The Covert War is compelling reading. In 1978 the counter-insurgency war on the Angolan/SWA Namibian border was going badly for the South Africans. Externally the SADF was in control, but internally SWAPO was gaining the upper hand. The SAP Commissioner and SADF Chief met to find a solution. They decided to form a joint 5-Recce Commando/Security Branch organisation on the lines of the Rhodesian Selous Scouts. A highly experienced Security Branch officer, Col ‘Sterk’ [strong] Hans’ Dreyer, was despatched to Owamboland with five police officers. They were tasked under‘Top Secret’ Project Koevoet (crowbar) to find and provide operational intelligence for the Recces. But they needed the Recces to provide captures for interrogation, but they were heavily engaged in operations in Angola. Col Dreyer came to realise that the situation in SWA/Namibia was completely different to the Rhodesian scene. What worked in Rhodesia wouldn’t necessarily work there. So his team reverted to basic police work, building informer networks and so on. A single arrest led to the smashing of SWAPO’s sabotage networks throughout the country. During one investigation three policemen, armed only with pistols, almost blundered into a large PLAN group which would have spelt their certain death. This narrow escape resulted in the recruitment of black special constables into units to protect the investigators. This led to a realisation of the astonishing tracking abilities of the Owambos. While tracking has been a tactic used by the military since time eternal, it had never become a strategy where it was always used — which is what happened with Koevoet. It led to the unit’s major expansion.