The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  Wrecked garage after IRA bomb blast 1977. (Mark ‘C’)

  Another bomb blast in Belfast City Centre 1977 . (Mark ‘C’)

  ATO ‘Wheelbarrow’ examines a suspicious package in Royal Avenue, Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  Royal Avenue: afterwards. (Mark ‘C’)

  PIRA’s ‘commercial war’, Royal Avenue, Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  Foot patrol close to Boundary Bar, Shore Road, Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  A soldier fires a baton round at rioters in the Bogside. (Mark ‘C’)

  New Barnsley PSNI. Fortified and still beleaguered. (Author’s photo)

  The ‘bad arse’ tower: Divis Street Flats. (Author’s photo)

  Girdwood Barracks, close to where Green Jacket Billy Smith was murdered by the IRA. (Author’s photos)

  The Nationalist New Lodge area. (Author’s photos)

  The desolation of the Nationalist New Lodge area. (Mark ‘C’)

  A Scots soldier meets a friendly local. (Mark ‘C’)

  The Nationalist Andersonstown area of Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  The Nationalist Andersonstown area of Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  Under-vehicle booby-trap (UVBT) made safe. (Roy Garnell)

  UVBT in-situ. The one in the photo was already safe. (Roy Garnell)

  Foreword by Martin Dillon

  When writing about the Northern Ireland conflict, often referred to as The Troubles, it is important to have an understanding of a landscape of tribalism and its underlying causes. It is also critical to be able to stand a little way off it when trying to make sense of its political complexities. In so doing, it is possible to gravitate towards a position in which one does not act as the gatekeeper of the prejudices of the combatants. Above all, it is essential to shine a bright light into the dark corners of the conflict to expose the bitterness and terror that has so often lurked there and touched the lives of too many innocents. As a consequence, it becomes the conflict writer’s responsibility to speak to truth as it reveals itself through honest, exhaustive investigation.

  Ken Wharton knows these principles well. He brings a unique and entirely defensible approach to his extensive coverage of this most recent conflict in Ireland, especially how it was shaped following the arrival of the British Army on the streets of Belfast and Londonderry in August 1969. He makes no apology for drawing on the opinions of his fellow soldiers, who served in Northern Ireland, or for sharing many of their views of the protagonists. I believe he has added a new dimension to our understanding of the violence by examining its effects as they extended from street level through the ranks of the military to the corridors of political power.

  He demonstrates a unique ability for inviting us into the lives of soldiers, who dealt directly with the violence, some of whom suffered grievous injuries or saw colleagues torn apart by bullets and bombs. In that way, he provides unusual and telling insights by tapping into the raw emotions of soldiers, who were in the thick of it.

  I have always believed the more direct eyewitness testimony we can bring as writers to this period in our history the more valuable our works will be for future historians. Too often in the past, an oral history tradition, familiar in Ireland as it is in the Middle East and the Balkans, presented us with narrow and romanticized portraits of the past. But, by allowing those close to the conflict to speak to us from their experiences, Ken Wharton has managed to provide us with new voices that are important to our overall understanding of what happened on the streets and back alleys of part of the United Kingdom.

  In this book, as in his previous writings, he creatively directs our attention to the personal accounts of soldiers and other members of the security forces, allowing them to speak to us directly about their sometimes raw emotions. We learn firsthand how they felt about combating terror and how difficult, if not impossible it was at times, to fulfil the role of peacekeepers in a deeply divided society. Their confessions fill a much needed gap in our understanding of what it was like for young lads from Manchester, London, Glasgow or the Welsh Valleys to be thrust into the maelstrom of Northern Ireland while a full-blown terrorist war was in progress and innocents were being dragged from the streets at night and slaughtered sometimes in front of revellers in illegal drinking dens.

