the following day (1500 hours), the eleven-man Irish patrol, a familiarisation exercise for the seven newly-arrived troopers, got out of their vehicles to further investigate the damage to the bridge. Lieutenant Gleeson, Sergeant Gaynor and two others ventured onto the roadway on the far side of the bridge, looking for a possible fording place across the Luweyeye for their vehicles as they went. Suddenly aware of a Baluba presence on that side of the bridge, they sensed something menacing in the tribesmen’s demeanour.
Lieutenant Gleeson immediately ordered Sergeant Gaynor back across the river to turn the lead vehicle, a pick-up, back towards Niemba village in the direction they had come. While Sergeant Gaynor was doing this he became aware of a tree being felled across the road behind him, blocking off their retreat. While Sergeant Gaynor was attempting to turn the pick-up, Lieutenant Gleeson and those with him turned back across the river and the Irish formed a single line facing the direction from which they had arrived at the bridge. Coming into full view now was a Baluba war party emerging from the bush onto the roadway, assembling into a formation, six abreast. Facing them, and aware of others behind them, there came the sinking realisation among the Irish and a horrible awareness that a trap had been sprung; it was an ambush, and the Irish patrol was where the Baluba attackers wanted them to be, in the killing area.
Little more than 100 metres, barely the length of a football field, separated the two sides. (See map on p. vi.) The time taken to cover the distance between them would be no more than fifteen or so seconds and it had become all too obvious that the Irish patrol was hopelessly outnumbered. Neither were all the Irish armed, worse, the Bren guns were in the rear of the Land Rover, the second of the two vehicles. The Balubas had achieved complete surprise and too late had the Irish realised the danger. The tense stand-off lasted only for a few seconds. Their hostility palpable, the Baluba warriors hurled themselves at the hapless patrol.
It had all happened in quick succession – from arrival to alert, from alert to ambush, from ambush to attack. As the Balubas advanced they broke into frenzied charge and closed fast on the Irish patrol. Lieutenant Gleeson shouted: ‘Hold your fire, we have to wait until they fire first.’ Hardly had he spoken when the Balubas, barely twenty metres away, unleashed a hail of arrows. The order to fire was given and those with weapons returned fire immediately. Fifteen Balubas fell dead, nearly as many were wounded, and as many again kept advancing. Suddenly more tribesmen were moving in from the bush, from in front and behind. The Irish troops were in a hopeless situation. ‘High ground’ was the immediate thought in the Irish minds and Lieutenant Gleeson led his patrol in an attempt to make for a rise, retreating across the river, with the Balubas in pursuit, continuing firing arrows all the time. On reaching the rise, the Irish turned and faced their attackers; here they would make a stand.
With minds racing, hearts pounding, gasping for breath and fearful, the Irish were wounded and in a state of shock. What had been the routine repair of a broken bridge had been used as ‘bait’ by the Balubas, and it had worked. Such a possibility could not have registered on the patrol’s index of suspicion, but the reality they faced, to their horror, was a Baluba war party preparing to move in for the kill. The typical reaction is one of fight or flight and the Irish tried both. Too few in number to begin with, only some had weapons to hand and their ammunition was running out, they tried putting ‘stand-off’ distance between them and their attackers. The Balubas lined the bank of the river, some ten or fifteen metres away, shouting and continuing to fire. The Irish regrouped on the rise, and Lieutenant Gleeson attempted to speak with the war party, but he received only arrows in return, many of which found their mark. There was realisation among some of the Irish that they were going to die, especially if they stayed where they were. In any event the Balubas rushed forward and fierce hand-to-hand fighting erupted. The Irish were desperate to survive the onslaught and Dougan, Gaynor, Gleeson, Kelly and McGuinn were killed.
Commanding Officer’s driver examines wreaths at Albertville airport, 18 November 1960.
Courtesy of the Military Archives, Dublin
Amazingly, six of the Irish troops managed to fight through the encircling Balubas and a desperate pursuit began as the running battle continued into the bush. The frenzied Balubas wanted to continue killing, while the Irish desperately wanted to evade certain death. Firing as they ran, the surviving Irish peacekeepers clung to the slender hope that if they could outrun their hunters they might yet escape. The skirmish continued in this vein for a short while but the dense bush and the close-packed vegetation was too thick for the Irish troops to navigate quickly. They became dispersed and the pursuit broke down into individual evasive efforts to stay alive. Killeen, Fennell and Farrell were killed while Kenny, through exhaustion, and Fitzpatrick and Browne, through having no other option, found that although the dense growth hindered motion it also provided cover.
In different places and independent of each other, Kenny and Fitzpatrick crawled into the undergrowth, lay still, and hid. They could hear the Balubas looking for them and the noise made by the individual encounters between the Irish and tribesmen around them. The closely-packed vegetation proved a successful sanctuary for Fitzpatrick, while Kenny, although discovered, feigned death. Despite being badly beaten he did not betray his pretence and survived the ordeal. Browne too escaped the chase. He fought himself clear but was not to cheat death. In the immediate aftermath of the ambush, patrols dispatched to the bridge on the non-return of Lieutenant Gleeson and his party discovered Fitzpatrick first, and later, Kenny.
Fr Crean HCF saying mass for the Irish deceased of the Niemba ambush at Albertville airport, on their journey homeward to Ireland, November 1960.
Courtesy of the Military Archives, Dublin
Trooper Browne’s fate and body were only discovered two years later. He had succeeded in putting two miles distance between him, the war party and the ambush site. Heading north, it is believed he sought help from two native women near the village of Tundulu and giving them money asked for food and directions; however, they alerted young warriors who killed him.
The Niemba Ambush was a seminal moment for Ireland and the Defence Forces. It occurred only three months after the first Irish contingent of two battalions (32nd and 33rd) were deployed amid a mood of national exhilaration. The Irish Defence Forces’ involvement in UN services overseas was a national tonic as it heralded the dawn of a new outward-looking, more modern Ireland. The sudden deaths of nine of its soldiers, the Defence Force’s biggest single loss of life in one tragic overseas incident, then or since, was a stark reality check and a loss of innocence for Ireland. The dead Irish peacekeepers were given a State funeral and over a quarter of a million people turned out in Dublin to witness the funeral cortège as it made its way through the capital to Glasnevin Cemetery.
The Balubas did not know the Irish would not be belligerent, the Irish did not know the Balubas would be, and so there was chaos in the Congo. The Balubas mistakenly considered that because the Irish troops were white they presented the same threat posed to them by the white mercenaries in the pay of Moise Tshombe, a tribal rival. They were soon to learn of the impartiality of the Irish, whose own painful history rendered them free of any colonial baggage and in due course provided much needed protection for the Balubas and other tribes in refugee camps. The naivety of an Irish nation was ended and lessons were learned by the Defence Forces, but the drama and the death in the Congo was set to continue.
Les Affreux – The ‘Frightful Ones’
In Africa, the real danger came from the vast inaccessible terrain, the extreme climate and rampant disease. In overcoming these enemies, the opposing soldiers and peacekeepers first had to fight to stay alive before they could engage any human opponent. For UN peacekeepers belligerence was the enemy, its human form ominously manifest in the many mercenaries in the pay of Tshombe. In south west Congo at
