The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  A young Catholic man aged 17 was walking along Mountcollyer Street in North Belfast when a Loyalist murder gang opened fire on him from a passing car. The man was badly wounded in the chest and stomach but fortunately survived the sectarian attack. In the final incident of that weekend, a bomb – thought to have been placed by the UVF – exploded at a Catholic bar in the Ormeau area of South Belfast. The Parador Hotel on the Ormeau Road was attacked and very badly damaged by a 15lb device; thankfully, there were no injuries although several local people were treated for shock. On the same day, a former British serviceman was shot and wounded by soldiers in the Lenadoon area of West Belfast. Former RAF member, Robert Hawkins (30) who had received the GSM with South Arabia Bar for service in Aden, was involved in a fracas with soldiers outside a club on Clyde Street. Several men had surrounded a lone soldier and were trying to assault him and seize his SLR. Troops opened fire and Mr Hawkins was hit in the pelvis; he died 15 days later from complications, thought to have been a blood infection.

  The new week commenced with a concerted series of PIRA attacks on several RUC stations; amongst those hit were stations at Andersonstown, Belfast, Keady, Co Armagh and North Queen Street, Belfast; there were no injuries, although two RUC officers were injured by a mob in Adelaide Street close to the City Centre. The mob had come from the Nationalist Joy Street intent on attacking SF members.

  On 15 April, a PIRA ‘staff officer’ Peter Cleary (25) was killed by undercover soldiers in the Forkhill area of South Armagh. The man – a known player – was arrested by troops believed to have been members of the SAS. The elite unit had been sent into the area following a spate of sectarian murders including the Kingsmill massacre [see Chapter 13], the killing of the Reavey brothers and the murder of several members of the O’Dowd family. On the same day of the PIRA man’s killing, gunmen had opened fire on a helicopter as it landed at an Army base in nearby Forkhill. A unit, possibly SAS, captured Cleary and he was held under close arrest under an armed guard. There then occurred an incident which both sides have stated their opinions; the Army state that the PIRA man attempted to escape and was shot in self-defence as he attacked his guard. Sinn Fein maintain that Cleary was ‘…cold-bloodedly executed….’ which is something that their military wing, the Provisional IRA was most adept at. The author and his readers will draw their own conclusions.

  When it comes to hypocrisy, the Republican paramilitaries and their mouthpiece – Sinn Fein – have no peers and their repeated claims to be the ‘…defenders of the Nationalist community’ have been debunked, time and time again. Their willingness to turn the streets of ‘their’ community into battlefields and their irresponsibility in using suburban areas as bomb-making and bomb-storage factories clearly demonstrates this hypocrisy. On the 16th in one such tragic incidence of this irresponsibility, a 10lb device stored in Hamilton’s Upholstery shop in Servia Street, Belfast exploded prematurely. Servia Street is a main cut through from Albert Street to Grosvenor Road and a regular foot patrol route. The explosion killed the owner, Vincent Hamilton (45) and Harry McAleese (23) who also worked at Hamilton’s. Neither had any paramilitary links and were innocent victims of PIRA irresponsibility. On the same day, UDR Captain George Chambers (50) lost his life in circumstances unknown.

  The following day at a hospital in London, Rachel Hyams (79) died of the injuries which she had received in a PIRA bomb blast at London’s Olympia. [See Chapter 15] She had bravely fought for life for 21 days since the attack in Earl’s Court. Lost Lives notes that her husband had been injured during the Blitz and the lady who would have been her mother-in-law killed. Yet another terror attack had claimed the life of one of the Hyams family. On the same day, Corporal Michael Richard Hards (21) of the Royal Military Police was accidentally shot and died shortly afterwards. It is thought that the shooting was the result of a negligent discharge (ND) by a comrade. The author has no further information.

  Over the ensuing weekend, PIRA demonstrated how little the sanctity of life or the shedding of innocent blood mattered to them, when they launched a mortar attack on Musgrave Park Hospital. Several devices hit the nurses’ quarters but there were no injuries. A bomb attack on the hospital in late 1991 was, however, more successful and in an attack, outrageously obscene even by their standards, succeeded in killing two off-duty soldiers.

