Hong Kong's Roosevelt Connection
Basalt Island's Air Crash
A fiery air crash, in which all 28 passengers and 7 crew were killed, put Sai Kung's Basalt Island in the news on both sides of the Pacific in 1948. Quentin Roosevelt, the grandson of American president Theodore Roosevelt, and vice-president of China National Aviation Corp. (CNAC), an affiliate of Pan American World Airways, was one of the passengers on that fateful flight from Shanghai.
At the time Chiang Kai Shek's Kuomintang government still commanded the CNAC but Mao Zedong's Communists were on the verge of defeating the Nationalists. CNAC planes were involved in airlifting rice to beleaguered cities that remained under Kuomintang control. Roosevelt was on some of those flights. Both Quentin and his brother Cornelius, who identified the body, worked for the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). Sabotage was suspected but never proven.
Pilot Charles Sundby's last report was that he was starting his descent where there was a break in the clouds. This over Bias Bay (now Daya Bay), the Chinese pirates' southern coastal hangout. The CNAC C-54 Skymaster, a derivative of the civilian DC4, would likely have had Basalt Island in its flight path as it headed for a landing at Kai Tak International Airport. Fog over the island was the official cause of the crash. Hong Kong air rescue found a blazing wreck and no survivors.
Also on the plane were the former Minister of Information, the Shanghai manager of the Chinese Central News Agency and a well-known Chinese movie director.
Quentin Roosevelt, a WWII veteran who was decorated many times, was 29 when he died. He and his father, Theodore Roosevelt Jr., are the only known father and son to have landed at Normandy on D-Day. His wife and three daughters, one only a few months old, were in Shanghai at the time of the crash but returned soon afterwards to the U.S.A. where Quentin was buried. His brother Cornelius pursued a long career with the C.I.A.
A cairn sits in the place of the crash - check it out and think of the mystery behind the man and his mission while you enjoy Basalt Island's arches and dramatic columns of bare rock on a quick trip out from Sai Kung.
Further Reading:
NY Times article on the crash.
Short biography of the Theodore Roosevelt Jr. family.
Photo Credit:
Basalt Island - Joe Magrath