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Mad Mike Hoare
Thomas Michael "Mad Mike" Hoare (17 March 1919 – 2 February 2020) was a British-Irish military officer and mercenary who fought during the Simba rebellion and was involved in carrying out the 1981 Seychelles coup d'état attempt.
Hoare was born on Saint Patrick's Day in India in Calcutta to Irish parents. His father was a river pilot. At the age of eight he was sent to school in England to Margate College and then commenced training for accountancy and, as he was not able to attend Sandhurst, he joined the Territorial Army. Hoare's childhood hero was Sir Francis Drake. Aged 20 he joined the London Irish Rifles at the beginning of the Second World War, later he then joined the 2nd Reconnaissance Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps as a 2nd lieutenant and fought in the Arakan Campaign in Burma and at the Battle of Kohima in India. He was promoted to the rank of major. In 1945, he married Elizabeth Stott in New Delhi, with whom he had three children.
After the war, he completed his training as a chartered accountant, qualifying in 1948. Hoare found life in London boring and decided to move to South Africa. He quit accountancy and managed a motor car business. He subsequently emigrated to Durban, Natal Province in the Union of South Africa. In Durban, Hoare was restless and sought adventures by marathon walking, riding a motorcycle from Cape Town to Cairo in 1954 and seeking the rumoured Lost City of the Kalahari in the Kalahari desert. In 1959 he established a safari business in the Kalahari and the Okavango delta. A keen sailor, he had a yacht in Durban, then later bought a 23-metre Baltic trader named Sylvia in which he sailed the Western Mediterranean for three years with his family and wrote a book about the travels. By the early 1960s, Hoare was extremely bored with his life as an accountant, and yearned to return to the life of a soldier, resulting in his interest in becoming a mercenary.
Hoare commanded two separate mercenary groups during the Congo Crisis.
Hoare's first mercenary action was in 1961 in Katanga, a province trying to rebel from the newly independent Republic of the Congo. His unit was named "4 Commando". Hoare relished the macho camaraderie of war, telling one journalist "you can't win a war with choirboys".
During this time he married Phyllis Sims, an airline stewardess.
In 1964, Congolese Prime Minister Moïse Tshombe, his employer in Katanga, hired Hoare to command a military unit named 5 Commando, Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) 5 Commando, later commanded by John Peters; composed of about 300 men, most of whom were from South Africa. His second-in-command was a fellow ex-British Army officer, Commandant Alistair Wicks. The unit's mission was to fight a revolt known as the Simba rebellion. Tshombe distrusted General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, the commander of the Armée Nationale Congolaise who had already commanded two coups, and preferred to keep the Congolese Army weak even during the Simba rebellion. Hence, Tshombe used mercenaries who had already fought for him in Katanga to provide a professional military force.
"The idea that a racial war by white mercenaries against Africans would be subject to the Geneva Conventions would have been laughed at by Hoare, who casually described war crimes by his forces. Captured rebels were forced to walk across a minefield [...] The mercenaries had no problems burning entire villages to the ground and killing their populations."
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Mad Mike Hoare
Thomas Michael "Mad Mike" Hoare (17 March 1919 – 2 February 2020) was a British-Irish military officer and mercenary who fought during the Simba rebellion and was involved in carrying out the 1981 Seychelles coup d'état attempt.
Hoare was born on Saint Patrick's Day in India in Calcutta to Irish parents. His father was a river pilot. At the age of eight he was sent to school in England to Margate College and then commenced training for accountancy and, as he was not able to attend Sandhurst, he joined the Territorial Army. Hoare's childhood hero was Sir Francis Drake. Aged 20 he joined the London Irish Rifles at the beginning of the Second World War, later he then joined the 2nd Reconnaissance Regiment of the Royal Armoured Corps as a 2nd lieutenant and fought in the Arakan Campaign in Burma and at the Battle of Kohima in India. He was promoted to the rank of major. In 1945, he married Elizabeth Stott in New Delhi, with whom he had three children.
After the war, he completed his training as a chartered accountant, qualifying in 1948. Hoare found life in London boring and decided to move to South Africa. He quit accountancy and managed a motor car business. He subsequently emigrated to Durban, Natal Province in the Union of South Africa. In Durban, Hoare was restless and sought adventures by marathon walking, riding a motorcycle from Cape Town to Cairo in 1954 and seeking the rumoured Lost City of the Kalahari in the Kalahari desert. In 1959 he established a safari business in the Kalahari and the Okavango delta. A keen sailor, he had a yacht in Durban, then later bought a 23-metre Baltic trader named Sylvia in which he sailed the Western Mediterranean for three years with his family and wrote a book about the travels. By the early 1960s, Hoare was extremely bored with his life as an accountant, and yearned to return to the life of a soldier, resulting in his interest in becoming a mercenary.
Hoare commanded two separate mercenary groups during the Congo Crisis.
Hoare's first mercenary action was in 1961 in Katanga, a province trying to rebel from the newly independent Republic of the Congo. His unit was named "4 Commando". Hoare relished the macho camaraderie of war, telling one journalist "you can't win a war with choirboys".
During this time he married Phyllis Sims, an airline stewardess.
In 1964, Congolese Prime Minister Moïse Tshombe, his employer in Katanga, hired Hoare to command a military unit named 5 Commando, Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC) 5 Commando, later commanded by John Peters; composed of about 300 men, most of whom were from South Africa. His second-in-command was a fellow ex-British Army officer, Commandant Alistair Wicks. The unit's mission was to fight a revolt known as the Simba rebellion. Tshombe distrusted General Joseph-Désiré Mobutu, the commander of the Armée Nationale Congolaise who had already commanded two coups, and preferred to keep the Congolese Army weak even during the Simba rebellion. Hence, Tshombe used mercenaries who had already fought for him in Katanga to provide a professional military force.
"The idea that a racial war by white mercenaries against Africans would be subject to the Geneva Conventions would have been laughed at by Hoare, who casually described war crimes by his forces. Captured rebels were forced to walk across a minefield [...] The mercenaries had no problems burning entire villages to the ground and killing their populations."