by Simon Cursey
I was in the briefing room late at night with Dave and Ben, just updating some of the mug-shots which covered the walls. We put a red line through the photos of those terrorists who had been arrested and a red cross over any dead ones. We usually left the dead men’s photos on the wall until we replaced them with new ‘players’, which was normally on a Monday morning, the start of a new week at the office.
While we were shuffling around the photos we heard the phone ring in the ops room and one of the Int. chaps took the call. It turned out to be a call from the Army unit Intelligence officer based at Palace Barracks, Holywood, a few miles south of Belfast.
Our Int. chap shouted for us, explaining, ‘One of the uniformed lads from Palace Barracks has been approached in the village pub by some guy asking if he can get some ammunition. The guy said he will pay for it. The young lad said he probably can and he’s going to meet the guy again tomorrow night, same place.’
I popped my head around the door and said, ‘OK, I’ll tell Mike about it in the morning and we’ll see what we can do.’
The next morning over breakfast, I told Mike the story and he in turn called the Int. officer at Palace Barracks. Mike asked the Int. officer exactly what had happened, and then explained what we could do to help. By 11:00 am, we had a job on for that night. A few of us went over to Palace Barracks after lunch to interview the soldier involved, who was only a youngster about 19 years old. He said he had been in the bar with a couple of friends and gave us lots of details and a good description of the man asking for the ammunition. He said he was about 40 with greying collar-length hair and quite a slim build. He stood about five feet eight inches tall and had been wearing an old, dark suit. We showed him some photos but he didn’t recognise any of them.
The lad had arranged to meet the man again, and Mike told him, ‘Fine, that’s great, we’ll give you some 9mm to give to him. We’ll put about ten rounds into a fag packet and you just hand it over when he asks for it or takes it. But make sure he asks for it first and gives you the money before you give it to him. If not, he may try to claim entrapment.’ The kid understood, and Mike continued: ‘We’ll pick you up tonight in one of our cars at 7:30 pm near the side of the NAAFI building. Just you – and don’t talk to your friends about this.’
The Kid said, ‘OK, no problem,’ and seemed quite excited about the whole project. We set off back to our base after going over our plans with the Int. officer.
Once there we got the rest of the section together in the briefing room and explained the situation to everyone, including a full description of the kid and the suspect.
Mike said we’d need to have Special Branch involved to make the arrest. ‘We’ll be in the pub observing and protecting the kid, making sure he’s not being set up to be kidnapped, and that the handover goes OK.’
‘Yes,’ Tug interjected. ‘We’ll check the handover goes OK. We’ll get the kid out of the way then give the nod for the SB boys to take over and make the arrest when we know the suspect has the ammunition.’
The pub involved in this CP operation was quite large and situated on the edge of Holywood village along the road, just a short walk from Palace Barracks. We decided to have six members of the section spread out in the pub armed with 9 millies, and three others with SMGs waiting in their vehicles in the car park, acting as our backup.
As Mike was on the phone organising things with SB, we all decided to visit the canteen to get something to eat. On returning to our compound at about 6:30 pm, we drew and checked our weapons and radio equipment.
Then we all piled back into the briefing room and Mike gave us a final brief – who was doing what and our procedures and timings. ‘OK … Tug, Dave, Ben, Bob, Sy and me, we’ll be in the pub while Kev, Colin and John, you three are to cover the car park and grab the kid when he comes out.’
Mike and Bob went off to pick up the kid at 7:00 pm while the rest of us set off to the pub to meet up with the SB boys in the car park and get into position. We were all inside by 7:30 pm, having entered singly or in pairs a few minutes after each other. I was with Tug by the bar and the other guys were dotted around in various positions. Dave was sitting at a table near the door, covering our exit, and Ben was over near the snooker table sitting watching some people playing. The bar wasn’t particularly busy at that time, but there were quite a few people clustered around the counter and at the snooker table. A few minutes later, Mike and Bob turned up and sat at a central table near the two SB boys who were with us that night.
