Sweden was one of 29 nations that sent troops and other personnel to the newly independent Congo during the Congo Crisis to serve as a peacekeeping force (Opération des Nations Unies au Congo - ONUC) sent there by the United Nations and its general secretary Dag Hammarskjöld.

Beginnings

The first contingent of around 600 Swedish peacekeeping soldiers that would serve in Congo were taken from the pre-existing Swedish UN battalion in Gaza (Gazabataljon 8 - G/K 8) that had been moved there from the prior posting of a Swedish peacekeeping force in the Sinai after the Suez Crisis. Since this was an already organized battalion, that had begun its service in may 1960, it could smoothly and quickly be moved from the Middle East to Africa. It was ordered to do so on July 17 1960 and reached Congo within a week (although a contemporary source claims that the first Swedish troops reached Congo on July 15). The Swedish battalion was with 6 other battalion the first UN peacekeeping force to enter Congo. Two companies from this battalion would in august be stationed in Katanga after Moise Tshombe, president of Katanga, threatened the UN with violence.

But what was the mission? The task originally given to ONUC (and the Swedish forces) was to oversee and support the pulling back of Belgian forces and to support law and order in the newly created nation so as to stabilize the country. The early months of the Swedish battalion was quite calm. A small unit of Swedish technicians also served in Congo where they would be active from September 1960 until 1963 by which time they had helped with many projects all over Congo which involved restoring faulty and destroyed infrastructure. Events in 1961 would change all of this. Patrice Lumumba, former president of Congo, is assassinated on February 12 in Elizabethville, the capital of Katanga. This assassination and the Belgian involvement in it leads to United Nations Security Council Resolution 161 (February 21) which urges for the withdrawal of all Belgian and mercenary soldiers out of the country and that force might be used if this did not come to be. This escalation leads, among other things, to that the Swedish battalion is reinforced with 5 Terrängbil m/42 KP (a Swedish armoured personnel carrier) which were so popular that 15 other KP-bilar (as they were known) were given to the Irish and Indian battalions as well.

Daily life

Before we get to the most serious period of the Swedish involvement in the Congo Crisis, I'd like to take a moment to write about the daily routine of a Swedish peacekeeping soldier during this time.

The Swedish camp, Camp Suédois, was located 3 km outside of Elizabethville in a former Belgian military compound. You as a soldier would attend drill training from 8 AM until 12 PM. While this drill was commonly like any other in most modern armies, some drill involved more specialized training such as riot drills in which Swedish soldiers trained themselves to disperse large crowds of people. As the heat became all too strong towards the middle of the day, the Swedish soldiers were given a siesta that took place between 12 and 3 PM. Soldiers took this time to relax, perhaps enjoy a nice swim in their pool or perhaps the most popular pastime: sunbathing. At 3 PM, it was back to training and was mostly dedicated to physical training in the form of sports (volleyball, boxing, swimming, running and football) but also more practical training such as weapon's training. Those who didn't have to attend training would attend to different duties in and outside the camp. The monotonous guard duty was the least popular and the jungle patrols were the most popular since this made it possible for the Swedish soldier to be in contact with the Congolese civilian population and see the country. During their free time, the Swedish soldiers wrote letters, listened to radio, read books and newspapers and attended religious services and study circles. If you were really lucky, you could even go on leave in Elizabethville. These routines were common throughout this period, even in periods of armed conflict (in which the only difference was that soldiers weren't allowed to leave the camp unless they were part of an operation).

