by Ralph Riegel
‘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 ha
ppen if they were captured by the Katangan gendarmes.
One of the few things known for certain in Battalion HQ was that ‘The Factory’ had already been surrounded and attacked by a large and heavily armed Katangan force. But, as far as battalion knew, Sgt Shannon had managed to hold his lines. The initial purpose of the patrol was to see if Sgt Shannon needed reinforcement – or whether he needed to evacuate his position under covering fire from the armoured cars.
However, as the patrol prepared to depart, one of the 35th Battalion’s intelligence officers, Captain James ‘Jimmy’ Parker, approached Cmdt Cahalane and Sgt Carey and shared some private concerns. Captain Parker – a native of Mitchelstown who would later become Defence Forces chief of staff – spoke of growing fears about the safety of Lt Tommy Ryan’s small Irish detachment at the Radio College. They had been assigned to garrison the facility as part of Operation Morthor, but it had been impossible to establish contact with the outpost over the past four hours and HQ now wanted the patrol to investigate local rumours that a large force of Katangan gendarmes had overrun the position and captured the entire Irish detachment.
The patrol’s primary mission now was to establish precisely what had happened to Ryan and his men. If they weren’t found at the Radio College, the patrol was ordered to occupy and hold the premises until UN reinforcements arrived.
Part of the problem now facing the 35th Battalion was logistical. The Irish units were equipped with C-12 radios that were valve-based and did not work properly when used inside a moving armoured car because of the heavy vibrations. Due to atmospheric conditions in the Congo, after nightfall the radios tended to suffer from extreme static, sometimes so bad that communication was totally impossible. Tim Carey recalled that you needed ‘an aerial stretching almost to the moon’ to get any kind of reception while on the move. Operation Morthor had landed the UN in a dangerous firefight, but confused UN commanders were now increasingly unable to keep track of either their troop positions or their combat status. That did not explain why the Irish troops at the Radio College – with access to a powerful radio transmitter – had not been able to report back on their situation. Unless, of course, the Katangans had overwhelmed them before they could raise the alarm.
Sgt Carey knew the maze of roads around Elisabethville like the back of his hand. He was the only man on the patrol familiar with Avenue Wangermee and Rue de Cuivre, the roads on which the sprawling Radio College was located. Sgt Carey’s familiarity with the road network was a crucial advantage given the Radio College’s proximity to a major Katangan gendarme base. The last thing the Irish troopers wanted was an unexpected nocturnal meeting with a large Katangan force. Cmdt Cahalane would lead the patrol, in command of the armoured car driven by Carey, with the jeep and bus following close behind. The open-topped armoured car commanded by Capt. Frank Whyte together with Sgt Peter Dignam and Cpl Paddy Holbrook would take up the rear position.
As the patrol slowly pulled out of camp, Tpr John O’Mahony watched anxiously from beside one of the base guard posts. Ordinary troopers were not consulted by senior officers about developments, but the soldiers knew full well from rumours on the base grapevine that things weren’t looking good around Elisabethville. John knew there was a good chance the patrol leaving base wouldn’t return without shots having been exchanged with the Katangans and their mercenary allies.
Other Irish soldiers not assigned to the patrol also watched as the small convoy prepared to set off. ‘I think everyone was smoking – even people who didn’t smoke at home ended up smoking in the Congo because we were issued with these awful “Belges” cigarettes as a form of payment in Elisabethville. To be honest, smoking was a way to bleed off the tension. I remember standing there smoking a cigarette with a few other lads as Pat, Mick and the others ran through their checklist with the armoured cars. A few of the lads in the bus waved to us as they prepared to depart,’ John said.
Conditions in the Irish camp had deteriorated over the past week with businesses in Elisabethville now refusing to supply the UN forces with food because of fears of retaliation by Katangan gendarmes. Over the previous three months, the Irish troops at least had access to freshly cooked food like chicken and beef, as well as local vegetables. Now, they had to resort to living off pack rations such as ‘dog biscuits’ and tinned bully beef, which was heated in a pan. The only consolation was that the Irish troops vastly preferred their own pack rations to the US rations. Many of the American meals bore absolutely no resemblance to what was specified on the tin – and some Irish soldiers grumbled that it was probably dog food repackaged. Many soldiers simply refused to eat the US rations, or tried to swap them for either Irish or Swedish rations that seemed more appealing.
