Hubert Latham - Death

Death

At the end of December 1911, Latham left France to undertake an expedition to the French Congo. Following recent wars to retain their control over this part of Africa, this region continued to be a virtual war zone administered by the French Colonial military authorities. A number of air-fields were being planned for the Sahara to the north of the Congo and there was speculation at the time that Latham may have been asked to undertake an assessment of conditions in the interior region for the French Colonial Office. One aviation journalist suggested that he was to be ‘acting on their behalf in a matter that is not disclosed’. Latham did not ship an aircraft but instead brought an out-board engine for a canoe.

Although an experienced and expert hunter of wild game, his death is officially reported to have been caused by being mauled by a wounded buffalo. However, in one anonymous contemporary newspaper article which appeared in 1914, it was claimed that the adjutant-commandant of a French Colonial Army fort located just outside Fort Archambault, who retrieved his body after his death, had found that Latham had sustained a single head wound and saw no marks on or around Latham's body consistent with a rampaging buffalo. The writer claimed that the commandant believed, based on the physical evidence and on the conflicting reports of the porters under questioning, that it was possible Latham had been murdered by one of more of his porters, perhaps in order to steal his rifles, but was unable to prove it. Latham was originally buried in Fort Lamy (now N'djamena, capital city of Chad), because French colonial law forbade the transport of any human remains to another country until a full year had lapsed since death. In January 1914 Latham's mother arranged to have her son's corpse disinterred and shipped to Le Havre where he was re-interred in the family plot. He had never married and thus left no direct descendants.

Latham's own written account of his final weeks in the bush described his unease over the discipline of his team of bearers, and also his anxiety over the levels of discord and violence that ruled this military administered area. The official investigation into Latham's death took no cognisance of his concerns and recorded the incident as a tragic hunting accident.

Aviation reporter and author Harry Harper, who had witnessed Latham's career from his cross-Channel attempts to the failure of the Monobloc at the French military trials two years later, wrote the following about Hubert Latham in his final book, published in 1956:

"Slight, dapper, pale of face, Latham always seemed languid and fatigued until he took his place at the controls of his beloved aeroplane. Then he seemed to become a different man. His eyes sparkled. He appeared in a flash to become intensely alive. And I do not think there was ever a finer pilot."