Siege of Jadotville: Congo 1961

Of the French mercenaries that made their way to Katanga, one of the major standouts was Roger Faulques. Faulques, a veteran of WWII, the French-Indochina War, and The Algerian War, was a battle hardened professional soldier. Known as "L'homme aux milles vies" ("The Man of a Thousand Lives"), Faulques led an estimated force of 3,000-5,000 Katangan troops against 155 Irish UN soldiers at Jadotville.

                                               

The Siege of Jadotville has echoes of the 1879 battle of Rorke’s Drift in Natal province, South Africa, when 150 British soldiers repelled attacks by up to 3,000 Zulu warriors. The Siege of Jadotville only lasted 5 days. At the end of the battle, the leader of the Irish UNOC soldiers, Commandant Pat Quinlan surrendered to Faulques on September 17th, 1961. During the action the UN forces had inflicted surprisingly heavy casualties on the Katangans and their mercenary allies (300 dead, 1000 wounded), with only 5 wounded men.

The Irish UN soldiers simply ran out of ammunition and supplies. They were lightly armed to begin with. They had 60mm mortars, Vickers heavy machine-guns, shoulder-fired anti-tank guns and Bren light machine guns, whereas the Katangan forces had artillery support and air support from a single Fouga Magister training jet.

The Irish UN soldiers simply ran out of ammunition and supplies. They were lightly armed to begin with. They had 60mm mortars, Vickers heavy machine-guns, shoulder-fired anti-tank guns and Bren light machine guns, whereas the Katangan forces had artillery support and air support from a single Fouga Magister training jet.

The Irish UN soldiers were held for 5 weeks before the UN could negotiate their safe return, upon which they were seen as a national embarrassment which overshadowed the men’s courage and competence. The treatment of the Jadotville troops infuriated the soldiers and their families and led to a decades-long fight to recognize the importance of the battle.