The Kalahari Killings

by Jonathan Laverick

  The court was very aware that the case was keeping many important people tied up in tiny Lobatsi. The District Commissioners needed to return to the north, various other officials to Mafeking, and of course Justice de Beer himself was on secondment from South Africa. This meant that Saturday morning saw the court reconvened and Fraenkel on his feet giving his closing address.

  While Kelly’s defendants faced a lengthy time in jail at the very worst, the three men Fraenkel was representing faced the ultimate sanction and this must have preyed on the lawyer’s mind as he rose to address the court.

  The defence counsel raised three issues that were the basis of his coming arguments. First, Fraenkel suggested that the prosecution had failed to provide sufficient evidence of the death of the two airmen. Next, he raised doubts as to whether the airmen supposedly killed were actually Edwards and Adamson before asking whether, even if there had been a murder, there was sufficient evidence to link his defendants to it.

  Before looking at each of these points in detail, Fraenkel drew the court’s attention to the fact that his clients are people ‘that are the most primitive and least civilised south of the equator, and perhaps the whole of Africa, people with a very low mentality and to whom perhaps life and the truth is very cheap indeed’. He then contrasted their smart European appearance for the court with the minimal garments they would have worn normally. The suggestion that his own clients were sub-normal beings may have been an unusual technique, and today would have been seen as racist nonsense, but Fraenkel then used this idea to suggest that the Crown witnesses may have been told to tell a simple story. This story, he claimed, was that the two airmen had been found, murdered and burnt. This would be simple enough for the Basarwa to remember, but it would also explain the inconsistencies in the prosecution evidence. These inconsistencies included the description of the airmen, their clothes, their hats and what they were carrying when they were found.

  Fraenkel pointed out that while the majority of witnesses described the airmen as having a water container, none of these descriptions matched the article missing from the aeroplane. He contrasted the description of the size of the parachute material the witnesses had given with that of the RAF evidence and admitted that if Chenda’s alleged dress had been found it would have been fatal to his case. But it had not. Some of the witnesses had described two pieces of material, and Fraenkel declared that the airmen would never have cut the parachute, knowing its value. The missing axe, he went on, was never found and that it was easy for the witnesses to point in court to a type of axe they had never seen, and this could not prove the identity of anything. Finally, Fraenkel pointed out that not one scrap of clothing or other material had been found, and there was nothing to identify the alleged victims as Adamson and Edwards.

  Fraenkel then moved on to the evidence produced by individual witnesses, starting with the scientific evidence. Dr Bersohn could only say the hair was probably European, Fraenkel emphasising the ‘probably’. Dr Mackintosh had told the court that after the fire not all of the bones would have been destroyed, yet no human bones had been found – despite extensive searches – only bird bones.

  Temee and Toi Toi were considered next, with Fraenkel pointing out the inconsistencies in their statements over who had carried the bodies and the body parts. Fraenkel questioned why the police had not required these witnesses to point out where the fire had been or where the fliers had first been encountered. Even though Captain Langley had said this could not have been done at the time due to the heavy rains, Fraenkel wanted to know why it had not been done since. He even suggested the fact that Rekisang and Morobe would have found it an easy matter to follow any spoor to the fire and that this proved very little.

  Fraenkel next questioned why only two witnesses claimed to have seen the fat taken from the bodies melted down, finding the prosecution suggestion that several of the camp were attending to the donkeys flawed. Fraenkel also wanted to know why there were such discrepancies in the description of the airmen’s clothes, with some witnesses talking of shirts and vests, and others of shirts and jackets. Fraenkel claimed that these inconsistencies were so large that it could not just be a matter of language and translation. The lack of blood was another point that troubled Fraenkel, asking why many witnesses had not described blood on the airmen’s clothing despite their violent deaths and dismemberment. The fact that some witnesses said the fliers’ shoes had been removed before their deaths, while others said it was afterwards, was another cause for concern.

  According to Fraenkel, the bullet that had been recovered could not definitely be matched to either rifle and that the bullet the police recovered was not from where Twai Twai’s shelter had been at the time of the alleged shooting.

  Perhaps strangely, Fraenkel then tried to argue that even if two fliers had been found they might not have been Adamson and Edwards. This unlikely idea was based on the fact that the court had not heard any evidence that there were no other Europeans missing at the time.

  The items missing from the aeroplane were next on Fraenkel’s list, suggesting that the airmen would not have disposed of the Very pistol or the compass, and yet these were never seen by any of the prosecution witnesses. The defence lawyer then claimed that the descriptions of both the water container and the parachute case given in the trial were so divergent that they could be dismissed.

  The defence then turned to the evidence of the accused. According to Fraenkel, Twai Twai was clear, concise and superior to the prosecution witnesses, based on the fact he was in the witness box for only a short time. He also claimed that the aeroplane had not been discovered until the end of October, a suggestion that would explain why Twai Twai could not find any spoor around the aircraft.

