MJoTAtalks Book Review of The Last Flight
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The Last Fight is a book that was published by the author, Captain August Okpe, in 2010.
The Last Flight is a collection of
personal stories about a Nigerian air force pilot caught up in post-colonial
optimism and an international conspiracy to keep Nigeria’s 3 main ethnic groups
in a single nation of Nigeria, even after clear evidence that the genocide of
Igbos was underway.
In early 1963, when Nigeria had been a
sovereign nation just over 2 years and Augustine De
Hems Okpe was a teenager, August was
plucked out of his university studies in mathematics and physics to train as one
of the first 30 Nigerian Air Force pilots.
Of August's contingent of 16, 4 became air-traffic controllers, and 12 got their wings as pilots and were graduated from the Royal Canadian Air Force as lieutenants.
After a tour of duty in Nigeria, August continued his training in the United States as an air
accident investigator for the newly forming Nigerian Air Force.
Below is a 5-minute news movie about the first African Diaspora pilots in the Americas. They flew in 1944, and when August was flying in Nigeria in the 1960s, they were flying mostly old planes from World War II. I have yet to verify if August flew any of the planes in this movie.
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Below, 48-minute documentary made in 2004 about what being a US fighter pilot means. This is about a 14-day simulated air war. Hyperactive fighter pilots - and they are all hyperactive thrill seekers, God bless them all - they breathe for this stuff. The documentary is called "IMAX Fighter Pilot: Operation Red Flag".
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During
his first year back in Nigeria as a lieutenant in the Nigerian air-force, the
Nigerian air-force had its first fatal crash, a small plane controlled by 2 of
the newly trained pilots. Lieutenant August Okpe’s first task as an air accident
investigator was determining what killed his friends. He graphically describes
scraping his friends off the plane dials. August was 22.
At
the beginning of 1967 the genocide of Igbos had started and resulted in a mass
exodus of Igbos from the northern third of Nigeria to the eastern third of Nigeria,
the Eastern Region, which was governed by a military governor, who was the
charismatic Oxford-educated Colonel Ojukwu.
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In
vain, the Colonel begged the Federal Government overseeing the 3 regions of
Nigeria to stop the genocide. As the genocide continued, August, by then Captain Okpe, and other
Igbo air-force officers were targeted for murder, and August was only able
to escape from the Northern region to the Eastern region of Nigeria by hiding
in the water tank of a steam train.
On 30 May 1967, Colonel Ojukwu declared the Eastern region of Nigeria a sovereign
nation named Biafra. Above the clamor of the Northern region to let Biafra
separate, and the agreement of the Western region, the Federal dictator of
Nigeria declared war on Biafra.
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August became part of the Biafran Air-force, Squadron Leader August Okpe, and flew a B-26 bomber (watch how to fly a B26 bomber in the movie above).
August also flew other planes, and Alouette helicoptors. He was trained to fly these by a Frenchman who managed to blow up himself and several others over Lagos during the war.
Until he flew the last flight of
the Biafran War in January 1970, August went on frequent and often successful bombing
raids of Nigerian military targets and watched while one by one his Biafran
colleagues were killed in plane crashes and the few planes in the Biafran Air-force were destroyed.
At
the 11th hour, a Swedish Count transported from Sweden to Gabon 5
small planes. After the first flight with Count von Rosen and 2 Swedish pilots, August continued as the only Biafran pilot bombing Nigerian military and
economic targets, and after the first 3 raids, was mostly the only pilot on
missions that continued from May 1969 until January 12, 1970.
August was the personal pilot of General Ojukwu, and a lifelong personal
friend.
After the war, anger from the Nigerian military at August’s
professionalism and heroic courage resulted in a 10-month detention by a
military tribunal and a 6-year climb into as new professional career as a
commercial pilot.
August retired as Chief Pilot from Nigeria’s national airline, Nigeria
Airways, after it dissolved in 1999. He prefers to be known formally as Captain August Okpe.
This
is a story that unfolds like an epic Greek tragedy, that is told with gentle
humor and an absolute inability to see that he was doing nothing else than his
job.
August’s grace and gentle humor coupled with his easy style of story
telling makes this book a great read, and an extraordinary documentation of the
Biafran air war.
Below, watch clips from fiction movies about fighter pilots.
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Buy the book, send an email to publisher@mjota.org or text to 609-792-1571.
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Above, a photograph I took of August standing next to a copy of his book in the book shop of Lagos' International Airport.
He took me to Enogu on the day that General Ojukwu was memorialized in Enogu, Mar 01, 2012. General Ojukwu was buried the next day to full Nigerian military honors, in a state funeral.
The top photograph of August was taken on that day, in Enogu, at the hotel where we stayed.
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Dr Susanna and Professor Ekundayo in Ekpoma, Edo State 2007. Edo State was in Biafra.
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