The Nemesis File - The True Story of an SAS Execution Squad

by Paul Bruce

  Despite the high level of commitment demanded, however, we also had some fun, which began when we had been in training for four weeks. We were told that an infantry regiment would be out on exercise somewhere on Salisbury Plain and that we were to act as their enemy. We were sent off as four-man units to find a place in which to hide and wait. It was surprising to discover how much we had learned in so short a time because the other regiment didn’t seem to have a clue about how to patrol in enemy territory. On virtually every occasion, even an inexperienced four-man SAS unit like us could ‘wipe out’ a platoon of 24 men.

  We had even more fun against the tank regiments. They would be warned that we would attempt to attack them at night, blow up their vehicles and kill as many men as possible. They waited for us, their area protected by flares which they had placed around the camp. We would approach before dawn when some were sleeping and others were tired at the end of the night watch; we would place dummy bombs on their vehicle tracks and retire, having put a few of our own trip flares around their camp. On the way out, we would deliberately set off one of their flares and then sit back and watch. Chaos invariably followed. Attracted by the flare, they would rush for their weapons, often setting off the flares that we had left, thus causing more havoc. When the exercise umpires came to inspect their vehicles, they would realise that we had infiltrated their camp with no one suspecting we had ever been near. Indeed, we usually managed to ‘wipe out’ their unit as a combat force.

  On one occasion, when exercising against the 11th Hussars, a light armoured regiment, we managed to infiltrate the camp to find the commanding officer’s personal tent unattended. We nipped in and stole all the regiment’s maps, their military orders and even the CO’s binoculars. We heard later that there had been hell to pay, with the CO going wild that his troops had been so pathetic as to permit us to infiltrate his own personal quarters without detection. We were learning.

  Throughout these fourteen weeks of training, we were not permitted to think that endurance tests had ended once and for all. Every couple of weeks, we would be sent out on solo endurance marches which were designed not only to keep us superbly fit but also to make sure that our map reading was razor keen. The instructors never let us forget that map reading was one of the most vital lessons we had to master for they knew that, when the training was over and our covert actions began in earnest, map reading could mean the difference between a mission’s success and failure. As they explained, the SAS didn’t take kindly to failure.

  One morning in April 1971, I sensed a buzz of excitement in the cookhouse, something I had not experienced since our training had begun five months before. We learned that three SAS units – twelve men – had returned from Northern Ireland where they had been carrying out undercover operations. We soon discovered that they had been in action both north and south of the border. Of course, we never knew exactly what type of action they had been involved in but we had some idea from what we had been reading in the newspapers. We knew that a number of soldiers out on street patrol in Armagh had bought it, blown up by mines. We had read of IRA gunmen targeting British soldiers and knew that a number had been killed or wounded during the past few months. We knew that any number of nail bombs and petrol bombs had been thrown at soldiers on street patrol.

  Throughout the summer, rioting had been taking place at different times in both Belfast and Londonderry. The more serious rioting, often accompanied by sniper fire, had occurred around the Falls area of Belfast where Catholic and Protestant families lived in close proximity.

  We had watched on television the tens of thousands of Protestants who had marched on 12 July, celebrating the 281st anniversary of the Battle of the Boyne in 1690. A hundred thousand people had turned out to cheer the 27,000 Orangemen as they marched with their pipes and bands from the centre of Belfast to a field five miles away at Finaghy.

  Six huge bombs had gone off along the very route the marchers would take, yet, fortunately, no one was injured.

  During that march, 5,000 troops had sealed off the Catholic area of Belfast, another 4,000 police had stood guard along the route and 6,000 British troops had stood by at eighteen towns and villages across Northern Ireland where celebrations were held.

  Despite the fact that everyone talked about SAS missions in foreign lands, I began to wonder if more SAS troops wouldn’t be shipped over to carry out covert work in Ulster. What seemed surprising, however, was that within SAS headquarters at Hereford there was no secrecy about the operation the SAS men had just carried out. Everyone talked about it, excited that twelve men had gone out under cover, living rough for weeks on end, and all had returned safely.

  Although we had, as yet, never been involved in active service with the SAS, we were made to feel part of the regiment, encouraged by the sense of camaraderie that always existed in the regiment. No one boasted of what they had done, no one asked any questions and we would never know about other men’s missions. We had learned that SAS men never boast about their actions for that would be considered grossly unprofessional.

  The next phase of our training involved living rough for up to seven days at a time. We were lucky in that we were training in April and not the dead of winter for, as the instructors told us, training in midwinter was painful and demoralising.

  We would be sent out in a four-man unit equipped with an SLR and ammunition, with one of us carrying a light-machine gun, thunder flashes in lieu of grenades, plenty of hard rations, Ribena and water. We were dressed in full combat gear, tough, light ankle boots, puttees, combat trousers, a KF shirt, sweater, weatherproof combat jacket and a thin nylon disruptive-pattern smock. We were probably carrying 60lb each.