The kid came in a few minutes after Mike and Bob arrived; he had been outside discussing his procedures with Kev and Colin in one of the cars in the car park. He went up to the bar, ordered a beer and sat there waiting on a stool.
Nothing happened until about 8:30 pm, when our player came in. Initially he ignored the kid and went to speak to another man. Ben managed to get a covert photo of this other chap a little later on, after our suspect had finished talking with him. Then after a few minutes our suspect came to the bar to sit with our kid. They shook hands and said a few words as the man sat down. The kid placed the cigarette packet, containing ten rounds of 9mm, next to his beer while the player was discussing something with him.
Mike had told him earlier: ‘Place the cigarette packet on the bar and tell the guy that the ammunition is in it. Wait till the guy takes it and pays you before telling him you’ve got to leave, as you’re on duty later.’
Outside, the kid was to be met by Colin and put into one of our cars to wait until it was all over.
Soon after, the guy placed another cigarette packet on the bar, which was some money for the ammo. Then the suspect took the ammunition packet while the kid put the money packet in his pocket as he got up. He smiled and shook the guy’s hand, saying he had to go. The guy smiled and gave a brief wave as the kid made his way out and left the pub, to join Colin outside.
Almost immediately, the two SB boys got up, moved to the bar, identified themselves and quietly led the guy outside. We filtered out a few minutes later, after the SB boys had made their arrest and left the area with the suspect. We met up with our vehicles and made our way with the kid back to Palace Barracks.
Back at the Army location, the kid asked, ‘What should I do with this money?’
‘How much did he give you?’ asked Colin.
‘Fifty pounds.’
Mike smiled. ‘Keep it, have a few beers on the IRA for the time being,’ he said. ‘When the SB boys ask you later – and they’ll want to see you – if the ‘player’ paid for the ammunition, just tell them the truth and he gave you fifty pounds, as you may need to produce it later.’
‘OK, thanks,’ the kid replied. He was dropped off at his location and told not to discuss the operation with any one.
The SB had to keep our ten rounds of 9mm ammunition, as it was later required as evidence, along with the kid’s statement. We didn’t mind about the ammunition, we had plenty more in our stores.
During my time in the unit, I, like everyone else, had very little time off. We had our off-duty time but it was very unusual to get away totally for a few days. Only once did I manage to have a few days’ holiday and that was to go to my brother’s wedding on the mainland.
I learned of the wedding in May 1973 over the phone and the Boss said I could go for a few days, but that I couldn’t go unarmed just in case I was followed across the water. I decided to take the ferry across: if I was being followed it would be much easier for me to spot someone on a boat as opposed to scrutinising the constant through-flow of people at a busy airport.
The next day a couple of guys from the duty section took me down to the ferry port in Belfast and stayed with me until I boarded. I caught the lunch-time ferry because I preferred to make the journey in day light hours, while being alone. The crossing to Stranraer was only just over three hours and was a little bumpy due to the fresh north-west wind running down into the main part of the Irish Sea. Most of the journey I spent in the lounge watching TV and reading ne
wspapers, seated in a position where I could observe the entrance doors to the lounge and bar area. On the news there were still reports of President Nixon admitting responsibility and taking the blame for the Watergate scandal. There was also coverage of the 1.6 million UK workers who had joined the one day strike which the Trade Union Congress had called over pay and prices. Welcome home.
At Stranraer, I saw as I walked down the gang-plank that my parents were there to meet me in their little Ford escort. They hadn’t seen me for over a year and were quite surprised at my appearance, but they didn’t say very much about my long hair and were mostly just happy I was home. I told Dad that I’d drive but didn’t say why, and we set off back towards Carlisle, down the M6 and onto the M62, crossing the Pennines to North Yorkshire for a welcome pot of Mum’s tea when we all arrived home. Mum was born in Holland but moved to the UK with my father after the Second World War when she was 19 – she had been staying with relations in Austria. Despite being foreign she always made an excellent pot of English tea and faultless Yorkshire puddings.
