by Ralph Riegel
‘I think we were all a bit stunned by what a huge contrast it was to home. We’d seen films about Africa, but until you experienced the heat, the noise and the smells for yourself, there was no way of preparing for what an incredibly different place it was. It truly was a different world. But we were young, full of beans and determined to enjoy ourselves,’ John O’Mahony said.
After a few days, the members of the 35th Battalion began to acclimatise. The Irish troops now had the opportunity to meet up with members of the 34th Battalion who were about to rotate back to Ireland. ‘The lads in the 34th were desperate for news of home while all we wanted to do was talk about the Congo. What was it like? Was the security situation bad? How many mercenaries were there in theatre [in the area]? But I think we were all a bit surprised when the lads in the 34th described the situation as quite peaceful. They had had a pretty uneventful tour and there had been nothing like a repeat of Niemba. But a few of the older hands admitted that there were tensions there and warned us that trouble could flare up in a matter of hours depending on the political situation,’ John explained.
As they prepared for their deployment south, the 35th were told that their tour of duty was likely to be entirely spent within the greater Elisabethville area – though a detachment of two rifle companies from the 35th would spend four weeks in north Katanga. The entire Armoured Car Group would operate from Elisabethville and would act in support of Irish, Swedish and Indian peacekeepers if required.
The trip south involved another air armada. The transfer in-volved a stopover in Kamina where the Irish troops transferred to a smaller aircraft, the ubiquitous twin-engined Douglas DC-3 Dakota, which had proved a war-winner for the Allies in the Second World War. No one told the Irish soldiers, but the DC-3 was regarded as less of a target than the Globemaster II should the Katangan gendarmes suddenly decide to open fire. It was also judged better able to evade ground fire. The troops later heard that Moise Tshombe had forbidden the use of Globemasters in Elisabethville – perhaps fearful they might be used by the UN to bring in heavy weaponry including tanks.
The 35th, once fully assembled, quickly settled into a pattern of military duties. The month of July was an exhausting succession of training drills, exercises, patrols and guard duty rotations. Some of the NCOs insisted on the gruelling parade ground discipline of Dublin, Cork and the Curragh being maintained. For example, one soldier, who had won a Distinguished Service Medal (DSM) for his courage in the Congo the previous year with the 33rd Battalion, was threatened with arrest because he had the impudence to erect a flag pole which was slightly crooked. There was little concession to the fact the soldier had toiled all day to dig a hole in the concrete-like earth just to mount the pole.
Part of the problem was that since the Second World War, veteran NCOs and junior officers had dominated the army with tales of duty during ‘The Emergency’ (Ireland’s euphemism for the Second World War) and now their tales were suddenly being rivalled by young soldiers who had served in the Congo in 1960 with the 32nd and 33rd Battalions.
Suddenly NCOs who proudly boasted of night marches from Fermoy to Mallow in County Cork and emergency cycles across Munster to prepare for an invasion by German paratroopers that never came, found themselves faced with seventeen-year-olds who had seen more action than they had. ‘I remember one NCO [non-commissioned officer] screaming at a trooper who was missing his webbing belt. “Where’s your webbing belt?” the sergeant roared. But the trooper just replied: “I left it at Kamina, Sergeant.” The sergeant just didn’t know what to say. The truth was that there was no substitute for having seen action and all the NCOs knew that,’ 35th Battalion veteran Des Keegan explained.
One of the great strengths of the Irish army was the respect accorded to the equipment they had – possibly because it was so precious given the chronic under-investment in the Defence Forces at the time. A lot of the gear may have been old and unsuited to some of the tasks asked of it, but it was immaculately maintained. Most Irish soldiers could strip a Vickers machine gun in a matter of minutes, and the Lee-Enfields now being retired were so well maintained they looked like they had when they had just left the production line in 1912. The new FN-FAL assault rifles were treated as if they were the Crown Jewels – soldiers took greater care of the FNs than they did of themselves.
