The Team House - The Legend "Mad" Mike Hoare with his son Chris Hoare, Ep. 80

Episode Date: February 13, 2021

Chris is the son of the notorious Congo mercenary "Mad Mike" Hoare and wrote a biography about his father's many, many adventures titled The Legend. Get access to bonus segments with our guests: https://www.patreon.com/m/TheTeamHouse Team House merch: https://teespring.com/stores/my-store-10474963 Team House Discord: https://discord.gg/wHFHYM6 SubReddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/TheTeamHouse/ Jack Murphy's memoir "Murphy's Law" can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Murphys-Law-Journey-Investigative-Journalist/dp/1501191241 The Team Room Reading Room (Amazon Affiliate links): https://jackmurphywrites.com/the-team-room-reading-room/ Intro music by https://www.youtube.com/user/RemixSampleBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-team-house--5960890/support.

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with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Special operations. Covert ops. Espionage. The Team House. With your hosts, Jack Murphy.

and David Park. Okay, folks, here we are. We're live. This is episode 80. I'm Jack Murphy, here with co-host Dave Park. And our guest tonight is Chris Hore. He is the son of the legendary Congo mercenary, Mad Mike Hoare. I've just finished reading his book tonight about an hour and a half before we started

the show here. So I'm just finished in my mind. This was a really great book. I really enjoyed it, Chris, and I can't wait to talk to you about your dad and about the book itself. Well, thank you for having me on the show. Yeah, you're a legend here yourself, Chris,

especially doing this from South Africa where it's two in the morning or three in the morning right now. That's right, and a sweltering night. I don't think you want to be here right now. It's very uncomfortable. So, you know, we, typically start the show by asking about the guest's origin story. And yours is quite specific to the book, intrinsic, of course, to, you know, father and son relationship. Could you tell us about

young Chris Hoare coming into the world and your upbringing and, you know, start to get into your relationship with your dad? Yes. Well, after the war, the Second World War, my father and mother went back from India and probably we'll talk about that. And so I was born in London, but London was no place to be after the war. There was food rationing and many other problems. And Mike had had a taste of Africa during the war, just a brief visit to Cape Town. And so they decided to immigrate to see. South Africa and they ended up in Durban, a port city, which has also been described as the last outpost of the British Empire.

So it suited them very well, being British. And so that's where I grew up in a suburb, leafy suburb. Mike did very well in business. so I had a privileged childhood. Unfortunately, the marriage ended when I was about 10 years old. It was unsustainable really because Mike was an adventurer first and foremost, and every year he would go off on adventures for three or more months at a time. And this was unsustainable.

and I'll never forget he more or less, he was not good with emotional things, but he more or less took me aside and said, look, this wasn't part of the plan, but tell you what I'm going to do for you. I'm going to give you the best education available in South Africa. And so he sent me to the best schools, a great university, And it's not that he disappeared. I spent a lot of time with him. He had a beautiful yacht in Durban,

and I spent my teenage years with him on that yacht in a way. And yes, and then I had just started in journalism when I got this dream telegram from him. you probably don't even know what a telegram is. And he said, I bought a 23-meter yacht in Spain. We're moored in Alicante, get here as soon as you can. And so that was the start of a gap year, what was supposed to be a gap year,

and which ended up as a 10-year gap year, I rather enjoyed my gap year sailing and doing many other things. And so I prolonged it. And then I went back into journalism in South Africa. You know, I think I'm something of a free spirit. I don't fit in well like many people in other places. Journalism seems to be a home for people like that. and so I've made a living all through my life with words and photographs in different types of journalism, public relations and desktop publishing and now book publishing.

So it's all to do with words. Just to go back to my tenure gap here, I traveled a lot. I studied French in Paris. I learned Italian in Italy. I worked in a Swiss ski resort as a handyman. You know, I've done lots of different things. And here we are now. Yes, I'm a book publisher.

Chris, what age did you realize that your dad wasn't necessarily like other dads? You know, that you say, he has an adventurer and things like that. Like, when did you realize that wasn't normal? Look, I think as a boy, you don't know any different, but my best friend was the regard of my age across the road. And his father was a chartered accountant, just like my father. And he worked in town, but he only got two weeks leave a year. And he would spend that time turning these beautiful. wooden bowls on his leg

in his workshop and my dad you know would ride from Cape Town to Cairo on a motorbike so you do realize that he is different but in another

way I mean he was British and you know in amongst all the many of the other dads who were South Africa so I also realized he was different in that Yeah, so you do realize they are. You know, I wanted to ask you a little bit about, you know, what was it like for young Chris growing up with a guy who the press dubbed Mad Mike?

You know, he comes across as a good-natured nice person. You know, like you said, a bit emotionally distant, perhaps because of his own upbringing. But not a bad person, not a mean father. Like, for instance, there's this funny bit in your book about how your father didn't believe in using curse words. But you write, Mike did not regard the word bloody as a swear word and used it all the time. In fact, it was his standard adjective for banks, literary agents, certain British publishers, the Australian accent, the Labor Party in Britain, Belgian soldiers in the Congo, and anyone who incurred his wrath. yes you know

he he went to a good British boarding school so he was brought up properly you could say and then seven years as an officer in the British army

after all that you are Haka you know you are polite conservative punctual well-mannered and Mike was

all of these things. I must tell you just about every time I've introduced anybody to my dad they've never met him before and now they want to meet him everybody wants to meet him so I introduced them

and even after 20 seconds or 20 minutes or hours or whatever it is they come away perplexed. They're more or less scratching their heads and saying, Prince, your dad, this is what they said.

Your dad. He's so polite. And I realize they were expecting what you've just said, the hired killer, the war dogs, no pistol on his belt.

And he's talking about Shakespeare and poetry in a very polite manner. So the mad, well, we all know mad, of course it can mean sort of clinically insane, but in this case it means bold, adventurous, daring, and Mark was all of those things, but in an understated way. He was, how tall was he? Because everyone mentions in your book that he was quite short of stature, surprisingly.

