Here's an interesting one from John in Canada:
"While making soime DVD's for Gert Vermaak, I came across about 5 seconds of the aircraft that was kept at Central Fields workshops. It got bogged down in the sand while attempting a take off after collecting a load of diamonds and was never allowed to leave CDM again. The incident is referenced in Geoffry Jenkind book as well. I took video of the airtcraft around 1970's..
Cheers
John"
----Thanks John-----
A bit of background history from "Diamond Beaches":
One of the more colourful cases of IDB occurred in 1952. Prospecting was still an important part of mine life and prospectors were often sent to lonely outposts with little supervision. One such prospector was sent to Chameis Bay where he set up his tents and was cut off from Oranjemund apart from occasional visits. His responsibility was to count, weigh and keep the diamonds which were recovered from the bay by his assistant. Once a week a senior geologist would come and collect the diamonds, but he (the prospector) was sitting on a fortune and obviously had a lot of time to contemplate his future!
One thing led to another and he decided to take a horde of diamonds out with him. Various things came to mind, but he decided it was too risky to try and buck the x-ray system or to bribe the radiographer. He contemplated trying to get a Land Rover through the area, but abandoned that, then finally decided to hide the diamonds and come in by boat or plane. Having made his decision and built up his supply of diamonds, he went on annual leave. He arranged for a pilot to fly him into the area and made all the other arrangements, and then resigned.
The men flew in and made a perfect landing at Chameis Bay, collected the diamonds and then attempted to take off! As they were about to get airborne the left wheel hit a rock and they crashed 150 yards further on. When the men were located no diamonds were found on them or in the aircraft which made conviction difficult. Finally more evidence was found and on the 24th of December 1952 the men confessed and the DDD were shown where the cache was to be found.
There were 1400 diamonds which would have been worth about 40 000 pounds at that time! The prospector was sentenced to 9 months hard labour, while the pilot was sentenced to 6 months!
I understood from Gert Kotze , a security officer , that the pilot's name was a certain Mr O'Kennedy
I still have a photograph of the same aeroplane ,at the scrapyard of Central fields about 1978
Hennie....Post the pic sometime....
Hi Hennie
I was just hoping that someone else has a photograph - I would like to see the registration of the aircraft. Please input if you can.
John
Correction. The story is referenced in the "book" on de Beers chapter nineteen as follows: www.edwardjayepstein.com/diamond/chap19.htm available to all....The book was (as explained in the text) a James Bond book Diamonds are Forever by Ian Flemming. The whole book is very interesting though.
Johno
Hi Johno,
yes fascinating reading this, I stumbled across it when looking for Diamond Beaches a while ago.
It certainly put some stories into perspective. While in CDM in the early days, we had constant stories abour Sammy Collins, MDC , ORU and how they all linked eventually. The mine was closing in a few years time - in 1970. A lot of people since retired were part of those interesting historical times and can make interesting contributions. Thinking of people who worked with Doc Guest, the early Pomona barge days, ORU and MDC people. I would love to get my hands on some of the older 8mm movies converted to DVD and make it available via Mike or the Museum. I do have some broken pieces of Pomona and the huge Sikorski helicopter Claude Berteau flew to the off shore mining barges but someone out there with teeth rattling and cold legs is thinking "who wants my old movies anyway". It does serve to conserve the history. I believe that once on the internet it will be conserved.
The people now living in CDM are now the history makers and some people in the years to come will respect the efforts that these people are making today.
John
Well, ORU member, Jim Murray will be returning for the reunion in 13 days time, after an absence of 40 years.... Should be a few good tales...... pls
The only letters visable on the tail section is ZA . It is a slide - and needs to be scanned in propperly .
To add to Ricky Barron's post; here is the piece I posted last year from an article in the Windhoek Observer where Smitty was lammenting about the coverage of high profile cases back then versus now considering the current ease of access to Omund for reporters from Windhoek.
