The Kalahari Killings

by Jonathan Laverick

  Leconfield, in the East Riding of Yorkshire, was a busy RAF station at the time with Czech and Polish fighter squadrons based there in addition to the new 151 Expeditionary Wing. With the name of the new wing offering a clue to overseas service, there was much guessing about the final destination of the RAF’s newest formation. The airmen decided that the Middle East was favourite, so it was with a little shock that, after a couple of weeks, Russia leaked out as their destination. This sparked an almighty rush among all the ground crew, Gordon included. They needed to prepare for the shipping of not only the two squadrons, but also of 200 crated Hurricanes that would be reassembled and handed over to the Russians. This was a mammoth undertaking and while the pilots complained of having nothing to do, and enjoyed extended leave periods, the people who actually ran a squadron worked non-stop for the next month. Perhaps this was just as well, for only some of the older ground crew had actually served outside of the UK, none had been to Russia and the work gave little time for their imaginations to kick in. For Gordon it was an extra busy time as he was sent on two separate special instructional courses, scoring over 80 per cent on one of these. Yet he still found time to have a fresh medical, clearly still hoping to be a pilot one day. This time the news was better, he was declared ‘temporarily unfit for all flying duties’. The ‘temporarily’ kept the dream alive and, unbeknown to him, the words ‘Recommended for Pilot Training’ were added to his service records.

  When they set sail on 12 August, Gordon was lucky to be one of the main group sent to Murmansk aboard the converted passenger liner Llanstephan Castle. The ship had recently taken aboard supplies in South Africa and so had such delicacies as bacon and oranges available. The pilots sailing behind them aboard the ancient aircraft carrier HMS Argus were not quite as lucky, making do with standard Royal Navy grub, although the claim to the daily tot of rum would have been of some comfort.

  The ground crew were the first to arrive, although they had to wait aboard the Castle while a group of Russian women finished building the dock needed to unload the ship. Time was of some importance as the airfield at Vaenga needed to be prepared for the arrival of the carrier-borne Hurricanes which would be flown in as soon as the Argus was within range. To save any further delay, those whose presence was required to deal with the arrival of the airborne Hurricanes were taken off the Castle by boat and delivered to Vaenga. Led by the Wing’s Engineering Officer, Flight Lieutenant Gittens, the advance party was known with some amusement as the ‘Erection Party’. Initially taken to a base just outside of Arkhangelsk, their first job was to unpack some of the crated Hurricanes and to prepare a radio station to contact the aircraft that would fly in from the carrier. Gordon’s task here was not helped by the fact that the specialist tools needed for the Hurricane’s assembly could not be found. Gittens solved this problem by working with his Russian equivalent to have new tools created from scratch. When it is considered that they did not share a common language, but only a love of engineering, the speed with which this was done was remarkable. Soon the first dozen Hurricanes were taking shape and the packing crates were used to build a shelter for the radio station. While working at Archangel, the RAF detachment was allotted an old paddle steamship as accommodation. Gordon soon found out that his lodgings were already occupied by every type of bug known to man. With his men suffering from innumerable bites, Gittens organised tents for one night while the boat was disinfected. The other problem Gordon faced was the richness of the Russian cuisine. Salmon, sausage, caviar and cabbage caused stomach problems for many of the new arrivals.

  Within a week, fifteen Hurricanes had been erected and air-tested, the low cloud ensuring the local Russian population got to see their new aircraft up close. It was then time to move to Vaenga, on the outskirts of Murmansk, and join the carrier-borne Hurricanes that had just arrived.

  Murmansk had already suffered severe bomb damage from the Luftwaffe and Vaenga had adapted to wartime conditions by having aircraft well dispersed and hidden in among the birch trees that surrounded the airfield. Accommodation for the airmen was very basic, though clean and warm. Running water was a problem, as there was none, but this was nothing compared with the Russian latrines. These were primitive to say the least and the smell was unbelievable. Despite these privations, by the second week of September 151 Wing was flying its first patrols, with their Hurricanes wearing a mix of RAF letters and Russian bort numbers. Number 81 Squadron claimed the Wing’s first kills on the twelfth, shooting down a pair of Messerschmitts, but at the cost of one of its own pilots: Sergeant Smith was killed while trying to make a forced landing in his shot-up Hurricane. The damage had included the guide rail for the canopy, meaning that he had been trapped in his aircraft and was unable to bail out.

