Roberts Field, liberia

It is surprising the people I meet when I'm out flying with the Collings Foundation. Not only the veterans of World War II, but other individuals that I would not have expected to meet at all. About a week and a half ago, while in West Virginia, a gentleman came up to me and we were talking about the different aircraft or what have you and he happened to mention that his father had worked for Pan-American. Since I had worked for Pan-American also from 1966 until 1986. I mentioned that I had mentioned that to him. It turns out that his father had been a station agent for Pan-American at Roberts Field in Monrovia, Liberia in Africa.



The two of us were soon putting times and dates together and realized that we had been part of a very special and different part of Pan-Americans history. Roberts Field was a sort of hub for Pan-American operations in Africa. Flights originating in New York at John F. Kennedy Airport would go to and depending on the day, branch out to different parts of Africa. If say, you left on a Thursday from New York, you would stop in Roberts for one or two nights as a crew, and then proceed to Nairobi via Lagos, Nigeria. If you left on a Monday, you might go to Abidjan. Then to Roberts, and on to Johannesburg in South Africa. Coming back. You would stop in Roberts once again, it became a crew layover spot for all the African operations of Pan-American.


The hotel where all the crews stayed while in Liberia was the Roberts Field Hotel located just about 100 yards from the terminal. Crews would land at Roberts, and simply walk off the airplane through customs and immigration over to the hotel and could go right to their rooms. However, the Roberts field hotel was a Mecca for all the Europeans whites or otherwise educated Africans to congregate. A meeting place of international ideas and international people. In a country that lacked everything of normal everyday life. Roberts field hotel had it all in one place.


There were a number of companies, that had Caucasian/European employees based there in Monrovia. A large pharmaceutical company had a facility for raising chimpanzees used in their testing. One of the world's largest tire companies had huge rubber plantations nearby as well. These same employees would show up at the hotel bar/restaurant in time to meet the arriving crews from New York or arriving from other parts of Africa.   At the same time, outbound crews would be eating a dinner before departing to other points on the African continent or back to New York and Europe. Therefore there was a constant coming and going at the hotel. And one of the best attributes of the hotel was the food, which was not only very well done, but safe to eat. The hotel's decor for was not elegant, but basic and more importantly clean. The food staff at the hotel always seem to do their best to put out the best menu and serve it almost eloquently when compared to the rest of Africa.


The hotel was not located in the midst of Monrovia as one would think as the international airport was a good one hour drive from the capital city of Monrovia. The entrance to the hotel was only 100 yards from the arrival gates of the airport and after a long flight. Just walking that hundred yards to the entrance of the hotel was the first chance a crew would have after spending hours and hours on long-range flight would have a chance to really stretch their legs and appreciate the anticipation of having a beer and maybe a hamburger before hitting the sack in their hotel room. Also, the crew that was departing only had to walk 100 yards to an airplane that would be ready to go into the far reaches of Africa or back to New York.


One of the rooms at the hotel was set a side strictly for the crews use. It was no different than the other rooms at the hotel except it had no beds, but had extra chairs, a large coffee table, plus two refrigerators. These refrigerators would be use by the stewardesses to store cheese, caviar, breads, fruits, and other stuff that were leftovers from the flight. The "crew room" was an exclusive place for the crews. Seldom, were outsiders invited there. "Crew parties" were a constant happening, and almost nonstop, considering the comings and goings of crews through the station. The decor of the room reflected the personalities of Pan Am crews. In particular the personalities of the crews that flew the African routes. The walls were festooned with wine bottle labels. Cartoons, a few of sexual nature, but most dealing with crew views of company policies. My favorite one, showed a group of mushrooms growing on a pile. The caption read "Management must think we are a bunch of mushrooms. They keep us in the dark and feed us a bunch of shit". But properly, the most significant piece of "artwork" that festooned the walls of the room was the body pressing. A little history here. At that point in Pan Am's history. Flight attendants were not supposed to be married and they had to quit their jobs when they did. One such lady was about to leave the company to get married, and on her last trip with Pan-American there was a crew party in the crew room. It must have been a great party. For the crew was able to convince the young lady to undress, and they poured red wine all over her body. And then they made fore and aft pressings against the wall all around the room. This young lady was well endowed and the pressings showed that perfectly.


As I said above, the Pan Am crews that flew the Africa roots had a personality far different from the normal Pan Am pilots and stewardesses. First you must realize that Africa was not the most comfortable, nor the easiest of routes to fly in the world. Air-traffic control was nonexistent. Weather reports and forecasts were guesses at best. Communications in any form was pathetically nonexistent. Layover facilities and airports were often unsanitary and crude. There was always a danger of catching malaria or ingesting some other weird and malignant bug that Africa can only seem to make up. And since medical facilities were as close as the moon, chances of survival with a serious bug were almost nil. It was not a popular place for Pan Am crews. As a result, the ones who did fly there, had an adventurous personality, cast-iron stomachs, and somewhat masochistic to begin with. They tended to be more self-reliant, more curious of human nature, and willing to be a team player in an area of the world where such cooperation would mean survival.


