The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  On 13 May the UFF killed a man who, in all probability, was completely innocent of the ‘crime’ for which he was accused, by the Loyalist paramilitary group. Gregory Brown (27) was unfortunate enough to mix with people on the fringe of the Loyalist movement and was confused with either one of the killers of or conspirators in, the death of Tommy Herron, a UDA commander who was killed in 1973. Herron was abducted in September of that year and shot in the head and his body dumped in a ditch near Drumbo, Co Antrim. His death has often been ascribed to other members of the UDA, either in protest at his involvement in racketeering or as part of the ongoing feud [see Chapter 9 of Sir, They’re Taking The Kids Indoors] Mr Brown was walking along Cregagh Road, Belfast in the early hours of the morning when a stolen car containing UFF gunmen pulled alongside him. The occupants opened fire, hitting him at least three times; he died shortly afterwards, his death a complete mystery.

  In the build-up to the RUC tragedy at Belcoo Police Station in Co Fermanagh, PIRA was busy leaving a huge device – thankfully defused by the Army – outside Newry RUC station and then the West Belfast Brigade fired shots at two officers in Andersonstown, wounding one of them. A day later, the police were attacked again in the ‘Andytown’ area and one officer was very seriously injured, being wounded in the chest, lungs and neck. He was on routine patrol driving along Glen Road when a gunman appeared from behind a wall and sprayed him with automatic fire; despite his severe injuries, he managed to drive himself to the Army base at Fort Monagh where he was first tended to by soldiers before being rushed to hospital. Just hours later, in the Silverstream area of the city, a large mob of Nationalist rioters attacked four policemen causing some severe injuries before they were beaten off.

  Two days later, in one of their ‘lucky’ moments, the Provisionals killed three policemen, destroyed numerous lives and left four children fatherless as they continued in their quest to ‘… drive the British into the sea.’ Belcoo (from Irish: Béal Cú, meaning mouth of the narrow stretch of water) is a small town in Co Fermanagh, 10 miles from Enniskillen. It sits astride the N19 (Irish Republic) and the A4 (Northern Ireland) and is a mere 300 yards from that preferred bolt-hole of Republican terrorists. As such, the RUC station was of highly strategic importance and was in a state of constant alert. Tragedy was to befall the small town on a black Saturday as nine people died in the violence which was Ulster, with a further two dying the following day.

  Under cover of darkness, an IRA unit planted a device in the old Sligo – Leitrim railway station and then fired shots at the police station, drawing out officers to investigate. Five RUC men had reached the old station at around 03:00 hours, some 200 yards away from their base, when the massive device exploded. Three of the officers were killed instantly and a fourth was severely injured; their other comrade was blown off his feet and slightly injured. The three dead officers were Sergeant Harry Keys (29), father of a three-year old son and a baby daughter; RUCR Constable Francis Kettles (39) father of a 15-year old boy and a daughter of seven and RUCR Constable Henry Evans (33); all were from Enniskillen. In the wake of that tragedy, a PIRA unit crossed the border later that evening and shot at two UDR soldiers going off duty in the village but both were uninjured.

  In the perverted and twisted logic of the UVF, retribution was called for and that call was answered with two no-warning bombs placed in Catholic-owned and frequented bars in Co Armagh and Belfast. The first attack took place at the Avenue Bar in Union Street, just north of Smithfield Market. Francis Heaney (46) and Henry McMahon (39), a father of three, were drinking in the bar and watching an international football match on the pub’s television. As they did so, a Loyalist terrorist hurled a bomb filled with metal bolts, into the packed bar. The device exploded almost immediately and Mr McMahon was killed instantly and 27 people were injured, some badly, including a small child outside in the street. A few hours later, another UVF gang attacked two bars in Co Armagh, killing four innocent Catholics. In the first attack – at Clancy’s in Charlemont – the Loyalists threw an explosive device into the bar and it exploded immediately and killed three drinkers and buried a score more under the rubble. Those who died were: Sean O’Hagan (25) whose wife was also injured; Felix Clancy (54) the owner of the bar and Robert McCullough (41). Not content with this carnage, the UVF gang drove to another Catholic bar in the village and opened fire as they drove past, fatally wounding a man who died the following month.

