Reading old letters from 1961, I learned Vlado’s personal request at his death was for his eyes to be donated, and for his ashes to be scattered over Mont Blanc. He was not able to donate his eyes, but it makes me happy knowing he is high up in the mountains he loved so much. Rest in peace, dear Vlado.
60 years ago today, Vlado, and everyone on board the Albertina with him, were shot out of the sky, hunted down and murdered by white supremacist mercenaries. There were so many people that wanted them dead. Our family demands that all stonewalling nations connected to this crash, the CIA, the NSA, all spy agencies, groups and organizations, including the United Nations, open up their archives and declassify all records NOW. The only way to break the chains of racism, handed down from our ancestors, is to hold our past to the light and examine it without reservations, so we can learn from our mistakes and not keep repeating them, this is true wisdom and maturity!
September 17, 2021, will be the 60th anniversary of the plane crash that killed our uncle Vlado, Dag Hammarskjold, and 14 of their brave colleagues while flying on a peace mission to Ndola, and we continue to wait for justice. For this reason, I am especially grateful to those who have no direct connection to the crash, who have made it their mission to help us uncover the truth with independent research and inquiry.
In July of this year, Joseph (Joe) Majerle III shared his own analysis of the crash with all the relatives, and it is an incredibly thoughtful and moving effort to support us. The points he makes deserve serious examination, and I want everyone to read it, so I am publishing it here in full – it offers a new perspective that was eye-opening for me, and lifted my spirits. Thank you, Joe!
AN ANALYSIS OF THE EVIDENCE CONTAINED IN RHODESIAN REPORT’S ANNEXES II AND III AN D THE U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY REPORT A/5069 PERTAINING TO THE CRASH OF DOUGLAS DC-6B SE-BDY S/N 43559 ON SEPTEMBER 17-18, 1961
By Joseph Majerle III
PREFACE I AM NOT a professional aircraft accident investigator. I am writing this account because after reading the reports of the crash, the professional aircraft accident investigators that were tasked with determining the facts of this tragedy, or for that matter, anyone else that has viewed the evidence contained in the above–mentioned files, have not come forward and pointed out the glaring misperceptions, dismissiveness of obvious real evidence, and inappropriate focus on irrelevancies that shaped the conclusions of the reports. In addition, there is at least one aspect that I can only describe as a deliberate inaccuracy that I consider to be of decisive importance. The Annex III and U.N. A/5069 reports, following the original Board report, did not effectively question the basic premises of the Investigating Board report as presumably would have been their purpose; which is why nearly 60 years after the crash this subject is still very unresolved for a surprising number of people.
I AM PRIMARILY, an aircraft mechanic. But, I earned a private pilot’s license and had begun commercial and instrument flight training before earning any of my mechanics ratings. Before I had any ratings at all, I had already built and flown my first airplane out of salvaged, crashed, repaired and new parts. At this point, I was already self-employed in the aircraft maintenance, salvage and rebuild business. I started salvaging airplanes from crash sites in 1974, studying whatever evidence was left at the scene in an effort to understand what and how the accident happened. With the advent of the Internet and the posting of Civil Aeronautics Board (CAB) and National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) accident reports online, I have been able to read many reports going back to at least to the mid 1930’s because I was interested in learning what was known about particular incidents that I had heard about as a youngster, and for well into adulthood.
I decided to abandon thoughts of becoming a professional pilot because at the time there were probably ten newly qualified commercial and airline transport pilots competing for every available job opening, and operators had their pick of the best. In the maintenance field, however, it was the opposite story; at the flight school there was only one mechanic, recently licensed, and not very confident at all in his abilities. As an experienced, but not yet licensed mechanic, I assisted him in getting the flight school’s grounded aircraft operational again. For all intent and purpose, I have never been without work since.
I do not think it is inappropriate that I should be the person to write this report. What is required here is a broad-based, general knowledge of aviation, aircraft, their operations. I do not think an investigator has to have a DC-6 type rating to know how they are operated; provided one consults pilots with the rating to confirm what published documents like airplane flight manuals and Approved Type Certificate (A.T.C.) specifications say. Here in Alaska, it is very possible that we currently have the largest base of DC-6 experience operating, on a daily basis, in the world. I have known a great many DC-6 type rated pilots in my lifetime, to say nothing of having been related to one by marriage.
Any reader who wants to challenge what I state in this document is urged to consult with their own “expert(s)”. I do not claim to be an expert on any aspect of this; however every DC-6 expert that I consulted throughout this process confirmed readily what I thought to be the case when I presented them with the evidence. So that is why I think that it is time to reexamine what actually happened during the crash, as opposed to what most of the world thinks happened. Because, the two are very different.
It is not within my area of expertise to speculate on the “why” of what caused the precipitating action of this accident. I have read a number of reports and books over recent years that attempt to tackle that subject, but I have nothing to contribute to what other researchers, with apparent objective credibility, have amassed.
I am, however, bothered enough by the acceptance of the original Rhodesian premises by the world at large and former U.N. officials, and the effect these misconceptions have had on the descendants, relatives, and friends of the victims, crew and passengers, that I am submitting this document to whom it may concern.
PREMISES The Annex II report sets a number of premises that have gone unquestioned. They are, and I will attempt to order them in terms of occurring chronology, as follows:
That the aircraft crashed during the course of making a “normal instrument approach”.
That the aircraft was not on fire prior to its collision with the anthill on the ground.
That the crew could be faulted for not having transmitted a declaration of emergency during the approach.
That the crew could be faulted for the wreckage being found with the landing lights in the off position.
That the captain could be faulted for not having broadcast all of his intentions to the destination airport, especially in an area known to be hostile to U.N. personnel. These points, in addition to others, are where I will begin.
THE INSTRUMENT APPROACH Annex II, part 3, par. 12.6 “. . .hit trees and the ground at a shallow angle of 5 degrees or less, at what appears to have been normal approach speed, at an altitude of 4357 feet MER (?) with its undercarriage locked down, flaps partially extended, and with all four engines developing power and all the propellers in the normal pitch range, heading towards the Ndola radio beacon on a landing approach.”
There are four main parts of this statement to be addressed. They are to be considered in light of the aircrafts position in relation to the Ndola airport, which according to Annex II Part 1 par. 1 item 1.1 was “From Ndola aerodrome control tower 8.05 nautical miles on a true bearing 279 degrees.” 8.05 nautical miles is over 9.25 statute miles, from the airport at which it was intending to land.
01. “Normal approach speed” in my experience is based upon the aircraft’s stall speed, landing speed, and minimum control speed in multi-engine aircraft. It varies with combinations of all of the above and is normally calculated in percentages above the stall speed, which itself varies with differing weights, centers of gravity, bank angle, flap/high-lift device deployment, etc. In standard airport traffic area there is also a speed limit of 156 knots (180 mph.) Since the beginning of the age of the jumbo jets and the airports from which they operate, the speed restrictions have been raised because many of that class of aircraft have higher stall speeds than 156 knots (180 mph.), so for them, there is only the 250 knots (288 mph.) below 10,000 feet rule, which I believe applies to all airspace complying with ICAO rules.
Normal approach speed, at that stage of the approach, should have been 160 knots (184 mph.) or even more in this case, with this captain concerned about the possibility of armed, hostile aircraft in the general area. In consultation with a DC-6 captain, he said except in very unusual circumstances the standard instrument approach speed up to the final approach fix, which in this case was the Ndola NDB, 2.5 nautical miles, 2.875 statute miles from the runway end, would be 160 knots (184 mph.) Maximum flap extension speed is 139 knots (160 mph.)
The point that needs to be made here, and clearly with no ambiguity, is that there would have been no reason whatsoever in a normal instrument approach, especially in good weather conditions, to have had the aircraft slowed down to landing configuration while over 9 miles away from the airport. Standard procedure would be to begin deploying landing flaps and landing gear upon reaching the final approach fix, which in this case was the Ndola NDB (non directional beacon), approx. 3 miles from the runway, which is a fairly average distance for an NDB or a VOR (very high frequency omni-directional range) to be situated to a runway. That the aircraft was found configured for landing at the farthest point it was going to reach away from the airport during its instrument approach, means that the pilot would have had to slow-fly it throughout all of the rest of the approach procedure to a landing at the airport. There is absolutely nothing normal about that. This was the very first thing that struck me when I initially read the report. It is indicative, however, OF A LANDING ATTEMPT AT THE LOCATION WHERE IT CAME TO REST.
