Sept, 2024.- "We were always willing to save them at any cost," said Leonardo Suárez Díaz, a Nuevitas resident, member of the special assignment company that was in Luango when, on August 2, 1983, the positions defended by Cuban internationalist fighters and the People's Armed Forces of Liberation of Angola (FAPLA) in the town of Cangamba were surrounded and attacked by forces of the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA).
When the Commander in Chief asked for reinforcements to support the comrades who were surrounded in Cangamba, it was decided that our company would fly to the city of Menongue and we carried out different missions there", he specified.
At only 25 years of age, Suárez Díaz took on assignments such as transporting soldiers in helicopters for support, and after returning to Menongue, Colonel Suárez provided and transported an AN-26 with boxes of bullets and food.
"Right there in Cangamba the artillery fire hit the plane and the oxygen tank was deflated, and then we returned".
The military company was relocated to Luena, capital of Moxico, located in the Southern Cone, where was the General Wiliam Galvi, who recognized that 'the mission was almost suicidal, but life or death' and gave them the opportunity to leave, however, they all gave their willingness to rescue their comrades who were surrounded.
"We flew to Cangamba in three helicopters, reached the enemy's rearguard and began the offensive.
We passed the third ring road, which for us was the first, and we began the harassment, but they discovered us on the 4 de Febrero hill and shot at us with mortars, so we had to go back".
The next day the mission continued, and on August 8, Major Rafael Ramos Fajardo informed the general that he was 150 meters away from breaking the last ring road and entering the final destination, but the Commander in Chief Fidel Castro indicated that they should not continue, and at dawn on the 9th they were already in Cangamba.
"That was disastrous, the special company took all the positions that remained in front of the 4 de Febrero hill and we could still see the enemy wagons carrying away the dead and wounded from there. We walked the whole place and we counted between FAPLAS and the enemy 469 dead".
Regarding the internationalists of the largest of the Antilles, they were still unaware of the payment of the fight because the company had not been able to reach the runway as they were not certain that they belonged to the reinforcement group.
"When they were informed that it was the special destination company, Lieutenant Colonel Fidencio Gonzalez Peraza, head of the Cubans in Cangamba, left the shelters and communicated with Ramos Fajardo and we contacted them".
Although the battle took place from August 2 to 10, the special company stayed in Cangamba as a reserve to wait for other battalions that had come out of the mountains and had not arrived.
"The Commander in Chief ordered to pick up all our troops before two o'clock in the afternoon of the 12th and this was carried out; we flew to Luena, and he told the members of the 32nd FAPLA Brigade to go to the mountains and assured that they would be rescued. At two o'clock in the afternoon the enemy attacked all the aviation to Cangamba".
Leonardo Suarez Diaz is proud to have completed 102 missions in Angolan lands, with five direct actions against the enemy, while with tears in his eyes he said "I consider the fallen combatants part of my family".
