The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  In 1972, the Army acquired the building, converting it to a military barracks which was in place until the early 1980s. Soldiers based there were protected by anti-rocket screens constructed around the front of the building on the main street to repel everything from bricks and bottles to paint and blast bombs. It was one of the most bombarded hotels in the world; it was attacked more than 150 times by PIRA/INLA. As the Troubles ground to a halt, the hotel was no longer required as a military base and was acquired by developers and partly demolished to make way for the Castle Court shopping centre which was completed in 1990.

  CREGGAN AMBUSH

  John Swaine, Royal Artillery

  During another time, our section was on foot patrol coming down Beechwood Avenue in the Creggan; it was a Sunday morning and the sky was clear and blue. It was strange because not many people were about and being church day it didn’t seem right. Then suddenly one of our mobile patrols was ambushed from the direction of the Shirt factory in Bligh’s Lane. I don’t remember too much about it but do recall that the front Land Rover had slowed down to check the T junction from Marlborough Road on to Beechwood Avenue to come up towards our foot patrol to check on us. Suddenly there was this distinctive rush of Armalite and Garand gunfire which seemed to come over our heads and hit the lead Land Rover. Corporal Barry Toal (seconded to us from 2 Para), the patrol commander, jumped out of his front passenger seat and took up a defensive position to report the contact and try and spot where the gunfire was coming from. At about the same time, Private Nigel Bourne who was looking forward out of the hatch of the second Land Rover, suddenly dropped down and we thought he had been hit. In the meantime our brick of four squaddies legged it down towards the vehicles whilst this gunfire was still taking place.

  As I ran towards Barry, I noticed rounds bouncing through the grit box on the pavement by the steps that went down to the ‘Bog’ [Bogside] and the grit was flying everywhere. Jim quickly radioed base and told them we were hot pursuing into the ‘Bog’ to follow up. At that time, the area was patrolled by the Royal Artillery and we needed base to let them know we were entering their area, in order to avoid a ‘blue on blue’ situation. As Alan and I ran past the grit box, rounds were bouncing all around us and, as more troops from the RED 1 Response team arrived, the shooting stopped.

  We went to some houses over by William Street area to check but as it was, the shooting was in fact further up from the Shirt Factory. This was a lot higher than we were and an ideal place to ambush both mobile and foot patrols. Once the dust had settled, we went back to Marlborough Road to see how Nigel was and found that the top hatch had been forced into his face because of a sudden gust of wind and had hit him full on the nose; this had knocked him back, giving him a nasty gash and bloody nose. On examination of the lead Land Rover we found several bullet holes in the front and side of the vehicle. One round in particular had continued through the engine block and entered a few centimetres below Barry’s seat and in a central position to his manhood; a very lucky escape, Corporal Toal!

  On 10 February, three ‘significant events’ occurred in Northern Ireland. One was ‘significant’ to the media as it heralded yet another PIRA ceasefire and with it the renewed hope that almost six years of violence was finally coming to an end. The others were of far more significance to the families of two young Catholic workers, both teenagers and an older Catholic farmer. To a gaggle of invited journalists, an IRA ‘spokesman’ announced that it was reinstating its ceasefire for an indefinite period as of 6pm that day.

  Elsewhere in the Province, murder gangs from the Loyalist UVF were afoot with murder on their minds. Joseph ‘Joe’ Fitzpatrick (19) was employed by Belfast City Council as a road-sweeper and as such, was working with a colleague in Cooke Street, just east of the Ormeau Road. Alerted by the sounds of running feet, the colleague shouted a warning to his friend and dashed to safety. The running feet belonged to pair of UVF gunmen who fired four shots into the body of the teenager and he died shortly afterwards. It was yet another ‘senseless sectarian murder’ in a long catalogue of senseless sectarian murders.

