John Peters (mercenary)

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John Peters (* 1922 or 1926 in Leeds ; † 1986 in Dallas ) was a British mercenary and entrepreneur .

Life

Peters served as a professional soldier in the British Army , including the SAS . He reached the rank of non-commissioned officer , deserted and emigrated to South Africa . In September 1964, he joined the 57th Command as a sergeant , a platoon of the 5th Command led by Mike Hoare , which was supposed to put down the Simba Rebellion in the Congo . As deputy platoon leader, he formed the 57th Command into an elite unit within the 5th Command , whose training standard, according to Hoare, came close to that of the SAS. The 57th Command participated in the recapture of Kindu , where the mercenaries freed 250 European hostages from the power of the Simbas. During the advance on Stanleyville , Hoare promoted Peters to lieutenant on November 20, 1964 . While Hoare forbade his men from looting the houses abandoned by Belgians, but accepted it, Peters helped his men break open safes. After Hoare had given the order to shoot only at armed men during advances, Peters kept a supply of spears ready in his jeep so that afterwards he could put a weapon in the hand of every local who was killed. The 5th Command was deployed after the liberation of Stanleyville until the end of the year with patrols on the left bank of the Congo northeast of Stanleyville to free kidnapped hostages, which was only partially successful. On December 26th, Peters was given command of the 54th and 57th commandos . At the turn of the year, the two commandos were posted to Paulis as garrison troops . In Paulis, Peters made sure that a Belgian brewery started up again and shared in the proceeds.

The new order of the 5th Command at the beginning of 1965 was to cut off the Simbarebellen in the northeast from their supply connections to Sudan and Uganda . The rebels not only received Soviet and Chinese weapons from there , but also used the neighboring countries as retreats. Hoare called his campaign Operation White Giant . He began marching from Bunia on March 15 and advanced along the Ugandan and Sudanese borders. His association consisted of the 5th command with 300 mercenaries and the 14th command with 700 black Africans, most of whom came from Katanga. On March 16, John Peters was given the rank of captain and command of a force called Force John-John of around 100 men, which took over the right wing of the advance. The unit brought high losses to the rebels through their energetic action. Peters was promoted to major during the operation . In less than three weeks, the force advanced to Niangara, for whose civil and military administration Peters took over responsibility. At the end of April, Peters was given the task of suppressing counter-attacks by the rebels from Sudan. For this purpose, he pursued a group of several hundred men from parts of the 5th and 14th commando a rebel group 40 km into Sudan, killed 80 of the rebels and burned their camp. As a result of this humiliation, the Sudanese government ended its support for the rebels. Nevertheless, Peter's units had to repel heavy attacks by the rebels on Niangara in early May. In May, on Hoare's orders, Peters had to surrender his command and leave the Congo after a soldier from his bodyguard shot a local sergeant and this put a strain on relations with the Congolese government.

In August, John Peters returned from Rhodesia Salisbury back, just in time for operation Bazi , with the fifth command , the area around today's district Fizi on Lake Tanganyika should free, which was then still the rebels last territory in the Congo. Peter's return lessened the shortage of qualified officers for this complex operation. Hoare took command of a unit of 100 men again called Force John-John . The attack began on September 27, 1965 with 350 mercenaries and more than 3000 ANC soldiers. Part of the 5th Command attacked from the south-west, a second column from the south over Uvira. A third group attacked the port city of Baraka in an amphibious landing over Lake Tanganyika, closely supported by the air forces. John Peter directed and trained the beach reconnaissance team, which served as the vanguard of the landing forces. Peters was wounded in the fight for Baraka, but initially refused to accept morphine for the pain in order to be able to continue the battle. Five weeks later, while fighting for Fizi, John Peters was wounded again.

On December 9th, Peters took command of the 5th command from Mike Hoare, after he was dismissed by Mobutu , who had come to power two weeks earlier. The death of the local sergeant John Peters had made the local soldiers unpopular. But possibly this was an advantage in Mobutu's eyes, because the army relied largely on soldiers from Katanga province , who were loyal to Mobutu's adversary Moïse Tschombé . During his vacation in Rhodesia in the summer of 1966, Peters was contacted by a group of conspirators who, with Belgian support, wanted to overthrow Mobutu. Peters refused to participate, but fled to London to attend the World Cup because he feared being kidnapped by Mobutu's men as a potential conspirator . However, he then returned to his post. During the revolt of Katanga gendarmes in July 1966, the 5th Command initially behaved neutrally, but after the failure of the uprising prevented the escape of 3,000 gendarmes, who were then massacred by government troops. In February or March 1967 Peters handed over the 5th command to George Schroeder, the unit was disbanded in May. At this point she was less occupied with combat missions than with rebuilding infrastructure such as bridges and schools.

