Have You a Tiger In Your Family?

Rank : Lieutenant

Army Number : 445802

Unit : Royal 1st Bn, Royal Depot

Biography :

Educated at Stowe School and at RMA Sandhurst, Anthony Brown was commissioned into The Royal Leicestershire Regiment on 16.12.1955, and was posted to 1st Bn in Cyprus. He was promoted Lt on 16.12.1957, and served as ADC to the GOC Cyprus in 1957/58. He was a Training Subaltern at the Depot 1958-60, including a spell as OC HQ Company. In 1960 he was seconded to The Ghanaian Army, which deployed elements to The Congo to be part of ONUC (Opération des Nations Unies au Congo). While serving in ONUC in The Congo as a platoon commander in A Company 2nd Bn The Ghana Regiment of Infantry, along with other British and Swedish officers and SNCOs he was murdered by mutinous Congolese Army soldiers at Port Francqui in April 1961, aged 25 years. He is named on a stained glass window in the chapel at Stowe School, together with all other Old Stoics killed in action since WW2; on the Armed Forces Memorial at Alrewas; on a brass plaque in the Regimental Chapel in Leicester Cathedral; and at UN HQ in New York.
He was the younger brother of Major W J G Brown of the Regiment.

The following was provided from research carried out by Christopher Dick (sometime 1 RTR and former brother officer of Captain Trevor Ralph RTR, who served on secondment in The Congo at the same time as Anthony Brown).

"On the world stage in the late 1950s, there was turmoil in the Belgian Congo (which after independence on 30 Jun 1960 was named the Congo Republic (and nicknamed ‘Congo-Brazzaville’), and later named the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)). In July 1960 it was the scene of one of the very early UN interventions in Africa [Organisation des Nations Unies au Congo, abbreviated ONUC], which was given with a totally confused mandate “to take all appropriate measures to prevent the occurrence of civil war, if necessary, using force as a last resort”. In the initial UN Force of 3,500 soldiers were 770 of the Ghanaian Army, and a battalion of Swedish infantry. The problem was that each of the three warring factions thought that ONUC was deployed to help their own particular cause. Racism was also rife with the new Congo army (Armée Nationale Congolaise (ANC)) in mutiny and revolting against any white officers; the hate was mainly directed at the Belgians, but any white officer of whatever nationality was bad news to the Congolese soldiers.

"Culled from the UN Archive Service in New York’s Boards of Inquiry that followed the incidents at Port Francqui, all but the last paragraph of what follows is a summary of the events that took place.

"In early 1961 it was into a maelstrom of confusion and danger in a place called Port Francqui (in the mid-west of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), formerly the Belgian Congo) that Captain Trevor Ralph, an RTR officer seconded to the Ghanaian Army, in command of A Company 2nd Battalion The Ghana Regiment of Infantry (2 Ghana Regt), was deployed. On 27 April 1961 he was ordered to protect two Congolese Ministers who were to be lodged at Hotel des Palmes which had been taken over entirely by the UN. The UN contingent there comprised a mix of Swedish officers, doctors of various nationalities and some Ghanaian other ranks, probably from Ralph’s Company. Ralph and one of his Platoon Commanders met the Ministers at the airfield and with an escort vehicle avoided some illegal road blocks set up by the ANC and drove them to the UN hotel. This annoyed the ANC who disagreed with the presence of the Ministers, so they surrounded the building and threatened to take the hotel by force on the following day.

"The ANC then arrived at the hotel to talk to the Ministers, and Ralph escorted them from the hotel to the Congolese camp. The escort returned, but Ralph stayed on with the Ministers, returning a little later in his own car. It was clear that on his return journey he had been assaulted, but he continued in his duties. Later that day the ANC surrounded the UN hotel. Ralph and one of his platoon Commanders, Lieutenant Anthony Brown (of The Royal Leicestershire Regiment), left the hotel to negotiate with the ANC. Meanwhile an armed force of ANC invaded the hotel and demanded that the white officers accompany them; they were stripped of all their insignia and personal belongings and taken to another building where they met up with Ralph and two other officers, all of whom had been badly beaten up. A Swedish Doctor persuaded the ANC to release Ralph and the other officers, and they were taken to a hospital where they were looked after by nuns.

