The Man Called Brown Condor

by Thomas E. Simmons

  Whenever the lovely young lady said “please,” he simply did as she motioned for him to do. When she finished drying him, she led him to the bed. There she smiled and gently kissed the cut on his cheek. John wanted to cry, laugh, hold her desperately close, but most of all he wanted not to be alone with the fresh images of war dancing across his mind. She moved softly next to him and he held on to her tightly. They did not speak. They did not kiss. John simply laid his head upon her breast and clung to her as a child might cling to his mother. He knew his worst fear was of fear itself, the kind that can turn a man into a coward.

  She held him until he fell asleep, and then she quietly gathered his soiled uniform, laid out a fresh one on the chair next to his bed, and let herself out of the apartment.

  The next day, October 6, the Italians marched into what was left of the town of Adowa. As Emperor Selassie had ordered, not a shot had been fired in defense of the town. Some of the Italian troops, looking at the bombed ruins and pitiful people, began to wonder if Ethiopia could possibly be worth a war, much less the risk of their own lives.

  In Rome there was joyous celebration upon receiving the news that at last Italy had avenged its shameful defeat at the hands of Ethiopia in 1896. Church bells rang and people turned out in the streets for a victory festival. Mussolini bathed in the adoration.

  At Adowa, General De Bono ordered several battalions turned out for review in formal celebration of his great military victory. The ceremony was complete with banners, bugle fanfares, drums, and motion picture crews. It was meant as a grand gesture to boost the morale of the soldiers and, of course, make General De Bono the star of Italian motion picture news. The average soldier, standing in formation after hard days of marching uphill, would just as soon have skipped all ceremony in favor of a hot meal, a cigarette, and rest.

  Mindful of the hundreds of thousands of warriors that could be waiting ahead, De Bono halted the most powerful war machine Africa had ever seen in order to consolidate his forces and bring up his artillery, tanks, and supplies before preceding deeper into Ethiopia. De Bono was a cautious man.

  2 It should be noted that although he left Ethiopia, Gaston Vedel and his wife fought bravely in the French underground during WW II. Both were captured by the Gestapo and sent to concentration camps. Somehow they both survived. It is not known at this printing what happened to Comte Schatzberg or Baron H. H. von Engel.

  Chapter 18

  Dogs and Rabbits

  ON THE SAME MORNING, OCTOBER 6, THAT GENERAL DE BONO was celebrating his victory at Adowa, John was having breakfast with Mulu Asha.

  “When I got to my room yesterday, there was a girl there.”

  “I’m glad you brought that up. I did not know quite how to approach the subject. What happened was not planned,” Mulu replied.

  “You know?”

  “Yes. She came to my family’s house last night and told us. She is my sister’s best friend. You must understand. She did not intend for you to find her there. She is no servant, my friend. She is the daughter of a chieftain, a Ras, and the former wife of a friend of mine, a student pilot. He was killed in a training accident more than a year ago.

  “Word travels fast in Addis Ababa. You are better known to our people than you realize. When word came that you were back from Adowa and had gone to the palace, she and my sister took fruit and flowers and supervised two hotel servants to clean your rooms so everything would be fresh and clean. You have come a long way to help us. It was a small thing, but still something they could do to show our people’s appreciation. My sister and the servants had just departed when you arrived and surprised the lady as she was leaving. When she saw you, I think she lost her head for a moment. Great God, man! You don’t know how shocking you looked. She said you were covered with caked blood and dirt, there was oil and blood on your face, your uniform was torn, and you looked dreadfully shaken. She could not simply run past you out the door and leave you like that.”

  “Please, what is her name? I want to see her again . . . at least to thank her.”

  “My friend, it is best that you not know who she is for now. She is a little afraid to see you. And there is her family to consider. Her father is . . . well, a high ranking official. This is no ordinary lady. You will have to wait and see. Besides, my commander, it appears that you and I are going to be very busy flying from here on out.”

  “Well, damnit! I must have some sort of name for her . . . what is the Ethiopian word for ‘lady’?”