Slowly but inexorably, the excitement of being in the Congo faded under the onslaught of monotony. Drills were followed by patrols and endless rounds of guard duty. The unfamiliar heat also took its toll on troopers totally unused to such conditions. Insect bites and stomach upsets became part and parcel of the daily grind. Part of the problem was that the Irish soldiers arrived during a bout of relative calm in Katanga – though a few of the shrewder soldiers realised there were storm clouds brewing on the horizon.
Sometimes the only respite from duty was the prospect of periods of leave in Elisabethville or the occasional unusual duty. John O’Mahony was one of those assigned to a detachment travelling to Kamina on 13 July 1961 to escort two Irish armoured cars back to Elisabethville by train. The mission was so out of the ordinary that dozens of other troopers had volunteered for it.
‘The return trip was really slow, taking three whole days and nights to complete. I remember standing in the turret of an open armoured car as the old train lumbered through the night with the African jungle on either side of the track. You could see fires in the distance out in the brush – it was a thrilling experience and, at times, I almost felt like I had been transported into a movie like The African Queen. In all those times sitting in the cinema back home, I never dreamed I would see Africa this way. We stopped at every single local town along the way and the Irish soldiers threw sweets and candy to the children who ran alongside the train to gaze up at us. We finally got back to Elisabethville on 20 July at 8 a.m.,’ John recalled.
The young Irish troopers were shocked – but delighted – to hear that they would be allowed into the cities, either Leopoldville or Elisabethville, on short periods of leave should the security situation permit it during their tour of duty. Both Leopoldville and Elisabethville were hives of activity. Thousands of UN soldiers, diplomats, Belgian administrators and foreign corporate deputations were now passing through the cities – and the local bar, restaurant and hotel owners were doing a roaring trade.
Houses of ill-repute were also thriving with so many soldiers in town. The Irish troops, warned of the dire consequences of fraternising with the local females by both their officers and chaplains, were more cautious than most. Stories of incurable venereal diseases were circulated amongst the soldiers, although a few hardy souls decided that, with the easy availability of penicillin, a romantic local liaison might be worth the trouble. In one episode, an officer was asked to intervene by an outraged Irish expat living in the Congo, who had spotted a couple of young Irish soldiers in a local bar with two buxom and scantily clad Congolese ladies, one of whom was wearing her apparent ‘payment’ – a Scapular Medal. The Elisabethville ‘ladies of the night’ were focused on two things – cash and white Europeans. Their prime targets were the Irish and Swedes, and several enterprising women even took to visiting the hospital to see if wounded soldiers required anything other than medicine.
But for the majority of Irish soldiers, R & R simply involved getting leave to go into town – whether it was Leopoldville or Elisabethville – for nothing more than a few beers, a good meal and maybe a chance to go to the cinema. The Belgians boast one of the proudest brewing traditions in the world and they had brought their expertise to the Congo with the establishment of several quality local breweries that produced beers called ‘Simba’, ‘Primus’ and ‘Timbo’. They were excellent brews and quickly won a popular following amongst the Irish troops, although given the local climatic conditions, certain precautions had to be taken. One Irish soldier – while off duty – took an ice-cold bottle of beer from a fridge and placed it on the floor beside him. A short time later, he leaned over to pick up the bottle and it exploded
in his face, almost costing him an eye. The temperature variation between the ice-cold bottle and the heat from the sun-baked floor tiles had caused the beer to explode.
The local tensions in Elisabethville also had to be taken into consideration when deciding where to go for a beer. ‘In Elisabeth-ville, you did have to watch yourself. We were allowed into town on evening passes and we would have a few drinks or look for a little fun. But there were almost always a lot of mercenaries and Katangan gendarmes around the town as well. Usually there were no problems but, if you were on your own or even if there were only two of you, you did run the risk of getting involved in a row with them,’ John said. To avoid such problems, UN military policemen regularly circled the city centre to either bring single soldiers back to barracks or else reunite them with larger groups of their comrades. Irish soldiers were repeatedly urged to socialise in groups of at least four.
Perhaps an indication of the innocence of the era was that one of the favourite activities of the Irish soldiers was visiting the modern swimming pool complex at the Lido Hotel in Elisabethville, which had been built for the use of the European settlers and Belgian military personnel. Most of the soldiers had never seen anything like such a facility back in Ireland, where swimming was usually done either in the sea or in local rivers. The cool water was a blessed, if temporary, relief from the steamy heat of Katanga.
