Campaigners want medals for the Jadotville veterans

A retired Mullingar serviceman is one of the leaders of a new campaign by army veterans to get the state to recognise the bravery of men who fought in the Siege of Jadotville.

Fifty nine years ago this month, 158 members of A Company were attacked by an estimated 5,000 Katangese troops while in UN peace keeping duty in the Congolese town of Jadotville.

Despite their numerical inferiority, the Irish soldiers managed to defend their outpost for five days before they were forced to surrender due to a lack of ammunition and food and water.

During the five days they killed 300 of their attackers while only five of their soldiers were injured.

It is now widely regarded as one of the greatest military achievements in the history of the Irish army, but when the men of Jadotville returned home after spending a month as prisoners of war, their reputations were tarnished for surrendering.

After years of lobbying, the 158 soldiers were awarded a specially commissioned medal, An Bonn Jadotville. However, after they returned home in 1961, A Company’s leader Commandant Pat Quinlan had recommended that 27 of his men be awarded Distinguished Service Medals and five the Military Medal for Gallantry, the highest honour a member of the Defence Forces can receive.

Retired Regimental Sergeant Major Noel O’Callaghan is one of the driving forces behind a new campaign calling on the state to finally award the medals. As a young soldier in Columb Barracks, Mr O’Callaghan served with a number of Jadotville veterans.

“It was good military training, discipline and bearing by those on the ground, under the command of Commandant Quinlan in Jadotville that saved not only their own lives, but also by extension, the UN mission in the Congo itself,” he told the Irish Examiner last week.

“Sadly the treatment of that Irish unit by our own government and military command of the day became a cross to bear, and for some a sense of shame brought on by that treatment, that lack of respect or loyalty,” Mr O’Callaghan said.

“To get it into context, several of them served in Columb Barracks, Mullingar with me from 1975. None of them ever mentioned Jadotville, or the fact they served there during the battle.

“All bar four of them are still alive in Mullingar, the rest having passed away over the years,” he said.

Mr O’Callaghan has sent emails to An Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Minister for Defence Simon Coveney. He says that the state has a moral obligation to right the wrongs of the past.

“If they die out without this being sorted, it will be a legacy and stain on those who let it happen back in the past and those of us in the present.

“We have the moral courage to right this wrong of the past,” Mr O’Callaghan said.