  Keree’s statement was dealt with by Fraenkel claiming that it could only have been written by ‘no one less than a lunatic’ as ‘no native of this type would make references’ to Tshekedi Khama like that ‘unless he was totally mad’.

  Before making his final summary, Fraenkel touched on the alternative explanation for the jars of fat offered by his own witnesses. And as noon approached on the sixth day of the trial he concluded:

  My submission is that as far as Twai Twai and Tammai are concerned there is insufficient evidence to connect them with the killing of anybody; and secondly, if there is evidence of a killing there is insufficient evidence to find that those killed were Adamson and Edwards. In the circumstances, we have a very deep hope that they may still be alive. With regard to Keree, the court has heard evidence indicating how far he has been implicated in the crime. His position is no worse than that of the other five accused whom my friend Mr Kelly has adequately dealt with, and with whose remarks I associate myself.

  As this is a charge of murder, for which there is only one penalty in the territory, and that is the extreme penalty, so even if there is some sort of proof and the proof is not free from reasonable doubt (in fact I would submit there is a very grave doubt), I submit your lordship will give the accused the benefit of that doubt.

  His Lordship, Justice de Beer, then promised that ‘the court will take time to consider the verdict’, ending proceedings for that week.

  JUDGEMENT

  With assistance and input from the two District Commissioners and the native assessor, Judge de Beer spent the whole of the Sunday going through the main points of the case. Although today this might have been considered rather hasty, the court was reassembled on the Monday morning to hear the verdict.

  The male accused were led into the tin-roofed courthouse for the last time and were soon followed by the five women. The women, only one of whom was out of her teens, once again supported each other by putting their arms over one another’s shoulders. Even Keree was described as looking attentive, a change from his usual other-worldliness.

  The judge began by reviewing the prosecution case in detail from the moment Airspeed Oxford HN607 left the ground at Kumalo. Oddly, he gave the ranks of the deceased as corporal and second class airmen,
despite the RAF witnesses describing them both as sergeants.

  Once he had finished describing the activities leading up to the discovery of the missing aircraft, the judge turned to one of the areas that had given him concern during the trial:

  The accused and all the more important witnesses spoke a language with which the members of the court are not acquainted, and in weighing the credibility of the statements made by the different witnesses, we were to a great extent deprived of the advantage of applying what is known as the demeanour test – the gestures of the men in the box, the inflexion of their voices, and the other matters that are included in this undefinable expression ‘demeanour’. We are therefore constrained to attach more importance to inconsistencies and contradictions than otherwise would have been the case.

  His Lordship went on to say in such cases one must bear in mind the fallibility of human memory, the imperfection of powers of observation, and in the case of the Basarwa, the inability to express in an accurate manner what they might have seen.

  Having dealt with the prosecution case, de Beer then looked at the defence. He pointed out that their testimony was one of mere denial – denial of seeing footprints, denial of seeing the airmen, denial of murdering the two white men. Given this, the judge said, it became incumbent upon the court to consider the various contradictions, discrepancies and inconsistencies, and to explain them sufficiently in order to justify a prosecution.

  The first of these inconsistencies covered was the headgear the pilots were described as wearing. The fact the prosecution witness had described peaked caps, which bore no resemblance to the leather flying helmets the pilots took off in, even allowing for ‘imperfect observation, the fallible memories and the lack of adequate expression of the witnesses’, was a matter of ‘grave concern’ said de Beer. This concern was magnified as the airmen had allegedly been in the company of the Bushmen for many hours. The description of Edwards having dark hair was one that all the prosecution witnesses got wrong, stated the judge, quoting Flight Lieutenant Payne. It was unfortunate that no photos of the missing pilots were available to the judge or even their service records, which would have shown that Gordon Edwards did indeed have brown hair made much darker by his hair cream.

  Contradictions over shorts, shoes, which man was killed by the axe, blood on the tunics, and where the property was shared out were all briefly mentioned by the judge before he concentrated on the missing water container. Here, the descriptions given by the Crown witnesses of something they must have prized, given where they lived, differed so much from the actual object missing from the aircraft that the judge concluded that it was likely that some of the witnesses had committed perjury. He went on that this raised the ‘more sinister question whether the witnesses were prompted to say they had seen the container’. Captain Langley and Sergeant Preston-Whyte were above suspicion, de Beer claimed, but he reminded the court that there were ‘three large parties, one a small commando’ looking for the airmen and some of these knew what items were missing from the aircraft.

  The judge felt that the question raised above was to be asked in more depth when it came to the story of the parachute container. He was unwilling to believe the descriptions given to the court, as they all underestimated the amount of material in a parachute, which was 74 feet in diameter, by an order of magnitude. If any of the articles from the plane, any possessions, or any signs of the bodies had been found then these inconsistencies may have been overlooked. However, de Beer went on, if five prosecution witnesses had committed perjury on those matters, it was impossible to believe them beyond reasonable doubt on the rest of their testimony, especially when it was not corroborated by any concrete or factual proof. The final part of his judgement is reproduced in full below:

  The administrative officers acting with me in this case, men of experience in these parts, and I have devoted considerable attention of the court to the whole case. There is present with us all an instinctive conviction that certain of the accused were guilty of the dastardly crime. But applying all those tests known to forensic science, applying them to the best of our ability, we have come to the conclusion that there exists a doubt, a very grave doubt in this case, and that we would not be entitled to convict the accused.

