Somalia 92-93
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- 1. Food relief flights often went to unimproved airfields.
I was deployed to Somalia for several months in late 1992-early 1993. My unit was a mobile airlift headquarters that set up with the joint task force headquarters in what was left of the American Embassy in Mogadishu. The Embassy was about 9 km from the airport, which was very interesting because travel outside our compounds was often a fairly exciting process. I was an airlift planner on the night shift, so my days were free to hop rides on inter-theater airlift and take pictures. These all came from photos that I have digitized. I thought some of you might find them interesting. I hope you enjoy.
Cheers.
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- 1. Captured military vehicles.
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- 1. When we got to the airport in Mogadishu, there were a number of wrecked Somali Air Force aircraft laying around. They were moved to a central location.
Wow! Amazing pics, George! So interesting to see the captured vehicles and the plane wrecks! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks, Spiros (@fiveten). Probably the longest 4 months of my life. Life was very unpredictable. One day you convoy to the airport and people are smiling and waving, then the next day people are shooting at you. Throw in a mortar attack or two, combat rations, limited water, a few cobras and other nasty things, and my fun meter pegged out really quickly. Cheers.
Nice pictures, Georg @gblair
I can imagine that this was not an easy situation to be in.
Looks like a great adventure to tell your grandchildren about when they’re old enough to understand.
Thanks, John (@johnb) and George (@chinesegeorge).
Thank you for sharing these pics and a bit of your history, George. I'll bet these memories are vivid in your mind as if it was yesterday.
You are right, Gary (@gwskat). I had been to some bad places before Somalia, but I was flying. This was the first time I was in a bad place and stuck on the ground.
My unit was there ( after I was out ) after 8 war deployments and peacekeeper missions, Somalia was seen as the most dangerous of all. This due The heavy weapons arsenal rebels had that countered them. Air bridges, hoera ! Thanks for having been there !
Thanks, Bernard (@bernardbedeur), and thanks for your service. You certainly didn't miss anything by not being there.
Thanks George - not stuff we see every day.
Thanks, Tom (@tcinla). Landing at unimproved dirt strips in a C-130 was really something to see. I was just hopping on planes to visit our operating locations, but I usually got to ride in the jump seat.
Fantastic photos! Hercules sometimes land at the airport near me. These captured vehicles have interesting camouflage. Is it some fun local art? It's interesting that so many years have passed and this part of Africa is still unstable.
Thanks, Bernard (@lis). When we got to Somalia to do food relief, there were over 20 factions that had been fighting each other for hundreds of years. It shows the arrogance (or ignorance) of Americans and Europeans to think we were going to send troops in and solve all of these long-standing problems in a few months. In the end, we all left and didn't really solve anything.
The vehicles from one of the bigger factions all had this type of camo. It is a little confusing, since most of the eastern part of Somalia was bare dirt. The green camo didn't seem like a good idea if they were operating in the eastern part. I wouldn't want to try to reproduce the camo on a model. :o)
I'm curious why the British Army sold their cars to factions that are probably considered terrorist today.
Somalia was considered a resort for many years, with large hotels, nice beaches, and so on. At some point, the government fell apart and the many factions started fighting for power. I think all of the vehicles you see were civilian vehicles already in Somalia, and were taken over by the factions and armed with weapons. The vehicles in the pictures were taken from one of the larger factions, but there was a great assortment of gun-carrying vehicles (Armed civilian vehicles like these were called "technicals"). I have read that the term "technical" for these vehicles originated in Somalia, and that the most used vehicle for these armed trucks was the Toyota Hilux. The factions would arm anything that could carry a weapon. There were small Toyota and Nissan pickups with large weapons, as well as Ford and Chevrolet trucks. I remember there was a civilian jeep with a small machine gun mounted in back that used to drive past our compound at high speed and lob hand grenades over the fence. So, it wasn't a question of Britain selling vehicles to terrorist groups, but selling vehicles to civilians who lived in Somalia who later lost them to the factions. I suspect some of the trucks you see were probably used to take people on safaris in the bush. I dug up a couple of photos online of some of the technicals. Lots of bad memories of that time.
2 attached images. Click to enlarge.
Thanks for sharing these images, It's a good thing when you see images from one on the ground, instead of official pictures.
Thanks, Robert (@roofrat). I flew airlift for 20 years, and I can tell you it wasn't a lot of fun being on the ground.
Interesting photos George. Ive seen some very interesting aircraft operating out of Bamako. French and USAF. The most interesting being the V-22 . Lots of stuff was happening in West Africa years ago that wasn't shown on CNN.
Anyway, Africa was and most probably still is a tough place to fight a war...ask me.
Thanks, Mark (@mikekilo). I just saw in your bio page that you live in South Africa, so you would know the score. It is hard for people who have not been to Africa to understand how truly confusing and scary it can be. N When I was a young lieutenant we would fly a C-141 mission twice monthly that would go from the east coast of the US, to Bermuda, to Ascension Island, then to Johannesburg, and back. We would crew rest at Ascension both ways, and in Johannesburg. Really long legs during this mission. Lots of good memories in Johanneseburg, but never got to Capetown. Went on a couple of photo safaris. Flew several classified missions to other parts of Africa, which were always scary. Somalia was on a whole different level of scary. No easy answers in Africa.