Missing in Action (12 page)

A group of a curious Katangese children crowd around a Ford AFV and its three-man Irish crew. Note the Vickers machine gun in the turret and the rear access hatch. (Photo: Art Magennis)

Tpr B Maher dressed for guard of honour Elizabethville Jul 61 (photo B. Maher)

6 p.m., 14 September 1961

The 35th Battalion’s
intelligence officers were the first to realise that something was wrong – badly wrong. Garbled radio signals had been received from the north over the previous four days that Cmdt Quinlan and his force at Jadotville were now under siege. The Katangans had mounted roadblocks to isolate the UN detachment, and it was now believed they had commenced an assault on the Irish lines. Without taking back the Lufira Bridge, the UN could not resupply or relieve Cmdt Quinlan given the lack of air cover and heavy transport helicopters. The Lufira River was too wide and swift flowing to be forded – and the UN didn’t have the bridging equipment to bypass the Katangan position and create their own river crossing.

Even more worryingly, there were now confused reports from local sources that the Radio College building which had been seized the day before by Irish troops, had been assaulted and the troops under the command of Lt Tommy Ryan had been overrun.

UN intelligence slowly began to grasp that the number of mercenaries in Katanga had been badly underestimated and that the Katangan gendarmes were now being led by freshly recruited French, German, Belgian and South African soldiers who were Algerian veterans almost to a man. They weren’t likely to run from a fight and, worst of all, they were well versed in the hit-and-run ambush conflict that now seemed to be erupting all over the province and crippling UN operations.

The Armoured Car Group now became central to the 35th Battalion’s response. The Ford armoured cars could check on the status of the Irish, Indian and Swedish positions and offer fire-support if necessary. If the situation became untenable, the armoured cars would then help evacuate Irish troops back to more defensible positions.

The Swedes – who possessed one of the most potent air forces in Europe thanks to their home-designed Saab aircraft – were now being urgently pressed to send fighters to the Congo. This would allow the UN to counter the Katangese Magisters, which were causing chaos and severely restricting UN helicopter operations. But, even if the Swedes agreed to dispatch their Saab 29 Tunnan fighters, which were armed with four Hispano 20mm cannons, the planes – of a design fondly nicknamed ‘The Flying Barrel’ because of its thick fuselage – couldn’t be operational in Elisabethville for at least a month. Operation Morthor would have to be fought with the skies effectively in Katangan hands.

The mission was quickly spiralling into the worst crisis of the UN’s Congo involvement. As word of the escalating fighting spread beyond Elisabethville, the UN in New York followed events with mounting concern. UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld decided to fly to the Congo as soon as possible to launch ceasefire talks with Tshombe and his forces. Hammarskjöld – who was making his fourth trip to the Congo – arranged to fly to Katanga to personally direct the peace talks. His aircraft, for security reasons, would not file a flight plan as it skirted northern Rhodesia en route to Elisabethville. It would also undertake the journey with another aircraft flying ahead as a decoy in case anyone tried to attack the UN team. It would prove to be the last journey of Hammarskjöld’s life.

At Prince Leopold Farm on the outskirts of Elisabethville, senior Irish officers knew their immediate priority was to obtain information about precisely what was happening to the detachments of the 35th Battalion now scattered around Elisabethville. They needed information and they needed it fast. The Armoured Car Group was the reconnaissance asset they now turned to.

A patrol was ordered and Sgt Dan Carroll immediately set about organising personnel at Prince Leopold Farm. The Irish now had a total of eleven armoured cars in Katanga. Two were already in Jadotville with Cmdt Quinlan, two were assisting the Swedish and Indian UN troops at the Elisabethville Post Office and Dr Munongo’s home, three were with the Indian Dogra unit and two were assigned to the Radio Katanga seizure. Dr Godefroid Munongo was the Interior Minister for Katanga and one of Moise Tshombe’s closest allies. The Katangan police and gendarmes – the more potent paramilitary force – both answered to him. That left two armoured cars as a ‘floating’ reserve for emergency support and relief duties. One was a turreted armoured car with a Vickers machine gun and the other was an open-topped ‘Scout’ car equipped with a Browning gun.

