Thomas Michael Hoare (b. 1920–) (Mad Mike) is a mercenary leader known for military battles in Africa and the Indian Ocean.
Contents |
Early life and military career
Hoare was born in Dublin, Ireland. He served in North Africa as an Armour officer in the British military during World War II, and achieved the rank of Captain. After the war, he emigrated to Durban, South Africa, where he ran safaris and became a soldier-for-hire in various African countries.
Congo crisis
During the Congo Crisis Mike Hoare organised and led two separate mercenary groups:
- 1960-1961. Major Mike Hoare's first mercenary action was in Katanga, a province trying to break away from the newly independent Congo. The unit was called "4 Commando". During this time he married Phyllis Simms, an airline stewardess.
- 1964. Congolese Prime Minister Moïse Tshombe hired "Colonel" Mike Hoare to lead a military unit called "5 Commando" made up of about 300 men most of whom were from South Africa. The unit's mission was to fight a breakaway rebel group called Simba. Later Hoare and his mercenaries worked in concert with Belgian paratroopers, Cuban exile pilots, and CIA hired mercenaries who attempted to save 1,600 civilians (mostly Europeans and missionaries) in Stanleyville from the Simba rebels in Operation Dragon Rouge. This operation saved many lives.[1]
Hoare's book about Congolese fighting
In his book "Congo Mercenary", Hoare described his time as a soldier in Congo. Hoare described many incidents such as the following: a mercenary under his command was said by other soldiers to have raped and killed a young girl. In the book he says he was a member of military tribunal who tried the man. The other two men on the tribunal recommended that the man be executed or receive 35 lashes with a cat o' nine tails as punishment. The sentence by Hoare, which was carried out, was for the offender's big toes to be severed, as he had enjoyed playing professional football. Hoare says he personally shot off the man's toes with an automatic pistol.
Nigerian Civil War
Contrary to popular belief, Hoare didn't take part in the Nigerian Civil War, (1967 – 1970).
The Seychelles affair
In 1978, Seychelles exiles in South Africa, acting in behalf of ex-president James Mancham, discussed with South African Government officials launching a coup d'état against the new president France-Albert René. The military option had been decided in Washington, D.C., after concerns for United States access to its new military base in Diego Garcia island, and the determination that René was not corruptible in favour of the Americans.[2][3] Associates of Mancham contacted Hoare, then in South Africa as a civilian resident, to fight alongside fifty-three other mercenary soldiers, including South African special forces (Recces), former Rhodesian soldiers, and ex-Congo mercenaries[4]. Hoare agreed to fight for Mancham . When attempting the military deposition, Hoare and the others were disguised as a beer drinking fraternity, the "Ancient Order of Frothblowers", arriving in a Royal Swazi jet on Mahé, and carrying their own weapons; nine mercenaries (Hoare's advance guard) were already in the island on the evening of 25 November 1981. An alert customs officer thwarted the coup d'état when he saw an AK-47 assault rifle in the luggage of one of the mercenaries.[2] Forty-five of the mercenaries escaped by commandeering an Air India jet (Air India Boeing aircraft Flight 224), which landed while they controlled the airport, forcing its return to Durban.[2] Four of the mercenary soldiers who were left behind were convicted of treason in the Seychelles;[4] however, South Africa negotiated their release with a $3 million ransom payment. In January 1982 an International Commission, appointed by the UN Security Council, inquired into the attempted coup d'état. The UN report concluded that South African defence agencies were involved, including supplying weapons and ammunition[5]. Being associated with the South African security services,[2] the hijackers were initially charged with kidnapping, which carries no minimum sentence, but this was upgraded to hijacking after international pressure.[4]. Throughout his trial Hoare insisted that his operation had been blessed by the South African government: I see South Africa as the bastion of civilisation in an Africa subjected to a total Communist onslaught... I foresee myself in the forefront of this fight for our very existence; he was released in 1985. One of the soldiers, an American veteran of the U.S. – Vietnam War, was found not guilty of hijacking, for being seriously wounded in the firefight, and had been loaded aboard while sedated.[4] Many of the other mercenaries were quietly released after three months in their own prison wing.[2]
The Wild Geese
In the mid-1970s, Hoare was hired as technical adviser for the film The Wild Geese, the fictional story of a group of mercenary soldiers hired to rescue a deposed African president. Ironically, Colonel Alan Faulkner (played by Richard Burton) was patterned on Hoare himself. At least one of the actors in the film had been an actual mercenary under Hoare's command.
Works by Mike Hoare
Congo Mercenary, London: Hale (1967), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 Congo Warriors, London: Hale (1991), ISBN 0-7090-4369-4 The Road to Kalamata : a Congo mercenary's personal memoir, Lexington, Mass.: Lexington Books (1989), ISBN 0-669-20716-0 The Seychelles affair, Bantam, ISBN 0-593-01122-8 Three Years with Sylvia, London: Hale, ISBN 0-7091-6194-8
Notes
- ^ "Changing Guard", Time Magazine, 19 December 1965. Retrieved on 2007-06-06.
- ^ a b c d e John Perkins on "The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption". Democracy Now (5 June 2007). Retrieved on 2007-06-06.
- ^ Perkins, John (2007). The Secret History of the American Empire: Economic Hit Men, Jackals, and the Truth about Global Corruption. Dutton Adult. ISBN 052595015X.
- ^ a b c d "Cooked Goose - "Mad Mike "gets ten years", Time magazine, 8 August 1982.
- ^ http://www.news24.com/Content_Display/TRC_Report/2chap2.htm
6. http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/july/27/newsid_2499000/2499153.stm
External links
- Mike Hoare Research Page If you are a scholar with an academic interest in Colonel Hoare and his career, you can send a message to this site.
- HistoryOfWar.org biography
