by Douglas Boyd
‘Leave it to me to get all those on the mainland back to you within the time-limit,’ said Liron. ‘For the others, do your best.’
Before Erulin had replaced the handset, every man on the base was deafened by the alert siren ordered by the adjutant Lt Col Bénézit, who had been listening in. Civilians think that NCOs are always shouting, but there were few raised voices after the siren’s wailing died away. Honed by constant exercises, every officer, NCO and man knew his place and what was required of him.
By 1700hrs every man on strength had been accounted for, with one exception. Senior medical officer Capt Jean-Noël Ferret reported a man missing. Yannick Lallemand had taken off with a company of 2 REI and was somewhere in the mountains between Porto Vecchio and the Col de Bavella. Far from AWOL, he was the army chaplain for Corsica, with a special responsibility for 2 REP, but was on the regimental roll as senior stretcher-bearer.
The quietest but busiest man on camp was Flemish Capt Stéphane Coevoet, responsible for logistics. It was his duty to get all the men onto the right planes with their light equipment and ensure that the vehicles and heavy equipment they would need on the ground reached them in time. His office was a mass of loading lists and manifestos showing exactly what each plane-load weighed. While he worked on his sums, many of the men on base were asleep in their combat fatigues, having learned long since to eat and slumber when they could.
At 1600hrs the regiment, apart from the missing chaplain, was ready. The deadline passed without news from Toulouse. Several officers had been invited to drinks by a lecturer from the University of Liège in Belgium, who was passing through Calvi. In the absence of orders to the contrary, Erulin agreed they should attend as planned. Their host, a former director of agronomy for Belgian Central Africa, knew Zaire intimately, but was unaware that his guests would be there in a few hours – as were they too, at this moment.
In Kinshasa Ambassador Ross was reading an intercepted cable from the Belgian Consul-General in Lumumbashi to his government in Brussels. ‘It is increasingly urgent to intervene in order to prevent further massacres. . . I beg you to intervene soonest. . . Each hour’s delay means more lives lost.’[390] For a diplomat to write in those terms to his government was rare, to say the least, so Ross immediately copied the cable to Paris, thinking, ‘This will make President Giscard act.’
Three floors above him, colonels Gras and Larzul were planning a drop on Kolwezi. The obvious drop zone was the airstrip 5km outside town, which was still held by Maj Mahele’s men, but that would mean the paras fighting their way slowly through the residential areas, giving the rebels ample time to kill every European in the town. There had to be a better way.
With no aerial photographs to help, Gras’ team had drawn copies of the Kolwezi area from a 1:10,000 scale regional map. Contour lines, railways and vague outlines of built-up areas were of little help in avoiding hazards like trees and high-tension lines. If the pilots of the drop planes spent too long sussing out the ground below, that too would alert the Katangans to massacre their hostages. The handful of officers in Gras’ office were doing their best, but as time passed and no news came from Paris, their spirits drooped – as did those of 2 REP on Corsica, still waiting for the ‘Go!’
Midnight came and went. In the ambassador’s residence at Kinshasa André Ross could not sleep. The plea from Lumumbashi I beg you to intervene soonest rang in his head. When the telephone in his study rang, he checked his watch and saw that it was exactly midnight. With a diplomat’s instinct, he guessed some deadline between Paris and Brussels had just expired.
The cool impersonal tones of the chef de cabinet 6,000km away said, ‘The president instructs you to immediately inform the Zairian head of state that French paratroops will be dropped on Kolwezi.’
Ross breathed again and dialled the number of Mobutu’s presidential palace. Passed from the switchboard to a secretary to a valet to a bodyguard, he hung on until told that exceptionally he would be put through to the citizen-president himself. Mobutu sounded enormously relieved that someone else was taking responsibility and told Ross to thank President Giscard for him.
The ambassador’s next phone call was to Gras, who was put in personal command of the operation fifteen minutes later by a coded call from Army High Command in Paris and informed that the force being sent for the operation was 2 REP, effective immediately. When the anonymous voice asked how soon the drop could be executed, Gras rapidly calculated the problems and answered, ‘Saturday 20 May.’ He replaced the receiver with a huge sigh of relief, having worked with the BEP in Vietnam and with 1 REP and 2 REP in Algeria. After all the waiting, nothing could be better than having the Legion’s paras for a job like this!
