Programme 6 - Siege of Jadotville

In September 1961, 155 Irish UN soldiers were sent to the remote mining town of Jadotville to protect Belgian settlers living there.  However, when they arrived, they were met with a cool reception. The local people did not want them there. Tensions grew, and finally erupted in a hail of gunfire on the morning of the 13th September. The Irish peace-keepers were surrounded. Thousands of Katangese troops, led largely by Belgian Mercenaries, bombarded the Irish trenches from land and sky. The Irish men held out for 5 days, but ran out of food, ammunition and water. A brokered cease-fire quickly evaporated, and the enemy moved in. The Irish soldiers were then held captive for several weeks, in difficult, hot, and hostile conditions. They were finally freed under a Red Cross prisoner exchange programme in late October 1961. 

Every single member of ‘A’ Company walked away from captivity alive, but the events at Jadotville, and after, were quickly airbrushed out of history.  The men who survived were not seen as heroes by their peers, but instead, as cowards, because of the ceasefire. It is only in recent years, that some recognition has been given to the men who survived the siege. 

This programme, the last in this series of “War Stories”, is the story of the Siege of Jadotville as told by 3 men who were there.  The story unfolds through a combination of one-to-one interviews, and a wealth of archive footage (some of which is being broadcast for the first time).