(6 of 10)
An Unhealthy Roof. On the ground, the battle in Elisabethville seesawed inconclusively. One minute, the streets were full; next minute, people were scattering in all directions at the sound of incoming shells or a long, looping machine-gun burst from a distant weapon. Often a barrage caught Katanga's loyal whites of the home guard in mid-Scotch or mid-meal at an Elisabethville bistro. "Ah, it is time to go," shrugged one 24-year-old as the crump of nearby gunfire sent the lunchtime customers to the floor at one restaurant. Shouldering his rifle, he left in the direction of the shooting.
One U.N. salvo landed smack in the center of the city, scoring a direct hit on a beauty parlor and shattering the windows of the Belgian airline, Sabena, as well as other offices along the street. U.N. salvos also hit Prince Leopold Hospital. The U.N. troops' performance seemed particularly sloppy, but Katangese fire often was not much more discriminating: many rounds fell into the Baluba camp, killing at least ten hapless tribesmen.
The Katanga gunners'main target was the U.N. headquarters. One afternoon, two Belgian whites in civilian clothes, carrying the tube, tripod and shells of a mortar, walked down a street in the center of town, set up their weapon in a used-car lot; then, casually, they began bombarding the U.N. office building five blocks away. The fire of little, informal squads like this one was remarkably accurate—they were getting instructions from the roof of the tallest building in town, the new hospital, which the U.N. later captured.
Biding Its Time. At first, it seemed curious that the U.N. did not follow up its plane and mortar bombardment with an all-out strike against the positions of the Katangese in the city. But delay had its purpose. Fact was, the U.N. was gathering strength for an attack that could not lose. The U.N. now had 4.500 men to Tshombe's 2,000. More reinforcements were coming in by air, plus 106-mm. and 75-mm. field pieces, as well as bazookas, jeeps, food and ammunition.
There was deep, burning bitterness among the Katangese—blacks as well as the white settlers—at the U.N.'s show of strength. "Photograph the tears. It's the tears you like, isn't it?" shrieked one weeping man to the foreign news photographers at work in the shell-torn streets. And the people of Elisabethville would never forget or forgive the bomb blasts that killed the innocent; a wild-eyed Belgian drove up to a group of foreign correspondents, shouting "Look, look at the work of the American gangsters!" In the back seat were two bloodied civilians and a dead child in its mother's arms.
Tshombe left his pink and white stucco residence to tour the shattered wards of Prince Leopold Hospital, stopping to offer sympathy and thanks to the wounded. Said he: "Your wounds are not in vain." Then he made his last-ditch tom-tom appeal to his warriors: "Poisoned arrows will shower on our opponents; each onusien [U.N. soldier] will be a corpse."