Lions Led By Donkeys Podcast - Episode 15 - The Battle of Jadotville

Episode Date: September 3, 2018

On this episode we discuss the Battle of Jadotville, a little known battle during the Congolese Crisis that pit a company of badly armed Irish UN Peace Keepers against an Army of african tribesman, French Foreign Legionnaires, and everyone else looking for a paycheck. Donate to us on patreon if you think what we do is worth a buck: https://www.patreon.com/lionsledbydonkeys Follow us on twitter @lions_by follow Joe on Twitter @jkass99 follow nick on twitter @nickcasm1

🎵 🎵 We'll sing a song, a soldier's song With cheering, rousing chorus as round our blazing fires we throng the starry heavens o'er us impatient for the call Hello and welcome to another episode of the Lions Led by Donkeys podcast. That's right. I am your host, Joe. I am the co-host, Nick. And thank you for surviving our last incredibly depressing episode.

It was long. It was longer than all of them. No, it was actually second longest after when I had Tom on. But that's mostly our fault for not having any limitations on time before we went in it lasts like 20 or 30 minutes i think it was twitter beef it was uh because of who we are we have a lot of twitter beef yeah um so today i did enjoy that episode though you know it's still the highest ranked episode we've ever made. Nice. Which is kind of ridiculous in retrospect to seeing how I have put dozens of hours of research into some of these episodes. And I literally went into that one blind. And it still outranks all my hard work.

But that's cool. Thanks, Tom. So today we're going to head back to the continent of Africa. And as always, we have to play the groundwork. So today the battle or siege of a shadow view and, uh, not going to pronounce it like that. The whole episode, it is called Jadotville. Yeah. It's a French Belgian, but, uh, you know, the, all the documentaries just call it Jadotville.

Yeah. So I'm going to play the card of American here and I'm going just call it jadotville yeah so i'm going to play the card of american here and i'm going to call it jadotville we gotta lay the foundation here uh and as someone that's minoring in french that will bother me uh so uh ah the bubbly sound of old crow hitting the glass yes that's right old crow we still love you even though you still neglect us uh sponsor us yeah by the book uh so pass me the crow so today we go to the congo um more importantly we go to the katanga conflict which is also known as the Congo crisis, which began in 1960. The colony of Belgian Congo, formerly known as the Congo Free State, demanded their independence

from their brutal Belgian overlords. Now, we're not going to go super, super into the Belgian colonialism. Just know that a Belgian king named Leopold II did absolutely terrible things to the Congolese people, which included mass rape, mutilation, and the murders of millions of people, all in the name of securing Congo's vast rubber crop for his own personal bank account. Everything we cover in Africa is pretty depressing. Yeah. For more on this asshole, I actually urge you to listen to a different podcast called Behind the Bastards. He covered Leopold II in a two-parter, and it is magnificent.

He goes in-depth, which we will not be doing because we are military history, not just history in general. Anyway, the country gained its independence on June 30, 1960, and absolutely zero preparations have been made by the belgian authorities for this um most countries who uh break their colonial change and chains not in a revolutionary war like you know america did right uh the colonial masters will lay some groundwork um they'll try to like pick somebody out uh teach them how to run the place. And most places will actually – like India is a good example where the British kind of had an Indian infrastructure built up. So when they fucked off back to the island, there was some kind of groundwork.

They had some good OJT in place. Yeah. Not the case in Congo. There was no Congolese who ran the government. Zero. It was all Belgians. They were also barred from any real education. On the day of independence, less than a dozen people in the entire country had a college education.

Nice. Less than a dozen. And I didn't look up the total population, but I'm going to assume it's like 50 million. Less than a dozen. Nobody had any idea how to run any institutions, and this included the army. So almost immediately, a mutiny broke out in that army. The reason for this was that the Congolese army at the time was actually not the Congolese army. It was something called the Force Publique.

The Force Publique was ran by whites. It was part army, part police, and established during the reign of King Leopold II. They were the operative arm of Belgian oppression. All the murders, mutilations, etc. That I talked about before. That was all done by the force public. So another thing that they had to do. So the Belgians were so cheap well not the belgians entirely but king leopold because this wasn't so much a property of the of the country of belgium as it was the

personal property of king leopold the second it was like owning stocks yeah um he was uh pinching so many pennies that when the force public killed somebody they uh if they fired a bullet they had to bring a hand what the fuck to prove that they killed somebody with that bullet you can assume what happened uh we kind of talked about it in the emu war when you put a price on something people are going to milk that system and what the force public did was just chop off random people's hands you got a lot of one-handed people running around right so what i'm trying to get at is the force public was fucking pure evil um and the forest public like most things was commanded by a white belgian and just like every other officer of that

force uh the only leadership that the army that in the force public was allowed to be black was junior ncos so that's non-commissioned officers. We're talking corporals, sergeants. They're not in charge of everyday anything. His name was Emil Janssens. He decided that, independents or not, shit was going to be how it had always been.

He actually gathered all his black NCOs together and informed them that nothing would change. And as far as he was concerned, they were still subhuman. Oh, okay. They were still privates. Yeah. You can assume how this went.

The men who had actually been expecting promotions and pay increases, which had actually been promised to them when independence came, on par with their white colleagues, got pissed, which fueled the mutiny. It turned into a riot that eventually spread throughout the entire country. And Congo's prime minister, a guy named Patrice Lumumba, tried to calm everybody down when the forest was officially turned into the national army of the Congo and the onsens got shit can't. He put a Congo, Congolese man in charge named Mabuto Sise Seko,

who is a complete and utter bastard in other ways sweet pronunciation um he also promoted all black soldiers at least by one rank um to include filling out the officer class by with senior ncos it didn't slow down the revolt at all it actually got worse as the army's anger turned turned towards the white population uh that had not yet had the brains to run away well they're fucking smacking belgian waffles you have to assume it's been 80 years and the kind of oppression that happened in the conger free state like you don't see many like the only other thing i can compare the conger free state to is like a fucking nazi ghetto like you were bound to be executed if you're a black man if you laughed

in front of a white man okay yeah um if you didn't farm enough rubber they would kill your son kill your wife like the kind of oppression that was done like it's it was so bad no i don't see how that would make it me work any faster as either that or die i guess the the oppression was so bad. No, I don't see how that would make me work any faster. Either that or die, I guess. The oppression was so bad, other European monarchies were like, dude, Leopold, what the fuck? That's how you know it's bad. Yeah. What other assholes are telling you? You're a bigger asshole.

