Siege of Jadotville

4ensic15 · 21-09-2016 08:58PM

Jawgap wrote: »

I think given he was at Ft Leavenworth he probably opted to use 'major' as his rank given 'commandants' in the US armed forces are bit more than one rank above captains

Plus, Tom Quinlan is a different person to the contingent commander PAT Quinlan.

EDIT: Tom Quinlan was the captain at Elisabethville.

EDIT #2 : actually he was a lieutenant.....

Of course tom Quinlan was not Pat Quinlan.
Not alone that he was in Jadotville. Strange how a man who was writing an academic paper didn't read a list of the officers who were there.

Jawgap · 21-09-2016 08:59PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

Whatever rank insignia he was wearing he was not a Major.

If he was studying at Leavenworth, and Leavenworth said he was a major, then he was a major....

.....he's now a Lt Colonel.

pablomakaveli · 21-09-2016 09:08PM

Topper Harley wrote: »

Similarly, sometimes our private soldiers get mistaken for Captains due to their three stars.

We had that problem with bombadiers in the artillery. Some RAF lads on the gate would see the rank abbreviation of BDR on the id cards and would bang up a salute thinking it meant brigadier.:D

They quickly realized their mistake when I'd pull up in the following vehicle crying with laughter. Rank confusion can be hilarious at times.

Jawgap · 21-09-2016 09:09PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

Of course tom Quinlan was not Pat Quinlan.
Not alone that he was in Jadotville. Strange how a man who was writing an academic paper didn't read a list of the officers who were there.

Well, there you go.....turns out you were right. Having checked the list, Lt Tom Quintana was one of the platoon commanders.

You were right I was wrong.

4ensic15 · 21-09-2016 09:15PM

Jawgap wrote: »

Well, there you go.....turns out you were right. Having checked the list, Lt Tom Quintana was one of the platoon commanders.

You were right I was wrong.

Bad enough you were wrong but how was this author of an academic paper wrong?

4ensic15 · 21-09-2016 09:16PM

Jawgap wrote: »

If he was studying at Leavenworth, and Leavenworth said he was a major, then he was a major....

.....he's now a Lt Colonel.

major in what army?

Jawgap · 21-09-2016 09:16PM

pablomakaveli wrote: »

We had that problem with bombadiers in the artillery. Some RAF lads on the gate would see the rank abbreviation of BDR on the id cards and would bang up a salute thinking it meant brigadier.:D

They quickly realized their mistake when I'd pull up in the following vehicle crying with laughter. Rank confusion can be hilarious at times.

If you are of a certain vintage you might remember when we had Town Commissions......

......a friend of my Dad's was elected to one of them......while visiting New York he checked into a hotel, and put "Commissioner" in the occupation part of the registration form when checking in hoping he might get a bump.

He not only got a bump, but the hotel passed the word a Commissioner from Ireland was in town.....next day there was an invite to Gracie Msnsion, and lunch with Koch, the then Mayor!! He still has the photo (enlarged of course) in his living room......beside the framed NYPD patch the Police Commissioner presented him with!

Jawgap · 21-09-2016 09:21PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

Bad enough you were wrong but how was this author of an academic paper wrong?

I suggest you contact him and ask him.....

4ensic15 wrote: »

major in what army?

.....their turf, their game, their rules.......you really think someone is going to turn down a chance to study there because they're going to insist that he styles himself as a "major" instead of a "commandant" ?

4ensic15 · 21-09-2016 09:23PM

Jawgap wrote: »

I suggest you contact him and ask him.....
So there is no good explanation that you can find?

.....their turf, their game, their rules.......you really think someone is going to turn down a chance to study there because they're going to insist that he styles himself as a "major" instead of a "commandant" ?[/QUOTE]

I am asking you what army he purports to be a major in. He is not a major in any army and he should not be styling himself as such.

Jawgap · 21-09-2016 09:28PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

.....their turf, their game, their rules.......you really think someone is going to turn down a chance to study there because they're going to insist that he styles himself as a "major" instead of a "commandant" ?

I am asking you what army he purports to be a major in. He is not a major in any army and he should not be styling himself as such.

I think the reasons have already been explained by someone who knows a lot more about these things than I ever will.

I'd assume it's a case of "when in Rome"

4ensic15 · 21-09-2016 09:33PM

Jawgap wrote: »

I think the reasons have already been explained by someone who knows a lot more about these things than I ever will.

I'd assume it's a case of "when in Rome"

It hasn't been explained at all. He claims that Tom Quinlan was his cadet master and yet he doesn't know Tom Quinlan was in Jadotville despite it forming a chapter in his thesis. It is bull****.

Jawgap · 21-09-2016 09:38PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

It hasn't been explained at all. He claims that Tom Quinlan was his cadet master and yet he doesn't know Tom Quinlan was in Jadotville despite it forming a chapter in his thesis. It is bull****.