Yes, that's right. And that was part of the problem because, you know, a guy mad Mike, you know, he's six foot six. He's a much bigger beard than youth. And but no, you know, I've got his war record from the British Army and the Second World War and it tells us that he was five foot seven, which is 1.7 meters at his tallest. so he was short he was a chartered accountant he had everything against him

turning into an adventure that what he had was a brilliant mind and personal magnetism I know I know it's a cliche that he had charisma

and charm and this took him a long way yeah well then why don't we get into talking a little bit if we're to back up a little bit and talk about your father's upbringing from Ireland to

India and so forth. Right. Every article I've ever read about him will tell you that he was Dublin born. Now, the truth of the matter is that he was Calcutta born, which doesn't

have the same ring about it, doesn't. And you see, Mike came from a long line of seafarers, and the family tree actually shows, going back a few centuries, one of them was described as a privateer, which is a kind of another name for a pirate. These guys, they came from a small town rush outside Dublin, and, you know, times were hard, and you made a living. however you could. And some of them were privateers and they would rob other boats out at sea. And

so Mike had this bit of a pedigree of a pirate and his father had qualified as a master mariner under sail in about 1908 and then got married and gone to India where he

worked in the port for the port authority as a river pilot And so that's where Mike was born. There were five children. But at the age of eight, Mike and the whole family went to England and installed him at a school in England. And he didn't see his parents hardly ever for the rest of his childhood.

Because in the summer, holidays in Britain, in those days you couldn't. fly to India for the holiday, you stayed at school very often. And, you know, I'm going to mention all these little building blocks as we go along and people will see, you know, how are these building blocks equipped, Mike, to deal with and to become what he became. And the first one, apart from the heritage of piracy, was he was put in the care of a former army sergeant who had fought, and this is almost unbelievable in the Anglo-Bur War in South Africa in 1900.

So now we're talking 1935, there at 133. and during the holidays, this guy, Sergeant Badcock, would take Mike and the other boys in his care. No TV, no cell phones. What do you do? You tell stories. And so he infused Mike with a military fervor and an adventurous fight. And that's how it was started. But he first before he could become a, you know, a mercenary. legend, so to speak, he was an accountant. He went to work

wearing striped pants. Yes. He would always say that same sentence, though it's been drained in my brain. You know, probably they said, journalists would say, why did you give it up? He said,

I got bored with going down to the city of London, the financial mystery, in striped pants. and he started, he wanted to go into the army when he left school, but unfortunately his father died, and it was just financially impossible. And so he got a job doing articles for a firm of accountants. And then, so he started that number of years and then the war intervened. and then he continued after the war and qualified after the war.

But he did end up in the British military during the war. Yes, that's right. After his exposure to stories about the British military, that's what he wanted to do. And in 1939, he joined the reserve force, the territorials, and obviously enjoyed it. When war was declared on the 3rd of September, Mike reported for duty and his life in the British Army began. He loved it. You know, we all know Article Clarks don't earn enough to pay for the bus fare to get to work.

So now he was doing three meals a day and mostly a bed with playing. So he was happy. And he had some, it seems like he really, you know, succeeded and even thrived in the military as a trainer and somebody who was able to impart. I mean, again, you can see, I think, the beginnings of something there as he's training these soldiers and skills and receives high marks from his superiors for doing that.

Yes. I think people might be surprised to hear that he spent quite a big chunk, maybe even the first half of the Second World War in training. He went to small arms school, loved small arms, came back, became a very good trainer. There was a lot of teacher in Mike. And then he went to officer school where he shone. He only two A grade died. at the end of the course and he was one of them so so he was really cut out you know he was a brilliant

marksman a brilliant leader he became a very good leader so um he was cut out for the military life and what was the second half of his if his time during the war after that yes well they were then told to report to i think it was glasgow and they were put on a ship and issued, believe it or not, with helmets, which had been used in the first World War, and they were not told where they were going. It was a secret.

And, of course, they ended up crossing the Atlantic to South America and then crossed back again to Cape Town. And this was Mike's introduction to Africa now. he was beginning to get the feel of what he had heard about during his school holidays, and he loved Cape Town. And another thing that he always used to say to journalists was, he came to Africa because he was sunshine, pretty girls, and regular guys driving Cadillades.

So, you know, why wouldn't... What more can you ask for in life? So that's what drew him to Africa. Obviously made a note. This is a nice place to be. And true enough, he came back after the war. So now he's in India. They ended up in India.

And he was in combined ops. You know, he had joined the Reiki regiment by now. And he still, by 19... early 1944, hadn't seen any action. So then their unit was called to assist at the famous battle of Kohima. Kohima was one of the most vicious and famous, and a turning point in the Second World War in that theater, because if the Japanese had got through at Kohemia,

it would have taken the whole of India and who knows where it would have ended. So that is where Mark first saw action in Kohima against the Japanese and then later in Burma. And his role model was a brigadier Bernard Ferguson who was an aristocrat and who taught Mike how to lead. I don't want to overstate the case Mike probably saw less action than most people would have realized but he also was posted to HQ in New Delhi where he learned about the planning side of running an army

which was also to stand him in very good stead in the Congo and of course the war in New Delhi was very different there were tennis parties dancing parties, lots of girls. And of course, my mother had grown up in India. Her parents were in the British government there. And next thing, they got married in February 1945.

And before he was out of the British military, correct me if I'm wrong and I'm crossing my wires about something else I read in the book. Wasn't there an incident where there were protesters in India? It was like the beginning of Mahantas Gandhi's movement. Yes, that's right. I think it was in Puna, which is where the first base where Mike was. There was a local protest about something.

And probably I don't know if Gandhi was present personally. I don't think so. but so Mike went I think he was by now a second lieutenant in an armoured vehicle with the way it was done in India was

you had to take a magistrate with you to put down the uprising and he would say I'm signing this pink ticket now which was a sort of authorization take out that man there and then Mike would

give instruction to somebody and he said all it took was was one shot and then the club would disperse so why don't we get into then after the war and how your dad and family lands in South Africa and which eventually leads us into the decolonization of the Belgian Congo of course yes all right so

we're talking about the 50s now Mike set up in business in Durban in what he used to call the motor business he actually set up as an accountant but it didn't work he couldn't understand why

and he went around to the other accountants and said what's a problem I'm London qualified And they said, oh, yes, but you didn't go to Hilton or Michael House, which were the two best schools. And so then and there he vowed that his sons would go to one of those schools, and that is actually what happened. But then he started adventuring, and it was hiking in the mountains, documenting what they called Bushman paintings in caves at that time. then in the very high mountains for Africa anyway over 3,000 meters across

country in what was known as basuta land sometimes with a pony and a guide sometimes not you know for two weeks at a time and then came down to Cairo on a motorbike and then Ambassador to Beto that's at least to West, the following year and other minor adventures. Being a parent can be really challenging.

Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them on their parenting journey. Everyone deserves someone they can turn to for help with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. Being a parent can be really challenging. It's normal to feel uncertain about whether you're doing, doing the right things to raise healthy and happy children.

That's why Child and Family Resource Network focuses on connecting pregnant parents and those with kids under the age of five with free support services to help them build confidence in their parenting journey. Everyone deserves to have someone they can turn to for support with parenting. Visit child and family resource network.org today. He went, well, before that, he went looking for what everybody. who was anybody in those days went looking for the lost city

of the Calahari Desert. It was refuted to be a lost city there and so Mike went looking for it and he didn't find it but what he found, Mike was an entrepreneur you know, there were many aspects to his life and he saw

an opportunity to lead safaris in across the desert and into this water wonderland called the Okavango Delta and truly it's a magnificent place

and so he thinks he was probably the first person to lead safaris there three land rovers 15 men and three cooks and

the interesting thing about this is that on one of the safarings there was a man who who brought it to be the American Vice-Consul, the consulate in Durban, and he was not. But he and Mike

hid it off. You know, they were both adventurous, literate, politically savvy, bright, and, you know, with great sense of humor. And this guy, his name was Don Ricard, he was CIA. And he and my name, Mike became best friends.

And it was Rickard who explained, if you like, the situation to Mike the way he saw it. Remember, this was the Cold War days. Communists were going to take over Africa. And soon Mike was, you know, fell in step

with Rickard's political thinking. And of course, this was the beginning of big things. You know, now, the accountant, 5'7, Bruteman accountant turned adventurer.

Now he is about to expose himself to a warfare in the Congo. After doing a year of safaris, the Congo became independent. All hell broke loose the richest province, which was known as Katang.

seceded from the Congo, they had the copper and the bulk of the minerals and they said, you know, we're out of here. And, of course, the rest of the world didn't like that idea. You know, we've all heard of Lumumba. He was the first prime minister of the Congo, but he was aligned with Russia and China. And America didn't like that idea. We can discuss that. So Katanga needed help.

So they employed what was called gendarmes. It was a very small affair. A recruiter came to Durban and Rickard, no doubt, egged Mike on and said, You go. That's what they do, isn't it? And so Mike went. And he wasn't in charge, but he, of the whole show, that he was in charge of a unit of 120 English speakers.

And it was a side show. I don't want to pretend that it was anything very much. And after a few months, they were thrown out of the Congo. that Mark had met influential people and started to make the name for himself. I mean, he must have met no doubt lots of Rhodesian and South African mercenaries amongst others. I mean, wasn't Bob DeNard one of the other mercenary commanders in that outfit? I'm not 100% sure if Bob Dinard was in Patanga. certainly he was there in 64 and 65.

Mike was in charge of a unit called 5 Commando, which was the English speakers, and Dennard was in charge of 6th Commando, which was the French speakers. Gotcha, gotcha. Yeah, their paths did not cross that much. But I think Mike pretty soon developed, a certain amount of disrespect for Dernard, you know, starting with the way they dressed.

You know, Mike was a Pucka British army officer, and he hated everything that was not the way the British did it. So the French would wear shoes with rolled down socks as opposed to long and shorts, as opposed to long trousers with boots, et cetera. So, yeah. That's right. I'm just flipping through the pages and, you know, some parts I have highlighted. There was the one mercenary that got left behind. It was the son of a millionaire.

And they ended up flying around the country trying to locate him. Yes, that's right. Donaldson. He was your archetypal adventurer, tall, dark and handsome. He spoke to a hilly. He was a natural leader. and there was a point in Catango where Mike's unit was hold up and their enemy, if you like, at that point was the United Nations Peacekeeping Force

and it was all rather pali-pally and they even went to some kind of entertainment show that the United Nations forces had put on one night that very soon the UN said we're going to arrest you guys and Mike said we're out of here and they escaped into the bush but Donaldson and

another man were not well at that particular moment you know malaria and all sorts of other problems and they took a jeep and went another way and unfortunately they ended up in an enemy

the Beluba tribe from the north of Katanga were another enemy of Katanga. So Katanga had a lot of enemies and unfortunately they were ritually tortured and most likely

given. So it was a disaster and yes Donaldson's father was a millionaire mining magnet and got hold of Mike and said we've got to go and look for him

so they did an aerial search and they sent a patrol the father even went on the patrol and eventually they did find the Jeep and did get the story from the locals and Mike was described

in a book as being ruthless And of course, I never saw that side of him, but apparently in retribution, he ordered that village to be burned down, there are 500 huts. If that's ruthless, well, that's warfare. Yeah, we'll get into that, I think,

when the second trip into the Congo where your father also had to be a strict disciplinarian when you're running a mercenary army. And I know he didn't like, like the term rag tag army being applied to his men. But I mean, there were some brigands in the ranks, but we'll get to that. I guess after that whole first incident in the Congo, do you want to talk about Don Rickard was an interesting character in this book, the CIA officer, and I feel like I'm going to have to go look up some of his work. I, you want to mention the time he came over

for drinks and had a loose tongue talking about Nelson Mandela? Yes, sure. All right, so they were best friends. This is now post-Katanga. Mike has remarried. Phyllis, the second wife. She is much younger.

And Chubby Chekker and what was his name? Bob Haley, somebody Haley. We're all the rage. and they had a bunch of people around for a party. And for all that, Mike did very well at parties, but he didn't always relish the idea of going to parties.

But the nice thing about parties for him was that there were going to be a number of attractive women there, and he would always, he was a flirt. He would flirt with them, and he would engage with him doing repartee to see if they could keep up with him. And boy, oh boy, if he found a woman who could keep up with him at repartee, well, he had her firmly in his sights because he loved that kind of thing. Anyway, Ricard and his wife were at this party.