  That black Saturday was still not over and in Newry, Co Down a PIRA unit opened fire on a mobile RUC patrol, en-route for Warrenpoint. The car was turning into a road near a petrol filling station when PIRA gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons, hitting the patrol car over 30 times. Sergeant James Hunter (33) was hit multiple times and died instantly. He was from Tandgragee and was the father of three young children. Sergeant Hunter was the fourth policeman to die on that terrible day; a fifth would be dead within 24 hours.

  Sunday 16 May dawned and during that terrible time in the Province, there was only one axiom; that violence inevitably follows violence. The killing switched to the Benburb area of Co Tyrone and the Provisionals targeted an off-duty Police reservist. Constable Kenneth Nelson (28) was walking his dog near his home in Derryfubble when he was attacked by an IRA murder gang who opened fire with an American-supplied Armalite, mortally wounding him. He crawled home but died shortly afterwards. This author does not know conclusively that NORAID or other such like-minded Irish Americans supplied the murder weapon, but the following words speak far more eloquently than this scribe: ‘For the love of dear old Ireland that you’ve never even seen, you throw in twenty dollars and sing ‘Wearing of the Green.’ Each dollar a bullet, each victim someone’s son and Americans kill Irishmen as surely as if they fired the gun.’

  Foot patrol on the Glenbryns, Ardoyne area. (Mark ‘C’)

  As the day ended, the UVF made yet another attack on a Catholic bar, this time at Glenbryn Avenue in the Ardoyne, a short drive to the Loyalist Crumlin Road. The Glenbryn – a Republican social club – was located in the heart of the Ardoyne and was a drinking hole for like-minded Nationalists. On the Sunday night, a UVF gang, driving a stolen car drove up to the club on a warm, late spring evening and opened fire on a group of men standing outside. Roy McIlwaine (33), father of three children, was hit and was mortally wounded, dying less than an hour later in the nearby Mater Hospital, approximately two-thirds of a mile away on the Crumlin Road. Somewhat ironically and poignantly, the murderer’s escape car probably took the same route as the ambulance crew who desperately tried to save Mr McIlwaine’s life. A fellow drinker, William Martin (52) was also mortally wounded and died in the very early hours of the next morning. Eleven people – including five policemen – were dead and small wonder that the Belfast Telegraph led on the Monday morning with: ‘Over 50 Injured As 11 die In Weekend of Carnage.’ It quoted SDLP leader Gerry Fitt: ‘The ferocity and viciousness with which these murders were carried out has made us conscious again of the evil men in our midst. The SDLP unreservedly and without hesitation, condemns the murder of both policemen and civilians…The carnage has left behind scores of bereaved relatives and to them we extend our utmost sympathy.’ Father Dennis Faul of Dungannon condemned ‘…an orgy of killings in the North,’ and spoke of ‘… futile and unchristian’ violence.

  Was this, indeed could this, have been a watershed in the violence; could it have shocked the men of violence to draw back from the brink? Perhaps we will never know exactly what their emotions were as there were still in excess of 2,000 more killings before people could even dream of an end to the bloodshed.

  This author understands the pressures and the violence which British soldiers were subjected to and the enormous responsibilities which rested on their young and inexperienced shoulders. This author is a great advocate for and admirer of the stoical and professionally constrained manner in which these young lads from several score of British cities of a dozen different backgrounds, dealt with all which both Republicans and Loyalis
t could throw at them. It is therefore both understandable and unsurprising if occasionally a British soldier cracked in the face of such adversity.

  One such incident – unforgivable though it may be – occurred on 17 May in Strand Road, Londonderry when a young soldier opened fire on an Ulsterbus in the city. As the bus passed an Army checkpoint, a young man from the Cheshires fired several shots into the bus, hitting three passengers and wounding two of them. However, a known PIRA member Anthony Gallagher (20) was killed by one of the rounds, dying before he could receive medical attention. The young squaddie was disarmed by his comrades and told them: ‘I’m cracking, I’m cracking.’ He was later found guilty of manslaughter and was sentenced to five years in prison. It was regrettable and it was not justified, but it was nonetheless an aberration and in that brief second of time, this young soldier lost all rational thought. Gallagher was listed on a Republican roll of honour as an IRA member. Lost in all of this slaughter was the death of RCT Driver William Knight (19) in a tragic RTA ‘somewhere in the province.’

