

And then once they had dug the place that was enough to accommodate five to six people and equipment at a time, then they used to do what was called ventilation. They would take chimneys, a pipe, where they put a chimney and put it next to a tree. They then placed a sail as if it was a net that would prevent snakes and other reptiles from coming in. A little hole would be made, where the chimney came out to be as concealed as possible, next to a tree and then there was to be cross ventilation as well.

They then would make another tunnel that went out, which would then be the entrance that would be dug round, the size of a dust bin. Across it should be a square and then corrugated sheets, shaped according to the dustbin lid shape. They then used the dustbin lid as a door to close the tunnel and turn it upside down so that it could take the soil on which they planted grass, which would overflow to hide the round shape of the dustbin.

And then when they had to go out, they lift it up and put it on the side. When they were out, they then put it back and camouflage it properly to make sure that it was in a place where even if a person walked through there, he couldn’t go through the shrubs.

About five metres away from the dwelling (dugout), it was where the tin trunks with military hardware were buried. What they used to do, was to dig one and half metres down and then had the first layer of soil, cover it up, and then use “Ntsu” snuff tobacco and red or black pepper, sprinkle it there and put a lot of soil on top again. Thereafter they would camouflage the area and make it look like any other place around. The theory was that if there was any smell that this hardware was emitting, that smell could not be stronger than the snuff and pepper. And, indeed, that was why even the sniffer dogs could not sniff that. After the dwelling was finished, it became “a guerrilla base”.

This art of guerrilla warfare, referred to as “tunnel warfare”, was first used as a guerrilla tactic employed by the Chinese during the Second Sino-Japanese War. These tunnels were fast and easy to construct and enabled small forces to successfully fight against superior forces. The tunnels were dug beneath the earth to cover the battlefield with numerous hidden gun holes to make a surprise attack.

The most successful use of this type of warfare was during the Vietnamese War, where liberation forces used camouflaged bases to maintain a full-scale guerrilla war. These tunnels were capable of supplying the guerrillas for a long period of time, and part of the Ho Chi Minh Trail — a logistical network of roads and trails that ran from North to South Vietnam to provide support in the form of manpower and material to the People’s Army of Vietnam — was based in caves made of karst (a topography formed from the dissolution of soluble carbonate rocks, such as limestone or dolomite).

The tunnel system in Vietnam contained a complete world below ground, featuring kitchens, hospitals, workshops, sleeping quarters, communications, ammunition storage and places of entertainment. The tunnels eventually became effective in defeating the French and American forces, as the Vietnamese liberation forces could strike anywhere in the vast range of the tunnel complex without a single warning before disappearing again.

According to an American Historian, Robert Taber, “The guerrilla fights the war of the flea, and his military enemy suffers the dog’s disadvantage: too much to defend; too small ubiquitous, an agile an enemy to come to grips with.”

Castro Khwela
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