  “If she was single it would be weiserit for miss, but since she is a widow you would address her as madame. The word is weisero.”

  “All right. Tell her I don’t have to know who she is, but I desperately want to see her, to be with her when there is time. We don’t have to be seen by anybody. I won’t embarrass her. Will you tell her that for me? Maybe the three of us could meet together, we could always have a chaperone. Do you understand the word chaperone?”

  And so they did when there was time. The three met to dine or picnic, sometimes at the farm of their friend Ras Tamru. John learned some words of Amharic and his weisero learned a little English, but she did not reveal her true identity and John never asked. He just knew he needed her. In the months that followed, she provided him with beauty and peace when his world was filled with the ugliness, frustration, and horror of war.

  The following morning, Paul Corriger joined John and Mulu at the Akaki airfield, which was commonly referred to as simply the new airfield. The first few years of flying activity in Addis Ababa had taken place on the racetrack and polo grounds. However, the foreign diplomatic set had been so irate at this interference with their Sunday sport that the emperor finally gave in to their complaints and ordered a landing field constructed on the outskirts of the capital.

  “Paul,” John asked, “how many aircraft are flyable?”

  “Demeaux says it’s a good day. We have ten that might get off the ground—two Fokker F-Vllb/3m, the Farman F-92, five Potez 25s, the Breda Ba15, and one Junkers W33c. Demeaux is doing the best he can. Parts are scarce. We have trouble getting them past the French customs at Djibouti. I’m surprised they let shipments of fuel through.”

  “Ten flyable planes and eighteen pilots, the new ones with less than a hundred and fifty hours total time. The Italians have two hundred modern planes and well-trained pilots. Not very good odds. When our planes are gone, daily contact with the front will be gone.”

  “Why worry?” Mulu said. “When the planes are gone, most of us will be gone.”

  “That’s a happy thought.”

  “I’m just trying to be logical.”

  “The army still has a few field radios,” Paul suggested, trying to change the subject.

  “I’ve seen ’em,” Robinson answered. “One man cranks a generator by hand while another works a telegraph key. In the mountains they often have trouble reaching the next relay station and those have trouble contacting the radio at the palace. As far as international traffic goes, there is one commercial station downtown. It’s always busy with government traffic and three dozen news reporters fighting to get their stories out. I’ve been told the American consulate has just received a transmitter. Cornelius Van Engert begged Washington for one because he was frustrated trying to get his official traffic out through the commercial one in town. What they sent was an old transmitter and generator that came from an obsolete submarine from the Great War. Four American sailors came with it to keep the thing working.”

  Mulu brought up a subject he had tried before. “The Potez 25s came with machine guns but the army took them.”

  John sat down at his desk. “I know there’s been talk of arming our planes, but adding guns would be like putting spiked collars on rabbits to fend off dogs. If they catch us rabbits, they’ll shoot us out of the air, guns or no guns. Their IMAM RO 37 is at least thirty miles an hour faster than a Potez 25. If we put a gun, ammunition, and gunner in the back cockpit, the extra weight will slow us down even more. The Italians kno
w we don’t have a real fighter. We’re messengers. That’s our job. We can carry a message from the front in hours that would take runners days to deliver. Every month, every week, every day we have even a single plane left is important. We have to convince every pilot we have how important he is and that his only chance is to run if he sees a speck in the sky.”

  “We have told them,” Paul answered.

  “Well tell ’em again, dammit! Who went out this morning?”

  “Bahru Kaba to the south, Asfaw Ali north. Tesfaye is transporting fuel to the southern front at Neghelle, and Mishka Babitcheff is here on standby,” Corriger replied.

  John nodded in approval. “Is the phone line to the palace working?”

  “Yes,” answered Mulu. “I checked it myself.”

  “See that it’s checked every morning.” John stood up. “Okay. I’ve got a meeting with the emperor. Probably to get more good news. Why don’t y’all ride into town with me? I’ll buy lunch.”

