Into Action. Dan Harvey
he could otherwise earn elsewhere. During the early stages the inducement was less, at $300 dollars a month, but still an attractive enticement and sufficient to draw the interest of many ex-military men. There were no American mercenaries among them as it was generally believed, incorrectly in fact, that those who enlisted for military service under a foreign flag were in contravention of US law and could have their passports confiscated.
The mercenaries naturally fell into three distinct groups: Belgian, French and the English-speakers – the Compagnie Internationale – mostly from the UK, South Africa and Rhodesia. When off-duty the former two, in particular some of the French, were given to un-soldierly behaviour that gave rise to an unnecessary notoriety. When in the public eye some sought attention by courting a macho-type image: unshaven, long-haired, needlessly in possession of many weapons and wearing well-worn combat fatigues, swaggering from bar to bar in a swashbuckling derring-do fashion. All this gave rise to an exaggerated impression that they were a collection of ill-disciplined, gung-ho hellraisers, a representation not lost on the media, and the phrase ‘Les Affreux’ – the Frightful Ones – became synonymous with the appearance of some of Katanga’s French mercenaries.
In overall command of the mercenaries was a Belgian, Colonel Crevecoeur, and his second in command was Major Matisse. The French group was under Colonel Faulques, formerly a major in the Foreign Legion, a veteran of Dien Bien Phu and fresh from many encounters in Algeria with the Front de Libération Nationale (FLN). Bob Denard (a.k.a. Gilbert Bourgeaud), whose story was widely credited for the feature film The Wild Geese (Andrew V McLaglen, 1978) and the novel Dogs of War by Frederick Forsyth, was also involved. The Compagnie Internationale was initially commanded by Dick Browne, whose brother was Conservative MP Percy Browne, and included Colonel ‘Mad’ Mike Hoare and Alistair Wicks among its members. Sometimes confused early on with a unit called the White Legion, this much smaller mercenary outfit were, however, destined to be taken prisoner by UN Ethiopian troops at Kabala in northern Katanga.
The mercenaries were very well equipped, and their armament included brand new weaponry from Belgian manufacturers such as the 7.62mm FN rifle (the British equivalent was the L1A1 Self-Loading Rifle (SLR), or the American M16), the belt-fed 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG), the FN Browning 9mm High Power Pistol, the 9mm Vigneron M2 and the FN 9mm UZI sub-machine gun.
Speed, noise and immense firepower were the tactics employed by the mercenaries to counter the Baluba. Noise was associated with great power and conveniently was a by-product of the firepower which was used to maximum effect to saturate any Baluba target areas, whether real, possible or even simply suspected. The speed was achieved by being organised into several units known as ‘Groupes Mobiles’. At the forefront of each were up to six heavily armed ‘Willys Jeeps’ with a mounted GPMG or a .3 or .5 Browning Heavy Machine Gun (HMG). With its heavy barrel, the .5 was an updated model of the 1930s design. Two million were initially manufactured and it remains one of the most powerful machine guns in existence. Irish troops were to encounter it, or more precisely, were subjected to its highly disruptive effect, and initially had little equivalent viable response. These highly mobile columns were sometimes spearheaded by light armoured vehicles. Whether jeeps or armoured, or a mix, they were supported by truck-borne Katangese Gendarmerie. The required speed, firepower (noise) and accuracy were delivered to good effect in many whirlwind attacks.
Communications were provided by the PRC-9 short-range backpack radio sets used by the US Army. Powerful radio transmitters were used as rear-links to communicate with the état-major (Gendarmerie/mercenary headquarters in Élisabethville) when the various Groupes Mobiles were operating in the Bushveld (a dense bush-filled region in southern Africa) or hemmed in along routes by impenetrable jungle forests, at ranges of up to several hundred kilometres.
