Nigerian/Biafran Civil War
 

If anybody has first hand experience / or knows of someone that has, of flying in the Nigerian/Biafran Civil War 1967-70, I would be very interested in making contact.

Many thanks

David Thomas

[email protected]

have a look at that book:

Shadows
Airlift and Airwar in Biafra and Nigeria 1967-1970
Michael I. Draper
Published by Hikoko Publications

you will find it on amazon.com

A very good book, lots of pictures and archives and says a lot on the humanitarian airlift performed by the Intl Red Cross and the churches

RM

Hot and High, Check your PMs.

There is also this faboulous book written by Zan ? (not sure of the first name) Zumbar, and called " Mister Brown".....After having fled from Poland during WW2, he became leader of a polish RAF squadron in England...after the war unable to go back to Poland, he did all sorts of (flying) things....including flying B25 in Biafra, T6 in Katanga against NATO....and much more.
I think I died not a very long time ago.

Look up Joint Christian Aid (JCA) , Went as Jesus Christ Airlines, Set up by an Irish priest to fly in aid from an island off the coast, First the aircraft were supplied by a texas gun runner, I guess he had his own interests in the war, then they got rid of him, THEY FLEW WW2 bombers and whatever they could get their hands on, Onto a make shift strip , Closed down section of road, put in a beacon , and flew in ever night, A fantastic story.

The WW2 bombers were DC4, DC6, DC7 and Stratocruiser freighter conversion called Stratofreighters. The ICRC even flew C-130's and C-160's.
The island was no more than Equatorial Guinea, off the coast of Cameroun, airport there is called Malabo.
The make shift strip was Uli in Biafra breakaway republic. Night flying was common, just to avoid the Mig-17 that would shoot on any aircraft flying in that direction. A Red Cross airplane made dear experience when it left too early and entered the Nigerian airspace at daylight and go shot down by Mig's piloted by mercernaries. The Nigerian Air Force used to bomb Uli on a regular base and surprised more than one aircraft unloading relief goods for the famine victims.
At that time, the media was bit slower to report such things, and finally the public opinion was not the same.

Thank you
 

Thank you all for your information, I have had some good luck through Pprune so far and as a result will be contacting a few Pilots that flew during the crisis.

I knew a guy by the name of Bob McIntyre who I think works out of Lanseria now, who flew with some of the guys mentioned in the book. He was a flight engineer on 4's, 6's and Connies. He was last working at Aircraft Sales who might know of his whereabouts.

He told stories of some of the "mercenaries" flying Migs being South Africans and always warning fellow South Africans in the transports of impending attacks to the fields where they were about to land.

Also heard that some of the KLM Connies are still there at Port Harcourt.

Hope this helps.

Get hold of "The Cross-Eyed Spitting Cobra" by Noel Vonhoff (Crawford House Publishing 2001 ISBN 1 86333 211 1).

Noel was a mercenary pilot flying Migs in Biafra, and provides a very interesting perspective on the conflict. The remainder of his career was pretty interesting too........................

Saw a connie in Biafran Airlift livery in Sao Tome about ten years ago don,t know why,it had been abandoned.

:D There was a brilliant programme on Discovery channel last week called "Jesus Christ Airlines" all about the aircraft operated on behalf of the church between sao tome and uli. interviews with old crew members (mostly icelandic and scandinavian).will probably be repeated again very soon as is usual with discovery channel.:p :p :p

sao tome
 

Two Connies were still at sao tome when I was there a few years ago. Salt damage has to be seen to be believed!

Gone to the big hanger in the sky
 

Sadly, Noel passed away at the end of 2005. I have wonderful memories of barbecues at Noel & Nina's house in Cyprus in the mid-70s. They had great super-8 film of their time in Rhodesia et al.

He was a wonderful guy and will be sadly missed.

Black hats & white hats...
 

I am confused - who were the goodies & who were the baddies in this conflict? Migs attacking Red Cross humanitarian airlifts? Genocidal starvation of the Biafrans? Or was that all just press propganda? Maybe they were all bad guys?
Enlighten please!

"Good" vs "Bad"
 

Why on earth would anyone think that one side were "good" and the other were "bad" in any war/conflict? Sometime's there's a winning side and a losing side which may make it easy for the lazy observer to equate these with so-called "good" and "bad". The truth is that there was evil on both sides.

Most African conflicts have ultimately been about money and thus power - so, James, follow the money and just maybe you'll find your answer.

Please do not assume that mercenaries are satan's spawn - every one of the guys there had their own reasons for signing on. Of course, some of it was money - you could earn a years salary as a Qantas captain in a couple of months. Some of it was more primeval than economic - there is no greater high than surviving a firefight. Maybe Michael Herr had it right in "Despatches" when he said War thrives because young men thrive on war.

War is hell - or at least it should be. Making war more palatable only prolongs the agony and in the western world, makes it easier for old politicians to send young men to war. Generally, in Africa the local warlords have never cared who died or how many suffered so they could feed at the trough. Biafra however had an economic aspect unlike most of Africa's usual power struggles and the suspicion that big business was involved is impossible to disprove.

Rant over - apologies to all. :sad:

I would not consider that post a rant, some very astute observations.

Biafra 1967
 

My father was working for Nordair(CYUL) at that time and took six months off to fly ex-Nordair connies in Biafra out of Sao Tome.He made a cassette tape of one of the missions. After he passed away I asked his wife if she could try and find the tape, unfortunately she couldn't. Too bad, because it was very interesting. Bob McIntyre was also ex-Nordair.

I think most of them must be long gone the late Jack Wight and Bob Mac told me tales of their epics there.

Bob Mac had many stories of the war...unfortunately he has passed away.:( :(

Hello all,

My Uncle was also there for a few years flying on DC-6 and C-97 for Balair. He still remembers a lot of things, he actually gave up flying just 6 years ago.

og