Lacombe Training Camp location part duex

[Chris Newton]

I had previously posted (and now despite searching I can’t find it) on where I thought the Lacombe Training Area and FBI raided weapons cache were located. Apparently, I had originally misunderstood and thought these were both the same location - they are not. The McLaney cottage where a large cache of explosives and some weapons were discovered is about a mile or two, as the crow flies, from the Lacombe Training Area. To add to the confusion, there may have been up to four Lake Ponchartrain training areas where you could find a smorgasbord of anti-Castro Cubans, DGI Double Agents, hard core soldiers of fortune, nut-case Minutemen and their C.I.A. handlers.

A memo fro Al Oser to Jim Garrison on March 7th, 1967:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/T%20Disk/Training%20Camps/Item%2017.pdf

I found the dirt road exactly 1 mile north of the intersection of Old Highway 190 and La. Highway 434, it is depicted as a straight yellow line with the Google Map distance tool indicating .97 miles (it could easily be 1 mile exactly if the tool had followed the curvature of the road). Zooming in at the location revealed everything to be as described by Al and Angel with the exception of the little barn which may have sat on the foundation/slab next to the house.

There’s more. I’ll be posting some additional satellite images of this camp with some features that I found interesting that Al Oser could not have seen in 1967 as well as the location of The McLaney cottage and other camps I might find.

(ps ignore the undefined marker below the intersection it's not important)

A big thanks to Harold Weisberg for this -It was right there in your collection waiting for me…

edit - typos

Edited October 15, 2015 by Chris Newton

[Thomas Graves]

I had previously posted (and now despite searching I can’t find it) on where I thought the Lacombe Training Area and FBI raided weapons cache were located. Apparently, I had originally misunderstood and thought these were both the same location - they are not. The McLaney cottage where a large cache of explosives and some weapons were discovered is about a mile or two, as the crow flies, from the Lacombe Training Area. To add to the confusion, there may have been up to four Lake Ponchartrain training areas where you could find a smorgasbord of anti-Castro Cubans, DGI Double Agents, hard core soldiers of fortune, nut-case Minutemen and their C.I.A. handlers.

A memo fro Al Oser to Jim Garrison on March 7th, 1967:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%2520Subject%2520Index%2520Files/T%2520Disk/Training%2520Camps/Item%252017.pdf

I found the dirt road exactly 1 mile north of the intersection of Old Highway 190 and La. Highway 434, it is depicted as a straight yellow line with the Google Map distance tool indicating .97 miles (it could easily be 1 mile exactly if the tool had followed the curvature of the road). Zooming in at the location revealed everything to be as described by Al and Angel with the exception of the little barn which may have sat on the foundation/slab next to the house.

There’s more. I’ll be posting some additional satellite images of this camp with some features that I found interesting that Al Oser could not have seen in 1967 as well as the location of The McLaney cottage and other camps I might find.

(ps ignore the undefined marker below the intersection it's not important)

A big thanks to Harold Weisberg for this -It was right there in your collection waiting for me…

edit - typos

Nice work, Chris!

I'm addicted to Google Earth myself. Just wish it had higher resolution when I'm looking for old brush-covered gold mines and "prospects" in the local mountains

How did you post that "screenshot" here? I haven't figured out how to do that yet.

--Tommy

PS The Weisberg link gives me a "Not Found" error message.

Edited August 15, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

Oh shoot. Thanks Thomas! link should work now.

I used the OSX App "grab" to select a shot of whatever I wanted, exported it as a JPG.

[Thomas Graves]

Oh shoot. Thanks Thomas! link should work now.

I used the OSX App "grab" to select a shot of whatever I wanted, exported it as a JPG.

Thanks, Chris.

Unfortunately I don't have a Mac. so I can't use OSX. Maybe Windows has something I can use to "grab" (same thing as take a screenshot?) internet images and then post them here, for example. I can take screenshots just fine, but I don't know to put them on a blog forum like this one. I guess I have to put it in JPEG format first?

Anyway, I have a picture on my hard drive I downloaded a few years ago that was taken from the air by photographer Hank Walker and shows a private plane in somebody's small back yard in Lascombe, LA, I think, back in the early 1960's. I think the house belonged to Mike Mclaney or one of his associates, but I've forgotten the details, and I can't even figure out how to upload it here. EF message -- "It's too big to upload," or words to that effect.

