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Operation Argon (sometimes denoted simply as Operation Cabinda) was an unsuccessful military operation carried out by special forces in May 1985 with the objective of destroying six fuel storage tanks at Malongo in Angola's Cabinda Province.
The team had to travel by sea, and then by land, distances that were too far to travel in one night. They therefore had to spend a night ashore, and planned a ruse to make it appear that they had infiltrated from the East from Zaire, rather than from the sea.
Upon landing the boats were hidden and a point set up. The men climbed a hill and followed a route that skirted a small village and led to a road. They miscalculated the distance to the road and turned back, losing an hour of valuable time. Du Toit decided to continue and reach the lying up position (LUP) in a densely wooded area within the two hours prior to dawn. South African Intelligence and aerial photographs showed an uninhabited area, but in fact it was surrounded by camouflaged People's Armed Forces for the Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) bases. The hide was finally reached as day broke. This proved to be far from ideal as a hiding place, as it was not part of the jungle, but an island of dense growth some distance from the jungle. The Recces hid in the undergrowth and spread into a defensive perimeter, one man at an observation post several yards to the north with a view of the course they had travelled.
As dawn broke, the features of a well-hidden FAPLA base became clear some from the LUP. A few hours later, a small FAPLA patrol could be seen following the tracks in the dew that they had left earlier. The team watched as the patrol withdrew, and then came back with a larger patrol which passed the hide. At 17.00 a three-men patrol followed the team's trail directly to the thicket where the Recces were hidden. They stopped short of entering the brush, and returned to their base. Meanwhile, a second patrol approached the hide from the other direction, and opened up heavy fire on the hidden position. As rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) struck their position, Captain Du Toit ordered the withdrawal of his troops. They had no choice but to double back on the trail that brought them to this position the previous night. Two of the men were wounded as they exited the trees. FAPLA troops deployed west of the site opened up with RPD machine guns, RPG and many AK-47s.
The team turned north, pursued by FAPLA soldiers. Another group of Angolan soldiers advanced from the west, flanking the Recces so that they could only go east now. They could see a group of trees, but needed to cross of waist-high grass to get to this cover. Du Toit took two men and made his way through the grass as the rest of the team hid in the thicket. The small team drew fire as over 30 troops moved onto the exposed position. Two South Africans (Corporal Rowland Liebenberg and Sergeant Louis van Breda) were killed and Du Toit was wounded and later captured.
The contact was over and two South African soldiers, corporals Liebenberg and Van Breda were dead. While Du Toit lay on his stomach, FAPLA soldiers approached and, thinking he was also dead, stripped his equipment – only then did they realise he was alive and shot him again through the neck. He remained awake with wounds in his neck, shoulder and arm as the FAPLA soldiers began to savagely beat him. The soldiers thought that he was a mercenary, though Du Toit tried to explain that he was in fact a South African Army officer. After being severely roughed up, he was finally taken to Cabinda for medical treatment then to a Luanda hospital.
While imprisoned, Du Toit was interviewed by Jesse Jackson in August 1986. The Red Cross facilitated Du Toit's wife visiting him in prison on three separate occasions.
Captain Wynand du Toit was finally to be released on 7 September 1987 after some 837 days of solitary confinement in an Angolan prison in a complicated prisoner exchange arrangement brokered by Jean-Yves Ollivier. The exchange took place in Maputo, Mozambique where Du Toit was swapped for two ANC members and 133 Angolan soldiers.
SSgt Queiroz was awarded the Honoris Crux for his actions during the operation. (2025). 9781868427789, Delta Books. ISBN 9781868427789
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