French mercenary, rebel and adventurer, a modern day soldier-of-fortune. Since 1961, Denard has fought in the bloody Biafran war of succession against Nigeria, battled communists in Angola, soldiered in Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) against black guerrillas, participated in Yemen’s civil war and with the mujihadin in Afghanistan. Frederick Forsyth was later to model the hero of his novel about mercenaries “The Dogs of War,” on Denard.
The son of Bordelais peasants, at 16 he joined the French navy, but was dismissed after a few months for starting a brawl in a bar in Saigon. He next surfaced in the early ’50s as a policeman in Tunisia, but was fired from that job for allegedly conspiring to overthrow the French Prime Minister Pierre Mendes-France, who wanted to grant Tunisia independence.
Back in France, he worked briefly as a traveling salesman for Moulinex but then, in 1960, lured by the prospect of well-paid adventure, he set off for the Congo where the rich Western-owned mining companies were urgently recruiting military assistance. It was there that Denard teamed up with Mad Mike Hoare, the British mercenary, now retired and living in south-west France.
In May 1999, after a 16-day trial he was found not guilty of the assassination of President Abdallah, President of the Comoros islands, in November 1989. Denard had been instrumental in restoring President Abdallah to power in a coup in 1978 after he had been deposed in a coup following the country’s independence from France in 1975. For ten years Denard headed the 500-strong presidential guard and had enormous influence and flourishing business interests. President Abdallah was killed during a third coup in 1989, because – the prosecution alleged – he was about to remove Mr. Denard as head of the presidential guard.
Shortly after President Abdallah’s death, Denard fled to South Africa, but six years later, hired by Comoran businessmen, he led a mercenary invasion force to overthrow President Mohamed Said Djohar in September 1995, eluding agents of France’s domestic security agency, the DST, and the foreign spy agency, SDECE, who had caught wind of the plot. Following the threat of an arms boycott by the Organization of African States, President Chirac sent 600 French commandos to the Comoros. After some fighting, the French troops freed the jailed president and seized Moroni. Denard surrendered to French troops and spent ten months in a Paris jail.
For more than 40 years Denard has been the world’s most prolific soldier of fortune, specializing in delivering small-scale rebellions, invasions and paid-by-the-hour coups d’etat. At the peak of his career, in the ’60s and ’70s, his freewheeling band of white mercenaries fought in a hundred tiny wars, leaving behind a trail of toppled tyrants and a legend rich in blood and romance. In 1994 author Samantha Weinberg wrote a biography, “Last of the Pirates: The search for Bob Denard.” In 1998 in collaboration with Georges Fleury, Denard wrote his autobiography, “Corsaire de la République,” published by R.Laffont.
Among his more daring adventures, Denard was married seven times – producing eight children. His first marriage was on 9/12/1953; divorce 7/16/1958.
His sister announced that he died on 14 October 2007.
Link to Wikipedia biography