So I went down a rabbit hole the other night. Holy cow.

Mad Mike Hoare. The Wild Geese.

The Congolese Rebellion.

I saw a tweet a bit ago about how in the ’60’s you could get paid to shoot at UN troops in the Congo but nowadays you couldn’t call someone gay on twitter.

My oh my how times have changed.

Mad Mike

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mad_Mike_Hoare

The Congolese Rebellion

https://www.mercenary-wars.net...olese-rebellion.html






Despite charges of atrocities Mad Mike and his Wild Geese (5 Commando) are credited with saving over 2000 Catholic Nuns and other western missionaries. It is said that when the Wild Geese saw the wretched way the westerners were treated the hardened mercenaries wept. Mike personally led many of these raids. When questioned about wounded "Simbas" (slang for the communist enemy) he said there were not many. They all perished. To the Simbas, however, finding that their magic charms were not turning mercenary bullets to water, Hoare's men became Les Affreux (The Horrible Ones).

On 31 August 1964, the rebel radio announced that all Amencans and Europeans would be held hostage until Tshombe stopped using mercenaries. In Kalima, the mercenaries rescued 94 more Europeans, including 48 Belgian priests imprisoned in their mission. They had been singled out for execution and Hoare's Wild Geese had arrived in the nick of time. Roughly 1,500 foreign nationals and 150 Congolese civilians were evacuated to Leopoldville.




An interesting man he was.

Col Hoare obituary in the NY Times:

‘Mad Mike’ Hoare, Irish Mercenary Leader in Africa, Dies at 100

His exploits included fighting in wars, rescuing hostages, searching for a lost city and staging a farcical aborted coup.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/0...mike-hoare-dies.html

Original 5 Commando Wild Geese patch.



Some of those clips are pretty much the definition of "Seek out, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver". When was the last time you saw a guy use a Browning 1919 as a hand held weapon to charge an enemy? Amazing.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: mbinky,

I was kind of expecting some sort of technicals from FoMoCo.

I never went anywhere without a flack, a kevlar, and a tank section. These guys are running around with berets, sateens and 1919's...slapping their balls on the Blackjack table and yelling at the dealer to "Hit me!" while they hold a Ten and a Queen.

The old days.

From there the use of paid soldiers not affiliated with a national interest jumped leaps and bounds in Africa. It eventually led to a number of US and Brit expatriates working the African continent and came to a head in Rhodesia at one point.

From there it spread to other regions, with one island nation having an actual coup staged by "contractors" who overthrew the government.

These activities became a notorious "normal" and there was even a magazine dedicated to its reporting, with articles written on the ground published in it.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/02j...-QUSwWQt-RBC4Fa?dl=0 Which is a drop box link to SOF magazine.

As Africa became stabilized (thru Communist takeovers disguised as People's Liberation movements) things deescalated to a degree, with the magazine even hosting an invitational 3 Gun match, which is where I as a spectator saw one of the original wildcatted .30's in a necked up 5.56 - to get AR's into the match as .30 was mandatory. Nonetheless, it wasn't allowed despite meeting the letter of the rules. That eventually became .300 WHISPER, and AAC then converted a few non critical dimensions to "create" .300 Blackout.

There were a lot of interesting folks there, Robin Moore (Green Berets) spoke but it was a racist rant, and some adult beverages were imbibed in a road marching jody singing exhibition from one waterhole to another - on the public streets of Columbia MO.

Ken Hackathorn was also there along with a notable list if expert shooters demostrating their skills with battle rifles, pistols and shotguns. Most were unaltered issue grade, not the highly hotrodded competition guns now used. That list of competitors can be found in one of their issues. These documents are some of the little information you can find on things pre internet about mercenaries, who was hiring, 3Gun in the early days, etc.

It's not a rabbit hole if you were chasing the rabbits. It all led to me enlisting, along with other friends, and we made a career in national defense, some of who are still working - as paid contractors.

One of the most notorious was Blackwater, and if you go there, you will see how the FBI delayed and even concealed evidence investigating a firefight, which eventually led to the prosecution of two employees and the publication of a hit piece detailing a lot of nonsense which has since been debunked by their trials, IE the suppression of evidence by the FBI. It's an old game for them, only the public has discovered it's a long running tactic on their part.

