The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  Later that same evening, in what was an apparent sectarian murder by Republicans, Richard Doherty (27) a Protestant was shot dead and his father seriously injured by masked gunmen. The Dohertys were watching television at their home in Alexandra Park Avenue just off the Antrim Road when they were attacked. The younger man was mortally wounded and died where he fell and the older man was shot in the head, but survived his dreadful wounds.

  Earlier in this chapter, reference is made to the attempted murder of Sydney McAvoy (50) by the Provisionals. On the 21st, they returned to his shop and shot him again, this time fatally, and his lifeless body was found slumped on the floor. He had bravely pursued some Republican thugs who had attempted to steal weapons from his business and had caused their arrest and conviction. He had thus, in the perverted logic of the Provisional IRA ‘signed his own death warrant.’ To the Republican movement who sought to drive the British into the sea, this was ‘justice.’

  Reference is made in works by this author to Lenny Murphy and the Shankill Butchers and, on the 22nd, they struck again. The notorious gang were members of the UVF and they conducted paramilitary activities during the Troubles. Notorious for its late-night kidnapping, torture and murder of lone Catholic civilians, they killed at least 30 people, including several Protestants. Killings were carried out in sectarian attacks, paramilitary feuds, personal grudges and bombing raids. Despite extensive police resources channelled towards their capture, a wall of silence created by a mixture of fear and respect in the Loyalist community provided few leads which could be followed. Most of the Butchers were eventually caught and imprisoned and in 1979, received the longest combined prison sentences in United Kingdom legal history. However, Lenny Murphy and his two major cronies escaped prosecution. He was killed in November 1982 by PIRA thanks, almost certainly to a tip-off from Loyalists who were as sickened of his activities as the Republicans.

  On the night of 22 June, they were driving around the sectarian interfaces of North Belfast, when they encountered a lone drinker – Francis Rice (26) – on Upper Donegal Street in the early hours of the morning. He was abducted and forced into the back of a taxi belonging to one of the Butchers, beaten into unconsciousness and tortured with knives. Murphy himself stabbed Mr Price in the neck and throat whilst other members of the gang sat on him and forced him into the footwell of the vehicle. Having ascertained that he was a Catholic – he lived in the Nationalist Cliftonville area – he was taken to an alleyway, in Esmond Street where he was brutally hacked to death – Murphy sawed through his throat whilst he was still alive – before leaving his mutilated body in the filthy alleyway.

  The day after the murder of Mr Rice, there was a major attack by the Provisionals on the Army in South Armagh. A Parachute Regiment foot patrol operating in the Drumlougher district, close to Crossmaglen was targeted by a PIRA bombing unit, who close to the Irish border detonated a massive landmine. The device exploded as the patrol passed by – one soldier was very badly injured and was immediately airlifted by helicopter to hospital where he sadly died on 28 June. Private William Snowdon (18) lingered for six more days after his terrible injuries. He was from Newcastle-Upon-Tyne in England’s North-East. Another comrade was slightly injured but was soon back on duty. Drumlougher is extremely close to the border with the Irish Republic and it was a simple task for the terrorists to cross into the sanctuary of Eire.

  On the Thursday morning, following this attack, A PIRA unit laid in wait outside the Goodyear factory in Craigavon, North Armagh. They were targeting an off-duty UDR soldier and as he arrived for work in his car with two workmates, they opened fire, riddling the car and wounding the UDR man and one of his workmates. The terrorists made good their escape, but Samuel Gardiner, one of the civilians was fatally wounded; he died the following month in hospital. Both the part-time soldier and his other civilian workmate made good recoveries.