Probably why they gave him the MMOS (bloody Yanks)........and why they promoted him (bloody Paddies).......

.......and why (according to information publicly available) they put him in charge of the Junior Command and Staff Course in the Curragh......(preparing officers to hold a majors command)

......jeeez, they'll let anyone be a Lt Colonel these days

4ensic15 · 21-09-2016 09:40PM

Jawgap wrote: »

......jeeez, they'll let anyone be a Lt Colonel these days

Seems that way alright.

Jesus. · 24-09-2016 10:24AM

The trailer for that movie looks awesome. Thought it was going straight to Netflix but its on in the local cinema here.

Manic Moran · 24-09-2016 09:24PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

Jawgap wrote: »

I suggest you contact him and ask him.....
So there is no good explanation that you can find?

.....their turf, their game, their rules.......you really think someone is going to turn down a chance to study there because they're going to insist that he styles himself as a "major" instead of a "commandant" ?

I am asking you what army he purports to be a major in. He is not a major in any army and he should not be styling himself as such.[/quote]

Who said he was? I'm enrolled in CGSC right now, and there is quite the slew of regulations in the schoolhouse. Due to advantages of commonality and uniformity, it is entirely possible that he was instructed to use the title "Major" in his submission regardless of official title. As far as CGSC is concerned, he's a Major.

4ensic15 · 24-09-2016 09:29PM

Manic Moran wrote: »

I am asking you what army he purports to be a major in. He is not a major in any army and he should not be styling himself as such.

Who said he was? I'm enrolled in CGSC right now, and there is quite the slew of regulations in the schoolhouse. Due to advantages of commonality and uniformity, it is entirely possible that he was instructed to use the title "Major" in his submission regardless of official title. As far as CGSC is concerned, he's a Major.[/QUOTE]
We have a Defence Act in this country with a schedule of ranks in it. Major is not one of them. No foreign educational body has any business re-drafting our laws.

Jawgap · 24-09-2016 11:07PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

Who said he was? I'm enrolled in CGSC right now, and there is quite the slew of regulations in the schoolhouse. Due to advantages of commonality and uniformity, it is entirely possible that he was instructed to use the title "Major" in his submission regardless of official title. As far as CGSC is concerned, he's a Major.

We have a Defence Act in this country with a schedule of ranks in it. Major is not one of them. No foreign educational body has any business re-drafting our laws.

I think it might be time to get a bit of a grip......

.....no one is re-drafting our Defence Acts or the regulations made under them.

Are you suggesting we don't let officers avail of opportunities to study abroad unless they respect our laws?

And for info, the word 'Major' does appear in certain official DF documents and is used in the context of rank.....for example, the Junior Command and Staff Course is described thus......

The object of the course is to equip officers to hold a Majors Command and to acquire a knowledge of command appointments normally allocated to Lt Col. It covers tactics and techniques of the Infantry Corps and functions of all components of the Defence Forces.

4ensic15 · 25-09-2016 08:44AM

Jawgap wrote: »

I think it might be time to get a bit of a grip......

.....no one is re-drafting our Defence Acts or the regulations made under them.

Are you suggesting we don't let officers avail of opportunities to study abroad unless they respect our laws?

And for info, the word 'Major' does appear in certain official DF documents and is used in the context of rank.....for example, the Junior Command and Staff Course is described thus......

The Defence Act as amended and the regulations made under it do not use the unhyphenated word Major. If the Military College are cogging their material from other sources it is a scandal.

Jawgap · 25-09-2016 08:51AM

4ensic15 wrote: »

The Defence Act as amended and the regulations made under it do not use the unhyphenated word Major. If the Military College are cogging their material from other sources it is a scandal.

No, it's merely a reflection of the real world......

.....I'm open to correction but more than Irish personnel go through the various schools in the Curragh......everyone knows what a Major is/does (depending on which corps they are in) so there is no ambiguity when such matters are being discussed among people who require precision in language

4ensic15 · 25-09-2016 08:55AM

Jawgap wrote: »

No, it's merely a reflection of the real world......

.....I'm open to correction but more than Irish personnel go through the various schools in the Curragh......everyone knows what a Major is/does (depending on which corps they are in) so there is no ambiguity when such matters are being discussed among people who require precision in language

If they are in the Curragh , under Irish law they should do it our way. We are a sovereign country and the Military College should not hesitate to remind visiting students of that instead of using Americanisms.

source · 25-09-2016 10:14AM

4ensic15 wrote: »

If they are in the Curragh , under Irish law they should do it our way. We are a sovereign country and the Military College should not hesitate to remind visiting students of that instead of using Americanisms.

Oh yes, because America is the only country in the whole world that uses the rank of Major in their military!!!