  On the 19th, the IRA killed another member of the Prison Officers’ Association, this time at a house in the Protestant area of Seymour Hill, Dunmurry in South Belfast. John Cummings (53) was a PO who worked at Crumlin Road Gaol although he was employed as a wages clerk and had no dealings with any prisoner, Republican or otherwise. However, in the perverted logic of PIRA, he was an ‘enemy of the people’ and an ‘agent of British Crown Forces.’ As such, he was marked down for summary execution and a masked gunman knocked on the door of the flat he shared with his wife. He was forced into his bedroom where he was shot three times and died almost immediately. He was the second PO to die in less than two weeks at the hands of Republican terrorists.

  On Tuesday 20th, a suspect device was found on the main Belfast-Dublin railway line and all services were immediately suspended, causing massive chaos in the busy Easter period. In Belfast, close to the city centre, rioting mobs attacked RUC officers and grenades were thrown and shots fired at the officers; there were no major injuries, but four policemen were treated later in hospital. During the next day, there were two major incidents in the Province which thankfully caused no loss of life but again demonstrated the IRA’s apparent alacrity when it came to endangering the lives of their own people just so long as the hated Brits were killed or maimed. A PIRA mortar crew fired six rounds at an Army base at ‘Fort Monagh,’ in Andersonstown, Belfast. One of the mortars overshot the target and landed in the playing grounds of a school just behind the Army base; fortunately, no children were playing there at the time. A further five devices landed inside the base – two of which failed to explode – and there was major shrapnel damage but there were no reported injuries. A follow up search by soldiers discovered the launching site behind a house in St Meryl Park to the west of Kennedy Way.

  On the evening of the 22nd, a mobile RUC patrol was ambushed at Dernagh, Coalisland in Co Tyrone. As their vehicle slowed at a crossroads, armed PIRA members opened fire with automatic weapons and in the exchange of shots, RUCR Constable William Crooks (29), father of two, was mortally wounded; the reserve policeman died in the early hours of the following morning in hospital. Another officer was injured in the attack, during which 14 rounds hit their patrol car. Earlier that day, four separate Army foot patrols were fired in different parts of Belfast which resulted in no injuries and on the Republican Creggan Estate in Londonderry, several acid bombs were thrown at soldiers with only minor injuries.

  There then followed two UVF attacks on Catholic bars over the space of 24 hours. On the 24th, a UVF gang placed a device in the hallway of the Ulster Bar in Warrenpoint, Co Down. It was detonated by remote control – thought to have been amongst the first few occasions they had employed this method – and Matthew Campbell (22) was fatally wounded. He died three days afterwards. On the 25th, the UVF attacked the Catholic-owned Shamrock Bar in Hilltown, Co Down and placed a device in the entrance hall. The owner of the bar, James Byrne (63) went outside to investigate but the device – estimated at 200lbs – exploded, mortally wounding him and injuring several other customers. An ambulance was called but Mr Byrne died shortly after it arrived.

  On the same day as the first of the twin attacks, a UDR soldier was killed in one of the seemingly ubiquitous and seemingly inevitable RTA. Lance Corporal Robert McCreedy (41) was killed near Dungannon, Co Tyrone. He is buried at Upper Clonaneese Presbyterian Church near his hometown. Five days later, another off-duty member of the UDR died as a result of a PIRA attack close to where Lance Corporal McCreedy was killed near to Dungannon. His brother-in-law Stanley Arthurs – was fatally wounded and died four days later. Private Edmund Stewart (31) was visiting his sister’s farm in Dunamon
ey Road when he was lured outside, along with her husband, Stanley Arthurs, to investigate reports of loose cattle. As he stepped outside, masked gunmen opened fire on the two unarmed men, killing Private Stewart and fatally wounding his bother-in-law. The part-time soldier had only been a member of the UDR for a week and he was a former full-time soldier with the ‘Skins,’ (Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards); it is not known if PIRA targeted him for his membership of the UDR or for his past association with the British Army.