--Tommy

Edited August 15, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

Hey Tommy - tried sending you a message to your profile but says I can't -do you have some privacy settings set? Download the free Windoze App "Picassa" from Google - that might help you with all your imaging needs.

As far as your photo goes -I would love to see that. There are actually three close candidates for the McLaney "cottage" (neighboring properties) and I'm trying to be as specific as I can so that's why I haven't posted my findings yet.

The only "associate" of McLaney, that I know of in Lacombe, is his neighbor, who may have been a cousin of McLaney's by marriage who also co-owned his property with McLaney's mom. His testimony in front of the New Orleans Grand Jury was the basis for Hogan's Heroes' Sgt. "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!" Schultz. With good reason I might add - It was reported to Garrison that the original complainant to the explosions and gunfire in the vicinity of the weapons cache - turned up dead shortly afterward.

On the same street as the Mclaney cottage there was purportedly a second training area where the live-fire occurred. The aircraft picture might help identify that but I'm afraid that urban sprawl may have consumed that location. I'm still working on it though.

-Chris

edit - typos

Edited August 15, 2015 by Chris Newton

[Thomas Graves]

Hey Tommy - tried sending you a message to your profile but says I can't -do you have some privacy settings set? Download the free Windoze App "Picassa" from Google - that might help you with all your imaging needs.

As far as your photo goes -I would love to see that. There are actually three close candidates for the McLaney "cottage" (neighboring properties) and I'm trying to be as specific as I can so that's why I haven't posted my findings yet.

The only "associate" of McLaney, that I know of in Lacombe, is his neighbor, who may have been a cousin of McLaney's by marriage who also co-owned his property with McLaney's mom. His testimony in front of the New Orleans Grand Jury was the basis for Hogan's Heroes' Sgt. "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!" Schultz. With good reason I might add - It was reported to Garrison that the original complainant to the explosions and gunfire in the vicinity of the weapons cache - turned up dead shortly afterward.

On the same street as the Mclaney cottage there was purportedly a second training area where the live-fire occurred. The aircraft picture might help identify that but I'm afraid that urban sprawl may have consumed that location. I'm still working on it though.

-Chris

edit - typos

Chris,

I did it the hard way. I googled images for "hank walker" airplane , scrolled down, found it.

The palm trees now make me think the photo was in Florida, but I remember that it was somehow associated with McLaney or the people at the camps around Lake P.

It appears to have been one of the photos Hank Walker took for an April 11, 1960, article in Life Magazine called "Plot, Counterplot On Flyways To Cuba" written by Richard Billings.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Kk8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=%22plot,+counterplot+on+flyways%22&source=bl&ots=kkp96MYS-v&sig=mZCqgjK_Muy69KZcxAMVBROY5nc&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&q=%22plot%2C%20counterplot%20on%20flyways%22&f=false

The plane in the backyard is a 1946 "Aeronca 11AC" which is presently owned by a 91-year-old woman in Douglas, Georga. She registered the plane in 2006.

Note the "N number" on the wing -- N85857

It's so-called "Airworthiness Date" was 1956-03-15.

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=N85857

--Tommy

Edited August 16, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

Thanks Tommy.

Definitely looks more like anywhere in Florida than Lacombe. The shingle style on two houses and the spanish style house across the street pretty much bear that out. Dwellings in LA near the Bayou (the Mclaney property is adjacent to a major bayou) had/have mostly raised foundations even if they were a mile inland.

Nonetheless, an amazing picture. From the angle taken there's no sense of how to get out of there - must have been an ex-carrier pilot.

edit - grammar

Edited August 15, 2015 by Chris Newton

[Larry Hancock]

Chris, if he was able to land that plane there then he would have been a natural for later air operations in Laos...!

If those looking for details on the McClaney sites haven't checked, as I recall the FBI documents on the weapons bust (a U haul trailer parked by the McClaney house) give some pretty specific

addresses and locations for that house and also for the site where the plane to be used in the bombing project was located...which was a good distance away as I recall. The training

camp which was actually a combined effort by Christian Democrat and MDC groups, brokered by Richard Davis was a distance from the McClaney property; don't recall if he owned the land it

was on or not. If you have SWHT check chapter 5 and it should give references to the FBI documents.

