I prepared food for Israeli hostages

Account. On June 27, 1976, an Air France plane with 248 passengers was hijacked and diverted to Entebbe Airport. A week later, a rescue mission was carried out by commandos of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) at the airport. July 4, 2016, marked 40 years since what is known as the Entebbe Raid happened at Entebbe airport and Israeli prime minister was in Uganda to commemorate the anniversary. We bring you a seven-part series of witness accounts of the Entebbe Raid as it happened.

I began working at the Airport Hotel (under Uganda Hotels Limited) in February 1976 as a kitchen cleaner. I was very innovative and loved working, so within three months my bosses decided I should learn how to cook. I did well and became a trainee cook. I graduated to cook and then, head cook. My boss was Vincent Sserwada, the chef.
When the Air France airbus landed at the airport, I was on duty. But because I was in the kitchen, my colleagues in other departments told me about it. The day before, on radio, they had said the plane was moving to different nations. Now it had arrived in Entebbe. During that time, I was working the evening shift only, from 3pm to 10pm.
The next day, at 1pm, I began preparing to go to work. The company car, a Volkswagen Kombi, used to pick us from home, but sometimes it did not. I decided to walk from my parents’ home in Kiwafu West (a stone throw away from the police post). There was a shortcut going through the old airport that I used. Nowadays, a civilian cannot joke about using a shortcut through the old airport.

The hijacked plane was parked there. The shortcut was along the side of the building (Transit Lounge) where the hostages were being kept. There were soldiers surrounding the plane, guarding it. Others were walking around. They were from the Marine Unit. My heart was in my mouth because these were very tough soldiers. One of them commanded me to stop – actually he barked an order at me, asking where I was going.

I explained that this was a shortcut airport employees often used. I was carrying my uniform in a bag and he demanded to know what it was. He then shouted at me to go forward. I was not tempted to look at the hostages because you could never be familiar with those soldiers. In fact, the familiarity I see now between civilians and soldiers began in recent times.

Although the situation was tense, many of us continued using that shortcut. At the old airport, there were police quarters, but because of the hostage situation, the policemen were reduced and instead the number of soldiers increased.

In my estimate, there were about 400 soldiers around the right side of the old airport. The left side was occupied by the Air Force with their MIGs 21, helicopters, and old Dakotas (Douglas C-47) which had been used in the Second World War.

Cooking for the hostages
In the hotel, there were catering departments; the uplift department, which had chefs, prepared the inflight food that was loaded onto aircrafts. My department, with only cooks and cooking assistants, catered for ground staff, those who had come to see off their loved ones, those gazing at planes, and other revellers.

In those days, there was a disco at the airport every Friday introduced by Muwe Mugerwa. He was very adept at repairing big speakers. People would come from Kitooro and Abaita Ababiri to attend Mugerwa’s disco. He is still alive and at one time, he was the deputy mayor of Entebbe.

The Kombi also ferried the hostages’ food from the new airport to the old airport. The food we cooked on the evening shift was substandard. The chefs in the uplift department should have prepared the meals because they had training in continental dishes. Instead, I would prepare Irish potatoes, poor quality rice – both in cooking and type of rice – beef curry or beef stew. It was always beef.

The waiters who went with the Kombi were Charles Mugambagye, Okello Wange, Osuna, and Mary Nankya. They told us some of the hostages rejected the food, saying we were feeding them crocodile curry. Others forced themselves to eat. Since there was no food on their plane, I wondered what those who were starving themselves ate. I do not know what they had for lunch, but it could not have been better.

Sometimes, the Kombi did not pick us from the airport so we used the shortcut through the old airport, at about 11pm. There were many of us because many airlines had cancelled the Entebbe route. East African Airways staff walked with us because the airline was on the brink of collapse. Lufthansa and British Airways had stopped their flights. It was only British Caledonian (a private independent airline) and other small companies still flying to Entebbe. So there were few customers the ground staff catered to.