  One of 134 Squadron’s Hurricanes at a muddy Vaenga before the snows arrived. (Mark Sheppard Collection)

  The Russians, impressed with their new allies’ success, insisted that each RAF pilot that made a kill was awarded the 1,000-rouble prize available to the local pilots. A compromise was agreed, whereby the money gained would be paid into the RAF Benevolent Fund.

  Number 81 Squadron continued to have success in battles against the Luftwaffe, while Gordon’s 134 Squadron never seemed to find the Germans in the air. Number 134 were also tasked with converting Russian pilots to the Hurricane. The first to take to the air was the local commander, Major General Kuznetsov. He had formed a good relationship with the RAF Wing Commander in charge of 151 Wing, the wonderfully named New Zealander, Henry Neville Gynes Ramsbottom-Isherwood. The Russian had already made several visits to Vaenga and had done everything he could to help the British contingent. On these trips he had often brought an ex-schoolmistress with him and she had translated the cockpit drill and pilot’s notes. With a Hurricane specially marked for the occasion, Kuznetsov took off and did a series of touch and goes before coming in for a perfect three-point landing.

  Gordon’s job now was a mixture of keeping the Hurricanes airborne and passing his expertise onto his Russian colleagues. As the weather headed towards winter, this job became more and more difficult as 134’s dispersal area started to become waterlogged. This made working on the aircraft when they were stationary unpleasant, but it had further implications for operations. To taxi through the mud and up the slope to the runway, the Hurricane needed a lot of power. To stop the aircraft from nosing over, two airmen would be given the job of lying across the back end of the aeroplane. Usually this procedure just led to cold, wet, dirty and bedraggled ground crew, but on one occasion it led to tragedy. Vic Berg was scrambled to meet an incoming raid on 27 September and he took off with the two airmen still clinging onto the rear of his Hurricane. The extra weight sent the aircraft’s nose high into the Arctic sky before the Hurricane fell back to earth from a height of 50 feet. Both of Gordon’s comrades were killed instantly while Berg ended up in hospital in Murmansk with serious leg injuries. Fortunately, this incident marked the last fatalities suffered by the Wing while in Russia.

  On 6 October, in the last big air battle, 134 Squadron finally claimed success. A large force of Ju 88s, attacking from Norway, was intercepted by both squadrons and at least two of the bombers fell to 134 pilot’s guns. This action really marked the end of the fighting for 151 Wing as the winter started to close in. The weather was not the only reason for the end of RAF operations. As 134 trained more pilots and ground crew, it was time for 81 Squadron to start handing over its aircraft to the Russians. By 22 October the surviving thirty-six Hurricanes of 151 Wing had all been transferred to the newly formed ‘No. 1 Hurricane Squadron’. This marked the end of operations for the RAF pilots, but for Gordon and the ground crew, life went on pretty much as before as they instructed their Russian equivalents on how to assemble the remaining crated Hurricanes. This was not just practical advice as Gittens also organised technical exams for his Soviet pupils.

  Increasingly heavy snow put an end to almost all flying and the grounded RAF pilots started to make their own enterta
inment. When severe injuries were incurred on a powered sledging outing, Ramsbottom-Isherwood devised a daily plan of physical training, including brutal route marches, for his bored officers and men. Eventually, the weather put paid to these as well. Another factor that affected everyone was the lack of daylight, Murmansk being so far north that in November a dim twilight was as bright as it got. At the end of that month, after a lavish party, 151 Wing returned by ship to the UK. Gordon thought that the return trip was much worse as the fog and ice often reduced speed to 5 knots and the navy ships lacked the comforts of the Llanstephan Castle.