Two things to come out of that - one, a single operator working on his own had to be pretty sharp to even get paid, 2) it was entirely up to them and no one else if they survived to the end of the contract. That may have had something to do with sewing krugerrands into your pants belt as a negotiating tactic if the Rolex Submariner didn't do the trick. All that was considered last ditch tactics and for that, it was recommended you keep one bullet for yourself. Nobody survived interrogations in Africa.

Obviously not an environment for family men.

As a guy who read SOF at a ridiculously young age, also reading books like “The Wild Geese” and similar, I appreciate you sharing this rabbit-hole with us! Really enjoyed the videos.

Read about the use of “private military contractors” in the Biafran civil war in Nigeria, and Executive Outcomes in Sierra Leone.

You might also go read about 3/2 brigade in SW Africa, now called Namibia. It was a unit in the South African military that was treated like PMCs.

Another story worth reading is about the use of CIA personnel to provide air cover in Angola and the Congo. John Merriman was a Clandestine Service officer who survived a horrific crash of his T-28 in Congo. He lived a week without receiving any meaningful medical care, even though he could have been evacuated, had his “leadership” done their fucking job and not run for “plausibility deniability.”

Any books to recommend?

quote:

Originally posted by sigfreund:
Any books to recommend?

The Book of Honor by Ted Gup…

32 Battalion by Piet Nortje

The Rhodesian Bush War by Stakepoole

The Rhodesian War by Morecraft

Fire Force by Chris Cocks

(He was not a mercenary, but a Rhodesian citizen fighting in the Rhodesian Light Infantry. Still a good, honest, firsthand account of combat in Rhodesia.)

I have an army issue watch that belonged to a friend and fellow dealer (RIP)

he was a VN vet, not sure what his rank was to be honest, he never mentioned it, but as soon as he got out he spent some time in Africa, including Angola,

he would not speak much about any of it, but he did tell me he wore that watch while there,

old wind up, still holds time, despite being a bit beat up

One of the guys I shoot with every week became a Merc in Africa for a couple of years after getting back from Vietnam.

Watch 'The Siege of Jadotville' about how a company of Irish infantry held off the might of a few thousand Congolese led by white mercenaries.

It might be of interest to note how many Irish soldiers were killed in the Congo, in numerous 'peace-keeping' or humanitarian aid actions.

Appreciate the link. Haven't seen SoF since I was a kid.

Thanks for the book recommendations.
I have read a lot about other conflicts, but little to nothing about those in Africa except the occasional Soldier of Fortune article back when.

Good thread. It sent me down a YouTube rabbit hole watching documentaries about Mike Hoare and some of his exploits. I've always wanted to read some of his books, particularly the one about sailing the Mediterranean, but they're all out of print and very expensive.

I remember as a kid watching a movie with my dad on Czech TV about the Belgian paratrooper raid on Stanleyville during the Simba Rebellion. I wish I could find that movie, but I'm not sure what it was called. It was dubbed into Czech...I'm not even sure what the native language of the movie was.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
… they're all out of print and very expensive.

Go to your local public library with the title, author, ISDN, and publisher and inquire about inter library loans.

I’ve read books that might be the last one surviving, for the cost of $4. It’s was a book about the French special warfare men, sent solo into the vast trackless jungle of Laos and Thailand. It was written in about 1956. The inter library loan took two days to find me a copy (it came from the Defense Language Institute in California. I had possession for two weeks. It was interesting yet sad story.

I always thought the Spaniards were the craziest f*uckerZ.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...C3%BCller_(mercenary)

The notorious Congo Müller
https://alchetron.com/cdn/sieg...b191-resize-750.jpeg

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
… they're all out of print and very expensive.

Go to your local public library with the title, author, ISDN, and publisher and inquire about inter library loans.

I’ve read books that might be the last one surviving, for the cost of $4. It’s was a book about the French special warfare men, sent solo into the vast trackless jungle of Laos and Thailand. It was written in about 1956. The inter library loan took two days to find me a copy (it came from the Defense Language Institute in California. I had possession for two weeks. It was interesting yet sad story.

Sig,

email received and replied

Were Roland and Van Owen from Warren Zevon's song based on real people? Probably fictitious but always wondered and it appears there are folks in this thread that might know.