duty that the Cuban mechanised battalion was moving up the road from Techamutete to Cassinga. The Buccaneer had spotted an advancing column of around 30 assorted AFVs, APCs, T-34 tanks and other vehicles advancing slowly up the road from Techamutete. It immediately opened fire on the column, destroying three BTR-152 armoured personnel carriers in the process, but then had to return to Grootfontein air force base to re-arm and refuel, leaving about 200 of the remaining paratroopers temporarily unprotected. All that stood between them and the advancing armoured column were the 22 men of the anti-tank platoon, armed only with 10 RPG-7 rocket launchers and five anti-tank mines which they had planted in the road. At this time however, there was a serious breakdown in the South Africans' command and control, and a number of fundamental errors were made. The shuttle of helicopters to and from Whiskey-Three, the HAA, as well as the order in which paratroopers were embarked, was improvised and initially uncoordinated and disorganised. It wasn't made initially clear to the commander of the helicopter extraction force quite what the problem – and the sudden urgency – was. Furthermore, two engineers, whose role was to destroy enemy equipment, departed in the first wave with all the demolition fuses before all the equipment had been disabled. Meanwhile, the Cuban column advanced directly into the ambush that the paratroopers had set for them. The lead T-34 tank was destroyed by one of the anti-tank mines, while the paratroopers destroyed four of the BTR-152s using their RPG-7s. They also killed approximately 40 of the Cuban troops before making their 'fighting retreat' back along the road towards the Helicopter Landing Zone (HLZ) east of Cassinga where Breytenbach was organising the remaining paratroopers for final extraction. In the face of the oncoming armoured column, Breytenbach ordered a thin defensive line, but realised the lightly armed paratroopers stood little chance against the armoured vehicles and prepared to fall-back into the bush to an emergency LZ while calling urgently for air support. The initial success of the SADF assault now looked like turning into a disaster with the imminent prospect of being overrun by Cuban armoured forces, into enemy territory. General Viljoen, who until this time had been wearing his rank and beret, removed and hid them. At 14h20, when the Cuban AFVs were already in sight of the beleaguered paratroopers, a Buccaneer and two