  Just hours later, the action switched to Pomeroy, Co Tyrone, a small market town, some 40 miles west of the scene of the UVF attack and to the west of Lough Neagh. In the town, catering for the mainly Catholic inhabitants sat a bar owned by one Dominic Hayden, named eponymously ‘Hayden’s Bar’. A car, hijacked in a Loyalist area of Belfast pulled alongside drinkers at the bar and indiscriminately sprayed the defenceless men and women with automatic gunfire. Six drinkers were hit, but Eugene Doyle (18) from nearby Bardahessiagh and Arthur Mulholland (65) a farmer from the Pomeroy area were fatally wounded and died at the scene. The cowardly killers from the UVF then raced off in the direction of Belfast. The same killers would be responsible for several more sectarian murders over the course of the next few years. The UVF, as a consequence of their all black ‘uniforms’ were known rather contemptuously by their Loyalist rivals, the UDA, as ‘blacknecks.’

  Only three hours prior to the Pomeroy killings, the IRA ceasefire had come into effect but stung by a sense of ‘duty’ to their community, the IRA Army Council sanctioned a retaliatory killing of a seemingly random Protestant. The following day, an IRA murder gang consisting of five men lay in wait for Protestant milkman Samuel Mein (25) as he delivered milk in the Cappagh area, some three miles south of the earlier killings in Pomeroy. Mr Mein was wrestled to the ground and held by one IRA man whilst another shot the pinioned Protestant fatally in the head.

  Meanwhile the ‘ceasefire’ [author’s italics] which was to last, after a fashion until the following January, began officially. During this period, the British government and the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) denied that a deal had been made with the IRA or its mouthpiece, Sinn Féin. The famous, or more appropriately infamous, ‘incident centres’ were set up in Republican areas and representatives of Sinn Fein – some of whom were armed as part of the armistice’ – would be encouraged to complain to British Army officers about alleged Army breaches of the ceasefire. The Army, for its part was to voluntarily agree to a reduction of security patrols in the Republican areas. Some seven such incident centres were set up for ‘monitoring’ purposes and were treated with bemusement and not a little hilarity by the soldiers but with concerned suspicion by the Loyalist community.

  THAT HURT!

  Private Ian, Missenden, Duke of Edinburgh’s Royal Regiment

  The Battalion (1 DERR) was posted to Ballykinlar as Province reserve. Early on, the platoon (10 Platoon, D company) was attached to 7 RHA, with the battery at the Newry. The battery was undermanned for the amount of incidents in their TAOR. We were there to assist in their last six weeks of their tour.

  We soon settled into their routine, two days patrols, two days guard and then two days QRF. At 0800hrs on 27th June the section took over as QRF. Within minutes we were crashed out, and the day continued at a manic pace. The first break we had all day, was at about 2000hrs for scran. Before we had time to eat, it came over the tannoy: ‘QRF to the vehicles.’ Steve, the section commander went to the ops room for the brief, while the rest of the section went and loaded up. Steve came back and gave a quick brief: the RUC had called for assistance at a factory, where a picket line was getting out of hand, causing problems for those that didn’t want to go on strike. I was in the rear of the lead vehicle with, Gerry. We raced across town in two stripped-down Land Rovers, hanging on for dear life as we weaved through the traffic. Steve wanted to have a look before committing ourselves. We pulled up on the Warrenpoint Road, parallel to the factory; debussed and took cover on the bank of the Newry canal. A graveyard and then a small housing estate was to our rear, and across the canal and about 100 metres away stood the factory.

  The picket line was about 50 strong and there were only 12 RUC men to control them. It didn’t look too serious; nothing that 8 squaddies and 12 RUC couldn’t handle. The sun was still up and it was a nice summer’s day. ‘This is the life, and they’re paying us as well
,’ I said to Gerry, as we shared a smoke while we watched the crowd at the factory. After a few minutes, Steve gave ‘mount up.’ The vehicle had barely moved, when everything happened at once. I felt an almighty slap on my back, which put me on the floor of the Land Rover. The vehicle stopped with a jerk. ‘Crack, crack, crack …’ as rounds flew past. Gerry vaulted over me and was off. ‘Contact, wait out,’ from Steve.