02. “. . .with its undercarriage locked down, flaps partially extended, . . .” The DC-6 series aircraft have a stall speed of approximately 80 knots (92 mph.), and consequently a lower approach speed than the jet airliners that replaced them beginning in the 1960’s. The closest replacement is the Boeing 737 series, which like the DC-6 have an approximately 30,000 lb. payload and were generally intended to operate from the same runways that the DC-series used. While the Boeing will neither take off or land and stop in as short a distance as a DC-6 due to its higher stall and approach speeds, the differences are not gigantic. For this project I consulted a Boeing 737 captain whose career spanned the 737-200 series thru the 900 series, and was told, again, that landing gear and landing flap settings were deployed upon reaching the final approach fix, which is generally approximately 3 miles from the end of the runway. This, in an aircraft with higher approach and landing speeds.
Wing flaps increase both lift and drag, and were originally developed to enable an aircraft to make steeper approaches to land without increasing speed that would need to be bled off during rollout after touchdown, in other words to shorten the landing to a stop distance. That they would also reduce the takeoff distance and improve the climb performance was a secondary consideration. Annex II part 10 par. 10.3.4.2 states that all indications were that the flaps were in the 30 degree position. I would estimate that this is approximately optimal for lift and slow flight which would be desirable for the lowest approach and landing speed based upon experience with numerous different types of aircraft; I have flown a number of different airplanes with flap deployment angles beyond 35 degrees and noticed that at angles much beyond 35 resulted in much higher drag components than lift components and engineering books generally support that observation based on wind tunnel testing. The higher angles of extension were generally useful only for bleeding off excess altitude quickly in situations where a pilot wanted to get a lot closer to the ground in a hurry. To my experience, 30 degrees was optimal landing flap in many, but not all, types. Again, it is indicative OF A LANDING ATTEMPT AT THE LOCATION WHERE IT CAME TO REST.
03. “. . .with all 4 engines developing power . . .” 10.1.4 states “. . . the four engines were broken from their mountings and severely damaged by impact and subsequent fire . . . .” Examination of photographs in the appendix reveals that engines #1, 2, and 3 had fallen to the ground after the aluminum nacelle structures melted away in the fire subsequent to coming to rest, and the straight steel tube struts of the actual engine mounts are still straight and attached to the engines. Furthermore, the above mentioned engines are all still in the approximate positions they would have occupied on the wing with only the #4 engine having detached in the crash sequence, and it is laying in probably very close proximity to where it was wrenched from the wing during the cartwheel arc.
The second thing that struck me upon first viewing the wreckage plan is that almost the entire aircraft is still in one place.10.2.1 “The main wreckage was contained in an area approximately 60 feet by 90 feet . . . .”
The DC-6 is almost exactly 100 feet long with a 117’6” wingspan, which means after it came to rest and cooled down the whole of the main wreckage would fit within the same rectangle as its original size. The wreckage plan, as surveyed, indicates that the vast majority of its original parts ended up oriented in the approximate positions that they occupied prior to the crash. In other words, throughout the crash sequence, very little of the aircraft was displaced from itself until very close to the end of its movement. This indicates a low energy crash with a very slow speed impact, at least relative to even minimum flying speed, to say nothing of a 160 knot instrument approach speed. 160 knots (184 statute mph.) is a velocity of almost exactly 270 feet per second. The wreckage plan length of 760 ft. from first point of treetop contact to ground strike of the fuselage nose (10.1.1) is approximately one half of what I have observed to occur in unintentional controlled flight into terrain (CFIT) crashes during my time in this business. It is, however, in addition to viewing the appendix photographs of the site that were taken from the ground and from the air, completely consistent with the path of an aircraft with an 80 knot stall speed being intentionally landed.
Aircraft that are only capable of even 120 knots in unintentional CFIT crashes generally never resemble an airplane by the time all of the parts come to a stop, their propellers are almost never still attached to the engines, their landing gear are almost never anywhere near where they were originally attached, and their tail groups when broken off have usually broken the control cables in overload displaying a “broomstraw” effect. In this case, when the tailcone broke off in the cartwheel there wasn’t enough energy left to pull the cables apart. If I had to estimate the minimum speed required to disintegrate the nose section of the fuselage such as is displayed in the wreckage plan and what can be seen of the remains in the photographs, I would say that it would require at most only about 50 to 60 knots to do that kind of damage. It was explained to me in 1986 by a good friend that was a DC-6 captain at that time, that the 4-engine DC-series had a somewhat fragile nose landing gear structure but not unusually so compared to other makes in it’s class; but when they tore out of the fuselage it often did a lot of other damage and could possibly make the incident beyond economic repair. I saw an example of that just last fall (2020) where a DC-4 had its nose landing gear torn out in a ditch at barely more than walking speed; the damage extended through both sides of the factory break joint where the nose (flight deck, cockpit) section attaches to the forward fuselage section and the operator decided that it was beyond economical repair, according to a conversation with his director of maintenance. This should reflect no discredit on the part of the designers; from personal experience repairing nose landing gear damage on many different types of nosewheel type airplanes it is generally a fragile part of all of them.
04. “. . .and all the propellers in the normal pitch range, . . .” This statement stretches ambiguity beyond limits. The Hamilton Standard 43E60/6895A-8 propellers such as were installed on SE-BDY (of which I have owned several sets and still possess a crate full of hub and dome parts) has a normal pitch range of approximately 90 degrees from neutral for feathering and forward thrust and maybe 20 degrees aft of neutral for reverse thrust. 10.3.4.4 states: “Inspection of the propeller stop ring assemblies confirmed that the angular setting of all propellers was in the constant speed range.”
First, the stop rings do not determine the constant speed range; they are only the outer limits of the blade travel, at full feather and full reverse. The constant speed range is a function of the engine driven governor and the distributor valve assembly housed within the hub and dome and is sensed with electrical switches attached to the blades and actuated with an electric motor driven oil pump mounted on the engine reduction gear nose case immediately behind the propeller hub, with a rubber/spring lip seal interfacing the parting surfaces. The only way to determine the angular setting of the blades in this installation is to measure with a propeller protractor against the rotational axis.
Second, the constant speed range is also a function of the engine turning at a high enough RPM for the governor to supply enough boosted oil pressure to operate the distributor valve to keep the blades off of the low pitch stop, which in reversing propellers such as these is again a function of the distributor valve. But for the purposes of this analysis, that is not important.
Third, the photographic evidence, is what is important. The U.N. report appendix contains photographs with 16-digit letter/number codes, of which I saved fifteen to a file, beginning with S-0727-0004-01-00002, and following will be referencing the last two digits. I will reference the individual blades in clock face numbers, as viewed from the rear of the engine looking forward as is standard practice.
It is difficult to differentiate between engine#1 and engine#4 because there were fewer views of #4, but both could be identified by orientation with the wreckage plan. It is readily apparent that both of these had almost identical damage to their blades, except that the third blade on #4 is not visible. Photo 07 shows #4 with the 10 o’clock blade in standard reverse thrust position. The 2 o’clock blade has had its spring pack drives sheared in overload during the ground strike and has rotated on its pivot axis into an approximate reverse feather position, with its trailing edge forward instead of its leading edge when in standard feather mode. This indicates that its leading edge struck the ground hard enough to shear the spring packs while the leading edge of the blade was rotated aft of its plane of rotation, in other words while at a reverse thrust angle. With 2 of the 3 blades coming to rest in a reverse thrust angle, I think it’s safe to assume that the propeller was fully operating in the reverse thrust mode at time of impact.
The #1 engine is well represented in the photographs, with all blades visible. Photo 16 shows the 10 o’clock blade in standard reverse thrust position, spring packs intact. The 2 o’clock blade is in reverse feather position, spring packs sheared as per the same blade on the #4 engine, and the 6 o’clock blade is also in standard reverse thrust position, spring packs intact, but has bent aft throughout its length progressively to the tip which is common when rotation is coming to a stop while the engine and airframe behind it are still moving forward. That the propellers on engines #1 and #4 are far less damaged than the ones on #2 and #3 is partially due to the fact that they were mounted higher on the wings due to wing dihedral, and didn’t penetrate the ground as deeply when they struck.
