Into Action. Dan Harvey
Lieutenant Colonel Dan Harvey has served on operations at home and abroad for over thirty-five years to date. He is the author of Soldiers of the Short Grass: A History of the Curragh Camp (Merrion Press, 2016) and has previously written about major incidents involving Irish Defence Forces members on active overseas peacekeeping services, including Peace Enforcers: The EU Intervention in Chad (2011) and Peacekeepers: Irish Soldiers in the Lebanon (2001).
From Cork to the Congo,
from Galway to the Gaza Strip,
from this legislative assembly to the United Nations,
Ireland is sending its most talented men,
to do the world’s most important work,
the work of peace.
President John F. Kennedy’s address to Dáil Éireann and
Seanad Éireann, 28 June 1963
This book is dedicated to those ‘most talented men’ and women, our Irish Peacekeepers, and especially their families, who for over sixty years and ongoing are ‘doing the world’s most important work, the work of peace’.
DAN HARVEY
FOREWORD BY KEVIN MYERS
First published in 2017 by
Merrion Press
10 George’s Street
Newbridge
Co. Kildare
Ireland
© 2017, Dan Harvey
978-1-78537-111-0 (Paper)
978-1-78537-112-7 (Cloth)
978-1-78537-113-4 (Kindle)
978-1-78537-114-1 (Epub)
978-1-78537-122-6 (PDF)
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
An entry can be found on request
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved alone, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
Interior design by www.jminfotechindia.com
Typeset in Minion Pro 11.5/14 pt
Cover design by www.phoenix-graphicdesign.com
Cover/jacket front: A lull in hostilities. Despite the severe pressure, morale in C Company remained high. Courtesy of Comdt Ned Kelly (retd) Destroyed Christian militia half-track at entrance to UN Post 6-15 Platoon HQ at At-Tiri, Lebanon, April 1980. Courtesy of Comdt Ned Kelly (retd).
Cover/jacket back: Members of 33rd Irish Battalion boarding a US Air Force C-124 Globemaster transport plane at Baldonnel Aerodrome, 18 August 1960. Courtesy of the Military Archives, Dublin.
Printed in Ireland by SPRINT-print Ltd
Contents
Chapter 1Chaos in the Congo (Niemba)
Chapter 2Company in Defence (Jadotville)
Chapter 3The Battle for the Tunnel (Élisabethville)
Chapter 6The Dead Heart of Africa
Maps
Abbreviations
| ANC | Armée Nationale Congolaise (the army of the newly independent Democratic Republic of Congo) |
| AO | Area of Operations |
| AOR | Area of Responsibility |
| APC | Armoured Personnel Carrier |
| APOD | Airport of Disembarkation |
| CASEVAC | Casualty Evacuation |
| CB | Counter Battery (mortar fire) |
| DFF | De Facto Forces, or the South Lebanese Army (an Israeli-backed Christian militia) |
| DFS | Department of Field Support |
| DPKO | Department |