Leopoldville 1945 - President Roosevelt's Memorial Service

Just before midnight on Thursday April 12, 1945, US Consul General Buell received a visit from George Housiaux, the Director of Radio Congo Belge, who informed him that President Roosevelt had died in Warm Springs, Georgia a few hours earlier. Housiaux’s radio received news bulletins from the US and regularly rebroadcast US Office of War Information programming, but the station had already gone off the air for the day.

Radio Congo Belge in Leopoldville - 1943 (Ph. "News from Belgium and Belgian Congo" 1943

The next morning, Buell ordered the Consulate flag raised at half-mast and informed all official Americans. Shortly afterwards, George Carpenter, an American Baptist missionary who was acting General Secretary of the Congo Protestant Council (CPC, now Eglise du Christ au Congo), called offering to organize a memorial service at the British Baptist (BMS) chapel, which served the Protestant community of Leopoldville. Buell accepted and prepared press releases in French and English for the local papers, advising of the Sunday service. Senior Belgian officials came to the Consulate to express condolences, as did members of the Consular Corps. That evening, Vice Governor General Ermens, acting Governor General in Ryckmans’ absence, broadcast a tribute to FDR on the radio. US and Belgian flags hung at half-mast in front of government buildings, public squares and many private residences. US petroleum suppliers Socony Vacuum and Texaco closed their offices on Saturday. Official and individual letters of condolence flooded in, occupying the staff with drafting responses despite the closure of the Consulate.

The BMS Chapel in the 1940s (Ph. author coll.)

Sunday, the BMS Chapel was overflowing. With seating for only 300, senior officials were seated at the front, while many junior officials and civilians found seats in the back or gathered outside. Rev. Carpenter read his English remarks slowly to facilitate comprehension for non-English speakers. For his part, Buell drew upon the recent broadcast of President Truman’s remarks to frame his tribute. This emotional moment reflected a high-point in American-Belgian Congo relations during the war, which had seen an expansion of US military and commercial presence (May 23, 2011).

Rev. Carpenter leading the services (Ph. author coll., courtesy NARA)

Consul Buell conferring with VG Ermens after the service
(Ph. author coll,, courtesy of NARA)

At the time, George Carpenter was working on a major project. Since 1938, the American Baptists seconded him to CPC as Educational Advisor. Trained as an engineer before attending divinity school and entering missionary service in 1926, at his last assignment at Nsona Mpangu, near Matadi, he installed a micro-hydro system to provide electricity to the mission. Now he wanted to expand the availability of otherwise imported educational materials for mission schools with a full-service print shop. In August 1945, the Leopoldville Comité Urbain authorized construction of a two-story, 25,000 SF (2322M2) building near the BMS chapel on Ave Banning (Ave Kalemie) to house a book store, production facilities and a printing press. The new facility would replace the old bookstore of the Librairie Evangelique du Congo (LECO), established in 1935, which operated out of a room in the adjacent Union Mission Hostel (UMH) (Mar. 27, 2011). Fourteen mission groups and two Bible societies subscribed to the capital requirements. Construction began in 1946 and the facility opened in July 1948.

The LECO building in 1949 (Ph. flickr)

When Mobutu renamed the Democratic Republic of the Congo the Republic of Zaire in 1972, LECO was renamed the Centre d’Editions et Diffusion (CEDI). The print shop was still producing documents in the 2000s, but a visit to the bookstore in 2004 only offered a few Bibles for sale and some school materials. Recent years have not been kind to the facility, but the building got a face-lift in 2016.

CEDI in 2011 (Ph. author coll.)

CEDI in 2017 (Ph. author coll.)

Leopoldville 1944 - Gunther Baby Grand for Sale

If you’ve followed this blog for a while you may have concluded that one of my favorite buildings in Kinshasa is the former Sedec Motors showroom at the corner of Avenues Aviateurs and Isiro opposite Ste. Anne Cathedral (Oct. 8, 2017).

Sedec Motors looking down Ave. Aviateurs in the 1950s (Author coll.)

This art deco gem is now dwarfed by the Sozacom building and the security around the Electoral Commission (CENI) offices on Blvd. du 30 Juin, but in the 1930s this was prime real estate.

The Sedec store (R), CENI and Sozacom (L)

Sedec (Société des Entreprises Commerciales au Congo Belge), was the retail arm of Lever Brothers’ Huileries du Congo Belge. When the US Consulate was looking for larger premises in August 1945 (Aug. 2, 2018), Sedec offered the building to the US Government within 24 months, but with a 20-year lease. The option was not taken up. In the 1950s the building became one of the first self-service grocery stores in Leopoldville.

The check-out registers in 1959 (Ph. author coll.)

