1 Recce. Alexander Strachan
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After Fred Zeelie’s death, Frans van Dyk and Charl Naudé returned to the Singalamwe base from where they did daily patrols with their paratroop platoon.
One afternoon Charl spotted a fish eagle nest high up in a tree on the banks of the Kwando River. After watching it for a while and still seeing no sign of the female, he climbed up to the nest and found two badly malnourished chicks. Their condition confirmed his suspicion that the mother was probably dead. So he carefully removed the chicks from the nest, tucked them inside the front of his shirt, and climbed down.
The chicks thrived under Charl’s vigilant eye. One afternoon two Recces, Marius Viljoen and Nella Nel, turned up at the base with the message that the Recces were challenging the paratroopers to a soccer match at Old Doppies. The following Saturday Frans and Charl, along with nine paratroopers, went to the Recce base for the match. As a gesture of goodwill, Charl donated one of the fish eagle chicks to the men of Fort Doppies.
After the soccer match played in the omuramba (a big grasscovered pan) near Old Doppies, they all socialised in the bar. Charl and Frans realised once again how much they identified themselves with the Recces’ work ethic and lifestyle. All the way back to their base they kept egging each other on to join the Recce unit.
Meanwhile both of the fish eagles were growing up fast. The one at Fort Doppies, however, would suffer an unfortunate fate. It was kept in a spacious cage, but burnt to death during the fire at Old Doppies.
After a few months in the Caprivi, Charl and his fellow paratroopers returned to Bloemfontein with their fish eagle. Having grown to a fair size by now, it was hidden in Charl’s equipment. In this way the fish eagle ended up unnoticed in 1 Parachute Battalion, which was to be its home for many years. A year or two later the colourful bird reached maturity, and its distinctive African call would echo across the parachute battalion’s base.
It so happened that the stage had arrived at which 1 RC had to recruit its next members. Maj. Jakes Swart of 1 Parachute Battalion was also in the Caprivi during this time as commander of A Company (in which Charl and Frans served). But Swart, who was due to captain the Orange Free State rugby team against the visiting British Lions in 1974, had already departed earlier for Bloemfontein.
The rugby match took place a few weeks before the soccer match at Old Doppies and just after the Swapos had miraculously escaped across the Kwando River. Directly after the follow-up operation, Charl and Frans rushed to the RV point where they sat huddled around the high-frequency radio and listened as Swart’s Orange Free State team narrowly lost 11-9 to the Lions. That year the touring team humiliated all the other South African teams, including the Springboks.
Charl and Frans had impressed Breytenbach during the follow-up operation against Swapo, and he instructed them to undergo the Recce selection. Charl went first and Frans a few months later. They were overjoyed when both of them passed the selection.
Great things also lay in store for Swart. Little did he know that Gen. Loots had earmarked him to take over from Breytenbach as commander at the end of 1974, or that he would become involved with 1 Recce even before Charl, Frans and a third member, Johan Verster.
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