Contemporary witnesses who fought with Peters in the Congo describe him as a irascible person who became violent towards other mercenaries and shot locals for a trivial reason. The Guardian - Reporter Anthony Mockler Peters wrote about: "He had a reputation as a killer and as a very cold one; he was however equally respected and even more feared. ” According to Mockler, Peters was overwhelmed as commander of the 5th Command because, as a former non-commissioned officer, he lacked the qualifications to lead such a large unit.

John Peters wanted to settle in South Africa, but the authorities refused to do so. Instead, under the guise of a real estate agency, he opened a network of mercenaries in London who could be mobilized with weapons and equipment within a few days. After the outbreak of the Biafra War in July 1967, Peters recruited a dozen South African, Rhodesian and British transport aircraft pilots for the Nigerian government . He warned his former officer comrade Alastair Wicks , who recruited mercenaries for Biafra, by phone: "I don't want my boys to war on yours."

At the beginning of the seventies, John Peters founded the geo-exploration company Coastal Surveys Ltd. in Singapore . In the 1980s he worked for Arthur Jones , the inventor of the MedX strength training machines. John Peters died of a heart attack at Dallas Airport in 1986 .

In his novel, The Dogs of War , Frederick Forsyth mentions that the fictional main character, mercenary leader Cat Shannon, left 5th Command because he refused to serve under John Peters.

literature

  • SJG Clarke: The Congo Mercenary: A history and analysis , South African Institute of International Affairs (SAIIA), 1968, pp. 24–32, here :, accessed December 11, 2014
  • Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9
  • Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X
  • Anthony Rogers: Someone Else's War. Mercenaries from 1960 to the Present , Harper Collins, London 1998, ISBN 0-00-472077-6 , pp. 11-31

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d http://www.mercenary-wars.net/congo/list-of-congo-soldiers.html
  2. ↑ http://www.perthnow.com.au/news/western-australia/movie-producer-a-star-of-the-slums/story-e6frg14l-1226104921917?nk=73029d5f023f7da19484e85296d0c545
  3. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , p. 115
  4. ↑ a b Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 86
  5. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 109
  6. ↑ Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 137
  7. ↑ a b http://www.arthurjonesexercise.com/GodLaughs/20.PDF
  8. ↑ Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 158
  9. ↑ Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 168
  10. ↑ Ivan Smith: Mad Dog Killers. The Story of a Congo Mercenary , Helion & Company / 30 ° South Publishers, Solihull / Pinetown 2012, ISBN 978-1-920143-51-0 (South Africa), ISBN 978-1-907677-78-6 (UK), P. 146
  11. ↑ Mike Hoare: Congo Mercenary , Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 176
  12. ↑ Piero Gleijeses: “Flee! The White Giants Are Coming! ”: The United States, the Mercenaries, and the Congo, 1964-65 . Diplomatic History, 18/1994, pp. 207 - 237, here p. 228, here: ( Memento from January 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ↑ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , pp. 188-215
  14. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 220
  15. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , pp. 222f
  16. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 248
  17. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , pp. 257ff
  18. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 262
  19. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 267
  20. ↑ MERCENARY: Mauve et blanc . In: Der Spiegel . No. 40 , 1966 ( online - 26 September 1966 ).
  21. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , pp. 115-117
  22. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , pp. 117-119
  23. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , p. 122
  24. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , p. 128
  25. ↑ Ivan Smith: Mad Dog Killers. The Story of a Congo Mercenary , Helion & Company / 30 ° South Publishers, Solihull / Pinetown 2012, ISBN 978-1-920143-51-0 (South Africa), ISBN 978-1-907677-78-6 (UK), P. 144
  26. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 115
  27. ^ Mike Hoare: Congo mercenary , London: Hale (1987), ISBN 0-7090-4375-9 , p. 117
  28. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , p. 123
  29. ↑ http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1314&dat=19671021&id=T61WAAAAIBAJ&sjid=yugDAAAAIBAJ&pg=4647,1693311
  30. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , p. 165
  31. ↑ a b Archive link ( Memento from March 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
  32. ↑ http://www.historynet.com/congo-crisis-operation-dragon-rouge.htm
  33. ↑ Frederick Forsyth: The Dogs of War. Thriller . Piper, Munich 2001 (first edition ibid. 1974), ISBN 3-492-23127-6 , p. 92
personal data
SURNAME Peters, John
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British mercenary and entrepreneur
DATE OF BIRTH 1922 or 1926
PLACE OF BIRTH Leeds , England
DATE OF DEATH 1986
Place of death Dallas , USA