And Mike didn't like it when people stayed long. than he thinks he thought they should stay. And so now it was after midnight. And he came up with this, what he thought was a clever idea, to get rid of all these people are drinking his booze and not going home. So he said, I'll tell you what, why don't we all stand around in a circle,

probably there were 10 or 15 of them, and we'll make a one-minute speech, and then you all go home. And, you know, there was some, he had, you know, there was some top people there who were able to make spontaneous widget speeches. And now it's Rickard. I don't know if Rickard was caught not knowing what to say, but probably because he had too many drinks, he told the story about how in August, 1962, which was probably about six months before the party, Nelson Mandela, who was the head of the African National Congress's military wing, amongst other things, and they had decided

that violence was no longer out of the question, and Mandela had been for military training in various places and he had been arrested and tried on and released but now he had gone underground and he was on the run and he came to Durban

and went to a party maybe Rickard was at that party I don't know Rickard knew where he was and knew that he was going to be driving to Johannesburg the next day

disguised as a chauffeur for a well-known I think he was a theatrical personality and so he tipped off the police and I understand I'm not quite sure how true it is but I understand that he told a journalist that

Nelson Mandela was a dangerous man and was a communist the most dangerous communist outside of Moscow, and he had to be stopped, and I was going to stop him. And that's what he did. And then, of course, Mandela was arrested and later tried

with a whole bunch of other people and sentenced to many years in jail. He served 27 years in jail before he was free. And Rickard had to be sent home over. this, right? Because there's such a violation? Well, absolutely. Within a week, he was back in America with his whole family.

And I think probably he didn't have a glittering career as a result. He had grown up in Burma, interestingly, and

was sent back to Burma with the CIA and eventually ended up in a small town in Florida. Yeah, I can only picture somebody at the CIA, be like, yeah, you're going to go hang out in Burma for a while now. Yeah, which was not that way. In 1960s, early 1960s is not much out there. And you also realize that we have a six degrees of separation from Nelson and Lendale.

There you go. Just a thought. And then, well, before we get to the legend, it is worth, I think, going back just to talk about, you know, during this time period, Mike was back to running safaris and in various adventures. And there's one story you relate in the book that's like pretty horrific, horrifying to think about where Mike goes out with his second wife, Phyllis, and they get some sort of jungle fever. something like malaria i can't remember what the what the name of it was if it even has a name but like one by one everyone on the expedition starts collapsing with a fever and his wife almost dies i mean that that was just a horrendous affair from the way you wrote it yes it certainly was and the interesting thing is that all these um many disasters i had a number of

of them, not on quite such a grand scale as that one, but it didn't stop him. He carried on trying to live out his philosophy, which was you get more out of life by living dangerously. So what happened there was he was now going to run safaris on a grander scale, and he had this place in the Okavango Delta an absolute paradise and they were setting up the can.

He and Phyllis and he had employed four men to assist but the interesting thing about the Okavango Delta is that every year the rivers in Angola flow down into the delta and actually never make it to the sea. They dissipate into the Kalahari sands. Really? And this year, there had been a particularly high flood.

There's always a flood, but this year was particularly high. And so it brought with it a greater incidence of malaria. And Mike was warned about this, but he, he, carried on and after a few weeks of setting up camp, one of the men went down with fever. Then Phyllis went down with similar symptoms and interestingly the traditional bush remedy for, well, they diagnosed her as having had a blackwater fever, is that you take a 44-gallon drum, put it next to the patient's bed, and they have to drink that whole quantity of water. And you appoint somebody to make sure that they do.

Yeah, so Phyllis also went down, and now they had to move her and the other man in the small boat, back to where the truck was the trouble was access into this place which was called boomer was via the last part

hippo paths paths through the papyrus that hippos make they're only about two meters wide and so with the flood all the floating material etc and clogged

up these pathways and so my in a small boat couldn't get out of bed and it's quite a long story but eventually he had to leave the boat and walk back to the camp and round up some of the guys still in the middle of that night on the first day and they came back and they eventually managed to get free but everything was against them you know it was a long way now about but he knew someone who had fastbook and they got there the guy there when they got to the truck the battery was flat and nothing they could do would would would start the truck now phyllis is dying one man has already died and another man has gone down so this is an absolute disaster and you know mike wrote the story up and i think it's an absolutely

brilliant piece of writing because because I always find myself getting emotional every time I read it and I've read it so many times and and he I must tell you when the story begins with how he looks up his

old friend Kiboko who is a local who has a heart for evangelism and he says and Kiboko says to my do you pray and Mike said no no not really he said you will you will when you go into the swamps

you will start to pray and so now Mike remembered that and so they all got down in the sand on their knees and they prayed for help and in due course a truck arrived and eventually

brought Phyllis and the two men to a little airport where they were able to fly to a hospital in baseball, Francis Town, and Phyllis survived. And she had cerebral malaria and that quarter fever. So Mike called it a miracle that she survived both of those diseases. And yeah, he did spin it a bit, I'm sure by claiming that it was a miracle that they were rescued, that a truck, which wasn't planning to come, they came there and rescued him.

Was he, by nature, a faithful man, did it, or just didn't pray, or did that, did that have an effect on his faith and moving forward from that point in life? This kind of thing was something that Mike didn't talk easily about. You know, I've mentioned he didn't talk about, emotional things very easily didn't talk about religious things very easily but the context which probably you would relate to well was he had what he called his

ten rules for battle and the first one was pray God daily and he really believed that and he really believed in the power of prayer and whenever they were tough times and we all have tough times from time to time, you know, he would say how much he would appreciate it if we would pray into whatever the situation was. And in one of his books, he tells a lovely story about how as contact with the enemy was getting nearer and nearer, how the more and more men would turn up on a Sunday for a church service. Before we get into the Congo in 1964, I believe, I just want to take a moment to remind people if you're interested in the book that we're talking about here tonight with the author.

It's Mad Mike Hoare, The Legend, a biography by our guest tonight, Chris. It's really a wonderful book. It tells the entire story of his dad, but it's also written from the perspective that really can write it from. So, you know, Chris did a lot of research for this. The book includes interviews that he did with his dad, emails with his father, and also your own childhood and adult recollections because of your relationship with him. So where can people go if they want to pick up a copy of it, Chris?

The short answer is to go to my website, which is www. madmycore.com. It's as simple as that. And you can find out more about it from the website, and then I will respond and take it from there. And Chris, I'll ask you, since we're sort of at the midway point to show the other books that are offered, I'm just going to take two seconds right now. Now just to remind people, if you haven't already, please make sure that you subscribe to this channel if you haven't. And hit that little bell icon and select all notifications.