  The remarks I have made up to this stage are of special application to Twai Twai and Tammai. Keree is in the position that had the Crown evidence been accepted he would have been an accessory after the fact, and this applies also to the women charged, though in their case it would have been to a lesser degree. But as the case, in our opinion, falls away against the actual two murderers there can be no accessory after the fact when they are charged jointly and in the same indictment.

  The verdict of the Court is, therefore, that you are all found not guilty and discharged.

  With that the court sprang to life. The Basarwa quietly celebrated, the men shaking hands and chatting excitedly while the women hugged each other and shed a tear or two. The reporters rushed off to get their copy away to their waiting editors, no doubt relieved that they would be returning to South Africa the following day. Among the public who had followed the trial there was mute disappointment, with many feeling that justice had not been done. Certainly they were not the only ones to be uneasy with the outcome, and the ripples the not guilty verdict would cause would travel far and have many unexpected consequences.

  AFTERMATH

  THE ROYAL AIR FORCE

  Even before the verdict, the alleged crime had affected life in the Rhodesian Air Training Group. Within a month of the missing aeroplane being found, the officer commanding the training scheme, Air Vice Marshal Meredith, had received a letter from the Resident Commissioner of Bechuanaland telling him that it was thought the pilots had been murdered.

  The letter informed the RAF officer that the Bushmen in the area where the plane landed were considered ‘bad people’ by the natives and that this particular family had been implicated in a previous double murder of two Europeans. It mentioned that Tshekedi Khama had been very helpful in the search and investigation and that there were high hopes of justice being done, although it warned that this would take time. The Resident Commissioner suggested that airmen be issued with rifles and more up-to-date maps, something the Commissioner was willing to help with. The rifles would be useful protection from wild animals as well as Bushmen and of course could be used to gain food for any downed airman. The letter ended by saying that the vast majority of natives, including Bushmen, were friendly, and it was very unfortunate that Edwards and Adamson had just been in the wrong place at the wrong time.

  The RAF took this advice and soon ordered that all pilots should be armed when flying, usually with 0.303 rifles backed up by side arms. This was already in place by the time the trial started. Alf Eves, the instructor, added an additional Colt 0.45 to his personal armoury on subsequent flights. Another change to the training syllabus was a greater emphasis on survival training, including much more useful advice for coping with a forced landing in the bush, as well as the more usual escape techniques that would be of use in the European theatre of operations. Interestingly, there was no discussion of introducing of an African ‘goolie chit’. The infamous goolie chit had long been carried by aircrew flying in areas where the ‘natives’ were not entirely trusted to be friendly, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan. These one-sided letters would include a short message printed in the local languages requesting that the pilot be returned, sometimes in return for a reward, with all his parts still attached. They also included a short collection of useful advice and phrases for the downed crew.

  The criminal trial had made little headway into why the two pilots had become so lost and the RAF could not find a conclusive answer either. One suggestion was that the compass was faulty in some way, but this did not explain how the pilots had got as far as the final waypoint, as proved by the photo they had taken. The favoured explanation was that on the last turn the pilots had misread their compass, placing ‘red on black�
� and flying a reciprocal course for some time before realising their mistake. This idea was corroborated to some extent by the fact that the plane had been flying in the rough direction of Bulawayo when the Basarwa hunting party first saw it, suggesting the pilots had realised their mistake.

  Roy Nesbit, a Senior Navigation Officer at one of the Service Flying Training Schools in Rhodesia at the time of the disappearance, came up with a simple solution to what was a common error. His suggestion of taping over the southern end of the compass grid was adopted by the RAF, earning him a £10 ‘inventor’s award’. Within a year a new type of compass with a T-shaped grid was introduced, eliminating further mistakes. Although it may have been little consolation for the families involved, the loss of Adamson and Edwards did improve aviation safety.

  However, for those not directly involved in the case, life went on much as before. Despite the extensive press coverage, within six months of the trial the story had achieved something of a mythical status. The constant turnover of instructors and trainee pilots in Rhodesia meant that those with personal knowledge of the case were soon dispersed around the world. Those who had trained with Walter and Gordon had finished their course within a month of the pair’s disappearance and had been posted to operational units, many with Bomber Command. Harry Tait, who had been with Gordon and Walter since the journey from Egypt, was posted to George in South Africa for further training before being sent to fly Martin Marauders in the Middle East. His mother was in the habit of sending newspaper cuttings along with her letters and it was in Sardinia that the news of what had happened to his friends eventually reached him. For those who arrived in Rhodesia after the trial, Adamson and Edwards were just another pair of prospective pilots who had not survived training.