  As a notable British diplomat once noted, Northern Ireland was always “a place apart” and never more so for the British Army before the present Troubles began. In the early 1960s it was a place for rest and recreation for officers stationed there. There was really little to do aside from playing golf and fishing. It was therefore shocking for commanders, who arrived on the streets of Belfast and Londonderry in August 1969, to realize there was little known in Westminster about the Province and its historical divisions. In fact, as late at the autumn of 1968, the only official intelligence about N. Ireland amounted to a few pages in a dusty file in the Home Office in London. In reality, the troops on the streets at the outset, and in the years following, faced rapidly changing political realities that often made their jobs more difficult as Labour and Tory governments scrambled to devise sometimes confusing strategies to address the conflict.

  I am always reminded of conversations I had with the late Field Marshall, Lord Michael Carver. He was not only a fine soldier but an erudite man with a refreshing honesty. He convinced me the military establishment was often at odds with its political masters in the 1970s. For example, in 1973 during a secret Cabinet committee meeting in No. 10, Tory Prime Minister, Sir Edward Heath told him it was entirely legal for soldiers on the streets of Northern Ireland to shoot protesters because they were “enemies of the Crown.” Carver told Heath under no circumstances would he ever give such an order. In fact, he said he did not want to see his soldiers in the dock charged with murder. He told Heath as Prime Minister he would not be in court to defend them. The exchange between the two men highlighted the difficulties the British Army faced on the streets and in the very corridors of power.

  In this book, however, Ken Wharton does not confine his investigative skills exclusively to examining the role of the security forces, though they remain a defining voice within its pages. He also addresses the broader conflict. In particular, he turns to ordinary people to provide us with additional perspectives. He focuses on sectarianism, which introduced a different kind of terror to the conflict, often culminating in sadism and barbarity. In his handling of that difficult topic he spares none of the paramilitary groups and succeeds in exposing their cruelty and hypocrisy.

  One of the striking things about this book, which covers a critical period in the conflict, is the author’s attention to detail and the way he allows his witnesses to speak as though they are describing events that occurred days and not decades before. In that way, their testimony brings a telling directness to their recollections thereby enhancing the overall clarity of their narrative.

  I recommend this book to anyone interested in learning more about the conflict and the people who lived through it.

  Martin Dillon

  Author’s note

  Please see the Select Bibliography for a list of Martin Dillon’s books on the Troubles. Martin Dillon was described by Irish historian Dr Connor Cruise O’Brien as “the greatest living authority on Irish terrorism”.

  Preface

  ‘Will you do me the honour of writing the preface for my next book?’ Those were the words that Ken Wharton used when he asked me to do this. That was typical of the man once described by a book critic as a ‘soldier scribe.’ Personally I think that the comment is a compliment. The words which Ken writes are not the cold hard facts of the historian. They are about the real world experiences of the servicemen and women who risked life and limb to bring about peace in that sad land. Ken’s deep knowledge of the history of the longest conflict that the British army has been involved in, combined with the stories told by the men and women who made that history makes his books by far the best of any that have been written about Operation Banner.

  Ken, the honour is all mine.

/>   The period of the conflict covered by this book spans the years 1975 to 1977, which saw many changes in the role of the armed forces in Northern Ireland. By the start of 1975 attacks on the military in the major cities had dropped steeply as the jails and Long Kesh filled up with convicted and interned terrorists. This soon resulted in the second PIRA ceasefire where soldiers suddenly found that known players who last week would have been arrested on sight could now walk about freely without fear of being lifted. Despite the ceasefire, attacks on the security forces continued, albeit at a reduced level but the brunt of the bloodletting was sectarian as the various terror groups sated their blood lust on an innocent populace. In a two-year period more than 300 innocent civilians were murdered by terrorists from both sides, the worst atrocity being the Kingsmill massacre of January 1976. That year also saw the introduction of what was called Police Primacy whereby the RUC took over the direction of the war against terrorism.

