Falkus, Andrew

OTT414 Tulk

Date of Death: 21/05/1980

Please note:  - in some references Andrew's surname is wrongly spelled with a "c" instead of a "k".

800165230PF Lance Corporal Andrew Jeremy Falcus - 1 November 1959 to 21 May 1980

Andy finished his schooling at Ottershaw School in Surrey, England. He went to Rhodesia (present-day Zimbabwe) to join their military and, on 7 January 1979, enrolled in the Rhodesian Light Infantry as a trooper, serving in Sierra Battery Support Commando. Besides the standard infantry courses, Andy also attended a team medic course. With the Rhodesian war coming to an end, he applied to the SADF and, on 14 March 1980, was enrolled as a lance corporal (with the temporary rank of corporal) under Projek Buurman for one year’s service and routed to Pretoria to start his service. Andy reported for duty with 32 Battalion on 24 April 1980 and, together with 15 other former Rhodesian servicemen, was sent to the training area for orientation training.

On 21 May 1980, under the codename Operation Tiro-Tiro, 32 Battalion attacked and routed a FAPLA brigade at Savate, a small Angolan town 75 kilometres north of the border with South West Africa. Fifteen members of 32 Battalion were killed in the action and many more wounded. It was the highest South African casualty rate in a single skirmish since the start of the Border War. Overall, however, Savate was a significant victory for 32 Battalion. FAPLA suffered heavy casualties and the invaders captured a great many vehicles, weapons, ammunition and other equipment. Andy was one of the 15 who died.

The information was provided by Geoff Oliver and from the book entitled "The Battle of Savate: 32 Battalion’s Greatest Operation".

Geoff also wrote:

I noticed in the bottom right he was wearing Rhodesian Light Infantry uniform – a commando unit I did my basic military training with. A search on his name and “RLI” lead me back to the book I was considering and, as Amazon does, it allows one to delve into a few pages which is where I picked up the name of your school. Another search on that lead me to you. It occurred to me that you may not have been aware of his fate.  In the screen shot it shows what I assume is Andy’s headstone, the church where he is buried and his burial party. Andy stands next to a 106mm recoilless anti-tank weapon so I assume, when he joined RLI Support Group, he was allocated a role in their anti-tank platoon. The burial party look like South African servicemen so perhaps he is buried in South Africa. You will find a 32 Battalion association who will confirm his resting place. Looking at the dates of his joining RLI and 32 Battalion and the fact that he had to fit in a fair bit of training,  I would hazard a guess that Andy had not acquired a lot of combat experience before he found himself in the battle of Savate. Added to that it was a night action and in all probability was close quarter fighting. I fought against Mugabe in Rhodesia from 1972 to 1980 and always found this to be the case.

I will now purchase the book and will pass on any further details to yourself.

 

 

Old Boy Michael Edginton  OTT499 has since told us
"Just a brief note in case it is of interest as, having read the informative obit detail provided by Geoff Oliver, we certainly were aware of Andy's death at the time.  I distinctly remember it was sadly announced that he had been killed in action at Assembly one morning by the Head Allan Dodds in the summer term of 1980, to everyone's dumb shock.  

I am not sure on this next point, but I also believe Mr Dodds may have noted in his advice that Andy "had left school to return to Rhodesia and had been fighting as a mercenary".   If he didn't state this, it was certainly an illusion of ours at the time that he had been fighting as a mercenary, as from Geoff's advice this can be seen to be incorrect as he had initially joined the RLI and then the SADF. "