The extraordinary story of how the King of Buganda was kidnapped by an RAF officer in 1953 and flown to Britain with a blanket over his head has come to light after the discovery of secret official documents. King Freddie of Buganda, part of Uganda, was snatched in a top secret mission orchestrated by Winston Churchill's Government after the King angered the colonial governor.

The King, a 28-year-old Cambridge graduate, was dragged screaming across the airport tarmac into an RAF plane. Wing Commander Clive Beadon was the decorated wartime pilot specially chosen to fly from England to pick up the King from Entebbe airport, Kampala.

His widow Jane, now in her eighties, found the documents ordering her husband on the mission as she sorted through his personal effects after his death in September, 1996. They show how Wg. Cdr. Beadon, then 34, who had already won the DFC during the Second World War, set off on secret orders from RAF Abingdon on November 28, 1953, bound for Entebbe airport, in his Handley-Page Hastings transport plane.

He awaited instructions there and was handed authorisation from the governor of the protectorate, Sir Andrew Cohen, to fly the king back to Britain. King Freddie, known as the Kabaka, had angered Sir Andrew by calling for independence for Buganda, one of Uganda's four ancient kingdoms, and for opposing a federation of East African countries.

On the night that Wg. Cdr. Beadon was due to fly into Entebbe, the Kabaka was arrested for disloyalty and marched to the airport in the suit he was wearing, with no other luggage. Wg. Cdr. Beadon kept the plane's engines running as King Freddie, a blanket over his head, was dragged across the tarmac and into the plane, protesting loudly.

His orders from the governor had read: "Whereas Edward William Frederick David Walugembe Mutebi Luwangula Mutesa is so conducting himself as to be dangerous to peace and good order... I do order the said Mutesa to be deported... and placed on a convenient aircraft to take him to the United Kingdom."

After landing back at RAF Abingdon, the pilot bowed to King Freddie and apologised for his act. They kept in touch for some years after. The King went straight to the Savoy and later moved into a house in Eaton Place. He was given an £8,000 allowance by the Government and enjoyed London society, catching up with his friends from Cambridge where he had studied at Magdalene. Meanwhile, a government memo, praising Wg. Cdr. Beadon's "discretion and initiative, despite lack of infomation and instruction from higher authority" was sent to his senior officer.

Mrs. Beadon, the wing commnder's second wife, has now donated the document along with her husband's flying logs and war records to the archives of the Imperial War Museum. The former wife of George Whigham, and stepmother to the society beauty Margaret Duchess of Argyll, said: "I think they are part of history that ought to be preserved. King Freddie never bore a grudge against my husband for what happened. He understood that Clive was simply carrying out the orders of the Government."

A family friend said "Years later Clive told me about it and thought it was hoot, a cloak-and-dagger operation like something from a James Bond film. He told me that the king was at a dinner in Entebbe. The king saw the governor and then was taken to the air port. He really was dragged on board yelling and screaming and taken to England."

However, King Freddie's removal by the British Government was so unpopular among Bugandans that he was able to return two years later in 1955 when he took his rightful piace once again as Kabaka of Buganda. After Uganda gained its independence from Britain in 1962 under Prime Minister Milton Obote, he became the country's first president. However, he was exiled to Britain again in 1966, when he was overthrown by Ugandan government troops.

He died three years later at the age of 45, penniless in his Bermondsey flat. His son Ronald became the 37th Kabaka of Buganda and was crowned in 1993, when President Yoweri Museveni, restored the four Ugandan kingdoms.

After retiring from the RAF in 1966 Wg. Cdr. Beadon became one of the world's leading authorities on dowsing and claimed to have located between 50 and 75 million gallons of oil in Windsor Great Park. So ends the report by Jacqui Thornton.

Is that, do you suppose the end of the Clive Beadon story? Maybe his wife will discover still more papers relating to his exploits. I hope so.