As a result of the above, it turns out that a small group of personalities continually flew these routes. The stewardesses earned the nickname after the movie, "African Queens" and for the pilots of course, earned the nickname of "African Kings". Often that moniker stuck to a pilot or stewardess, just like a name tag. Often, you would hear someone refer to a stewardess as "Mary York?. She is a Queen out of Kennedy." The same happened to the pilots, where they were often referred to as a "King". Sort of like saying he has red hair. This was a phenomenon particular to the New York Kennedy-based flight crews since all the Africa trips originated from New York. Since I flew African trips, almost exclusively for a three year period, I most likely have this tag stuck to me too. Although no one ever called me a "King" directly to my face, it was not a derogatory handle at all and it was something I wore with a certain amount of pride. Flying African routes was much more difficult and required a higher degree of professionalism than flying any other route in the world. More skill and understanding of the elements that made up Africa was essential.


The captains, flight engineers and stewardesses I've flew with during that period, well, they are stories that would fill a book or two. Some of the captains would be legendary. One who was one of my favorite captains was Roger M. He stood right at 6 feet high. Weighting at most 170 pounds. Dark wavy hair, slightly gray at the temples, deep set eyes and a prominent chin. His eyes look like they were always squinting into the sun, and he reminded me of an indian looking for some unexpected element that nature was about to pull on him. Before World War II, he had been a student at the University of Cairo in Egypt. Just before the war broke out, Roger set out on a bicycle trip from Cairo to England. The bicycle was nothing special. It had a single speed yet he would make up to 100 miles a day, at times. His trick, was a short piece of rope that he would loop on the back of trucks, that would then pull him along, particularly up the long inclines of the Alps. He told me that one day on this trip he ran into a bunch of Hitler Youth in a group. They couldn't believe that Roger had come so far on that lousy bicycle. They thought he was some kind of superhuman. He said he let them believe that and never told them about his rope trick.

I learned a lot from Roger on how to be a captain in command, and also how to read the skies of Africa. I swear the man could have drank water from a puddle in Africa, and not got sick because he had been there so long.


The "Queens" were a class unto themselves. There were few American women amongst them, most being either Europeans and Scandinavians. All would have called them selves liberated , that is for sure, even by today's standards. They were no more sexually promiscuous than any other group as far as I could see. But I also learned that just because a lady goes topless at the beach doesn't mean she is an easy or on the make. But of all the flight attendants and stewardesses I've ever had dealt with in my career, as a group, they looked after the pilots and stayed close by more than any other.


Not all of the African Queens were happy. Some had real problems and drinking being the worst. One middle-aged redhead named Vivian had her problems. She had been dating one of the captains, a married man, and their plan was that he would get a divorce and she would marry him. It did not happen. He died of a heart attack long before any of that happen and Vivian became an alcoholic. One day I'm sitting in my room at the hotel I hear that the pitter patter of bare feet coming down the hall. That particular day, the hotel had lost all local power and was without air-conditioning. So I had the sliding doors to the patio open and the room door to the hallway opened, in order to get a breeze through. I was basically just sitting there reading. Soon Vivian appeared in my doorway, stark naked as the day she was born. In one hand in her fingers she had a cigarette and in the other hand, she had a bottle of Jack Daniels. She let it be known in no uncertain terms that she was ready for a role in the hay. Quite frankly, I was never interested. Vivian had problems and messing with her would only cause me a whole lot more. I was not interested and let that be known to her, at which point she called me all kinds of names, turned around and went back down the hall still looking for someone else.


That kind of thing was really rare although I'm certain such affairs happened now and then. Most of the long layover that I had at Roberts were spent at Caesars Beach about a 45 minute drive from the hotel. There I and other crew members would do a lot of reading and or playing Liberian dice. A game, I still play to this day. Most of the stewardesses would go topless while there, and after a while I became used to seeing all kinds of shapes, sizes and colors that such displays became a non-issue nor exciting to me. I often took my sketchpad, as at that time in my life I was doing a lot of drawing and sketch the ladies, beach scenes and house boys or whatever caught my fancy. A lot of this stuff was done by pencil on newsprint. And I either gave it away or just threw away.


Food, not only the preparation of it but the safety of it was always an important factor at Roberts Field. Safe local food suppliers were almost nonexistent. We were able to supplement our meat supplies through Nairobi. The normal flight schedule had flights going to Nairobi, about three times a week. In Nairobi, crews would purchase a side of beef or other exotic African game meat and bring it back to Roberts Field. The hotel restaurant would often have special barbecues just for the Pan Am crews, using that meat. Thompson gazelle was my personal favorite.