It had already been an extremely demanding day for the armoured car section. They had supported all the major initial actions of Operation Morthor while trying to evade the attentions of the Katangan Staghound armoured cars whose whereabouts were now a cause of major concern. To complicate matters further, the Katangans had deployed wheeled 37mm anti-tank guns near some of their key installations and the guns were being operated by mercenaries. A single well-aimed hit from that 37mm gun would transform the Ford AFV into a wheeled coffin for its crew. The Swedes and Indians both wanted the Irish armoured cars to attract fire so as to open up Katangan positions to allow them to return infantry fire. But the Irish NCOs were wary because they knew the limitations of the home-built Ford AFV and its vulnerability to armour-piercing fire.

‘I was assigned that day to the turreted Ford with Captain Seán Hennessy, Sgt Tim Carey and Cpl John Joe O’Connor,’ Des Keegan recalled. Sgt Tim Carey was one of the Armoured Car Group’s most experienced men. A native of Skibbereen in west Cork, he was respected as one of the best sergeants in the entire army and his experience of the Ford armoured car was second to none. Journalist Raymond Smith later described Carey as ‘one of the coolest soldiers I have ever met’. The sergeant had just returned from a series of patrols and, by rights, should have been allowed go off duty, but instead was sent back out again.

‘We were first sent up to the mansion of Dr Munongo, the Katangan Minister of the Interior, to act as fire-support for the Swedish battalion who were occupying the place and looking for documents. Munongo was in charge of both the mercenaries and the Katangan gendarmes so his home was a very important target. He was one of Tshombe’s key lieutenants. We took up position and then spotted Munongo’s personal guard assembling by a building across the road. They were all heavily armed and were clearly getting ready for action. And that’s when the firing started. I know some people say that the first shots that day were fired at Radio Katanga or the Elisabethville Post Office, but I reckon they were fired at Munongo’s house,’ Des continued.

What was most remarkable about the mission undertaken by Captain Hennessy and his men was that their Ford armoured car rumbled through ‘The Tunnel’ – a key link on the Elisabethville road network – en route to Dr Munongo’s house without a single shot being fired. ‘The Tunnel’ was effectively abandoned with no military forces dug-in by the bridges that had given ‘The Tunnel’ its nickname. Over the next few weeks, ‘The Tunnel’ became one of the most fiercely contested sites in the entire city between the Katangan gendarmes and the UN forces. The bitterness of the fighting ultimately made it one of the most notorious battle sites of the entire Katanga operation. ‘It was totally unoccupied when we drove through it. There wasn’t a soul in uniform to be seen. You’d never believe at that point that “The Tunnel” would become one of the major battlegrounds in Elisabethville,’ Des explained.

The troops eventually secured Munongo’s house – though, crucially, without any trace of the Minister himself – and the Irish car was then tasked with escorting a Swedish casualty to an Elisabethville hospital. The young Swede had apparently been the victim of a friendly fire incident between two UN detachments and had suffered serious gunshot wounds. Despite being rushed to hospital, the young man died a short time later. It was an inauspicious start to the day.

Having left the hospital, the armoured car was then re-assigned to the Indian battalion that was now attempting to seize Tshombe’s palace in the face of fierce resistance by Katangan gendarmes and French mercenaries. Captain Hennessy had been transferred to other duties, so the Ford now came under the command of Sgt Carey. The Indian commander, who was unaware of the lack of hardened steel on the Irish armoured cars, was particularly keen to put the Ford AFV in a position of maximum exposure to draw Katangan fire so as to identify their main defensive positions.

‘The Indian officer looked at us and said: “Put your armoured car in the middle of the road. You will draw their fire and we will then kill them all.” But Tim Carey, fair dues to him, was having none of it. He knew the Katangans had an anti-tank gun up there and he told the Indian so,
’
Des added.

Sgt Carey knew that exposing the Ford to such fire was tantamount to suicide. ‘I knew what the Indian wanted – he wanted us to take all the fire so his men could move into position and establish where the Katangans were. But the armour on the Ford was so brittle that even the impact of a rifle round would have chips flying off inside the car. If an armour piercing shell hit that Ford it would go in one side and come right out the other and make mincemeat of anyone inside. There was no way we were going to be sitting ducks for the Indians,
’
Tim Carey recalled.