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Chris, do you want to show us, your father was a prolific writer? He wrote like, what, seven or eight books during his lifetime? That's right. Yes. Yes. As I've said, he was a man of many talents, and he loved Shakespeare

and poetry, and these things helped him to become a good writer. I think he was a brilliant writer. And yes, he wrote seven books. Three of them are set in the Congo. And I'll just show you them, if I may. Here they are.

Where are you? Okay. These are the seven books. No, back the other way. Other way. There you go. Yeah. Okay.

So they are Congo mercenary, the Seychelles Affair, the sailing one, Sylvia. the last days of the Cathars, which is something completely different. And then one about all his non-military adventures. And then the Road to Kalamata, which is the Katanga story, and

Congo Warriors, which is short stories about the mercenary life in the Congo. It's now whimsical and he said it was his favorite book. Well,

With that said, can you tell us a little bit, Chris, what was the political situation in the Congo in 1964 that led up to your father's eventually hitting the ground there? Yes. Briefly, Katanga had been brought back into the fold in 1963 by the United Nations, probably, you could say. But, as I said, the Cold War was still going on, and the red influence was still very strong. And a rebellion was fermented in the east of the country. In fact, there were a number of rebellions, but the main one was in the east of the country.

And it spread across the country towards the west to the capital, Leopoldville, to the point that they were not that far away and something had to be done. And the government of the Congo decided to bring back strangely enough the man called Moisei Shambi, who had been the head of the Tanga and had gone into exile.

And now on the 1st of July, 1964, he was brought back to solve the problem. And probably between the CIA and Shambi and his army man, Mobutu, they hatched a plan to employ mercenaries. And I quote in my book from a fascinating document which describes a meeting between the Americans in the, form of Averill Harriman and the Belgian spark where they discuss what should happen. And the plan actually was for 4,000 mercenaries to be employed.

You know, 1,000 within seven days and they are going to retake the country. The Belgians are going to supply the weapons and the boots and the Americans are going to supply the airplanes and the boats and just about the food and just about everything else. So it was against that background that they called Mike and they said, can you do it? And he said, yes, I can. And then the wheels started to it. And I mean, again, same cast of characters. I was very, you quote him in your book.

I was very close to Don, Don Rickard. though he was not there in South Africa because of the events we had just talked about. The whole idea of raising a mercenary force plainly was the Americans idea passed off to Mobutu as his idea. A thousand men retake Stanleyville. Oh, Mobotu didn't think that big, but he had the CIA behind him and he could get what he liked. Without doubt, the Americans funded the 1964 and 1965 mercenaries. Fortunately for Mobutu, he had been adopted by the CIA, who were there then in the form of Larry Delvin, or Devlin, I'm sorry. Yes.

Yes, that's right. The thing I find very interesting about this is why? What was so important for the Americans that they wanted to support the Congo? I mean, the Congo was just another country in the middle of darkest Africa, and it took me a long time to find the answer. And I found the answer in Devlin's book. He had been the chief of station for the CIA in Leopold in the early 60s. And he explained it very succinctly. And I wonder if people know what it was.

It was a mineral beginning with the later sea. And it wasn't copper. And it wasn't coal tan. It was cobalt. Now, I didn't know this, but cobalt is used in weaponry, systems, missiles, and of course in rocketry. And what we haven't talked about now is that the space race was also the very, very big thing. For those who were too young, the race was between Russia and America to get to the moon.

And so cobalt was an essential mineral for making the spacecraft. And where does cobalt occur in the world? It occurs in the Congo and in Russia. So if you haven't got a source of cobalt, you are out of the space race. and America said, right, we are going to keep the Congo for the West. And there was behind the rebellion, I mean, there was also the Chinese communist influence. Kewavera entered the theater at a certain point here. So there is certainly a Cold War standoff taking place.

Absolutely. And I think the bigger picture was that, certainly the fear was that the Reds were going to get the Congo, then there are nine countries surrounding the Congo, and they were going to come south. And South Africa at that time was producing scandalous quantities of gold, 25 and a half million fine ounces of gold in year. So that would have been a glittering prize, including command of gold. of the sea route around the Cape, you know, between the east and the west. So the fear was that that's what the Reds were going to do.

And so they had to be stopped and they had to be stopped in the park. And so your father, an ardent anti-communist, anti-Marxist, is brought into the fold. How did he get recruited to weed these mercenaries? Well, you see, he had already made a name for himself. in a small way and met some people in Patanga. So one of the mercenaries in Patanga had stayed on as an aid to Shambi. And so when Shambi came back to Leopold, he got this guy to phone Mike and Mike and went up to the Congo.

You know, he was the first choice. And so these become the famous wild geese, Five Commando. That's right. The wild geese were Irish mercenaries who didn't want to be subservient to the British several centuries ago, were dubbed, and they went and fought in the European armies. Now, I've mentioned how Mike didn't. like the way the French mercenaries conducted themselves and in fact the media dubbed them laser

the frightful ones because yes they would festoon themselves with the ammo belts and daggers and hand grenades and all the rest of it and Mike didn't approve of that and so in what I thought was rather a clever move he wanted to distance himself from that image. So he dought his men the wild-piece.

And of course, it caught on, caught the public imagination. And I think the reality is that one could never really get away from some of the, the bad things that they did. dubbing them the wild is certainly hot I mean for a mercenary army

I mean Mike was a disciplinarian he would have them out like formation doing inspections making them form up like he wasn't messing around at all well you see he believed that

yes there was no other authority except for him so how are you going to keep discipline and moral And so this was his way of doing it. And I've heard stories of guys who would literally send them back to Johannesburg for wearing the wrong color cap. So, you know, he gave them to understand that it was his way or the highway.

And yes, he had MPs who would enforce it. And I've heard him describe as a warlord and so on. but, you know, for the greater purpose, which was to keep discipline and achieve their military detectives. And there were a few incidents that you described in the book. There's one of his men murders an eight-year-old boy who said that the person sounds like maybe they were mentally ill to begin with. And Mike had to deal with that.

Another, another mercenary who raped and murdered a local girl and threw her body in the river. And your father did not mess around with that guy either. Yes, that's right. And this, this story has sometimes got Mike into a bit of trouble explaining, you know, in the comfort of cities of the West, you know, how such, such disciplinary measures were necessary just briefly. They held an informal court marshal and found the man guilty and Mike decided that they should all write down

on a piece of paper the punishment the man deserved and whichever punishment was agreed on whoever had proposed that punishment would have to carry it out. This guy had been a professional footballer And Mike thought appropriate punishment would be the removal of his big toes. And so they all agreed that would be a good punishment. And so Mike took him down to the river and shot off his big toes. And of course, it's a very interesting story.