Yeah. So it didn't take long for Belgium seeing the situation spiral controlled to deploy soldiers right back to the Congo to protect their white population. If you're not keeping track, they gave Congo independence and then immediately violated sovereignty by invading less than three weeks later. Um, almost immediately Belgian forces and Congolese forces began fighting each other all over the country, uh, because now the Congolese were independent of their white former overlords. They had guns and they're standing over there. They're going to shoot at each other all over the country because now the Congolese were independent of their white former overlords. They had guns, and they're standing over there. They're going to shoot at each other. Afterwards, around 10,000 Belgians who are still actually working for the Congolese government fucked off back home and left the government pretty much completely unable to function.

They were the only ones left in the entire country that knew how to operate a government. Now, Lamuva is actually considered like an african hero and he's an incredibly smart man um but one guy can't run a government right uh and he immediately started running into problems the white population of which there was tens of thousands after nearly 80 years of colonial rule fled towards the provinces of kantanga and south k kasai which then unsurprisingly declared independence from the newly independent congo with full belgian support and urging under the leadership of moses shambe uh now i'm talking about contenga not south kasai south kasai is kind

of a minor of the two and shambe was in charge of contanga. The area was incredibly mineral rich, and Chambe's new government was backed heavily by mining companies who were terrified of the prospect of having their cash cow nationalized by the socialist Lumumba. All of these mining companies were owned by Belgians, if you hadn't figured that out yet. It was around this time that the United Nations got involved. The UN was led by a guy named Dag Hammarskjölds as its general secretary.

He saw the opportunity for the UN to assert itself on the international stage. So would this be their first, air quotes, official mission? I don't think it was their first, but it was definitely their largest. Because the whole concept of peacekeeping and more importantly, as you'll see, is something that became known as peace enforcement was new to the point that nobody really knew what to do with it. And it was legally in a gray zone. Right. The U.N. as a whole wasn't really sure what to do here. Yeah.

But they just knew if they plopped some international soldiers down. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. And because the UN is led by politicians, not military commanders, which is one of the many reasons why the UN has had issues from the Katanga conflict to present day, they just weren't prepared. Right. But he saw the opportunity to show how important the UN is because you have to think the UN is kind of new and they're trying to show that they're not the League of Nations. Right. You know.

So the UN. Of Extraordinary Gentlemen? No, not at all. I pretend the movie doesn't exist like every good person should. You say that almost, what is it, past three episodes? Yes. I stand by. This is the hill I'll die on. This is the hill i will die he was terrible go fuck yourself uh the the un passed resolution 143 which ordered all belgian soldiers out of the congo to be replaced by a un

commanded force that would not take sides but instead try to stop the fighting in general. This is not what Lumumba wanted when he invited the UN there. He wanted the UN's help to help crush the breakaway states and unite the Congo. He wanted them to help win the fight, not stop it. So Lumumba,

not getting help from anybody else, turned towards the Soviets for assistance. And soon, thousands of Soviet military advisors were flooding into the country to train, lead, and advise his new army. And it should be noted

that Lumumba was not a communist. Yeah, how do you do that? Because as soon as you show a little communist, fucking Soviets are like, yeah, come on, help us out. That's what it is.

He was smart enough to know that the USSR would support anybody who would even take a passing glance by a book written by Marx or Engel and he took advantage of it. Unfortunately, Lumumba's choice was a little nearsighted. It was a calculated risk to help the unity of his country. But it turns out Lumumba was bad at math. This is the 1960s smack dab in the frost of the

Cold War. He should have known by inviting the USSR somewhere was a surefire right at the US involved as well. And the US was not involved in the Congo at all until this point. So why do you think the US would care about a country that the Belgians made damn

sure was a little more than a backwater when they left it? Somebody was bad at math. Hmm. Think larger and more mushroom cloudy. Uh, well, one of the main sources and minerals of Katanga and the Congo was uranium. The stuff using nuclear bombs,

if you're not caught up with that, uh, more specifically, caught up with that uh more specifically contenga supplied all of the uranium that the united states used in the manhattan project to include the bomb that was dropped in hiroshima holy fuck um so yes if if you're doing the math in your head slave labor i'm not good at math slave labor was this was the backbone of the Manhattan Project. Because you have to remember, this Manhattan Project was through the 40s. Right.

Belgium was using slave labor until the 60s. And we knew this. So we might be the bad guys here, folks. So as history generally goes, especially around this time in the world, Lumumba was overthrown and killed in a hit ordered by president Eisenhower himself. Yeah. What? Yeah.

Uh, Eisenhower said, this guy needs to be taken care of. Who'd he send? CIA. Oh, uh, I thought he sent somebody cooler. Nah. Uh, his army chief of staff, Mobutu Sese Seko, replaced him with full CIA support. This is where we catch back up to our story. So in 1961, a contingent of 155 Irish soldiers under the command of Commandant Pat Quinlan

had been deployed into the small mining town of Jadaville. They were part of a larger 500 man irish battalion sent to the congo under the flag of the un and this wasn't the first time irish soldiers had been deployed to the congo for the un this is actually something they took pride of that they were important peacekeepers it was their thing um but the last one actually left nine irish soldiers dead and it shook the nation to its core if they should keep supporting this right thing and what you're thinking nine dead people is like nothing uh because we're sitting 17 years deep into the global war on terror this is something that americans are kind of used to now right um but you need to look at the republic of ireland as a whole they're a strictly neutral country

throughout most of their existence they they were actually neutral before world war two. So war isn't exactly something that they're used to. They were actually so neutral during world war two that when Hitler killed himself in 1950, 1945, Ireland said, Germany, it's condolences.