During the drive, they both asked a few searching questions about what I was doing in Northern Ireland, but I smoothed things, saying, ‘I just work at HQ behind a desk and sometimes I take the OC around in a civilian car when I have to.’ The main reason I didn’t tell them what I was really doing was not to let them worry too much. Mum was always a bit of a worrier, like all mums, and wasn’t happy with me being in Northern Ireland with the Army in the first place.
After a great dinner that evening I enjoyed a good night’s sleep in a familiar bed and surroundings. The next day I quickly checked around and under the car before we set off for the wedding ceremony. This was to be held in Leeds in the morning, followed by the reception party in the afternoon at a wonderful lakeside hotel-restaurant on the edge of the Yorkshire Dales.
Again, I drove my dad’s car throughout the day, and when I met my brother and his bride-to-be before the ceremony, they also gave me some strange looks. I had a nice suit on, but my rock-star hair-do was most unlike the last time they saw me over a year ago, when I’d had a normal, short Army hair cut which they were used to. It’s interesting to wonder what they did think: who in the Army would have had hair like mine? What sergeant major would ever have stood for it? However, they were very busy with the wedding and said little about it after Mum explained to them that I worked in an office.
I really enjoyed the reception, which included lots of family and friends from all sides. But it was particularly good to see the many old school friends of my brother. He’s a couple of years older than me but I knew most of his friends as we went to the same schools together. I spent most of the afternoon and evening chatting with them all. I’m sure most of them thought I had left the Army and was doing some local civilian job. I was just happy to let them think whatever they liked.
Occasionally I took a ‘casual’ walk around the outside area, telling people who asked that I was going out for some fresh air. In reality I was looking around the cars and the bins to check for anything suspicious that might be lying about or going on around the building and car park area. At that time UVIEDs (under vehicle improvised explosive devices) were very popular with the growing IRA units.
As it happened there were no problems: nobody had tried to follow me from Belfast to Leeds; I didn’t notice any suspicious activities taking place outside the hotel; and the wedding party went without a hitch. One of my main concerns had been that if my brother realised I was carrying a loaded Walther PPK in a shoulder holster. That was not quite the thing to bring to a wedding, at least not outside of Sicily, and he would have gone nuts and given me a really good beating. He’s bigger than me and can get quite stroppy at times. I would have preferred to mix it with the IRA – or even Kev – before getting into a scuffle with my brother. Luckily for me, he didn’t notice the slight bulge and I was back on the streets of Belfast patrolling with Kev, John and the lads before everyone back in Yorkshire had fully recovered and cleared up after the party.
With my brother being a little older than me, he always played the boss when we were out and about together as kids. We usually got along quite well but our friendship soured a little and we didn’t speak much after I joined the Army. He always thought I was stupid for joining up and we didn’t really communicate during that time. However, he was much happier after I finished with the full-time Forces around the early 1980s and we’ve got on much better ever since. Looking back on it now, I can guess that it was not so much dislike as worry for me that generated his disapproval.
Another time, not long after my brother’s wedding, I was out and about on general surveillance with my section in three cars, Foxtrot, Delta and Echo, patrolling the Falls Road and Andersonstown district. It was an unusually clear and quiet evening. We had been up onto Glen Road, down Kennedy Way and Stockmans to Musgrave Park Hospital for a brew with some of the uniformed lads down there and a chat with the Intelligence section. As usual, after we pulled in we parked out of sight and left our SMGs locked in the boot of one car. Then we cleared our 9 millies before going into the location building.
At about 10:30 pm, we decided to go out again and have another look around Andersonstown off the Falls Road after a run back up Kennedy Way and up around Turf Lodge. We drove around the general areas but we were always close enough to be in a position so we could support each other if required, especially in ‘hard’ areas.