  These exercises usually took place on the Brecon Beacons. We would be given a map reference which, in theory, would be in enemy territory perhaps twenty to thirty miles from Hereford. We would be expected to practise moving through enemy territory, travelling at night and holing up somewhere during daylight hours. We were strictly forbidden to make fires, hence the hard rations. We weren’t even permitted to boil a kettle. We were not even allowed to crash out in a farmer’s barn or make use of any other form of man-made protection. The orders stipulated that we had to keep away from all human habitation and, indeed, we had to make believe that everyone we came across was the enemy so that we moved through the country unknown and unsighted.

  At the map reference, we were ordered to lie low and keep out of sight and to take up an ambush position, waiting for enemy patrols to appear. The plan would always be to find a suitable bushy area under which we could hide, indeed, almost disappear. Having scraped away the undergrowth, the plan was to saw off some of the low branches with a ‘flexible’ saw and set them above us, thus giving further protection from wind, rain and any possible enemy. It could well be that we would have to stay there for a week or more, so the greater the protection, the better our security was.

  Quite often we would be on our own but within sight of each other. After setting up our hides we would hold a briefing to decide on our course of action for when an enemy patrol did come into sight. From that moment on, we would maintain absolute and complete silence, even if we were lying there for a week. It was very, very boring.

  The great test was to try to keep awake, to maintain interest and not to sink into a semi-trance. After a while, the birds and any other wild animals in the immediate vicinity would settle down and accept our presence, even though we had invaded their habitat. Unwittingly they become our own personal guard dogs, for if any intruder approached they would hear them and react earlier than we ever would. I would deliberately train myself to take little notice of any side noises that might have been possible enemy incursions but to wait until the birds, and any other animals we had come across, alerted me to intruders. Sometimes, of course, those intruders were not human beings but other animals, but that helped to keep me on the ball. The main difficulty was remaining watchful. We all knew that if we didn’t stay alert we probably wouldn’t stay aliv
e. If our instructors came upon us without any reaction from us or, heaven forbid, discovered us asleep, we ran the grave risk of being RTU’d.

  We would have been briefed, for example, that our ‘enemy’ target was a platoon of soldiers wearing blue arm bands, which would mean not reacting at all to any other soldiers in the area. As a result, it meant keeping absolutely silent whenever others passed by, almost holding our breath for fear they might hear.

  When the target platoon did, in fact, come into our line of fire, we would wait until they reached a position where we could all open fire at the same instant. We had to ensure that the entire platoon, of perhaps twelve men, would be wiped out at once. If anyone survived, he would be given a coup de grace in the back of the head. There would be no question whatsoever of letting any member of the enemy squad survive for he might somehow report our whereabouts and that would be courting disaster and death.

  Having taken documents from one of the ‘dead’ soldiers, to prove that we had succeeded in our mission, the next task would be to high tail it back to Hereford, once again moving at night and making sure no one saw us during daylight hours. To keep us alert on the way back to base, we would have to ensure that no one tailed us. If we suspected that someone was following, we were instructed to lay an ambush.

  When on the move by night, it was vital to find the ‘perfect’ cover in which to sleep during daylight hours without the possibility of being seen, heard or discovered accidentally. It would also be necessary to ensure that we could not be spotted from the air. One of us always stood guard – two hours on, six hours off. A piece of cord would be attached by the man on duty to the wrist of the man next on duty. This method of communication may seem dreadfully old fashioned but it worked perfectly and, more important, it was silent.

  There would need to be one entrance as well as a separate exit, in case of emergency. We would always sleep with our boots on, ready, if necessary, to move out at speed. Our rifles would always be within arm’s reach and we would never unpack our gear.

  Claymore anti-personnel mines would be laid at strategic positions about twenty yards from our base. As we had been told in training: ‘If someone tries to creep up on you, being blown to bits tends to put them off.’

  Moving across country was another art we had to learn. There were few hard and fast rules; it was principally a matter of common sense plus a natural affinity for the surroundings. Cover, shade, woods, trees – all provided some protection from enemy patrols. Woods, preferably forests, were useful because they afforded great protection from night-vision equipment and portable radar apparatus.

  Our instructors also emphasised the necessity of training in the evasion of sniffer dogs. They would impress on us the number of German Shepherds and other powerfully built dogs that Iron Curtain countries put great faith in. Throughout training, our instructors always put great emphasis on the security measures adopted by Eastern bloc countries, making us believe that the SAS could expect to be asked to undertake covert action behind the Iron Curtain.

  When on a lead, the average dog is only as fast as its handler and dog handlers are not renowned as fast walkers or as men with great stamina. The odds were therefore stacked in favour of the SAS unit who were trained to move across country faster than anyone else. However, if a handler released his dog to follow us and attack, we were trained to kill.