Yeah. Here's your Hallmark card. Yeah. They're like, because they're neutral. I mean, if somebody else's had a state that you're not shooting at dies, you're going to send a fucking greeting card. Yeah, they're like, because they're neutral, I mean, if somebody else's head of state that you're not shooting at dies,

you're going to send a fucking greeting card. That's what Ireland did. I mean, I wouldn't. They also never joined NATO and excused themselves almost entirely from the Cold War until they managed to find themselves right in the middle of it anyway. Nice.

So with the apparent order to protect its white inhabitants from possible contagionese attack, which should show you how out of touch the UN's mission was, Pat Quinlan's force was sent in. The town was about 100 kilometers away from the main UN base at Elizabethville, the self-styled capital of Katanga. The only downside, of course, was there was only one bridge connecting the capital to Jettaville, meaning that any supplies or support would have to come across that one bridge. of the jettoville meaning that any supplies or support would have to come across that one bridge so i also want to point out i know for a fact that when they were getting shipped over to uh africa the army looked at them like they were boy scouts effectively yeah like who the fuck are these guys they kind of look like they still had the whole hobnail boots all the old shit the

forest greens they had boltaction rifles for a little bit until they got supplied with those FALs. Well, when they got unseen, they actually got the new modern FN FALs, which is an assault rifle or a battle rifle for people who aren't super into weapons. But that's about the most modern is this force got, as you'll see in a little bit. If you can't see the issue with separating your force with only one bridge, congratulations.

You're now promoted to UN High Command. Pat Quinlan was a regular Irish army officer of no real note. He was born in 1919 in County Kerry. And by all accounts, he's a bland, if uninspiring commander. According to the book siege at jattleville uh which was the main source used that i used for this episode um his soldiers were not exactly impressed with him um but he was just a regular officer out of officer's candidate school i'm just still hoping they get belgian waffles

oh they're gonna make some motherfucking waffles here in a bit. Fluffy. But Pat Quinlan was not a dumb man. The area in Jettaville where his unit had been sent, there is few nondescript farmhouses that other UN soldiers had rotated through in the months prior to include another Irish detachment. And he was surrounded by open fields on all sides that were simply overgrown with thick weeds and some dead trees. He knew he was surrounded by open fields on all sides that were simply overgrown

with thick weeds and some dead trees he knew he was standing in a perfect killing zone he said to build it he ordered his soldiers to dig in mind you they all thought he was nuts because none of the other un soldiers who had been stationed here had done so much as bother to fill sandbags let alone they're fucking chilling let alone dig trenches to defend themselves and i guess i should point out that the nine soldiers who were killed prior who were from ireland did not die in jattleville didn't they die from some type of uh fuck they were ambushed no what no they were they were uh killed via uh they were ambushed while repairing a bridge right and they couldn't find some of the bodies yeah and there and there's a fair amount of native racism that goes in

because people insist that they're cannibalized or mutilated. Mutilated certainly is an option here because it was the Baluba and Luba tribal areas that they were missing in, which, I mean, there's no evidence that they would have cannibalized anybody and they were still led by white officers and as you'll see coming up that the white officers kind of kept their african soldiers in check right as far as it comes to like eating people oh um so

you know it's kind of a gray area it's one of those things it's kind of like whenever there's any kind of combat in africa that um they're savage natives they're gonna fucking cannibalism gets thrown around okay right so that totally plays it because the some of the documentaries i've seen where the newspapers say oh cannibalism to the to the nine soldiers there's only i think one left from the patrol that went out that day like some of them were cannibalized i mean i would say mutilations are uncommon oh yeah as we have reported on several occasions battlefield mutilations are really something that only went out of style in the last maybe 100 years and they still happen oh yeah it's fairly common yeah I mean I just find it

the last thing we covered from Africa was General Butt Naked with cannibalization so obviously I took into it like oh they were cannibalized

I can believe that just from what I know and that's not super unsurprising at all when you it's a tribe in Africa but it's a much different tribe from a completely different part of Africa.

Okay. Yeah. That makes sense. Yeah. So there are – I mean a lot of what fueled Butt Naked's cannibalism was his religion. Right. Or so he said. Well, everything that he said went on to his religion.

Right. And Satan and all that yeah um so it's hard to tell yeah um so even other un commanders mocked quinlan for this uh for digging in and quinlan just didn't give a shit his soldiers dug fighting positions all around the area and reinforced the houses that they were staying in um and that would probably be where this whole story would end is one random irish commander getting a wild hair up his ass and digging an entire company if the un go and piss off the entire contagionese government on 13 september the un decided they

were done with the whole peacekeeping thing and then when instead of getting into the business of peace enforcement and lots operationott's Operation Morther, in an attempt to bring an end to the secessionist contagionese, in one fell swoop. Yeah, the UN went on the offensive. It was a badly thought out operation that was so half-assed the General Secretary of the UN himself didn't know about it and several member states of the UN were not even consulted.

Holy shit. Yeah. No communication. Not at all. And you have to think, the UN did not have the things that you would expect a military body in 1960 to have if they're going to launch an offensive operation. No air cover, no artillery, things like that. They didn't have any of that. Other than sweet blue berets going across the fields.

Yeah. One of the reasons that Morthor was so badly bungled is that it was planned, commanded, and led by a guy named Connor Cruz O'Brien, who is sometimes known as The Cruiser, which is definitely a nickname he gave himself. Yeah, I'm The Cruiser. Nobody's like, yeah, bro, you're The Cruiser. No, he gave that fucking nickname to himself. They used to call me The Cruiser. Yeah. Yeah, I'm the cruiser. Nobody's like, yeah, bro, you're the cruiser. No, he gave that fucking nickname to himself.

They used to call me the cruiser. Yeah, you can call me the cruiser. Like when he played football in high school or whatever. So O'Brien was an Irishman himself and was in charge of the entire UN mission to Congo. He was a politician, a historian, and a writer. You'll notice that

none of those things is a, quote, military officer or a commander of any kind. You'll notice that none of those things is a quote military officer or a commander of any kind, but a sweet nickname. He's never been in charge of any military operation ever. And instead, uh, he is now planning an operation to crush the contagion.