  Some of the section was already putting rounds on the ground, as they screamed out target indication. All this happened in a split second. I thought the rover stopping abruptly had caused me to drop my gat, and put me on the floor. I grabbed my gat and went to get up, when I saw the small pool of blood where I’d been laying; it wasn’t there before, but it couldn’t be mine, as I wasn’t hurting. Even when I saw the golf ball size hole in my chest I still couldn’t believe it, but the bubbles in the blood told me I’d taken one to the lung, even if I wasn’t in pain. I didn’t want to shout out, until I was sure, because the last thing I needed to do was to make a c*nt of myself.

  Pain soon kicked in, it was only then did I believe what had happened. It’s nothing like the films, where a guy gets shot, gets up and carries on. The firefight continued for a few minutes, so I waited for it to go quiet before shouting out for help. Steve called my injury in, and then the race to the LZ by the TA centre. I felt every bump in the road and was in agony by the time we arrived. The battery medic took over from Gerry, and stayed with me for the helicopter flight to MPH, Belfast.

  The flight seemed to take forever; I thought I was going to die, but for some strange reason, I wasn’t scared. The pain was so intense, all I wanted to do was close my eyes and give up, but I knew that would be the end; I was past caring. The medic wouldn’t give up, and he wasn’t going to let me give up either, and if it wasn’t for him, I’d have died, even though I wasn’t thanking him at the time! It was dark when the chopper landed in Belfast. I was bundled into an awaiting ambulance and rushed to the MPH. It was like a scene from MASH at the MPH. Thrown onto a trolley and raced to the operating room. Questions coming from all directions, not given chance to answer one of them. Finally they put me to sleep.

  I woke up late Sunday evening, with no clue as to where I was. It all came flooding back, however, when the doctor told me how I was lucky to be alive. They had to remove a rib and a part of my left lung. They had found the bullet in the lining of my flak jacket, from an M1 carbine. The BC visited on the Monday and gave me the details on the incident. Over 100 dragged in within an hour of the incident; eight were still in custody. They had lifted two gunmen, the driver, plus an M1 carbine and a Garand. Thank fuck it wasn’t the Garand I’d got hit with!!!

  After six weeks in hospital and sick leave I returned to the battalion and ops. The previous year, Corporal Steve Windsor and Private Brian Allen were murdered in an ambush in the square of XMG, with Private Mick Walters being wounded three times in the same incident. The section was never the same after that! And yet, they refuse to call Op Banner a war. It certainly felt like one!!

  In Westminster, the by now Opposition party, the Conservatives under Margaret Thatcher appointed Airey Neave MP as their Northern Ireland spokesman with special responsibilities to observe the ceasefire. After two election defeats in 1974, Edward Heath’s leadership of the Conservative Party looked increasingly in doubt. Thatcher was not initially the obvious replacement, but she eventually became the main challenger, promising a fresh start and indicating a desire to confront both the trade unions and the IRA. No doubt, in her restricted view, the two bodies were part of the broad ‘enemy’ front. Her main support came from the Conservative 1922 Committee. She defeated Heath on the first ballot and he resigned the leadership; in the second ballot she defeated Heath’s preferred successor, William Whitelaw, the former Northern Ireland Secretary and became party leader on 11 February 1975.

  NEW LODGE

  Lieutenant Colonel (Retired) R M McGhie, OBE

  It was a normal afternoon on a cold day in Belfast’s New Lodge Road and I was leading a two brick patrol of eight men back towards our base at Girdwood Park. As Cpl ‘X’, leading the other four-man brick passed a derelict terraced house, the front wall of it blew across the street. When the dust cleared Cpl ‘X’ was still alive; quite how is a mystery to this day. We knew who had done it and our sources confirmed it later. It was the same bastard who had shot Private ‘Y’ in the guts about a month before by stepping round a corner and firing four rounds at him, from almost point blank range during a local riot on the junction of Hillman Street. We couldn’t find him that day but we got him later and he eventually went off to the Maze prison.

  No member of the Security Forces had died since Sergeant Robson on the 7th of the month and further good news came with the apparent internal feuding amongst the Republicans. The fledgling Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP) and its military arm, the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) had been rubbing up the Official IRA since its inception in 1974 and this included the defection of several Officials, disenchanted with the long-lasting truce with the British Army. The feuding moved from arguments to killings on 20 February.

