Siege of Jadotville - Battle

Battle

The initial attack by the Katangese occurred while many of the Irish troops were attending Mass. Expecting that the men would be unarmed during Mass, the first attackers moved in rapidly. They were spotted and a warning shot by Sgt Billy Ready alerted the entire company to the threat (Ready was soon wounded in the following exchange of fire). This set the stage for a five-day battle.

A combined force of European mercenaries, Belgian settlers and local tribesmen attacked the Irish. They had a strength of 3,000 to as many as 5,000 men, mostly tribal bands of Baluba warriors but also many regular French, Belgian and Rhodesian mercenaries armed with a mix of light and heavy armament.They also had air support in the form of a Fouga Magister trainer jet fitted with underwing bombs and machine guns. The Irish UN soldiers had, for the most part, just light personal weapons, a small number of antiquated water-cooled Vickers machine guns, and 60mm mortars. The besieged Irish radioed to their headquarters: "We will hold out until our last bullet is spent. Could do with some whiskey".

The Katangese attacked in waves of 600 or so, preceded by bombardment from 81-mm mortars and a French 75-mm field gun. The Irish soldiers successfully defended against massive waves of attackers from their defensive positions. The Irish Support Platoon also knocked out most of the Katangese mortar and artillery positions with effective counter-battery fire from 60-mm mortars. After withstanding four days of repeated attacks, the Irish fired on identified Katangese mortar and machine gun positions with several hours of continuous and concentrated fire from their own mortars and machine guns.

The Irish attacks proved accurate and effective. White mercenary officers could be observed shooting native gendarmes to stem the rout caused in Katangese lines. The Katangese then asked Commandant Quinlan for a cease-fire, as their forces had been seriously diminished, and were on the verge of collapse. By this time, their effective strength may have been reduced to 2,000 men. Commandant Quinlan agreed.

Several attempts were made to relieve the besieged soldiers by the 500 Irish and Swedish UN troops from the base in Kamina and even by the British Gurkhas, but they were beaten back by a supporting force of mercenaries who were brought in by the Belgians and Moise Tshombe, the premier of Katanga. A feature of the failed attempts to relieve the siege was a series of battles at Lufira Bridge where the Irish and Swedish force was bombed by a Katangese Fouga Magister. An attempt to resupply water to the troops by a Swedish helicopter succeeded, but the water was undrinkable because of contamination.

The A Company, 35th Battalion, suffered five wounded in action during the six days of the siege. The Katangans, on the other hand, suffered heavy losses. Up to 300 were killed, including 30 white mercenaries, and an indeterminate number of wounded, with figures ranging from 300 to 1,000. However Commandant Quinlan had no access to resupply and reinforcements, and with his transport destroyed by the Fouga Magister jet a break-out was virtually impossible. Quinlan lacked any clear direction or communication from his superiors, and the Katangese gradually infringed on the cease-fire agreement to undermine A Company's position. In the end with his position untenable, without any clear orders or promise of assistance and having run out of ammunition and food and low on water Commandant Quinlan accepted the second offer to surrender to the Katangese. They were held as hostages for almost a month in an effort to extort terms of ceasefire that were embarrassing to the UN, while the Katangese and their mercenary allies bartered them for prisoners in the custody of the Congolese government of Joseph Kasa-Vubu.