The Irish crew had also formulated a plan should they be confronted by a Staghound armoured car and its dreaded 37mm gun. Cpl John Joe O’Connor was driving the Ford and was under orders to instantly speed down any road to the flank of the Staghound. The trusty Ford V8 engine made the armoured car surprisingly sprightly, even though its brakes meant it had to be handled carefully. The hope was that, by using the flanks, the Irish armoured car could attack the Staghound from the rear, wrecking its engine with fire from the Vickers before the 37mm gun could be brought to bear. Failing that, the Irish crew were left with their ‘nuclear’ option – attacking the Staghound with a box of grenades stored in the armoured car.

‘Our fear was that the Vickers wouldn’t be much good against the armour on the Staghound from the front or sides. So, as a last resort, we planned to speed up to the Staghound so fast that its crew couldn’t aim the 37mm and try to use the grenades to disable it. It wasn’t much of a plan but it was the only bloody plan we had,’ Des explained. Luckily, the Ford was untroubled that day by the Staghounds though the Irish had not heard the last of the Katangan armour.

The crew of the Ford – who had now been on duty since the early hours of the morning – eventually returned to Prince Leopold Farm in the late afternoon to refuel the armoured car, get extra ammunition for the Vickers and, if possible, catch a few hours precious sleep before the next round of missions. The Ford V8 – because of the weight of the chassis – delivered roughly 8.5 miles (14 kilometres) to the gallon. With a fuel tank capacity of fourteen gallons the Ford AFV had a maximum possible range of 122 miles (210 kilometres), which meant it needed regular refuelling during peak mission activity. Des Keegan and John Joe O’Connor – having refuelled and rearmed the Ford – went straight to their billets to try and sleep. But, less than an hour later and much to their annoyance, Sgt Carroll assigned them to an impending Radio College patrol to be led by Cmdt Cahalane.

‘John Joe pointed out to the sergeant that we had already been on duty all day and asked whether the relief crew could be sent out with the armoured car instead. He told Dan that we had just lain down to get some sleep, having been in the armoured car all day. We had already undertaken four or so missions and we felt we had done our bit for the day. John Joe wasn’t being cheeky – he was basically pointing out that we had put in a long day. In fairness to the sergeant, he listened to us and immediately told us to go back to sleep. He would assign the relief crew, which were Tpr Pat Mullins and Cpl Michael Nolan. The car was already prepared and they took the turreted Ford, which we had been using all day. They took our place on the patrol that night,’ Des said.

Sgt Carey was also going to be excused patrol duty but con-scientiously insisted to Sgt Carroll that he wanted to accompany Cmdt Cahalane and was okay for the mission. Sgt Carey had an intimate knowledge of the local roads and felt he was best placed to guide the patrol to exactly where it needed to go. Privately, he also wanted to ensure that the patrol did not get lost on the dark Elisabethville roads and end up blundering its way into a heavily armed Katangan gendarme force.

Shortly before 6 p.m., Sgt Carey was ordered to stand by for the patrol, which would be led by Cmdt Pat Cahalane, the commander of the Armoured Car Group. Cahalane was a native of Dundrum in Dublin and was extremely popular amongst his men because of the concern he always displayed for their welfare and their operating conditions. It was hoped that the patrol could now ease a lot of the worries about the Irish positions at ‘The Factory’ and the Radio College.

The patrol would feature the two ‘floating’ armoured cars – the open-topped Scout and the Ford. The armoured cars would be the primary weapons and would protect a Landrover jeep equipped with hand-held Carl Gustav anti-tank projectiles. Personnel not assigned to the two armoured cars and the jeep would be transported in a bus, which had been commandeered by the UN from a local Elisabethville coach company. The bus contained a full rifle section comprising two NCOs and eight soldiers. The soldiers were all equipped with the standard FN assault rifle, which, ironically enough, was the same Belgian-made weapon now wielded by most of the Katangan gendarmes.

The initial destination for the patrol was supposed to be an Elisabethville factory where a detachment of Irish soldiers had been stationed the previous day. The detachment occupying the sprawling industrial building nicknamed ‘The Factory’ was under the command of Sgt Sam Shannon from Kilrush, County Clare. Sgt Shannon had fifteen soldiers under his command – but the building now housed more than 600 refugees. These included both political prisoners who had been fleeing persecution in Katanga over the previous eighteen months, as well as soldiers from the Congolese army who had deserted and feared what would happen if they were captured by the Katangan gendarmes.