One of the things that most shocked the soldiers was the level of development in Katanga as compared to Ireland. ‘Of course it shocked us – there was a dual carriageway with a fine tarmac surface between Elisabethville and Jadotville. You had no road like that back in Ireland in 1961 and this was supposed to be poor, deepest, darkest Africa,’ Des Keegan explained. ‘We arrived in Elisabethville and there was no smoking in the cinemas – remember this was fifty years ago – and there was air conditioning in restaurants, refrigerators in most buildings and urinals in toilets. It was hilarious to hear a few of the more innocent younger Irish lads chatting amongst themselves about what they thought the urinals were really for.’
Those Irish troops nearing the end of their tours were fixated on finding a freshly arrived UN soldier to swap their Katangese francs for a convertible currency. ‘We were paid in the local currency which wasn’t recognised outside Katanga, so you might as well have tissue paper in your wallet. The trick was to keep all the francs you hadn’t spent and swap them with a newly arrived UN trooper for
either Irish pounds, Swedish Kroner, Belgian Francs or, best of all, US dollars. At least you had something to spend when you went home,’ John O’Mahony added.
The other obsession was ‘mingi’ or souvenirs to be brought home. ‘Mingi’ was the Swahili word for ‘plenty’ – and rapidly became one of the most important words in the entire vocabulary for every Irish soldier. Goods ranged from African shields, knives, masks and arrows, to Katangan flags, jungle helmets and ivory carvings. The Irish troops carefully guarded their ‘mingi’ hoard and woe betide anyone caught interfering with another man’s ‘mingi’. In one case, when a tent accidentally caught fire from a stove, the troops raced to save their ‘mingi’ from the flames – only focusing on their uniforms and weapons once their souvenirs were safe.
Since the deployment of Irish troops the previous summer, the ambush at Niemba had been the only major conflict. Throughout Katanga an uneasy peace prevailed. UN troops, mercenaries and Katangese gendarmes eyed each other with respect but also with extreme caution. The irony was that while the rest of the Congo threatened to descend into chaos amid army revolts, tribal loyalties and political machinations, Katanga was relatively stable and it was business as usual for the mining operations.
In Katanga, there was no challenge to Tshombe’s regime beyond the claims of the Leopoldville-based Congolese government. But the Leopoldville regime was facing challenges from various army insurrections, and Lumumba loyalists established their own rival administration in Stanleyville. Repeated revolts within the Force Publique led to Katangans viewing their poor northern neighbours with increasing alarm. Stories of army mutinies and the rape and murder of western plantation owners seemed, in Katangan eyes, to justify their going it alone. Outside Katanga, the Congo teetered on the brink of anarchy, with Mobutu playing the staunch US support as his trump card.
Politically, the UN’s mission in Katanga was in Irish hands. Up-and-coming young Dublin diplomat, Conor Cruise O’Brien, was stationed in Elisabethville and was entrusted by UN Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld with trying to persuade Tshombe and his mercenary-led army to peacefully reintegrate with the Congo. Cruise O’Brien was an intelligent, determined and opinionated man who, as the UN’s special representative, now found himself in a hugely influential role in Katanga.
Cruise O’Brien hailed from a family deeply immersed in Irish literature and politics. His father worked as a journalist with The Freeman’s Journal (Irish Independent), while his grandfather had been a member of the Irish Parliamentary Party. Cruise O’Brien’s aunt was married to Francis Sheehy-Skeffington, the pacifist who was murdered in Dublin in 1916. Cruise O’Brien attended Sandford Park School and Trinity College Dublin (TCD) and his impressive academic record earned him a position within the civil service. When he was posted to the Department of External Affairs his abilities were recognised by Seán MacBride, who assigned the young man to several prominent diplomatic duties. This, in turn, brought him to the attention of the United Nations’ Secretary-General, Hammarskjöld, who requested his secondment. The Fianna Fáil government – leery of allowing Irish personnel to become directly involved in as contentious an issue as Katanga-Congo – allowed Cruise O’Brien to be assigned to the UN but requested he only go to Africa via a short spell of duty at the UN’s New York headquarters.