Photo 07 shows #2 engine with its 2 o’clock blade rotated into a reverse feather position also, spring packs sheared. The broken off shank of what would be the 10 o’clock blade is in standard feather position, spring packs intact. What would be the 6 o’clock blade is not visible in this view, and I haven’t found any other photos showing it, but based on its proximity to the ground I think it’s reasonable to assume that it also was sheared off during its ground strike.
Photo 33 shows #3 engine, which reveals its 2 o’clock blade broken off at what I would estimate at most to be its 25” station, which is measured from the propeller shaft centerline. It is clearly in a standard reverse thrust position, spring packs intact. The 10 o’clock blade is broken off 1.5” to 2” outboard of the hub clamp halves, so close to its round shank section that its angular position is inconclusive. The 6 o’clock blade has broken off inside of the hub clamp halves through the blade bushing bore; it obviously fragmented into a number of pieces. As with all three of the other engine’s propellers, I think it is reasonable to assume that the #3 propeller was fully in the reverse thrust mode when the blades struck the ground. I would deduce from the condition of the #3 propeller that it was positioned to penetrate the ground the deepest and most solidly of the four. The #3 engine also received by far the most fire damage after coming to rest most likely due to its proximity to the most remaining fuel in the right hand wing. I will discuss this in more detail later.
I have thought long and hard about how to estimate how much power the engines were developing at the moment the propellers struck the ground, and it is a difficult question. The propeller blades were group 4, an early post-war development and were the strongest of all the Hamiltons ever built for piston engines, generally used only on the latest and most powerful post-war radial engines. I am not aware of any empirical strike strength tests, which is not to say that Hamilton Standard didn’t conduct any, I just haven’t heard about them. If I had to guess I would estimate that it would require a high-cruise manifold pressure setting to shear them off and break them through the blade bore bushing hole as is evident in the photos. The captain clearly had gotten the throttles well forward and was making a lot of reverse thrust before the nose landing gear collapsed and the nose and propellers hit the ground.
THE WRECKAGE PLAN The Annex II wreckage plan and the photographs of the descent path appear to show a deliberate, controlled descent with directional control maintained all the way to the anthill, as though it was intentional, and I am suggesting that it was.
I had difficulty scaling the exact measurements of where the small parts that were torn from the aircraft came to rest relative to the initial tree contact, and varying figures are given for the height of the anthill from 9 to 12 feet, which I would have thought would be consistent with the whole site having been charted by professional surveyors, but in reality this is not important.
What is important is to realize that only 760 feet from initial treetop contact the aircraft was rolling with all three landing gear on the ground, right side up, travelling in a straight line, directionally under control.
At some point not far from the anthill the left wing bottom skins were breached, presumably by a tree trunk, the top of which would have been broken off by the wing leading edge and spar(s), opening up one or more fuel bays and dumping their contacts to the ground in a concentrated area, which fueled the incinerated area shown at that location in the wreckage plan. As stated earlier, this would contribute to the reason that the #1 and #2 engines on the left side of the aircraft were less heavily fire damaged post-crash than the engines on the right side. However, the overall strength of the main wing box structure remained sufficiently adequate to retain its basic shape to provide the arm about which the entire aircraft would pivot upon striking close to the base of the anthill, leading edge down, and not be sheared off at that point. Obviously, the wing leading edge outboard of the engines is what actually contacted the anthill, and initiated the cartwheel, as both of the left hand engines stayed with the wing and came to rest close to their original positions on the wing.
At some point close to the anthill, (and somebody could probably do a better job of quantifying the actual measurement from the wreckage plan), but it is not marked as such, the nose landing gear structure was overloaded in the undisturbed forest terrain and collapsed. Which is to say that the oleo strut and its retraction/extension linkage was torn from its mounting structure and its broken pieces were spread along the ground from forward movement of the rest of the aircraft behind it. I looked long and hard in the wreckage plan to find the exact point where the nose gear departed, but could only find reference to a “steel shaft” alongside the base of the anthill, and couldn’t find it in the photos. Presumably, the “steel shaft” was the nose strut piston tube, which is a steel tube approximately 5” in diameter, and it was about where I would have expected it to be in this case. Other associated parts of the nose gear system were a little farther along the path, again where I would have expected them to be. I could find no reference to where the nosewheel and tire came to rest, which is important from the standpoint of knowing how long it was on the ground before failing, which was in some measure the fate sealer for the crew and passengers. I did find reference to an unidentified portion of wheel rim on the right hand side of the path and well before the anthill, but whether it was from the nosewheel or one of the dual main wheels may never be known. Photo 19 shows one of the main landing gear assemblies with the remains of both tires and wheels in place and another photo shows the same for the other MLG, so it is certain that all of the main wheel tires stayed in place throughout. While on the subject of the main landing gear, the DC-6 MLG units retract forward into their nacelle bays, and their retraction/extension links for normal operation on the ground loads the links in tension, which for metallic structures allows them to be at their strongest, especially in terms of retaining their shape when loaded. The photos show that the links had failed in compression and had bent, which would be expected to happen upon the main wheels striking the ground while traveling backwards during the cartwheel, and partially retracting back into their nacelle bays. But, effectively, they stayed in place throughout the crash, again indicative of a relatively low speed occurrence.
As stated above, shortly after landing with all three landing gear on the ground, close to the anthill, at probably the worst possible location and time, with all four engines evenly at fairly high power settings in reverse thrust in what would have been a desperate attempt to slow the momentum of the aircraft and get it stopped, (but what is in reality standard operating procedure), the nose landing gear collapsed, instantly dropping the nose section of the belly and fuselage to the ground, pivoting on the main wheel axles. When this happened, the propeller blades began contacting the ground, bending and breaking them off, and the wing leading edge from end to end rotated downwards, drastically lowering in height. As the fuselage nose belly skins, stringers, formers etc. began crushing and tearing away it allowed the wing leading edge to get even closer to the ground, until the left side contacted the anthill nearer the base than the top, which initiated the cartwheel. Had the nose gear remain in place, there is at least a chance that a relatively level wing might have been able to ride up and over it and the aircraft’s momentum to remain linear, and with even a few more seconds of reverse thrust as braking action, the survival odds would have increased dramatically.. The noted fragment of wheel rim found along the glide path, if from the single nosewheel, and if large enough to have allowed the tire to depart from the wheel, I think in this terrain would have guaranteed the failure of the nose gear assembly.
I think a further word here about center of gravity is appropriate. SE-BDY as it departed Leopoldville was handicapped with a forward C.G. (center of gravity), with little or no aft cabin load. The DC-6, as with all large airliners, was designed to carry its nominal 15-ton payload distributed throughout the cabin from end to end and as with most aircraft have the load approximately centered on the wing, since that is what is supporting everything. In this case, with the passengers and their gear in the forward part of the cabin, the C.G. would have been well toward its forward limit, known as nose heavy. This means that the pilot, under any circumstance, would have a harder time holding the nose off the ground with the elevators than if there was weight in the fuselage behind the main wheels assisting him with the balance.
I have flown airplanes with only the pilots in the front seats and nothing in the aft cabin where the nosewheel could not be held off the runway whatsoever upon landing. With power at idle, when the main wheels touched the nosewheel slammed to the runway instantly because the C.G. was well forward of the mains. At least three different DC-6 pilots I have known over the years have told me that they much preferred flying them with a somewhat aft C.G. because of the better balance. In this case however, I think it could be listed as a contributing factor to the deadliness because after getting the main wheels to the ground, with the propellers in reverse and no accelerated air flow over the elevators, the captain was unlikely to have been able to keep the nosewheel from slamming to the ground immediately and beginning the sequence of breakup of the forward fuselage structure.
ABOUT THOSE ALTIMETERS . . . There are numerous references throughout the reports about the barometric altimeters, three each, forming one of the major premises upon which the reports conclusions are based. So many, in fact, that I am not going to bother referencing them here. The Board (Annex II) and the Commission (Annex III) both spared no expense to prove beyond any shadow of doubt that the their Air Traffic Control (ATC) had properly informed the crew of the altimeter setting and that Transair had properly maintained their instruments and aircraft, as well, and that there should be no discredit reflected upon the servants of and the country hosting the visitors. If those visiting aircrews could not pay attention to their altimeters and keep from flying into the ground while executing an otherwise exemplary instrument approach it was not the host’s fault.. There is one very major problem with this.
