The Haitian Bombing Story

June 1968

A True Story

How I was in the middle of an attempted coup and the bombing of the Haitian Palace

Written 08/08/2016* 1,557 Words*

By Howard Yasgar

It was in June in 1969, and I was in Port Au Prince Haiti helping my friend Lou remove the railroad.

The Haitian railroad had been bankrupted by the Government many years before, and my friend Lou had offered them $2.00 a ton to buy it.

He was not only awarded the railroad track but all the railroad parts that were remaining.

Digging out all the old track was going to be quite an undertaking for us.

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

Lou felt that using a cutting torch was going to be way too expensive, and he could instead do the job using Haitian laborers to cut all the nuts and bolts using heavy sledgehammers and big chisels.

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

I had hoped 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 station wagon with his cutting torch, and the torch’s accessories, and two empty oxygen and acetylene cylinders.

Our intension was to have the cylinders refilled at the welding supply store in Port Au Prince.

We then drove down the mountain to Port Au Prince, and there we exchanged empty oxygen and acetylene cylinders for full ones.

Lou had a few other errands to attend to, so as we were driving along, it was taking us past the Haitian palace where the Dictator, Papa Doc Duvalier lived.

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

I looked ahead to the left, and I saw 2 or 3 plumes of dark smoke rising. The smoke appeared to be far off and it was behind some buildings, so I thought someone was just burning trash.

Suddenly, I heard what sounded like a huge aircraft flying over our heads. It was very loud, and it was like a distressed airplane sounds when it is struggling to gain altitude.

Then, suddenly, it turned completely dark outside, as a giant airplane cast a shadow over us.

I could hear lots of loud popping noises, and it sounded just like fourth of July firecrackers going off.

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

The next thing I knew, Lou made a complete 180 degree maneuver, and we were now racing away from the firebomb, going in the opposite direction, and we were doing it as fast as that Toyota station wagon could go.

I looked out the rear window of the Toyota and I could see the wall of flame chasing after us.

The two full oxygen and acetylene cylinders in the rear of the wagon were rolling around and they were

banging together. They looked just like two torpedoes waiting to go off.

I knew that in a matter of seconds, that wall of fire was going to totally engulf the Toyota, blowing us all up.

But, somehow, it didn’t do that, and Lou with his hands sweating and shaking, drove us back up the mountain to his house.

We both assumed there was some type of military coup going on, so I suggested to Lou that he take me to the airport first thing in the morning.

I Felt that if it was a coup, I wanted to fly back to Miami as quickly as possible, so I wouldn’t get stuck indefinitely in Haiti.

However, the next day we were at the airport and everything seemed very quiet and normal, and I was able to catch the first Air Haiti flight out.

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

The next day, I read the Miami newspapers, but not a word about a coup in Haiti appeared.

Finally, after 2 days had passed, a small article appeared in the Miami Herald.

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

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

Now, fast forward from 1968 to 1991.

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

One day, Katherine had a customer that wanted her to ship several F14 fighter planes from Singapore to Amman Jordan.

Katherine knew I was in the military supply business and could possibly help, so she introduced me to her customer, his name was Ralph Edens.

That evening we met with Ralph at Rousseau’s nightclub at the Doral golf course.

Ralph was about 40 years old, 5 foot 6 inches tall, he had medium build and slightly graying hair, and from all appearances he was a very average-looking fellow.

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

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

Ralph then said that most recently, he had been serving in Central America fighting the Communists in Nicaragua. As far as I was concerned, Ralph was obviously a real Soldier of Fortune.

I wanted very much to engage Ralph in conversation, but unfortunately, we had very little in common to talk about as I had only served in the Army during peacetime, and it was not very exciting.

So, to make conversation, I ended up telling Ralph all about my 1969 close call with death in Port Au Prince Haiti when the palace was bombed.

Ralph said, he had heard all about the attempted Haitian coup back in 1969.

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

I agreed, so he suggested we meet the next evening at Tom’s NFL club which was located on NW 36th street in Miami, it was across the street from Miami airport, and it also was right near my office.

It didn’t occur to me at the time, but now I know Tom’s NFL Club was the watering hole for all the CIA guys that worked with Southern Air Transport, which was the CIA airline that was located right up the street.

When I got there, Ralph was waiting for me, and he had already ordered me a beer.

Ralph said that he didn’t want to talk to me in front of Katherine, but he said he was the guy pushing the fire- bombs out of the airplane over Port Au Prince in 1969, I realized he was talking about the fire-bomb that almost killed me.

Ralph went on to tell me the whole story.

He said that he was recruited by the C. I. A. along with several other guys.

They were to transport a group of armed Haitian soldiers to Port Au Prince.

They had rented a Constellation aircraft and had filled it up with six, 55-gallon drums of aviation fuel, which they had taped flairs onto.

He said they also had one phosphorous bomb, which was a big water bottle with a bag of phosphorus inside.

However, on the day of the Coup, the Haitian soldiers failed to show up, so Ralph and the others decided to bomb the Haitian palace anyway.

The bottom of the rented Constellation aircraft was loaded with web gear and enough guns to arm a rebel force that they thought was to be waiting for them once the palace was bombed, and the dictator Papa Doc was killed.

Ralph said that when they first flew over the palace, they lit and pushed three barrels out the cargo door.

The trajectory was all wrong, and the bombs missed the palace, so they made another attempt, and they pushed out most of the fire- bombs which included the one that nearly killed me.

By time they made a third pass the military and palace guard were all shooting at the plane, that was the popping fireworks noises that I had heard.

They then attempted to land the aircraft at the airport in Cap Haitian, but the airport was already blocked with trucks, so they landed on a U.S. radar landing strip in Freeport, the Bahamas.

The plane was all shot up like a Swiss cheese, and when they were asked what the hell was going on, one of the C.I.A. guys named F.X. Casey, said they were just out for a spin.

They were all arrested and then charged with breaking the U.S. neutrality law.

All of them were sentenced to 18 months prison, however Ralph said that they were released after only a few months.

And that’s how I learned the true story of what had happened that day.