  No. 151 Wing left Russia with the proud record of not only delivering 200 aircraft and training Russian pilots and ground crew in their use, but of shooting down fifteen German aircraft for the loss of only one Hurricane – raising £300 for the Benevolent fund in the process. They also left with four Orders of Lenin awarded to its members, the only ones to be given to non-Russians during the conflict. Gordon Edwards returned to the UK a truly battle-hardened ‘erk’, with knowledge of a little Russian and, more importantly, of how to keep aeroplanes in the air in the harshest conditions.

  BECHUANALAND, 1941

  What is a Bushman? Most of our local pundits disagree profoundly.

  The above note, scribbled over the minutes of a meeting to discuss the ‘Bushman Issue’ in the protectorate in 1937, encapsulates the confusion around Bushmen that has lasted until today. A government study of Bushmen had been planned, but by 1941 it had been shelved, incomplete and unread. As the various chiefs urged their young men to join up and fight far away, the leaderless people not affiliated to the Batswana went about life as normal, almost unnoticed.

  Even 2,000 years earlier, before the arrival of black Bantu-speaking people, there was no simple answer to the government official’s question. There was not a single integrated band of ‘Bushmen’, but instead different groups with different dialects and lifestyles. These dialects, largely based on the famous clicking Khoisan, had diverged enough to be recognised as different languages. At least six separate linguistic families had developed in the lands that were to become Botswana. Lifestyles depended on where these Stone-Age people lived, some depending on wild food, some hunting, while those by the northern rivers fished. All were skilled makers of stone tools and they traded between different groups. Generally, they were short people with light brown, rather than black, skin and distinctive high cheek bones.

  The size of settlements depended on these lifestyles, some being permanent while other groups seemed more willing to move to where food was easier to find. As mentioned earlier, there is evidence that by this time some villages owned cattle and grew crops. Some groups of Bushmen have words for cows and goats that are linguistically distinct from later Bantu languages, suggesting ancient origins. Pottery arrived in this part of Africa at the same time as domesticated animals, suggesting trade with people from East Africa. The animals hunted, and even the fish caught, by these people can be deduced from the numerous surviving rock paintings.

  The first wave of Bantu migration seems to have had little effect on the original inhabitants, although intermarriage seems to have been common. This meant that some groups, such as the Deti, living on the Boteti River, and the Xani, living in the Okavango Delta, became largely genetically Bantu yet kept a Khoi-based language and their traditional lifestyle. Other groups mixed to a lesser extent, but the way that cultures and religious ideas merged suggest that none were completely untouched.

  With the expansion of Tswana-speaking people in the middle of the second millennium, pressure was put onto the original inhabitants of what was to become Botswana. Some were pushed further into the Kalahari, while others lost their land and cattle to the newcomers. The Batswana generally did not consider the people they found to be their equals and they incorporated them into the lowest strata of their society. They were considered property and were used for menial tasks and cattle herding. However, some groups with strong headmen or chiefs, such as the Deti, maintained some independence and others, such as the Zhu and Tyua, put up armed resistance. Some Bushmen traded with the Batswana and acted as hunters and guides. Their legendary tracking skills were already widely appreciated; one of the lesser known of these skills was the ability to track ‘honey-guides’. These dull brown little birds would be followed until the hives, with their valuable honey, were discovered. However, many of these relationships seem to have become increasingly one-sided.

  As time went by, the Batswana groups became stronger and, after they armed and regrouped following the Difaqane, more and more Bushmen found themselves under the rule of local Batswana chiefs. By the end of the nineteenth century there were no longer any powerful groups of independent Bushmen left. Only those in country so harsh or so infested by Tsetse fly that cattle raising was impossible carried on living as before.

