Nov. 26, 1964 - Belgian paratroops captured the city of Paulis from the Congolese rebels early today and liberated 211 whites who had been held as hostages.
Twenty‐one Belgians and an American missionary had been clubbed to death by the rebels before the Belgians landed. The rebels were also reported to have slaughtered 2,000 to 4,000 Congolese.
The assault on Paulis, which is about 225 miles northeast of Stanleyville, was launched at 6 a.m. Seven U.S. Air Force transport planes carried the Belgians from Stanleyville, the capture of which they spearheaded Tuesday. The operations are being carried out with the approval of Premier Moise Tshombe.
Many of the refugees (pictured) from Paulis who stumbled down the ramps of the American C‐130’s were weeping. Others were speechless from shock.
News of the massacre of whites in Paulis was almost eclipsed by reports of the mass killing of African civilians belonging to “opposition” parties.
Nearly all the victims were followers of former Premier Cyrille Adoula. Many were killed at the last moment by fleeing rebels. Evidence of the slaughter could be seen along the airport road, where lay the bodies of more than 50 Congolese slain by machetes.
The massacre of the whites began Tuesday night. Witnesses said the rebels acted on final orders broadcast by Christophe Gbenye, president of the Congolese People’s Republic, calling for the execution of all whites in rebel hands.
Joseph W. Tucker, an Assemblies of God missionary from Lamar, Ark., was the first to be executed.
According to one witness, Dr. Jean Degotte, the honorary Belgian consul, Mr. Tucker was bound hand and foot. A rebel then hit him across the back of his neck with a beer bottle. When the bottle broke, other soldiers stepped up with heavy sticks and slowly beat him, starting at the neck and working down the back to the base of the spine. Dr. Degotte said death came slowly, about 45 minutes later.
Eleven other whites were picked at random that night, marched outside and killed in the same manner, one at a time. Ten more were beaten to death yesterday. The bodies were then loaded on a truck, driven to a nearby river and dumped in the current.
The rebels left another victim this morning when a 14-year‐old soldier shot and killed a Belgian housewife shortly before fleeing.
Mr. Tucker's wife and three teenage children were in Paulis throughout the more than three months of rebel occupation, but they were unharmed. They were evacuated here this afternoon.
As Mrs. Tucker, a tall, erect women with graying hair, stepped from the aircraft, the first to meet and console her was the U.S. Ambassador, G. McMurtrie Godley.
“I don’t understand why these things happen,” she said, fighting to restrain her tears. “They just happen.”
On the same plane were two other Americans, Miss Gail Winters, 50, of Gooding, Idaho, and Miss Lillian Hogan, 47, of Minneapolis. Both served in Paulis as Assemblies of God missionaries.
Miss Winters called Mr. Tucker’s death “senseless.” She said he had been singled out because he was an American and “they hate all Americans.” Another missionary, Ina Bradley, a Canadian, said she thought many of the rebels “were simply anti-missionary.”
But she expressed no bitterness.
“You must remember,” she said, “there are two kinds of Congolese. Our kind believe fervently in our Lord Jesus Christ. They are wonderful, good, kindly people. They are horrified by what has happened.”
Having described the first kind of Congolese, she did not elaborate on the second.
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