There were four altimeters installed in this aircraft. The fourth altimeter was an “AVQ-10 Receiver Transmitter (Radar) “, per Annex II Par. 6.2 Page 15, line 3. That, and a reference on the “Enlarged Portion of Wreckage Plan” to a “Radio Altimeter” on the extreme left hand side of the page are the only times throughout all of the original reports that its existence was ever mentioned. And it was decisively important.
Mankind had long awaited a means to know exactly how far the ground was below you and how far away an obstacle was in front of you while making instrument approaches. Barometric pressure gauge instruments were reliable but didn’t give you all the information you really wanted and needed for making truly blind instrument approaches. With the WWII British development of the cavity magnetron, which made radar small enough to be carried aboard aircraft, it was a short step away to build an accurate radar altimeter. The DC-6 was among the very first of the postwar civil aircraft to be fitted with them. By then, airlines couldn’t afford not to have them. And all of the pilots that I have ever known use them when they have them during instrument approaches especially when near the ground. They tell me that they are a very reassuring and confidence-building device.
It is inconceivable that captain Hallonquist was not using the radar altimeter, if he needed an altimeter at all, throughout the portion of the instrument approach that the aircraft completed. Barometric altimeters are fine for flight where there are large safe heights above ground level and sufficiently accurate for keeping airplanes at known levels relative to each other but when you start getting close to the ground in conditions of poor or no visibility the radar altimeter is what is going to tell you where the ground or a solid object is in front of you.
I mentioned above about needing an altimeter at all. In the USA, in order to qualify for a private pilot certificate, a student must accomplish a certain number of landings and fly a certain number of hours at night during official after-sunset periods, (night time). This must be accomplished visually, under official VFR (visual flight rules) conditions. I am fairly certain that the rules to qualify for airman certificates in Sweden or the UK would be pretty similar, and in fact for all ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) countries. Without access to his logbooks, it’s a foregone conclusion to assume that with over 7800 flight hours captain Hallonquist was competent and comfortable with night VFR landings. On the night in question, the weather 38 minutes before the crash, per Annex II chap. 5 par.5.3 page 14, the visibility was 5 to 10 miles with slight smoke haze, with ceiling not given, but presumably nil cloud cover from the last prior routine weather observation, 3-1/2 hours before. So there is no reason to assume that the crew couldn’t see where the ground was.
Prior to the advent of aircraft with auto-land capability, which was probably not until at least the mid-1970’s and to my knowledge didn’t come into service until the early 1980’s, all, at least all civilian airplane landings were made visually by the human pilot. Even instrument landings were made visually, even when the approaches were made coupled to an autopilot. If at some minimum height above the ground at some certain distance from the end of the runway, and these numbers varied with different airports and with differently equipped aircraft, the pilot could not see the end of the runway to land the approach was called missed, power was applied and the aircraft climbed away to either try the approach again or proceed to an alternate airport where the weather was hopefully better. But all landings required the pilot, at some point, to see the runway visually. And the pilot was only using the altimeter to know where to not descend below. To this day, the vast majority of airplane landings worldwide are still done this way.
Upon reaching Ndola, the aircraft established communications with the tower informing them that they had the airport in sight. At that point the captain could have made a VFR landing within the airport traffic area (ATA) without following the instrument approach procedure. Transair company policy was that if the crew was unfamiliar with an airport, and captain Hallonquist had never been to Ndola before, an instrument approach was to be made. The captain could have ignored this but he was obviously the type of person that would rather follow the rules and go by the book than ever have to explain in the future why he did not. I fully understand this philosophy, it is how I’ve tried to live my own life. It can be well imagined that for an instant it crossed his mind that he could just set up and land while he was right there, but he knew that an instrument approach was just a few minutes more, no big deal, we can see the ground, no appreciable weather. In other words, he didn’t really need an altimeter to tell him where the ground was. He could see the ground. And the radar altimeter told him exactly how high above the ground he was.
THE PRECIPITATING EVENT To my observation, in the study of aircraft accidents throughout the course of my life, there is almost always a precipitating event that sets off a chain of actions, reactions, counteractions, etc. that results in the crashed aircraft somewhere on the surface of earth. In this case, it is known from Annex II that the captain communicated to Ndola tower that all was well and within minutes the aircraft was being incinerated with its own wing fuel and that fifteen of the sixteen occupants lives had ended, and that the last would succumb in less than a week. That person, Sgt. Harold Julien, was the only eyewitness to the crash.
To my experience, eyewitness testimony is considered evidence in a court of law, at least in this country. I am unfamiliar with Rhodesian law in the 1960’s, but in the USA in the 1960’s Sgt. Julien’s statements would have been considered evidence in a crash investigation. Since there is no other actual evidence to the contrary, and testimony of ground observers about the airport over-flight and entry to the instrument approach procedure are insufficiently conclusive to determine externally what the precipitating event was, it seems logical to me that Sgt. Julien’s statements, as brief as they are, are the only thing that can be considered as evidence in a search for the cause of the chain of events leading to the crash.
In the UN Commission report, par. 129., Senior Inspector Allen testified to the U.N. Commission that he spoke with Sgt. Julien and asked him three questions; 1. “What happened? He said: ‘It blew up’.” 2. “Was this over the runway? And he said ‘Yes’. “ 3. “What happened then? And he replied: ‘There was great speed—great speed’.” “It blew up—” “—over the runway.”
I have read all three of these reports several times and still don’t understand the reluctance of the investigators, including the U.N. and the Swedish observers, to not make those six words the central point, the number one item on the list of where to begin to find the truth about what happened. Especially from the standpoint of determining whether or not there is fault to be assigned to the flight crew.
Assuming Sgt. Julien was belted into any seat in the forward cabin, looking out the side window on whichever side he was sitting on, he may or may not have had a view of the lighted runway and the town of Ndola but it is likely that the captain would have informed the passengers that they had arrived overhead Ndola and would be setting up to land there. It would have been the last thing he could identify location-wise and anywhere in that vicinity for him would be “over the runway”. I don’t know if Inspector Allen was deliberately trying to trip him up or why he asked him if it was over the runway when he knew that the aircraft had overflown the runway and not blown up there, but, it seems to me, it was an unusual question to ask a person in Sgt. Julien’s condition. What I am getting at here is that Sgt. Julien knew where the runway was and that the aircraft had blown up. They sound like lucid answers to me, and not as though he was thinking about horses or submarines, for example.
In my view, in light of all of the data and evidence of all of the pages of all of the reports and the information displayed in all of the images of all of the photographs in the U.N. file, the only thing I can see that qualifies as a precipitating event is Sgt. Julien’s: “It blew up”. And he was the only one left that was there when it happened.
Airplanes have been blowing up for a long time, in fact for almost as long as they’ve been in existence. There is a lot of video of it happening; I can think of footage that I’ve seen going back to the 1920’s. And I’ve been on-scene to ones within seconds to minutes after the explosion. I’ve salvaged wrecks after the fact, and studied the effects of explosions on structures and materials.
To my experience and observation, on metallic structures, if some event ignites the fuel vapors, it is the vapors that explode and the still-liquid fuel then burns, but the explosive event is by then over. During the explosion some weak area in or near a seam will give way and tear open, leaving, in effect, a chimney from which the burning fuel would exhaust. In aluminum stressed-skin wet wing or bladder tank explosions, there is usually a torn section of skin along a rib or a stringer or even a spar, (weakened because of the drilled holes for rivets) that has opened up and from which the the fire burned upward out. I have never seen an example where the fire burned downward; only upward. Presumably, because heat rises.
In viewing video of air combat, of which many hours exist of footage of most of the combatant countries back to at least WWII, when an airplane being shot at catches fire and smoke begins trailing behind, it is subtle but noticeable that the flames are still burning upward and the smoke is trailing slightly upward.
Another thing that struck me when I was standing near a burning airplane at night, while the fire department was trying to extinguish it with water, which was rather ineffective, was how brightly a gasoline fire lit up the sky in the dark.