Jawgap · 25-09-2016 10:14AM

4ensic15 wrote: »

If they are in the Curragh , under Irish law they should do it our way. We are a sovereign country and the Military College should not hesitate to remind visiting students of that instead of using Americanisms.

.....so you accept then DF personnel attending overseas schools should be bound by the rules applicable at the site attended?

And I'd say most of th time it hardly matters except the rank "Commandant" has widely disparate meanings in different armed forces.....in the Irish DF it's a major equivalent.......in the US Marines it's something wildly different......and in the Italian army it's a brigade commander (or it used to be).......

......I'm not normally one for Wikipedia and the following paragraph is unreferenced.....

In the Irish Army, commandant is the equivalent of major in other armies. Irish Army commandants can sometimes be referred to as major if serving overseas under the umbrella of the United Nations, NATO or the European Union to alleviate misunderstanding.

Anyway, trivial semantic issues aside, I found the officer's thesis to be an interesting read.

4ensic15 · 25-09-2016 10:28AM

Jawgap wrote: »

.....so you accept then DF personnel attending overseas schools should be bound by the rules applicable at the site attended?

And I'd say most of th time it hardly matters except the rank "Commandant" has widely disparate meanings in different armed forces.....in the Irish DF it's a major equivalent.......in the US Marines it's something wildly different......and in the Italian army it's a brigade commander (or it used to be).......

......I'm not normally one for Wikipedia and the following paragraph is unreferenced.....

Anyway, trivial semantic issues aside, I found the officer's thesis to be an interesting read.

Irish officers should follow Irish law at all times wherever they are. I thought that thesis was poor. Apart from not knowing thet Tom Quinlan was in jadotville and that his DSM arose in part because of what he had learned a few weeks earlier in Jadotville, the narrative is poor. The sequence is all over the place with Niemba , 32nd Bn and 33Bn, all intermingled. The time of the mass is wrong and he does not explain why Quinlan was condemned as a coward by the same Colonel McNamee who is alleged to have praised all involved. .

Jawgap · 25-09-2016 10:36AM

So, foreign personnel coming to study here should be bound by Irish law.....

4ensic15 wrote: »

If they are in the Curragh , under Irish law they should do it our way. We are a sovereign country and the Military College should not hesitate to remind visiting students of that instead of using Americanisms.

.....which is fair enough given it's our jurisdiction......but Irish personnel shouldn't reciprocate when they go abroad, they should always observe Irish laws even in overseas jurisdictions......

4ensic15 wrote: »

Irish officers should follow Irish law at all times wherever they are. I thought that thesis was poor. Apart from not knowing thet Tom Quinlan was in jadotville and that his DSM arose in part because of what he had learned a few weeks earlier in Jadotville, the narrative is poor. The sequence is all over the place with Niemba , 32nd Bn and 33Bn, all intermingled. The time of the mass is wrong and he does not explain why Quinlan was condemned as a coward by the same Colonel McNamee who is alleged to have praised all involved. .

I'm guessing you don't have an academic background......the theses isn't a narrative it's an analysis and the quality and robustness of the analysis are what counts. Factual errors are annoying and not insignificant, but rarely fatal to a sound, well argued theses.

4ensic15 · 25-09-2016 03:59PM

Jawgap wrote: »

So, foreign personnel coming to study here should be bound by Irish law.....

.....which is fair enough given it's our jurisdiction......but Irish personnel shouldn't reciprocate when they go abroad, they should always observe Irish laws even in overseas jurisdictions......

I'm guessing you don't have an academic background......the theses isn't a narrative it's an analysis and the quality and robustness of the analysis are what counts. Factual errors are annoying and not insignificant, but rarely fatal to a sound, well argued theses.

Whatever about factual errors, the sequence of events is poor.
There is an introduction followed by a background which reesults in going backwards in time within the first page. It is also nonsense to say from jadotville that the safety of troops took precedence over the UN mission. QUinlan could not achieve his mission or any mission in the position he was in when he stopped fighting. Kane at the Lufira bridge had no possibility of accomplishing his mission give the resources at his disposal. The analysis of the events is nonsense and does not support the proposition for which it is advanced.

Jawgap · 25-09-2016 04:08PM

4ensic15 wrote: »

Whatever about factual errors, the sequence of events is poor.
There is an introduction followed by a background which reesults in going backwards in time within the first page. It is also nonsense to say from jadotville that the safety of troops took precedence over the UN mission. QUinlan could not achieve his mission or any mission in the position he was in when he stopped fighting. Kane at the Lufira bridge had no possibility of accomplishing his mission give the resources at his disposal. The analysis of the events is nonsense and does not support the proposition for which it is advanced.

Seriously?

