Da Costa PMM , Almerindo Mourao (A M)

Almerindo Mourão da Costa, was born on the 19th August 1944, in a small village in the north of Portugal. Mourão da Costa was a member of the FLECHAS, elite unit of the DGS in Angola. Almerindo joined the SADF in February of 1975, completed the Special Forces selection course and became an Operator with 1 Reconnaissance Commando. From August 1975 to December 1975, Mourão da Costa was deployed into Angola on deep special operations as part of Operation Savannah. During 1976 he was deployed in the operational area during Ops Currie. Mourão da Costa was also an explosives expert and instructor with the Special Forces. In January 1981, S Sgt Mourão da Costa was awarded the PRO MERITO MEDAL for assuming control after the assault commander was wounded during an operation against a enemy base. Through good leadership and determined action he pressed the attack through successfully. He played a leading role in re-organising the force and arranging for the evacuation of casualties. His performance was an exceptional example of meritorious service and devotion to duty. Mourão da Costa was KIA on the 25th February of 1980. Almerindo was married.

Do we finally have closure after 40 years?
By Leon Bezuidenhout (February 2020)
40 Years later we honor a man that deserve it

No mean soldier

Solving the mystery of a South African Special Forces soldier MIA<

Staff Sergeant Almerindo Mourão da Costa, Pro Merito Medal
19 August 1944 - 24 February 1980

Staff Sergeant Almerindo Mourão da Costa PMM, 1 Reconnaissance Regiment.

Como Herói ele sacrificou a sua vida pelo país que adoptou como sendo seu 24 de Fevereiro 1980

Leon Bezuidenhout
February 2020

Introduction

The phenomenon of soldiers getting lost in action is as old as mankind itself, but in modern times, especially due to the development of high explosives, it has become even more common. In Flanders and France, the walls of remembrance are clear evidence of this. They act as memorials to the thousands of soldiers lost in World War I. Those without a known grave. Blown to pieces, or sometimes simply buried alive. Gone, with no trace. No grave, no marker. Known only unto God.

During the Korean War (1950-1953), the South African Air Force lost 24 airmen ‒ missing in action, with no grave. Lost and killed in aircraft crashes, or shot down.

In all the theatres of the South African Border War (1966-1989), a number of soldiers also went missing. Without a known grave. During Operation Savannah (1975-1976) an Eland 90 armoured car received a direct hit by an anti-tank round. The driver, Trooper Niel Lombard, is still missing. A few years later at Cassinga, a South African paratrooper, Skillie Human, was lost, presumably drowned when part of a parachute drop unfortunately ended up in a river. During the first years of the conflict, a number of soldiers of 32 Battalion were also lost in the fog of war ... their bodies left behind to save the living.

The missing Recce ‒ still after forty years a classified secret

One of the men missing to this day, and probably forever, is Staff Sergeant Almerindo Mourão da Costa, Pro Merito Medal.

Mourão da Costa was born in the town of Paredes de Coura, in the north of Portugal on 19 August 1944, where his family lived amongst vineyards. He was a bright scholar. His father wanted him to become a priest, and after school he commenced with his studies at Oporto. He however soon realized that this was not his calling. He left and became a radio technician. Subsequently he joined the Portuguese Police and was eventually transferred to the DGS (Direção-Geral de Segurança), essentially a secret police organ responsible for state security. He was then transferred to Angola.

Here he joined the Flechas, a paramilitary unit comprising mostly indigenous Khoisan of Southern Angola. The military life and the Bush War in Angola suited the adventurous young Mourão da Costa like a glove. He was a born warrior. He excelled in the unit and soon made a name for himself. The Portuguese did a good job in Angola in operations against rebels, but things began to fell apart in April 1974, when a radical left coup d’état wrestled the Portuguese government to the edge of a communist state. In the next fourteen months the new regime in Lisbon unravelled the Portuguese political structure. The Portuguese colonies in Africa were abandoned ‒ Angola specifically on 11 November 1975.

Operation Savannah. Hospital report on 23 November 1975 at Cela Hospital, describing wounds to Mourão da Costa’s legs.

In the early 1970’s the South Africans were already preparing for a day when the Portuguese colonies would be abandoned ‒ precisely in the manner that it eventually happened. In Southern Angola, the South African Defence Force (SADF) even documented the waterholes for possible future reference.

