Missing in Action

by Ralph Riegel

  Out on the roadway, the Katangan gendarmes had scattered looking for shelter as the bursts of 9mm fire whistled around them. One gendarme fell, screaming that he had been shot in the leg. Several jumped into the drainage ditch on the opposite side of the road from the tank and emptied their entire magazines in its general direction. The corporal waved at his men to fire and move as they had been taught, but they were oblivious to him.

  ‘Idiots,’ roared a voice in French from behind the corporal. The corporal’s mercenary commander had arrived on the scene and immediately took charge. ‘Allez-vite, allez-vite,’ he shouted, indicating that he wanted the gendarmes to fan out and manoeuvre around the tank. As the initial excited bursts of gunfire eased, the gendarmes heard the furious demands of their officer. Slowly, the Katangan soldiers heeded his orders and began to use the drainage ditch to move up on the flanks of the tank. In a few minutes, the tank would be taking enfilading fire from two different directions.

  On the roadway the Belgian mercenary crouched and peered at the hulking vehicle in the darkness. It was clearly a UN vehicle. He knew instantly that the Katangans had nothing remotely like this. ‘Why does it not fire?’ he wondered. And then he realised, from the angle of the vehicle’s hull, that it must have crashed into the ditch. ‘Maybe it was damaged at the Radio College engagement earlier?’ he thought. Another burst of gunfire came from beside the vehicle, and the mercenary guessed that it was 9mm fire, which meant a sub-machine gun. After listening to several short bursts, he realised that it all came from the same location. ‘One man, maybe two. Definitely not three,’ he smiled. He also realised that the enemy was armed only with a sub-machine gun, which his men would out-range with their new FNs. ‘Move around and finish this,’ the Belgian snarled to the corporal.

  In the ditch, Pat was now desperate. Mick had slid down from his position by the side of the armoured car and was now lying motionless in the bottom of the ditch. Pat wasn’t sure if he had been shot or had finally succumbed to his wounds, but he realised with horror that his friend was most likely dead. Seconds earlier a volley of shots had drilled into the hull of the Ford just inches from where he had taken up position. ‘God help me, what do I do now?’ Pat thought as he swept the Carl Gustav across the roadway, looking for a target to engage. He had already used three magazines for the sub-machine gun and now had only two left. That meant a total of seventy-two rounds. There were hundreds of rounds of .303 ammunition inside the armoured car for the Vickers, but the old British gun was useless to him. ‘What a joke,’ he thought, ‘stuck in a battle with loads of ammunition for the wrong gun.’

  As he cradled the Carl Gustav in his hands, Pat noted that the pressed-metal stock was now sweaty to the touch. Some of the lads thought the Carl Gustav was an ugly weapon, but he had always appreciated the gun for its firepower and convenience and found the polished wooden butt behind the trigger comfortable. He just wished someone had thought to throw a few extra magazines into the Ford for the sub-machine gun. The Gustav could fire 600 rounds a minute, but there was no selector switch for single-round fire. That meant the Gustav ripped through magazines if your finger lingered on the trigger for half a second too long. The Swedish gun weighed 3.9 kilos, but tonight it felt like an extension of Pat’s own hand.

  Pat gazed up at the mute Vickers to see that incoming fire had torn several jagged holes in its cooling jacket. If only he could have brought the old British gun to bear tonight he might have held these characters off for hours.

  From behind him, Pat heard a muffled sound like a twig snapping. Reacting instantly, he swung around, held the Carl Gustav rock-steady to his body and fired an extended burst into the darkness. There was a shout, the sound of a crash and then silence. The incoming fire stopped momentarily and the returning silence of the night now seemed eerie.

  Pat knew he had only minutes left to make a move. The Katangans were slowly working their way around his position and he simply couldn’t cover all three flanks at the same time. He had been forced to stay by the armoured car and the Katangans knew exactly where he was. Once they moved around behind him, he would either be caught in a lethal crossfire or overwhelmed in a sudden assault.

