John Peters: Congo Mercenary, Part Two

 

John Peters returned from Salisbury, Rhodesia, in time to take part in Operation Banzi, and was lucky that being seasoned made up for the lack of qualified officers. The operation launched on September 27th, 1965, with a force of over 350 mercenaries and more than 3,000 ANC soldiers. 5 Commando and its subsequent forces attacked to the South, Southwest, and one force attacked Baraka with an amphibious landing and air support at the port via Lake Tanganyika. Peters trained and led the amphibious assault team and was wounded during that battle and refused morphine so he could keep fighting the Simbas. He would get wounded again nearly 5 weeks later during the fighting at Fizi.

Peters had earned a reputation as a cold blooded killer, not only on the battlefield but apparently even among his own men and reporters. The story goes that Peters knifed fellow merc Hugh van Oppen to death during a dispute over which cot they were to sleep in on May 18th, 1965. The other version is that Lt. Ross Johnstone was the one that knifed van Oppen.

In December of 1965, Col. Mike Hoare left the Congo after running four successful campaigns and nearly freeing the whole of the Congo from the Simba's grasp. "It has been an honor to have led you in the four glorious campaigns in which 5 Commando changed the face of the Congo and altered the course of history” said Hoare before passing the torch of leadership to John Peters. Peters would go on vacation to Rhodesia once again and would soon be contacted by a group of conspirators that, with Belgian support, wanted to overthrow General Mobutu.

By this time, Mobutu had waged a successful coup against the former President Joseph Kasa-Vubu, and Moise Tshombe was also out of the picture and effectively listed as a traitor by Mobutu. Peters refused to join and left Rhodesia and fled to England so Mobutu’s men couldn't capture him and charge him as a conspirator. In 1967, Peters transferred 5 Commando to George Schroder who disbanded 5 Commando that May. 

Peters tried to make his home in South Africa but the government refused to let him stay, instead he went back to London and started a mercenary front under the guise of a real estate agency. They claimed they could fully mobilize and with weapons and the necessary equipment in a matter of days. After the outbreak of the Biafra War in July 1967, Peters recruited a dozen South African, Rhodesian and British transport aircraft pilots to fight on behalf of the Nigerian government. Peters got in contact and warned his former officer and Col. Hoare’s right hand man, Alastair Wicks, who was recruiting mercenaries for Biafra, and said:"I don't want my boys to fight yours." Despite everything Peters fought and lived through, he would pass away after a sudden heart attack at an airport in Dallas, Texas in 1986.