Congo Warriors

MILITARY GENERAL

An account of the part that mercenaries played during the uprising in the Congo in 1964. Prime Minister Moise Tshombe called in white mercenary soldiers to support the Congolese National Army in suppressing the armed soldiers, or “Simbas”. The author commanded a unit of these mercenaries.

pp. 191 First Edition #010324

Thomas Michael “Mad Mike” Hoare (17 March 1919 – 2 February 2020) was a British military officer and mercenary who fought during the Simba rebellion and was involved in carrying out the 1981 Seychelles coup d’état attempt.

Congo Crisis (1961–65)

Hoare commanded two separate mercenary groups during the Congo Crisis:

Katanga

Hoare’s first mercenary action was in 1961 in Katanga, a province trying to rebel from the newly independent Republic of the Congo. His unit was named “4 Commando”.^[10] Hoare relished the macho camaraderie of war, telling one journalist “you can’t win a war with choirboys”.

Simba rebellion

In 1964, Congolese Prime Minister Moïse Tshombe, his employer in Katanga, hired Hoare to command a military unit named 5 Commando, Armée Nationale Congolaise 5 Commando (later commanded by John Peters;^[13] not to be confused with No.5 Commando, the British Second World War commando force) composed of about 300 men, most of whom were from South Africa. His second-in-command was a fellow ex-British Army officer, Commandant Alistair Wicks. The unit’s mission was to fight a revolt known as the Simba rebellion.^[14] Tshombe distrusted General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, the commander of the Armée Nationale Congolaise who had already commanded two coups, and preferred to keep the Congolese Army weak even during the Simba rebellion.^[15] Hence, Tshombe used mercenaries who had already fought for him in Katanga to provide a professional military force.

To recruit his force, Hoare placed newspaper advertisements in Johannesburg and Salisbury (modern Harare, Zimbabwe) for physically fit white men capable of marching 20 miles per day who were fond of combat and were “tremendous romantics” to join 5 Commando.^[5] The moniker Mad Mike which was given to him by the British press suggested a “wildman” type of commander, but in fact Hoare was very strict and insisted the men of 5 Commando always be clean-shaven, keep their hair cut short, never swear and attend church services every Sunday.^[5] The men of 5 Commando were entirely white and consisted of a “ragbag of misfits” upon whom he imposed stern discipline.^[5] 5 Commando was a mixture of South Africans, Rhodesians, British, Belgians, Irish and Germans, the last of whom were mostly Second World War veterans who had arrived in the Congo wearing Iron Crosses.^[5] Racist views towards blacks were very common in 5 Commando, but in press interviews, Hoare denied allegations of atrocities against the Congolese.^[5]

Later Hoare and his mercenaries worked in concert with Belgian paratroopers, Cuban exile pilots, and CIA-hired mercenaries who attempted to save 1,600 civilians (mostly Europeans and missionaries) in Stanleyville (modern Kisangani, Congo) from the Simba rebels in Operation Dragon Rouge. This operation saved many lives.^[19] Hoare and the 5 Commando are estimated to have saved the lives of 2,000 Europeans taken hostage by the Simbas, which made him famous around the world.^[5] Many of the hostages had been so badly treated as to barely resemble humans, which added to the fame of Hoare, who was presented in the Western press as a hero.^[5] He wrote about Stanleyville as occupied by the Simbas: “The mayor of Stanleyville, Sylvere Bondekwe, a greatly respected and powerful man, was forced to stand naked before a frenzied crowd of Simbas while one of them cut out his liver.”^[20] About Operation Dragon Rouge, he wrote: “Taking Stanleyville was the greatest achievement of the Wild Geese. There is only so much 300 men can do, but here we were, part of a very big push and clearing the rebels out of Stan was a major victory for our side.”^[20] Hoare did not stop his men from sacking Stanleyville as the 5 Commando blew open the vaults of every bank and confiscated the alcohol in every tavern in the city.^[5]

The exploits of Hoare and 5 Commando in the Congo were much celebrated for decades afterward and helped contribute significantly to the glorification of the mercenary lifestyle by magazines such as Soldier of Fortune together with many pulp novels that featured heroes clearly modeled after Hoare. The popular image of mercenaries fighting in Africa from the 1960s to the present is that of a macho adventurers defiantly living life on their own terms together with much drinking and womanizing mixed with perilous adventures.