By late 1974, it had become clear that the leftist Portuguese government would be withdrawing from Angola. The South Africans launched an operation to recruit some of the Portuguese soldiers and policemen into the SADF. The operation was known as Operation Hoender. The SADF realized that these men were battle-hardened veterans, with a knowledge of local languages and an understanding of the lay of the land. Angola and Mozambique would become the frontline of SADF operations. These Portuguese veterans would play an integral part in the new war.

One of those joining the SADF (as did many other Flechas) was Mourão da Costa, the DGS man. The new SADF Flechas would mostly become the later 31 Battalion of the SADF. Mourão da Costa signed up in February 1975, with the rank of sergeant.

Like many others, he attempted to be selected by the South African Special Forces. Unlike most others however, he passed the test. He was a man of bright intellect, and a cool and quiet operator. It is said that during his Recce selection, one of the instructors was trying to pull rank on the candidates. Mourão da Costa, carrying a pole on his shoulder, dryly remarked to the instructor: “Sir, a donkey can carry a pole, but what does he do with it when he gets there!?” The young candidates looked up to this tough man with the foreign accent.[1]

He had already established himself as an explosives expert before joining the Recces, and after selection he was immediately thrown in at the deep end. The war in Angola was heating up, and Portuguese-speaking Special Forces soldiers were in demand. From August 1975, Mourão da Costa took part in Operation Savannah. He was involved in deep penetrations and the training of South African allies. Most of the trainees were from the Holden Roberto-faction of the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA). The troops he trained later became 32 Battalion.

His participation in Operation Savannah came to an abrupt end at the town of Ebo, when on 23 November 1975, he was seriously wounded in both legs and one of his calves. He was sent to the temporary South African hospital in the town of Cela in Southern Angola. He was stabilized and the next day flown to 1 Military Hospital in Pretoria. Things did not look good. He met a kind young nurse and gave her a medal of his and a flag of the FNLA, as he thought that these things would be useless where he was going and that he could not take it along in any case ... He however survived the odds and returned to the Recces.

Incidentally, the medal he gave to the nurse was physically taken from her by a senior matron of the hospital. This act left a permanent mark on the psyche of the nurse. To this day it is unknown which medal it was.

Back at the Recces, Mourão da Costa participated in Operation Currie in early 1976. He was also heavily involved in the training of the new 32 Battalion. He returned to the Recces in Durban, now as an instructor in the use of explosives and demolition. He was acutely aware of the destructive power of explosives, and was extremely careful when instructing and using any explosive material. He would never use any detonator unless he was personally happy with its condition and quality, and had personally tested it. Safety was his hallmark.

During late 1977, he was sent to act as liaison between Jonas Savimbi, leader of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (Unita) and the Recce officer, Captain Hannes Venter. This operation aimed to help re-establish Unita in parts of Southern Angola where the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) had recently been kicked out. Mourão da Costa’s knowledge of Southern Angola and his command of Portuguese made his contribution invaluable. For months he, Hannes Venter and Savimbi walked through the bush, rallying Unita fighters into fighting groups. It was a tough time with little more to eat than wild spinach, and at times a little mealie meal or cassava. Unita members would easily walk for 30 kilometres at a time without resting. By now the group was more than 400 kilometres deep into Angola and Unita was worried that it would become known that whites were accompanying them. For this reason the South Africans had to subject themselves to very strict security conditions. At times the Recces felt as if they were actually prisoners.

On 21 March 1979 a group of two hundred Unita fighters and team of ten South African Special Forces soldiers launched an attack on a FAPLA battalion. The attack was planned against a former Portuguese settlement on the Mupa River, just south of Mupa in Southern Angola. The group of attackers was split in two. One group had to act as assault group, and the other as stopper group. Mourão da Costa was in the assault group, but the Unita soldiers were more than just a little reluctant to commence with the attack. Two hours after the initial staging time of the attack, they were still not in position. Then out of the blue, from the wrong location, some of the Unita soldiers started firing on the FAPLA position. The situation was serious. A number of Recces and Unita soldiers were wounded. It looked as if the action had been lost. It was at this stage that a Recce from the stopper group, only known as Vaatjie, rallied some of his Unita men. They dashed 2000 meters through the bush and reinforced the assault team. Mourão da Costa now seized the initiative and momentum. His men, encouraged by the help, were now also advancing. The assault exerted pressure on FAPLA’s positions, and the latter’s nerve cracked. FAPLA abandoned the dug-in positions and ran for the bush. The victory was sealed. For their bravery and leadership, both Mourão da Costa and Vaatjie were awarded the Pro Merito Medal.

