ONGULUMBASHE: WHERE THE BUSHWAR BEGAN/PAUL J. ELS

Abstract

Retired Warrant Officer First Class, Paul J. Els, South African Corps ofSignals, is a veteran of the so-called ‘Bush War’. He did his first ‘stint on theBorder’ (p. v) in 1968, participated in Operation Savannah during South Africa’sintervention in the Angolan civil war in 1975/76 and subsequently served in theSouth African Special Forces as long-distance radio operator for 5 ReconnaissanceCommando. His first book, We Fear Naught But God: The Story of the SouthAfrican Special Forces (Covosday: Johannesburg) appeared in 2000, followed byOngulumbashe: Die Begin van die Bosoorlog in 2004, which he has now translatedinto English under the title above. The English edition adds nothing of significanceto the original Afrikaans text, but makes his work available to a wider audience.The epilogue by Gen. J.J. Geldenhuys, which was added to the English edition, is analmost verbatim translation of parts of Geldenhuys’s foreword to the new edition ofhis own book Die Wat Gewen Het: Feite en Fabels van die Bosoorlog. (LiteraPublikasies: Pretoria 2007).