  By the end of 1975 the ceasefire was over but all the internees had been released to carry on with their murderous ways. Although the army was still the prime mover in the fight against terrorism its actions were now controlled by the police, which led many soldiers to adopt the mantra ‘you can’t fight a war with one hand tied behind your back.’ Patrols felt that they were walking around with a figure 11 target painted on their backs. Although terrorist actions in the cities decreased during 1977/8, it was not so in the rural areas of South Armagh and Tyrone, where cross-border shootings and bomb attacks were commonplace, culminating in August 1979 with the tragedy of Warrenpoint where 18 soldiers were killed by two bombs.

  So reader, let Ken guide you through those years of turmoil and if you never served out there try to imagine yourself in the boots of the men and women who learned to walk backwards. Share their laughter at some of the funny incidents but also shed a tear with them over the loss of so many friends and comrades.

  We will remember them.

  Michael Sangster,

  Northern Ireland Veterans’ Association and friend,

  ex-Royal Regiment of Artillery

  London, 2013

  Author’s Notes

  In my first three books on the euphemistically named ‘Troubles’ I wrote entirely from the perspective of the British soldier and any other pieces of the history of that terrible period of Irish history were largely treated as purely incidental. Nothing has changed here in that I still write as a former soldier, my sympathy, support and understanding of and for the soldier remains resolute and unconditional. However, in 2009, I decided that I wanted to combine our story with that of the ordinary civvie, the innocent Protestant and Catholics who were caught up in the terrorist maelstrom of bombings and shootings or the insidious evil of sectarian murder.

  Make no mistake, I grieve for not a second about the death of a PIRA/INLA terrorist, nor do I shed a single tear for the demise of a UVF/UFF or Red Hand Commando either. But I do grieve for the death of the Maguire children, tiny Brigeen Dempsey, Hugh Clawson, David Fisher and Phillip Fay. I grieve for the countless thousands of innocents who died because they were a Protestant in a Catholic area or a Catholic in a Protestant district. I grieve for all who visited their local pub for a quiet – or even a noisy – night out and were sprayed with automatic fire or blasted by the explosives of the ‘other side.’ I grieve for the Catholic victims of the Strand Bar or McGurk’s as equally as I mourn the Protestant dead of the Mountainview Tavern or the Times Bar.

  Accordingly, I set out to cover in as much depth as possible, the bloody seventies and in my last two offerings and indeed in this book, I have tried to cover every major – and some minor – incident(s) and every fatality which I could attribute to the Troubles.

  My own brother accused me of being anti-Irish after he had read my fourth book (The Bloodiest Year: Northern Ireland, 1972). No, Michael, I am not anti-Irish, but I am anti-Irish terrorist.

  Sectarian Murders

  To those who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, there is no great mystery – just a resigned sadness and anger – about the slaying of a member of one religion by another of the opposite faith. For those who survived a sectarian murder attempt or lost a loved one to that most insidious evil, there is the same anger and fear but it became a fact of life in that turbulent and bloody period of Irish history.

  Protestants and Catholics have been slaying each other for 700 years or more and over the last 500 years in Ireland, north and south, the most obscene question possible was ‘what religion are you?’ Loyalist murder gangs had a more repugnant variation, in that if they saw an obvious Catholic1, they would ask ‘what religion are you and what’s the name of your Priest.’ An innocent or honest reply would be met with their own violent death.

  Civvie readers are by now familiar with the ‘tribal areas’ and many would be aware that, in North Belfast for example, the Shankill, Crumlin and Woodvale are Loyalist/Protestant and that the Ardoyne and the New Lodge are Republican/Catholic. Similarly, in the East, that the Short Strand is Republican/Catholic and the nearby Newtownards Road district is Loyalist/Protestant. However, whilst during the day, these areas might be well marked – by the appearance of Union flags to denote a Loyalist area, or Tricolours to mark a Republican district; the converse was equally true on a night-time with poor or non-existent street lighting. This was more so in cases where the tribal areas overlapped in a less subtle manner and were linked without an obvious border or delineation. This was especially relevant in the confusing interfaces and interlinked areas north of the Crumlin Road or south of the Shankill Road.