As stated earlier, aircraft fuel tanks have been blowing up resulting in the destruction of the aircraft for a long time, for a number of reasons. The incendiary (tracer) bullet was developed during WWI to ignite the hydrogen gas in enemy airships and observation balloons, and was very effective, not only for that purpose but also to ignite the fuel in airplane fuel tanks. As TWA 800 proved in 1996, chafing electrical wiring after arcing long enough could blow a hole through an aluminum alloy sheet and ignite fuel vapors that would explode the tank so violently that it initiated an inflight breakup. About two weeks after that, right here in Alaska an engine failure on a DC-6 led to a chain of events that resulted in ignition of one of the wing fuel tanks which was left to burn long enough to result in the wing folding up and an inflight breakup. Electrostatic discharge (ESD)(static electricity) igniting empty or only partially full fuel tanks was known to have damaged or destroyed (I am going by memory here) about 25 civilian turbojet airliners and comparable heavy military aircraft (bombers, tankers, transports) combined since the introduction of the jet age. For that reason, after an airliner lands at an airport and taxis to its gate and shuts down, along with chocking the wheels a ground cable is attached to a fitting in the structure to remove the static charge it has built up while flying through the air. An airline line mechanic colleague tells me that he has measured as much as 50 volts upon making that connection.
But ESD is unlikely to have been the cause of the explosion that SE-BDY experienced. However, the explosion that Sgt. Julien described is most likely to have been the precipitating event that caused captain Hallonquist to make the decision to get the airplane on the ground, now, immediately if not sooner.
FORCED LANDINGS Forced landings have happened throughout history for nearly countless reasons, but several of the reasons account for the vast majority of the occurrences. Topping the list would be engine failure; if your engine fails you have no choice but to put it down wherever you happen to be. That would be in the involuntary forced landing category. In the voluntary forced landing category, and some statistical database could prove me wrong, but to my experience inflight fire would be at the top. I have before me a list of seven airplanes that I had some thread of connection to in some form or other that were force landed by their pilots into whatever terrain was below them at that moment because it was the only chance they had to stay alive. One of the seven, the aforementioned DC-6, technically doesn’t qualify as an attempted forced landing, because of the captain’s indecision, but all of them resulted in aircraft that never flew again, and in five of the seven all survived, but with some minor injuries. In the other two, there were no survivors. The incidents I am referring to here all occurred in Alaska since 1977, and it is likely that there have been others that never came to my attention. All seven of them were due to inflight fires. One of the seven was a new customer of mine, but the aircraft was one I had never and was destined to never work on.
After almost five months of examining these three reports, the conclusion I would draw is that the case of SE-BDY fits into the category of a voluntary attempted forced landing due to an inflight explosion and fire that was successful until its final seconds, and then an unseen and un-seeable solid object ended its chance for a successful termination.
THE LAST ACTIONS I will attempt to re-create the final minutes of the flight of SE-BDY based on the information in the reports, as I would visualize it to have to have occurred. I want to remind the reader that the largest airplane that I have ever steered through the sky was a DC-3, which is for all practical purposes not all that different from a DC-6. The ancillary control systems in the DC-6 were substantially different in being mostly electrical relay controlled, it had two more engines, and there were more systems in general such as anti-detonant injection (water/methanol) for the engines, reversing propellers, BMEP gauges for fine-tuning engine power and fuel mixture, etc.; it is a considerably more complex machine. But for the purposes of understanding what actions were taken and their results, it would have been basically as follows:
01. The aircraft has descended from the east toward Ndola from its reported maximum cruise altitude of 16,000 ft. and establishes communications with the control tower. It has just flown a long trip, far out of its way to avoid aircraft hostile to U.N. personnel and has avoided radio transmissions as much as possible to avoid detection. The captain states his intentions to enter the NDB instrument approach and is told to report reaching 6000 ft. There are no further communications with the tower.
02. It is likely that at last communication with the tower that the aircraft was already at 6000 ft., based on airport personnel statements and the extreme likelihood that the captain already had the Ndola approach plate in front of him, and had based his descent rate into Ndola to arrive near the minimum descent altitude (MDA) for the area.
03. The aircraft turns onto the outbound course leg and airspeed adjusted to at least 160 knots indicated airspeed. The Ndola approach plate in the U.N. report appendix gave times for approaches at 180 and 200 knots in addition; there is no way to ever know what speed was actually used. My best guess is that it would have been 160 knots.
04. At some point approximately but probably more than half way on the outbound leg course the precipitating event occurs. There is a bang, a flash of light, and then a constant partial illumination of the night sky on the left side of the aircraft.
05. The captain looks out the left cabin window and sees a section of the upper wing skin torn open upwards, with bright yellow flames billowing rearward behind that area. It is possible that he can feel some diminished lift component from the spoiler-effect of the damaged wing skin on that side, and may have moved the aileron trim to compensate.
06. Seeing this, the captain realizes quickly that they cannot expect the wing to last long enough for them to make it the three or more minutes it would take to get back to the Ndola runway; that they probably have only some number of seconds to live. He determines that he is going to land the airplane onto the ground in front of him, whatever that looks like, before the airplane breaks up. He is not going to waste the time it takes to inform Ndola tower of the situation; flight crews generally never do. Investigators wish they would.
07. With his right hand he reaches up and pulls the throttles back; with his left he holds some back pressure on the elevators and with his right hand then starts trimming the elevators nose up. Airspeed begins to decrease, heading toward flap extension speed.
08. The captain has already told the first officer and flight engineer his intentions; they are assisting him in the other physical actions necessary to configure the aircraft for slow flight and landing. It’s possible that the first officer is also assisting him in holding pressure on the ailerons to keep the wings level.
09. The aircraft is slowing down into flap extension range, beginning to descend, the captain is trimming the nose up on and off, waiting to get down to landing gear extension speed, for a large drag component to bleed off the excess altitude. The captain is nominally staying on the turn-back arc of the instrument approach.
10. The aircraft has slowed enough for landing flap angle, then landing gear speed is reached and the captain calls for gear down.
11. With the aircraft slowed well down, in an effort to speed the descent and get rid of the excess altitude, the captain pushes the nose down with the elevators. The wind noise increases, and with the nose down attitude the occupants get a sense of “great speed”, but in reality the DC-6’s landing profile is comparatively steeply nose down in normal conditions, opposite that of jet airliners, that land steeply nose up. The large double-slotted wing flaps, and modest wing loading allow for impressively steep descents at comparatively low airspeeds.
12. Seeing and sensing the proximity to the treetops, the captain begins putting back pressure on the control column, judging the round-out with the experience of 1445 hours in DC-6’s, and rolls out of the procedure turn onto the return course to the NDB. He is possibly helped in his depth perception sight picture by some of the small campfires that the local charcoal makers have burning sprinkled around the general area. He probably doesn’t need landing lights; they are useful for illuminating reflective objects and lighter colored areas/objects, but can be only distracting if there is nothing light to reflect.
13. Having leveled off just above the treetops, the captain retards the throttles to idle and holds back pressure on the elevators and adds more nose up trim to relieve the pressure, bleeding off more speed toward the stall. It is possible that the thought occurs to him for a few thousandths of a second that if he makes it through this, in the future he will insist on having some ballast in the tail on these otherwise fairly empty charter trips. Now would be a good time to be a bit tail-heavy.
14. The aircraft is gently settling, the treetops are beginning to brush the belly, the propellers are chopping off twigs, there are probably some unfamiliar sounds resulting from this.
15. The ever-increasingly sized tree branches are clattering off the sides of the fuselage from the propellers now, the sounds of tree trunks snapping off beneath the belly and wings can be heard clearly. A somewhat larger tree trunk contacts the left wing leading edge a little inboard of the tip rib and shears through the light skin, stringers, etc. and the wing tip falls away to the ground. That left wing just can’t be held up quite level, but the aircraft is still traveling straight, into a little darker darkness.
16. The captain throws the propeller switches into the reverse thrust position as a group with his right hand and when the propellers start translating he reaches for the throttles and begins advancing them forward.
17. The aircraft is halfway or more to the ground and the trees are breaking off lower and lower. The manifold pressures are coming well up and the engines are roaring, the propellers are chopping off ever-increasing sizes of limbs and trunks. The reverse thrust in addition to the arresting effect of the bending and breaking trees are having an effect; the aircraft is well below stall speed now. Landing gear doors are being battered and tearing off, as well as pieces of wing skin, wing flap skin, and possibly horizontal stabilizer leading edge skin.
18. The aircraft has made it to the ground; all three landing gear are on the forest floor. The burning left wing has not had enough time to shed molten sections of skin yet, due to the occurrence at pattern height and the captain’s immediate decision to get the airplane on the ground.