  Moy is a small town in Co Tyrone, Ireland about five miles southeast of Dungannon and approximately 10 miles from the Irish border. In 1976, two Protestant brothers ran an egg-packing plant there in Dungannon Street and employed both Catholics and Protestants. At around 10:00 hours on the morning of 17 May, a lone gunman, likely to have been Provisional IRA, walked into the premises and approached Thomas (40) and his younger brother Robert (38) and shot both in the head, killing them instantly and leaving five children fatherless. The two brothers and businessmen had no connections with any of the paramilitary forces and were not known to harbour any strong political views. Speculation is generally of the nature of either an independent and unapproved faction of PIRA carrying out retaliation for the weekend’s sectarian slayings in nearby Charlemont or a sanctioned attack by the IRA’s army council. Whatever the motivation, two innocent Protestants were dead, people would likely lose their jobs and yet another massive sectarian wedge had been further driven between the two major religions.

  On the 20th, a Loyalist murder gang, thought to have been UVF, placed a bomb with timing device in a hut at a building site in Lisburn, close to the Army’s HQNI base. Three workmen were relaxing in their hut during a meal break, when the device exploded. However, due to faulty wiring, it only partially detonated and the three men – two Catholic and one Protestant – were only slightly injured; their escape was little short of a miracle. The following day, a mainland policeman and his wife were attending a family wedding in Co Cavan in the Irish Republic. PIRA Int was aware of this and a gunman burst into the reception and shot both of them. They were badly injured, but survived the cowardly assassination attempt.

  On 21 May, the Provisionals stepped up their bombing campaign by placing two devices on a passenger train travelling from Belfast to Portadown. A source for the Provisionals had telephoned a warning through to the Irish Times and had warned about a bomb, but singularly and spectacularly failed to notify the SF of the existence of a second device. The train was immediately halted at Sandy Row and ‘the’ device found, made safe by the Army and removed. The train continued after a further search but unknown to the SF and concealed by the Provisionals was a further device. As the train reached Moyrusk, Maze close to Moira, the second device exploded and ripped through the carriage and the flesh and bones of the passengers. Roberta Bartholomew (22) was killed instantly and many others were injured, four received severe wounds and amputations. PIRA later claimed that they had telephoned a further warning through, but if this was the case, it can only have been mere seconds before the explosion.

  BORDER VCP

  Tam’ H’, The Royal Scots Dragoon Guards.

  I arrived at Aldergrove airport in early May 1976 and transported to Aughnacloy, on the border where we would be manning the permanent Vehicle Checkpoint (PVCP) to control the movement of vehicles across the border. Having settled into our four-man room and collected our ammunition we were now actually ‘active.’ This is when you realise: ‘this is it; we are now on the job’. My wife was almost eight months pregnant and although I didn’t know it at the time, I would be a father some five weeks after arriving.

  I was told I would be going onto the VCP at 1800 hours and would be doing one-hour rotation of the jobs within the operation. I was to start on the north gate, questioning and searching drivers and vehicles and occupants. I would then move to the north sangar, then have one hour off, before going on to further question any detained ‘persons of interest.’ Finally, I would go onto the south gate. At this stage it would be 2300hrs and dark o’clock. During the manning of the checkpoint, we were stopping and searching vehicles coming from the south. It was all pretty routine; sometimes we would get the odd pleasant response, but there would be the usual insults and abuse and of course, dumb insolence.

  All of a sudden we heard the ‘crack, crack’ of gunshots and instantly realised that we had incoming rounds. This is what training prepares you for, and we immediately took cover. I could clearly see the flashes of what appeared to be three firing points. I withdrew to the base of the south sangar and instructed my mate, ‘Hovis’, to put the chain up on the barrier in order to stop a bomb being driven into the VCP during the confusion. It came to my attention that I was the only one returning fire and nothing was coming from the south sangar whose job was to protect us. I thought at that time that the lad in there had been shot, so I told ‘Hovis’ to stay where he was and I ran up to the south tower. I could hear the rounds coming through the wriggly tin (corrugated iron) in the direction I was running. I managed to reach the safety of the sangar and ran up the stairs. There I found both the man occupying the south tower and my troop Sergeant, both sitting on the floor while the engagement was still going on. My emotions were a mixture of both anger and disappointment but knew that I needed to take action.

