Siege at Jadotville: The Irish Army's Forgotten Battle by Declan Power

Author:Declan Power [Power, Declan]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Non-Fiction, History, Ireland, Africa, Congo (Democratic Republic), War, Military History
ISBN: 9781908518064
Publisher: Maverick Publishing Ltd
Published: 2004-12-31T22:00:00+00:00

As always with A Company, training continued over the coming week. For Lt Carey, it was a case of more of the same.

“We were put back to anti-riot drills and training and continued to go into Jadotville to show a UN presence. We continued to receive supplies and rations from Elisabethville.”

However, reports were coming into the Irish company that unrest was being cultivated in the nearby mining villages and that white mercenary officers were agitating amongst the natives and stirring up dissent against the UN presence.

At this point, had ONUC HQ in Katanga developed an organised organic intelligence-gathering facility, this information would have had more impact. Had they a more developed defence against the disinformation being propagated by the likes of these mercenary officers they might have even stymied the forthcoming assault on A Company.

Bereft of any of these force multipliers, Quinlan simply did everything any prudent commander could do. Even though higher authority gave him no warning of the impending Operation Morthor, much less any warnings of a significant threat to his own area, he opted to prepare for battle.

Though insisting that his men prepare defensive positions, Quinlan decided not to be too overt with these preparations so as not to appear provocative to the local gendarmerie units.

However, two days after arrival on 5 September, the Katangans started to blockade A Company and prevent re-supply by road from Elisabethville by deploying a heavily-manned checkpoint at Lufira Bridge.

Lufira Bridge, some 20 miles from Jadotville, controlled access to the town from Elisabethville. Whoever controlled access at Lufira would ultimately be able to control the battle.

Quinlan could see what was coming. He then gave one of the more significant orders of his career. He told his men to start digging. CQMS Pat Neville put it like this:

“Our CO, Comdt Pat Quinlan had all of our personnel paraded for what he described as a chat. He ordered everyone in the camp to have a trench dug by evening. It happened and everyone had suitable accommodation by dark.”

This order, timely as it was, undoubtedly saved lives in the bombardments and air attacks that were to follow, although not everyone was in a trench during the attacks.

Apart from the unfortunate (or fortunate, depending on your viewpoint) Sgt Hegarty, who was caught in the open and peppered with shrapnel, CQMS Neville was to spend most of the battle manning his store above ground, disbursing welfare and ammunition to his men.

Despite the obvious rise in tension, Quinlan was keen to keep things as normal as possible—hence the opportunity for the irrepressible Lt Joe Leech managing to source a nearby private pool and to wangle an opportunity for his troops to use it.

He managed to drag Lt Carey away from his duties so the two officers could take a dip. However, Lt Carey bore the brunt of his CO’s wrath on return and was put to work checking the radio communications.

To Quinlan’s chagrin, Carey had to report that the radios could not be relied on for inter-platoon communications.

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