He's government, which mind you is supported by untold millions in Belgian money and mercenaries. And, but no, the cruisers got the cruiser to make matters worse the UN soldiers on the ground not directly involved in the

operation were not even told about it oh yeah they wouldn't find this fuck well not necessarily that so the Indian troops and the other Irish troops were heavily involved in more third they knew about more third okay but the other Irish troops were heavily involved in Morthor. They knew about Morthor. Okay. But the other troops, such as Alpha Company stuck out in Jadaville, were not told about

it at all. These are things that they definitely need to know about because the entire native population around them is about to get pissed off. Yeah. So with their capital under attack, they can take these when they strike back at those blue helmeted bastards who, need I remind remind you are not supposed to be taking sides in the conflict per their charter and original agreement. Right. And this is this is an agreement that was also agreed by by Shombe in the contagion is government.

Otherwise, he wouldn't have won there. It's also not even a good blue color. It's like a baby blue. Yeah. Powder blue. Yeah. It's just below baby blue. Yeah. Powder blue. Yeah. It's like just below teal. Yeah.

Yeah. It's not even good. It only exists in paint swatches from like Home Depot. Home Depot, yeah. What better target than these Irishmen sitting out in the middle of nowhere, right? So not a lot is known about the Katanga's military that was lined up to fight Quinlan's men. But what is known that, much like the Force Publique, it was commanded by white men of various nationalities. Due to

Katanga's vast mineral wealth, they were able to open up their wallets and pay just about any mercenary that would swing by. This included French, South Africans, Belgians, and Americans and who would be commanding the Katanganese force? Anybody could get this work, let's go!

Yep. So, the person commanding that force was much more anybody could get this work let's go yeah so the person commanding that force which was much more proven and better educated than quinlan renee fawkes was born in december 14th 1924 in france and had been involved in fighting wars all over the world since world war ii he fought as a member of the french free First Army and received a Croix de Guerre from his actions in combat. He was noted for his ability and admitted to the École Militaire in Saint-Cyr for officer's training. It should be noted that this is the same school founded by Napoleon I and had alumni such as Philippe Petain, Charles de Gaulle, and Jean de Latre de Tassigny. So, a dumb guy is not getting in here. After he graduated, he became a paratrooper officer in

the french foreign legion and he fought in both in vietnam and algeria getting wards piled up on wherever he went eventually he put in leave he put in leave so you go help the contagionese government what the fuck he was a brigade commander at this point i'm about to go on leave and i'm not gonna go do any type of shit like that. Right. And since he was still technically a legionnaire, he brought as many legionnaires as he could to fight with him to make the money, which could have included at least

a thousand of them. Holy fuck. The numbers are murky, and no one is exactly sure how many he had, and Falks isn't talking. I'm still wondering why he's leave days on that. Right. I'm still wondering why his leave date's on that. Right. I'm about to go get

fucked up on leave. Along with well-trained and battle-hardened white officers were thousands of Luba and Baluba tribesmen of unknown quality of training.

Though we can assume going off prior force public standards, they at least got something that resembled basic training. Conservative estimates put the soldiers facing

Quinlan's company at around 3,000 men. Other sources put the number at around 5,000. They're also much better armed than the Irish. The only bright spot of the Irish arsenal was their rifles. Having recently received the modern FN FAL battle rifle, their only heavy machine guns were World War I era water-cooled Vickers machine guns. Oh, fuck. To support those, they had World War II vintage Bren light machine guns.

They also had a few 60-millimeter mortars, but only limited ammunition. This being 1960, body armor was very rare and normally incredibly heavy, so it wasn't uncommon for them to be without it. But what they didn't have was helmets, which had been standard issue for Irish soldiers since World War I. So they had the sweet blueberries. Instead, the helmets that had been issued to them were fiberglass ceremonial helmet covers.

Holy fuck. Oh, so the liners. And completely useless. So you have liners as we see here. Right. These pieces are shit. He has this old, yeah, was it steel pot from world war ii it's an old m1 helmet from world war ii it's a fixed bail so go ahead and explain what the fuck that means

all right i don't know if i want to because you could really go into it well you already brought it just make it simple so an old fixed bill is what they used during world war ii just after the 1917 helmet and the 1917 a1 helmet that they used prior. So around this time, they started utilizing these old steel pots that kind of look like fucking giant bowls, and they started throwing fiberglass liners in it with suspension in it so you would have some type of comfort while you're wearing it. So you weren't wearing a cooking pot on your head. Basically, but it did absolutely nothing.

Right, it's fiberglass. Exactly, even the steel pot was shit. Basically, but it did absolutely nothing. Right. It's fiberglass. Exactly. Even the steel pot was shit. Right. But it would stop shrapnel, things like that. To an extent. Like even in World War I, they found when they issued out those, I forget what the helmets were called, the dough boy helmets. You can call it that.

The A-train helmet that the French had. They found their casualties from head injuries went down significantly. Well, our poor Irish boys in 1960 didn't even have that luxury. No, they had this piece of shit. Yeah. So they tossed them aside. And also, they only had one radio that worked that would occasionally. Ooh, that sounds like a field problem.

Well, they had one radio that worked barely that would get them in contact with headquarters. Quinlan had no way to communicate towards his various positions and they were stretched incredibly thin as the area they were forced to defend was the size of two football fields and they were one company of soldiers and because operation morther they would have no reinforcements and the uran forbid any kind of artillery or air support at the time i would imagine only having one bridge would be a really big problem for reinforcements. Yeah. Oh, that happens.

We'll find out about it. The Contagionese soldiers were instead armed with modern weapons to include rifles, machine guns, and much larger 81-millimeter mortars. They also had several trucks armed with heavy machine guns so they can, you know, um, have something resembling mobile weapons platforms. So you can, you can kind of see why folks thought they would just steamroll right over these Irish guys. Um, so on the morning of September 13th,

around the same time that the UN launched their operation, the contagion is moved in for the kill. The majority of Irish soldiers were not on the line. However, as being good Catholic boys, they were attending mass, which is exactly why Falks picked this time to launch the attack. I know what you're probably thinking right now. How the fuck did Falks know that they were at mass? Well, I kind of do.

