VP-26 Flying Down the Coast of Africa

This is a map of Africa in 1960. Some interesting points are the Straits of Gibralter, as in the Rock of Gibralter, it's the very narrow passage between Spain and Morroco and the entrance to the Mediterranean Sea. Off of the left side of the map are the small Azore Islands where we stopped and refueled the aircraft after the bomb bay fuel tank episode.

Places we landed in Africa are Port Lyautey, Morroco. Port Lyautey is near Rabat, Morroco. Other airfields we landed at are Dakar, Senegal, Monrovia, Liberia, Abijan, Ivory Coast, Brazzaville, Congo, Point Noire, Congo. These cities and countries are clearly readable on the map.

The map is so readers can follow our travels down the coast of Africa as we are looking for "anything unusual in the air or the water."

We spent a few days flying out of Monrovia, the capital of Libera. Liberia is a country founded by slaves who able to return to Africa and found a new country. The founding was funded by the United States and uses U.S. currency. Certainly we had never heard of this before.

While there we were taken as guests to a rubber plantation where we were fed and housed. The plantation manager was so excited that we had an electrian on our flight crew! "When will your time be up?" "We'd pay you well to work here."

On this map the city Abijan is in the country Cote D'Ovoire. Formally the Ivory Coast.