Page 62 - Old Ratcliffian 2020 Edition

LIEUTENANT COLONEL THE REV TOM HINEY MC
DECEMBER 12TH 1935 – JANUARY 16TH 2020
OBITUARIES OLD RATCLIFFIAN 1946 – 1953 generation. Hastily granted independence argument with his adoptive father when

he was 18. He was educated at Ratcliffe
with only superficial preparation by the
College and Sandhurst, from where
Belgian government, the rule of law
had collapsed in the country. A quickly he was commissioned in 1956. Initially
assembled UN force was mandated to stationed at Darlington, his high spirits led
safeguard civilians of all nationalities, and to him planning to throw a thunderflash
to restore order. The blue berets, alas, among his fellow subalterns gathered
could not ensure protection. An early and on a detachment at the railway station.
unwisely small UN patrol was ambushed After igniting the fuse, he was unable to
and shot or bludgeoned to death, leaving open the carriage window, so he threw
only three survivors. The British army was the grenade into the nearby lavatory. The
not involved directly, but two West African explosion blew off the door and wrecked
brigades of infantry contributing to the UN the facilities. He was charged with causing
force contained seconded British officers, an explosion in a public place and fined
including Hiney, then an acting captain in £40 (about £1,000 in today’s money). He
the Royal Leicestershire Regiment. He was would have been court-martialled as well,
sent to the central Kasai province, where had the army district commander not had a
Ratcliffe College was hugely important to areas had fallen under control of the Armée sturdy sense of humour.
Dad. ‘Alma mater’ is a much-used phrase, Nationale Congolaise (ANC), which was in
but for Dad, who had no mother, the school revolt and trying to seize political power. More seriously, after joining the 1st
was literally that. He was, for the rest of Leicesters in Cyprus engaged in fighting
his life, grateful for the faith and sense of A company from his regiment had been the EOKA (Greek Cypriot nationalist)
belonging that he found at Ratcliffe. The sent to Port Francqui (now Ilebo), 215 terrorist campaign, he was charged with
mentorship offered to him by Fr Claude miles to the northwest, to rescue a group forcing entry into a Greek Orthodox
Leetham (1915) would last for years of Swedish UN officers abducted by ANC monastery. He and his platoon had been
afterwards. Your readers may appreciate to rebels, but the company’s two British searching for an EOKA arms cache, but
know that Dad was received back into the officers had been tricked while negotiating the expertise of a London barrister was
Roman Catholic Church on his deathbed. and taken prisoner. Hiney was instructed required to have the maliciously drawn
He had drawn closer to the Church of his to form a composite rifle company from charge dismissed. He subsequently served
upbringing after the death of his daughter, his technicians and administrators and with his regiment in Germany and Hong
Louise, in 2006, through a devotion to rescue the officers and the Swedes. His
St Thérèse de Lisieux, which sustained small convoy was ambushed some 50 miles
him, and he received the full sacraments short of Port Francqui on a narrow stretch
of return and anointment from a Roman of road surrounded by thick undergrowth.
Catholic army chaplain a few weeks before He quickly got his men out of their trucks
he died. and returned the rebels’ fire, but the
usual tactic of defeating an ambush, by
Thomas Hiney circling behind it and attacking from the
Son rear, was impossible due to the density of
the bush. Shouting encouragement and
When Tom Hiney was born in a Dublin orders to his men, Hiney systematically
Catholic orphanage, one of the nuns rolled up the ambush from south to north,
described him as: “A little Napoleon; yet killing or routing each pocket of rebels in
always with a wonderful smile.” She spoke turn, until only a Bren gun position at a
prophetically, because Hiney grew up to be roadblock across the road continued to fire.
a resourceful soldier and a popular army Accompanied by his orderly, Hiney crawled
chaplain. Unusually for a future man of forward and silenced it with a couple of
the cloth, he also appeared twice in a court hand grenades. With the roadblocks now
of law: once for causing an explosion at cleared, the convoy moved on to reach
Darlington railway station, and a second Port Francqui, only to discover that the
time for breaking and entering. Far more two British officers and all but one of the
significant, however, was his Military Swedes had been shot by the rebels.
Cross. He won it in 1961, while serving in
Congo during one of the most distressing Thomas Bernard Felix Hiney was born
insurrections since the Second World War. in 1935 and adopted two years later by
Lieutenant Colonel Felix Hiney and his
In the early 1960s, the murder, rape, sister, Margaret. Growing up, he was told
and pillage that marked the civil war in that his mother had died, and he only learnt
the former Belgian Congo shocked a of his adoption during a rare, but heated,

62 The Old Ratcliffian 2020