Congo Crisis Cinema

Some inspiration and background for the Congo Crisis.  First is the famous footage from the 1966 Italian film Africa Addio. 

The clip above is a semi-sanitised montage version with Lauren O'Connell's great rendition of the Warren Zevon classic, Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner over the top.  It starts with Mike Hoare talking, moves onto some footage of the CIA backed Cuban emigre airforce, then ends with the attack on Boende by elements of 5 Commando in late 1964.

The full film, titled Africa: Blood and Guts in English, is available on YouTube but be warned it's pretty brutal stuff.  Probably NSFW and definitely not suitable for kids.  The section on the Congo Crisis starts here.

Next is the historical bio-pic of the Siege of Jadotville.  This film is set in the early stages of the crisis during Moise Tshombe’s attempt to have the province of Katanga secede from the newly independent Congo.

A small garrison of Irish UN troops are surrounded and attacked by the European mercenary led Katangese Gendarmerie.

For a bit less reality there is Jack Cardiff's adaptation of the Wilbur Smith novel The Dark of the Sun, also released under that title and as The Mercenaries. 

 

 

A group of mercenaries and Congolese soldiers race to recover a hoard of diamonds, and rescue some stranded settlers on the way, before the advancing Simbas can overrun them.   

They have a pretty good stab at the mercenary uniforms and even the Simbas, which makes for something different from the usual WW2 subject matter for these type of films.

 

There's a nice game of the film over on Lead Adventure Forum here and some other Congo related games here and here.  

Another movie to put on while you paint, is the Wild Geese, for which Mike Hoare was a consultant.  The film clearly draws several themes from the period of the crisis and its aftermath. 

An interesting bit of trivia is that John Kani's character in the film, Jessie Blake (above right), was the inspiration for the Action Man figure, Tom Stone, after designers saw early work on the film.

 

 

Last is the 1980 film The Dogs of War.  This latter was based on the book of the same name by Frederick Forsyth.  Forsyth was accused at one point of genuinely plotting a coup and the book was later described as "a textbook for mercenaries".  Several copycat coups have been attempted including one to take over Equatorial Guinea in 2004 that involved Mark Thatcher, son of the former British PM.

 

 

As a postscript, I have read online some dispute that Thompson submachine guns were used by the mercenaries in the Congo.  I found these two pictures from the period to show they were.

This first shows Spanish mercenaries from 6 Commando with ANC General Bobozo from this interesting photostream here.

The second shows some mercenaries attached to 7 Commando in 1964 from this website here.  A gold mine of excellent photos on the Jeeps used.