  We would sense from the barking that the animal had been set free and one of the squad would be detailed to confront the animal. He would take off his combat jacket and wrap it around his left arm. In the method it had learned in training, the dog would lunge at the man, burying its teeth in his forearm. We were trained never to run away but always to stand and face the animal. Having attacked and buried its teeth in the man’s left arm, the dog would then be totally exposed to a knife. As the dog hung on the arm, we would split it open from stomach to sternum. Once it was on the ground, we would cut its throat to put it out of its misery. Thank God, however, I never actually had to do it.

  For the remaining four weeks we were taught the art of survival in difficult, and even impossible, country. The instructors drilled it into us that a rifle, a gun, a knife – any weapon – is useless for survival when compared with plain, ordinary water. Without water you’re dead. They rammed home to us the knowledge that it only takes three days without water to kill someone. We knew we could last three weeks without food but not without water. We had to practise collecting water using polythene sheeting. We also learned to catch grass snakes. On occasions we would catch a grass snake and barbecue it, having taken out the guts and opened out the flesh. It may sound disgusting but, in reality, it wasn’t that bad and tasted rather like chicken.

  We were taken for nature walks which always caused the odd joke and much laughter, but our instructors would tell us to cut the cackle by reminding us that paying attention to this lesson could mean the difference between life and death. We were taught what we could and could not eat; what was poisonous, nutritious, tasty and bloody awful. Even so, as the lectures continued, I could still never imagine myself scrabbling around on the ground searching for the correct insects to eat, no matter how hungry I became.

  We were encouraged to search for fish and given instructions on how to catch them without sitting on a river bank for hours on end. We would set a line and hook and then leave the fish to bite while we went off setting up snares for rabbits, game birds or whatever. Despite this, throughout my training, I never managed to hook a single fish or catch a rabbit. It made me wonder what might happen to me if I ever did find myself starving to death in some foreign country.

  There seemed to be more important things to learn. One of the principal reasons for operating behind enemy lines is to acquire sensitive information or search out targets for bombing raids or artillery fire. It was therefore necessary to be highly skilled in transmitting information back to base, either by wireless or Morse code. That took some learning. Eight words a minute was the goal and for many that was almost impossible. Many of the lads spent hours each evening learning and practising Morse code among themselves. Once learned, however, we never forgot it and, after a while, it came as easily as the two-times table.

  Throughout continuation training, SAS instructors would also lecture us, sometimes twice a week, on terrorism and the ways and means terrorists use to achieve their objectives. We learned about the forces guiding the terrorists’ political thinking and their fanaticism. Much of the content of these lectures had been gleaned from British forces fighting the communists in Malaya and from the American Special Forces in their war against the Vietcong.

  We began these lectures by focusing on jungle warfare and then spent some time learning about Middle East terrorism, but later the instructors turned their attention to the IRA. We were led to understand that many of the Catholic population in Northern Ireland were terrorised as much by the IRA as by the Protestant paramilitary gangs. We learned that, just as terrorist organisations around the world coerced young men to fight for them by threatening their families, so the IRA used precisely the same tactics among the Catholic community. We came to believe that many young men were not diehard, indoctrinated terrorists but young people who could be persuaded to lead a peaceful life rather than risk death or serious injury fighting for a cause they were not totally committed to supporting.

  We were also informed that some younger IRA fighters, some of whom were only teenagers, believed that they had ‘God and right’ on their side and were only too ready to die for their beliefs. We were led to understand that IRA gunmen would order whole estates to come out of their homes and riot against the British military; we heard tales of children being beaten up at school if their parents hadn’t been out rioting on the streets often enough; and we knew, because we saw reports on television, of the tarring and feathering of teenage girls who dated British soldiers or even attended dances where soldiers congregated.

  During the early part of 1971, we could see from television reports that the situati
on in Northern Ireland was deteriorating rapidly. IRA gunmen were taking over the policing of many Catholic areas and British soldiers patrolling the streets were becoming everyday targets. Deliberately, the IRA promoted a policy of dividing the Catholic people from the soldiers who had been sent to Ireland to protect them not only from loyalist paramilitary organisations but also from police harassment at the hands of the hated B-specials.

  By the summer of 1971, the camaraderie that had once existed between the average Catholic family and the British soldiers had totally broken down. The cups of tea, cigarettes and sticky buns which had been freely offered to the soldiers when they first took up their duties in Catholic areas had gone. The IRA had to find a way of separating the Catholics from their protectors. They did so by targeting the soldiers, first during rioting and then by encouraging gunmen to hit the soldiers while on patrol.

  The IRA knew the army would have to retaliate and, of course, they did, often causing mayhem as they tried to single out gunmen, chasing, following, arresting and sometimes shooting them. As the summer of 1971 went by, the antagonism between the Catholics and the army escalated to such a degree that open enmity developed. Now the IRA could boast that they were protecting the Catholic community not only from the Protestant majority but also from the British Army. They had succeeded in creating a siege atmosphere, a situation which could only benefit the IRA in their real campaign of fighting for their dream of a united Ireland.