Mike Hoare - The Wild Geese

The Wild Geese

In the mid-1970s, Hoare was hired as technical adviser for the film The Wild Geese, the fictional story of a group of mercenary soldiers hired to rescue a deposed African president. Colonel Alan Faulkner (played by Richard Burton) was patterned on Hoare himself. At least one of the actors in the film (Ian Yule) had been an actual mercenary under Hoare's command. Of the actors playing mercenaries, four had been born in Africa, two were former POWs and most had received military training. Hardy Krüger was a former member of the Hitler youth, plus while serving in the Waffen SS was captured but escaped numerous times.