"The next day, 28 April, there was shooting around the hospital, and Ralph, Brown, a Swedish officer (Lt Boetigger) and a Swedish Warrant Officer (WO Asberg) were taken outside and tied up together. The Group was forced to walk along the street. Another Swedish Warrant Officer, WO Liedgren, escorted by further Congolese police, was then forced to join the Group, but was not tied to the others. The Group was led over to a road block when WO Liedgren was told to walk down a small path leading into the bush, and after a short distance the ANC opened fire on him. WO Asberg was then ordered to be freed from the others in the Group and ordered to walk down the same path. When a weapon jammed, Ralph shouted to him: “Good Sergeant Major, run away.” Asberg did so and the ANC opened fire on him, but fortunately he managed to escape into the bush. It was WO Asberg who subsequently was able to relate the happenings on that day.

"There were no direct witnesses to the fate of Ralph and his brother officers, but on 28th April a UN interpreter saw the ANC shooting at other Ghanaian soldiers and subsequently saw them carry bodies down to the river. He then confirmed at the Board of Inquiry into the incident that he saw the body of one European officer floating down the river which from the colour of his hair he thought was Ralph."
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Extract from the UN Report - Appendix P - Item 18, Ghanaian Troops killed by ANC Troops at Port Franqui, April 28 1961.

"BACKGROUND
In accord with its policy of providing protection to high Congolese leaders, two officials from Luxembourg were flown to Port Franqui in a light UN aircraft on April 26 to elude ANC roadblocks set up in anticipation of their arrival. The officials asked for UN protection at the Hotel des Palmes in Port Franqui which the UN had taken over as a billet from the Bas Congo-Katanga railway.
Friction between the ANC and the UNF had been exacerbated by the closing of the Hotel bar to all ANC personnel and Congolese civilians. The ANC was further angered when the railway flag was hung from a balcony, reportedly to dry, which they took to mean that the Belgians were in control of the Hotel.

"INCIDENT
In the late afternoon of April 26 some 20 ANC troops came to the Hotel des Palmes to interview the Congolese officials in order to find out why they had sought protection from the UN rather than the ANC.
Receiving no satisfaction, the ANC the following morning began to disarm the scattered Ghanaian troops in Port Franqui. Two British officers, commanding Ghanaian troops, were intercepted by the ANC as they were investigating the situation and three Swedish members of the local Movement Control unit were arrested at the Hotel during the day.
During the evening of the 27th the Ghana Brigade in Luluabourg received a report of these events and sent two platoons and a reconnaissance detachment as a relief column to Port Franqui.
Learning that the relief column engaged a roadblock south of Port Franqui at 8.00am, April 28, the ANC in Port Franqui murdered a disputed number of Ghanaian troops and officers. Only two bodies were recovered.
Local investigation made it clear that the bodies of the others killed had been thrown into the river.

"CASUALTIES
In Port Franqui : 47 UN personnel killed according to records.
At the roadblock, one Ghanaian soldier killed and three wounded; two ANC soldiers killed.
( According to General Alexander, 120 Ghanaian with their British officers were murdered - see Major General H T Alexander's "African Tightrope, my Two Years as Nkrumah's Chief of Staff" ; published - New York; Praeger, 1966 - Page 66)."
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TAILPIECE
When on 28 April 1961 news of events at Port Francqui reached the HQ of the Ghanain Brigade at Luluabourg, another Royal Leicestershire Regiment officer seconded to the Ghanaian Army, Captain Tom Hiney, was appointed as Company Commander of a composite Company of 2 Ghana Regt to deploy urgently the 215 road miles from Luluabourg (now called Kanana) to Port Franqui (now named Ilebo) to rescue elements of A Company who had been so treacherously overwhelmed and disarmed by Congolese armed men. On the evening of 28 April at Domiongo (50 miles south-east of Port Franqui) Hiney’s Company was ambushed by the Congolese and after one hour of heavy shooting it fought its way through the ambush position. Captain Hiney was awarded the MC for his action in leading his Company clear of the ambush. The citation for Hiney’s award can be found on his web page at http://royalleicestershireregiment.past-view.com/entity/97224-hiney-thomas-benedict-felix-mc
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Date of Birth : 25.11.1935

Place of Birth : Godstone, Surrey

Date of Death : 28.4.1961

Place of Death : Port Francqui, The Congo

Period of Service : 1955-61

Conflicts : Cyprus Emergency, Congo Crisis

Places Served : Cyprus, England, Ghana, The Congo