It was 0100hrs on Thursday, but Gras and his team felt the fatigue fall away, now that they could get down to some real planning. Larzul queried whether the planes for the drop would have to come from the Zairian Air Force. ‘Unless the Yanks and the Belgians get into the act,’ Gras replied. ‘But don’t count on it.’
‘In that case,’ said Larzul, ‘the Zairians have two Transall C-160s and five Hercules C-130s.’
‘How many men can they carry?’
‘I’d say 500, tops. But we don’t know how many bodies 2 REP is sending.’
‘And what about an airborne command post?’
Long phone calls later, one of Gras’ aides came back with the offer of a twin turbo-prop De Havilland CC 115 Buffalo, currently based in Kamina, for the airborne command post. In the absence of helicopters, this was the best alternative. The Buffalo offered short take-off and landing capability, had the ability to over-fly the DZ slowly with good downward visibility thanks to its high wings, and it could also accommodate forty-one fully equipped paras exiting through the rear loading bay if necessary.
At 0220hrs Col Erulin was in his official villa at Calvi, changed back into his combat fatigues after cocktails with the Belgian lecturer and wondering whether it was worth going to bed. False alarms and countermanded orders were a normal part of life in 2 REP. The phone rang and he heard Bénézit say in his habitually calm voice, ‘Colonel, we’ve just received the order to be ready to move out at 0300hrs.’
‘Everyone on parade! Call in all officers off-base and all the leave men.’
‘It’s already been done, sir.’ In the background, Erulin could hear the alert siren wailing.
Not a man on the base had to do more than lace up his boots. By the time Erulin swung in through the main gate of the camp, for once not stopping to inspect the guard, whose bugler sounded Le Caïd in his honour as he swept past, the sections were all at their preordained tasks, loading weapons, munitions, rations, personal packs – everything in its specified place. At 0430 the forward command jeep swept out of the main gate, at the head of a long snake of vehicles: 1st and 3rd companies, then the main command vehicles, followed by 4th and 2nd companies. At this stage, no one knew where the next few hours would take them. Was it an exercise? Was it for real? If so, where? The betting men placed even money on Kolwezi and Chad.
The military airport of Solenzara, from which take-off was scheduled, lay diagonally across the mountainous island. As the crow flies it was a journey of 160km. By road the heavily laden trucks could make it in three hours flat out, if there was no hold-up. Capt Coevoet was the man of the moment, grappling with one major problem: no aircraft had yet arrived at Solenzara. Erulin called him on the command radio net to say that Paris had just signalled the imminent arrival of five DC 8s, due to take off at 0930hrs. ‘Maybe,’ replied Coevoet phlegmatically. ‘Or maybe not.’
Depending on the aircraft available, all his sums would have to be done again. Whilst the convoy was still en route, the mini-fleet was changed to three DC 8s chartered from UTA, a civil airline with long experience of flying African routes, one DC 8 from Transport Command and an Air France Boeing 707.
On arrival at Solenzara, officers and men were ordered to remove name tags from their fatigues. Weapons were to be stowed in the holds. By 0
815 the regiment was ready, men standing at ease in sticks of eight with jump-packs in front of them, each surmounted by a steel helmet. It was hurry-up-and-wait, all over again. By 1000hrs no aircraft had been sighted, nor could the control tower enlighten Erulin what was going on. At 1130hrs the first DC 8 landed, followed closely by a smaller aircraft bearing Gen Lacaze, commanding 11th para Division. From him, Erulin and his officers learned at last that their destination was Kolwezi, nearly 8,000km distant – after first landing at Kinshasa to board the drop aircraft.
As that first DC 8 took off at 1345hrs with enough fuel to fly direct to Kinshasa, a dusty jeep braked to a stop in front of the hangars. Chaplain Lallemand had caught up with his flock. A ripple of laughter greeted his arrival. Someone said, ‘That’s why the planes are late. The padre fixed it with God.’