Yeah, because the entire town of Genoval itself was spying on the Irish soldiers the entire time. The white Belgians they'd been sent to protect needed no protection whatsoever since they were containing these loyalists. And since the first day Quinlan Smith had started digging, they'd been funneling intelligence back to Fulks and in some cases outright joining his army. Nice. Yeah.

So they didn't even need to be there. Yeah. Their plan was foiled by a young private with the very appropriate name of Billy Reddy who was standing on watch. Was he ready? Oh, yes. When he saw the approaching force numbing around 600 men and including four trucks with machine guns on it he fired his rifle into the air to alert the others after which he immediately

began engaging the enemy the pious soldiers rushed from mass into the prepared positions and immediately began to fight back quinlan's early thought about the area being turned into a killing ground ended up being right, as the only thing the Contagionese could do was assault their positions over open ground and human waves. The Vickers, though older than Dirt, chewed through the Contagionese easily and pushed them back after only a few minutes.

I can see my old Catholic leader, back when I was in fucking Catholic school, lose his shit if you leave mass early. Well, I mean the priest that was there was actually a member of the military as well and there was a note in the book that when it all started he tried to rush out the middle of it and

calm everybody down. What? Yeah, and Quinlan had to like shove him into a trench. That sounds like my fucking... Yeah. So his wife used to teach my class. She was a straight cunt. She was a straight bitch. Nice self-censorship.

I hate her so much. Because, all right, not going to lie. Me and my brother and a few of my friends in Catholic school used to ride on the walls in the church with crayons. Well, crayons are like washable. Yeah, not to them. They think it's a sin. They're seared on by the power of the devil. Basically, like it just burned into the building

and you had nothing to wash it off with. Yeah, I mean, to be fair, wait, do you say your Catholic priest had a wife? Yeah, he did. Doesn't make any sense. Which is really weird, right? Are you sure you're Catholic? I was.

Because they're not allowed to be married. Exactly. But he fucking... Wait, is it like... Is Roman Catholic different than like Mexican Catholic? I'm not entirely sure. I just know I went to Catholic school. Because I know Roman Catholics aren't allowed to be married.

That's why they end up fucking boys all the time. That's why you touch them first. Because the time is now, old man. time that's why you touch them first because the time is now old man you insert your dominance and rape them first yeah jesus but uh basically uh sundays we'd see the husband there giving the sermon and then every day we'd see her which was his wife we don't know if it was technically his wife wife or anything his godly side piece or his slam piece or something so if anybody listening knows what the fuck religion nick is talking about right now please slide into our dms yeah please because i didn't pay attention a lot in catholic school i

got in trouble a lot wouldn't be some shit if this whole time you were accidentally in a madrasa and you never knew i'd be really fucking freaked out if I was in some type of cult because it was an aided community. They accidentally joined the Children of God. I was like, what the fuck am I in? Why am I wearing this matching track suit and giving this Kool-Aid? Flavor-Aid. Flavor-Aid, sorry.

Flavor-Aid. So getting back, before we delve into more deeply about Nick's former cult life, the Cantangoneese were actually not... But really tell me what I'm in. Yeah, please. I'm really curious now. I never thought about it until I was an adult.

We'll just assume that you're in like the Jesuits or something. I haven't been to church in 12 years. I haven't been to church since I was at least like 8 or 9. Nice. Yeah. The Armenian Orthodox Church really sucks. Was going to make a really bad joke, but I'm not going to.

So they could take these lodged repeated attacks throughout the first day and much like the first 600 men at a time. But the Duggan Irish simply would not budge. And each time the attack would break against their line. You can't get their lucky charms. Nah, man, they would not budge. And each time the attack would break against their line,

like can't get their lucky charms. Nah, man, they're protecting that shit. Um, and I, it's hard to believe how well the Irish did, even though they dug in.

I mean, the Vickers is a solid machine gun. As long as you feed an ammo, it's going to fire. I would rather have better. Sure. 1960. Sure. I mean, i would rather have better sure 1960 sure i mean i wouldn't want some old world war one piece of shit running around i mean in the 60s yeah i would much rather have literally any modern machine gun you even see that till the 90s where we hold stuff like the grease gun for tankers in the 90s yeah so it's like, it's not unheard of.

No, if it's broken, if it's not broke, don't fix it. Exactly. You can almost say that about the 50 Cal. Yeah, the Ma-Do still works wonderfully. The M2, yeah. And that's why they still use it to this day. Exactly.

It was once created to shoot down planes, now it shoots down people. It's odd. Yeah. So, but Quinlan knew he couldn't hold him off forever and radioed the headquarters for support. Headquarters. Now, this is shown as some like dramatic argument in the movie, which is on Netflix. Which I haven't seen yet.

It's because you suck. Well, because we were supposed to watch it and you didn't want to. You have Netflix at home. Who do I watch it with? My roommate? Your dog. I guess. Yeah.

So in the movie, it's shown that this is some dramatic argument between UN command and the cruiser and Quinlan. But the book, it just notes that after Quinlan was told that nothing was available to assist him, Quinlan responded, we'll hold out until our last bullet. We could use some whiskey though, which is solidly on brand. He is Irish. We'll send an old crow down his way. Help him fight like a crow.

Now the contagion is got pissed. Seeing that all of their frontal assaults are failing. They wheeled up several 75 millimeter field guns. Holy fuck. And proceeded to bombard the living shit of the Irish positions with direct and indirect fire before launching their frontal assaults. Didn't matter, though, because each time they were beaten back by the Irish, Quinlan then ordered his support platoon to take out their mortars. to take out their mortars. See, before they were operating under strict rules and guidelines that said they couldn't shoot unless they were fired at,

and even then they could only engage with targets they could see. From the obvious definition of indirect fire, you're not going to see their mortar units. And in the movie, it shows them moving the mortars up on the back of trucks to be fired which is outright stupid way to spoil it for me well in the movie it shows them being like maybe 300 meters out and they're like wheeling these fucking flat beds up with mortars on the back and which is insane that's not how mortars work is it like a white toyota that you see of course it is yeah yeah um figured and these are

81 millimeter mortars i don't know what their maximum effective range is but it's certainly more than what you can see um so effectively quinlan said fuck the rules shell those bastards because they're the mortars were eating them up it was only a matter of time before the mortars scored a direct hit and won the trenches and killed half of platoon um quinlan finally told him to fire and the irish mortar man scored a lucky hit dropping a shell right onto the contagionese ammo dumps and annihilated the entire enemy mortar positions all at the same time they really did have their fucking four-leaf clover and you know what's funny is part of their uniform was an armband uh almost like mps would wear that said ireland but also had a four-leover. Oh, those fuckers.

