When Belgium, The Congo, and the CIA fought Cannibals in the Jungle - The 1st Battle of Boende, 1964
Handled Like Eggs
132,274 views
The battles for Boende, from September to October 1964, could be argued as the point at which the Simba rebellion failed. What started as a continuation of their lightning offensive across the North of the Congo that began when Stanleyville fell in August of that year, ended up being their high-water mark. It could have however, for a very tense few weeks, gone either way, especially considering some of the major defeats that were inflicted on the Congolese, some of which were accomplished without even firing a shot.
This is just part one in a four part series covering 'Operation Tshuapa', the two month battle over a town very few had ever heard of that held the fate of the Congo. And a battle that briefly made 52 Commando and SIegfried Muller infamous celebrities.
Sources:
Les Nouveaux Mercenaires by Siegfried Muller
Die Kampf im Kongo by Siegfried Muller
Gerd Heidemann Interviews September/October 1964
A Year at the Edge of the Jungle by Frederic Hunter
Congo 1964 by Jules Gerard-Libois & Benoit Verhaegen
Daily Reports by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Intelligence Reports by the Central Intelligence Agency
Interviews with veterans
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Timestamps:
00:00 - Introductions & Sources
02:20 - The Situation in August
09:46 - The Simba Strategy
11:26 - The First Battle of Boende
22:12 - Chaos in Coquilhatville
33:24 - Enter the Mercenaries
40:22 - 52 Commando Arrives
20 Comments
Back in 2020 I was pretty obsessed with the stories of European and other Western Mercs in Africa during the Cold War, to the point od reading fiction set duirng that time like "The Wild Geese" novel, "The Dogs of War", "The Dark of the sun" and one or other pulp novel based on stories from those conflicts. So a video with this level of research about the topic is nothing short of incredible, specially all that pretty rare footage and information about the weaponry of the Simbas.
Not to mention some of the events shown sounds like something straight from a movie or action pulp novel, from that female "shamanka" basically leading the Simba troops into Boende, to the almost cinematic arrival of Emile Bouzin to the battle, these stories really deserve to be told.
I hope you complete this series about the Simba rebellion and Müller and continue to expand this topic with the less popular 1967 phase of the Congo Crisis, and maybe even talk about the Biafra War.
In 1984 I travelled exactly the same route as Muller did. From Coq via Bokito-Burger, Ingende to Boende and onwards to Stanleyville via Bokungu. We found the old bettlefields where the dead Simbas were never buried, their wrecked trucks overgrown by the jungle. We scavenged spare parts of one of Mullers abandoned jeeps to repair our own. The ghosts of the battles 20 yrs prior were all present.
When Belgium, The Congo, and the CIA fought Cannibals in the Jungle - The 1st Battle of Boende, 1964
Handled Like Eggs
132,274 views
The battles for Boende, from September to October 1964, could be argued as the point at which the Simba rebellion failed. What started as a continuation of their lightning offensive across the North of the Congo that began when Stanleyville fell in August of that year, ended up being their high-water mark. It could have however, for a very tense few weeks, gone either way, especially considering some of the major defeats that were inflicted on the Congolese, some of which were accomplished without even firing a shot.
This is just part one in a four part series covering 'Operation Tshuapa', the two month battle over a town very few had ever heard of that held the fate of the Congo. And a battle that briefly made 52 Commando and SIegfried Muller infamous celebrities.
Sources:
Les Nouveaux Mercenaires by Siegfried Muller
Die Kampf im Kongo by Siegfried Muller
Gerd Heidemann Interviews September/October 1964
A Year at the Edge of the Jungle by Frederic Hunter
Congo 1964 by Jules Gerard-Libois & Benoit Verhaegen
Daily Reports by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service
Intelligence Reports by the Central Intelligence Agency
Interviews with veterans
--
--
Timestamps:
00:00 - Introductions & Sources
02:20 - The Situation in August
09:46 - The Simba Strategy
11:26 - The First Battle of Boende
22:12 - Chaos in Coquilhatville
33:24 - Enter the Mercenaries
40:22 - 52 Commando Arrives