Wexford hero honoured
A Wexford man has been posthumously honoured by the army 55 years after he risked his life to aid Irish troops under siege in Jadotville during the Congo Emergency.
Charles Kearney’s widow Judy, who lives on Forth Mountain, near Wexford town was invited to a unit citation for A Company 35th Infantry Battalion at a Jadotville ceremony at Custume Barracks, Athlone, at which her husband was given a posthumous award. However, she had no idea that she was to receive the citation.
‘ This was a surprise to me as it concerned the 55th Anniversary of the battle of Jadotville 1961, in which my husband Charlie was involved,’ Judy told this newspaper.
The wooden plaque describes Charlie as an Irish hero and a very courageous Wexford man.
The presentation of the award took place last Saturday (September 17) a few days before the premiere of a film about the Siege of Jadotville, starring Jamie Dornan as Commandant Pat Quinlan who led the Irish troops during what was until recently a little-publicised military action.
For many years, the siege was downplayed by the military establishment despite the herpoic actions of Quinlan and his men who were beieged by thousands of Katangan tribesmen and heavily-armed foreign mercenaries.
Charles Kearney, who was from Camolin, risked his life to aid the Irish U.N. forces and was personally thanked by Comdt Quinlan for his role in helping them at great risk to his own life.
While the massacre of Irish troops at Niemba by Baluba tribesmen in the Congo in September, 1960, has been seered into Irish consciousness, the heroic actions of the 150 soldiers of A Company, 35th Infantry Battalion against overwhelming forces in Jadotville in 1961 which, after years of suppression, have only relatively recently been given their proper place in the national arena.
‘Charlie was never in uniform,’ said Judy. It’s something that she is keen to stress, and she has even written to Defence Minister Paul Kehoe to correct the impression in official circles that her husband had been in the army.
Charles died in 2012, two months short of his 80th birthday and is buried at his ranch Lion Kop, near the Victoria Falls, in Zambia.
Charles’s coffin was draped in a U.N. flag topped by a beret donated by McKee Army Barracks as a tribute to his selfless role in the Congo Emergency. Despite living most of his adult life in Africa, Charles remained a Wexford man at heart. His sister is buried in Gorey and his father in Camolin where another relative, Brendan Turner, is still farming.
After the Irish troops at Jadotville surrendered, Charles, who had already passed on valuable intelligence to the U.N., took part in a reconnaissance mission with three Irish officers close to a Katangese military camp where they believed the 184 Irish U.N. soldiers under Commdt Quinlan were being held.
There were great fears for the prisoners’ safety as a planned exchange of captives had not taken place. But as the recce party neared the camp they too were surrounded and taken prisoner.
A contemporary report says: ‘ They never slept a wink all that night as they listened to a mob outside the cell howling for their blood.’
The next day, the order was given for them to be shot, however, President Moise Tschombe intervened to quash the execution order and they were transferred to the town of Kolwezi where the other Irish captives were being held. A highly complimentary letter from then U.N. Secretary General U Thant praised Charles for his devotion to the cause of the U.N. over and above the normal call of duty. The Secretary General said this had earned Charles the high esteem of his colleagues and the gratitude of the United Nations.
Noel Carey, from Blarney, who was then a young lieutenant with the UN forces says that he frequently refers to Charles Kearney in lectures to military and historical societies.
‘I knew Charles - we thought his name was Myles - as he was invaluable before and during the conflict at Jadotville, keeping us up to date by mercenary and Katangan forces,’ said Noel.
‘He certainly put his life in danger, lost his job and was taken prisoner almost being executed, and spent four weeks incarcerated in a prison in Kolwezi with us.
‘He was a remarkable man, a real patriot and a hero,’ said Noel, adding that Charles ‘never got the recognition he deserved.’