The Mystery Pilots

An olive-drab, two-engined plane without markings or number swept in low and thundering over the Indonesian port of Balikpapan in Borneo. Bombs tumbled out from the opened bomb bay, and the British tanker, San Flaviano, erupted in a series of explosions that broke the vessel's back. An Indonesian corvette, anchored protectively at the harbor mouth, took a direct hit, burst into flames from stem to stern. The Royal Dutch Shell Co. hastily shut down its installations at Balikpapan, signaled oil tankers to clear the area.

All last week unmarked planes ranged the Molucca and Celebes Seas, the Strait of Makassar, the Banda Sea and the Djailolo Passage. At Amboina the Italian freighter Aquila was bombed and sunk, the Greek ship Armonia strafed, the Panamanian Flying Lark left with nine dead. On the open seas an Indonesian merchant ship, recently purchased from the Soviet Union, was riddled, and its Russian captain broadcast a frantic S O S to Djakarta, reporting five dead.

Laying Eggs. Everyone knew where the marauding planes were based: at the rebel stronghold of Menado in the Northern Celebes. But no one save the rebels themselves knew for certain where the small air fleet of four B-26s and two Mustang fighters had been purchased, or who were their pilots. Said a survivor of the tanker San Flaviano: "The plane came in mast-high and laid its eggs right on us. You can't tell me an American wasn't at the controls."

President Sukarno apparently agreed. Until last week he believed he had the twelve-week-old rebellion under control, was boasting to crowds that "the fall of capitalism is a historical necessity. A new era of socialism will be born . . . Those who don't realize this will ultimately be destroyed."

But now as government-held ports and airfields were repeatedly bombed and strafed, he cried that "adventurers from Formosa and even from the United States" were responsible (President Eisenhower's answer: "Our policy is one of careful neutrality and proper deportment . . . Now, on the other hand, every rebellion that I have ever heard of has its soldiers of fortune."). Advising the U.S. "not to play with fire," Sukarno added: "If the outside world is thinking in terms of making Indonesia into a second Korea or a second Viet Nam, there will be World War III."

"Hired Killers." In Menado, the rebels answered that all of their pilots were Indonesians, although some of them were "of Chinese descent." Rebel Colonel Joop Warouw went on to accuse Sukarno of himself employing foreigners, especially Czech pilots who flew against the rebels as "hired killers." He added ominously: "We warn Sukarno that unless all Soviet technicians, advisers and naval officers disguised as merchant-ship captains, leave Indonesia immediately, we will not hesitate to accept open aid from the anti-Communist bloc."

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