19. The left wing pushes over a larger tree, probably just outboard of the main wheels that doesn’t surrender easily and tears a sizeable hole through the bottom wing skins, instantly dumping a significant quantity of already burning fuel onto the ground.
20. Some or all of the flight deck crew could possibly, for some very small fraction of a second, think that this might turn out OK. They are on the ground, upright, still largely in one piece, all still strapped into their seats, uninjured.
21. The aircraft at this time is effectively a 38-ton bulldozer, mowing down trees on a forest floor that has probably been undisturbed for centuries, if not millennia; I don’t know the history of that area. Except that it’s not built like a bulldozer, and I doubt that one has ever been built that would move at whatever speed it was going at this moment on its own. The nose landing gear at this time cannot withstand the combination of ground roughness, imposed weight, speed, possibly flat or even missing tire, and/or other unknown factors, and collapses, tearing out and further weakening the surrounding structure. The forward fuselage and nose section have pushed the nose gear down to its collapse, and relieved of its resistance continue to plunge downward, crushing and tearing the light aluminum structure to pieces as the forward shifting center of gravity exacerbates the situation even further, as it is effectively standing what originally was a 100 ft. long fuselage on its end.
22. Immediately after this, with the nose section disintegrating, the wing leading edges rotated downward, and well powered-up engines and propellers slicing the ground, the left wing leading edge contacts near the base of the anthill, and the 38 ton mass with still considerable momentum rotates around it, side-loading the second fuselage section that attaches presumably to the front spar section of the wing, ultimately severing it.
I don’t think I need to go any farther with this; I assume the reader knows the rest of the story.
For the aircraft to have been found as described and photographed in the reports, it would have had to happen generally as I have described. A type-rated DC-6 captain could certainly provide more and better detail of the specifics of operations and actions, and a mechanic with a lot of DC-6 experience could provide more and better detail of how things worked in this case, and here in Alaska there is and has been a lot of DC-6 experience, but to my knowledge none have researched this case and come forward with their observations. I suspect that most who are currently alive are unaware of it. I don’t think I had heard of it until maybe ten years ago at the most. But, those who were aware of it at the time, even as children, have kept the account of the crash alive, and rightfully so, as it is an injustice to the memory of those whose lives were cut short.
In my view, the flight crew did everything right. I can’t see a single place where I wouldn’t have done the same thing in that situation. I can’t imagine that approach through the trees and the touchdown on the forest floor to have been accomplished more skillfully by anyone I’ve ever heard of, Eric Brown or Bob Hoover, anybody. I can only hope that I would instantly swallow my fear and act decisively in a similar situation, as this captain and crew did. They are as shining an example to all that it can be done, as others I have known and have heard of have done, as there is.
To me, it is really, and I mean really, obvious what happened there.
I have written this for the offspring, the relatives, and friends of the victims, in hopes that the dark cloud of implication that has surrounded this crew, completely unreasonably I believe, for some six decades now, can finally be lifted.
Joseph (Joe) Majerle III Anchorage, Alaska July 2021
In May 2015, I wrote “Apartheid: A Policy of Good Neighborliness” in defense of Allister Sparks, anti-apartheid journalist and author; and also to educate people about Hendrik Verwoerd, who was the architect of apartheid in South Africa. I was responding to an article on enca.com, that still falsely claims that Sparks “expressed his admiration”(their words, not his) for Hendrik Verwoerd in a speech. The original article included a video of his speech, which I watched several times to hear for myself what he said, but when I went to look at the article again recently, they took down the video and had edited the article.
Allister Sparks passed away on 19 September 2016, and because my post about him is the highest viewed here and people are still clicking on the link to the enca.com article, I am speaking up for him once again.
Here is a snippet from The Washington Post obituary, celebrating his courage and dedication to end apartheid. Rest in peace Allister.
[…]”Mr. Sparks wrote most recently for The Post in 2004, on the 10th anniversary of [Nelson] Mandela’s swearing-in as his country’s first black president.
“It was the most stirring moment of my life,” Mr. Sparks wrote. “For more than 40 years as a journalist in South Africa, I had written about the pain and injustices that apartheid inflicted on people. I had been harassed and threatened by a white regime that regarded me as a traitor for doing this, and here at last was a kind of vindication or triumph.
“It is a terrible thing to feel alienated from one’s own people,” he continued. “. . . I could not identify with the land of my birth because it stood for things I abhorred; I felt no sense of patriotism when I heard my national anthem or saw my national flag. But on that day in 1994, as I stood before a new flag, listening to a new anthem, watching a new president being sworn in, I felt, yes, my very first twinge of national pride.”
From “Rhodes: the race for Africa”, by Antony Thomas(pub. St. Martin’s Press, 1996), here is a quote from Cecil Rhodes’ ‘Confession of Faith’, written at age 23; he wrote this on the same day he joined the Freemasons, which he considered a pointless Order “with no object, with no aim.”:
“The idea gleaming and dancing before ones’s eyes like a will-of-the-wisp at the last frames itself into a plan. Why should we not form a secret society with but one object, the furtherance of the British Empire and the bringing of the whole uncivilized world under British rule, for the recovery of the United States, for making the Anglo-Saxon race but one Empire?’
[It] would be a society not openly acknowledged but which would have its members in every part of the British Empire…placed at our universities and our schools…in every Colonial legislature. The Society should attempt to have its members prepared at all times to vote or speak and advocate the closer union of England and the colonies, to crush all disloyalty and every movement for the severance of our Empire. The Society should inspire and even own portions of the press for the press rules the minds of men.
What a dream, but yet it is probable. It is possible.”
Cecil Rhodes was a horrible racist leader who begat many racists, like Hendrick Verwoerd and Donald Trump, and all these men understand the power of the press, and that when you own the press you own the minds of men.
From Rhodes Last Will and Testament, and final edition of his ‘confession’/manifesto, he makes it very clear that it doesn’t matter what country the white person comes from, but that white rule is the only rule:
“I have considered the existence of God and decided there is an even chance that He exists. If He does exist, he must be working to a Plan. Therefore, if I am to serve God, I must find out the Plan, and do my best to assist him in it’s execution.
How to discover the Plan? First, look for the race that God has chosen to be the Divine instrument of future evolution.
Unquestionably, that is the white race. Whites have clearly come out top…in the struggle for existence and achieved the highest standard of human perfection. Within the white race, English-speaking man, whether British, American, Australian or South African, has proved himself to be the most likely instrument of the Divine Plan to spread Justice, Liberty and Peace…over the widest possible area of the planet.
Therefore, I shall devote the rest of my life to God’s purpose, and help Him to make the world English.”
Here are a few videos of Dr. Hendrick Verwoerd, who has been called the “Architect of apartheid” for the policies he put into practice during his time as Minister of Native Affairs and as Prime Minister of the Republic of South Africa.
Recently, in a speech to the Democratic Alliance’s Federal Congress, Allister Sparks listed Verwoerd as one of the “really smart politicians” he had met in his 64 years as journalist in South Africa – but he also included his friend and colleague Helen Zille – an anti-apartheid activist and journalist, who put her life in danger to expose the cover-up of Steve Biko‘s death, calling her “the smartest political tactician of all.” I think the assumption by those upset with his inclusion of Verwoerd, is that they think he admires him personally, when he only called him “smart”. Verwoerd was smart, in that he knew how to manipulate public opinion for personal gain and to turn human rights backwards – when Dag Hammarskjold met with Verwoerd in January of 1961, Brian Urquhart wrote in his biography of him “He had felt that he had been speaking to Verwoerd across a gulf of three hundred years”. But to better understand why people are upset to even hear his name, you must hear Verwoerd in his own words.
“Our policy is one, which is called by an Afrikanns word “Apartheid”. And I’m afraid that has been misunderstood so often. It could just as easily, and, perhaps, much better be described as a policy of good neighborliness. Accepting that there are differences between people, and that while these differences exist, and you have to acknowledge them, at the same time you can live together, aide one another, but that can best be done when you act as good neighbors always do.”
