by Simon Cursey
The MRF was a completely new concept in Ulster at this time, in 1971 and early 1972, and much of our training and the procedures we learned hadn’t been fully tried and tested on operations. Most of the high-tech electronic equipment in use nowadays wasn’t available or even invented in the 1970s: we had to work with what we had. We knew that we had to continually reassess our procedures and techniques as incidents occurred. At times we had a distinct feeling we were like trail blazing, Wild West barnstormers flying by the seat of our pants, or explorers foraging and skirmishing as we followed new paths ever deeper into the wilderness. It was stimulating but a little unnerving at times to be more reliant on our knowledge and senses than on electronic gadgetry. What bolstered us all, was that the job was very important and dangerous and we were not here to make arrests or take prisoners. Our objective was to gather information, spoil and interfere with IRA plans and operations, and when possible, to track down terrorists. If we caught any we were supposed to hand them over to the uniformed forces to arrest and deal with, which indeed we did.
Close personal protection (CPP or CP) training was interesting but again mentally quite draining, as we learned the different formations and procedures for ‘Actions On’, even though we didn’t often operate extremely close to our subjects, shoulder to shoulder, as you might see on TV as a celebrity is guided through a scrum of paparazzi by a beefy bodyguard. The point of us was to remain invisible. For most of our CP work we operated with most of our section on foot around the subject with the others in vehicles acting as backup for the CP team. We hovered, a few metres away, placing a kind of cordon around our subject, and often blended in with crowds in the street or mingled with other people around the room in a restaurant or bar situation, all the while keeping our subject under observation. At the same time we’d be watching everyone else in the vicinity for any aggressive movements or indications.
Our aim was to intervene if someone made an approach, or tried to, or looked as if he was about to attack our subject. The subjects always knew we were close, but never saw or noticed us while we posed as photographers, onlookers or road sweepers. One thing we always insisted on was that the subject’s regular Special Branch bodyguards were unarmed (if indeed they carried any weapons), while we were on the job. We didn’t want them drawing and shooting at us by mistake if anything happened, and they were there to act solely as the last line of defence if a large scale attack went in. We made it very clear that we were to be the only people controlling the shooting if it started.
Advanced driving was normally combined with live firing, with teams changing over from the range to the vehicles. We learned hand-brake turns and ‘J’ turns together with various procedures for use during ‘lifts’ and ‘snatches’. These we combined with extraction techniques, for our own people, if ever they became caught up in an emergency situation or found themselves otherwise trapped.
Sometimes we used the vehicles to practice different firing positions: from inside, over and around the bonnet and boot. Often we practiced firing at targets while exiting and rolling out of the doors, shooting as we moved to a different position. I often wondered whether I would see someone put a bullet hole in one of the cars, as we used to get up to some crazy things; but it never happened – we had one or two close calls but none of us ever accidentally shot one of the cars while I was present.
We had to carry out quite a lot of live-firing practice, getting used to our new personal weapon the 9mm Browning pistol. I had used the 9 millie before, a couple of years earlier, on the ranges and on weapons-training courses, but not as often as I’d have liked. Now, instead of hefting a long rifle around, our plainclothes operations meant we had to carry something smaller. Previously, I used to carry around the standard SLR 7.62mm (Belgian FN self-loading rifle), very powerful and quite accurate with practice, and this was superseded many years later by the SA80 5.56mm with mixed feelings among the regular troops. The size of a round (bullet) was the mm measurement across the head of the round, so a 7.62mm is about 2mm thicker than the 5.56mm and was longer and much more powerful than the smaller round.
Initially, my knowledge of the Browning 9 millie was quite limited. As mentioned, I had last fired it a couple of years earlier, probably in 1970, but it’s not normally the regular soldier’s weapon. The officers, medics and some drivers used to carry them while all the rest of us had the FN-SLRs.
The 9 millie tends to be a little agricultural and fairly simple to strip down (take to pieces). There is a ‘T’-shaped pin in the centre by the trigger guard and when it’s taken out, everything simply slides apart from itself. This pin also acts as the ‘locking back’ mechanism which holds back the working parts when the magazine is empty. They have quite a solid feel about them and it’s surprising how accurate you can become with plenty of practice.
We also had to get used to all the other weapons and ammunition that we held in our armoury, as we might need to change at a moment’s notice, depending on the type of task we were given. Two of these were the Walther semi-automatic pistols (PP and PPK), which are smaller, more accurate and of a higher build quality than the Browning. Also, we had to get used to the Sterling submachine guns, some of them supplied to us with their long, bulky suppressors fitted. The SMGs tended to forfeit some hitting power when fitted with these silencers, as the propellant gases released and ignited by the bullet were slowed down so much before the (ideally subsonic) round was airborne. So we practiced on buckets of sand and old ammo boxes to test the difference and power loss, eventually calculating that three rounds from a silenced SMG would offer similar hitting power as would a single round from a non-silenced weapon – quite a loss of force and something to bear in mind.