  However, Loyalist terrorists struck next on Wednesday 19 February on the fiercely Republican estate of Kilwilkee in Lurgan when gunmen, reportedly Loyalist, shot dead a well-known Republican James Breen (45). One of his children answered a knock at the front door and witnessed the fatal shooting of his father.

  Tension between the two aforementioned parties reached boiling point on the following day, when Hugh Ferguson (19) Chairman of the Whiterock IRSP was shot dead as he worked on a house exterior in the Whiterock. He was approached by gunmen from the Official IRA who opened fire from close range. A toddler, Thomas McDonagh, aged three, was playing nearby, when three OIRA members pulled up in a car. One gunman walked up to Ferguson and shot him several times at close range with a .38 revolver. The young boy was wounded by a stray round and their main target fell to the ground, wounded in the head, leg and chest; he died less than a quarter of an hour later. More reprisal deaths were to follow as this bloody feud burned until early June. Ferguson was a local bully boy and was known as the ‘King of the Rock’ in local circles. He had joined the IRA’s youth wing in the early days of the Troubles and shortly before the Official-Provisional split. He was known to have angered the Officials and that paved the way for his cold-blooded ‘execution’ by his former comrades. At once, the IRSP claimed that the murder was part of a wider plot by the OIRA to smash the fledgling Republican grouping.

  Car bomb in the centre of Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  On that same day, James Callaghan, Labour’s Foreign Secretary was involved in a series of secret conversations with the British Ambassador in the Republic of Ireland concerning proposed meetings with Liam Cosgrave, then Taoiseach (Prime Minister), in all probability on the subject of cross-border co-operation. The knowledge that the Gardaí were turning a blind eye to border activity by the IRA was a constant thorn in the side of the British and the alleged Gardaí-PIRA collusion still rankles on the British side.

  The UVF then targeted the Railway bar on Shore Road in the Greencastle area, north Belfast, fully aware that it was frequented by mainly Catholics. A passing car threw a bag containing explosives into the doorway of the bar and it exploded, killing one man and injuring two dozen more of the clientele. Gerald McKeown (20) from Newtownabbey died at the scene and an eyewitness described the later scene as resembling: ‘…a butcher’s shop..’ as dozens of ambulances ferried the injured sectarian victims to hospitals.

  On the 21st, it was a case of Loyalist killing Loyalist, when the UVF violently assaulted UFF member Robert Thompson (23) close to the Ormeau Road in South Belfast. Thompson was beaten and then stabbed in the throat before he bled to death after he had been involved in an argument and a fight with UVF members. The Loyalist UVF took this as an insult and a slight upon their organisation and followed the UFF and former Loyalist prisoner into an alleyway where they murdered him.

  The f
ollowing day, the UFF decided to ‘…shoot a Provo…’ and a murder gang drove into the Republican North Queen Street area of Belfast. It was a risky move, as there was a working RUC station located there at the time. They burst into a shop and seeing a man standing there, whom they assumed to be Catholic, the men opened fire with handguns, hitting and fatally wounding Robert Skillen. A woman with a child in her arms was hit by a .38 round which had passed through the body of the innocent Catholic and she was wounded in the arm, narrowly missing the child. Mr Skillen died from his wounds 19 days later in hospital.

  A day later, in Londonderry, three young men including the cousin of one of the other two were returning from a party at the University of Ulster. As they walked along Portrush Road, a car driven by members of a UVF murder gang deliberately drove into the boys. Gunmen opened fire from point-blank range and hit two of the young men. Brendan Doherty (23) died at the scene and the gang escaped before the arrival of the Army. One of the alleged killers – Aubrey Reid – was killed some eight months later in a UVF ‘own goal.’ [see Chapter 10]

  Only 48 hours had elapsed since this latest sectarian murder when another Loyalist terror group – the UFF – struck, this time in Belfast. Aware that several Catholics were employed at Fisher’s Metal factory in south Belfast, an armed and masked gang raided the premises and forced all the staff to stand against a wall. The killers singled out David McKonkey (37) and forced him to kneel before shooting him in the head at very close range, killing him instantly. At a later Coroners’ hearing, the despicable murder by the UFF was described as: ‘…cold blooded…sickening (and) horrifying….’