An Cosantóir February 2017 www.dfmagazine.ie
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'One-Inch Group'
1 Inf Gp, or 'One-Inch Group' as it was af-
fectionately called by its members, was
formed in April 1961 for service with the
UN in the Congo. Comprising a company
from Eastern Command and one from
Southern Command, with a tactical HQ, it
was the first Irish formation to be armed
entirely with the new FN rifle and the
Carl Gustav 84mm recoilless rifle and was
designed to be a hard-hitting, highly-pow-
ered, independent, self-contained unit.
Shortly before leaving Ireland it was
announced they would be heading to
Kasai province, where, a few days earlier,
tribal warfare had broken out in the area of
Mwene-ditu, where the HQ was to be based.
The unit flew out on 25th and 26th May
and when they arrived in Mwene-ditu
they started taking over from the Ghana-
ians. However, as a virulent small-pox
epidemic was raging in the territory,
the senior UN MO ordered that anyone
who had not been vaccinated within the
previous three months would have to be
revaccinated before going into the area.
(Throughout their deployment small-pox
and other diseases were so rampant that
the whole of south Kasai was known as a
pathologist's paradise.)
Due to the revaccination delay it wasn't
The source of information for the following article is an unsigned
contemporary report on the activities of 1 Inf Gp in the Congo in 1961,
written towards the end of the deployment.
Written by Commanding Officer Lt Col J.C.O. O'Donovan and endorsed
by Comdt M.F. Quinlan, and sent in by Congo Veteran Christy Fleming.
Photos: www.unmultimedia.org
Irish ONUC soldier Pte W. Ambler on guard duty at
Coy HQ in Albertville. 1st August 1960. © UN Photo