On 28 February 1980 an article appeared in the newspaper, Die Burger, headed “Vier van SA sterf in Suidwes” (Four of SA die in South-West). According to the article, four members of the SADF had been killed on 24 February 1980 in contact with soldiers of the South West Africa People's Organisation (SWAPO). It is mentioned that Staff Sergeant Mourão da Costa was killed 3 kilometres across the border into Angola during the pursuit of SWAPO soldiers. The newspaper quoted SADF sources stating that he was killed when stepping on a boosted landmine and that no remains of him had been left.

A small remembrance service was planned at the Catholic Church in Voortrekkerhoogte for 3 March 1980 in honour of the lost Recce. It turned out to be a much larger ceremony than expected. The General Officer Commanding had intended to keep the service small, in order not to compromise the operation, but suddenly two busses full of soldiers stopped at the church. The Recces and many of the black soldiers Mourão da Costa had previously trained, were there to honour their esteemed and valued fallen friend and comrade. Instead of a small service, there was a packed church.

And there this story is supposed to have ended.

The mystery deepens

In time questions arose regarding Mourão da Costa’s death. If he had been killed in an “ordinary” follow-up action, why was his death still classified years later – because even after 40 years it is still being kept under lock and key? And why would a Recce be involved in an ordinary infantry operation? What kind of landmine is it that a man with his weight can detonate, blasting him to atoms? At a certain stage one of the people making these enquiries had even been threatened to put an end to it.
Then two publications saw the light. One an internet article by Manuel Ferreira, and the other one, a book by Al J Venter. Both stated that Mourão da Costa had been “killed during a secret operation in the capital of an African country”.

...To be Continued...

... Continued...

In search of the truth

Using the references by Venter and Ferreira to an “African capital” as starting point, one would have to ask where South Africa had been involved in 1980? Searching the internet and publications for references pertaining to February 1980, nothing could be found for Angola, Mozambique, Tanzania, Zambia, Lesotho or Botswana ‒ countries where SWAPO, the African National Congress (ANC) and Pan Africanist Congress (PAC) had been active at the time.

However, in February 1980, Rhodesia was in the process of becoming Zimbabwe. Elections were held in February 1980 and not everybody was going to accept the takeover, even if it was a “democratic” process. The ANC, still a banned organisation in South Africa at that time, was also involved in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. The Zimbabwe African National Union – Patriotic Front (ZANU-PF) was the soulmate of South African revolutionary organizations. They even staged joint operations.

So, for one, the Rhodesian Selous Scouts were not going to accept the changes lying down. Investigating events during that time brings us to four explosions on 14 February 1980. All took place at churches in and around Harare. The Selous Scouts wanted to create the impression that the supporters of ZANU-PF had no respect for Christianity.

The last of these explosions took place at the St Mary’s Methodist Church. According to Peter Stiff, Lieutenant Edward Piringondo and a white sergeant accidentally detonated the explosive device and blew themselves up in the Renault 12 they were using.

Stiff however is wrong. Lieutenant Piringondo and another soldier of the Selous Scouts, Sergeant Morgan Moyo, were the two people killed.[2] They are the only ones mentioned on the Selous Scouts’ Roll of Honour. No mention is made of a white sergeant. A report in The Rhodesian Herald also does not mention a third soldier. The Selous Scouts are meticulous about their fallen, and no other soldier is mentioned by them either. Reverend David Manyau, an assistant priest at the church, collected the human remains scattered all over the area of the explosion and buried them in the vicinity.

These explosions in Harare (then known as Salisbury) had huge repercussions in the Rhodesian security establishment. The Chief of the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization (CIO), Ken Flower, summoned the leaders of Combined Operations, including the Chief of the Rhodesian General Staff, General Peter Walls. Flower warned General Walls and the others that the war was over, and that there was supposed to be a ceasefire. If this was not adhered to, he as Chief of the CIO, would inform the British government accordingly.