And that's, they, they use the full strength, the four leaf clover on that one. By this time, the white officers in the Contagionese army, which I guess I should note was known as the gendarmerie, uh,

which is an old timey term for like military police. Okay. Um, the gendarmes in France and Belgium are the military police. That's where i'm getting from but it was more just like an army um they lost control of their native troops in the face of the massive losses the luba tribesmen saw a field completely littered with their corpses and whenever they were urged forward in the irish fire and they'd break and run

several irish soldiers report seeing their white officers shooting their own luba tribesmen in an attempt to keep them in line falk's admitting defeat finally asked for a temporary ceasefire to collect all his dead and wounded and quinlan being a gentleman agreed it is estimated that the contagionese had over 1 000 casualties at this point the irish they had between five and ten wounded zero zero killed. Yeah, to my understanding, the whole time they nobody killed. Nobody. Which is fucking insane.

Through the whole time. Now, finally, after three days had passed of this, the UN finally got off its ass and decided to launch a counter attack to try to rescue Quinlan's trapped company. So around 500 Irish, Indian, Swedish, and Gurkha soldiers based in Kamina set out for counterattack to try to rescue quinlan's trapped company so around 500 irish indian swedish and gurkha soldiers based in kamina set out for a shadowville how far is kamina yeah about 50

kilometers um but this brings us to kamina bridge which is that one bridge that separated them it was the only route that the main un force could get at quinlan's company the contagion ease knew this because they're not stupid and dug in all around it. I imagine anybody with some type of military background would understand this is where they're going to come from. And even if you take the incredibly well-educated French legionnaire brigade commander out of the mix, anybody that could run two brain cells together

knows this is the only way they're going to come from. but when you have someone like renee falk's in charge that place is gonna be a fucking death trap yeah a huge choke point yeah so they turn the bridge into a giant kill zone to make matters worse this is also around the time that everyone discovered that the contagion is heading air force oh're fucking jets. A single jet reportedly piloted by a Rhodesian mercenary, though some sources say he was Belgian, began to attack the rescue column who was now stranded on the road.

Now, this is some Mirage training aircraft. Like a French Mirage? Yeah. But it was a training aircraft. It was what was supposed to be used to teach people how to be pilots. Not outfitted for armament oh but they did they outfitted about what it did four 50 caliber machine guns and several bombs yeah um so it could wreak some havoc especially when i'm assuming this is a force that brought zero anti-aircraft un yeah i would see that because why would they yeah

they don't need that type of shit but then all of a sudden this motherfucker comes in right with a sweet ass mirage because honestly I like the way the mirage looks well this is like the baby mirage it's not like so cool like the actual no no it's like so from what I understand

when you go through when you become a pilot or when you're in school to become a pilot you go through like several months of classroom training and simulators and stuff like that this is the first thing you actually get to fly i know about the t6 trainers that the americans use i would assume this is about the same thing oh so it's like the fucking oh so okay never mind made by the same company though so we're gone yeah sorry um so after suffering multiple wounded and a few dead the column was forced off the road. And once again, Quinlan's company was on its own.

The fighting was on once again back at Jadaville. And now that the bridge was clear, the jet turned its attention toward the Serenite Irishman. They had no weapons that could be remotely effective against a jet. But the jet was dumb. Whoever was flying over Eur it Rhodesian or Belgian, he thought quite a bit about himself. He started making very, very low passes on the Irishman. And it was then that... Was it slow or fast?

Did they ever... Well, I imagine it was slow enough for him to target dummy bombs onto them. Because there's definitely no laser guided munitions on board. He's just letting them loose and they're flying uh and quinlan was smart enough to direct company fire onto the jet um and in some accounts that you'll read it's definitely slow enough that uh that the irishman just shoot down the jet and the book shows that that didn't happen but they did damage it enough that uh that the jet stopped making low passes. Holy fuck. So, I mean, in the movie, it actually shows Quinlan overturning a Jeep.

Another spoiler alert. Yeah. He overturned a Jeep. So the Vickers was pointed straight up and fired on it then. That's probably not historically accurate. No, but it looks cool. It does. But I will say.

But they did direct. accurately accurate no but it looks cool it does but i will say but they did direct and now company fire is a term used where every weapon in the company fires one thing okay yeah so even though um and uh there was the contagionese forces on the other side of the field the contagionese don't want to get anywhere near this area either because the jet was attacking it. So they were able to direct all their fire on one jet. That's kind of funny. So, goddammit, where the fuck was I going with this? I don't know. Goddammit.

Noah, how the fuck did I lose it? You can see some pictures of a World War II version of this. Oh, there we go. In the Soviet Union when, like, all the dudes are laying on a hill with their mows and the guns pointing up at the sky no yeah so they put bipods up on foots in like full extension yeah and start trying to shoot at it like they were anti-air but uh i want to go into one of the veterans that i know which is wilbur and uh wilbur you could say it like that because that's how he sounded he looked at me he's like oh little mexican boy here's some french fries when i first met him that's weird well he gave me french fries when i was a little boy i guess he knew that uh you're a second mexican empire

loyalist essentially but he was a ball turret gunner in a b-17 and he was one of the first to encounter 262s me 262s and which is the first ever operational jet if nobody's keeping track at home. By the Germans. Right. And he said they would see him fly straight across. They didn't know what the fuck to do. They kind of just looked at it at first. So for them to get to that point in the 60s where they're like,

there's kind of nothing for us to do here. Yeah. And there was nothing for them to do back then other than let's try to track it. And that's, you know, it doesn't say how much damage was done to the jet. I don't think much. But it was enough to scare him away.