  Life under Batswana rule could be very hard with no rights and regular beatings. Children were often considered to be the property of the family their parents worked for. Even Khama III, known as ‘Khama the Good’, made only limited improvements to the lives of his Basarwa. Under LMS pressure, Bushmen were accepted into the church. The Reverend James Hepburn, who spent years with the Bangwato, wrote of his pleasure that the Basarwa were now buried by their ‘masters’, although he still faced arguments from some leading Batswana in his church who felt that ‘Bushmen were no better than animals, dogs with no souls’. While Khama encouraged the payment, in goats or cattle, for those Basarwa who worked for Bangwato families, this was by no means universally accepted.

  While waiting for Khama’s grandson, Seretse, to come of age, Tshekedi Khama took charge of the Bangwato. Tshekedi was another forward-looking member of the Khama dynasty and had been behind the construction of the first airfield in Botswana in 1922. This was nominated as one of the stopping points of the first Cairo to Cape air race, bringing unrivalled excitement to those lucky enough to see cutting-edge technology fly over the mud hut village.

  Tshekedi introduced primary schools, grain silos and even a college in Serowe, but the British invested little in infrastructure and with no tarred roads the only efficient transport was the Rhodesian railway. At the same time the chiefs, including Tshekedi, blocked suggestions for developing mining interests due to the fear that this would bring European settlers and lead to proper colonisation. The introduction of a ‘Hut Tax’ meant that by the 1920s a significant number of Batswana earned cash by working in the South African mines and the chiefs had no interest in seeing the same exploitation within in their own country.

  The arrival of a new Resident Commissioner in 1929 was to seriously put the cat among the pigeons. Charles Rey was appointed to develop what the Dominions Office felt was a territory that was drifting under previously weak administration. Rey was a paternalist in the best traditions of Empire. Like all fathers he could be authoritarian and he believed he knew what was best for his ‘children’. Sadly his own two sons had died very young of dysentery while he was working for the Abyssinian Company in Addis Ababa, a tragedy his wife, Ninon, never really recovered from. Rey did not suffer fools gladly, especially within the white community at Mafeking, but he did have a sense of humour that seems to have been delivered with a twinkle in his eye. He referred to one colonial official as having ‘all the backbone of a filleted sole’. He also had a dislike of ‘brainless’ missionaries, who he considered to be troublemakers, and he also had a strange habit of substituting the word ‘cucumber’ for the more accurate ‘concubine’. His car, Topsy, was a common sight on the dusty, sandy, rutted tracks around Mafeking and the southern parts of the protectorate, either on official business or just on a picnic with Ninon.

  Resident Commissioner Charles Rey (left) with his wife (centre), along with Robert and Phyllis Reilly. (John Reilly Collection)

  Within months of taking up the post, he had to deal with Basarwa issues. The first involved reprimanding Tshekedi for sending men into another chief’s territory to bring back some Basarwa that had run aw
ay. He made it clear that Bushmen were not slaves and could live where they wanted. Another Bushman asked to pay his Hut Tax in order to show his Batswana chief that he was ‘a man, not a dog’. He said the chief’s people would rob him, taking the skins he had collected, but he hoped the receipt for the Hut Tax would show that the British Government regarded him as a man. In January 1931, Rey had to deal with the murder of a Basarwa man by the group sent to recapture him. Once again it was Tshekedi Khama’s Bangwato involved. It was clear that the Bushmen were considered as slaves, not people or even serfs. The murdered man had more than 300 wounds on his body. Rey was furious when the murderers escaped the death penalty on a legal technicality. These incidents led to an official from England undertaking an investigation into the conditions, particularly with regards to slavery, of the Bushmen in Tshekedi’s fiefdom. This report was published in South Africa in 1933 and was meant to have led to a larger inquiry that was never completed.

  In his diaries, Rey described a Bangwato cattle post herded by Basarwa. The Bushmen’s ‘bones were sticking out’ and they were ‘too cowed and dejected to take an interest in anything’ having being nearly starved to death. The herders were not paid, except in milk from the cows, and had to scavenge for roots and berries to supplement this. Rey shot a springbok and gave it to them, watching them set upon it ‘like a pack of starving wolves’ while he stood over them, making sure their Bangwato masters did not interfere.