Once in Katanga, Cruise O’Brien quickly lost respect for Tsho-mbe, who repeatedly promised to comply with all UN requests, but then fudged, determined to try to maintain an independent Katanga. Tshombe knew he had Belgian support and, unless the US was going to directly intervene in Congolese affairs, clearly felt he could out-last the UN commitment provided he could keep his army intact and well armed. Tshombe worked to frustrate the UN while, at the same time, trying not to give them an excuse to take armed action against him. Relations between the two men deteriorated, with Cruise O’Brien determined to bring the secession to an end and Tshombe equally determined to keep Katanga independent.
Between January and July 1961, the UN desperately sought a negotiated solution for the crisis triggered by Katanga’s secession, Lumumba’s killing and Mobutu’s seizure of power in Leopoldville. But the exhaustive peace talks – staged in both Leopoldville and a special conference in Madagascar – ultimately failed to break the deadlock. Mobutu felt he had tacit US support for the way in which he had handled Lumumba in late 1960, so was not willing to compromise, while Tshombe, with backing from Belgium and the mining companies, saw no reason to abandon plans for a breakaway state. One year into the UN mission – now referred to as ONUC (Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo) – there was no sign of Katanga indicating its willingness to reintegrate within the Congo. Equally, the chaos within the Congo itself was worse than the previous year as the factional fighting continued.
By late July, elements within the UN began to question what would happen should the talks drag on and fail to deliver a political settlement to the Katangan crisis. Some UN officers felt that as long as Tshombe and the Katangan regime had a mercenary-led military force, there was little motivation for them to make concessions at the talks table. Several UN military officials began to discuss the possibility of moving against Katanga’s gendarme leadership and their foreign mercenaries.
On 28 August, the UN finally decided to try and defuse the secession by reducing Katanga’s military power. The UN gambled that without their mercenary advisors and senior officers, the Katangan gendarmes would not be as threatening a force. It was also hoped that the move would persuade Katangan politicians that the UN was serious about ending the secession, which,
in turn, would cause the Katangans to negotiate with greater earnestness.
The Swedes called it Operation Rampunch – but it subsequently became corrupted to ‘Rumpunch’ in English-language reports of the Katangan operation. The operation was also called Rampunch in both the 35th Battalion’s record and the ONUC orders for 1961. Operation Rampunch allowed mercenaries to be detained in Elisabethville and its surrounding area and then deported. Key Katangan positions were also disarmed by Irish, Swedish and Indian UN troops.
Cmdt Pat Quinlan and his ‘A’ Company troops successfully took the Katangan gendarmerie headquarters in an operation that lasted just fifteen minutes – Cmdt Quinlan distinguishing himself by being the first to march into the building. Irish Independent journalist, Raymond Smith, who soon earned the affectionate nickname ‘Congo’ Smith for his reports, quoted the modest Quinlan: ‘I would not ask any of my men to do what I would not do myself’. ‘B’ Company under Cmdt Alo McMahon successfully seized control of the Air Katanga facility at Elisabethville Airport, while the remaining Irish troops under Lt Col Hugh McNamee took the hospital, which had been serving as a temporary base for Katangan mercenaries. Hopes began to rise that Operation Rampunch would bring an end to the secession and the threat of civil war.
The Armoured Car Group played a distinguished role in supporting the UN operations. Pat Mullins and his Ford AFV crew were part of a unit that on 28 August helped disarm and capture a Katangan detachment which had tried to dig in beside Elisabethville Airport in order to disrupt UN flights. The order came from the 35th Battalion commander, Lt Col Hugh McNamee, who was determined that the Katangans should not threaten the airport as it was one of the UN’s main supply arteries. Two companies – supported by two Ford armoured cars – encircled the Katangans at first light and secured their surrender after a brief standoff. They captured forty-five gendarmes, two European mercenaries and one Congolese officer. In this swift action the Irish also captured a quantity of weapons, including assault rifles, pistols, two mortars and two squad machine guns, which had already been mounted in firing pits. It was an encouraging action for the Irish as their objective had been achieved without bloodshed.