Into Action. Dan Harvey
them completely exposed and very vulnerable. Lieutenant Carey informed Commandant Quinlan, who told him to immediately alert all of the platoons. Given the urgency and the distance, Lieutenant Carey drove the Company ambulance to Support Platoon’s location. As he arrived he could see a number of trucks at the bus station near Support Platoon and fully armed Katangan troops dismounting. He alerted Support Platoon and moved swiftly on to the immediately adjacent No. 1 Platoon, whose members were going to daily mass, and shouted at them to get to their trenches. While returning in quick order to Company HQ he heard a burst of gunfire, and with his heart pounding inside his chest his natural instinct made him crouch inside the ambulance, believing he was the target. Commandant Quinlan set up his Orders Group (O Group) on the road and gave orders to his platoon commanders to go forward into their respective platoon positions. No. 3 Platoon, Lieutenant Carey’s, was tasked with setting up a roadblock at his location and they placed a Land Rover and some oil barrels across the road, covered by an 84mm anti-tank gun. As he was completing the task he thought he heard the unexpected but unmistakable ‘pop’ of a mortar bomb leaving a mortar barrel. Suddenly, there was a succession of such ‘pops’ followed by the ‘crump’ of the initial mortar bomb impacting, followed by several more explosions, all falling into Support Platoon’s area. It was not totally unexpected that something would happen, but what did happen was certainly not anticipated! Small arms fire, perhaps, but not this, not mortars, and not so many of them for so long. Worse was to come, with 75mm artillery shells fired from the golf course followed by heavy machine gun fire. There was an unpredicted suddenness about the situation, events were not meant to unfold like this. Yet this is exactly how matters materialised, and they had only just begun.
Action – Reaction
The pounding continued for over an hour. With no inter-platoon communications, a check three days previously having found all the batteries for the No. 88 radio-sets to be dead, it was difficult to gain information concerning possible casualties, or indeed of the general situation prevailing. As suddenly as the bombardment occurred, it stopped. Suddenly, a shout from the forward trench of Lieutenant Carey’s Platoon signalled they were under attack from the front.
Lieutenant Carey described the situation:
I immediately rushed to the forward trench, jumped in and my Section Corporal there was Corporal Sean Foley, who pointed at a scrub area in front of Lieutenant Tom Quinlan’s No. 2 Platoon area. I could make out figures coming through the bush in approximately Company strength. Eventually they approached to within 400 yards of us, coming on to No. 2 Platoon who commenced firing directly at the Katangans and mercenaries. We were firing from an enfilade position [at a sideways angle of approximately forty-five degrees] onto them, due to our platoon’s relative position to No. 2 Platoon, and my Bren gunner was engaging the targets, as they were now within range and exposed in the open. I found my Gustav sub-machine gun of little use due to its limited range and took over firing the Bren gun, directed by Corporal Foley. Both Companies fired into them as they advanced. The Katangans still came forward. We continued firing, our sustained unfaltering direct volume of fire having its effect. Their attack stuttered, next stalled a little, then completely stopped and they broke back into the bush retreating towards Jadotville.
We were elated with our success. The adrenalin flowed, the various emotions competing for expression: firstly shock, at being under the bombardment, next fear and uncertainty, at a human level, then scared – as you were – of being aware of the challenge of the responsibility of having to lead, of people looking to you, for your reaction to guide their reaction. Once there was a requirement to act I was focussed, because I was part of a team and wanted to be involved in the action. Once I grabbed the Bren gun those around me engaged. I have since often asked myself; did I kill anyone? I honestly do not know, but I’ve answered it this way: Would I do it again? Absolutely, automatically, without question. We were under attack [so] we were going to fight back. A determination comes out. They had fired on us, tried to kill us, and we were going to respond. The heat and the dust in the trench was stifling and we needed to consume large quantities of water.
