THE MONTH OF MAY IS A BLACK MONTH FOR THE IGBO NATION IT MARKS THE COMMENCEMENT OF THE CIVIL WAR MAY 30TH- JANUARY 1970

COLONEL ROLF STEINER IN BIAFRAN ARMY SERVICE DURING THE NIGERIAN CIVIL WAR

From the outset, the war between Nigeria and secessionist Biafra loomed as an unequal contest. It was not surprising that, as in the earlier Congo conflicts, foreign mercenaries were drawn to Biafra to practice their trade: fighting. Nor was it surprising that the beleaguered Biafrans accepted their services—despite the fact that mercenaries can be narrow, violent men who often harbor a deep contempt for Africans. In the midst of the idealism with which Biafra pleaded its cause for independence, the mercenaries have operated—sometimes ugly, certainly anomalous, but perhaps necessary to Biafra’s continued survival.

In 16 months of often brutal fighting, Nigerian federal troops have whittled Biafra down to one-tenth of its original area. They are now closing in on Umuahia, the secessionist state’s last major town and the current seat of Lieut. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu’s movable government. Umuahia would have long since fallen had it not been for the exploits of the best unit in Ojukwu’s small army, Biafra’s Fourth Commando Brigade. Commanded by nine white mercenaries, the Fourth spent the first three months of the year operating behind Nigerian lines.

Later, it held sectors on the Western front but, outgunned and outmanned by the federals, was forced to retreat. By early September, after a doomed attempt to defend Aba with supplies equal to only a daily average of five rounds of ammunition per man, the Fourth was down to barely 1,000 effectives. Of the 7,000-odd men with whom it had started the campaign, more than 300 had been killed and 2,200 had been wounded. The rest were missing in action.

Record Supplies.

Last week the Fourth Commandos were once more rebuilding under the command of a German-born ex-Foreign Legion sergeant who became a sector commander for the S.A.O. (Secret Army Organization) in Algeria and then a colonel for Ojukwu in Biafra. He is Rolf Steiner, and he considers the war to be far from lost, contemptuously dismissing the territorial gains of the heavily armed Nigerians.

“If any corporal serving under me in the Legion had taken more than a week to conquer West Africa with their kind of equipment,” he snorts, “I’d have him shot for dereliction of duty.” Ojukwu, for whom Steiner has immense admiration, has authorized the Fourth to be expanded to two brigades, or 20 strike forces of 360 men each. The new men are being armed with weapons apparently bought with private European credits and flowing into Biafra from neighboring Gabon and the Portuguese island of São Tomé. Up to as much as 40 tons are said to be arriving every night—more than ever before in the war.

Colonel Steiner, 38, has been soldiering for most of his life. In the final days of World War II, he fought as a Hitler Youth in Germany’s last-ditch defense against the advancing U.S. Army. After the German surrender, he enlisted in the French Foreign Legion. He spent seven years in Indo-China, an enfant terrible who was at least twice busted from sergeant to private. At Dienbienphu, he was wounded and lost the use of a lung. After five years of service in Algeria, a spell with the S.A.O. and a suspended sentence, he was living in Paris last year when he heard of Biafra. He set out to serve Ojukwu’s cause, first as a “technical adviser,” then as company commander, finally as boss of the Fourth Commando Brigade.

Red and Green.

He has taken the Legion with him to Africa. Legion marches blare from a transistorized pickup that he carries almost everywhere, and the Fourth Commando standard bears the red and green of the Legion. At inspections, Steiner often gets his troops’ attention by firing off a few rounds from his Browning, then lectures them, his walking stick under one arm. “You are not Legionnaires ” he will rant after a particularly bad showing. “You are not men.” He has demoted at least one captain to private, but has also been known to pick a good man from the ranks and make him an officer.

When he recently elevated a private to 2nd lieutenant, one of his officers complained: “My dear chap, we can’t have someone in the mess eating with his fingers.” Steiner, who speaks French and German, replied that he did not care if the man ate with his feet, as long as he was a good soldier.

Steiner likes beer, Benson & Hedges cigarettes, violence and very little else. Compulsively clean, he throws even slightly dusty plates at his mess waiters, then kicks them to drive the point home. But he also plucked a 21-year-old Ibo boy from the side of his dead parents, adopted him and named him Felix Chukwuemeka (after Ojukwu) Steiner.

The troops do not seem to mind the harshness of the command; they follow Steiner because they believe he is a winner and because he has juju (good luck). Thus Steiner has had no trouble refilling the depleted ranks of the Fourth at this late stage in the conflict. Guerrilla warfare may be the way out, he thinks. “If the towns are taken, we will go into the bush,” he says. “We could do the job. But we must have weapons. We don’t need armor. We need trucks. We don’t need much air. But spotter planes would be useful.”

Bulletproof.

Steiner’s mercenary officers are a mixed lot, united only by loyalty to their commander, distinguished only by their combat experience and their foibles.


MAJOR TAFFY WILLIAMS IN BIAFRAN SERVICE
Major Taffy, 34, Welsh and a veteran of the Fifth Commando mercenaries of the Congo, thinks he is bulletproof. By now, so do the federals, who have reported him dead at least five times since last December. Taffy came perilously close to being killed a few weeks ago, when a round smashed into his binoculars. Short-tempered, he curses his black troops constantly, threatening to kill them if they don’t obey orders. “You rotten bastards!” he roars, when things go wrong. “You bloody, treacherous morons!”

Captain Paddy, an Irishman who has spent 22 of his 54 years in Africa, is the unit’s master mechanic. Just before Port Harcourt fell to the federals early last summer, he scrounged up a convoy of trucks and liberated—under fire —the entire workshop of the Shell-B.P. refinery there. When Aba had to be evacuated last month for lack of ammo, Paddy was one of the last men out, a machine gun in one hand, a demijohn of wine in the other.