  Prior to this latest murder, the UVF in what was yet again another blatant sectarian attack, attempted to kill five Catholic workers at a building site at Shaw’s Bridge, Belfast. The men were on a 10-minute tea break and were inside their rest hut at the site which was located between Finaghy/Taughmonagh and Belvoir Park Forest. A small device was thrown inside the hut and it exploded immediately, badly injuring the five men inside, all of whom were taken to hospital. It is thought that the UVF gang had either excellent Int on the men’s religions or were alerted by a sympathiser or supporter on the site to the existence of the men and the rest hut and timings of their breaks.

  The month of April – another bloody month – was finally over. A total of 25 people had been killed or died from their injuries during the month. The Army lost eight soldiers; to an RTA, an ND and circumstances unknown and five to terrorism; one policeman was killed. In a mixture of terrorist killings and sectarian murders, 14 innocent civilians were killed; eight Catholic and three Protestant. The figure of 14 includes two Prison Officers, one of whom was a Catholic and the other a Protestant. Two members of the IRA were killed by security forces. There were eight overtly sectarian murders. Republicans caused 15 deaths and Loyalists five.

  17

  May

  May proved to be an absolutely tragic month for the RUC as no less than six policemen were killed by the Provisional IRA and a 7th – a female officer – was mortally wounded and lingered only until the start of the next month. The author remembers well the death on Australia’s Gold Coast of a Queensland policeman – Damien Leeding, who was shot by armed robbers on 28 May, 2011 – and the shock, horror and outrage which it caused. To have no less than six officers killed in one month in Ulster surely puts the tragedy of the Gold Coast cop into major perspective. This month would also see PIRA planting a bomb on a train and killing an innocent passenger. For the Loyalist murder gangs, now seemingly unable – more likely, unwilling – to halt the impetus of killing, it was to be ‘business as usual.’

  The process of ‘Ulsterisation’ or Police Primacy continued afresh in this month and on 1 May, Kenneth Newman replaced Jamie Flanagan as the Chief Constable of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. This appointment marked the continuance of the policy of ‘Ulsterisation’ which had the full approval of the British Government.

  Following a ‘lull’ of a few days and a temporary respite of the killings, Seamus Ludlow (47) a forestry worker from Dundalk in the Irish Republic was found shot dead in the early hours of the 1st. The murder took place in Thistlecross, County Louth. The Irish Gardaí Siochana initially blamed the IRA with the suggestion that the man had been an informer, or ‘tout.’ Although the matter is still being investigated by the HET, it is now considered highly probable that the Red Hand Commandos, acting with the full approval of the UVF, killed Mr Ludlow and the death was purely sectarian.

  On the 3rd, Stanley Arthurs (43), who had been wounded five days earlier in an attack by the Provisionals which killed his brother-in-law, died of his injuries. [See Chapter 16]

  Four days after the killing of Mr Ludlow, there was embarrassment for both the British Government and for the Northern Ireland prison service following a major breakout from HMP The Maze. On that first Wednesday of the month, nine imprisoned members of the Irish Republican Socialist Party (IRSP), the ‘political’ wing of INLA, managed to tunnel their way to freedom. They then scaled a 20’ perimeter fence before making their way to freedom. One man was immediately recaptured, but the remainder remained at liberty for a considerable time. In a day of several city centre attacks, PIRA stepped up their economic warfare and there were separate attacks at Callender Street, Montgomery Street and in Donegal Place, all in Belfast. An incendiary device also destroyed McKinstry Motors in Bainbridge, Co Armagh and shots were fired at an RUC mobile patrol in Dunmurry in South Belfast.

  On the 6th, in what was a major diplomatic incident and a further huge embarrassment for the Callaghan Government, several members of a British Army undercover unit strayed over the Irish border at Flagstaff, Co Louth and were arrested. This was one of what experts consider many such illegal border crossings. The author uses italics advisedly as there appears to be a fine line in semantics between ‘illegal’ and ‘immoral’ crossings of the border. For example, it was considered ‘acceptable’ for PIRA/INLA terrorists to enter the Republic willy-nilly in order to escape justice, but when the Army – in the form of the SAS – did the same it was considered less so. The official explanation was that it was a map-reading error and the soldiers had crossed accidentally.