  He realised his only option was to drop into the ditch, combat-crawl on his hands and knees through the tangled undergrowth on the far bank and disappear into the fields in the darkness behind. If he was lucky, he would find a UN patrol or a protected base before the Katangans hunted him down. At least out there in the open fields he would have a fighting chance. But he just couldn’t leave Mick – not here in a ditch like this. With a shake of his head, Pat ruled out that option. No, he would not leave his friend behind. His hand tightened on the Carl Gustav as he decided to make his final stand here by his fallen friend’s side.

  Pat slid the magazine out of the sub-machine gun’s mounting slot just ahead of the trigger guard and squinted in the darkness to check it. The last burst had emptied it so Pat clicked in a full thirty-six round replacement and threw the old magazine into the mud of the ditch bottom. It was his last magazine so he would have to make it count. His only hope now was for a UN rescue column to reach him. But why would they come this far towards the African city, he thought? Maybe, just maybe, a relief column had reached the Radio College and they had heard the gunfight, which had been going on now for almost thirty minutes. ‘It’s in God’s hands now,’ Pat smiled grimly.

  On his three flanks, the Katangan gendarmes worked their way slowly and carefully into their final positions. They had finally achieved the flanking manoeuvre the mercenary had demanded – and done so despite the ferocious defence mounted by the UN soldier. Initially, the gendarmes had been convinced they were up against a whole UN patrol. But the firing against their positions always seemed to be from the same location and from the same kind of weapon. Most of the gendarmes now guessed that they were up against a single man – a brave enemy who had chosen not to flee.

  From the safety of a position some 100 metres away, the merce-nary silently ordered the Katangans to finish the fight. He’d been a brave one, this UN soldier, the man admitted to himself. The soldier hadn’t panicked and had kept the Katangans under accurate, short bursts of fire, which made their flanking manoeuvre all the more painstaking. Luckily for them, the mercenary realised, the heavy machine gun had not been brought into action. It was time to end this fight before dawn broke and brought with it the risk of another UN patrol. ‘Move now,’ the mercenary said.

  A few minutes later, the end came. From three sides of the armoured car the Katangan gendarmes rose as one and fired heavy bursts towards the suspected position of the UN soldier. While some Katangans maintained covering fire, others raced forward to storm the position. The ‘clang’ of rounds striking the hull of the armoured car was now even audible over the firing. Then, to the Katangans’ immense relief, an intense burst of gunfire from the ditch was suddenly cut short. As they moved forward, there was silence.

  There was nothing Pat Mullins could do. When the gunfire erupted around him from three sides he realised the Katangans were storming his position. Pat swung to engage the point of heaviest fire. The short, stubby Carl Gustav shuddered in his hands from the extended burst of fire. But he couldn’t cover all three flanks at once. He never heard the volley of shots that caught him in the upper body. Suddenly, he found himself twisting in midair as if he had been kicked full in the chest by a horse, and then he landed hard on his back, but strangely felt no pain. He lay in the ditch conscious that it had gone strangely quiet.

  Pat found himself staring up at the African sky as darkness cast an enveloping shroud around him. Pat had never realised there were quite so many stars. As he finally closed his eyes, the darkness on the eastern horizon seemed to falter and then recoil from the first tentative rays of sunlight. A new day was dawning in the Congo.

  The first Katangans cautiously approached the armoured car, each gendarme careful to cover the movements of their comrade. Each soldier scanned the scene with their FN rifles. De
spite the silence, they were wary of walking into a trap. But after a few seconds it was clear that the battle was over. The first soldiers to creep around the flanks of the armoured car spotted the bodies lying in the ditch and instantly waved the other gendarmes forward.

  They were amazed to discover that there were just two bodies in the ditch. One soldier lay on his back, his face staring up at the sky – a sub-machine gun still gripped in his hands. His friend lay crumpled on his side beside the armoured car. One gendarme kicked out at what he spotted were cartridge cases lying on the ground. The Katangan corporal looked down and realised they were 9mm shells – all from the sub-machine gun. A quick look revealed that the other soldier had clearly been badly injured before he’d been shot – there were old, dark bloodstains on his uniform blouse. Had a single man held off an entire platoon for thirty minutes just to protect his wounded friend, the corporal wondered?