The night of the raid
I was on the evening shift, as usual. Since we had few customers, whenever a plane came in, we rushed from the kitchen to the viewing windows to watch it landing. That night we were only cooking for staff.
At dusk, as the night was closing in, we heard a plane landing. As usual we went to watch. Even the waiters in the dining area moved towards the windows. We saw that it was the presidential jet on the runway. It taxied up to the apron and parked. Whenever (president Idi) Amin returned, he would pass through the VIP lounge, but on that day he did not. As soon as the jet parked, cars – including his Jeep – drove towards it.

When he came down the stairs (passenger boarding staircase), his wife – the one he took from a singer (Sarah Kyolaba aka Suicide Sarah) – was walking behind him. As she reached the third-last step, she tripped and fell on the tarmac. We were shocked. Immediately, Amin’s bodyguards lifted her and put her in a car. They drove towards the southern gate at a very high speed. We continued murmuring among ourselves about the president’s wife as we returned to the kitchen.

At 10pm we began winding up but we were late. It was beyond 10.30pm when the Kombi came for us. That night, the driver did not drive people to their homes; instead, he dropped them on the road nearest to their homes. He dropped me at The Salvation Army (opposite Kiwafu Primary School), which is half a kilometre from home. As I began walking, I heard a loud blast. I looked up and saw something flying through the air, with so much noise.

The Salvation Army is on a hill, so you can see all the way to both the old and new airports. It was dark on the runway of the old airport but there seemed to be vehicle movements on the taxiway. There was another blast and then, gunfire. I started running. I found my brothers in the compound, looking towards the airport. We just knew the hostages were being rescued. There was heavy gunfire and still, we could discern those vehicle movements. After sometime, we heard the engine of a plane flying at a very low altitude over Lake Victoria towards Nakiwogo (landing site).

After some time, we heard emizinga (rocket propelled grenades) being fired into the air. Those were Ugandan soldiers returning fire but the Israelis had left. Other mizingas were being fired from State House. I later learnt that the blasts I had heard happened when the Israelis destroyed Amin’s MIGs. The next morning, Amin was on radio saying Zionists and imperialists had invaded the country but the Uganda Army had fought them off.

I went to work that day but there were no flights, since the taxiway and runway were blocked. There were only a few employees to cook for. We heard that some DCA [Directorate of Civil Aviation] people who had been in the control tower had been arrested. People began disappearing. Our catering manager, Mr Matovu, was kidnapped and we never saw him again.

Matovu was a very handsome young man. He was well-learned and always smart. It was easy to suspect him of anti-Amin sentiments because he interacted with many people, especially those who were fleeing into exile.
You would hear that some big shot who had fled into exile had been wanted for questioning by the State Research Bureau. Then you would also hear that the big shot, before he flew out, had had a lengthy conversation with Matovu in the departure lounge.

There was also an influential senior police officer with, who was kidnapped in front of me in the VIP lounge. The soldiers pushed him into the boot of a black Mercedes Benz. He struggled and shouted for help but they forced him in. I did not know his name but he was a Musamia. We never saw him again.

We stopped using the shortcut at the old airport. Even the few policemen there were kicked out. The army instructed the airport commandant, Joseph Kabanda, to find alternative accommodation for them because the military police was taking over. He gave them the quarters near the Salvation Army which he had built for casual workers. To date, this is where the airport police barracks is.

Suddenly, there were many intelligence officers at the airport. A few months later, Commandant Kabanda was kidnapped at Lido Beach as he was driving home for lunch. One of his wives, Margaret Nakibuuka, was a telephone operator at the airport switchboard. It was a sad time for us, but work had to continue.”

About the raid

At 11pm on Sunday July 3, 1976, a special forces unit of the Israel Defence Forces slipped into the country on a clinical mission; to rescue the 102 Israel nationals held by pro-Palestinian terrorists at Entebbe airport. Ninety minutes later, the hostages had been rescued, the hijackers killed and more than two dozen Ugandan soldiers killed.