Prisoner Interrogation and Resistance to Interrogation played quite a small part in the training programme because our trainers told us that normally, over here, we didn’t take prisoners. However, if we come across a ‘player’ of some importance, we could lift him and bring him in for interrogation. But if we did lift someone, we were not to spend days asking polite questions and offering soft drinks. The people we were dealing with were brutal and aggressive killers and we had to waste no on them.
Innocent people’s lives depended on how soon you acquired the information. However, we were simply told we would almost never bring in any prisoners for interrogation. It’s all very well playing the ‘good guy-bad guy’ routine for hours on end or some psychological games if you are the police gathering information on other suspects in some crime, but we didn’t have the luxury of time.
When you are dealing with psychopathic terrorist killers and bombers who don’t even hesitate in killing their own people, speed is absolutely essential to protect innocent lives. We were not to be looking for confessions – we just wanted information on terrorist operations. We had a difficult, dangerous job to do and we would have had no time or interest for playing games with fanatical brutal killers. The objective was to get the information fast, to save innocent lives. We were told, we were only interested in the information and the speed we could acquire it, if in fact we did bring anyone in. However, we did have some requests to lift some terror suspects for the uniformed forces but we never brought any in for ourselves to interrogate.
Very few wild animals will actually kill their own kind but a terrorist will for his cause. Some prisoners who were brought in were eventually ‘turned,’ becoming informers, but very few of them were totally loyal or reliable and we all had to be very careful if dealing with these informers.
With regard to Resistance to Interrogation, it was made very clear that if we were ever caught by a terrorist group, our life expectancy would be no more than five or ten minutes. The IRA was far more interested in vengeful bloodletting than gathering information from us. Therefore, after a few lectures on R to I, we were simply told this:
‘Don’t get caught. But if you are trapped or cornered, empty your magazines on them first. Don’t get caught with any ammunition left on you. They may get your weapon
, but don’t let them get hold of your ammo. If you’re going down, go down with empty magazines and if possible try to destroy your weapon or dismantle and disperse it before they get their grubby hands on it.’
These were harsh, murderous times and we had to be as aggressive as they were – if not more so. We had to show them that we could be just as horrendous and vicious as they were, in order to give them second thoughts about their chosen course of action. The restricted regular Army didn’t scare them so much but we did. It was survival of the toughest, mentally and physically, and the IRA had to see they were not the only ones that could be bad.
We made it very clear to the IRA on many occasions that when they crossed our path they weren’t dealing with ‘pussycats.’ It became possible, because of the way we operated, to begin spoiling and compromising terrorist operations and attacks. That in the period I was with the MRF, during the early 1970s, the whole unit of approximately 35 volunteers combined – really only the size of the average platoon – may easily have saved hundreds, perhaps thousands of innocent lives. Exactly how many, who knows? We will never really be certain. But I do know that we saved many, many lives.
Our initial training took almost two months, going out on operations while on duty section, and then training hard while on standby section. Demilitarization wasn’t as easy as it sounds, after spending many years being trained to stand, act and walk in a disciplined way. For me especially, as I joined the Army direct from school at the age of 15 and knew nothing else but military training and discipline, it was a struggle to become a ‘civvie’ in my deportment and language. But after a month or so, I managed to shake off that military stance and attitude that you can see regularly in most railway stations around the UK on a busy weekend. However, I was quite surprised how easy it is to slip up – for example, if someone in the street asked you the time. It’s so automatic and second-nature for a military person to say something like ‘19:35’ or ‘22:40 hours’, which in some of the hard areas of Belfast was an open invitation to a one-way ticket home in a box.
Strange as it may sound, having an English accent was never really a problem, as we almost never spoke when mingling close with people in the city. And if someone did manage to hear our accent and say something, we had numerous sets of ID. These ranged in variety of identification cards proving us to be employees of numerous companies and organisations. I possessed a particularly nice piece of ID due to having applied for and acquired a part-time job in a local sports centre. That employee’s identification card worked wonders for me on many occasions. Remember, also, that not only was Northern Ireland part of the UK, so that it was neither a crime nor a rarity to speak with an English, Welsh, or Scottish accent, but also that Belfast was a major port, and that the local population was well-used to hearing a variety of sailors’ accents from all over the place. No, the essential thing was not to let anyone suspect you might be a soldier.
One thing we never attempted was try to put on an Irish accent, as the Irish would surely know immediately that it was faked: it was much safer not to try. Even if we did try, very few people would actually say anything to us then and there. All that would happen is that we would be found face down in the dirt, late one night in some back alley or roadside ditch with a bullet in the head. Or perhaps we would simply disappear from some pub or bar car park without trace, which is what happened to at least one Guards officer in plain clothes a few years later.
We would have had to live among these people for twenty years or more before we could master to any degree a good-enough Irish accent to pass ourselves off as locals. The regional Ulster accents are quite different and after spending many years there, mingling with the people, still now I can recognise the slight, and sometimes more distinct, variations.