  Templepatrick, Co Antrim is located astride the A6 Antrim Road and is approximately midway between Newtownabbey and the picturesque Lough Neagh. It is a largely Protestant town; as such, it was a magnet for the Provisionals and their continuing reprisals against Loyalist bombings. Suffice to say, however, their reprisals were met by reprisals from the Loyalists which in turn were countered by reprisals from the IRA; and so on, ad nauseum. On the night of the 25th, masked gunmen entered Walker’s Bar in Lylehill Road in the town and opened fire without warning. There were about 40 people in the bar at the time, and the gunmen emptied at least two magazines in the mass of drinkers. Once they had spent all their rounds, they threw a hand grenade into the shocked and wounded customers and then walked outside to a waiting car. The grenade exploded and caused further death and injuries amongst the drinkers who had gone to watch a concert on that fateful evening. Mrs. Ruby Kidd (28) a mother of three, her brother, Frank Walker (17) and her cousin, Joe McBride (54) were killed either by shots from an Armalite or the blast. The bar was a Protestant concern and the attack was blatantly sectarian; PIRA claims to be non-sectarian simply dripped with hypocrisy as well as the blood of their innocent sectarian victims. It was simply impossible to separate the Republican and Loyalist sectarian murderers; there was no difference. Perhaps in order to divert attention from the overtly sectarian nature of the attack, responsibility for the carnage was claimed by the Republican Action Force, although, only the naïve and uninitiated – and perhaps the gullible Americans – could fail to recognise that as a cover name for PIRA.

  That same evening, Loyalists – thought to be from the UDA/UFF – attacked a Catholic-owned and frequented bar in the Glen Road area close to Andersonstown. The Glenowen was packed with drinkers when a car driven by Loyalist bombers pulled up to a side entrance and a man got out and placed a small explosive device by a side entrance. The device exploded, damaging an exterior wall and blowing in all of the bar’s windows. Incredibly, there were no serious injuries. Very shortly afterwards, an Army foot patrol came under fire in Donegal Road, Belfast as PIRA gunmen opened fired from the direction of Rodney Parade. One of the soldiers was hit several times in the chest and seriously injured. Fortunately he recovered from the wounds he received. Within minutes, a Loyalist murder gang cruising around the Cliftonville area of North Belfast attempted to abduct a Catholic teenager. The man struggled for his life and despite being injured managed to struggle free and was rescued by the arrival of a passing Army patrol.

  On the following night, there was a serious malfunction of UVF intel and they abducted a young Catholic man from the Cliftonville area of North Belfast on the grounds that he was a member of the IRA. He was taken to Brookvale Street, just north of the Nationalist Cliftonville and stabbed to death. Although he had earlier been a sympathiser of the Official IRA, he was not connected with any paramilitary activities; Daniel Mackin (20) was yet another innocent victim of the Troubles.

  Aerial view of the Nationalist Bogside. (Mark ‘C’)

  On Saturday 27th, a Protestant was shot dead in the Celtic Supporters’ Club in Lurgan by the IRA after they identified him as a former member of the UDR. Although it was over two years since he had resigned, he was still marked for death because of this past connection. John Freeburn (30) was drinking in the club with friends when gunmen singled him out and shot him dead in cold blood. PIRA later claimed that they were unaware that he had severed his connections with the Regiment and stated that he was a legitimate casualty of war. One assumes that these were the same spokesmen who advised the Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness that Patsie Gillespie was also a legitimate casualty of war in 1990. One understands that his widow, Katherine is still awaiting an apology for the murder of her husband at the hands of the Provisionals at Coshquin, Co Londonderry.

  The hard-pressed RUC, which had lost eight officers in the previous month, came close to losing more personnel when PIRA gunmen, armed possibly with Armalites, ambushed a patrol car in Pomeroy, Co Tyrone. Leaping out from behind a wall, they sprayed a car with automatic weapons but succeeded only in breaking the window
s and cutting two policemen with flying glass. The attack took place at Keenaghan. The Catholic-frequented Hunting Lodge pub at Stewartstown in West Belfast was attacked by a Loyalist gang believed to be UDA/UFF on the same night. A 2lb bomb was thrown into the Lounge bar and the bar was quickly evacuated; there were no injuries, but there was major structural damage.

  On the last day of the month, in a classic own goal explosion, Londonderry PIRA member Bernard Coyle (17) succeeded in removing himself from the gene pool. During major disturbances in the Bogside, involving at least 100 rioters, soldiers came under fire from both rocks and bottles. Coyle attempted to throw a home-made grenade from his garden vantage at troops fighting with rioters. Unfortunately for him, the grenade hit a lamp post and bounced back at him, killing him with major shrapnel wounds.

  Later that same day, a Territorial Army officer – Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Eaton (42) – was killed at his place of business. The part-time soldier owned the Peter Pan Bakery in Springfield Road, Belfast and provided work for Protestant and Catholic alike. PIRA gunmen were waiting for him as he arrived to open his premises on the morning of the 30th and shot him twice in the chest, mortally wounding him. He died very soon after reaching the nearby RVH. He is included in the ROH for service personnel in the Troubles.