Because you have to think this is a trainer jet. So the cockpit probably isn't armored. So he probably doesn't want to get winged in the face. I just forgot about that it was a trainer. It's not a real Mirage. If it was a real Mirage, it was fucking screaming through the... If this was an actual fighter bomber, Quinlan would have died. For sure.

Oh, yeah. But I figured it was done by a Rhodesian or a Belgian. Yeah, whoever it was, that's one... The accounts on the mercenary side are are super varied um because falk's being a uh quiet professional simply never talked about it until the day he died um but the the book juggles that it might be belgian might be rhodesian but the jet itself was contingent ease they bought it from Belgium. Yeah. Because it's a trainer jet. Why the fuck do they care?

So, now that they scared off the jet, the fighting on the ground is back on at the positions in Jadaville. But the problem was they were running precariously low on ammo for the rifles, machine guns, and the ammo for the mortars had run out the day before more importantly than that though they were actually out of food and water and this is congo in the summer it is hot as fuck yeah i have been to the congo in the summer and it's hot as fuck yeah fuck that it is it i mean it is really hot with like 90 percent humidity the only thing i can compare to that is if some of you know is NTC, which is the National Training Center in California. It's like that, but with like 90% humidity. So while we were there, we were out of water for three days.

So we had to ration our camelbacks, which was horse shit. And I know you know what I'm talking about because we were essentially in the same unit. Yeah. Fucking terrible how they weren't able to get water to us. But not that surprising. It's not surprising at all, but it's still terrible. Yeah. Incompetence is kind of their watchword.

Very. So after several days, Quinlan begged and pleaded the UN for support, and he finally got it, actually. A helicopter piloted by a Swedish crew managed to deliver several barrels of water. Now, this wasn't ammo, and this wasn't extra men, and it wasn't an exfiltration, but it was something that they desperately needed. The soldiers quickly discovered, though, that when they opened the barrels of water, they couldn't drink it. quickly discovered though that when they opened the barrels of water they couldn't drink it they had just been used to store fuel and no one

thought about checking them before sending them out which is actually something that happened to me before they gave us a jerry cans full of water that were contaminated with fuel holy shit that'll kill you that fucking sucks yeah

this says on jerry cans to fuel and they look completely different from water jerry cans yes the fuel ones have three and i will assume three fucking handles i will assume that this is mostly the same thing because jerry cans have been used to carry fuel and water since world war one yeah from metal to now what we use is basically plastic fucking plastic for jerry cans it was the same thing the one handle is water yeah the three is fuel yep and it says fuel on it exactly and then you have units stenciling their shit on jpa yep fuel essentially for us this ended up being the last straw for Quinlan. His soldiers were surrounded and stranded out in the middle of nowhere.

The UN had stopped trying to support him in any way, shape, or form. And after getting their noses bloody out on the bridge, they stopped trying to rescue him. They couldn't even send him water that he could drink without dying. And Quinlan knew, most importantly, his position was untenable. dying and Quinlan knew most importantly, his position was untenable. UN command also stopped communicating with them as their operation elsewhere in their country went to hell, meaning they just expected Quinlan's men to be wiped out and then would just

move on with their life. Connor Cruz O'Brien at this time is pretty nonchalant about the whole deal. He's a fucker and you'll learn to hit him more here in a little bit. It was then, on September 17th, 1961, that Fawkes offered Quinlan terms of surrender. After five days of battle,

Quinlan accepted, seeing no other options available to him. Fawkes had expected to walk into a devastated area full of dead Irish soldiers. And his pilot actually told him that as much. They told him while during his flyover, he saw several body bags behind the Irish positions, dozens of them. What they had actually been were sleeping soldiers inside of sleeping bags, but had been reported as body bags through Fawkes, through the Cantonese government,

through international media, and back to Ireland. Fuck. So the families of these Irish soldiers thought that they were all dead. It's really funny. Falks was so amazed

not to see a single Irish soldier that had been killed and they suffered only when a dozen wounded. Meanwhile, Falk's force was obliterated in the attacks. At this point, they only had about

a thousand men left in fighting shape. Jesus. Now, depending on which level of forces that you go off of, this means he lost either 3,000 or 4,000 men. One day later,

on the 18th of September, Dag Hammarskjölds, the UN Secretary General, was killed in a plane crash in northern Rhodesia. It is generally accepted that Hammarskjölds was assassinated by a combination

of South African, Rhodesian, and Belgian interests for meddling in their contending experiment with ample evidence uncovered during the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission that the apartheid-era government had his plane shot down with the possible CIA assistance,

with former CIA chief Alan Dola saying, quote, Hammerschultz needs to be removed. I'm really glad you brought that up because I was about to bring up Rhodesia with that one. So this mission was never going to succeed. Literally everybody was working against it. Quinlan and his men were held captive for about a month as the UN was forced to agree to humiliating terms and the Kataganese received a huge prisoner exchange

in exchange for captured mercenaries and money in exchange for the Irish soldiers. Now, during the time they're in captivity, they kept being told they were going to be, you know, shot. They were going to be executed. Right.

But they were actually treated incredibly well. They were allowed to shave. They had showers, three meals a day. But, you know, by the way, we're going to execute you.

Never really happened. I have a hard time actually. Like a finger gun to the side. Oh, yeah, by the way. Yeah, I actually have a hard time believing that Fulks would have allowed them to be executed. Because by the end of the war, Rene Fulks is effectively in charge of the gendarmes. And he respected Quinlan. They'd actually met.

It shows in the movie. actually met uh it shows in the movie it also points out in the book um that um in the in the city of or the town cities is kind of a strong word of shadowville that um quinlan and fawkes ran into each other before the battle uh because expecting that they are going to go into our friendly area uh quinlan and his soldiers went into shadowville to um get supplies and stuff right and they ran into falks and several of his mercenaries at a bar um falks bought him a shot uh asked why he was there vice versa uh quinlan asked why he was there and they uh parted on acceptable terms falks understood that quinlan was a soldier and he was gonna do what soldiers do okay yeah uh so i have a hard time believing falks is ever gonna allow quinlan has been to

be executed right um i mean and not only did they did he offer them uh uh uh terms of surrender on that last day there he actually offered them several times before then. I almost see respect coming from either side. Oh, it was. It was more, I feel like there's certainly more respect coming from Falks because Quinlan saw them as mercenaries. Because they were mercenaries. Like paid guns. Right.

