5 Squadron
	Motto:	Difficultates Aspiciemus
	Meaning:	We shall confront all difficulties

The pilots of No. 5 Squadron SAAF call themselves `the Chakas' in honour of the greatest and fiercest of all the Zulu warrior-kings, and they have a solid record of wartime achievement to prove their right to the title.

In its first incarnation - as a fighter-bomber unit formed at Cape Town in April 1939 - No. 5 Squadron lasted only eight months before being disbanded in December. On May 7, 1941, however, No. 5 was re-formed at Swartkop air station near Pretoria. Now first and foremost a fighter squadron, the authorities intended that the new unit would be trained along improved lines derived from recent lessons learnt in aerial combat. This scheme did not turn out quite as planned. It was true that the commanding officer and his flight commanders all had recent operational experience (the CO was, in fact, the famous Major J. E. Frost DFC), but most of the pilots were new hands at this deadliest of pastimes. Nevertheless, intensive training was carried out with the Mohawk Vs allotted to the squadron, and in December 1941 it left for Egypt. Re-equipped with Tomahawk IIBs, No. 5 Squadron was given the task of shipping patrols, late in February 1 942, one of these excursions provided it with its first "kill', a Junkers Ju-88, on March 3. Some time after this the squadron was taken off shipping duties and deployed in the Western Desert in its primary role, that of a fighter unit. Now its operational career had begun in earnest,  and many `kills' were claimed by what came to be known as `the Lucky Squadron'. But losses were heavy, too. On June 3,1942, the Luftwaffe's top-scoring Western Desert ace, Oberleutnant Hans Joachim Marseille, shot down five of the squadron's Tomahawks and damaged a sixth all in a matter of minutes, during an encounter over Bir Hacheim. June 1942 brought another heavy blow to the erstwhile `Lucky Squadron', when Major Frost failed to return from a mission and was never seen again. 

Thus battered by fortune, No. 5 Squadron soldiered on with its trusty, but definitely outclassed, Tomahawks (although a captured Bf-109 was acquired at one stage and used as a unit `taxi'). At the end of 1942 the squadron discarded its Tomahawks for Kittyhawk IIIs and later Kittyhawk IVs, and began to specialize in the ground-attack role, though still functioning as an ordinary fighter squadron when the need or opportunity arose. When the war in Africa ended, the squadron moved base to Malta for the invasion of Sicily, and in due course moved to Sicily itself for operations over Italy. The squadron was concentrating on ground attack now; its main enemy had become not German fighters but anti-aircraft gunners, and on September 9,1943, it lost the commanding officer to flak - its fifth CO to be killed in action.

In October that year the squadron moved to Italy for more close-support and general fighter-bomber missions, some of them flown over Yugoslavia. No. 5 Squadron took part in the desperate battles on the Sangro River, at Monte Cassino and along the Gustav and Gothic Lines, finally discarding its Kittyhawks to be re-equipped with Mustang Ills (and later Mustang IVs). It used these superb fighters to good effect in Italy and Yugoslavia until the end  of the war in Europe, by which time it could boast of 69 confirmed  `kills', not to mention hundreds of trains, vehicles and German installations destroyed during ground attacks.

Disbanded when war ended, No. 5 Squadron was re-formed in December 1950 as a Durban-based Active Citizen Force unit flying Harvards and known as `the Chakas' - a name first carried on a Tomahawk during the Western Desert days. The squadron was re-equipped with Impala Mk Is in July 1973, and since March 1970 has enjoyed the freedom of entry into Durban - the highest municipal honour any city can bestow on a military unit, and one which dates back to the walled cities of the Middle Ages. The squadron started receiving Impala Mk Is early in 1981.The sqdn later moved to AFB Louis Trichardt to be the first and only unit to be equipped with the converted Mirage III single seaters - known as the Cheetah E. The sqdn closed down on 2 October 1992 when all Cheetah E's were placed in storage. 

• Info from Aircraft of the SAAF, H. Potgieter, W. Steenkamp
• Additional A. Dyason.