Just to place what we were training for in some kind of context – namely the context that the world at the time was pretty much innocent about how to deal with the variety of homicidal terrorist groups that were starting to spring up around the world – I remember casually strolling with Tug past our ops room one clear, slightly chilly early evening in September 1972. The peacefulness was suddenly broken by Kev, who came sprinting out of our cabin shouting and waving.
‘Sy, Sy, Tug, come quick, come and see what’s on TV, it’s unbelievable … Come on, come on quick.’
Tug and I dashed into our cabin to find Dave, Kev and Colin glued to the TV set. On the news, we could identify the Olympic village in Munich. The 1972 summer Olympics had started a few of days earlier, but now it looked as if the whole place was swarming with German police, buzzing around like angry bees whose nest had been kicked.
‘There’s been a terrorist attack at the Olympics,’ Kev exclaimed. ‘Some guys are holding hostages in that building. They’ve been wandering about and negotiating for most of the day. The reports at the moment are that some shots have been heard and they think someone’s been killed.’
We soon learned that a squad of Palestinian terrorists, calling themselves ‘Black September’, had burst into the rooms of the Israeli Olympics team. As far as anyone knew, two Israeli athletes had already been shot. The siege had been going on since dawn, but we had been ‘off duty’ and asleep for most of the day so it was the first we had heard of it. As we were just starting as ‘standby’ section at the time, we spent most of the night watching as updated reports come through.
By 7 pm UK time a bus turned up, then a couple of hours later the terrorists came out of the building surrounded by the Israeli athletes, using them as shields from police snipers. They slowly boarded the vehicle and set off. Initially nobody knew what was happening and it wasn’t until later the next day that the full story began to unfold.
As it turned out, the attempted rescue plan by the German police seemed to have been a total bag of nails. The bus that arrived the night before took the terrorists and nine athletes to a nearby make-shift landing area, where they were picked up by two helicopters at about 10.30 pm. They were flown a short distance to an air-strip, where a waiting plane was on standby to take them all away.
It was then, however, that a fierce gun battle broke out during which all nine hostages, together with five captors and a policeman, were killed. Three of the Arabs were captured. Two other hostages, as we knew, had been killed in the village accommodation block earlier the day before they all came out.
It soon became clear that the German police were totally unprepared for any kind of terrorist attack and the whole episode was indeed a shambles. Firstly, police snipers positioned around the siege building were untrained, dressed in track suits and many had little experience with weapons or tactics. Secondly, the same thing happened at the airstrip: the police snipers had precious little weapons or field-craft experience, had the wrong weapons and were badly positioned to take on the terrorists. Three or four of them were on top of the airport control tower and two or three others were positioned or lying prone in the grass by the landing strip … in direct line of fire from their colleagues when the shooting started! Thirdly, the helicopter pilots landed in the wrong place, contrary to their instructions, which made the police snipers nervous and confused.
Days after the siege, Kev was still grumbling about it in frustration, saying things like, ‘They should have called us over to Munich, we could have sorted those bastards out, no problem.’ Or, ‘We could have shown those Kraut cops how it should be done.’
I actually think it was probably true. We could have done a lot better, even just as consultants. But my thoughts at the time were, ‘Yes Kev, I’m sure you could easily have sorted them all out … all on your own.’ Kev was great, a really tough, hard guy. Nothing was too much for him or stressed him out, and he didn’t take any crap from anyone … except me. I was the only one that could say anything to him where he would laugh it off. Martin Riggs (Mel Gibson in Lethal Weapon) was a pussy compared to Kev, who was nonetheless a very good friend and totally trustworthy in any situation. We were all very close and knew we could always rely on each o
ther, out on the streets.
I recount this little piece of terrorist history to explain that governments and their security forces were just not geared-up for the kinds of situations that we have now sadly become familiar with. Kev’s bravado was characteristic, but there was truth in it. We were not supermen, but we had the training and methods to deal with terrorists, honed in the perfect theatre of early 1970s Ulster. We were probably the first such counter-terrorist unit to exist anywhere in the world, except perhaps Israel.
Of the three captured terrorists, two were later released following their colleagues’ demands after a Lufthansa plane was hijacked in Beirut. Mossad eventually tracked them down and killed them both. The only good memories that I have of the Munich Olympics are of seeing Mark Spitz win seven gold medals in the swimming events.
It was a period when the Baader-Meinhof Group (or Red Army Faction as they called themselves) was highly active in Germany and initially we all thought it was them at the Olympics. Baader-Meinhof was formed soon after convicted arsonist Andreas Baader, helped by a friend, Ulrike Meinhof, escaped from prison while visiting its library in June 1970. Together with a group of followers, they were very active around German from 1970-77 after being trained by the PLO. Eventually the main players were captured, tried and imprisoned for a variety of crimes including murder and attempted murder. Ulrike Meinhof hung herself in prison in 1976 and Andreas Baader shot himself in his cell in 1977, using a smuggled pistol.
Terrorism seemed to us to be rife in the late 1960s and early ’70s, but we all felt it would come to end sooner or later. How wrong could we have been? Today, the media is full of stories about the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and the western world is on the edge of its seat, just waiting for the next big, big attack.