Although the war was over, Lieutenant Piringondo (to whom the Bronze Cross of Rhodesia had already previously been awarded for bravery), was posthumously recommended for the Rhodesian Grand Cross of Valour. The conversation with the Rhodesian Combined Operations chiefs must have had an impact. The bombing campaign effectively ceased. Attempts to assassinate Robert Mugabe were also canned.

However, one more incident took place ten days later. This was at the Mambo Press in Gweru (then known as Gwelo), in the midlands of Zimbabwe. Just after 03:00 on the morning of 24 February 1980, a huge explosion ripped the building and its presses apart. Drums of benzine, used in the printing process, took fire, causing severe damage. Two people were killed: one white and one black. Of the white man, only a leg was recovered. In the pockets of his tattered clothing, South African coins were found. According to The Rhodesian Herald of 25 February 1980, the source of the explosion was a TM-46 mine. How this could have been determined, I am not sure, but it is an interesting detail.

This article is being written forty years after the death of Staff Sergeant Almerindo Mourão da Costa, yet the official record of his “landmine death … on a follow up against SWAPO terrorists, 3 km inside Angola” is still classified in the South African Military Archives.

Information that has become available in the intervening years, gives us an opportunity to speculate, but even more so, it allows us to make a proper evaluation of known facts in order to reach a conclusion about what had probably happened.

In the process I consulted open sources, all available to the man in the street, and evaluated their reliability. Those who know the true facts (I do not know who they are), did not make them known, which serves to their credit. In the past forty years however, many others have tried, including Peter Stiff, Selous Scouts and The Patriot. Most that have tried, had access to bits of information, but none of them to the whole story. Thus, after forty years, this is an attempt to put all facts together to create the most likely account of events.

A lot of questions remain, but a lot of half-truths combine to provide possible answers.

As has been mentioned above, in the last number of years, at least two sources have claimed that Mourão da Costa had died in the capital of a neighbouring African country. We can accept that he did not die in Angola, as per the official version of the SADF in 1980. In the capital of a neighbouring state? No. There is no evidence of that. In a neighbouring state? Yes.

The question then still remains why a death in an ordinary follow-up is classified? Why did none of the other troops involved with him in the follow-op action ever tell the story? The social media world is full of stories where soldiers recount the events surrounding the deaths of their comrades years before. This has not happened in the case of Mourão da Costa. Why not? I conclude that it is because the explosion 3 kilometres into Angola had never happened. In any case, how does one man on foot trigger a boosted anti-tank landmine? It requires at least 300 kilograms of pressure to detonate.

We can confidently accept that Mourão da Costa was not killed in a secret operation in the capital of a neighbouring African country as there is no evidence of that. There is not a single possibility in any of South Africa’s neighbouring states … except for one: Rhodesia/Zimbabwe. But then not in the capital.

In his book, Selous Scouts: Rhodesian Counter-Insurgency Specialists, Peter Baxter wrote the following:

… The writing was on the wall as far as the Selous Scouts was concerned. The whites of the regiment had less to fear than the blacks who could look forward to meeting their erstwhile comrades in body or in spirit, and it was likely that the revolution would afford little clemency. Most whites in the Rhodesian special forces had the option to leave Rhodesia, and many did, thanks to an open invitation from the South African Recces offering a home to any that could adapt. Thus it could be construed that many involved were working on behalf of South Africa on the assumption that Rhodesia was by then well and truly a thing of the past.

Meanwhile, on 24 February 1980 a small group of Selous Scouts and South African Recces broke into the Gwelo premises of the Catholic publication Mambo Press. A large explosive device was detonated that destroyed the printing press and killed a white male discovered to have had loose South African change in his trouser pocket. Another dead body was a planted guerrilla.[3]

The attack on Mambo Press had been phase two of an earlier subterfuge that had seen a forged edition of the popular black-readership Moto magazine delivered onto the streets of Salisbury, featuring a purported psychological analysis of Mugabe that found him very wanting indeed. This had been an elaborate ruse and the attack on the printing press was a staged reprisal against it. It was by then more or less an open secret in Special Branch and CID that South African special forces had been operating with elements ‒ out of step or otherwise ‒ of the Selous Scouts and the SAS for some time.[4]

In these three paragraphs Peter Baxter, probably unwittingly, answers the burning question. With a TM-46 landmine (was it boosted ‒ the official South African version did after all mention a boosted landmine?), Staff Sergeant Mourão da Costa entered the premises of Mambo Press. For whatever reason, the mine exploded, killing him. Why it exploded, no one knows. As a demolition and explosives expert, this should not have happened to him. Not to him. Piringondo’s charges also exploded prematurely. Is there a link? We will probably never know.