Quote from: Michael Alexander on August 24, 2007, 02:52:35 PM
Who knows that diamond theft story , where the Okies landed a plane on the beach on the mining area, to pick up their stash of stones, but could'nt leave, because the sand was to soft.......?
:-[
A Mr John Kennedy, who prospected and mined diamonds at Chamais Bay from September 1949 to August 1951, collected 2 preserving jars full of selected stones (1398 uncut gems, 2276 carats) and stashed them under a rocky overhang near the beach at Chamais. He later shared his secret with a decorated and knighted ex fighter pilot Morrison Lorne, who would help him recover his loot from its hiding place.
They took off from Luderitz before sunrise on 18 December 1952 and landed on the beach at Chamais at low tide where Kennedy collected his loot. Lorne decided to take off from the beach and to do so instructed Kennedy to lift the tail of the plane (Austen, a tail-dragger) and run with it for as long as he could while it built up speed. He would later be picked up by CDM security. He did so for a short distance before dumping the tail and clambering onto the wing of the plane. Kennedy suffered psychological instability from a wartime incident, and decided against being left in the dark and misty conditions. Unfortunatley for them while Lorne was helping Kennedy into the plane and attending to take-off the front wheel struck a rock and the take-off was aborted.
They were both later picked up by the CDM security dept. and faced trial January 1953.
Quote from: John Creedy on October 31, 2008, 04:11:02 PM
It certainly put some stories into perspective. While in CDM in the early days, we had constant stories abour Sammy Collins, MDC , ORU and how they all linked eventually. The mine was closing in a few years time - in 1970. A lot of people since retired were part of those interesting historical times and can make interesting contributions. Thinking of people who worked with Doc Guest, the early Pomona barge days, ORU and MDC people. I would love to get my hands on some of the older 8mm movies converted to DVD and make it available via Mike or the Museum. I do have some broken pieces of Pomona and the huge Sikorski helicopter Claude Berteau flew to the off shore mining barges but someone out there with teeth rattling and cold legs is thinking "who wants my old movies anyway". It does serve to conserve the history. I believe that once on the internet it will be conserved.
The people now living in CDM are now the history makers and some people in the years to come will respect the efforts that these people are making today.
John
The Sikorski you mentioned
Michael just came across these posts.
I did send an email to you about this subject.
This is the same incident that I told you about a few weeks ago.
We lived in Oranjemund at the time, Jock Kennedy was a friend of the family, but never mentioned his intentions.
We were told the plane fell into a prosecters ditch with its left wheel and an Ovambo Boss Boy found them there.
According to Ian Flemming they both got rather poor punishment, but in fact Jock was deported and the pilot got 9 years not nine months.
There are other stories some I know (diamond smuggling) some are what I was told at the time.
There was the story of the person who bought a tin of condensed milk from the retail store took off the paper drilled a small hole in the tin put the diamonds in sealed it up then took it back to the retail store.
They then purchased their goods, and had asked permission to leave the mine at the weekend, then they would pick up their grocery's on the other
side of X-ray then off to the Bahamas.
Another story of the DD who planted a stash of diamonds in the last toilet on the road to Luderitz (every Thursday there was a bus up there) It would leave early and get back late,its said his wife was on this bus and as they approached the toilet she would ask the driver to stop.
She would retrieve the stash and continue on to Luderitz (the lady had passed through X-ray earlier) and pass on the diamonds to their contact there, then off to the Bahamas.
Yes, different versions of these stories were forever passed around. Never was the word "diamond" used it was always "stones" or a "parcel", we enjoyed these stories.
I would suppose every mining village would have such a close knit population as we had in the 1950's.
Everybody knew everybody else and were forever "skindering" about others.
Pssst! Did you hear the one about John Haycox?
swink
sorriso2 Now that you mention it......that was a bummer.
Please, I beg of you don't tell.
ha ha My lips are sealed.