The Haitian Bombing Story

                                                                 The Haitian Bombing Story

                                                                               June 1968

                                           The attempted coup and the bombing of the Haitian Palace.

                                                         Written 08/08/2016 and Re-written 2019

                                                                           Howard Yasgar

   

                             

      It was in June of 1969 when I was in Port Au Prince Haiti helping my friend Lou Gladstein remove the Haitian

Railroad.

      The railroad had been bankrupted by the Haitian Government  years before and my friend Lou had offered  $2.00 a ton to purchase all the railroad track that was remaining.

      Taking apart a railroad and digging out the old track was quite an undertaking.

      Because I had experience with using oxygen acetylene cutting torches, I wanted Lou to use cutting torches to take the rail apart, but Lou didn’t agree with me.

      Lou felt that using a cutting torch was too expensive, and he could do the job by using by using Haitian laborers

to cut the nuts and bolts by hand using sledge hammers and chisels.

      At the time, Lou said that he could hire all the laborers he wanted for about $1.25 a day, and 10 cents for their lunch.

      I wanted to prove to Lou, that using a cutting torch would be a much faster method, and not as expensive as he thought. So on a beautiful sunny morning we loaded up Lou’s Toyota Carolla station wagon with Lou’s cutting torch, its  gauges, its  hoses, and two empty oxygen and acetylene  cylinders to be refilled at the welding supply store in Port au prince.

      We drove down the mountain to Port Au Prince and we exchanged the oxygen acetylene cylinders for full ones. Lou had a few errands to attend to, and we were driving down an avenue that would take us past the Haitian palace. That was where the Dictator Papa doc Duvalier lived.

      Lou’s Toyota station wagon was not air conditioned so I had my passenger side window down, and I could see the white Haitian palace coming up on my right about a quarter of a mile ahead.

       I looked ahead to my left,  I saw 2 or 3 plumes of dark smoke rising, they appeared to be pretty far off behind some buildings, I thought someone was burning trash.   

      All of a sudden I heard what sounded like a huge aircraft over our heads. It was loud like a distressed plane sounds when it is struggling for altitude.

      Then it turned completely dark outside, as the giant plane cast its shadow over us.

      I could hear lots of popping noises just like 4th of July firecrackers going off.

      As the shadow disappeared, I heard a loud noise and an incendiary bomb went off about 300 yards in front of us, I thought it was Napalm.

      It was amazing, as Lou made that Toyota wagon do a complete 360 degree maneuver and we were

Now racing away in the opposite direction as fast as the Toyota would go.

      I looked out the back of the station wagon and I could see the wall of flame coming after us. The two full oxygen and acetylene cylinders were banging together on the floor of the wagon, they looked like two torpedo’s waiting to go off. I knew that in a matter of seconds, the wall of fire would engulf us.  But, somehow it didn’t, and Lou with his hands shaking and sweating drove us back up the mountain to his house.

      We assumed there was some type of a coup going on, so I suggested to Lou that he take me to the airport first

Thing in the morning. If it was a coup, I wanted to fly back to Miami quickly, so as not to get stuck in Haiti.

      At the airport, everything was very normal and I caught the first flight out.

      Once back in Miami, I was still shaken up, but I listened to the news hoping to hear what had happened in Haiti.

       The next day I read the papers but not a word appeared. Finally after 2 days a small article appeared in the Miami Herald newspaper.

       It said there was an attempted coup in Haiti, one  fire bomb had been dropped but it missed the palace and blew up behind some stores killing a civilian.

      The article said the failed coup was financed by two Haitian groups, one in New York and one in Montreal. The whole story sounded pretty phony to me, but that was all that I could ever find regarding the attack.

      Now, from 1968 fast forward to 1991.

      My fiancé Katherine was managing the Miami office of a large international freight forwarding company called MSAS.

      She had in her office a customer that wanted her to ship F14 fighter planes from Singapore to Amman Jordan.  Katherine knew I was in the military supply business so she introduced me to Ralph Edens.

      We all met at Rousseau’s nightclub at the Doral golf course.

      Ralph was about 40 years old, 5 foot 6 inches tall, with a medium build and slightly graying hair, he was a pretty normal looking guy.

      Ralph said that he was a photographer and had worked as a photographer and editor for Soldier of Fortune magazine. He also said he served in the military in Cambodia.

      Ralph said he was in Cambodia when we weren’t supposed to be in Cambodia, and he had served as a mercenary in South Africa.

      Ralph said most recently he had served in Central America fighting in Nicaragua.  Apparently Ralph was a Soldier of Fortune.

      I wanted to engage Ralph in conversation but we had very little in common to talk about as I had only served in the Army Reserves during peace time.

      So I ended up telling Ralph about my close call with death in Port Au Prince Haiti, in 1969 when the palace was bombed, and Ralph said he had heard about the attempted coup.

      After a few drinks, Ralph suggested that I meet with him one evening for a beer.

      He suggested we meet the next evening at Tom’s NFL club which was located on NW 36^th street in Miami across from the airport and right near my office.

      It didn’t occur to me at the time but Tom’s NFL Club, was the watering hole for all the CIA guys that worked with Southern Air Transport Company, the CIA owned airlines that was right across the street.

      Ralph was waiting for me, and had ordered me a beer, he said that he didn’t want to talk to me in front of Katherine, but he was the guy pushing the fire bombs out of the airplane over Port Au Prince in 1969, the fire bomb that almost killed me.

      Ralph went on to tell me the whole story.

      He was recruited by the C. I. A. with several others, they were to transport a group of armed Haitian soldiers

To Haiti, They had a rented Constellation aircraft and they filled up 6 55 gallon drums with aviation fuel and taped flares to the barrels, they also had 1 phosphorous bomb, a big water bottle with phosphorus in a plastic bag inside.

     The Haitian soldiers failed to show up, so they decided to bomb the palace anyway. The bottom of the plane was loaded with web gear and guns to arm a rebel force that was supposed to be waiting for them once the palace was bombed.

      When they flew over the palace Ralph said they lit 3 flares and pushed 3 barrels out the planes door.

      The trajectory was wrong, so they made another attempt, and pushed out more fire  bombs, that was one that

almost killed me. 

      By time they made a third pass the military and palace guard were shooting at the plane.

      That was the popping noises we heard, and the plane got all shot up.

      They attempted to land on the Cap Haitian airport but it was blocked with trucks, so they landed on a U.S. radar landing strip in Freeport Bahamas. The plane was all shot up, when they were asked what the hell was going on the C.I.A. agent Casey said they were just out for a spin.

      They were all arrested, and charged with breaking the neutrality las and all sentenced to 18 months prison, however it appears they were all out after a few months.

      That’s what happened.