‘I was cursing the fact that my hand was still in a cast and that I wasn’t allowed to undertake duty in the armoured cars. I had wanted to volunteer for the patrol but I knew Sgt Carroll wouldn’t allow me because, with one hand in a cast, I simply couldn’t operate the turret. It was just too heavy to move it one-handed. I waved to Pat and he smiled back at me and raised his hand in salute. At that point Pat was in the open-topped Scout car that was bringing up the rear of the patrol. He was manning the Browning machine gun and would be protecting the patrol’s rear. My abiding memory is of Pat waving from the open-topped armoured car as dusk fell and the patrol rumbled out the gate. I can close my eyes and still picture him waving to me,’ John added.
The patrol had only travelled a short distance down the road when Cmdt Cahalane ordered a halt for a re-arrangement of personnel between the various vehicles. Cmdt Laurence ‘Larry’ O’Toole, an officer of the Medical Corps, had initially been travelling in the first armoured car alongside Cmdt Cahalane, Sgt Carey and Cpl Michael Nolan. However, Cmdt Cahalane decided that, as the lead Ford was the most likely to see action first, a dedicated gunner for the Vickers was an absolute necessity. With Cpl Nolan assigned to radio communications and Sgt Carey driving, another trooper was clearly required. Tpr Mullins was ordered to transfer to the lead armoured car – and, with five personnel making the car too crowded to operate effectively, Cmdt O’Toole was sent back to the rear. ‘He was one lucky doctor,’ Captain Art Magennis later acknowledged.
The Ford AFV now revved up again and led the small patrol directly towards the Radio College, some five kilometres from the Irish base. The initial route took them out of the base, along Rue Savonnier, through the soon-to-be-infamous Tunnel, past the Hotel de Ville, and then, at the junction of Avenue Royale and the Cathedral, through a hard right onto Avenue Wangermee.
The patrol, moving slowly and carefully – paying attention to any signs of Katangan gendarme movements – wound its way around the western suburbs of Elisabethville. But the armoured cars were unchallenged. Approaching Avenue Wangermee, Sgt Carey brought the patrol’s speed down to a cautious crawl. Cmdt Cahalane repeatedly scanned the surrounding buildings for any sign of trouble while Tpr Mullins manned the Vickers ready to respond to fire at a moment’s notice. But there was no sign of trouble as they approached the college.
The college, founded by the Belgians in 1912, was one of the biggest and most modern facilities in Elisabethville. The building, with its brick, concrete and glass exterior, could easily be mistaken for a European or North American high school or college. The college not only boasted a powerful radio transmitter, it also housed a large bookshop and library on the first floor and a small student print shop in the basement. The building was approached through a tall arched gateway made up of steel and timber, and topped with a sign proudly boasting of the college’s fiftieth anniversary year. At either end of the college were large block structures, each of which had twenty-eight large glass windows showing the staircase inside. The building was two storeys high with a flat roof and numerous windows. The college was fronted by a rather worn lawn, which had receded in parts to show the iconic rich-red soil of the Congo. Across the road from the college was some open parkland with a few hardy African trees offering shelter from the sun for stu
dents and pedestrians.
That night there was an eerie stillness all along Avenue Wangermee. There was not a single soul in sight, despite the fact that this was traditionally a popular time for locals, free of the sticky daytime heat, to savour the cool evening air.
On either side of the Radio College were residential properties. The families that lived there were either wealthy, European, or part of Elisabethville’s fledgling native middle class. Most of the buildings were of traditional colonial design – single or two-storey, all with ample porches looking out onto the street. Most usually had European saloon cars such as Renaults, Citroens, Opels or Mercedes parked in the wide driveways. Avenue Wangermee itself was more of a boulevard than an ordinary road – wide enough for four vehicles to drive abreast. Unlike other parts of Elisabethville where road surfaces were compacted earth, Avenue Wangermee boasted a well-maintained tarmac surface.
The Irish patrol approached, keeping the Radio College on its left-hand side. ‘As we approached the college the complete patrol was together and everything seemed to be quiet. There was an ambulance on the side of the road, on our left, and I pulled into the left-hand side,’ Sgt Carey later recalled in an official army report. When the patrol halted and gazed around they saw no obvious sign of trouble. There wasn’t a single indication of fighting – there were no rifle or machine gun cartridges scattered about and the college itself seemed to be completely undamaged. There were no windows broken and no sign of any bullet impacts on the brick and concrete exterior. There was nothing whatsoever to hint at a threat to the normal colonial tranquillity of this residential area. Similarly, there didn’t appear to be any sign of Katangan forces or their vehicles. The Irish soldiers scanned the nearby buildings and avenues for any sign of Katangan armour, but saw nothing.
