P-51's used in Congo

[Scott Rose]

I recently heard a passing reference to P-51's being used in the ground attack role in the Congo, probably in the late 60's to mid-70$ time period. Anybody know more about this? How many? Where did they come from? Who flew them?

I'm becoming fascinated with mercenary pilots and would like to know more about them.

[Swiss Mustangs]

The Mustang story is a fairy tale - nothing else.

In Congo there were AD Skyraiders and armed T-6G's in action - but no P-51's whatsoever !

Somalia received approx 8 F-51D's from Italian AF stocks around 1960, but they soon succumbed were out of service due to missing spares and poor maintenance.

Here's a few Congolese (ex French AF) Skyraiders......













a few more Skyraiders (also ex French) went to the Tchad Republic and some were recovered.


Martin

[Jase]

Scott: Never heard of P-51's being used in Congo. I know that, in 1964-65, during the Simba uprising, the CIA supplied, through intermediaries, a number of armed T-28's and B-26K's (OnMark Invader). I had heard, as of a few years ago, there were still a couple T-28's, a B-26K, and a DC-3 rotting away at an airport in former Stanleyville, plus one or more prop jobs in Leopoldville.

Many of the pilots who flew during the UN "peacekeeping" mission during the Simba uprising were US pilots, who "resigned" from the military and were "employed" by "Mad" Mike Hoare, who is himself a rather fascinating figure. Some were also Cubans, who had escaped from Cuba when the bearded bastard overthrew Batista.

You might try to find "Congo Mercenary" by Hoare, it's a pretty good read.

[T J Johansen]

About 12 years ago I was in touch with a guy who flew in the Congo (and later Biafra). First for Moise Tshombe, and later for the CIA when they took control over the air operations (Operation Wigmo). He told me that there were no P-51s used there during the civil war. They operated T-6s, T-28s, and A/B-26 Invaders! According to some reports on a different forum, there were Cavalier P-51s used/tested in Vietnam, maybe by the CIA???, so can there have been any test of Cavalier's in Congo? Doubt it, but perhaps we can get a "second opinion" by Randy Haskin who is hard at work researching Cavalier!

T J

[Swiss Mustangs]

I have been in contact with the former Huey pilot claiming he had seen two dark painted Mustangs in SE Asia during the 60's. That was about 3 years back following a thread on the (old) MustangsMustangs board. The contact dried up (I stopped it) after some e-mail exchange which progressively led to an overall rant from his part over all US institutions that deal with clandestine and secret ops....

I did, however, do a search based on the information received by this fellow and I found some very interesting information on a (then) secret base and its assigned units. It was some listening post (to intercept 'enemy' communication) situated on a former Japanese WW2 airfield. I have not found any confirmation on aircraft types used there (does that surprise me ?) but generally spoken the official duty of one of the assigned units was to patrol over some certain region to gather intelligence data - between the lines I understood that the secondary mission was to prevent 'regular' flyers from straying to deep into airspace which was off limits. This also matches the experiences by this Huey pilot, who was kind of aggressively made understood that he should get lost from the area he was flying in.

I do have my serious doubts that indeed Cavaliers were deployed there for such missions - I merely think, that IF a few Mustangs were operated in SE Asia during the 60's, they were loaned or re-possessed from local air arms.

Let's not forget that most countries like Indonesia and the Philippines did receive Mustangs under MAP (Indonesia used them well into the 70's) and that the U.S. has the habit to re-possess such aircraft for clandestine ops.
Let's also remember that during the Operation "Haik" 1958 in Indonesia, Philippine AF Mustangs were given to the Rebels to fight against regular Indonesian forces. Some will remember the resulting incident where an rebel A-26 Invader (flown by an US pilot) was shot down by an regular AURI (Indonesian AF) P-51 with some pathetic results...

I am sure Randy can add from his insight into the TFA/Cavalier operations, but again, I do doubt that Cavaliers were sent to SE Asia.

As for the Congo - my doubts are even stronger.

Just my 2 cents.

Martin / Swiss Mustangs

[Scott Rose]

Thanks guys. I was curious about that since I had never heard of Mustangs being used then. I knew the texans and the T-28's were used though I didn't know the Skyraiders were (Swiss Mustangs, you always have the coolest pictures

I figured it was a mid-ID but couldn't figure out how somebody could possibly think a one of those three aircraft was a Mustang.

Thanks for the lesson guys.

[T J Johansen]

(Swiss Mustangs, you always have the coolest pictures

Cool photos, yes. But not the right i.d. Those AD-4Ns were actually the a/c used by the Presidental guard of Gabon (one of Congo's neighbours!). Also a mercenary unit, if one should believe Flight Intl. annual World Air Forces survey. Possibly French, given their close ties with Pres. Bongo. They sold off the Skyraiders to France, and got T-34C Turbo Mentors instead. Think they still use them. Not sure if the T-6s went to South Africa!

T J

Having just googled, I found this page. It gives more accurate years, and information!
http://skyraider.org/skyassn/otherpics/borne/borne.htm