But it served the purpose of making sure that discipline was maintained. Yeah, that's interesting because like in the United States military, we have the UCMJ, which is the military justice. When you don't have a force like that behind you, anarchy, or a higher authority behind you, how do you corral these people? And there was the story, you could never, I mean, in the book you say you could never quite get it out of your dad. I think it was the guy who murdered the child and your father said something like I took care of him forever. Yes, he said, I fixed him for good. And he wouldn't talk about that. I don't know what the upshot was.

But beyond some of those dark moments, there were also, I mean, I think what turned your dad in the wild geese into a legend. Their finest moment was that they were running all over the country, rescuing hostages. And they really did legitimately save a lot of odds. Yes As I've said Their objective was to Rid the country of these communist rebels

There was no talk Of rescuing hostages But what the rebels did As the tide turned against them Was they started taking The missionaries Abusing them and in many cases

they would rape them all the time and kill them and so it was a desperate situation and after Stanleyville the authorities the Americans and the British and others

approached Mike and said listen can you do us a favor we've got you know 43 missionaries stuck in such and such a place will you rescue them and so for about a

money. Nearly every day they went rescuing these people and I think the number given is about 2,000 and sometimes they were too late. You know they would arrive and find a pile of and

nun's clothing on the side of the river and you knew that they were gone. But very often they did they were able to rescue. And I believe this was their finest hour.

Yes, I'm not saying that they were angels. In fact, who are you going to get when you call for mercenary soldiers or back in the day? You're going to get guys who don't fit in anywhere else. They're out of work. They're unemployable and they think, well,

yeah, let's give it a shot. and yes a lot of them were you know not very nice people I don't want to pretend that they were private ways

but they got the job done right yeah there's so many accounts in here where you know literally rescuing little children who grow up and are like forever thankful and writing writing notes to you and your dad

as they you know reach middle age mixed in with those horrific accounts of where they find like the stew pot filled with human lens. I mean, I can't imagine what those guys experienced over there. Yeah, well, absolutely. You know, yeah, one of my sources told me they did find human remains in a pot at the back of a mission station. So this is darkest Africa.

and yes, some of those children I'm in touch with them who were rescued. They are now serving useful lives, one in particular in Canada, another one in Australia, highly qualified people contributing to society. We talk about the mercenaries and maybe what kind of people that might attract what was did Mike ever mentioned like what was the recruiting process how did they get a thousand people

and you know in a short period of time how did they find these people did you ever talk about that yes that part is well known they literally put advertisements in the newspapers saying

fit young men looking for employment with a difference you know phone this number, you know, excellent pay, start immediately. And Mike was exasperated because he was in the Congo and the recruiters were in Johannesburg and Salisbury and were sending the wrong or the kind of men that Mike didn't want. You know, he described them as bums and layabouts.

You know, he didn't want bums and layabouts. You know, he didn't want bums and layabouts. He wanted, you know, adventurers, people who had maybe been in the army, they had been hunters or whatever it was. That's what he wanted. And so eventually, you know, they started getting a better quality person coming through. He says here, you quote Mike saying,

let me begin by saying that anybody commanding a unit of mercenary soldiers who is sensitive to adverse criticism of his actions by the press has very little chance for performing his duty successfully. It is quite impossible for the average person to imagine the horror and loathing a commander of soldiers will face from time to time when dealing with riffraff, bums, uneducated layabouts, and others who emerge from time to time in his unit, most likely untrained, uninvited, and totally friendless, and who commit this type of atrocity without the slightest regret or understanding of their actions.

And how, as a unit commander, do you deal with these characters? and the cold light of after years, the bare facts of such events lead one to remember and regret them sincerely. But memories are short, and in many cases one deliberately obscures them from memory because of their intrinsic horror. What I still remember about this incident is that anybody in my unit who had in mind committing any such action himself and ensuing actions was in no doubt that he would deserve the extremely severe punishment that I would certainly have awarded him. Yes, that is a statement that Mike made when, you know, he was about 95 when he wrote that long paragraph. I had asked him, I used to ask him questions when I was writing the biography. And his memory was not so good as he got on.

And he found it convenient to reply in writing. So I asked him how he felt now about having shot off that man's toes And that was his reply And I mean that is a brilliant piece of writing And a clever justification For doing what he did The thing I have to respect so much about your father

Is he lived exactly the life that he wanted to live And he made no apologies about it None whatsoever yes that's right that's right and and yes you know things did go wrong eventually and and he paid quite a high price but but he pressed on and and he didn't look back you know he never talked about the same shells unless you asked him and then he would briefly answer and carry on he was a man for the present and the future And he was always planning something else from the future. So how did things end up?

How did things wind down in the Congo for this operation that your father was involved in at the behest of the CIA? Yes. Well, after about a year, they took the important city of the Cuban perspective quite in depth. Okay. So they were assisting at the Battle of Baraka, which was a pretty fierce battle, and eventually the rebels withdrew. And that was pretty much the end of the main attempt to... Yeah, Rao. Yes.

Yes, after the Congo, Mike was sought after as somebody who could solve problems, mainly in Africa, but also in the East. And he did follow up on that, but it actually all came to nothing. He never found actual work as a, as a, a mercenary leader after the Congo in elsewhere in Africa or in the East. He tried to do Rhodesia in a few other places? Sorry, I missed that?

That he was trying to raise like a mercenary foreign legion in Rhodesia, for instance, and then you talk about Singapore and I think Cambodia was another place. Yes, that's right. Singapore was the base from which he was operating. but none of it got off the ground and then of course in 1977 he got one of these dream phone calls how would you like to be the military advisor

to the filming of the wild east it's going to be shot in South Africa and guess what Richard Burton is going to play you so Richard Burton was one of Mike's

heroes because he was a Shakespearean actor. And I can remember as a child, we had long playing records with Richard Burton playing or reading from Shakespeare. And Mike loved that. And now

he was going to meet Burton and assist him who don't hold the rifle like this, hold it like that. And so and one of my favorite stories about the filming of the Wild East. And this tells you

a bit about Mike as a leader. The script called for Burton. Now the the mercenaries who are rescuing a black president are in trouble. And Burton has to encourage his men. And the script calls for him to stand on a balcony. And his men are down there and he's going to encourage them. And Mike said, no, no, it's not done like that. You've got to get on the back of a jeep and get your men around.

and look them in the eye and encourage them. So that was one of the small ways in which he contributed to the success of that film. Did he interact with her? I mean, obviously, since they were both lovers of Shakespeare and words, did they find that kindred spirit in each other? Did they find that kinship? The unfortunate fact of the, matter is that no matter who you are, these big stars will not talk to you.

