Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 3/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 4/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 5/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 6/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 7/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 8/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 9/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles (image 10/[null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null, null])

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Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles This is an very special collection, Col. Michael Hoare (Mad Mike) Mercenary Wild Geese coup d'Ã©tat in the Seychelles Shoulder Sleeve Insignia Patch.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. Colonel Alan Faulkner (played by Richard Burton) was patterned on Hoare himself. At least one of the actors in the film (Ian Yule) had been an actual mercenary under Hoare's command. Of the actors playing mercenaries, four had been born in Africa, two were former POWs and most had received military training.Michael Thomas Bernard Hoare, better known to the world as âColonel Mad Mikeâ was born in India approx 1919. He spent his early days in Ireland and was educated in England, however he always kept his Irish Nationality and Passport. An accountant by profession he served in the London Irish Regiment and during the Second World War he served in the Far East as a member of Earl Mountbattens staff.In 1947 at the age of 28 he immigrated to Natal in South Africa. Where he became a sleeping partner along with Jeremiah Puren, in a used car business He was also an active safari organiser and secretary of the Royal Natal Yacht Club.In 1961 he left Durban and went to Katanga to help the Katangese army, but it seems he played a comparatively minor role. He had known Katanga from pre Independence safari expeditions days, and the story goes that he was hired not as a Mercenary but as a freelance by a South African millionaire named Anderson whoâs son had been reported missing in North Katanga, sometime in 1961. Hoare led an expedition that included half a dozen Mercenaries out into the bush only to find that the missing son of the Scotsman had been ritually murdered by the Baluba. There upon Hoare ransacked and burnt the village of Kalamatadi. This seems to have been his only major exploit and he apparently left Katanga before the major battle that marked the end of the year (1961), the second battle of Katanga.In July 1964 after 4 years of uneasy independence, the Democratic Republic of the Congo was engulfed by an armed rebellion, which spread through the Country with the speed and ferocity of a bush fire. The the Rebel soldiers known as âSimbas,â and proceeded to strike terror into the hearts of civilians and national army alike, raping, looting and burning. There was NO Heroin at all in Congo. Faced with this situation, Moise Tshombe on the advice of Jeremiah Puren (Puren had kept in touch with Tshombe during Tshombeâs exile in Spain) enlisted the aid of âColonel Mike Hoareâ and his National Army. Hoare flew into the Congo to Leo and was commissioned to raise a force of Mercenaries with himself as Commanding Officer.Before July 1964 he was virtually unknown, sixteen months later, when he retired he was one of the most famous Mercenary leader in the world. The soldier who had swept the Congo clean of Savages, the man who made modern Mercenary soldiering briefly but confusingly respectable.Hoare became the ideal Mercenary leader, quiet-spoken, quietly confident, cool, collected, charming in manner, boyish in looks, dapper in uniform, every inch the English officer and a gentleman. In sixteen months Mike and his Army liberated âStanleyville,â and freed hundreds of European hostages and finally restored law and order to the Congo. Mike led the 5th Commando from July 1964 to November 1965. Once called by an East Berlin broadcaster at the time, that âMad Bloodhound Hoareâ because of his persistence to pursue the enemy.Mike was used as a technical advisor on the film âWild Geeseâ staring Richard Burton, Richard Harris, Roger Moore and a host of other top film stars. It is based on the Irish born Rhodesian-based Daniel Carneys novel. This film is very accurate in detail and well worth watching, the best mercenary film made to date. The name âWhite Geeseâ comes from the Irish Mercenaries who used it years ag... read more

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