An Cosantóir

www.military.ie the defence forces magazine | 13 contingent returned home, UNOGIL's deputy commander, the newly promoted Col Justin McCarthy, and Capt Pat Jordan, were transferred to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organisation (UNTSO), the UN's first and now longest running mission, set up to maintain the truce arrangements that fol- lowed the Arab-Israeli wars of 1948. Remarkably, since then there has been a permanent DF pres- ence in UNTSO. There have been four Irish commanders of the mission, including, most recently, Maj Gen Michael Finn. Whatever difficulties the sudden need to supply 50 officers must have caused the Defence Forces in 1958, they surely faded into insignificance with the UN's next request. On 30th June 1960 Congo gained its independence from Belgium and immediately descended into anarchy when the mineral-rich province of Katanga declared its independence. The UN inter- vened and on 13th July Ireland was requested to provide troops to the proposed Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo (ONUC) mission. After the Dáil amended the Defence Act to allow an armed contingent to deploy overseas, almost 1,400 troops were de- ployed to ONUC by August 1960, serving with 32 and 33 Inf Bns and 9 Brigade HQ; with the latter being one of the forgotten chapters of our Congo deployment, as is the fact that under its commander, Col Harry Bryne, it would eventually command 4,800 Irish, Swedish, Moroccan, Malian and Ethiopian troops. ONUC was a sharp learning experience for the novice Irish peacekeepers, who conducted continuous operations, includ- ing the only battalion-in-attack ever conducted by the Irish army. Our soldiers would also discover that when dealing with well-armed Katangan gendarmerie, led by motivated Euro- pean mercenaries, the lines separating peacekeeping, peace- enforcement and war-fighting were often blurred. Inevitably, there were fatalities: 33 Inf Bn alone would lose 12 of its soldiers, including Coy Sgt Felix Grant, the first member of the Defence Forces to die on overseas service. The battalion would also suffer the greatest single loss of life incurred by a Defence Forces overseas unit when nine members of A Coy were killed at Niemba on 8th November 1960. The Defence Forces' final Congo death toll of 26 officers, NCOs and men, would also include Col Justin McCarthy who had accompanied ONUC's first force commander, General Carl von Horn, from UNTSO as his chief of staff. Col McCarthy died in Leopoldville in a road traffic accident on 27th October 1960. He remains the most senior member of the Defence Forces to have died overseas. It also includes Tpr Patrick Mullins (35 Inf Bn), who was killed in action in Elizabethville on 15th Septem- ber 1961 but whose remains have never been recovered. A further 57 were wounded or injured during the four- year deployment. One Military Medal for Gallantry and 65 Distinguished Ser- vice Medals were awarded to Irish soldiers serving with ONUC. When Irish involvement ended in May 1964, a total of 6,191 personnel; eight infantry battalions; two infantry groups; and two armoured car squadrons had served with the mission. In addition, DF Chief of Staff Lt Gen Seán MacEoin had served as commander of the 20,000-strong force between January 1961 and April 1962, becoming the first Irish officer to hold such an appointment. Over the next 25 years the Defence Forces would take part in a myriad of what are now labelled 'traditional' peacekeep- ing operations: lightly armed battalions or infantry groups deployed to separate warring parties in Cyprus, Sinai, and Lebanon, while unarmed military observers deployed to Afghanistan, Central America, Namibia, India/Pakistan, Iran and Iraq, among others. In addition, Irish officers would be appointed as force commanders in the Middle East, Kashmir and Cyprus. Lt Gen William Callaghan DSM served not only as Force Commander UNIFIL but also as Chief of Staff UNTSO on two occasions. The 'peace dividend' that many expected to follow the end- ing of the Cold War in the early 1990s failed to materialise and the international community had to face new and unantici- pated challenges caused by rising nationalism in the Balkans, failing states in Africa, and worldwide intrastate conflict. Genocide in Rwanda and Bosnia would see the UN accused of being ineffectual in the face of mass killings of civilians, and traditional peacekeeping could not deal with the new threats developing; a different approach was required. The Defence Forces' first deployment on a non-UN-led peacekeeping operation was to the former Yugoslavia as part of the 1991 European Community Monitoring Mission, which was established in conjunction with the OSCE. By 2003 the EU had developed its common security and defence policy sufficiently to deploy its first autonomous military mission outside the EU. As part of Operation Artemis, Col Justin McCarthy, Deputy Commander of UNOGIL, pictured in Beirut in 1958. Col McCarthy was killed in a road traffic accident in Congo on 27th October 1960 and is the most senior member of the Defence Forces to die on overseas service. LÉ Eithne, the naval flagship, departing the Naval Base on 15th May 2015, en route to the Mediterranean. This was the first Naval deployment on a Crisis Support Operation.

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