  A total of 41 people had been killed or died from their injuries in June. The Army lost four soldiers or former soldiers and two RUC officers were killed. In a mixture of terrorist killings and sectarian murders, 32 innocent civilians were killed; 17 Catholic and 15 Protestant. One Republican was killed in an own goal explosion and the Loyalist paramilitaries lost two. In total, Loyalists were responsible for 18 deaths that month, including Shankill Butchers’ involvement in one, possibly two and Republicans for 19. A staggering 26 deaths were overtly sectarian.

  19

  July

  This would be another month in which deaths would average more than one a day; a month in which two more policemen would be murdered; a month in which the British Ambassador to Ireland would be assassinated and one in which 13 innocent drinkers would be slaughtered at three separate attacks on pubs by both sides.

  The MRF or Military Reaction Force (sometimes colloquially referred to as ‘Reconnaissance’) Force was an undercover unit of the British Army employed during at least a part of the Troubles. The MRF operated plainclothes patrols in the city, ran agents and debriefed informants; it used operatives known as ‘Freds.’ These were former members of Loyalist or Republican paramilitary units who had been ‘turned’ and worked for Special Branch and Army intelligence. The Freds were ferried through Belfast and Londonderry et al, familiar to their faction in armoured cars, and would spot and identify players. Through this method the MRF compiled extensive photographs and dossiers of Northern Ireland’s militants of both factions.

  This author is not an expert in relation to the MRF, but it is eminently laughable that the Provisionals sought to use the unit as an excuse for one of their cowardly sectarian slayings. Brian Palmer (39) was an unemployed Catholic who lived in the Falls Road area of Belfast; by all reputations, he was simply another Catholic who wanted a job and was unable to find one but at the same time, minded his own business. On the night of 1 July, he was drinking in a bar in Finaghy Road North, Andersonstown with his wife. Masked gunmen walked into the bar and shot him at point-blank range, killing him instantly. The bar was packed and no-one lifted a finger to save Mr Palmer. A spokesman for the Provisionals claimed that the man had been a military agent, employed by the MRF. Such a claim was outrageously laughable and it would appear that it was simply personal scores being settled. Did anyone actually believe these claims, other than themselves?

  On the 2nd, PIRA bombers were again in action as they continued in their quest to make the North ungovernable. A bomb exploded at a major clothing shop at the corner of North Street and Gresham Street in Belfast City Centre, but fortunately all the staff and shoppers had been evacuated. During the busy lunchtime period, two men had walked into the store and held staff and customers at gunpoint, before planting the bomb and making good their escape. The device which wrecked the shop and left clothing strewn all over the street, exploded 10 minutes after it was planted. In Ballyduff, North Belfast, part of Newtownabbey, a Loyalist murder gang called at a house in Forthill Gardens and fired five shots at a Catholic family including women and children. Fortunately, there were no injuries.

  Like any other nation in the world, the Northern Irish enjoy their drink and life is not complete without a night out with a bevvie or two. One such popular drinking establishment was the Ramble Inn on Lisnevenagh Road between Antrim and Ballymena. On the Friday evening of 2 July 1976, it was busy as usual and customers from both sides of the sectarian divide were enjoying a drink or two. Just before closing time, a gang of masked men from the UVF – supposedly still on ceasefire – entered the pub and opened fire, indiscriminately with sub-machine guns. A dozen people were cut down and the bar left heavy with the moans of the dying and the stench of cordite in the air; as silently as they had entered, the Loyalist murderers left the devastated pub. The Ramble Inn was targeted despite the fact that it had Protestant clientele as well as Catholic, simply because it was Catholic-owned. Nine customers were hit by gunfire, four died at the scene and two later during July. It was claimed by the UVF that the attack was in retaliation for an onslaught on a Protestant bar in Templepatrick on 25 June in which three Protestants died. [See previous chapter]

  Those killed outright were Frank Scott (73); Oliver Woulihan (20), there to celebrate his birthday; James McCallion (39), who died protecting his wife from the shots and Ernest Moore (43). Mr Woulihan was a Catholic and the other three were Protestants. James Ellis (28) was fatally wounded and died five days later in hospital. The sixth fatality was James Francey (49) who also died in hospital, on the 14th. The Protestant/Loyalist UVF had succeeded in killing five members of their own community and appeared as profligate with the lives of their fellow Protestants as the Provisionals were with their fellow Catholics. No doubt their ‘rationale’ would have been that those members of their own community who ‘fraternised’ with the enemy deserved to die. The Belfast Telegraph carried the headline: ‘Gunmen Kill Four In Bar Massacre.’ The story was flanked between two reports, one reporting on an increase in dog licence fees and the other confirming that a swimmer’s body had been found in a local lake.