  Corriger smiled. “How could we refuse?”

  The three, dressed alike in flight coveralls and leather jackets, climbed into the staff car, a dusty, dented 1929 Peugeot painted a dull green the same shade as their aircraft, and like the aircraft it had a roundel painted on the rear door of each side. The Ethiopian roundel consisted of a six-pointed yellow star with alternating long and short points in the center, a red circle surrounded by a yellow middle ring, and a bright green outer ring.

  On the drive into town, the three sat in moody silence until Corriger started singing a bawdy French song popular among pilots during the Great War. He changed the words to inflict funny insults on the Italians. He sang it in English for the benefit of his American friend. John and Mulu picked up on the chorus.

  After the singing and laughter, the three lapsed into silence once more until Mulu said, “I’m the only sane one among us. I have to be here. It’s my country. You both volunteered, you could leave this madness but you don’t. You both must be crazy. You know none of us can last long in the air.”

  “You have that wrong, my friend,” Corriger said. “We are all sane. It is the world that has gone mad. It is the same for us as it is for you. It is honor that won’t allow us to run away. We sing and laugh, yes, because we are afraid to cry.”

  John returned to the hotel dining room after his meeting at the palace, sat down at the table, and did not speak so much as a word of greeting.

  “I know what the emperor wanted,” Paul said. “You are to be his personal pilot.”

  John turned to stare at him. “How the hell did you know that?”

  “Ah, mon ami, the answer is simple,” replied Corriger. “The emperor has already flown a few times to show his people he is not afraid. I know because I have been his pilot on such occasions as had Andre Maillet. He has also flown with the Junkers representative, Herr Ludwig Weber, but he is leaving for Germany. So you see, the poor emperor has no choice. His fantastic white French pilot,” Corriger pointed to himself, “has been forbidden to fly to the front. If the famous Corriger was captured by the Italians, it would cause embarrassment to France, an international incident Ethiopia cannot afford. If Corriger is caught by the Ethiopian warriors, they may think he is Italian because he is white and likely will kill him. The famous Corriger does not care for either possibility. Voilà! Robinson! Some fool must have recommended you very highly. It would appear you are considered the best pilot in Ethiopia . . . besides Corriger, of course. ”

  “To the front? I’ll fly the emperor to the front?”

  “Bien sur, mon ami. He is a warrior, too. He will want to see everything for himself and be seen by his soldiers.”

  “He shouldn’t risk getting in an airplane with the sky full of Italians. They could be here over Addis Ababa any month now, any week. We don’t have a single plane that can outrun them. God Almighty! What if I get him killed?”

  No one answered.

  When they arrived back at the Akaki airfield, John looked out at the pilots and ground crew milling about the planes. He had to smile. Half of them were barefooted. The Ethiopian ground crew and even some of the pilots absolutely refused to wear shoes. They all said the same thing: Shoes were uncomfortable, they could run faster without them, and shoes would trip them up on uneven, rough ground. The soles of their feet must be as tough as my boots.

  “Okay,” Robinson said. “Call ’em over here. I’ve got a new schedule. It sure ain’t gonna be much fun.”

  In the days and weeks that followed, John and his pilots continued to fly orders to the northern front and reports to the capital while Mulu Asha and his group covered the southern front where General Graziani still held a defensive position along the border of Italian Somaliland. To the north, out of the town of Bedda on the eastern edge of the Danakil region, Ethiopia lost its first plane and pilot. More were to follow.

  The only encouraging news John had was that his efforts to promote black aviation were beginning to be recognized as the war in Ethiopia gained a following in the American press. A letter from his mother told him that the prominent NBC radio network broadcaster Lowell Thomas had picked up on the Brown Condor and mentioned him from time to time during his evening news program. She said the Gulfport-Biloxi newspaper the Daily Herald was printing stories about him, too.