  After a moment of silence, the younger Katangan soldiers suddenly erupted into cheers and whoops of delight at their victory. Several danced around the armoured car, jabbing their rifles in the air. They had shown the UN that they too could fight. The younger men were also proud that they had shown the Belgian mercenary that they wouldn’t run away from bullets. They were warriors too. Several of the younger soldiers jumped down into the ditch.

  Down the road, the mercenary visibly relaxed and warily got to his feet. His corporal grinned and waved him towards the armoured car, which had been the focus of the firefight for the past half an hour. The Belgian simply shrugged and turned away, walking slowly and stiffly back towards the gendarme barracks. The armoured car and the UN patrol would no longer threaten the Katangan gendarme base. He had done his job. He cast a final look back at the armoured car, which was now surrounded by a rapidly thickening throng of jubilant Katangan soldiers jostling to get into the ditch, and turned away in disgust. He wanted no part of whatever else would happen this night.

  Pat Mullins’ Ford AFV pictured with its front wheels stuck in a drainage ditch. This photo was taken minutes after the armoured car was first located. (Photo: Art Magennis)

  The scorched interior of the Ford AFV indicates attempts by the Katangan gendarmes to destroy the armoured car after its final battle. (Photo: Art Magennis)

  A graphic image of how the soft-steel hull plates of the Ford were unable to stand up to heavy fire. Katangan shells gouged holes in the ‘armour’ of both the hull and turret of Pat Mullins’ car. Note the impact of the round on the Vickers machine gun cooling jacket. (Photo: Art Magennis)

  9 – Katanga Erupts & the Siege of Jadotville

  In the hours after the surrender of Cmdt Cahalane and the Radio College patrol, senior UN commanders struggled to cope with the flood of bad news. Several UN detachments around Elisabethville had been overrun and UN soldiers seized by Katangan forces. Cmdt Quinlan and 155 Irish UN troops were trapped in Jadotville with hopes of rescue fading fast. Then, senior UN officers received the news they had been dreading. The Katangan gendarmes intended to execute the Irish officer captured at the Radio College unless the UN withdrew from all seized positions and immediately returned all captured Katangan personnel, both military and political. The Katangans also demanded assurances on the treatment of their personnel who had been seized by the UN.

  The situation now facing both the UN and the 35th Battalion was rapidly spiralling out of control. The detachment in ‘The Factory’ was under fire and effectively trapped. The Radio College detachment and the patrol sent to their relief had been attacked and overcome. A Katangan Magister was strafing all suspected UN targets and had destroyed several transport aircraft at the airport. Roadblocks made moving around the city extremely difficult for UN units. The UN knew the Irish battalion had already suffered one fatality – Trooper Edward Gaffney – in a sniper incident on 13 September and there were now unconfirmed reports that at least two more Irish troopers had been killed or were missing at the Radio College.

  Worst of all was the news filtering down from Jadotville. UN commanders realised that without immediate reinforcement and resupply ‘A’ Company under Cmdt Quinlan would have no option but to negotiate a surrender. The Irish detachment – comprising 155 men, mostly drawn from the Western Command – had been sent to Jadotville on the express instructions of UN headquarters in New York as a direct response to claims that Belgian settlers had been attacked by rampaging Congolese national troops. European and American newspapers were full of reports of out-of-control Force Publique troops overrunning plantations, shooting Belgian farmers and raping women. Cmdt Quinlan and his men were to set up base in Jadotville and offer vital protection for the local settlers.

  However, the UN high command failed to take into account the fact the settlers were virulently opposed to the UN presence in the Congo and were staunch supporters of the Katangan secession. The UN also ignored intelligence reports of a build-up of Katangan forces in the area. When the 4,000-strong Katangan force – led by French and Belgian mercenaries – finally began the assault on the small mining town, the Irish troops were too isolated for the battalions in Elisabethville to offer proper support.

