enough heat to force spectators to keep a respectable distance. For this, a three-foot barrier in sheet metal was erected and filled with plenty of old tyres, rags and half drums of aviation fuel. Immediate upon ignition, huge fames shot up to considerable height with masses of fame, heat and boiling black smoke.
First and second rehearsals by the fire section had the flame extinguished in quick order and Flight Sergeant Dumas assured me that his men would do even better on the day of the show. I had my doubts because experience had shown me that success in practice, with no hitches, often results in cock-ups and major embarrassment.
At the appointed time, with everyone’s attention focused by the public address system, Flight Sergeant Dumas walked up to the tank and initiated the fire. Spectators had moved back from the intense heat as the main Rolls Royce fire tender arrived and firemen commenced connecting their hoses. Immediately my doubts turned to concern because I could see that the black firemen, with so many spectators watching them, were overacting in typical African fashion.
As the fire hoses were rolled out to their correct positions, Flight Sergeant Dumas signalled the tender to provide foam. Seconds passed before a tiny trickle of liquid emerged from the nozzles where firemen stood braced for the pressure that failed to come.
The flames got bigger and hotter with spectators taking a few more paces backwards. Some of the hose tenders left their stations to seek out possible kinks in the line when suddenly full pressure came through to the nozzles. This threw the men who had remained at the nozzle ends straight into the air before the hoses broke loose and whipped around showering white foam over everything but the fire.
When the foam-soaked men regained control of their hoses and placed the gushing foam where it was intended, the fire went out. I was deeply embarrassed by such an appalling demonstration, but the crowd roared, “Encore! Encore!”
Congo crisis
DURING A VISIT TO SOUTH Africa, the then British Prime Minister, Harold Macmillan, had made his famous ‘winds of change’ speech in Cape Town. I can remember telling Beryl that he should have used the words, ‘WINDS OF DESTRUCTION’ because we could already see that the dismantling of the British Empire was doing no good at all to those African states that had been granted independence. Infrastructures were collapsing and ordinary peoples’ standards of living were declining whilst the political ‘fat cats’ got fatter and military coups became order of the day. But it was not only Britain’s Empire that was being given away.
In mid-1960, chaos and savagery broke out in the Belgian Congo when the Government of Belgium handed control to unprepared black politicians. New names appeared in the papers—Lumumba, Kasavubu, Bomboko, Mabuto and Tshombe being the most prominent ones. Large numbers of soldiers of the Force Publique, who had previously been highly efficient and disciplined under white Belgian Officers, were suddenly leaderless and refused to take orders from any black politician.
Throughout the country the gendarmerie broke loose from their barracks with their weapons and went off on a spree of looting, rape and murder. The outrages, particularly against missionaries and nuns, were widespread and unbelievably cruel in nature. Seeking to escape the confusion and threat to their lives, thousands of white refugees fled into Northern Rhodesia.
Initial RRAF involvement was limited to the air transportation of distraught refugees from Ndola to Salisbury where huge transit facilities were established. After the last of the refugees had left, mainly bound for Belgium, the situation settled for a while but then it went from bad to worse.
Moise Tshombe, who was President of the Provincial Government of Katanga Province, attempted to take the initiative to regain control of the situation in his province. Realising that the Central Government had lost control he sought to save copper-rich Katanga that, by virtue of its socio-economic and geographical position, could stand alone.
Having gained some semblance of control, Tshombe declared Katanga independent which had the effect of drawing Katangese gendarmerie to his cause. Along with this came many white volunteers and mercenary officers to head the newly formed Katangese Army.
Tshombe was known to be pro-West whilst Patrice Lumumba, head of Central Government in Leopoldville, was pro-communist. A United Nations force was sent to Congo to help restore order and for reasons known only to himself, Kasavubu—President of the Congo—had Lumumba arrested. Lumumba was half dead through maltreatment by the time he was dumped off at Elizabethville, in spite of Tshombe’s refusal to accept him on Katangese soil. Lumumba was murdered by Katangese villagers soon thereafter with Tshombe becoming the scapegoat for his demise. With UN attention now focused on Katanga there existed a threat to peace in Northern Rhodesia and the Federation.
Federal troops and the RRAF were called to readiness though at no time was there any question of entering Katanga or any other part of Congo. Considerable political manoeuvring ensued and at one point it appeared as if Tshombe’s own initiatives might succeed. It was agreed that provinces would be given autonomy whilst Kasavubu’s Central Government retained a neutral stance on purely provincial matters. However, as has become common in African politics, Kasavubu ignored an agreement made at Tananarive in Malagasy and had Tshombe arrested at Qoquilhatville, the venue for a meeting intended to ratify the Tananarive Agreement. Tshombe was later released.
Following this, a real tragedy developed when the so-called ‘peace-keeping force’ of the United Nations was used with the aim of returning Katanga to the control of Central Government. Yielding to a multiplicity of communist and non-aligned demands, Tshombe’s voice of democracy was ignored and the UN, whose real character became fully revealed, systematically blocked all his efforts.
The true colours of this world body were exposed again when, acting behind a screen of western press outcries at the building of the Berlin Wall, the UN implemented the most shameful abuse against the freedom- seeking Katangese people. Irish, Indian, Swedish and Ghurkha troops used appalling armed force. The Katangese soldiers were not willing to meekly surrender their arms however, so the bloody conflict that then ensued threatened to spill over the Federal border and the RRAF moved two squadrons forward to Ndola.
A full-scale UN Offensive launched at 04:00 on Wednesday 13 September 1961. As a direct consequence, just four days later, the secretary-general of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjold, died in an air tragedy whilst approaching to land at Ndola Airport for talks with Tshombe who was waiting there to meet him. Had Dag Hammarskjold lived, it is conceivable that some sense might have been brought into the UN’s Congo policy. Instead the situation worsened.
Following a tenuous Ceasefire the UN force under Brigadier Raja of the Indian Army launched a second Offensive against the Katangese. This opened at 13:45 on 5 December. Canberra bombers of the Indian Air Force and Saab fghters of the Swedish Air Force bombed and strafed the Katangese airbase at Kolwezi the next day. All-out war had been initiated against Katanga whose crime had been to seek independence under its western- oriented, multi-national government. For its part, the UN sought nothing short of all-out control by the ultra-left Central Government.
Incredibly this whole tragedy was largely USA-inspired for its own greedy interests in Congo’s minerals. In fact, successive US governments fully supported their corruptible puppet, Mabuto Sese Seko and for many years ignored his tyrannical rule and blatant corruption against his people just so long as US interests in Congolese minerals were met.
Pilot training at Thornhill was temporarily suspended when all the instructors were attached to No 1 Squadron to make up pilot numbers for Vampire operations. For me this was a most welcome break from instruction. No 3 and No 4 Squadrons had already been operating out of Ndola and northeastern Zambia for some days when we arrived.
A Central African meteorological condition known as the ITCZ (Intertropical Convergence Zone) develops in the summer months when warm moist ‘Congo air’ converges with the cool air masses driving up from the south. This creates a deep belt of rainy weather with low cloud that can persist for many days and nights.
