Word: hammarskjold
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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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...
...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...