Sprucing up the entrance for King Baudouin's visit in 1955 (Ph. liberas.eu)

After Independence in 1960, foreign currency shortages affected the economy, and grocery shelves were often lined along the edge with a single item, like small cans of sweetened condensed milk or boxes of matches. In the mid-1970s, President Mobutu’s Zairanization program drove Lever Brothers to disinvest and sell off certain assets. When I visited Kinshasa in October 1992, the store was called “Select”, with similarly sparse shelves. It closed in 2003.

Blvd. du 30 Juin 1972, Sedec (R), Sozacom building under construction (Ph. author coll.)

In July 2005, Hasson Freres opened “Espace Hasson”. A firm established in Congo since 1936, their “Au Chic” store on Place Braconnier in 1946 was the first in the city to serve both Congolese and European customers. Living in Kinshasa in the mid 2000s, I was thrilled to shop at “Sedec” again and enjoy the many tenants on the upper mezzanine, which created the feeling of a shopping mall. But success in Congo often breeds excess and, complaining of a plethora of 38 separate tax regimes, Hasson Africa closed the store at the end of December 2017 (Jan. 2, 2018).

Mezzanine walkway to the coffee shop (Ph. author coll.)

The Cosmopolitain restaurant (Ph. author coll.)

Espace Hasson shortly before closure in December 2017 (Ph. author coll.)

A new iteration of the retail store was revealed in 2018 when it became GG Mart Select, with advertising careful to emphasize its Sedec and Select roots. The other tenant was UAC, which sells furniture, appliances and office equipment. The two firms are managed by South Asian brothers and in Solomonic compromise, two separate entrances in the lobby provided access to lengthy corridors of merchandise.

GG Mart "Select" (Ph. author coll.)

GG Mart and UAC entrances (Ph. author coll.)

GG Mart lobby (Ph. author coll.)

Which brings us to the Gunther Baby Grand. On our first visit to check out the new store, we found this piano on the mostly vacant mezzanine. We asked Congolese staff about it, who introduced us to a South Asian manager. Neither French, Lingala, nor English provided any clarification other than the piano was found during the remodeling of the new store.

The Gunther piano on the GG Mart mezzanine (Ph. author coll.)

So, I will hypothesize. Jean deMiddeleer, a Belgian pianist, settled in Leopoldville after an African concert tour was interrupted by the outbreak of war in Europe. During his stay he played for Governor General Ryckmans, gave charity performances for the war effort and in 1943-44 toured South Africa, Katanga and Angola. In December 1944, he offered a Belgian-made Gunther grand piano for sale, “specially constructed for Congo”. In April 1945 he left for Eastern Congo, giving concerts in the mining regions and in 1946, moved to Kenya to direct the Nairobi Symphony.

Was this his piano? It was repainted white and the cigarette burns on the keys suggest Rick’s Café in Casablanca more than the refined atmosphere of the College Albert theater (now College Boboto). It seems even the owners don’t know how it ended up in the Sedec building.

Play it again Sam (Ph. author coll.)

Sources: 

• Courrier d’Afrique, Dec. 21, 1944. 
•  « La société Hasson & frères aurait décidé de fermer ses portes «, mbote.cd, Dec. 9, 2017.

Leopoldville 1943 - Two franc elephant

 

In 1942, with the economy picking up and more Congolese participating in the cash economy, the Belgian Government in Exile in London placed an order with the Philadelphia Mint for 25 million 2 franc coins (worth about a nickel). A hexagonal brass piece with a striding elephant on one side and Banque du Congo Belge in French and Flemish on the obverse, it was the first coin that did not feature an image of the monarch, given the sensitivities around Leopold III's surrender in June 1940. The coins were likely cast from expended brass artillery shell casings. The Flemish text lacked a “c” in Belgisch, but with 25 million pieces produced, the error was too expensive to correct and the coins were shipped to Congo and placed in circulation. In 1946, a smaller, round 2 franc coin was produced by the Pretoria mint and the hexagonal one taken out of circulation (coins.www.colectors-society.com, Sep. 22, 2021).

Leopoldville 1942 – US Army establishes Camp Presnell

In a previous post (May 23, 2011), I described the arrival of the U.S. Army in Leopoldville at the end of August 1942, with an assignment to upgrade Ndolo airport to handle heavy bombers in transit to the Middle East and the China-Burma-India Theater in Asia. Among the troops was a segregated African American unit, Company C of the 27th Quartermaster Truck Regiment. The Belgians were outraged. The Colonial administration had long sought to subvert claims by millenarian sects that black American soldiers would come to liberate the Congolese from colonial tutelage, a sentiment which the demands of the war effort helped to accentuate. On September 1, the Assistant Belgian Military Attaché in Washington delivered a formal complaint from Minister of the Colonies de Vleeschauwer.

