What Happened To Halali History?

Open Letter to the Minister of Environment and Tourism, and the Managing Director of Namibia Wildlife Resorts.

ON June 1 1982 the Management and Research Staff of Etosha were nearing completion of a total aerial census of the entire park. It covered a period of six weeks, involving a helicopter, seating a pilot and two passengers, plus a fixed-wing aircraft, with a pilot and five passengers.All went according to plan until disaster struck that morning.Witnesses told of the fixed-wing aircraft approaching Halali to land at the airfield next to the rest camp.As it passed overhead it banked and went into a dive that took it into the staff quarters.One wing caught a mopane tree pulling the aircraft down and into a house, which fortunately had no people inside.The results for the plane’s occupants were tragic.Six young men died on impact, their bodies charred when the fuel tanks caught fire and exploded.I received the news at Okaukuejo and rushed to Halali with the local nursing sister, in the desperate hope that they could be saved.When we arrived, the scene confirmed our worst fears.There was no chance that anyone in the plane could have survived either the collision or the subsequent fire.The next few hours remain etched in my memory as a nightmare.As soon as the temperatures at the accident site cooled sufficiently (we had only small fire extinguishers, a garden hosepipe and bucket water to douse the flames) I and others began retrieving the bodies, or what remained of them, from the wreckage.Not one of the occupants was physically recognisable and we relied on watches, rings and other personal items to confirm identity.Later, dental records and autopsies validated our findings.Nature Conservation and Tourism lost five of its Management and Research Staff – they included an ornithologist, biologist, senior nature conservator, two nature conservators, plus the pilot.Etosha, the Directorate and the country reeled in shock at this tragic event.It remains the worst aerial accident in Etosha’s history.In their memory, a small monument was built on the lawn outside Halali’s Tourist Office and Restaurant.It was composed of natural dolomite rocks from the area, and formed a triangle, with a plaque mounted on the top stone.The inscription on the monument’s plaque read (in Afrikaans and English) as follows in this English translation: ‘In Memoriam Tragically Killed In An Air Disaster During A Game Census On 1 June 1982 Cornelius Johannes Stutterheim (Ornithologist) 28.7.1950 Johannes Lourens Bester (Biologist) 24.10.1952 Eugene Cronje (Senior Nature Conservator) 10.1.1951 Peter Zeilhofer (Nature Conservator) 29.5.1959 Peter Jarvis (Nature Conservator) 14.10.1958 Tyler Craig Wheeldon (Pilot) 14.12.1956 They Shall Grow Not Old, As We That Are Left Grow Old: Age Shall Not Weary Them, Nor The Years Condemn.At The Going Down Of The Sun And In The Morning We Will Remember Them – Laurence Binyon 1869-1943’ I give these events as a background for my question ‘What happened to the History at Halali?’.On visits to Halali during 2007, whilst the rest camp was undergoing renovation, I noticed that this monument had been removed.After a few months, it was still absent.My enquiries to the staff about what had happened to it varied from ‘I don’t know’ to ‘it is on the rubbish dump’ and ‘it was removed because it was politically sensitive’.Shaken by this information, I noticed that a large signboard, displaying information on ‘ETOSHA 100 YEARS’ was placed opposite the monument’s site, against the wall and pavement linking the restaurant to the tourist office.It covered the wall area where the foundation stone, commemorating the building of Halali Rest Camp in June 1967, was laid by the Administrator of South West Africa, Mr W du Plessis.I lifted the signboard and found that the foundation stone had been removed and its inlay covered with cement or plaster.Another surprise awaited me when I entered the Halali restaurant.The magnificent sketches by the renowned artist Koos van Ellinckhuijzen, which had graced the walls for many years, were gone.Tens if not hundreds of thousands of tourists had admired their elegance.Elephant, roan and sable antelope, and cheetah in typical postures commanded the attention of people as they enjoyed their meals.Now they have vanished; replaced by photographs of animals that hardly capture the imagination to the extent that the originals did.Replies to my enquiries were similar to those about the monuments: ‘Thrown away’.Van Ellinckhuizen’s portraits of wildlife, charcoaled or crayoned onto material, could have been retained, or at least saved for collectors of his work.Were they also relegated to the refuse dump? I left Halali feeling dismayed that artefacts of history had simply been abandoned.They were part of the rest camp’s and of Etosha’s legacy.I and others, including the family, colleagues and friends of those killed in the air crash, want know the reason behind the removal of the monument; also the reasons behind the removal of the foundation stone and the artwork.They respectively remembered a tragedy and celebrated the beginning of new development in Etosha.Surely they deserve a suitable place in its history, but not the waste disposal site.There are other monuments in Etosha.Some recall joyous occasions and some remember tragic events, both before and after Independence.Will they too, in time, go the same way as the two commemorative plaques and sketches at Halali, depending on the whim of people in power? Who decided that the Halali monuments and artwork were to be removed, and with what authority? What happened to