One of the real dangers was sunburn. It did not take very long to really get a good tan or get a really bad burn. I once found that I had been out in the sun too long one day and had a really nasty sunburn on my back. There was no medication to kill the pain. I remembered the crew had once talked about teabags and the tunic acid in tea as a pain killer for sunburn. Desperate for relief, I went to the hotel kitchen, and grabbed a handful of teabags. Back in my room I put the teabags in the room sink and soaked a towel in the water and tea bags. I then put this towel over my back and was pleased to find relief almost instantly from the searing pain.


Another malady that struck crews quite often was food poisoning. Diarrhea and dehydration being the biggest factors to deal with. Old Africa Corps hands would have a small supply of different pills. Lomotil was very effective for most ailments. Pan-American also supplied quinine to the crews to prevent us from catching malaria. This particular pill had a very rancid taste. Also, the employee clinic at Kennedy was very good about keeping flight crews up to date on the inoculations. The one I hated the most was for cholera, which needed to be taken every six months. After the shot I always came down with a short three day bout of cholera. There is a little story I like to tell about that evil tasting malaria pill. Because of a change in the flying scheduled in the Pacific at the time, a number of flight engineers from the West Coast were transferred to Kennedy. These flight engineers were unfamiliar with policies and procedures of flying to Africa. At the start of each trip, Pan-American would provide a pill package for the crew that contained these quinine pills. These packages were issued to the flight engineer when he checked in. His job was to distribute them to the rest of the crew. On one particular flight, a West Coast engineer asked what he was supposed to do with these pill packages. I piped up with the procedure that he was supposed to distribute them to the rest of the crew. Then, I told him that what was not in the instructions was that one needed to chew the pill because it had a coding that did not dissolve easily. This of course was not true. I could see the captain, across from me, biting his tongue realizing that I was setting up the flight engineer. Later in the flight, both the captain and I were gratified to hear the coughing and wretched gagging from the unsuspecting flight engineer. Welcome to Africa and the corpse.


Not many people can say they have seen all the sites of Africa. I have flown through the middle of the Sahara desert. For over 950 miles I saw nothing but sand, from horizon to horizon. There was no navigational radios, nor anyone to talk to. I have seen the city of Timbuktu and crossed the Nile. Seen the snows on Kilimanjaro and marveled at the mists from Victoria falls. I've flown over the desolation of the Skeleton Coast and the Kalahari desert. I peered down at the deep green mystery that is the Congo. I have walked the streets of Dakar, Nairobi, Lagos, Monrovia, Keno, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Mozambique and Libreville. I have watched cheetah, stalking, Thompson gazelle, hippopotamus and crocodiles dominating a stream in Kenya. Shared a view with a baboon from the roof of the Treetops Hotel in Kenya are. Africa for all its beauty was a daunting and dominating place.


In the years that I flew into Roberts Field before Sgt. Doe's military coup. I never felt unsafe around the locals. They were nice to me that I was nice to them. I was very aware of the fact that I was the minority there. And whether it was out of fear or respect I try to respect each one of the locals that I met there. It was only after the military coup of Sgt. Doe, that Liberia went downhill. It became unsafe and very uncomfortable to be around those who are now in charge. One night while walking to the hotel after arriving on a flight I was made to salute the Liberian flag by a drunken guard with a M 14 rifle pointed at me. Most likely, the rifle was not loaded, but the intent was there. I saluted their damn flag, and that was my last trip to Roberts Field.


But back to the gentleman I met whose father had been an agent at Roberts Field in the 60s. His twin brother had been back to Roberts Field just two years ago and while there he took some pictures of the Roberts Field hotel as it stands today. For me looking at the pictures brings back memories of good friends, good times, and adventure. But at the same time, I feel a real sadness. For the savageness that is part of Africa has claimed that small part of civilization that held on at the edge of the vast jungles of that continent. Not unlike the great predators of the Serengeti Plain, Africa devours everything. And like the pictures of a lost hotel, so are gone the “Kings”, “Queens”, “Africa Corps” and Pan Am.

The Roberts Field Airport Terminal.
I understand the terminal look much the same as it did in the 60s & 70s.

This is the front entrance to the hotel, just a short walk from the airport terminal.   Because of snakes, we never walked in the grass, specially at night.

The east wing of the front of the hotel on the left and the “back rooms on the river” to the right.

This is what is left of the bar. At one time the whole white wall behind the bar was shelved with different liquors. The bar tender could make any drink you could think of.

The hotel pool and cabanas. Here is where all the BBQs were done.  Behind the palms on the left was the Farmington River which was a source of cobras swimming from the jungle on the other side.

This is what is left of the high school. So much for the objectiveness of tribal self determination.