In Kinshasa, Col Gras was fuming when Paris ordered him to advance the drop. Cutting corners could cost soldiers’ lives. Saturday – so he was informed – could be too late to save the hostages. ‘They waste four days talking,’ he growled after putting down the phone, ‘and then they want the impossible.’
He had already told Ambassador Ross that he refused to liaise with the Belgians. His opposite number in the Belgian embassy, Col Bleus had received no orders from Brussels, yet Brussels was insisting on controlling ‘any operation that might take place’.[391] Even worse, someone in Brussels had leaked to the wire services the details of the planned operation. There could have been no better way of inciting the rebels to massacre all their hostages. Beneath his urbane exterior, Ross too was angered by the stupidity that could cost so many lives. At 1800hrs, Gras was summoned to the office of Zairian Gen Ba Bia, who showed him a blue signal pad decrypt of an intercepted transmission from Nathanaël M’Bumba in Angola, ordering his troops in Kolwezi to retreat back into Angola ‘after killing all the prisoners and blowing up the pumping equipment to flood the mines’.[392]
When it is a choice between the lives of civilians and those of soldiers, the decision is always the same. Hurrying back to the embassy, Gras was already working out which corners could be cut to advance his carefully worked-out timetable, and then called Paris to announce that he had brought forward the operation by a whole day.
Zaire is so vast that the last 1500km leg of 2 REP’s odyssey – from Kinshasa to Kolwezi, which was in a different time zone – would take the five C-130 Hercules and two C-160 Transalls four hours’ flying time. Take-off was scheduled for 0700hrs with the drop at noon local time. As if he needed another bad piece of news, during his orders meeting at 1900hrs Gras learned that the Zairian Air Force could provide no air cover for the drop because it had run out of ammunition for its Mirage jets and had to wait until more arrived from Paris.[393]
Erulin’s aircraft touched down on Kinshasa’s N’Djili airport at 2330hrs. The other four transports were spread out along the several routes imposed by their different needs to land and re-fuel. According to the control tower, the second aircraft would arrive at 0200hrs on Friday 19 May. There was no ETA for the others. The legionnaires in Erulin’s DC 8 unloaded all the equipment and awaited orders. But where was Col Gras with the plans for the operation? Erulin called a briefing for 0300hrs in the hope that he would have arrived by then – and that at least one of the other three aircraft would have touched down.
By 0300hrs the second aircraft had not only landed, but already been unloaded by the passengers. However, there was still no sign of Gras and the plans. After the control tower announced the ETA of the last two planes for 0838hrs, Coevoet and Bénézit decided that the regiment would have to jump in two waves. The first would take off from Kinshasa at 0700hrs as planned, and be dropped directly on Kolwezi. The drop aircraft would then fly to the military airfield at Kamina, where they would pick up the second wave, flown there by a DC 10 of Air Zaire. The change of plan meant that, to ensure each section arrived on the ground reasonably closely grouped, its men would have to be split up among several aircraft – in the right order on every plane.
Given the delay in the arrival of the other aircraft from Solenzara, it was the best way of speeding things up, so Erulin approved the change of plan, which gave Coevoet’s brain a million new problems to solve, fast. A phone call to the embassy established that Gras should have been with them long since. No one knew where he was. For want of a nail, the kingdom was lost – so says the proverb. For want of a tyre in this case, the whole complicated operation was now in jeopardy. Col Gras was furious, having burst a tyre when his jeep hit a deeper than usual pothole on the poorly maintained and unlit road to N’Djili airport. The shock having bent the bolts, making it impossible to change the wheel, all he could do was fume impotently until two Belgians passing by chance stopped and helped him to get the damaged wheel off, and fit the spare.
By 0430 he was giving his briefing for Operation Leopard, unaware that Paris had baptised the drop ‘Operation Bonite’. No one had told him. Erulin and his officers listened intently as Gras’ dry voice rattled off the details. The first wave of 450 men was to land on Zone A – the flying club airstrip. That comprised the command element, two companies and mortar sections. Their task was to secure the Post Office, the Hotel Impala, the John XXIII secondary school, the Gécamines hospital and the rebels’ HQ. The second wave from Kamina would drop on Zone A and/or Zone B to the east of the New Town. Once the residential areas were secured, with no further danger to the European hostages, 2 REP could link up with the Zairian paras still holding the main airstrip, south of Kolwezi.