And there's actually a point where, because there's possibly thousands of legionnaires involved and there's a specific beret that legionnaires are given. It's a green beret with the Legion symbol on it that is incredibly important to them, almost as important as their capi blanc. And there was two scouts who were scouting up ahead of the main gendarme force who were captured by Quinlan's perimeter patrol. They were in civilian clothes so per the geneva conventions with the irish air signatory to they were going to be executed as spies okay um and there was actually stopped by quinlan um and he was going to let them go back

and uh one of the frenchmen said uh, my friend is really concerned because he still has his beret. They weren't concerned they were going to be executed. They were concerned that he was going to get his beret back. So Quinlan made sure they got the berets back and sent them back unarmed to the gendarme lines. So it's been shown

throughout the entire conflict that they're both going to treat each other with respect. Nobody shot each other as wounded. Nothing like that. Which might be the last recorded time in the history of modern combat

where this happened. You don't see this anymore. No. One was born in 1919. One was born in the 1920s. They're both products of a bygone era. So with that, the Irish soldiers returned home. The surrender terms being met and the exchange being made. And they were pretty much ignored.

The term at Jadaville Jack was actually used as an insult towards the Irish army because they had the gall to surrender. Yeah. I heard they got a shit ton of shit. Yeah. Just for surrendering because they didn't know the circumstances or anything that they were in that they were involved with. Right. And I mean— All they knew was, oh, they just surrendered.

Well, Quinlan knew what Quinlan knew, and he absolutely made the right decision, in my opinion. Oh, yeah. I totally agree. What it came down to is that it was an embarrassment for the Irish government. Not only was an Irishman in charge of the Congolese mission, but hundreds of Irish soldiers were involved in Morthor, which is also a failure. So by and large, this entire timestamp area of the Congolese conflict is a massive failure with Irish names written all over it.

Right. So maybe it was less than like you dishonored the Irish Republic because they don't have a martial history to speak of more as like you made the entire country look bad as long as the, as same with O'Brien, same with the entire UN mission. So we'll sweep to some of the rug. Yeah. Well, cause like you said, like this was UN's first big mission. Right. same with O'Brien same with the entire UN mission so we'll sweep this under the rug yeah um well

because like you said like this was UN's first big mission right not their first but their big mission so it's almost like they had to kind of make him they tried to do something but they couldn't right and it's noted in the book that um the reason why they weren't given a hero's welcome when they returned to ireland was because they surrendered and um by by rewarding their surrender they would somehow make the un look bad right and the and to this day ireland is heavily involved in peacekeeping yeah so you can kind of see where they're coming from i guess if i was to play devil's advocate i don't see it i don't know. So although a company, 35th battalion had tactically defeated a larger force at

Jettaville, the Irish defense forces did not overtly acknowledge the battle Quinlan and several, uh, Quinlan had put several of his soldiers in for the military medal of gallantry, which is Ireland's highest military award. So the thing that is like the Irish version,

the medal of honor for their conduct in battle Irish version of the Medal of Honor. Right. For their conduct in battle. None of them were ever accepted. There had been some perceived shame that a company had surrendered or because of political and strategic errors demonstrated at higher levels, Quinlan eventually retired as a full bird colonel, but never saw overseas action again. The Irish soldiers who fought at Shadowville found that it was best for one's career to simply not mention the battle.

Quinlan died in 1997, his service never being recognized. But his soldiers would not give up. The veterans of Jadaville were dissatisfied that the defense forces refused to acknowledge the battle and that there was an implied black mark on the reputation of their commander quinlan and it should be noted before they deployed they actually didn't like the guy yeah but all of them said in interviews afterwards that we would all have died if wasn't for him yeah um the veterans of a company reportedly regarded him reportedly regarded him as an exceptional officer who had saved the lives of his men by ordering them to dig in and who successfully led his company against an overwhelming enemy force he was forced into an

impossible situation by the failings of un leadership and against all odds he had saved the lives of each of his men in battle they had not expected nor planned for. Finally, in 2004, after decades of campaigning, the Minister of Defense, Willie O'Day, held a full review of the battle and cleared Quinlan and all of his soldiers of any soldierly misconduct from surrendering. The unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation in 2016, the first and so far only in the nation's history. Now, Quinlan's actions at Shadowville are not only world renowned, having been turned into a book and now a movie, both of which I recommend actually, they are now taught in Irish defense academies of a perfect example of

perimeter defense. Gotta watch it. Yeah. The book is better than the movie, though I will say the book starts off really dry um it took me two attempts to get through it oh fuck um and now our footnotes to wrap up the seventh episode and uh to make you upset so i'll bring you back to the cruiser o'brien resigned from the un in disgrace and went on to write a book called to contenga and back

the book put all of the blame on literally everybody else and excused him from any wrongdoing. It's a total donkey. Yep. He is definitely the fucking donkey. To bring back a saying of pralines and dick. Quinlan is

the pralines. Yeah. And O'Brien is a lot of dick um so in his book katanga and back he blamed literally everybody uh except himself and uh because there's no justice in the world he is alive and well to this day he also was elected to be a minister of parliament on several occasions that's almost normal with the people that we cover. Yeah. Foulkes also survived the battle and exited the Legion in 1963, after which he set off on a mercenary career

that would bring him around the world until he finally died in 2011. The state of Katanga would hardly last longer than the Battle of Jadaville himself, being reabsorbed back into the Congo by 1963. Um, so our sources for this episode, uh, as I said before, were the book, the siege of Jadaville, uh, and I cannot recommend it more.

And there's a Netflix movie, uh, based on it called the battle of Jadaville, uh, starring Jamie Dornan, uh, which is, it's okay. Uh, it's, you can kind of tell it's been on a budget cause in a lot of occasions, like nobody's firing their weapons at anybody. Uh,

but it's, it's not bad. I highly recommend it. If you don't feel like reading a 300 and some change book about Irish military history and the Congolese crisis. Um, so that's our episode. Thank you for turning in.

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