ZULU
It must be remembered that the South African Police had members of the Force doing short anti-terrorist stints in the Operational Area, but operated from their own bases, and had their own command and control. These policemen at times also deployed using Casspirs, but where restricted to their individual base’s area of operation, and were never part of the Koevoet Unit.
Koevoet consisted of highly mobile, offensive, intelligence-gathering combat teams, each consisting of four Casspirs (Armoured Personnel Carriers), one Blesbok (Armoured logistical vehicle), forty Owambo’s and four white police men who ranged from constables to captains. On average there were forty-two Koevoet combat teams in total. Thirty combat teams were stationed in Ovamboland with Oshakati (Zulu) as their headquarters, eight in Kavango with Rundu (Zulu 4) as their headquarters and four in Kaokoland with their headquarters at Opuwa (Zulu 5). The shoulder flashes of the Koevoet combat teams featured the radio call sign (taken from the Morse code alphabet) of that specific combat team.
The overall command element for Koevoet was stationed at Oshakati and their call sign was Zulu; they did not wear a specific shoulder flash. The call sign Zulu 1 was for the transit base at Ongwediva. The recovery teams were stationed here and they had a shoulder flash with a Casspir recovery vehicle on it. Zulu 2 was a relay station at the SADF base at Eenhana and Zulu 3 was for the interrogation base where prisoners were held at Oshakati; these two had no specific shoulder flash. Zulu 4 was for the Kavango Headquarters at Rundu, a sub-base of Oshakati, and they wore a fish eagle on their shoulder flash. Zulu 5 was for the Kaokoland Headquarters at Opuwa, which was also a sub-base of Oshakati; this base wore a shoulder flash with the emblem of a Cape hunting dog (wild dog) upon it. Zulu 6 was for the Koevoet relay station at Ruacana and no specific shoulder flash was worn. Zulu 2 to Zulu 6 was under the command of Oshakati (Zulu). Zulu 7 was for the rehabilitation centre at Tsumeb; here, too, there was no specific shoulder flash worn. Zulu 8 was for the Koevoet training base at Ondangwa and wore a shoulder flash with the map of South-West Africa on it. Zulu 9 stood for the checkpoint at Oshivello and Zulu 10 was a mobile transit station in the Etosha Pans. Zulu 11 was just a call sign at Tsumke and was never operational and Zulu 12 was for the workshop at Oshakati. The last four call signs had no specific shoulder flash.