  Given the porous nature of the border and a myriad number of unmarked crossings, their explanation would appear feasible. However, sometime later, several of their comrades also crossed and this compounded the whole diplomatic incident. The soldiers were disarmed, arrested and paraded before a Court in the Republic. They were all fined and their weapons retained by the Gardaí. It has been alleged, in the context of cross-border transgression that, in March 1976, SAS troops had crossed the border and grabbed Seán McKenna, then an IRA commander, from his home before handing him over to a British Army patrol on the northern side of the border.

  There was, like so many other unexplained Troubles-related deaths, some further element of mystery linked with the death of a Catholic cab-driver – James Green (22) – who lived in the Lower Falls area of Belfast. As he drove past Andersonstown he was hailed by what appeared to be a genuine fare. However, as he stopped, a Renault car pulled up alongside and at least one of the occupants got out and shot him four times – he died almost immediately. There was a tendency to blame Loyalist murderers and there was even a suggestion that it was one of the ongoing internecine feuds between the two wings of the IRA. Martin Dillon, in his excellent The Dirty War (Arrow Books, 1988), speculates that it may, though tragic, have been nothing more prosaic than a case of mistaken identity.

  On the 6th, a UDR soldier, Private Isaac Stewart (23) was killed in a tragic RTA in Co Tyrone. No further information other than he is buried at Cookstown Cemetery, Co Tyrone is known.

  FRIENDLY FIRE

  Alan Symons, 2 RGJ

  I don’t know if anyone lost their life on Op Banner due to what is now called friendly fire or ‘blue on blue,’ but I reckon I came as close as you can and still live to tell the tale. During my second four-month tour, as a Lance Jack with 2RGJ COP Platoon, we were setting up an OP on a border crossing in South Armagh. We had established a base in some dense woods, and were in the process of clearing a path to the observation point. Rifleman ‘G’ and I were detailed to clear branches and twigs from the path, so that we didn’t make a noise moving to the observation point. He said: ‘Come on, let’s clear this shit out of the way!’ Giving him a playful shove I said: ‘Yeah, let’s clear the shit.’ He turned towards me, SMG in hand and pretended to cock the weapon. Unfortunately, his finger caught the cocking lever and the fucking thing went off, literally half-cocked! Thankfully, it was set for single rounds not repeat. The round thudded into the tree behind me and about an inch from my head. After a shocked silence I sat down, back to the tree, lit up a ciggie and said ‘fuck that!’ We carried on with the OP and never saw a thing. Maybe the local heroes were too busy doing a headcount to see who they had lost!

  When PIRA bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton on 12 October, 1984, with the intention of killing Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet, it was the subsequent words of a Sinn Fein apologist which struck fear into the hearts of decent people. After the explosion which killed or
led to the deaths of six people, a spokesman said: ‘Today we were unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always.’ Was it ever thus and on the 6th, a huge car bomb containing 400lbs of explosives was planted by a PIRA team outside Whiteabbey RUC station in Co Antrim. An Army EOD team successfully defused the bomb and many lives were spared; the terrorists were unlucky then, but as this book progresses, we will see that when they were ‘lucky’ untold human suffering was inflicted upon the population. On that same day, a 50lb explosive device was left in a derelict house in Wells Street Terrace in Londonderry and it exploded as a foot patrol passed by. Although no soldiers were injured, several local civilians were blown off their feet and were treated for shock and bruising; once again in their blood lust to kill and maim soldiers, the Provisionals had scandalously put the lives of their own community at risk.

  The following day, in what was tragically a portent of the days to come, the Republicans attacked an RUC officer at his home in Brerton Crescent, Newtownbreda, South East Belfast. The officer answered a knock at his front door and a gunman immediately opened fire on him, seriously wounding him in the neck, back and shoulder; he survived, but six of his colleagues would not survive the month.

  The security forces were again in luck on the 9th when an Army mobile patrol spotted a suspicious device near a culvert on a country road outside Camlough in Co Down. Several milk churns were discovered, containing 500lbs of explosives and quickly made safe. Although the device had not been primed, it would have killed and maimed soldiers had it not been discovered. In 1982, close to anther culvert in nearby Altnaveigh, four Royal Green Jackets and their RCT driver were blown to pieces by an even larger device.