Nevertheless, Mike was fortunate to spend a bit of time with Richard Burton, and he says how Richard Burton recited some famous lines from Marlowe and from Shakespeare for him. And that was all he wanted. So now I'm not going to lie and pretend that Burton and Mike became great pals. They didn't. You know, I think it's sufficient. But Mike wasn't like that. He didn't attach great importance to the fact that Burton had played the Mike Hall character.

He never even mentioned it. Right. I think it's interesting also to mention maybe at this point some of the racial issues that played during the time. and that there's even controversy about this film and some of the or black African actors were hesitant to play their roles in this film. But anyone who's watched it the way it was actually made

is it's about the cooperation between white and black. One of the South African characters uses racial slurs against the Africans. Later on in the film, he realizes they have more in common than he thought. It's kind of a campy take on race relations but it is interesting to see that in there. And I thought some of the, I was very interested to see some of the comments that your father made in this book where his solution to the red menace in Africa was to, that they should try to build a black middle class to neutralize any sort of communist insurgency that may come around because now the black population is as invested in the society as the whites are.

and there'd be no reason to have an uprising. And I think that that's very, I don't want to say superficial, but obviously making that happen is much more complicated. But in the gist of it, your father had essentially figured it out what needed to be done. Yes, that's right. It would be all too easy to say, oh, you know, he's just a hired killer and he would rather go around killing people. but Mike was a thinker

and yes even as far back as 1975 he proposed that solution well I heard him talking about it before that but at a public event and of course that didn't go down very well because he even suggested that there should be a special tax

imposed to do exactly what you just outlined. You said it actually didn't go down so well when he was asked to come in lecture some of the more right-wing political groups in South Africa. Yes, that's right.

Well, mostly because of the financial aspect that people were not going to already paying enough tax and now this guy wants us to pay more tax. Yeah, from that point So I think maybe the last thing that I'd like to talk about tonight with you

is Seychelle, which by this point you're a adult and you're not just a kid kind of watching your father do these things. Now you're sort of involved on the periphery of it. Yes, that's right. One day he... Well, I knew he was up to something because he kept, you know, I was living

in London at that time in the late 70s and he kept pitching up like every few months and I would say what's going on? He was a great sort of band actor and he would

look sort of furtively from side to side and it's a scaldivary you know and but of course he knew how to keep his mouth shut he was very, very good at that and so I never knew anything about it and then one day he said i want to come and see you and uh i was living about an

hour's drive away um back in south africa and he told me that he was i had been approached to overthrow the government of the seychelles and and he was busy with that process and he needed an extra pair of hands and um i was still young and food and so I agreed to help him. And so this entire coup plot was behind the scenes sponsored by the South African government, although they would later deny knowledge of it. I think that is slightly,

I'm not saying it's incorrect, but it's putting slightly the long slant on the thing, the originators of this plan were the Seychola who were known as the exiles. They were the conservative supporters of the previous Prime Minister, man called Jimmy Mancham, who had been deposed himself in a coup. So basically now they were trying to reinstate Manchin

instead of René, who was a socialist and obviously friendly with the Chinese and so. So yes, the South African government did get involved. It's very strange in these days to imagine how that could have happened, but those were strange times. And the South African government, of course, was involved in all sorts of dirty tricks and car bombs and they regarded the onslaught.

They called it the total onslaught as something that had to be opposed. So in that context, it was very different from today. And so it wasn't that unusual. You know, remember, Jenard was conducting foods all over the place. So Mike was approached. and it could have been done. But there were some problems,

and money was one of the big problems. And the plot, as I recall, was that the mercenaries were going to go fly in on commercial air with Kalashnikovs in a false bottom of their suitcase, and they were, what was it, like the royal order of froth blowers, like a rugby beer drinking club or something like this? You see, this was Mike at his best again. We'd had the wild geese.

Now somebody proposed, all right, so he recruited 50 men to depose the government. There were other ways of getting there, which all fell through, and now they were going to fly in on a charter flight, and they had to have a name. And there was actually a group that existed after the, the first world war in Britain called the ancient order of froth blowers. And they were a group of beer drinkers who were also supporters of charities for the underprivileged and so on. So, Mike, you know, this would sort of take the focus away from what they were actually after trying to do.

And yeah, that was the name. and of course it stuck. It just appealed, you know, and it stuck. But of course this whole plan went sideways and didn't quite work out the way they had hoped it would. Yes. You know, people asked me, you know, what were the reasons for the failure?

And we can look at that. But the actual cause was that they had, had to take their weapons in false bottom bags and for various reasons one was found at the airport when when they arrived and all hell broke loose and now they had lost the element of surprise and in the middle of it all bowing 707 flying between the solstreet or herrari and bombay flew in just to complicate matters with 65 passengers and was being shelled by cannon fire and eventually it's a long story but they got on the plane and made sure that the pilot didn't fly to Bombay and that he flew to Durban where they were expecting a fairly

friendly welcome because yes the South African government I wouldn't say they were behind it but they had supported it they had supplied the weapons and probably some intelligence

but it didn't turn out like that because the world ganged up or announced that South Africa would have to nail these guys otherwise that they would withdraw landing rights just about everywhere