  But Cmdt Quinlan was a resourceful, wily commander held in high regard by his men. He would not surrender without a fight – and if the UN could fulfil their promise to support him, he would hold his position. On arrival in Jadotville, Cmdt Quinlan quickly realised the weakness of his company’s position and ordered his men to begin digging defensive positions. It was only later that the Irish troops realised a Swedish unit had earlier been assigned to Jadotville but had withdrawn after declaring the position indefensible given the hostility of the population and the resupply distance from Elisabethville. Cmdt Quinlan knew he needed defensive positions and needed them fast. It was the crucial and timely preparation that allowed the Irish to hold their positions when the first assault poured in. For over five days the fighting proved ferocious as ‘A’ Company refused to yield their position to an enemy that outnumbered them twenty-six to one.

  It is believed ‘A’ Company inflicted more than 300 casualties on the Katangans for the price of just seven wounded Irish soldiers. But lack of ammunition, food and water – not to mention being surrounded by a hostile populace – made the Irish position untenable in the medium- to long-term. UN promises of air support proved illusory, while Katangan roadblocks and enfilading fire on the strategic Lufira Bridge meant the UN could not get ground reinforcements and resupply convoys in. Even the crack Gurkhas could not breach the Katangan defences around the Lufira Bridge to reach the beleaguered Irish garrison.

  With ammunition supplies virtually exhausted, Cmdt Quinlan put his men’s interests above UN politics and agreed to surrender on the promise his troops would be well treated. A refusal to surrender on terms could provoke a massacre. ‘A’ Company had staged one of the most heroic and defiant defences in Irish military history – yet their courage was for decades effectively ignored back home.

  The grim reality for the 35th Battalion back in Elisabethville was that they simply didn’t have sufficient troops for all the critical tasks now rapidly unfolding around them.

  In the midst of the confusion, came one of the most dramatic and courageous incidents of Ireland’s entire four-year involvement in the Congo – an incident that saved the lives of several captured Irish officers, if not all Irish detainees. It involved an officer, Captain Art Magennis, who had been placed under the command of the Dogra Battalion of the Indian UN troops. He had been present with an Irish armoured car unit when the Indians had captured the Elisabethville Post Office. Despite UN loud hailers pleading in French, Swahili and English for the Katangan gendarmes to surrender, the Post Office had turned into a bloody battle. After the facility had been captured, Captain Magennis was shocked to see Indian soldiers nonchalantly bayoneting the body of a dead Katangan soldier as they walked passed it. Mercifully, it was the only corpse the captain would see that day as he stayed out of the interior of the building.

  Captain Magennis’ younger brot
her, Tim, worked as a journa-list in Nyasaland (now Malawi) far to the south-east of the Congo. He was a correspondent for The Globe, a South African-based newspaper, and his primary job was reporting on the fledgling nationalist leader, Hastings Banda. With nationalism raging like a bushfire across Africa, Hastings Banda was being looked to for inspiration by many aspiring African leaders. South Africa, acutely mindful of its white minority rule, was following developments in detail.

  ‘Tim had arrived out in South Africa and his news editor called him into his office. He said: “Look, there is no point you sticking around here – it will take you ages to come up to speed.” The news editor then said that as Tim was from Northern Ireland he should know all about British colonialism. “The place for you is up in Nyasaland with the British and Dr Banda,” he said. So they sent him up there to cover what was going on,’ Art Magennis explained.

  Tim Magennis was good at his job and, as the years passed, word spread that if foreign news crews were ever visiting Nyasaland, Tim was the crucial local contact. For the price of a few beers or a meal, they could be brought up to speed on whatever background they needed for their current story. That reputation would prove crucial when a German reporter, Hans Gomani, flew into Nyasaland en route to Katanga to cover the escalating crisis. Coincidentally, the German crew arrived in Nyasaland at the very time the Irish Armoured Car Group was being ambushed on Avenue Wangermee.

  Gomani, who worked for a German TV station, was an intriguing character. At that time in his early forties, he had served in the army during the Second World War and boasted a deep understanding of the military. He was also an experienced observer of African politics and, increasingly, African conflicts. Best of all, Gomani didn’t panic in war zones because he had spent enough time in uniform to know precisely how to react. That September, he was en route to Katanga to report on what now threatened to become a bloodbath, with the UN at its epicentre. He met up with Tim Magennis in Nyasaland to get a first-hand briefing on what was happening. Tim advised him to seek out his older brother, Art, who was serving as a captain in the Irish 35th Battalion with the UN in Katanga.