As a section patrolling out in the city we normally split into various cars, staying in constant radio contact, and we always knew where the other guys in their cars were. We moved around spread out and we very rarely split up totally. We only went off on our own when we had finished and were heading back to base or to meet up with someone else for some reason.
What we were looking for in and around the dark, dismal streets on these general patrols were opportunist targets, such as car thieves in action, suspected weapon movements, armed vigilante patrols and wanted persons – which we had a long list of, in our operations room.
This night, however, was fairly quiet and little seemed to be going on until we turned off the Falls Road onto Donegall Road. There we noticed some people milling around on the darkened street corners in the murky area of St James’s Estate. It was quite a small estate and backed up to St Louise’s College between the Falls Road and the M1. So we decided to take a look into the estate – a bleak, depressing place with many derelict and burned-out terraced houses, with rubble in the roads.
Most of the street lights had been shot out on previous occasions by the Army, because it assisted them for when they moved around the streets or to and from various locations while patrolling at night.
We continued to tick along through the estate, and just as we passed a group of two or three men near the junction of St James’s Road and crescent, Kev, in the back of our car, piped up.
‘Look Sy, I’m sure one of those guys over on the corner is armed.’
He was certain he had seen a weapon, so I immediately radioed this information through to one of our other cars, a few hundred metres away towards the other end of the estate.
‘Hello Foxtrot, this is Delta,’ I said. ‘Colin, can you come over this side, around the junction of St James’s Road and Crescent and have a look at some players to try and confirm Kev’s weapon sighting?’
During this early period of the Troubles, we usually gave out street names in ‘clear’ as the IRA were not sophisticated enough to be able to tune in to our radio frequencies. At other times, we gave nick-names to areas we were working in, or we often used ‘veiled’ speech when speaking about various areas. But this all later changed, after they acquired equipment to enable them to listen in to us or uniformed Army and police units.
Colin in the other car immediately confirmed. ‘OK Sy, no problem. I’ll be there within figures five minutes.’
We turned away, down Donegall Road to the M1 roundabout. We would hang around there in a quiet dark lay-by while the other team with Colin mov
ed in to take a look around the area, check out the group of men Kev had spotted and report back to us.
Mike was in Echo further away on the Falls Road but confirmed on the radio that he was close by if he was needed.
Even in many of these hard Republican areas it was quite feasible for us to drive in and have a look around without being stopped or challenged by the locals. That is to say, once or twice at a push was OK, but no more. The few people around would look and stare, not sure who we were. Perhaps they were initially a little afraid or apprehensive that we were simply another terror gang from a different part of the city just having a nose around. But if we stayed around the area for too long, they would throw up a barricade or otherwise block the road to trap us and check us out. Had we been a uniformed patrol in a Land Rover, we would probably have been shot at or stoned as soon as we showed our faces.
Our other car made its pass by the men and Colin came on the radio to confirm. ‘OK Sy, we have two men on that corner with one rifle, possibly an M2 carbine.’
‘OK, out,’ I acknowledged, as Colin and his team moved away from the immediate area. Heading back up from the M1 roundabout, we turned onto Donegall Road, left into Rodney Parade and right up St Katharine Road. We wanted to come up to the group slowly from behind with lights off to surprise them, catching them momentarily off guard and try to provoke some reaction.
As we slowly turned right onto St James’s Crescent, we killed our lights and wound our windows down. None of us in the car spoke a word to each other, with the radio turned down as we gently, silently crept up to our targets at about four or five mph. Kev in the back seat cocked his SMG. They were there, two people chatting to each other, standing a little sideways to us but mainly facing away, on the corner about 15 metres ahead. We closed in on these two unsuspecting players until, when we were just a few metres behind them, they turned and saw us. One started to run away as the other lifted his rifle to aim at us. We all (him and us) opened fire almost simultaneously at each other. The man possibly managed to fire off his first shot as we drew level with him, just before we opened up.