So the Southern Government had no choice but to follow the legal route and charge them. And yes, they all went to jail. Mike got effective 10 years in jail and was pardoned after 33 months. So, yeah, that was an example of one of Mike's adventures, which really went wrong. And his great prison stories that he would regale people with. afterwards and you know some of the tours he did one of the funnier stories actually when he was going i think he was touring the united states for the wild geese film uh where several people got confused and instead of introducing him as the congo mercenary they introduced him as the congo missionary

like here's mike tell them how many lives you saved for jesus and jesus yes that's right that's right My favorite of prison story was about how an old prisoner who had probably spent most of his life in prison said, would you like me to tell you how to cope with 10 years in prison? And Mike said, yes, I would. And he said, you identify somebody less fortunate than yourself and you help that person. maybe when you've got some extra food you'll give it to them or whatever way

you can do it and Mike at one point was in a plumbing team with some other prisoners who happened to be black and he found out that one of these guys didn't have a radio so he arranged for him to have a radio

and really you know the older I get the more I realize that that principle is applicable in life in general. You know, it's actually the secret of happiness, in my opinion, is reaching out to other people and helping them. But yes, there were lots of stories and funny stories, tragic stories. In those days, there was capital punishment in the same prison.

where Mike was in Pretoria. And as he said, you know, men were hanged on the other side of that war over there. Yeah. It sounded like that really affected him, too, having that experience in hearing the black prisoners singing Halei,

and all of these things, as they're heading off to the gallows. Yeah, all night. They would hold a vigil before their, and they were all, they were political prisoners, you know, a lot of them. They were not necessarily murderous.

So, and of course, Mike, after that, um, was anti-capital punishment. So it's a lot till the end. The, you know, rest of the book, um, I have to say it came like a little bit of a punch to the guts, um, towards the end of the book. I mean, your father stayed very busy, um, kept his mind very sharp as long as he could.

He, he lived to the, age of 100. Was that right, Chris? Yes, that is right. It's 100 years old. And you say towards the final pages here that by 2018, he could mostly be found dozing in the sunshine, dipping into one of the books he had written, doing crosswords, reading poetry in the Bible, and fading away. But as sad as that sounds, on the other hand, I have to refuse to pity somebody who lived a good long life to age 100 and lived exactly the sort of life that he wanted to live. And I think, correct me if I'm wrong, Chris, I think that's how he would want us to remember him.

Yes. I don't know if he ever thought about that, you know. It wasn't like that. He was modest. He was not interested in being famous or. or thinking about what his legacy might be. He just got on with life, you know, and enjoying life. And it was a very humorous man. And he kept us entertained a lot.

Because the last 10 years of his life, he lived partly with us and partly with my brother. So we saw a lot of them. And so then how did this book come about? What was the genesis of this? Was it what in his final years of his life that you began planning to write this? How did that happen? Well, look, as a journalist, I was acutely aware. I never I know a lot of journalists. I never met one who wasn't absolutely fascinated by by the story and as a journalist myself I knew it was a good story and would make a good book. And I first started talking to him in 1985 about that.

But he was not interested at all. And obviously because he knew, you know, that there were things that had happened that he didn't want to talk about. Like Rickard, for example, his great friend, record was still very much a factor and didn't want to talk about that but as the years went on he was able to to talk more and more felt free to and then and then in 2005 I said come on that you know he was about 85 at that time I said we've got to get on with this otherwise it's just

not going to happen and it's a good thing I did because you know once memory failed and so I did a lot of recorded interviews with him in 2006 and I started writing it in earnest then but I wasn't in any rush because he he said please don't publish it in my lifetime because obviously he knew there could be repercussions about certain things and and and really I so enjoyed it It was so fascinating meeting people and doing the research in libraries and online. People all over the world helped me. And yeah, then after 12 years, it was done and I said, well, what do you think?

Can I publish it now? He said, go ahead. But he never read any of it. And even after it was published, I gave him a signed copy. Not interested. But he was very old, but I mean, you know, he was, you know, when you're nearly a hundred, you're doing well if you can just get through the day. What was that like for you? Because you're getting his story from him,

but then you talk to, you interview other people who were present, who I imagine shine a whole new light on things, you know, their perspective. Did that, how was that for you? I don't really know how to answer that. I suppose the unfortunate fact is that Mike saw, we all see things in our own way, but Mike's way of seeing things was quite, he would romanticize, and so sometimes he would improve on the facts of the situation. and he would say, and I would say,

I was there, I was there, and that's not exactly what happened. Don't you remember? And he was saying, got to, my boy, you don't understand. You've got to give people their money's group. You know, he would say things. So, yeah, some of, so I discovered by talking to other people that some of the things he said weren't exactly the truth, but more or less they will.

Did you also, I mean, did you also find times when he would maybe under-talk things? Because I'm sure a lot of people- Like the part where he was on the barge with a 45 shooting across the river, and you said he really downplayed what was happening there. That was his nature, and that story, I have spoken to three different people, and they all tell the same story the same way.

There was this superstructure on a barge with no protection whatsoever. And Mike was at the wheel, which was up there. And giving the rebels hell with this 45. And all the other guys were crouched behind the barrels of water or whatever it was for protection. So he was fearless. I've heard that from many people. He was totally fearless.

and also a bit of a showman. He would impart encouragement by being fearless and they would come under attack in the Congo, you know, long road straight through the jungle and they would after an initial interaction he would say to his batman, get out my map table

and you would set it up in the middle of the road and start to examine the maps just to show the guys nothing to worry about. Well, Chris, I really hope people will take a look at your book. It's Mad My Core, The Legend, A biography by Chris Hoare. Again, what's the website, Chris,

where they can go and find it? WWW, it's quite easy. Mad My Core, what you would expect. com. And that's the thing to do. If anyone's interested, just go to the website and follow your nose and I'll be in touch. Chris, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the show tonight. And I know it's super late where you are.

It must be like 4.30 in the morning at this point. We really appreciate it. I'm going to let you go. I just want to let everyone know next week. we're going to have an old ranger battalion friend of mine on we'll be talking about the regimental reconnaissance company some other you know war on terror stories from the middle east so i hope you guys will tune in next friday for that and also on monday check out battle line podcast uh with our friends uh i es goto and and uh chris baranto and davis on there um chris thank you thank you so much um we really deeply appreciate you know your time you're your effort in all this. I mean, you are, thank you. Oh, thank you, Dave. A lot of people say, thank you for keeping his legacy alive. And I didn't set out to do that, but it's also at the same time pleasing to know that people

are enjoying, you know, reading about a man who, for some reason, they admire and, and, in, some small way I think they try and in their own lives follow a little bit of these footsteps. Absolutely. So thank you very much, both of you. It's been a real pleasure, and I can't believe that we've been talking for a nine and a half already. Thank you. Thank you, Chris. And we'll see everyone next Friday.