Blood in the Valleys of Paradise

The Troops' Diaries , volumes one & two , recount the heroic and often tragic tale of young white South African conscripts who were first stripped of any means of identification and then thrown in front of the rolling communist forces of Cuba and the USSR in Angola. Most were teenagers, barely out of school.

Bewildered and ignorant of the dark game being played in the halls of power, they did what they were trained to do.
The South African Forces, never more than 3000 strong , advanced 3100km in 33 days against between thirty- and forty-thousand Cubans and their Soviet advisors, and an equal number of Angolan troops.

It was an epic campaign against the best -equipped enemy ever to set foot on African soil, unmatched in military history, yet it remains relatively unknown to this day.

Here, the truth of what happened is laid bare in the uncensored words of the young men who were there, who fought like men possessed, who won the battles and the war, but who were ultimately undone by the machinations of global politics.