these pieces of Halali’s history? I will appreciate a response to my questions.Hu Berry Former Chief Biologist and Control Warden of EtoshaIt covered a period of six weeks, involving a helicopter, seating a pilot and two passengers, plus a fixed-wing aircraft, with a pilot and five passengers.All went according to plan until disaster struck that morning.Witnesses told of the fixed-wing aircraft approaching Halali to land at the airfield next to the rest camp.As it passed overhead it banked and went into a dive that took it into the staff quarters.One wing caught a mopane tree pulling the aircraft down and into a house, which fortunately had no people inside.The results for the plane’s occupants were tragic.Six young men died on impact, their bodies charred when the fuel tanks caught fire and exploded.I received the news at Okaukuejo and rushed to Halali with the local nursing sister, in the desperate hope that they could be saved.When we arrived, the scene confirmed our worst fears.There was no chance that anyone in the plane could have survived either the collision or the subsequent fire.The next few hours remain etched in my memory as a nightmare.As soon as the temperatures at the accident site cooled sufficiently (we had only small fire extinguishers, a garden hosepipe and bucket water to douse the flames) I and others began retrieving the bodies, or what remained of them, from the wreckage.Not one of the occupants was physically recognisable and we relied on watches, rings and other personal items to confirm identity.Later, dental records and autopsies validated our findings.Nature Conservation and Tourism lost five of its Management and Research Staff – they included an ornithologist, biologist, senior nature conservator, two nature conservators, plus the pilot.Etosha, the Directorate and the country reeled in shock at this tragic event.It remains the worst aerial accident in Etosha’s history.In their memory, a small monument was built on the lawn outside Halali’s Tourist Office and Restaurant.It was composed of natural dolomite rocks from the area, and formed a triangle, with a plaque mounted on the top stone. The inscription on the monument’s plaque read (in Afrikaans and English) as follows in this English translation: ‘In Memoriam Tragically Killed In An Air Disaster During A Game Census On 1 June 1982 Cornelius Johannes Stutterheim (Ornithologist) 28.7.1950 Johannes Lourens Bester (Biologist) 24.10.1952 Eugene Cronje (Senior Nature Conservator) 10.1.1951 Pe
ter Zeilhofer (Nature Conservator) 29.5.1959 Peter Jarvis (Nature Conservator) 14.10.1958 Tyler Craig Wheeldon (Pilot) 14.12.1956 They Shall Grow Not Old, As We That Are Left Grow Old: Age Shall Not Weary Them, Nor The Years Condemn.At The Going Down Of The Sun And In The Morning We Will Remember Them – Laurence Binyon 1869-1943’ I give these events as a background for my question ‘What happened to the History at Halali?’.On visits to Halali during 2007, whilst the rest camp was undergoing renovation, I noticed that this monument had been removed.After a few months, it was still absent.My enquiries to the staff about what had happened to it varied from ‘I don’t know’ to ‘it is on the rubbish dump’ and ‘it was removed because it was politically sensitive’.Shaken by this information, I noticed that a large signboard, displaying information on ‘ETOSHA 100 YEARS’ was placed opposite the monument’s site, against the wall and pavement linking the restaurant to the tourist office.It covered the wall area where the foundation stone, commemorating the building of Halali Rest Camp in June 1967, was laid by the Administrator of South West Africa, Mr W du Plessis.I lifted the signboard and found that the foundation stone had been removed and its inlay covered with cement or plaster.Another surprise awaited me when I entered the Halali restaurant.The magnificent sketches by the renowned artist Koos van Ellinckhuijzen, which had graced the walls for many years, were gone.Tens if not hundreds of thousands of tourists had admired their elegance.Elephant, roan and sable antelope, and cheetah in typical postures commanded the attention of people as they enjoyed their meals.Now they have vanished; replaced by photographs of animals that hardly capture the imagination to the extent that the originals did.Replies to my enquiries were similar to those about the monuments: ‘Thrown away’.Van Ellinckhuizen’s portraits of wildlife, charcoaled or crayoned onto material, could have been retained, or at least saved for collectors of his work.Were they also relegated to the refuse dump? I left Halali feeling dismayed that artefacts of history had simply been abandoned.They were part of the rest camp’s and of Etosha’s legacy.I and others, including the family, colleagues and friends of those killed in the air crash, want know the reason behind the removal of the monument; also the reasons behind the removal of the foundation stone and the artwork.They respectively remembered a tragedy and celebrated the beginning of new development in Etosha.Surely they deserve a suitable place in its history, but not the waste disposal site.There are other monuments in Etosha.Some recall joyous occasions and some remember tragic events, both before and after Independence.Will they too, in time, go the same way as the two commemorative plaques and sketches at Halali, depending on the whim of people in power? Who decided that the Halali monuments and artwork were to be removed, and with what authority? What happened to these pieces of Halali’s history? I will appreciate a response to my questions.Hu Berry Former Chief Biologist and Control Warden of Etosha