[Chris Newton]

Hey Larry,

One of the problems Alcock and Oser had was that were no addresses on the FBI reports or the reports that did have them had been withheld from them. When they had finally found the property and gone out to take pictures and investigate it, they noted that there were no signs or any identifying numbers at all. Both were assigned by Garrison to make some sense of all the reports and the Raids and the Houma theft. There are several memos in the Weisberg archive going back and forth between both investigators and Garrison. Garrison was very suspicious of Richard Davis and had some doubts about his attorney as well - there was some kind of connection there. I'll check SWHT when I get a chance.

The list of names supposedly "arrested" during the raid(s) weren't ever verified as ever actually having been arrested and as late as the New Orleans Grand Jury hearings those that were located and subpoenaed were still being asked why they were on that list.

It doesn't seem to me at this point that they were all arrested at the same location but more likely detained/questioned in 2-3 locations on the same night.

I think I've nailed down the location of the McLaney Cottage. If you just want to map it - 61057 N. Pontchartrain Dr., Lacombe LA. will put you close.

[Larry Hancock]

Hi Chris, certainly can't swear to it from memory but I thought the FBI reports I got from NARA either had addresses or some pretty specific directions to the property. I do know some FBI reports have had considerable removal of redactions over the years. Also, some of the reports I saw were out of Miami and related to the plane and the exiles who had traveled there for the abortive operation. I reference separate reports on the camp, perhaps some of it might help, its been a good while since I read or wrote about them. All in all though I think there were three locations which have been discussed, the McClaney cottage where the trailer was parked, the air strip with the plane and a separate house and grounds where the CD/MDC camp was being set up....that didn't last long though.

[Chris Newton]

Larry based on your description I think I've read most of those same documents. The link in my very first post above is to the detailed directions you spoke of. I agree with the locations you named and except maybe the Airport which is operational today as the Slidell Municipal Airport. I certainly think the airport was involved I just don't think it was part of the "raid". I think there was a third "camp" and possibly a fourth.

[Thomas Graves]

Hey Tommy - tried sending you a message to your profile but says I can't -do you have some privacy settings set? Download the free Windoze App "Picassa" from Google - that might help you with all your imaging needs.

As far as your photo goes -I would love to see that. There are actually three close candidates for the McLaney "cottage" (neighboring properties) and I'm trying to be as specific as I can so that's why I haven't posted my findings yet.

The only "associate" of McLaney, that I know of in Lacombe, is his neighbor, who may have been a cousin of McLaney's by marriage who also co-owned his property with McLaney's mom. His testimony in front of the New Orleans Grand Jury was the basis for Hogan's Heroes' Sgt. "I hear nothing, I see nothing, I know nothing!" Schultz. With good reason I might add - It was reported to Garrison that the original complainant to the explosions and gunfire in the vicinity of the weapons cache - turned up dead shortly afterward.

On the same street as the Mclaney cottage there was purportedly a second training area where the live-fire occurred. The aircraft picture might help identify that but I'm afraid that urban sprawl may have consumed that location. I'm still working on it though.

-Chris

edit - typos

Chris,

I did it the hard way. I googled images for "hank walker" airplane , scrolled down, found it.

The palm trees now make me think the photo was in Florida, but I remember that it was somehow associated with McLaney or the people at the camps around Lake P.

It appears to have been one of the photos Hank Walker took for an April 11, 1960, article in Life Magazine called "Plot, Counterplot On Flyways To Cuba" written by Richard Billings.

https://books.google.com/books?id=Kk8EAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA2&lpg=PA2&dq=%22plot,+counterplot+on+flyways%22&source=bl&ots=kkp96MYS-v&sig=mZCqgjK_Muy69KZcxAMVBROY5nc&hl=en&sa=X#v=onepage&q=%22plot%2C%20counterplot%20on%20flyways%22&f=false

The plane in the backyard is a 1946 "Aeronca 11AC" which is presently owned by a 91-year-old woman in Douglas, Georga. She registered the plane in 2006.

Note the "N number" on the wing -- N85857

It's so-called "Airworthiness Date" was 1956-03-15.

http://registry.faa.gov/aircraftinquiry/NNum_Results.aspx?NNumbertxt=N85857

For $10 or so one can get the registration history of this plane from the FAA.

http://aircraft.faa.gov/e.gov/nd/

--Tommy

edited and bumped

Edited August 16, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

Hey Thomas thanks for that - I bet pilots dream of buying planes that were only flown by old ladies on Sunday.

i read that whole Life article on the Flyers and Cuba. It's a pretty fantastic story - I'm entirely suspicious of it because of Henry/Clare Luce. I used to love "Life" when I was a little kid and now I suspect it's message is pure propaganda.