Friday 19 May was rapidly dawning. Erulin and his officers had not slept for thirty hours. As they dispersed to their companies, an alarming discovery was made. The regulation French parachutes normally used by 2 REP had been left on Corsica, to save weight. Those used by the Zairian paras were American T 10 chutes, which had no provision for attaching weapons and equipment. Erulin’s men had no intention of landing in a hot DZ with their weapons dropped separately. Their predecessors had died from that disease in Vietnam. So they set to with twine, bent coat-hangers and anything else to hand, devising ways of attaching arms and equipment to the harnesses.
At 0700hrs a thick fog rose off the Congo River, reducing visibility at N’Djili to a few metres. Erulin wondered how the last two aircraft from Solenzara could land in such a pea soup. On board one of them was the medical team. While he hoped that Lallemand would be employed more often as stretcher-bearer than chaplain, to jump with neither medics nor chaplain was one more hazard to be factored into the equations of life and death.
The paras fitting themselves into the narrow pull-down mesh seats lining the sides of one of the C 130s heard the starter motor whine, and whine, and whine. Then, ‘Everybody out!’
The mechanics, they learned, would need days for the necessary repair. Coevoet sweated over his loading schedules for the tenth time, working out how to fit a whole plane-load of men into the other aircraft. Meanwhile the paras, encumbered with weapons, equipment, main and ventral chutes, stood around like ungainly statues in the fog.
In the embassy, one of Gras’ team answered the phone to hear a Parisian accent in Army High Command ask whether 2 REP had yet taken off. ‘If not,’ said the distant voice, ‘the operation is cancelled. Effective immediately!’
Gras’ aide muttered, ‘Affirmative,’ and replaced the receiver, unable to believe his ears. The rebels must have heard the broadcasts on Zairian radio announcing the drop as ‘imminent’. What would happen now to the hostages?
At N’Djili airport, Coevoet had finally managed to cram the excess paras into the remaining planes. Cram, was the word. Instead of being seated neatly on the seats with the dispatchers able to walk down the aisle and check everything, they were jammed against each other, side to side of the fuselage. Erulin, waddling across the hard standing with his two chutes already on, was just about to heave himself up into the lead plane when Gras’ jeep screeched to a halt at the bottom of the ladder with the counter-order from Paris.
Taking the news philoso
phically, Erulin disagreed with Gras that the best thing was to disembark all the paras and their equipment. Despite the discomfort and the heat once the fog had burned off, he decided they would stay loaded until midday, by which time Paris might have countermanded the cancellation.
Gras departed for the embassy to give Paris a large slice of his mind, but André Ross counselled calm, having worked out that the reason for the cancellation must be interference from Brussels. The question was, how did Brussels know details of the operation? The answer was that the Zairians had naïvely let the local Belgians in on the planning, and they had told their masters.
However, Ross was not the sort of diplomat to leave things as they stood. That a simple phone call could cancel a complex operation already so far advanced, was not good enough for him. So he took a chance and placed a call direct to President Giscard’s office in the Elysée Palace. His instinct was right: far from having cancelled the drop, Giscard was expecting any minute to be advised of its outcome. Operation Leopard was most definitely back on – and a telex confirmation was on its way!
Gras was telling the Air Force general who had issued the cancellation what he thought of him when a third voice cut in on the line, interrupting him with the words, ‘Take off immediate! The counter-order has been countermanded.’
With the time at 0855, the timetable was already two hours behind schedule when Erulin received a radio transmission from Gras that boiled down to one word: ‘Go!’
At that moment he had only one problem. The Zairian pilots had been asked to stay near their aircraft, but were nowhere to be found. By the time they had been rounded up, one of the Transalls had developed engine trouble and the second had a flat tyre. There was another Transall, graciously made available by Citizen-President Mobutu, but this was his personal plane, fitted with bath, drinks fridge and double bed. The paras found screwdrivers to strip out the fittings, until stopped by the Zairian mechanics. ‘Don’t bother,’ they said. ‘This one also has engine trouble.’