  I loaded up the Bren gun and, looking over the sights, I fired short bursts; using the tracer I corrected onto the area from where the gunmen were firing. Once I get the range I put in sustainable fire into the area of the three firing points, and although the sangar was full of smoke and cordite, it never put me off. After a few hours (probably less than five minutes) they stopped firing at us. I cleared the guns but my adrenalin was still running and eventually we finished the first stint on the VCP.

  The following morning I was woken by the troop Sergeant to tell me, I never hit anybody but I had a lovely 5-inch group on the roof of a garage. I never saw a garage the night before. It later came out (during a subsequent ammo count) that, of the 17 people in the VCP that night only two people returned fire; myself and a corporal who manned the Pig and who returned fire on the .30 Cal. The incident was never mentioned again and I am not prepared to name the two men in the sangar who didn’t return fire. I now had to rely on one of the soldiers who did nothing, to protect my back for the next four months. The troop sergeant was moved sideways. We never had another shoot during that tour.

  By this late stage of May, a total of five policemen had already been killed and the Provisionals targeted three more. On the 22nd, an RUC officer preparing to go on duty was in the process of leaving home when he was shot from behind a darkened hedge at his farmhouse just outside Dungannon. Constable John McCambridge (22) was hit twice by rounds probably fired from an American Armalite and died very quickly afterwards. He became the sixth policeman killed in less than three weeks. The following day, a two-man RUC patrol was attacked in Londonderry’s Waterside area and one officer – a female – was shot and wounded. Her comrade returned fire, but the terrorists escaped; the female officer survived. Finally, on the 25th, another female officer – this time RUCR – was taking leave of her husband outside their home in Lurgan as she prepared to leave for work. As she did so, a stolen car drove up to the house and fired several shots at her, hitting her three times; she was mortally wounded and would linger for a further 11 days. A total of six police officers had been killed during the month of May; it could so easily have been h
ave 12.

  In the perverted eyes of any religious bigot or zealot, the most heinous crime committable would be that which ‘impurifies’ the blood and mixes Catholicism and Protestantism in a union. In the eyes of the bigots, Gerard Masterson (34) a Catholic committed such a crime when he married a Protestant woman. The UVF, in their role as ‘upholders’ of the faith, had previously tried to kill him; making a failed attempt on his life when the family lived in Dunmurry. The family had fled to the north of the city and were living in the Antrim Road area. Masked men, possibly related to the notorious ‘window cleaning gang’, broke into the family house in the early hours of the morning and attempted to gain entry to the couple’s bedroom. Unable to do so, they fired through a partially open door, killing Mr Masterson but also fatally wounding one of the gunmen. The following day, one of the killers, Brian Garvin (28), a member of a UVF murder gang, was found dead at his North Belfast home. After his wounding, he was taken to a struck-off doctor who had attempted to tend the selfinflicted gunshot wound. The UVF man died from the botched job.

  ARMY WIVES

  Mick ‘Benny’ Hill, Royal Anglian Regiment

  Life as the ‘wife of’ in a Resident Battalion could be quite strange at first. A wife told me that when her husband had to go on the Pre Advance Party in the late 70s, she was expecting it to be like a move to Germany. However, when they arrived at Aldergrove on a civvie flight, she looked around expecting to see a driver in uniform, and a mini-bus to take them to Palace Barracks. Instead, after a couple of minutes a call went out over the tannoy for Mister ******* (her husband) to contact the information desk. They both went to the desk, and the lady there pointed out a long-haired bloke with a 70s moustache. He introduced himself as their escort, and told them that their car was in the car-park. He made no attempt to help her with the luggage or the kids, merely pointing out that another bloke walking some way behind them was also with them. At the car park, another two blokes appeared, opened the boots of two non-descript cars and their guide said: ‘OK, you and your son in with me; your Missus and the girls in the other one.’ Her husband was no help; he merely said: ‘These blokes have got it organised; just do as they say.’