Stare that spoke of war
IAN SMITH was born on April 8, 1919, at Selukwe, Southern Rhodesia (now Shurugwi, Zimbabwe), the son of a Scottish-born butcher and cattle rancher who had emigrated in 1898. He was Prime Minister of Rhodesia from 1964-1979.
Smith interrupted his studies at Rhodes University in 1939 to join the RAF. After a year’s training at Guinea Fowl under the RAF Empire Air Training Scheme, Smith passed out as a Pilot Officer in September 1942. He was posted to 237 (Rhodesia) Squadron in the Middle East, flying Hawker Hurricanes.
Taking off from Alexandria on a dawn patrol in 1943, his throttle malfunctioned. He crashed and smashed his face against the Hurricane’s gunsight. He had severe facial injuries, broke his jaw, a leg and a shoulder, and buckled his back.
Surgeons at the 15th Scottish Hospital in Cairo reconstructed his face, and after five months he rejoined his squadron in Corsica. He realised his dream of flying Spitfire Mark IXs, carrying out strafing raids and escorting American bombers.
In mid-1944, Smith was leading a raid on a train of fuel tankers in the Po Valley, in Italy, when he was hit by an anti-aircraft shell and was forced to bail out.
He joined a partisan group and spent five months near Sassello living among them, learning Latin and reading Shakespeare; he saw this as one of the best times of his life.
He and three other Allied fugitives later escaped through occupied Italy to the Maritime Alps. His Aryan appearance sometimes enabled him to walk straight through Nazi checkpoints.
The plastic surgery and skin grafts on his face left him with a distinctive appearance. Lee Hall, who interviewed Smith for Life magazine in 1966, wrote: ‘His right eye was fixed in a squint, like a man sighting down a gun. As he talked, his face remained almost expressionless.’
His impassive face and slow speech hid a fierce intelligence. A Foreign Office official, in a note to the Prime Minister Sir Alec DouglasHome in 1964, said: ‘His humourless manner often conceals a shrewder assessment of a situation than at first appears.’
Smith, who was Southern Rhodesia’s first nativeborn leader, felt betrayed when the British government failed to back his regime. In 1970, after a referendum, he declared Rhodesia a republic. Despite this, he continued to wear his RAF Spitfire pilot’s tie well into old age.
Mike Fitch, Blockley, Glos.
QUESTION Was Gediminas, a former Lithuanian peasant, once the most powerful man in Europe?
GEDIMINAS was Grand Duke of Lithuania and ruler of most of Eastern Europe and probably one of the most powerful men in Europe at the time.
He was born around 1275. The lack of written records of his early life make his origins obscure. He may have been the son of his predecessor Vytenis, his brother, his cousin or even his stable hand. There are two versions of his life, produced long after his death.
The version produced by the Teutonic Knights, long-term enemies of Lithuania, claims that he was a stable hand who killed his master to seize the throne. This seems unlikely as there would have been other claimants.
The Lithuanian Chronicles claim Gediminas was Vytenis’s son. The Encyclopaedia Britannica states he was Vytenis’s brother. Gediminas became Grand Duke of Lithuania in 1316 and ruled until his death in 1341.
The Teutonic Knights regularly raided Lithuania and its territories on the pretext of converting it to Christianity. Gediminas was a pagan, though he did protect Christians within the Grand Duchy and appealed to the Holy See to curb the activities of the Teutonic Knights.
The Knights started off as a religious order founded by merchants from Bremen in 1189 or 1190. They were dedicated to assisting sick and wounded crusaders. However, when some German crusaders came home in 1197, an alliance of German princes and bishops turned the nursing order into a military one.
In 1211, the order transferred its centre of operations from Palestine to Hungary when King Andrew II requested their assistance to protect his borders against pagan tribes. After that they pursued any opportunity to capture lands in Eastern Europe, which brought them into conflict with Gediminas.
Gediminas expanded his rule from what we now call the Baltic states all the way to the Black Sea. As well as Lithuania, his lands incorporated parts of modern Belarus, Russia and Ukraine. He founded Vilnius, the modern capital of Lithuania, making it his seat of government.
On his death in 1341, Gediminas was given a pagan cremation, which included the sacrifice of his favourite servant and several German slaves. His death likely came about as the result of a coup d’etat. He was replaced by his son, Jaunutis.
The Teutonic Knights are now based in Vienna, but their activities are limited to ecclesiastical and charitable work.
Bob Dillon, edinburgh.
QUESTION Many people claim to have seen Heaven in a near-death experience. Has anyone reported seeing Hell?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, Ian McCormack, 25, was diving off Mauritius when he was stung by five box jellyfish, which contain enough poison to kill 60 people. Despite being lifeless for 15 minutes in hospital, he survived.
He says he saw Hell and spoke of a ‘cold encroaching evil’, an experience he wouldn’t wish on anyone. He believed he was saved by prayer.
A. Wills, Ruislip, Middx.
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