Sven Lampell

Sven Hjalmar Lampell (18 December 1920 – 28 June 2007) was a Swedish Air Force officer. Career Lampell was born on 18 December 1920 in Södertälje, Sweden, the son of Hjalmar Lampell, a merchant, and his wife Tyra (née Berglund). Career Lampell was commissioned as an officer in 1943, and was promoted to second lieutenant in 1943, captain in 1954, major in 1956 and to lieutenant colonel in the Swedish Air Force in 1961. He was chief of flight operations at Södertörn Wing (F 18) from 1956 to 1960 and chief of staff at the Third Air Command (E 3) in 1960 and was serving with the United Nations in the Congo from 1961 to 1962 and in 1963. During the Congo Crisis from 1961 to 1963 he was Chief Fighter Operations Officer of the Swedish UN-unit 22 U.N. Fighter Squadron (F 22). Lampell was promoted to colonel in 1965 and served in the Red Cross as a part of the Biafran airlift in Biafra from 1968 to 1969 where he organized aid flights into the encircled and starving population during the Nigerian Civil War. The sight of the starving children affected him strongly and became a turning point in his life.