An Cosantóir

| 31 Niemba Bridge memorial construction Group Photo: Members of 2 Pl, A Coy, 33 Inf Bn, ONUC. The photograph includes some of the personnel who were killed in the Niemba Ambush. Front row: Cpl Liam Duggan (2nd from left), Lt Kevin Gleeson (6th from left), Sgt Hugh Gaynor (7th from left), Cpl Peter Kelly (10th from left). Third Row: Tpr Thomas Fennell (9th from left) and Pte Michael McGuinn (extreme right). Back Row: Pte Thomas Kenny (1st left) and Pte Joseph F itzpatrick (5th from right) both of whom survived the ambush. The three other members of the platoon who were killed, Pte Gerard Killeen, Pte Matthew Farrell and Tpr Anthony Browne, are not in this photograph as they were posted to the platoon later. serving with 37 Inf Bn, was told by a Belgian lawyer that the location of the remains of Tpr Browne was known. A four-man team was assembled and tasked with establish- ing the location and recovering the remains. Comdt Jack Gallagher, Ops Officer with 37 Inf Bn (later Major General and Quartermaster-General from June 1981 to April 1984), was in charge of the team. Two officers, Comdt Brendan Heaney and Capt Jim Lavery, who had served with 33 Inf Bn in 1960, and who were formed-up for service with 38 Inf Bn's armoured car group, were sent with the advance party for that unit. The fourth member of the team was another cavalry officer, Comdt Thomas Malachy McMahon, who had been Legal Officer with 33 Inf Bn. A platoon from the Malayan contingent escorted the cavalrymen were killed in action in Elizabethville while serving with 35 Inf Bn. Tpr Edward Gaffney died from mul- tiple gunshot wounds on 13 September 1961 when the truck he was driving was ambushed and hit by machine-gun fire. Cpl Michael Nolan and Tpr Patrick Mullins were killed when their Ford armoured car was knocked out by an anti- armour projectile two days later. In the autumn of 1962 Comdt Pat Liddy, a cavalry officer in Kamina Base in Katanga and most Irish units deployed overseas since then have had an organic cavalry element. Six Irish ONUC battalions (34 to 39 Inf Bns inclusive) and 2 Inf Gp had armoured car groups. Two independent squad- rons (2 and 3 Armoured Car Squadron) also served with ONUC. In addition to the Fords, some of the later units also used Scania SKPF M/42 wheeled APCs, M113 tracked APCs and Ferret Mark II armoured scout cars. All driving, maintenance and gunnery training on these AFVs was done in-theatre. Less than a year after the Niemba ambush three more remains were transported by road to Albertville and on the following day to Eliza- bethville. Tpr Browne was brought home for burial with full military honours in the Congo plot in Glasnevin on 16th November 1962. Tragically, this was not the end of the story. Comdt McMahon was serving as Judge Advocate General at HQ ONUC in Leopoldville when he died suddenly in his sleep from myocardial infarction on 28th September 1963, aged 47 years. He was the last member of the Defence Forces to die in the Congo. Tpr Browne and Comdt McMahon and the other five cavalrymen who died in the Congo are commemorated at the Cavalry Corps Memorial Garden at the Curragh and at the Congo plot in Glasnevin. Every year since 1966, serving and retired cavalry per- team, accompanied by the local administrator, a party from Armée Nationale Congolaise and an interpreter. After spending two days in the bush, the skeletal remains were located on 7th November 1962, one day short of the second anniversary of the massacre. The remains were scattered over an area of about twenty yards some three miles from the ambush site near the village of Tundula. The Forces and changed the organisation from a force that was almost frozen in time from the Emergency period by being starved of funding during the 1940s and the 1950s. When the first units deployed to the Congo they were still uni- formed and equipped as they had been in 1946 with bulls wool uniforms, leather hob-nailed boots, and armed with bolt-action Lee Enfield .303 rifles, Bren-gun LMGs, Gustaf SMGs and Vickers MMGs. The Ford armoured cars were from the same era. The sacrifices and service in the Congo left a legacy and laid the foundations for Cavalry Corps service in later overseas missions. It is a matter of immense pride in the Cavalry Corps that, in addition to the award of the MMG to Tpr Browne, 11 Cavalry Corps personnel were awarded DSMs for service with ONUC and sadly, six others who made the supreme sacrifice were posthumously awarded the Military Star. www.military.ie THE DEFENCE FORCES MAGAZINE sonnel, along with relatives of those who died, assemble in Plunkett Bks to mark Cavalry Corps Memorial Day in remembrance of cavalry personnel who died while on over- seas service and those who passed away during the year. This year's ceremony will be held on 1st September. The Congo mission was a watershed for the Defence

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