The analysis is nonsense? I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that people who know a lot more about soldiering and the military sciences have looked at this work and reached a different conclusion.......but sure what would the instructors at Fort Leavenworth know :rolleyes:

I'm currently reading a copy of Bill Slim's unpublished memoirs - he has entire event sequences mixed up, mentions regiments that were on the other side of the world as fighting with the 14th Army and wrongly attributes commanders (some of whom were friends and classmates) to certain brigades and divisions......

.......you think his analysis and insights on leadership, morale, war and jungle fighting should be disregarded because of it? Maybe his analysis is also nonsense.

4ensic15 · 25-09-2016 04:17PM

Jawgap wrote: »

Seriously?

The analysis is nonsense? I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that people who know a lot more about soldiering and the military sciences have looked at this work and reached a different conclusion.......but sure what would the instructors at Fort Leavenworth know :rolleyes:

I'm currently reading a copy of Bill Slim's unpublished memoirs - he has entire event sequences mixed up, mentions regiments that were on the other side of the world as fighting with the 14th Army and wrongly attributes commanders (some of whom were friends and classmates) to certain brigades and divisions......

.......you think his analysis and insights on leadership, morale, war and jungle fighting should be disregarded because of it? Maybe his analysis is also nonsense.

Whatever about Fort Leavenworth and their view of it which will be based on how much cheerleading it does for the U.S. world viewpoint, the central theses that it purports to make that safety had priority cannot be made out on the examples given in Jadotville. It would require an incident or incidents where there was a militarily objective achievable, which was not attempted, in full or in part because of safety considerations. That did not happen in Jadotville. The opposite is true. Men were sent into an impossible situation with reckless disregard for their safety for the purposes of the mission.
I would find it difficult to take seriously anyone who can't get basic facts right.
In the case of jadotville I notice that he does not refer to the book written by Rose Doyle and Leo Quinlan but does refer to Declan Power. Power has fabricated a number of incidents in his book which is poorly written.
I am shocked that any Irish officer would submit drivel like that in any Military establishment.

Jawgap · 26-09-2016 01:06AM

4ensic15 wrote: »

Jawgap wrote: »

Seriously?

The analysis is nonsense? I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that people who know a lot more about soldiering and the military sciences have looked at this work and reached a different conclusion.......but sure what would the instructors at Fort Leavenworth know :rolleyes:

I'm currently reading a copy of Bill Slim's unpublished memoirs - he has entire event sequences mixed up, mentions regiments that were on the other side of the world as fighting with the 14th Army and wrongly attributes commanders (some of whom were friends and classmates) to certain brigades and divisions......

.......you think his analysis and insights on leadership, morale, war and jungle fighting should be disregarded because of it? Maybe his analysis is also nonsense.

Whatever about Fort Leavenworth and their view of it which will be based on how much cheerleading it does for the U.S. world viewpoint, the central theses that it purports to make that safety had priority cannot be made out on the examples given in Jadotville. It would require an incident or incidents where there was a militarily objective achievable, which was not attempted, in full or in part because of safety considerations. That did not happen in Jadotville. The opposite is true. Men were sent into an impossible situation with reckless disregard for their safety for the purposes of the mission.
I would find it difficult to take seriously anyone who can't get basic facts right.
In the case of jadotville I notice that he does not refer to the book written by Rose Doyle and Leo Quinlan but does refer to Declan Power. Power has fabricated a number of incidents in his book which is poorly written.
I am shocked that any Irish officer would submit drivel like that in any Military establishment.

Well there you go, Ted.

Sounds like we're wasting taxpayer's money sending these guys off to foreign shores to learn when everything they need to know about soldiering can be found right here on boards.

Any theses passing muster here would obviously be good enough for Ft Leavenworth

4ensic15 · 26-09-2016 01:13AM

Jawgap wrote: »

Well there you go, Ted.

Sounds like we're wasting taxpayer's money sending these guys off to foreign shores to learn when everything they need to know about soldiering can be found right here on boards.

Any theses passing muster here would obviously be good enough for Ft Leavenworth

Maybe Fort Leavenworth want drivel. They want to portray a particular image. That thesis was nothing to do with soldiering. It was supposedly and attempt to divine a policy from an analysis of events. I know army officers are supposed to be stupid but that takes the biscuit.

Matpuk4321 · 26-09-2016 02:08AM

Quinlan was o/c cathal Brugha back in the early 70s when I served in the 2nd inf bn, he was as I remember a much feared character and was extreamly abrasive when conversing with private soldiers and nco's his nik name was'. Jadovill Jack' and we young guns were told by the old sweats that Quinlan had raised the white flag in the Congo and caused his men to be taken prisoner, well it's good to see that the record has been put right and his Google name has been restored. But why did it have to take nearly 50 years to get the thing right?

Siege of Jadotville

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