  After moving out from Adowa and taking the town of Adigrat, General De Bono received a direct order from Mussolini to attack Makale. General De Bono objected, pointing out that to do so would leave the entire left flank of his army uncovered. But the order stood and De Bono obeyed. Makale fell, but at a heavy cost to the Italian troops on the left flank.

  Taking into account reports of large Ethiopian troops gathering south of him on a line between Dabat and Bedda, De Bono was determined not to follow such unsound orders again. He stopped to once again consolidate his forces. Robinson and the pilots assigned to the northern front kept Selassie’s staff abreast of the fact.

  The general stressed caution in his communications with Il Duce, emphasizing the very rugged terrain that made slow work of bringing up his trucks, tanks, and artillery while affording the enemy opportunities for ambush. Ignoring De Bono’s reports, messages from Rome impatiently requested resumption of the Italian advance. When a direct order from Mussolini arrived demanding that De Bono immediately resume the march without delay, the general balked, indicating in his reply that to resume the advance without consolidating his forces and supplies could lead to disaster. Six days later De Bono was informed that he was being relieved of his duties. He would be replaced by General Badoglio.

  It was not a marked difference in competence that was to greatly alter the nature of the war in Ethiopia. It was a difference of character. De Bono was a capable warrior who saw his role more as a pacifier of the Ethiopian people than as a ruthless conqueror. Badoglio, like Mussolini, considered Ethiopians “savages in need of civilizing.” Badoglio’s single aim was to quickly destroy Ethiopian resistance by any and all means available.

  Haile Selassie had no pool of trained generals from which to choose his leaders. A few young Ethiopian officers had received training at Saint-Cyr, the French military academy, and a few others at Sandhurst in England, but none of Selassie’s generals had formal military training or experience in the traditional sense. He had to choose from among the rases of his country whose followers comprised the army. That presented a problem. Selassie was aware that Italian agents had been in his country for a long time. He suspected, and in many cases confirmed, that some Ethiopians were in their pay: Rases, especially the Galla, were disgruntled from losing some of their power to Ethiopia’s new constitution. There were others in the government hungry for power. Because of the danger of internal revolt, Selassie was forced to choose his generals based upon one qualification: loyalty.

  But there was another problem: greed. Informants and some Ethiopian military leaders were won over by Italian bribes—the Black Eagle, Hubert Julian, appointed commander of an infantry unit, had been forced to leave the country und
er such suspicion.

  Badoglio arrived on November 20, 1935, only to recognize, as had De Bono, that a consolidation of men, equipment, and supplies was indeed essential before launching the next stage of campaign. The reason? The Italian army on the northern front was under attack.

  Selassie had chosen his generals well. In late 1935, Ras Seyoum Mangasha’s force of thirty thousand, Ras Kassa’s forty thousand, the thirty-thousand-man force of Ras Mulugeta, and Ras Imru with another forty thousand men not only held the northern Italian army, they began to push the Italians back from the Takkaze River.

  The Ethiopians quickly learned to move by night, attack at dawn, and then fade away to hiding. These tactics avoided air attacks and murderous artillery fire. They used the night to infiltrate the Italian lines, engaging the enemy with rifles and bloody hand-to-hand battle. Wave after wave of warriors assaulted the Italian fortifications in this manner.

  John was flying back and forth to the front daily. For a time, the reports he brought to the capitol were encouraging. One battle in particular greatly raised Ethiopian morale, though at a high price. Ras Imru’s forces attacked a group comprised of Italian and Eritrean troops supported by CV3/35 tanks. The two-man tanks were armed with twin 8mm machine guns.

  The Ethiopians, some armed only with spears, attacked the Italian forces and cut off their escape route. The Italians turned their twelve tanks against the Ethiopian line, blocking their escape across a ridge at Amba Asar. The Ethiopians immediately broke ranks, not to retreat but to attack in the face of deadly crossfire from the tanks. Running in mass, the Ethiopians engulfed the steel machines by sheer weight of human flesh, killing the crews by shooting point blank through the drivers’ and gunners’ vision slits. By sundown, the Italian force had lost half its troops.