Carl Gustaf Von Rosen - Biafran War

Biafran War

Von Rosen's involvement in Africa did not end with the Congo Crisis. He gained international fame seven years later when he flew relief missions for aid organisations into war torn Biafra, a breakaway republic of Nigeria. These flights included flying a DC-7 from São Tomé to Uli at only a little above sea level in August 1968.

Disgusted at the suffering the Nigerian government inflicted on the Biafrans and the continuous harassment of international relief flights by the Nigerian Air Force, he hatched a plan in collaboration with the French secret service to strike back at Nigerian air power. He imported five small civilian single engine Malmö MFI-9 planes produced by SAAB, which he knew to have been originally designed for a ground attack role in warfare. He had the planes painted in camouflage colours, fitted with rockets from Matra and proceeded with a band of friends to form a squadron called 'Babies of Biafra' to strike the air fields from which the federal Nigerian Air Force launched their attacks against the civilian population in Biafra. On May 22, 1969, and over the next few days, von Rosen and his five aircraft launched attacks against Nigerian air fields at Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin and other small airports. The Nigerians were taken by surprise and a number of expensive jets, including a few MiG-17 fighters and three out of Nigeria's six Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, were destroyed on the ground.

Despite his controversial methods, Count Von Rosen would be remembered for his efforts to modernize relief efforts to remote conflict zones via mercy flights. One of the notable figures assisting Count Carl Gustav von Rosen was Lynn Garrison, an ex-RCAF fighter pilot. He introduced the Count to a Canadian method of dropping bagged supplies to remote areas in Canada without losing the contents. He showed how one sack of food could be placed inside a larger sack before the supply drop. When the package hit the ground the inner sack would rupture while the outer one kept the contents intact. With this method many tons of food were dropped to many Biafrans who would otherwise have died of starvation.