Death at Ndola

In a small church of a copper-belt town in Northern Rhodesia, Dag Hammarskjold lay in state.

His slight body, in a mahogany casket covered with the blue-and-yellow flag of Sweden, rested amid a sea of fresh flowers in St. Andrews' United Church of Ndola. Four sentries stood at attention, as those who could reach the remote outpost paid their last respects. Among them was the man Hammarskjold had flown to Ndola to see: Katanga's stubborn President Moise Tshombe, whose troops were battling U.N. forces less than 100 miles away. Dressed in a grey suit and somber tie, Tshombe walked in briskly, placed a wreath of white lilies on the coffin, stood motionless for a full minute, bowed and walked out. "I knew him as a man with whom I could talk freely," he said earlier. "C'est triste pour moi."

Unexpected War. The events surrounding Hammarskjold's fatal flight to Ndola were nearly as bizarre as the Congo political scene itself. From the Congolese capital of Leopoldville, Hammarskjold had watched in agony for four days as the fighting in Katanga grew worse. The U.N. force was stymied, and there was growing danger that the left-wing army of Congolese Vice Premier Antoine Gizenga might invade Katanga and start in earnest the civil war Hammarskjold had acted to avoid.

From his temporary headquarters on the sixth floor of the U.N.'s Le Royale building in Leopoldville, Hammarskjold cabled Tshombe suggesting a meeting in Ndola to arrange a ceasefire. That afternoon Tshombe agreed.

Shortly after 4 p.m., Hammarskjold and his party of 15 climbed aboard the Albertina, a white DC-6 used by the U.N. in the Congo. Hammarskjold's main concern, on takeoff, was ominous: his plane had to cross territory controlled by a marauding Katanga jet fighter known as "The Lone Ranger." The pilot, thought to be Rhodesian or an English-speaking Belgian, had been terrorizing U.N. garrisons since the beginning of the fighting, had even made strafing passes at a press conference given by U.N. Katanga Commander Conor Cruise O'Brien in Elisabethville.

Radio Silence. Hammarskjold ordered elaborate precautions to stay away from The Lone Ranger. His flight was detoured to bring the Albertina within range of the marauder only after dark, and the big plane kept strict radio silence all the way. In addition, 15 airfields in the Congo and the Rhodesias had been alerted for a possible emergency landing.

Tshombe had arrived in Ndola in the late afternoon and remained at the airport waiting for Hammarskjold. At 10:40 p.m., a plane bearing British Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs Lord Lansdowne, who had agreed to act as intermediary, landed at Ndola. (Newsmen, mistaking him for Hammarskjold, sent out a flash that the Secretary-General had landed on schedule.) At 11:10 p.m., Tshombe and Lansdowne left the airport, and went to their quarters to sleep. Hammarskjold's plane was still unheard from.

Shortly after 1 a.m., the Ndola control tower got a message from a plane that refused to identify itself, asking permission to drop to 6,000 ft. When nothing more was heard from the plane, Ndola assumed it had veered away and landed at another field. Not until nine hours later were air search parties called out, and at 3 p.m., a Rhodesian scout plane radioed back the news: the Albertina had crashed in a dense forest less than seven miles from the end of the Ndola runway. Hammarskjold's body was found a few yards from the charred wreckage. There was one survivor: U.N. Security Guard Harold Julien, who was almost delirious but managed to tell police he had heard some explosions just before the plane crashed. (Julien died five days later.)

Post-Mortems. Given Katanga's fierce animosity toward the U.N. and Hammarskjold, not to mention The Lone Ranger's known presence, the world immediately suspected that the crash was no accident. The Rhodesian government ordered a full investigation--including complete post-mortem examination of every body, although all but Hammarskjold's had been charred beyond recognition.

Experts ruled out The Lone Ranger, said there was no evidence that the plane had exploded in midair. The "explosions," they said, were probably the plane's landing gear hitting treetops as it approached the Ndola field too low. "It looks like a typical case of power failure or faulty instruments," said one. Another possibility: pilot error. Captain Per-Erik Hallonquist, although a veteran of 7,000 hours and countless jungle flights, had been on continuous duty for 36 hours. But some doubt and suspicion would probably always linger over the wrecked DC-6 in the woods outside Ndola.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.