Jadotville: Benchmark for Bravery
Jadotville: Benchmark for Bravery by Dan Harvey tells the story of 'A' Company, 35th Irish Infantry Battalion, and their extraordinary stand at Jadotville in the Katanga province of the Congo in September 1961 - and the decades-long fight for recognition that followed.
In 1960, Ireland sent troops to the newly independent Congo as part of the UN peacekeeping mission (ONUC), tasked with ending the mineral-rich province of Katanga's secession under Mo se Tshombe. On 3 September 1961, 'A' Company - 156 men under Commandant Pat Quinlan - was ordered to Jadotville under the pretext of protecting white settlers. They found instead a hostile town, no mission, and a gathering enemy.
When the attack came on 13 September, 'A' Company repelled wave after wave of Katangese Gendarmerie and European mercenaries over five days of intense fighting. Outnumbered roughly 20 to 1, bombed from the air by a mercenary jet, cut off from reinforcements, and eventually deprived of water and ammunition, they inflicted an estimated 300 enemy casualties while suffering only five wounded. When relief columns twice failed to break through at Lufira Bridge, Quinlan was left with no viable alternative but to accept a ceasefire that quickly became captivity.
On their return to Ireland, 'A' Company were not honoured - they were vilified. Branded "Jadotville Jacks" and accused of cowardice for surrendering, they suffered decades of institutional silence, PTSD, and what Harvey identifies as collective moral injury. Commandant Quinlan's recommendations for 34 bravery medals were twice dismissed by Medals Boards in the 1960s, with Jadotville effectively erased from the military record.
The battle for recognition - driven by veterans Liam Donnelly and John Gorman, and later Declan Power's 2005 book and the 2016 Netflix film - slowly forced the truth into the open. A Unit Citation was awarded in 2016 and An Bonn Jadotville in 2017, but Harvey argues the job remains unfinished: not one individual bravery medal has ever been awarded for Jadotville itself. His book is a call to finally correct that wrong.
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