Retired Chief of Defence Forces Gen Julius Karangi was just four years in the service when on August 23, 1978, he was awakened from at Eastleigh Airbase for an assignment in Mombasa.
He was a navigator for a Buffalo helicopter, assigned to the Flying Wing of the Kenya Air Force in October 1975.
Gen Karangi opened up for the first time on the day the former President Jomo Kenyatta died and how his body was ferried from Mombasa to Nairobi.
“That was exactly today’s anniversary. Yes, I was part of the Air Force crew that early morning as a young lieutenant. Interesting story,” he said on Sunday.
August 22, 2021, marked 43 years since the death of Founding Father Jomo Kenyatta in Msambweni, Kwale county.
The event observed in low-key fashion and the family said that henceforth, it would always be low key.
Mzee Kenyatta was at the Coast when he died.
Gen Karangi remembered he was awakened by the duty officer and told there was an urgent assignment in Mombasa.
“I had just retired to bed after partying at a club in the city when I was woken up and told there was a mission Mombasa. We woke up at 4am.”
“It hit me that it was important when I found Air Force Commander Maj Gen Dedan Gichuru at the helicopter waiting. I knew the task was big but I did not know what it was. It was top secret then,” Karanji said.
Gichuru was not then qualified to fly the Buffallo chopper and he assumed that was why he was being asked to fly to Mombasa.
Karangi said they landed at the old Mombasa Airport before 6am and realised they were the only people and aircraft on the runway.
He looked out the window and saw members of the First Family standing next to an ambulance carrying a coffin draped in the Kenyan flag
“I saw the First Lady, Uhuru Kenyatta, his brother Muhoho and some family members. But it did not click to me that the Commander in Chief was dead. It was not made public,” he said.
Karangi said Gichuru asked him to get out of the chopper, load the coffin and ensure it was secured.
“I asked him who had died and he replied if you recognise the people next to the casket, that will tell you who it is. Tell me. A VW combi-ambulance with the body reversed and I loaded the body into the plane.
“I was shaking as I tied the body when it dawned on me it was the Commander in Chief. I felt bad as everyone would have wished to shake his hand,” he said.
Gen Karangi said he, Maj Gen Gichuru and pilot Captain Peter Atambo lifted off from Mombasa and landed in Nairobi at about 10am.
They had left Nairobi with two choppers, one for the body, the other for the family.
Gichuru had earlier received a call from Brig Sam Macharia, the President’s aide de camp, and asked him to fly to Mombasa with two choppers.
Karangi recalled the arrival lounge at Eastleigh had been declared out of bounds and he could see some colleagues craning their necks from their offices to see what was happening.
An ambulance had been put on standby and a team was there to remove the casket and load it in the ambulance.
The team loaded the body and was ordered to depart without knowing the significance of their action.
Vice President Daniel Moi and First Lady Mama Ngina were at the airport and boarded the ambulance with the body. They headed to State House.
The driver was former Warrant Officer II Moses Amonde Oyugi.
Gen Karangi remembers hearing Maj Gen Gichuru order Amonde to drive straight to State House without stopping or speaking to anyone.
A convoy of four vehicles snaked its way through Eastleigh, Juja Road, the CBD and finally into State House.
And after delivering Mzee’s body to State House, Amonde loaded the empty coffin back into the ambulance and drove to City Mortuary. Gicheru had instructed him to donate it there.
“Hours later, at 1pm it was announced that the Eyes of the Nation had closed, meaning the President had died,” Gen Karangi recalled.
By the time the national broadcaster, the Voice of Kenya (now KBC) broke the news, Moi had been sworn in as an as the country’s second president.
Authorities plan to move Mzee’s body from Parliament for burial elsewhere and make a tomb at Uhuru Gardens, Nairobi.
President Kenyatta visited Uhuru Gardens on Saturday in the company of CDF Gen Robert Kibochi. They were assessing the progress of construction of the museum and other structures.
They are to be officially opened on Decembeer 12, Jamhuri Day.
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