The mercenaries were employed to ‘pacify’ the Balubas and take on the central government’s ANC. In the first instance, fighting unsophisticated Balubas demanded an unorthodox approach because of the cultural nature of their comprehension. Uncomplicated, badly organised and poorly armed, they could nevertheless be fanatically brave. Frequently fortified by marijuana and heavily influenced by tribal witch doctors, their preferred tactic was ambush or frontal assault in overwhelming numbers. The prospect of falling prisoner to the Baluba was inconceivable, as they were known to practise grotesque ritual torture, causing the victim excruciating pain and suffering before death. Nor were the Irish immune from the Baluba, their eleven-man patrol having been attacked and nine butchered at or near Niemba. Yet within a matter of some eighteen months it was Irish and Swedish UN troops that were to defend Baluba refugee camps in Élisabethville during the fighting of 1961 and 1962, and at one point some 40,000 Baluba and other tribal refugees were under their protection.
The Baluba had once formed a mighty empire larger than Belgium and Holland combined, which had since waned and by the 1960s they were living as a minority tribe in northern Katanga with a rival, now more powerful tribe, the Lunda. The Bayeke, fierce and warlike, were a third and strong tribe to contend with and ancient tribal rivalries continued to exist. Tshombe was a member of the Lunda royal house and so a natural rival of the Baluba. Since gaining independence, and unrestricted by colonial subjection or obedience to tribal permissions, young adult Balubas had rampaged across northern Katanga, armed with rudimentary weapons and attacking white Belgian settlers and black tribal rivals. These included poisoned arrows and spears, clubs studded with six-inch nails, and sharpened bicycle chains which could shred human flesh to the bone.
Getting to grips internally with the Baluba was one thing – and ongoing – but the time would surely come for military assertiveness in support of the secession. Set against the backdrop of the powerful and competing influences already tearing the Congo apart, three critical circumstances – the death of Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, a second UN Security Council Resolution, and the increased activity of the ANC – resulted in events unfolding quickly.
In December 1960, through deception and double-dealing, Patrice Lumumba, along with two others (Maurice Mpola and Joseph Okito), were arrested by Colonel Joseph Mobutu and President Kasavubu of the Leopoldville government and delivered into the hands of his tribal and political opponents, resulting in the announcement of their deaths on 13 February by the Katangese minister of the interior, Godefroid Munongo. Seven days later, on 21 February 1961, the UN Security Council adopted a new resolution allowing the ONUC to use force to restore order and take whatever steps necessary to prevent civil war erupting in the Congo. The UN resolution also demanded the immediate evacuation of all mercenaries and other foreign military and political advisors. The authority for ‘the use of force, if necessary, as a last resort’ was a mandate to act, changing the nature of the UN forces’ rules of engagement from passive peacekeepers (opening fire as a last resort and only if fired upon) to active peace enforcers, allowing a more robust, vigorous, proactive posture. Finally, under Mobutu, the ANC increased their activities, particularly along the internal provincial borders of Kasai and Katanga.
Into this turmoil, Irish Lieutenant General Sean McKeown was appointed Force Commander of ONUC in January 1961. From early to mid-1961, the period following Lumumba’s death, order continued to further deteriorate throughout the Congo. Late in August, Lumumba’s replacement, Cyrille Adoula, was elected as the new prime minister of the Congo. He immediately announced his intention to end the Katangan secession effort and special legislation was enacted to allow the government to expel foreign officers and mercenaries. To achieve this, Adoula requested the assistance of the UN force sent in to keep the peace and maintain order. In effect he was requesting a more partisan participation than the UN force and its contributing members had anticipated. He wished them to become more measurably immersed in the internal fighting than they had intended and take on a deeper dimension in the developing drama. Had the innocent UN been manipulated unwittingly towards mission creep, allowing an escalation of its role, or was it simply that this was what maintaining order required? For sure, order within Congo could not be restored until the Katangan secession threat was addressed, and order within Katanga could not be resolved until the menace of the mercenary threat was addressed.
The First Battle of Katanga – September 1961
In the likely event of coming into harm’s way, the first action required is to remove the source of danger. Before daybreak on 28 August 1961, the UN’s Irish, Swedish and Indian battalions were