Taffy Williams

Hugh "Taffy" Williams (* 1933 , 1934 or 1936 in Glamorgan , Wales ; † January 3, 1996 in Edmonton ) was a mercenary in the Congo and in the Biafra War .

Life

Simba rebellion in the Congo

Williams grew up in South Africa, where he received his military training. According to Frederick Forsyth , he spent some time in a mental hospital. In September and October 1965 he fought in the mercenary troops 5th command under Mike Hoare as a sergeant in the Force Oscar in the Congo. In Operation Banzi , the unit took action against the Simba rebels in the area around Fizi and Baraka . With the dissolution of the unit in April 1967, Williams left the Congo with a settlement amounting to three times the monthly salary. In London he was waiting for new assignments with around 30 other mercenaries. His rank at this time was given as Hauptfeldwebel.

Biafran War

During the Biafra War , Taffy Williams served with the rank of major in Rolf Steiner's Fourth Command Brigade . At the beginning of 1968 Williams with 100 commando soldiers and 7000 volunteers from an Igbo tribe withstood the attacks of a Nigerian division for twelve weeks . The breakthrough came after Williams was recalled. In July 1968 Steiner and Taffy had divided their duties so that Steiner was responsible for the leadership and staff duties of the brigade and Williams for the actual fighting. In August, when Nigerian forces crossed the Imo River to advance into the city of Aba , Williams' unit delayed the advance in one of the bloodiest battles of the war for three days until they ran out of ammunition. Williams and Steiner narrowly escaped captivity after the fall of Aba. After Steiner's deportation in November 1968, Williams was one of the last three white mercenaries in the Biafra Land Forces (the German Friedrich Herz served in the Air Force until December 1969).

He took over the leadership of the Fourth Command Brigade from Steiner. In the failed attack on Onitsha, Williams executed six Biafra soldiers with his revolver who refused to proceed. After the attack, the Fourth Command Brigade was disbanded. Taffy Williams was only entrusted with training tasks, no longer with a front line command. When his contract expired at the beginning of 1969, it was no longer renewed. As the only mercenary in the Land Forces, Williams fulfilled his two contracts of six months each for the full duration. In a television interview he had previously announced: “I will stay in Biafra until the end of the war. And then I'll move to the next. " Instead, he spent a year on Mallorca , where he waited in vain for the next job.

personality

An eyewitness described Williams as a sociable person and heavy smoker with features reminiscent of Peter O'Toole . Time news magazine reported that Williams continually cursed local soldiers and threatened them with death.

After the end of the Biafra War, Williams complained in the Spiegel in 1970 about a lack of offers for mercenaries: “It is desperate. At the moment I'm in a mood where I wouldn't fight for anything. "

The Guardian - Correspondent Anthony Mockler According Taffy Williams model for the main character in Frederick Forsyth novel was The dogs of war .

literature

• Frederick Forsyth : Outsider. The autobiography . C. Bertelsmann, Munich 2015, ISBN 978-3-570-10266-4 , p. 248f
• Frederick Forsyth: Foreword , in: Al J. Venter: War dog . Philadelphia, Pa .; Newbury: Casemate, 2008, ISBN 978-1-935149-93-4 , pp. VII-XII
• Frederick Forsyth: The Biafra Story. The Making of an African Legend . Barnsley, Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2007, ISBN 978-1-84415-523-1 , pp. 112-153
• Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , pp. 162-182

Web links

• Article in Time about Williams and other mercenaries in Biafra
• Rolf Steiner and his collaboration with Taffy Williams in Biafra
• A veteran of the Biafra Airlift shares his impressions of Williams

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Facebook post , accessed December 15, 2017
2. ↑ Biafra: The Mercenaries, in Time of October 25, 1968, here:
3. ↑ Mercenaries: For a fight they're out, in: The Tuscaloosa News of August 6, 1967, p. 14, here:
4. ^ Frederick Forsyth : Foreword, in: Al J. Venter: War dog. Philadelphia, Pa .; Newbury: Casemate, 2008 ISBN 978-1-935149-93-4 , p. IX
5. ↑ http://www.mercenary-wars.net/congo/list-of-congo-soldiers.html
6. ↑ http://www.historyofwar.org/articles/people_hoare.html
7. ↑ Mike Hoare: 'Congo Mercenary, Paladin Press, Boulder / Colorado 2008, ISBN 978-1-58160-639-3 , p. 253-264
8. ↑ Mercenaries: For a fight they're out, in: The Tuscaloosa News of August 6, 1967, p. 14, here:
9. ↑ http://www.kriegsreisen.de/religte/steiner.htm
10. ^ Frederick Forsyth: The Biafra Story. Barnsley, Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2007, ISBN 978-1-84415-523-1 , p. 127
11. ^ Frederick Forsyth: The Biafra Story. Barnsley, Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2007, ISBN 978-1-84415-523-1 , pp. 133ff
12. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries . Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , pp. 179-182
13. ^ Frederick Forsyth: The Biafra Story. Barnsley, Yorkshire, England: Pen & Sword Books Ltd., 2007, ISBN 978-1-84415-523-1 , pp. 112, 127
14. ↑ http://www.mercenary-wars.net/biography/taff-williams.html
15. ↑ http://maxsiollun.wordpress.com/2012/03/15/footage-of-the-nigerian-civil-war/
16. ↑ Frederick Forsythe: Looking for a good war , in: The Tuscaloosa News, June 5, 1970, p. 12
17. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated November 7, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
18. ↑ http://beegeagle.wordpress.com/2010/06/30/nigerian-civil-warthe-mercenaries-of-biafra/
19. ↑ CAMBODIA / MERCENARY: Mad Michel . In: Der Spiegel . No. 30 , 1970, ( Online - July 20, 1970 ).
20. ^ Anthony Mockler: The new mercenaries. Corgi Books, London 1986, ISBN 0-552-12558-X , p. 195