Count Carl Gustaf Ericsson von Rosen (August 19, 1909 – July 13, 1977) was a Swedish pioneer aviator. He flew relief missions in a number of conflicts as well as combat missions for Finland and Biafran rebels. His flights for the Biafran rebels were notable for using the small Malmö MFI-9 in a ground attack role.
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Von Rosen was born in Helgesta, Flen Municipality, Södermanland, Sweden son of the explorer Eric von Rosen (1879–1948) and nephew of Carin Göring, wife of Hermann Göring. Carl appears to have had serious differences in opinion with his family, for Anthony Mockler refers to him as the "black sheep of his family."[1]
He was interested in mechanics at an early age and became fascinated by flying machines, partly through the influence of Hermann Göring, who was an ace during World War I and later head of the Luftwaffe. Von Rosen's own flying career started as a mechanic and then pilot in a traveling aerial circus, where he became a skilled aerobatic pilot, which served him well later in life.
When the Italians under Benito Mussolini attacked the independent empire of Ethiopia, von Rosen joined a relief mission, flying food and supplies for the Red Cross. He also repeatedly flew casualties out from the battlefield under extremely dangerous conditions.[2] This activity resulted in him receiving mustard gas burns due to the use of the gas by the Italian forces.[2]
After his return from the war in Ethiopia, he went to the Netherlands to join KLM, the first public airline in the world, and became one of their foremost pilots. He married a Dutch wife, but their happiness ended with the outbreak of the Second World War. When the Russians tried to invade Finland in the Winter War, von Rosen quit his job to fly bombing missions for the Finns.[3] A year later, as the Germans attacked the Netherlands, von Rosen went to England and applied for service with the RAF but was turned down, on account of his family relation to Hermann Göring. Von Rosen's Dutch wife joined the resistance and was killed during the war, while he continued flying for KLM on the dangerous London−Lisbon route.
Between 1945 and 1956 von Rosen worked in Ethiopia as an instructor for the Imperial Ethiopian Air Force.[4] Despite his valuable service to Ethiopia, intrigues against him, particularly by his assistant Assefa Ayene, made working conditions for him so frustrating he eventually returned to Sweden.[2] Afterwards von Rosen served as the pilot for the second Secretary-General of the United Nations, Dag Hammarskjöld. However, von Rosen was grounded by illness when Hammarskjöld was killed in an air crash while mediating in the Congo Crisis.
Von Rosen's involvement in Africa did not end with the Congo Crisis. He gained international fame seven years later when he flew relief missions for aid organisations into war torn Biafra, a breakaway republic of Nigeria.[3] These fights included flying a DC-7 from São Tomé to Uli at only a little above sea level in August 1968.[5]
Disgusted at the suffering the Nigerian government inflicted on the Biafrans and the continuous harassment of the relief flights by the Nigerian Air Force, he hatched a plan in collaboration with the French secret service to hit back. He imported five small civilian single engine Malmö MFI-9 planes produced by SAAB, which he knew to have been originally designed for a ground attack role in warfare. He had the planes painted in camouflage colours, fitted with rockets from Matra and proceeded with a band of friends to form a squadron called 'Babies of Biafra' to strike the air fields from which the federal Nigerian Air Force launched their attacks against the civilian population in Biafra. On May 22, 1969, and over the next few days, von Rosen and his five aircraft launched attacks against Nigerian air fields at Port Harcourt, Enugu, Benin and other small airports. The Nigerians were taken by surprise and a number of expensive jets, including a few MiG-17 fighters and three out of Nigeria's six Ilyushin Il-28 bombers, were destroyed on the ground.[6]
One of the interesting characters assisting Count Carl Gustaf von Rosen was Lynn Garrison, an ex-Royal Canadian Air Force fighter pilot. He introduced the Count to a Canadian method of dropping bagged supplies to remote areas in Canada without losing the contents. He showed how one sack of food was placed inside a larger sack before the supply drop. When the package hit the ground the inner sack would rupture while the outer one kept the contents intact. With this method many tons of food was dropped to many Biafran civilians who would otherwise have expired from starvation. Despite his controversial methods, Count Von Rosen would be remembered as one of the characters that helped modernize relief efforts to remote conflict zones via mercy flights.
In 1974 he flew aid for famine and drought victims in Ethiopia.[4]
The last action Count von Rosen saw was again in Africa in 1977, during the Ogaden War between Ethiopia and Somalia. Again flying relief for refugees, he was killed on the ground on 13 July 1977, during a sudden Somali guerrilla attack near Gode.