Their first time under fire, they all felt that they had acquitted themselves well. However, the company had suffered its first casualty when Private Bill Reidy, forward in No. 1 Platoon position, was wounded in the stomach, a ricochet via his thigh, but overall he had been fortunate as a second bullet struck his ammunition pouch, glancing off a spare magazine contained inside. The bullet was a tracer round, which ignites in flight guiding its firer to the direction of its target, and when it struck Private Reidy it caused his webbing to catch fire. The flames had to be doused before the medic could attend to the bleeding wound, after which Private Reidy was removed to a makeshift casualty station prepared by Company Quartermaster, Sergeant Pat Neville.
Mortaring and machine gun fire continued into No. 1 and Support Platoon areas and Sergeant Tom Kelly decided it was time to make a reply. Aided by information passed previously by Wexfordman Charles Kearney, Belfastman Terry Barbour and Hamish Mathieson from Scotland, all workers with Union Minière, he sought to put the Katangans and mercenaries on the receiving end of an Irish mortar barrage. With the aid of a map he brought the 60mm mortars into play at the extreme limit of their range and coordinated their fire onto the golf club area. Three rounds later, the opposing Katangan 75mm was blown to smithereens. They struck the ammunition supply stacked behind the mortar and up the whole lot went: gun, ammo, and crew. This breathing space, welcome though it was, did not last long.
The infantry onslaught was ongoing throughout the day, one advance involving more than 500 men, but the Katangans continued to be repulsed by the Irish, who inflicted heavy casualties. Heat, fatigue, dust and thirst came to the fore, but before these could be addressed another difficulty arose that required a response. During one assault some snipers had managed to infiltrate into one of the unoccupied villas in the Support Platoon area of the Irish lines. Their firing was becoming a cause for concern but Sergeant John Monaghan had the solution: he employed an 84mm anti-tank gun to good effect and took out the villa, snipers and all. This seemed to settle matters for the day and the Katangans, using an existing phone line to the Purfina Garage, requested a ceasefire to collect their wounded. Commandant Quinlan agreed to their request.
With the approach of dusk, Company Sergeant Jack Prendergast crawled to the trenches occupied by the platoon commanders, informing them that a relief column from Élisabethville was on its way and would be with them by nightfall. The message spread rapidly around the company positions, greeted with relief by everyone for the great news that it was, and the resultant soar of morale was palpable. Having acquitted themselves well, they were going to be reinforced and rescued. As if to confirm their delight, the audible thumps and thuds of mortar fire and other weapons could be heard from the direction of Lufira Bridge. ‘Force Keane’, Irish troops with Swedish APC support led by Commandant Johnny Keane, was engaged in an offensive action to break through to the besieged A Company.
With the cessation of noise from the bridge, the members of A Company began to wonder how long it would take their rescuers to arrive in Jadotville. As the time passed when ‘Force Keane’ ought to have appeared, A Company continued to wait. A runner arrived to summon the platoon commanders to a Commanding Officers (COs) conference, to be held in a villa now used as the Company HQ. It was the first time they had seen each other since the commencement of the day’s extraordinary hostilities. Commandant Quinlan congratulated each of them on the actions of their respective platoons, but then came the bombshell: their would-be rescuers had returned to Élisabethville. Encountering heavy fire at Lufira Bridge, ‘Force Keane’ achieved no success in their attempt to overcome it. Stunned, the platoon commanders could not comprehend why ‘Force Keane’ had not maintained pressure on the bridge’s defenders throughout the night and attacked again at first light. Instead, incomprehensibly to the platoon commanders, ‘Force Keane’ had decided to return to Élisabethville, leaving them, as they saw it, to the mercy of a rapidly growing Katangan force led by mercenaries. By that time the estimated strength of the force opposing them was in the order of 2,000 troops.
After a day of extremes; shock, elation, self-revelation and now devastation, it was with a dreadful feeling that they returned to their trenches. Commandant Quinlan had asked them not to tell their platoons as it could affect morale. Darkness descended, and with it new problems. With no forward protection, such as barbed wire, trip flares or mines, and