US Army troops on arrival in Leopoldville (Ph. News from Belgium, Nov. 14, 1942)

In Leopoldville, the Black soldiers were aware they were not welcome and, if they were not, didn’t understand why they were there. They had the same pass privileges as the white troops, but as their commander wrote, were disinclined to exercise this right because, 

“There are no places where our troops may go to be served food, or drink, in contrast to the freedom which is enjoyed by our white troops. … they state that a general outward and bold exhibition on the part of the populace showing Colored soldiers' presence and services are not wanted makes their status very obvious.” 

The unit did not want to return to the US and ultimately it was transferred to Liberia, without its white officers. On Armistice Day, the unit paraded through Leopoldville and crossed over to Brazzaville for onward transport to Liberia.

The 27th Quartermaster Truck unit marching through Leopoldville (Ph. author coll.)

US Army troops boarding the ferry to Brazzaville (Ph. author coll.)

The US troops initially arrived with minimal equipment and were housed under tents near the Leopold II Force Publique camp (now Camp Kokolo). Initially named Camp Roosevelt, it became Camp Presnell, named for a soldier missing in action in the Philippines. By the end of September, there were 1500 soldiers in Leopoldville. The Force Publique loaned them 20 Chevrolet trucks and an ambulance. The soldiers eventually erected over 50 plywood buildings for dormitories, dining halls and bathing facilities during their stay. At the same time, the 23rd Station Hospital was established to provide care if flight crews were injured. The nurses were initially lodged in the Hotel ABC (Mar. 27, 2011) until barracks were built.

Barracks at Camp Presnell (Ph. author coll, courtesy of NARA)

The barracks (Ph. author coll, courtesy of NARA)

Camp Presnell barracks (Ph. author coll, courtesy of NARA)

The U.S. engineers completed the upgrading of Ndolo airport in record time. Earlier in the year, the Belgians had extended the landing strip to a length of 2,300 meters and 30 meters wide. The Americans laid down a concrete runway, enabling Army Air Corps B-17 and B-24 bombers to land without damage to the surface. The engineers also erected and installed all the buildings and facilities necessary for the operation of the ferrying base. By the end of the year, they were ready to move on to their next assignment in Dakar, where the French Vichy government had capitulated after the Allied landings in North Africa in November.

Ndolo airport in the 1940s (Ph. author coll.)

In January, the last of the engineers left Congo for Dakar. In March, the medical staff of the 23rd Army Station Hospital was airlifted to Morocco. Except for a small Air Transport Command liaison unit commanded by an Army Air Corps lieutenant, the US Army was gone. A notice in the Courrier d’Afrique in June advised all creditors to present any claims at the US Army HQ at “Villa Roseraie” on Avenue Olsen (Kabasele Tshamala) before June 15. This was the complex of buildings into which the US Consulate and other war agencies moved in May (Aug. 2, 2018).

A member of the 38th Engineers with Congolese (Ph. author coll.)

The "Roseraie" building, which later became the US Consulate
(Ph. Northwestern University, digital collections)

The adjacent "Villa Tropica", which also housed US War Agency offices
(Ph. Northwestern University, digital collections)

Camp Presnell remained unoccupied –military visitors were lodged at the Avenue Olsen complex– until August 1944, when Mullins and Jack, a Rhodesian company based in Elisabethville, contacted the Central African Division of the Air Transport Command in Miami about purchasing the structures. Advised to contact the ATC liaison officer in Leopoldville, Mullins and Jack submitted a bid on November 15 for 50 buildings at Camp Presnell and 28 hospital buildings, offering Fr. 475,000 ($204,250.00). A minor turf battle ensued between the Foreign Economic Agency (FEA), which had the authority to dispose of surplus property and the US Army, which had the authority to declare the property surplus, but which took no action. The FEA noted that the buildings were deteriorating and the Army did not have the capacity to salvage them. The situation remained unresolved during 1945 and not until November were the two properties declared “excess”, with the camp structures estimated to have cost $778,470 and the hospital $64,900. The cost differential with the Mullins and Jack bid likely includes the cost of shipping the materials to Congo versus its salvage value.

Camp Presnell barracks (Ph. author coll, courtesy of NARA)

Congolese Force Publique guard at Camp Presnell (Ph. author coll, courtesy of NARA)

Camp Presnell barracks, note thatch added to the metal roof of the building on the right
(Ph. author coll, courtesy of NARA)

By this time, however, it appears there were no buyers, as six months later an influx of Belgians returning to the colony from Europe so overwhelmed local hotel capacity that the arrivals were lodged in the barracks. Similarly, attendees at Protestant meetings in June and July 1946 stayed in the hospital and Camp Presnell. I have not yet found any record of final disposal of the buildings. 