“The Republic is the only sure and stable friend that the western nations have in Africa. We are here to stay, and we are here to aide all others in whatever they may need and can get from us. We have, for a very long time, developed in South Africa a nation of our own – friendly, prosperous, progressive. We hope that the rest of Africa will become likewise.[…] Of course there has been sensational journalism and conditioned reporting, which created the impression that there would be great difficulties ahead of us. We have no doubt at all this will pass. Certain restrictive measures had to be taken recently, mainly to insure to protection of the masses – of all races who seek peace and order. Therefore, a stable government will continue in South Africa.[…] Here the solution is sought by openly retaining the white man’s guiding hand; which elsewhere is the hidden guarantee of industrial development, and even good administration.”
In 1966, Hendrick Verwoerd was assassinated, stabbed in the chest and neck while at his desk in Parliament, but it wasn’t the first attempt made on his life. Six years earlier, at the Johannesburg agricultural show, he was shot in the head twice. This video shows that earlier attempt.
“Target shooting at the Congo” (DIE WELT clipping from Fabry archive)
Back in January, I posted one of three letters that were sent to me from the Archive of Sir Roy Welensky, the last Prime Minister of the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland; written by High Commissioner of South Africa, H.L.T. Taswell, and marked “TOP SECRET”. Since they don’t appear to be available anywhere else, I decided to publish the other two letters here today, in full (emphasis mine).
12th October, 1961
TOP SECRET
SECRETARY FOR EXTERNAL AFFAIRS.
PRETORIA
The Federation and the Katanga
At Sir Roy’s request, I had an interview with him this morning.
He told me that there were certain things he would like to have brought to the notice of our Prime Minister. One of them was that he had had a talk about ten days ago with Tshombe. The interview took place at Sir Roy’s request and Tshombe was flown to the airport at Salisbury with two Katanga Ministers. They spoke for about five hours in secrecy.
While he did not always think too much of the black man as a statesman, Sir Roy said, he was greatly impressed with Tshombe’s ability and sincerity. Sir Roy told Tshombe he had arranged the meeting because he felt there were certain points he wished to stress and hoped he would take his advice.
Sir Roy told him that it was impossible for him to try to fight the whole Afro-Asian bloc on his own and that it was essential to avoid a further clash with the U.N. which could be disastrous particularly with Nehru, his greatest enemy, doing everything he could to crush the Katanga completely.
The Katanga was the first setback the Afro-Asian bloc had suffered in Africa and it was therefore essential that he, Tshombe, should do all he could to capitalize on it. He must play his cards extremely well. As a start, it was most desirable that he should have talks with Adoula and reach a Congo settlement. He suggested that he should insist that all outsiders, including the United Nations, be excluded from the talks. Furthermore, any agreement reached with Adoula should be on a phased basis. No irrevocable step should be taken and each successive phase of a settlement should only be put into operation when each previous step had been carried out in an entirely satisfactory manner. Sir Roy hoped too that Tshombe would move in the direction of a federation in which a certain degree of autonomy would be retained by the Katanga.
Tshombe accepted this advice with much gratitude and since his return it appears that he has been working in this direction.
In so far as the United Kingdom and the Katanga were concerned, Sir Roy said his tactics all along had been to keep the United Kingdom fully informed on how he viewed developments. He had given them advance warning all along of trouble and had forecast developments with accuracy.
The United Kingdom, however, had preferred to close their eyes to all this and to let the United Nations go ahead unchecked.
When the Indians moved into the Elisabethville Post Office last month and the fighting started, Sir Roy delivered an ultimatum to the United Kingdom. He said that regardless of what the Federation’s legal position might be he was going to aid Tshombe. The Federal Air Force was at the alert and unless the United Kingdom took steps at once to the check the United Nations he was ordering the RRAF into action.
“While Tshombe and I could not have taken on the world we could have cleared up that U.N. bunch in no time. And that, ‘he smiled’ would really have started something.”
This ultimatum infuriated the United Kingdom and Sir Roy’s public statement that the British were going back on assurances they had given regarding the Katanga so incensed Mr. Sandys that he said he would have no further dealings with Sir Roy.
Driven into a corner, however, and fearful of the consequences for themselves of any federal armed intervention, the United Kingdom brought pressure to bear on the United Nations and the United States for a cease fire.
Since then Sir Roy has been pressing a reluctant U.K. to take further action by supplying them with information on the U.N. violations of the ceasefire and their military build up. He has been asking the United Kingdom what justification there is for example for the bringing in of Canberra bombers and jet fighters when the Katanga has only one Fouga jet trainer. The United Kingdom are now finally reacting favourably to all this and their influence on the Americans and U.N. is discernible.
In this connection, he mentioned that a further U.N. attack on Tshombe was expected this past week-end but it had not materialized. The danger of such an attack, incidentally, was the motive behind the issue of Sir Roy’s statement last Saturday. The text was telegraphed to you.
We believe that O’Brien’s recall for consultation is imminent and that he is unlikely to return to the Congo.
While Tshombe and his regime are by no means out of the woods, Sir Roy believes that they now have a reasonable chance of survival.
Touching on the Indians, Sir Roy said that one of the main reasons for their use was that other troops, particularly the Tunisians, had shown themselves to be extremely faint hearted. When the action started in the Katanga, the Tunisians had refused to leave Leopoldville.
Sir Roy, however, does not underestimate Indian motives. Referring to the report of an agreement between Lumumba and [Rajeshwar] Dayal for the settlement of two million Indians in the Congo, he stated that he had heard that documentary proof of this was available but he had not yet been able to lay his hands on it.
Referring to the Indian military build-up, he said he hoped we fully appreciated the grave danger it presented to us as far as S.W.A. was concerned.
His security people had information that a further contingent of Indian troops had arrived at Dar-es Salaam on October 8th on an American transport ship. The name of the vessel was something like “Blatchford”.
Touching on the question of foreign mercenaries, Sir Roy mentioned that the Federation had taken a man by the name of Browne off one of the two Dove aircraft that came up from South Africa recently on their way to the Katanga.
Sir Roy said they have proof that Browne was working for both sides – the U.N. and the Katanga. This is the man Col. Zinn spoke to the Commandant-General about when he visited South Africa recently.
After the interview I asked Federal security what they knew against him specifically. They replied that the white Katanga security people had long suspected Browne of double dealings. Also, when he was taken prisoner of the U.N., along with other mercenaries, earlier this year he was released “almost in a matter of minutes” while the others were detained. As a personality too federal security have no time for him and do not trust him in the least. His British passport was impounded by the United Kingdom High Commissioner here and he has been declared a prohibited immigrant by the Federal Government. He may since have made his way into the Katanga.
On the subject of Dag Hammarskjoeld’s [sic] death, Sir Roy said that he was preparing to have an enquiry take place under the chairmanship of the Chief Justice of the Federation, Sweden and I.C.A.O. would be invited to attend and he hoped to obtain another judge from a neutral country such as Switzerland. He would insist that the enquiry be a public one as there were certain things he felt should come out in the open and not be hushed up.
Hammarskjoeld’s plane left Leopoldville in such secrecy that even the United Nations Commander there did not have details of the flight. The plane had sufficient petrol on board when it started out for 13 hours flight. When it was over Ndola it still had sufficient fuel for another 8 hours. The plane had taken a round about route to avoid Katanga. There were 7 guards on board and a large quantity of ammunition. The general impression gained was that all were greatly afraid of an attack by the Katanga jet. The plane circled Ndola but did not ask for permission to land. There is reason to believe that the pilot may even had made a mistake in the altitude of Ndola and confused it with that of a place with a similar name in Angola.
Hammarskjoeld’s bag of documents was intact and could not be opened as it had a special locking device. Various parties tried their best to gain control of the bag. It was finally handed to the U.N. Representative. The Swedish Minister in South Africa was one of those who made strong endeavours to secure it. The Minister, Sir Roy said, gave the impression here of being an unpleasant character who required watching.
Turning to the Federation’s own present position, Sir Roy seemed very heartened by the removal of McLeod as Colonial Secretary and by the increasing feeling among Conservatives that the British Government should go more slowly in its African policy and that the interests of the white man should be protected.
The situation in Northern Rhodesia was also improving. Kaunda was being more and more discredited and his campaign of violence had backfired on him considerably. The Northern Rhodesia Government was distributing posters showing the damage done to schools and this was having a telling effect on the the Chiefs. The United Federal Party was now actively backing Katilungu of the A.N.C. with funds and helping him in his campaign. He was following closely behind Kaunda on his tour through parts of Northern Rhodesia and meeting with considerable success.