  Martin Dillon in his excellent Trigger Men (Mainstream Publishing, 2003) illustrates this point vividly, when he talks of the sectarian murder of innocent Protestant bus drivers in Belfast in 1972: ‘David Fisher and Hugh Clawson……lived in a small Protestant enclave named The River Streets. After midnight on 1 July [they] began walking home…….their route….intersected with The Bone, a small Catholic district off the Oldpark Road. In that vicinity, vigilantes were on street corners and IRA gunmen in the shadows.’ Unaware that they had stumbled into enemy territory and worse the wear for drink, the two were seized and murdered.

  I speak also of the ‘romper room’ or the depraved process of ‘rompering’ which was a sadistically deceptive title for the medieval torture methods applied to Catholic victims by the cruel Lenny Murphy and the Shankill Butchers. Romper Room was the title of a children’s’ TV programme in the 70s and 80s and the use of its title understated the sadistic blood and excrement-stained rooms where practices, out of place in the 20th and 21st centuries, were perpetrated upon those unfortunate enough to be ‘rompered’. One Belfast detective described one such scene at the Lawnbrook Social Club – a popular haunt of Murphy – as follows: ‘… it was like a butcher’s shop. There was blood on the walls, on the floor and on tables.’ The author was taken to the site where the club once stood in the Lawnbrook area, located between the Shankill Road and Cupar Way which delineates the area between Nationalist and Loyalist. On the spot where the ‘romper room’ once stood is a modern set of town houses, in Council regulation-beige with a neat row of fencing to its front. If the tormented and bloodied souls who met their grisly ends still haunt the new properties, only the present occupants will know. James McCartan was one of those murdered by the Butchers in 1972. We will never know nor understand the agonising torture that this 21-year old innocent Catholic was subject to before he was mercifully killed.

  This then is the stage, and the stage is set for the reader and one trusts that he or she will understand the thoroughly evil nature of the sectarian murderers and the blind rage and prejudice with which they practiced their dark arts. One trusts that one can adequately convey the depraved depths to which they took the name of their organisations.

  Further notes

  As I sit here on a hot Queensland autumn afternoon, some 14 years or so after the death of Private Andrew Richardson of the Light Infantry in Belfast, I have to pinch myself to believe that
the Troubles ever happened. Private Richardson was killed, indirectly by the Provisional IRA (PIRA), on 12 March 1997 as a consequence of a terrorist ‘come on.’ He was just 20 years of age and is buried at Harton Cemetery in South Shields, Tyne & Wear. Had he not been another military casualty of the Troubles, he would have been 35 on 6 August 2011. He would most probably be married, and the father now of pre-teenage children, and in all likelihood would have still enjoyed a pint at his local in South Shields. This book will cover the period from 1975 through to 1977 and will examine all the military and police deaths and will list every single Troubles-related fatality or major Troubles-related incident. It will cover the death of Robert Nairac, an undercover soldier murdered by the Provisionals and whose body has still to be found. It will look at the Kingsmill massacre; at the Miami Showband massacre; it will look at the IRA’s futile and half-hearted ceasefire and at their continued ‘economic warfare’ as they sought to destroy the commercial heart of Ulster. It will look at the on, off, on again PIRA ceasefire and it will examine how, thanks to the coffers of NORAID (an American front for the IRA) they became cash and weapon rich and how their ruthless professionalism grew exponentially. It will look at the continued and senseless sectarian murders, in particular at Lenny Murphy and the ‘Shankill Butchers.’ Throughout this book as with all my others, my commitment to the Army in which I served and my pro-Squaddie stance will be evident. This author does not seek, nor will he ever do, to write from anything but this stance. It will take an uncompromising viewpoint of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), both Provisional and Official and also of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA). If the reader is seeking a pro-Loyalist viewpoint then this is perhaps not the book for that reader. My opprobrium is not reserved for Republican terrorists; it is aimed equally at the mad dog killers of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) and the Red hand Commandos. In particular, this author trusts that all of the sectarian killers from both sides will rot in hell.