Refugees

Things started to change in the summer of 1961. It was becoming increasingly likely that the use of force was going to be necessary to quell the tensions that the existence of Katanga was creating. The conflict between Katanga and the peacekeeping force was becoming increasingly more violent and when the order came to implement Resolution 161, it all came together in months of fighting. One sign of change was the Luba people who fled from the violence inflicted on them by the population of Katanga and created a refugee camp close to the Swedish camp where they were considered themselves safe. The refugees created a huge issue for the soldiers since this small contingent had to protect and oversee more than 40 000 men, women and children. It was difficult enough to make sure that the people were safe but when it came to handing out food, the task was near impossible. The lack of hygiene made it easy for disease to spread throughout the camp and as if that wasn't bad enough, criminal gangs in the form of the Baluba Jeunesse, a former resistance movement turned criminal gang ravaged the camp. Swedish soldiers had to stop these men from committing murders and other crimes but also had to stop other tribal and religious rivalries from escalating into conflict. Sometimes, this ended in Swedish casualties as in the case of a soldier only identified (by himself and contemporaries) as furir Martinsson (from Göteborg) who was attacked by members of the Baluba Jeunesse while he was escorting Red Cross workers through the camp. In his own words:

When I turned around to speak with the two civilians in my jeep, I saw to my surprise that they had disappeared with the jeep.

Only then did I understand the danger and I began to run to the camp 400 meters away. But after 50 meters, the balubas had caught up with me. I don't know what happened after that.

I woke up again two days later. The balubas had beaten me unconscious with horrific spike clubs and clubs with bicycle chains attached to them. Thus followed four months in hospital, first in Congo and later in Sweden. The attack resulted in blindness in my left eye and the insertion of a gold bridge since my teeth were knocked out.

War

In July and August 1961, the mission of the peacekeepers went from peacekeeping to peace enforcement when orders came to arrest white Tshombe's white advisers, mercenaries and white gendarmerie who would then promptly be sent home to their home countries. One such man was George Thyssens, Tshombe's political advisor who was arrested when the "alarm platoon" of the 3rd Swedish company surrounded his home and let a Swedish military police patrol enter and arrest them. It took them five minutes, but they faced resistance in the form of Thyssens two sons, both officers in the gendermarie, and his two German Shepherds. All of them survived, although the two sons ended up quite bloodily beaten which was used as anti-UN propaganda by local Belgian newspapers in Elizabethville. On August 25, the whole of Elizabethville was decided upon to be occupied by UN forces to complete the task of arresting these men. The occupation proceeded without bloodshed and even Tshombe himself was accidentally captured (!) after being stopped at a road block and then taken to the Swedish HQ where the mistake was promptly rectified.

Although Tshombe had promised to cooperate with the UN forces in sending back his foreign advisers and soldiers, he did not keep those promises and only escalated the situation further. The tensions grew and stones started to be thrown against Swedish Jeeps as they drove through Elizabethville. Stones that would soon be replaced by bullets.

These actions were followed by Operation Rumpunch which followed the same patterns as before and then followed by Operation Morthor on September 13 which escalated the conflict into war. The UN objectives, beyond the arrest of white gendermaries and other advisers, were also to take control of all lines of communications in the city. During an attempt to arrest one of Tshombe's ministers on September 13, two Swedes were injured. The first Swedish soldier to be killed in action, Major Gerard Gallon, died that very day after being hit by a mortar round in the Swedish camp. A Swedish APC gets into a battle with an enemy APC. Swedish interpreters, attached to Indian peacekeepers, are involved in the fight for the Elizabethville post and telegraph office as well as the Radio Katanga station. Bengt Lindau is killed in action on September 14 during an attack on a supply storage while serving as an ammunitions bearer. Four days later, Dag Hammarskjöld (general secretary of the UN) dies in a plane crash. Lars Frost, Swedish soldier, remembers: "It was tough, obviously, when the boss died but a friend in my platoon died around that same time. That was tougher."

It was during these dramatic weeks in September that the siege of Jadotville took place (which I know many people have been asking about lately) and believe it or not, a Swede was there too. Lars Fröberg, an interpreter from Borås, was the only Swede in the midst of 200 Irishmen (this is the number that Fröberg himself gives, although it was probably 50 men less than that) and was taken prisoner at the end of the siege.

In late September, the Swedish government accepted the UN's request for Swedish fighter jets and sent the F22 flight unit with 5 Saab J 29 "Flygande tunnan" and around 220 pilots and other vital personnel to Congo where they would serve in both a role as a protector of UN flight transports as well as participate in attack, hunting and recon missions.