Coming to Netflix 8-October-2016. Watch it if you can.
The story of the 1961 siege of a 150-member Irish U.N. peace keeping force under Commander Patrick Quinlan.
The United States in 1961 paid little attention to the (former Belgian) Congo. It got some press in more "intellectual" foreign affairs magazines. For the most part, US attention was turning towards a place called Vietnam. Most Americans, myself included, know nothing about Jadotville.
As told to me by others; take a battalion of inexperienced young men from an army with no war-fighting experience. Put them under officers with no combat experience. Deploy them on UN peacekeeping duty in an African country under the control of UN civilian officials who exemplify what it is to be "clueless". It seems those Irish boys got lucky. Wrong place. Wrong time. But the right leadership, albeit inexperienced, able to cope.
A Company inflicted an estimated 1,300 (300 KIA, 1000 wounded) casualties on the attacking force of 3,000 Congolese mercenaries at a cost of 5 wounded, and 158 taken prisoner when they ran out of ammunition.
I am told the film is as close to accurate as is possible for a movie to be according to all interviews seen or heard from veterans who were at the premiere screening in Dublin.
Apparently when those boys and their leaders got home they were lambasted as cowards by barracks rats who hadn't a clue about surrendering when there is nothing left to give.
Is it true, that for decades, until a military historian wrote the book of the same name, 'Jadotville Jack' was Irish army slang term for "Coward"?
The story of the 1961 siege of a 150-member Irish U.N. peace keeping force under Commander Patrick Quinlan.
The United States in 1961 paid little attention to the (former Belgian) Congo. It got some press in more "intellectual" foreign affairs magazines. For the most part, US attention was turning towards a place called Vietnam. Most Americans, myself included, know nothing about Jadotville.
As told to me by others; take a battalion of inexperienced young men from an army with no war-fighting experience. Put them under officers with no combat experience. Deploy them on UN peacekeeping duty in an African country under the control of UN civilian officials who exemplify what it is to be "clueless". It seems those Irish boys got lucky. Wrong place. Wrong time. But the right leadership, albeit inexperienced, able to cope.
A Company inflicted an estimated 1,300 (300 KIA, 1000 wounded) casualties on the attacking force of 3,000 Congolese mercenaries at a cost of 5 wounded, and 158 taken prisoner when they ran out of ammunition.
I am told the film is as close to accurate as is possible for a movie to be according to all interviews seen or heard from veterans who were at the premiere screening in Dublin.
Apparently when those boys and their leaders got home they were lambasted as cowards by barracks rats who hadn't a clue about surrendering when there is nothing left to give.
Is it true, that for decades, until a military historian wrote the book of the same name, 'Jadotville Jack' was Irish army slang term for "Coward"?
