| Congo Warriors |  | Author: Mike Hoare
Publisher: Robert Hale Ltd
Category: Book
Buy Used: £49.99
Used (3) from £49.99
Avg. Customer Rating:  1 reviews
Sales Rank: 1096926
Media: Hardcover
Pages: 192
ISBN: 0709043694
EAN: 9780709043690
ASIN: 0709043694
Publication Date: February 28, 1991
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
Condition: 'I believe that this book captures the spirit of mercenary soldering better than anything else I have written' - Colonel Mike Hoare.
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| Customer Reviews:
Memoirs of a remarkable man October 14, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
In the blurb Colonel Hoare claims that "I believe that this book captures the spirit of mercenary soldiering better than anything else I have written" - and I have to say that I agree with him.
Unlike his earlier books, this is not a chronological narrative; it is a series of recollections of incidents and (particularly) of individual people from Colonel Hoare`s service as a mercenary officer in the Congo during the early 1960s. Drawn from a memory which is obviously still pin-sharp, these stories form separate chapters which are by turn exciting, poignant and amusing; and which as a whole give the reader an vivid insight into the varied motives behind an individual`s decision to fight as a mercenary.
Colonel Hoare's particular idea of mercenary soldiering (the Irish "Wild Geese" are his icon) is both realistic and naive. Realistic because of the standards of discipline and efficacy he personally achieved; and naive because he did not anticipate that the successors of 5 Commando would be even worse than their predecessors "Les Affreux" - men like the psychopathic "Colonel Callan", whose misadventures in Angola sounded the death-knell for all European mercenary ventures in Africa. It is perhaps significant that after Colonel Hoare's departure from the Congo, both the discipline and the efficiency of 5 Commando went rapidly downhill.
Altogether a thoroughly interesting and intriguing book.
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