Captain Armand, a former French paratrooper and veteran of Algeria, sports a Yul Brynner pate and fights on despite bazooka fragments in one hand. Another veteran has just left Steiner.

Captain Alec, a onetime British paratrooper, used to walk around with a Madsen submachine gun, an FN rifle, and a shotgun, “just in case I have to shoot my way out of this bloody place.” He believed in the “little people,” who, he would say in all seriousness, “will jam your machine guns and cause your rockets to misfire.” He was wounded four times in six days before he left Biafra

God bless them all!!!

That will be Nice


What about Bruce Mayrock the One that protested against the killing of Biafrans by burning himself.......

Won't he be remembered

mercenaries you say...


they don"t believe in causes, they believe in their rewards and benefits... and fight for whoever pays the bills


Anyways i commiserate with my brothers on the Biafra cause because it takes a lot of guts to stick to what you believe in know and i believe that the sun shall rise when it shall rise.

United will STAND, Divided will FALL!!

Rip













so sad they fought for nothing.

Emmanuel247:
That will be Nice


What about Bruce Mayrock the One that protested against the killing of Biafrans by burning himself.......

Won't he be remembered

why should he be remembered for wasting the life that is not even precious to him?

God bless em all. RIP

It reminds me of how my dad fought the war

sounds like military psychos to me.just like people running to join ISIS to me are not normal

pussygotlips:
Rip














so sad they fought for nothing.

Lol. Don't be so sure coz going by the recent noises, Biafra is coming back with a vengeance. Let's all join hands with the Biafrans to realize their dream, for peace sake, that way all the chest-beating and aggression will cease.

Young03:
It reminds me of how my dad fought the war

my dad too

nwanne di na mba

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QYd6r73BoX8
I have said this repeatedly to my igbo sisters and will continue saying it. It is better to get yourself a white Husband than any of the black devils in Nigeria, if u finding it hard to find one in igboland or south south.The mullato kids are cute as opposed to the ugly dark skin devils u are guranteed with abo.ki or ofe-manu.
Any other is just rubbish and it will take divine intervention, for an igboman not to stone you and the bastard on sight.

Onye ocha ka onye oji nma



anya furu ugo...

pussygotlips:
Rip














so sad they fought for nothing.

today is a curse free day on my side pls don't make me break the vow by posting crap.

OduaVanguard:


Lol. Don't be so sure coz going by the recent noises, Biafra is coming back with a vengeance. Let's all join hands with the Biafrans to realize their dream, for peace sake, that way all the chest-beating and aggression will cease.

forget news and face the reality jooor,

biafra is a scam,
they are politically motivated just to get sympathy so as to be considered in the affairs of this country which they failed to play well,

just of a recent i was in port when i came across news about biafran radio of which i tune in to that said frequency but to my greatest surprise i heard nothig.

Now the E-war may start

PRETO IGBO MÊS
" Um reconhecimento especial ao irmão Artur Alves Pereira o herói e defensor do Biafra judeus durante a guerra civil na Nigéria 1967-1970..we te amo
MEANING
BLACK IGBO MONTH
"Special appreciation to brother Artur Alves Pereira the Hero and defender of Biafra jews during nigeria civil war in 1967-1970..we love you

Yee, gina, like seriously?

ginawest:
my dad too

Let us unite and make NIGERIA a great country

May their souls continue to rest in eternal peace and may their generations after them to a 1000th generations be blessed always!

pussygotlips:


forget news and face the reality jooor,

biafra is a scam,.

U wish.

and what's there gain now

fighting for cowards who wear there wives cloth and ran to ivory coast in the night.

ojuku! you no try at all

seankay:
Let us unite and make NIGERIA a great country

Can't u see it's not working, since 1914. Let's try another approach to see if it will benefit us all. Disintegrate, who knows, if Biafra had succeeded in 1967, probably both Nigeria and Biafra would have been in a better position than Nigeria is in today.


Viva Biafra.

midolian:
why should he be remembered for wasting the life that is not even precious to him?

Don't you ever quote me you Again...

Emmanuel247:



Don't you ever quote me you Again...

its obvious you are as confused as the man that burnt himself for the sake of biafra

pussygotlips:


forget news and face the reality jooor,

biafra is a scam,
they are politically motivated just to get sympathy so as to be considered in the affairs of this country which they failed to play well,

just of a recent i was in port when i came across news about biafran radio of which i tune in to that said frequency but to my greatest surprise i heard nothig.

no mind them. Dem dey shout biafra and dem no go back their state. Check their locations, you ll find out most of them are in the north and west.


Awon smelo

i see Nigerian drill tools not soldiers.

temitemi1:
United will STAND, Divided will FALL!!

see pdp illiterate

United we stand not will

Now I see d product of mama peace secondary school

Bifrans make una no worry, this dreams are still very much alive, is jst a matter of time we will get there!#vegatalks

A factual answer please...
Wanna ask a question; If the Biafran Republic is eventually realised,what would be fate of their 'nationals' who have building,structure and businesses scattered all over the Nigeria region?
I'm from the South and the above question put me in doubt over the realisation of Biafra,cos a typical Easterner wouldn't want to lose out on the lon
g run.

Emmanuel247:
That will be Nice


What about Bruce Mayrock the One that protested against the killing of Biafrans by burning himself.......

Won't he be remembered

**grins** I have it on good authority that many who lift Biafra's morales while in far away lands will be remember in the Biafra of today. From Bruce mayrock to the white American Musician Jello Biafra(he popularized the name Biafra in the US).

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jello_Biafra