The Last Flight: A Pilot Remembers the Air Force & the Biafran Air Attacks

By August Okpe and Captain August Okpe

Book Overview

The Biafran Chief Pilot Breaks His Silence To Reveal All A Nigerian Air Force aircraft executing military flight manoeuvres and violent aerobatics crashes over Ibadan, Nigeria and sets off unprecedented accusations, recriminations and suspicions of acts of sabotage, treachery and betrayal perpetrated by the German Air Force group in Nigeria. A clutch of dissidents from across the Niger boards a Benin - Lagos flight and diverts it to land at Enugu airport in a quick well coordinated broad day light skyjack. It was the first violent airplane snatch in Nigeria. A German Corporal, ignoring military protocol because of irreconcilable prejudice fails to salute a Nigerian Lieutenant thereby provoking intra-service hierarchical chaos in the German-run NAF. These are but a few of the multitude of expose and revelations the author copiously chronicles in his THE LAST FLIGHT . Writing from the vantage position of being a part of the nucleus and foundation member of the Nigerian Air Force and later an active air combatant in the Nigeria-Biafra air-war, Captain August Okpe has given a robust and exciting account as well as some incredible perspectives of the political and military intrigues on both sides of the divide. He left nothing to the imagination in giving the account of the genesis and inception of the NAF while highlighting subsequent activities - the routine, the awesome or the spectacular, as the case may be - of the corporate body in its formative years right up till the beginning of hostilities. Then, he commences to treat the air-war most impressively. Revealing facts and figures the world did not know of before have been painstakingly chronicled while pictures never seen before are also colourfully depicted. Highlights: - How were Nigerian military pilots trained in the USA, Canada, Germany, India and Ethiopia? - Why would a German Corporal not salute a Nigerian Officer - a Lieutenant? - Flight Safety, Corpses and Mink Coats - A full account of the first air disaster of the NAF in 1965 - What role did NAF play in the coups of Jan 15 and July 1966? - Did the Easterners take steps to stock up on arms in anticipation of the Nigerian attack? What is the connection between a professor cum Poet Laureate - Christopher Okigbo - and airplanes and weapons in the Nigerian Crisis? - A full account of the first Skyjack in Nigeria. The dramatis personae and their reasons And Photographs - The first Biafran Air Crash - victims, time and place - Full fledged account on how the Biafrans used helicopters to bomb the Nigerian front lines - NAF pilots and their exploits in the Nigeria-Biafra air war - The exploits of the notorious B25 and B26 - their effect on Nigerian forces And Photographs - A full and comprehensive account of Flight 101, the Biafran bomber that exploded over the Lagos metropolis - crew composition, armament, briefing, etc. - Operation "Jefta" - the deliberate destruction of our (Biafran) airplanes to preclude their falling into Nigerian hands - A scorched Earth Programme which virtually called for wholesale suicide - Did the Portuguese Air Force Pilots fly for Biafra? - Did Russian and Egyptian pilots fly with NAF during the war? - Power play within the Biafran Air Force - The Last Flights - The last Biafran pilots to be shot down only two days before Biafra capitulated

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1432711024
• ISBN13: 9781432711023
• Release Date: March 2011
• Publisher: Outskirts Press
• Length: 622 Pages
• Weight: 2.34 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.3" x 7.0" x 10.0"