  The absolute bankruptcy, morally or politically of sectarian attacks – by both sides – was never more underlined than an outrageous shooting at the Mater Hospital in Crumlin Road earlier on the day of the Ramble Inn attack. A group of Catholic patients and visitors were standing at the entrance; these included a heavily pregnant woman and her neighbour. Gunmen from a Loyalist murder gang opened fire at the group, hitting two of them including the pregnant woman. She was rushed to Maternity where both her life and the life of her baby were saved, the baby being delivered in an emergency procedure.

  Early the next morning, Gunner William Miller (19) of the Royal Artillery and a member of the TA, was manning a pedestrian checkpoint at Butcher’s Gate in Londonderry. A 19 year-old PIRA sniper fired a single shot at the young soldier and mortally wounded him in the head. He was casevaced to the RVH in Belfast, but died on the operating table as medical staff fought to save his life. He was from Lanarkshire, Scotland and was later buried at Larkhall Cemetery. Gunner Miller had only been in the Province for a week when he was killed by the Provisionals. Almost apologetically and seemingly in despair, Merlyn Rees, Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, announced the outcome of a review of security force response to violence in Northern Ireland. The review made a number of recommendations including increasing the manpower level of the RUC; establishing specialised investigation teams; making greater use of the RUC reserve; and trying to encourage more support from the Catholic community.

  WHAT IF?

  Walter Stirling, Royal Artillery

  On the 3rd July 1976, I was on an early morning patrol in the Bogsid
e area of Londonderry with 30 Battery 16 Light Air Defence Regiment RA. We had only been in the province a week and were hard targeting in the Rossville flats area. My brick was going along in the in the middle of the flats, parallel to Fahan Street East with the other brick on the other side opposite us, parallel to Rossville Street; all moving towards Chamberlain Street. When we got about level with the Butcher’s Gate on the other side of the flats, there was an almighty bang which I reported as an explosion; it echoed around the flats.

  Foot and mobile patrols in South Armagh. (Mark ‘C’)

  After checking that my brick was ok, I moved them to the top of Chamberlain Street so we could observe the flats area to try and work out what had happened. We were then told over the air to move back to the flats and do some hot pursuit searches, but we found nothing. I don’t think we found out that one of our mates had been shot until we got back to camp. Later that night we were told that he had died and that his name William ‘Buff’ Miller; he was attached to 32 Battery from HQ. When we were told his name, we all knew who it was as he was one of these characters that was known throughout the Regiment; very funny and happy go lucky; a really nice lad liked by everyone who knew him.

  When we were told it was a shooting I realised that we had probably only been a few feet from the gunman but on the other side of the building. It is at this stage that the ‘what ifs’ start; what if we had gone a different route; what if we missed something like a lookout or similar; what if we made it more obvious that we were around; what if, what if?

  I will think about the ‘what ifs’ for the rest of my life, and the noise of that gunshot will echo in my head for the rest of my days on this earth.

  Also on the 3rd, a foot patrol from the King’s Own Border Regiment came under fire from PIRA gunmen in Finaghy Road, Belfast. The gunmen were equipped with Armalites and at least seven rounds were aimed at the Border footsie. Lance Corporal Kelly and Private Rose were both injured in the firefight which ended when the gunmen disappeared into Nationalist housing. In situations such as these, both men would have entered a safe house through an unlocked front door – locked immediately afterwards – and then jumped into a prepared bath, fully clothed in order to get rid of as much forensic evidence as possible. Their weapons would have been stripped down to their component parts and placed under mattresses in a baby’s pram or inside the underwear of a female sympathiser and then casually taken past the searching soldiers to another safe house where they would have been later re-assembled. The two soldiers recovered later in the military wing at MPH.