The time has come...
.......the Walrus said, "to talk of many things; of ships and shoes and sealing wax, of hi-jacking and things". First of all, Madbob , Herge indeed, ! I was fortunate enough to inherit the mentor of Alistair Cook. Alistair Cook was the "Voice of America" and made broadcasting an art with his simple" man to man "method of his weekly news from America. I went to the same Blackpool Grammar school but many years after him and his Tutor, Bill Curnow, never tired of extolling the virtues of his erstwhile pupil. What has always stuck in my mind was his advice to us all "When writing, try to imagine that you are in a cosy study and have just finished a splendid meal and you are having an interesting discussion with your best friend then just let your pen flow ." I can't always vouch for the splendid meal and my study is what my late wife, Dora, always called the "Glory Hole" but I do my best. So here goes.... Lod is a small village and was the old name for the airport at Tel Aviv, now named Ben Gurion ,after the first Prime Minister of Israel. " We are going to Lod" I said and incongruously the current joke flashed through my mind about the American on a flight to Miami who had hijacked the plane and said "you got to Miami" because the last three flights he had been on had finished up in Cuba. A tattered page from "Jeppeson" with an approach map to Tel Aviv was thrust in my hand. "Yes , I am going to Lod" I kept repeating and this seemed to please them because they began to search for the pin from the grenade which the younger of the two was still holding very firmly. During this time the First officer managed to get a message to an Air France aircraft that we had been hijacked. When the Air France tried to call us up a Swissair plane quickly cut in and said that the message had been received and understood and that base would be informed.
I managed to calm the man holding the pistol to my head and pointed out the danger of the grenade to us all. The younger man holding the grenade was obviously complaining, in Arabic, that his hand was very tired of holding the lever against the pressure of the spring. Despite a frantic search it was never found and eventually our Flight Engineer found some strong wire in his tool box and, under tremendous stress ,meticulously bound it around the grenade and the lever , slowly withdrawing the fingers one at a time. I did my utmost, later, to get his bravery and skill recognised but it was a hopeless task. No one seemed to want to even believe it possible.
The two men were very different in appearance and character. The eldest, the man holding the pistol to my head, was in his mid thirties , seemed more moderate and open to reasoning. He opened the chamber to show me that the pistol was loaded. They both spoke English badly but French reasonably so that was the language that was used. We had in the cockpit the Chief Flight Engineer who was checking our Flight Engineer. He, as it happened spoke Arabic fluently and was foolish enough to let them know this and was promptly bundled out of the cockpit to the back of the plane. He could have been of invaluable assistance to me had he kept quiet.
Soon two young , good looking girls came into the cockpit. Sure enough, one of them was the pretty girl who had flashed a smile to me at Brussels. At the command of the eldest man , they opened the tops of their blouses to show me the two bare wires protruding. In mock display they mimed the result of touching the two wires together and I could see batteries stuck in their brassieres. They opened two Samsonite beauty cases and lifted the tray to show plastic bags taped below. We learned later that the bags contained Semtex and that it was the first time that it had been put to such a use in a Hijack. ( Yes ,Gypsy, corkscrewing had flashed through my mind but was rapidly discarded with all the possibilities that could happen in mind).
I seemed to be seeing the whole scenario as though my mind had detached itself from my body and I was looking at the cockpit from above.. I had even said to myself " I am responsible for the lives of everyone on board and these people are not going to get away with this so don't do anything foolish. Think, think, think. !
I reasoned to myself that the message to Brussels would be rapidly passed to Israel and that the longer that the flight took, the better prepared would be the ground authorities and the Defence forces that I knew would be summoned. My heart had sunk when I heard the demand to go to Israel as I knew that I was dealing with a suicide mission. The Israelis, I knew ,would never surrender to blackmail. Had another country been selected there would have been room for negotiation. I therefore throttled back the aeroplane as much as I could and reduced the speed to the bare minimum to make the flight take as long as possible. I soon realised that neither of the men had any technical knowledge and we were able to switch our transponder to the international code for an aircraft "not under it's own control" as the textbook euphemistically put it. Unfortunately most of the territory from thereon was not, at that time, controlled by radar so we could not be picked up until much nearer Israel.
And there I must leave you again until the next instalment. Writing this down again and reliving it is a very wearing task as I am sure that you will realise and forgive me for taking so long but I must take my time.
Regle