Into Action. Dan Harvey
was difficult to see an enemy approach. They remained on the alert and rotated within individual trenches so the troops could get some rest, but in the cramped space it was difficult. Flares from Verey guns were fired occasionally to light the battlefield, though this was more for morale than effect, as they proved of limited use against the scrub surrounding the Company. During the night the Company cooks did manage to get what was to become known as ‘Jadotville Stew’ to the trenches, but water was becoming scarce as they were consuming large quantities. Another problem was to contain the reckless firing, as some of the troops became jittery at the slightest sound. Exhaustion began to set in and sleep was necessary but proved elusive.
At first light on 14 September, all Platoon positions came under sporadic machine gun and mortar fire and the minds of A Company once again began to concentrate sharply and focus their attention on whatever the day ahead would bring. Mortar bombs exploded around them as they hugged the cover of their trenches, thankful not to be caught exposed out in the open. Unfortunately, Sergeant Wally Hegarty, No. 2 Platoon, who was moving towards a villa for water when the barrage commenced, was caught without cover. The first two mortar impacts exploded nearby, blowing the roof off the villa, and the third hit him in the legs and buttocks as he desperately dived for cover. Sergeant Hegarty was taken to the casualty station, where he was attended to, and was back in action with his platoon the next day. Meanwhile the mortar fire intensified and Sergeant Kelly and his 60mm mortar crew were once again called into action. With Corporal Foley giving directions, and fall of shot corrections relayed through Lieutenant Carey, after a few ranging rounds Sergeant Kelly ordered rapid fire. There was a flash, a loud explosion, and a cessation of incoming mortar fire.
Taking a welcome break and a refreshing drink, while ‘digging in’ at Jadotville.
Courtesy of the Military Archives, Dublin
Around noon, A Company heard the noise of a jet aircraft coming from the direction of Jadotville and suddenly in the bright sunshine they could see a plane fly along the valley in front of their positions, wheel around, and fly over them again, this time more slowly. Some of the company waved, thinking it was a UN aircraft, but it accelerated and flew back towards Jadotville. An hour and a half later they saw the jet again as it flew along the valley, only this time it climbed into the dazzling sun. There was a shout of ‘get down’ as the plane suddenly swooped on the Purfina garage and strafed the building, blowing out the windows, and dropped two bombs on the courtyard of the garage causing large craters and loud explosions. The target was the petrol pumps and fuel tanks, which was another shock for the beleaguered Company as the last thing they expected was being bombed and strafed by a jet aircraft.
They felt completely vulnerable in their trenches. Dispersed and without good communications, the individual platoons had no idea if there were casualties or not. Only by shouting from trench to trench, platoon by platoon, did they learn that luckily no one was wounded. Commandant Quinlan, who was everywhere, placed the two armoured cars in such a manner as to criss-cross the fire of their Vickers machine guns, leaving Lieutenant Kevin Knightly in charge of their newly ordained anti-aircraft role. Still recovering from the shock of it all, an hour and a half later the Fouga Magister jet was back from its airbase in Kolwezi to bomb them again. The armoured cars put up a barrage of fire but the jet was gone. This time the bombs fell into the bush beside the road.
Darkness descended and fatigue set in, as did the effects of a second day of heat, dust, sunburn, and the shock of being bombed from the air by an enemy jet fighter. A successful infiltration by a number of Katangans saw them reach the villas between the platoons, whereupon they commenced sniping on the Irish. With Captain Liam Donnelly directing, Company Sergeant Prendergast and Sergeant John Monahan put a swift end to the threat with an 84mm anti-tank gun. During this exchange, however, a member of No. 3 Platoon, Private John Manning, was shot in the shoulder and evacuated to the casualty station, which now had three occupants.
Commandant Quinlan now realised that A Company was physically overextended on the ground and in order to ensure an organised shape was maintained, where command and control could be better exercised, he ordered secondary trenches be dug close to No. 2 Platoon’s area, which No. 1 and Weapons Platoons would occupy. Within three hours these trenches were constructed and under cover of darkness stealthily occupied. A Company’s frontage was reduced to a more manageable 350 metres, its form more like that of an all-round perimeter defence. Now that hostilities were entered into, they would ‘occupy’ the ground previously inhabited by their fire. Their original positions had, however, served their purpose, in that they had created distance, an area of stand-off between themselves and the Katangans so that during the sequential waves of attacks during the first day they had avoided being overrun.
At night the cooks managed to get bread, ‘dog biscuits’ and water to the company, and later Commandant Quinlan called a conference for his company officers. The platoon commanders reported a state of high morale among the troops despite the air attack. Commandant Quinlan said that Battalion HQ urged the Company to continue to hold out. He also reported on a phone conversation with the Burgermeister, using a phone in one of the villas, who had asked for a ceasefire to which he had agreed. But the Burgermeister’s request to send an ambulance into the area to retrieve casualties was denied as the Commandant suspected a trap. He reported that the water and power had been cut and stressed the need to conserve stored supplies of water. There was still no news of any relief column. Later that night two mercenaries, under the belief that the Irish had all been captured, inadvertently arrived at the roadblock in No. 3 Platoon’s area and were duly taken prisoner. Disarmed yet properly treated, they were locked under guard in a room in a villa. A long tense night began, each man wondering what the following day would bring.
Dawn brought the lights of tracer bullets whizzing over the heads of A Company, fired from buildings on a hilltop position over 450 metres away. A Company could not make an effective reply as with the light weapons they had the buildings were out of range. Suddenly, one of Lieutenant Kevin Knightly’s armoured cars swooped into No. 3 Platoon’s area and fired over 1,000 rounds towards the hilltop. The noise of the rounds clattering off the buildings was great for their morale, as was the cessation of the incoming tracer fire. It was not long, however, before the Fouga Magister jet came back again, this time flying higher than before, perhaps because of the reception it had received from Lieutenant Kevin Knightly’s armoured car Vickers gun the previous day. The Magister dropped two bombs into No. 1 Platoon’s area, one bomb landing beside a machine gun position on an ant hill, burying the crew, Privates James Tahany and Edward Gormley, both from Sligo. Sergeant John Monaghan, reacting quickly, dug out and pulled a shocked Private Tahany clear and neither he nor Private Gormley were seriously injured. A second aerial attack later missed its target and exploded on the side of the road. The continual strafing from the air had, however, damaged all of A Company’s scarce means of transport, eliminating the possibility of an escape. They would have to continue to fight it out on the ground.
Checking all-round defence and fields of fire of defensive position at Jadotville.
Courtesy of the Military Archives, Dublin
A shell crater from the bombardment of Jadotville.
Courtesy of the Military Archives, Dublin
Over the previous two days, the enemy had made up to ten attacks on their positions, but A Company knew they had inflicted heavy casualties on their attackers with relatively few, lightly wounded, casualties of their own. In No. 3 Platoon’s location, Lieutenant Noel Carey decided to rotate those in the platoon’s front trenches, as they had been under most fire for nearly three days with little rest. Then came more incoming 81mm mortar fire, and it was specifically accurate. The first rounds landed 100 metres in front of No. 3 Platoon’s forward trench, followed by another salvo which landed the same distance behind the trench. Lieutenant Carey reckoned that if the crews were bracketing their fire correctly, and it seemed certain they were, the trench he and the others were occupying must