There are still vestiges of Camp Presnell in Kinshasa, though no physical trace remains. An area west of Camp Kokolo in Commune Ngaliema’s Quartier Basoko is called Camp Américain. A street that parallels Avenue de l’Union Africaine behind GB/Shoprite is called Avenue Kalikaki, a reference to Kalikak International, established by American investor Harold Kalikak, who tried to break into the Kinshasa construction market in the 1970s and built a residential compound there.

Ave Kalikaki 2022 (Ph. R&N)

Ave Kalikaki 2022 (Ph. R&N)

Side street off Ave. Kalikaki 2022 (Ph. R&N)

Sources: 

Lee, Ulysses, 1963. The Employment of Negro Troops, Center of Military History, United States Army.

National Archives and Records Administration, multiple years 1939-1945.

Elisabethville 1910 – The Cape to Cairo railroad arrives

The photos below don’t have much to do with Kinshasa, but I’ve had them for a while and think the time-lapse series is too interesting not to share. They show the arrival of the railway from South Africa at the Etoile Mine in southern Katanga on October 1, 1910. The rails had reached Sakania, on the border with Northern Rhodesia (Zambia) and a Belgian company, the Chemin de Fer du Katanga (CFK) created in 1902 to link the Katangan copper mines to the Cape to Cairo line, completed the work. CFK was further charged to extend the railway to the Lualaba River at Bukama, which would connect Katanga to Leopoldville by a series of rail and river links operated by the Chemin de fer des Grands Lacs Africains (CFL), opening up much of the entire colony to mechanized transportation.

The rail bed (Photos, author coll.)

Workers begin delivering rail road ties. The work is all manual.

Flat cars bring up the ties.

The ties are laid under supervision of European foremen.

The train comes up the new line and the process continues.

The arrival of the rail line at Etoile prompted the Belgian authorities to create Elisabethville (now Lubumbashi) as the capital of Katanga. Construction of the line to Bukama continued, reaching Likasi in June 1913, and Tenke, 255 kilometers northwest of Elisabethville in July 1914. Shortages of materials delayed construction during World War I. Tracks and ties were seized by Belgian forces from the railway in German East Africa (Tanzania) (Aug. 3, 2014), and the line finally reached Bukama in May 1918. Ironically, the new transportation line helped spread the Influenza pandemic into eastern Congo from southern Africa later that year (July 13, 2020).

The RN "Mimi" at Fungurume, 20 kilometers from Tenke in late 1915. The Royal Navy shipped two patrol boats to Katanga via South Africa to support the Belgian campaign against the Germans on Lake Tanganika.  From Fungurume, the boats were hauled overland to Bukama, then under their own power down the Lualaba.  At Kabalo, the boats were once again loaded on rail cars and shipped to Albertville (National Geographic, Oct. 1922).

Fungurume railway station in 2012.  The rail was manufactured for CFK by
the Ougree steel mill 100 years previously (Ph. author coll.)

Another company created in 1906 was intended to extend the rail line from Bukama to Port Francqui (Ilebo) on the Kasai River, to provide a more direct route to Leopoldville with fewer transshipments. The grandiose-sounding Compagnie du chemin de fer du Bas-Congo au Katanga (BCK) began work on a bridge spanning the Lualaba at Bukama in 1923 and the railway reached Port Francqui in 1928. King Albert and Queen Elisabeth inaugurated the line during their visit to the colony (Aug. 22, 2018).

The BCK rail bridge at Bukama nearing completion (Ph. author coll.)

The port at Port Francqui (Ph. author coll.)

During World War Two, with Congo cut off from Belgium, many colonials took their holidays in South Africa. The shipping line, Otraco, added a second steamer to the bi-monthly trip to Port Francqui to accommodate the increased demand. On their return, Leopoldville was supplied with butter, cheese, cold cuts and fresh fruit from Katanga and South Africa, which were no longer available from Europe. These fresh items were marketed to retailers by Profrigo and the Maurice Michaux grocery on Ave. du Port. In January 1942, failure to load the contents of a refrigerated wagon on the SS “Luxembourg” at Port Francqui precipitated a butter crisis in Leopoldville.

The "Luxembourg", possibly at Port Francqui (Ph. author coll.)

The "Luxembourg", possibly at Banningville (Bandundu) en route to Port Francqui
(Ph. author coll.)

In 1956, a BCK branch line north from Kamina connected with the CFL rail line at Kabalo, circumventing the river section from Bukama. After Independence, some consideration was given to extending the line Ilebo or Kananga to Kinshasa or Matadi, providing an all rail route from the copperbelt to Congo’s Atlantic port. However, conflict between Mobutu and a British-Japanese consortium led by Lonrho and Nissho Iwai halted the proposed feasibility study. The nationalization of all Zairian rail lines under the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer du Zaire (SNCZ) in 1974 put paid to any further consideration of a unified railway system.