But then, and this is where Baxter might have some part slightly wrong. During the last part of 1979, the South African Military Intelligence structures recognized that a ring of agents in Rhodesia/Zimbabwe would be highly useful. Not all of the Rhodesian Security Forces would move south, but most of those remaining would be in opposition to Mugabe and his cohorts. So Project Barnacle/D40 was established. The project consisted of about thirty to forty former Rhodesian soldiers ‒ mostly black ‒ as part-time operators. They seemed to have reported back directly to the General Officer Commanding Special Forces. In the case of the Mambo Press explosion, Barnacle/D40 (or its predecessor) was most likely involved.

Mourão da Costa allegedly resigned from the SADF in December 1979 and left Durban. He resettled in Pretoria and told anyone asking, that he was now working for Siemens. When he died, many were shocked. If he had indeed resigned, why would he still be counted on the Roll of Honour of the Recces? In my opinion, because he had never left the SADF, and still remained serving with 1 Recce.

One day when the information regarding his death is declassified, this hypothesis will most likely be proven. There are two possible reasons why this specific operation is still classified. Firstly, it could be because some of those ex-Rhodesians that collaborated with the SADF or its agencies are still living in Zimbabwe, and their safety could be compromised if all facts were to become known now. The second reason is that the same people, and those in South Africa, could be possibly criminally liable in the UK, as Rhodesia/Zimbabwe, prior to the elections of 1980, was under British control.

Meanwhile we now take the opportunity to honour this brave man ‒ Almerindo Mourão da Costa. He sacrificed his life for his adopted country. He became loved and respected. He should have become a hero, but nobody knew of his brave actions. May we help to put his death, and the tears of whose who loved him, in perspective. He has no grave, no resting place ... Killed in action, missing ... But known unto God.

On 11 July 2020 Almerindo Mourão da Costa will be commemorated by the Springbok Vasbyt 10/25km Race at the Voortrekker Monument. The race is hosted and organized by Voortrekker Monument Running Club, in cooperation with AfriForum.

References (in no specific order):
• Peter Stiff, Warfare by other means: South Africa in the 1980’s and 1990’s (Galago Publishing, 2001).
• Al J. Venter & friends, Combat: South Africa at war along the Angolan frontier (Helion and Company, 2019)
• https://www.thepatriot.co.zw/old_posts/the-struggle-for-land-in-zimbabwe-1890-2010-as-smear-campaigns-prove-futile/.
• Die Burger, 1980-02-28.
• Peter Baxter, Selous Scouts: Rhodesian counter-insurgency specialists (Helion and Company, 2011).
• Kevin A O’Brien, The South African intelligence services: From apartheid to democracy, 1948-2005 (Routledge, 2011).
• Peter Stiff, The silent war: South African Recce operations 1969-1994 (Galago Publishing, 1998 & 2002).
• Various internet posts about Mourão da Costa and other Portuguese-speaking South African soldiers in the SADF by Manuel Ferreira. Facebook page: “Forgotten Heroes / The Portuguese contribution to the defence of Africa”.
• The Rhodesian Herald, 1980-02-25.
• W.S van der Waals, Portugal's war in Angola 1961-1974 (Protea Boekhuis, 2012).
• Jan Breytenbach, Eden’s exiles: One soldier’s fight for paradise (Protea Boekhuis, 2015).
• http://www.theselousscouts.com/.
• Photos: Used with the consent of Manuel Ferreira.
[1]. Quote by Dap Maritz.
[2]. This is according to the Selous Scouts’ website.
[3]. Paragraph emphasized by the author of this article.
[4]. https://www.sahistory.org.za/sites/default/files/archive-files3/peter_baxter_selous_scouts_rhodesian_counter-inbook4you.pdf, pp 143-144.

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RIP Almerindo. We will not forget you!