Sad.

[Thomas Graves]

I had previously posted (and now despite searching I can’t find it) on where I thought the Lacombe Training Area and FBI raided weapons cache were located. Apparently, I had originally misunderstood and thought these were both the same location - they are not. The McLaney cottage where a large cache of explosives and some weapons were discovered is about a mile or two, as the crow flies, from the Lacombe Training Area. To add to the confusion, there may have been up to four Lake Ponchartrain training areas where you could find a smorgasbord of anti-Castro Cubans, DGI Double Agents, hard core soldiers of fortune, nut-case Minutemen and their C.I.A. handlers.

A memo fro Al Oser to Jim Garrison on March 7th, 1967:

http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/T%20Disk/Training%20Camps/Item%2017.pdf

I found the dirt road exactly 1 mile north of the intersection of Old Highway 190 and La. Highway 434, it is depicted as a straight yellow line with the Google Map distance tool indicating .97 miles (it could easily be 1 mile exactly if the tool had followed the curvature of the road). Zooming in at the location revealed everything to be as described by Al and Angel with the exception of the little barn which may have sat on the foundation/slab next to the house.

There’s more. I’ll be posting some additional satellite images of this camp with some features that I found interesting that Al Oser could not have seen in 1967 as well as the location of The McLaney cottage and other camps I might find.

(ps ignore the undefined marker below the intersection it's not important)

A big thanks to Harold Weisberg for this -It was right there in your collection waiting for me…

edit - typos

Chris,

When you zoom in on the property on Google Earth, you see a rectangular pool filled with dirty-looking water 170 feet to the East north-east of the (remodeled?) house. I think Hopsicker photographed the same rectangular pool for his article on the arm's bust near Lacombe:

[...]

"Everybody know everybody in New Orleans"

While doing research in Louisiana in 2000, I identified and visited Mike McLaney’s Lacombe property. It's a spooky place, filled with ghosts, none of whom would agree to be interviewed on the record.

So, for what follows, I’ve relied on what I consider the most reliable JFK research to cover the subject:

In July of '63 a group of Cuban exiles from Miami arrived and joined the anti-Castro guerrilla training camp at Lacombe. Not long after the Miami exiles arrived, Lee Oswald offered his services to the exiles. Whether Oswald is patsy or conspirator or emissary from the Spiders From Mars, he was there, in the company of men like Guy Banister, David Ferrie, and CIA agent David Atlee Philips. At some point, Mike McLaney sent the CIA a detailed plan for knocking out three Havana refinery. But instead of getting his plan approved, he got an urgent phone call from Washington warning him “not to attempt such a thing under any circumstances.” Carlos Marcello associate Sam Benton had more than two tons of dynamite beside McLaney's cottage. To deliver this "big bang" to Castro’s oil refineries Benton was negotiating to obtain a B-24 aircraft. Two planes were to take off from an airstrip near the Lacombe camp, then fly on to Havana .

http://www.madcowprod.com/2013/11/22/barry-seal-the-dallas-get-away-plane-the-jfk-assassination/

--Tommy

Edited August 16, 2015 by Thomas Graves

[Chris Newton]

Tommy,

Yes I believe that is the pool in front of the house as you pull in from from SR 434, just north of Lacombe. It's owners are yet to be determined. It may be Sam Benton's property or it may abut Benton's property on it's western border, I don't know yet.

but...

-this is not McLaney's cottage.

-It's not the location of the explosive U-Haul(s).

The FBI noted that one of the cubans busted in the raid had been an informant at one time and had supplied information about a B-26 and 2 P-51s at an airbase 60 miles NW of New Orleans. Slidell Airfield was never mentioned by the FBI. Somehow this turned into the notion that there was a bombing mission associated with this raid. I don't see any indication of that.

Alcock and Oser checked out the Slidell Airport out of curiosity after investigating an old Army shooting range on the Airport Rd. They took one picture there of a rusting "single engine 2 seater" in the woods at the end of the runway. If I find out more. I'll post it.

Hopsecker has done what lots of people have done - combined these locations into one. This had me chasing the wrong things for a long time until I started looking at source material.

Edited August 16, 2015 by Chris Newton