Although Heinriche and the Campbell, Booker Carter group were also backing Katilungu Anglo-American’s position was not very clear. Rhodesia’s Selection Trust, it seemed, did not approve of the idea at all. They had backed Kaunda very strongly, Sir Roy added, and Kaunda was also McLeod’s choice as leader of Northern Rhodesia.
He remarked incidentally that neither Anglo-American nor RST contributed financially to the United Federal Party any longer. (In a recent report I commented that I had heard these companies had recently restored their support. The information was given to me by an opposition M.P.)
Sir Roy did not touch on Dr. Banda directly. He just nodded his head and smiled when I commented that Banda would find himself very isolated if Katilungu were to come to terms with the United Federal Party. Sir Roy just did not seem to worry what happened to Banda.
During my interview I referred to our desire to overfly Federal territory in order to map our border. Sir Roy’s reaction was “Of course you can. Go ahead”. At the request of the Secretary for External Affairs here I have, however, put the request in writing and hope to have a formal reply shortly.
On defence generally Sir Roy did not say anything special but he gave me to understand that he would like to see Mr. Caldicott visit South Africa shortly.
Sir Roy said that he thought our Minister’s statement at the U.N. was a very sound one indeed and that Afro Asian reaction showed that body up in its true light. I gave Sir Roy a full copy of the Minister’s statement.
While one has gained the impression all along here that the Federal Prime Minister has been Tshombe’s main champion, the additional information Sir Roy gave me today shows just what lengths he was prepared to go to help the Katanga. But for the great pressure he brought to bear on the United Kingdom I think Katanga would have collapsed by now – and the U.N. and the Indians would no doubt have had more time to devote to S.W.A.
We can be extremely thankful that our Federal buffer to the north has as capable and resolute a Prime Minister as Sir Roy. We can be glad too that he has as skilled and well informed a Secretary for External Affairs as Mr. F.N.N. Parry. Both, moreover, show an exceptional amount of goodwill towards our country.
H.L.T. Taswell
High Commissioner
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2nd December, 1961
TOP SECRET
SECRETARY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
PRETORIA
The Federation and the Dangers Ahead.
“The wind of change speech which Macmillan made in Cape Town was originally to have been made by Butler but it was postponed because of Strijdom’s death.”
That is what Sir Roy told me in the strictest confidence when I had an interview with him this morning. He asked too that the information be passed only to the Prime Minister, our Minister of Foreign Affairs and yourself.
He revealed this piece of information while talking about the great dangers facing Southern Africa.
Sir Roy, as you know, has just recently returned from London and Lisbon. Salazar, he said, is a worried, disillusioned and perturbed man who finds it extremely difficult to understand why his friends have turned against him.
“I am not disillusioned by Britain’s attitude” Sir Roy went on “I have known the British too long. If they tell you one thing now you can be almost certain that they mean exactly the opposite.
“A few weeks before McLeod was switched to another cabinet post I was assured” Sir Roy continued “that no such change was contemplated. Now I am assured that Macmillan will fight the next election. That just about convinces me that he will shortly resign in favour of Butler.”
Macmillan, Sir Roy added, has aged about five years mentally since he last saw him and will accordingly not be able to hold the reins of government much longer.
The present British trend to get out of Africa as quickly as possible is nothing new, he continued, it has been part of a plan for several years. Men like Lennox-Boyd and Home who developed such close and sound personal relations with people in British territories in Africa have been deliberately pushed aside. The British Government do not want people in top positions who have given firm assurances abroad which it would now be embarrassing for them to withdraw. The British want their hands free.
It was at this stage of the conversation that Sir Roy mentioned the wind of change speech in Cape Town.
Shortly before this he had said that “we in this country are on our own. I fully realize that.” He added that there was a tremendous danger of Southern Africa being cut off altogether of arms. The United Kingdom, he said, were selling fighter aircraft to the Federation at top prices. America on the other hand was supplying Yugo Slavia [sic] with aircraft at a nominal price of $10,000 each. Russia was now giving Migs to African states free of charge in order to help them in their struggle for freedom.
In the face of all this he went on, he was disgusted to see that Denmark had just refused to supply any further arms to Portugal. He deplored Israel’s action in voting for sanctions against us and added “I hope your Prime Minister is bending every possible effort to produce an atomic bomb in South Africa.”
Sir Roy stated that during he recent visit to London he had accused the British Government of deliberately going against the white man in Africa and of letting the Federation down at every turn. He told them too that he knew from information he had received in London that they were trying to put obstacles in the way of supplying arms to South Africa and, in turn, to stop the Federation from obtaining anything from the South.
The British Government hotly denied all this.
At present, Sir Roy went on, he could draw all he wanted from Kenya and Aden. Those bases would, however, one day close down and the only British base left in Africa would be the Federation.
It is interesting to speculate at this point whether Sir Roy’s strong remarks in London could not have had some bearing on the favourable negotiations which our Commandant-General and our Secretary for Defence were able to conduct in London recently.
Turning to the Indians in the Katanga, Sir Roy said that he had someone sitting in Dar-es-Salaam and watching troop movements. It was quite clear that more Indians were going into the Katanga than were coming out. Apart from the question of build up of U.N. strength it seemed probable that many Indians were being moved into the Congo as settlers. He confirmed that Indians were making an economic survey and taking an intense interest in mines.
“There is a great deal on the military side which I would like our Minister of Defence to discuss with your people urgently” Sir Roy went on “and I hope he can get down to see you very shortly. I don’t think this matter should be delayed too long.”
Turning to the Federation’s internal affairs Sir Roy remarked that economically the situation was much better than it had been expected to be at this time. Politically too the position looked hopeful.
A month or two ago Sir Roy declared that provided agreement could be reached internally with the constituent territories there would be little need for a review of the Federal Constitution. The British Government would be presented with a fait accompli and have to accept it as such.
I asked Sir Roy what progress he was making in this direction. He replied that Banda had already indicated his willingness to meet him after Maudlin’s present visit was over.
In so far as Northern Rhodesia was concerned Kaunda had already had a talk with Roberts, the leader of the United Federal Party there. Sir Roy has little time for Kaunda personally, however, he has reason to believe that Kaunda was at one time in an asylum and is mentally unstable. He doubts if he has full control of UNIP.
Barotseland, Sir Roy feels, is very much on his side and adamantly opposed to falling under a black nationalist government in Northern Rhodesia. The Federal authorities have provided the territory with a legal adviser to keep it fully informed and advise it on tactics when talking to the British Government.
Expressing confidence that it would eventually be possible to reach an agreement Sir Roy concluded “we will have no Congo here and if Britain tries to force one on us we will defend ourselves at gunpoint.”
This interview was one I had asked for prior to going on leave. As I entered his room, however, Sir Roy remarked that he presumed I had come in response to his request. When I explained that I had not, he said “but I told my people I wanted to see you. How is it these things go wrong?”
Looking back on my talk with him, I would say that Sir Roy is much more worried about the current dangers to the Federation than he cared to admit.
If the Katanga collapses, the Federation will be on its own. If attacked from outside it is very doubtful how long the Federation will be able to hold out on its own. Every effort will no doubt be made to hold the line of rail Northern Rhodesia and the Copperbelt and Southern Rhodesia.
With internal unrest fomented by the UNIP in Northern Rhodesia and by the NDP in Southern Rhodesia, to say nothing of trouble from Banda and from the dissident white elements, the position could be extremely difficult. Our buffer in the North could easily disappear leaving the path open for an attack on South West Africa and ourselves.
I should accordingly not be surprised to find that Mr. Caldicott’s proposed visit to South Africa, is to learn what our attitude is likely to be in the event of an attack on the Federation.
The following is the latest information available on the make up of the Federation’s population—
Whites: S.R. 220,610/ N.R. 74,600/ Nys. 8,730/ Total 303,940
Asians: S.R. 6,990/ N.R. 7,740/ Nys. 10,580/ Total 25,310
Others: S.R. 10,540/ N.R. 1,910/ Nys. 1,500/ Total 13,950
Blacks: S.R. 2,920,000/ N.R. 2,410,000/ Nys. 2,880,000/ Total 8,210,000
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Total: S.R. 3,158,140/ N.R. 2,494,250/ Nys. 2,900,810/ Total 8,553,200
In assessing the problems which face the Federation one must not underestimate the drive, determination and dynamic personality of Sir Roy who stand head and shoulders about all other politicians in this country.