by Harry Beaves
The Battery Operations Room was across the road in Andersonstown Police Station, or the RUC barracks as it was locally known, which was one of the iconic buildings of the Troubles. It commanded the entry to Andersonstown and directly overlooked Milltown Cemetery, the burial ground for many Republicans. A huge tower had been erected by the security forces as a vantage point to film and photograph those attending the funerals, pictures which were subsequently used by the various intelligence agencies in the province. The police station was housed in a typical red-brick Edwardian building, but was obscured and protected from the outside by the eighteen-foot-high fence that surrounded all such buildings in Northern Ireland. When peace finally came to Northern Ireland it was one of the buildings that Republicans demanded be removed as it was seen as a symbol of British domination over the Catholic community.
A secure door led through the building in which the buses were garaged to the open area at the back of the bus depot where portacabins provided rudimentary but comfortable accommodation for the Battery. Each troop occupied one portacabin, each eight-man section slept in a room together, and the Troop Commander and Troop Sergeant shared a separate room. A high perimeter wall bordered Divis Drive and at the top of the area a high-wire fence separated the bus depot from the open countryside of the Falls Park. This was our vulnerable flank as it offered a degree of cover for potential attackers. A number of old buses littered the area and protected the soldiers in the camp from the view of outsiders. One of these buses served as a sangar for a sentry whose task it was to observe the Falls Park. This bus was parked close to the boundary fence with its upper deck lined with sandbags. A tailor’s dummy acted as an ‘aunt Sally’ in one of the front seats, facing the park, a broom stick positioned in the way a sentry might hold his weapon. The window in front of it was broken by gunfire and there were numerous bullet holes in the bus around the dummy’s position. The sentry would stay safe by varying his position in seats further down the bus, away from the window.
The British soldier will quickly make himself comfortable in the most arduous conditions. By 1800 on 14th July we were unpacked and talking eagerly to our opposite numbers in N Battery. I counted myself very lucky as my troop (6 Troop) was taking over from the troop commanded by Lieutenant Peter Smeeth. Peter was an old friend from Blenheim 41 and was an excellent operator. He had had a very busy tour and had earned a remarkable reputation amongst his men. His experience and knowledge of the IRA and the nature of operations in the area was immense, but in just a few days he would be returning to BAOR and I had to absorb as much information from him as possible in the time available.
At 1800 the BC of N Battery held his ‘O Group’ which primarily looked back on events of the last twenty-four hours and gave the programme for the next. Although the ceasefire was over, the barricades still existed to create ‘no-go’ areas and we were still very much constrained as to where we could patrol and what we could achieve. The main roads were unobstructed and were referred to as ‘white roads’. During daylight our activities were limited to patrolling the white roads in vehicles. Fortunately the IRA were fairly predictable in the hours they operated and seemed to be active late into the night and sleep in during the morning. This meant that after dark, more particularly after midnight, we could begin to make limited foot patrols and start to learn the area.
Since Peter Watt’s injury, vehicle patrols were only conducted in Saracen armoured vehicles, which had much more effective armour than the Pig. First out for 6 Troop were Sgt Moore and Bdr Tolson who were part of a mobile patrol in Saracens. They were limited to the white roads and during the patrol they were pelted with bottles and stones and were fired at from the area of the Busy Bee Supermarket on Andersonstown Road. They also spotted Desmond Mackin, a known IRA Volunteer, in a maroon Cortina, a hectic introduction to life in Andersonstown. At that time vehicle patrols were not very effective. By the time the troops had got out of the vehicle and found their bearings the suspect or gunman would have been lost in the housing estates. However they confirmed our presence in the area and reminded the IRA that times would change.
At 0200 I made my first foot patrol with Peter Smeeth. It was the first of many patrols aimed at learning the area, identifying danger (potential ambush) spots, likely sniper positions, IRA escape routes, safe houses and many other similar things that we needed to know. We went out again at 2300 into the Falls Park, City Cemetery and Milltown Cemetery. At the time it was another opportunity to identify sniper positions and escape routes, in particular into the Whiterock area, but little did I know how quickly this information would become useful.
The whole of Andersonstown is overlooked by the Black mountain which rises to about 400 metres. It was in a ‘safe’ non-sectarian area and was frequently used for observation by the security forces so, on 16th July, I took a patrol of six men up there to observe and report on a march which was due to take place through Andersonstown. The IRA were saying that the Lenadoon-Suffolk area, the scene of the incidents that ended the IRA ceasefire, was no longer a safe place for Catholics to live. The Catholics from those estates were going to leave their homes and march through Andersonstown, we thought, never to return.
We sat on the grassy slope in the warm sunshine, a transistor radio tuned in to the IRA Pirate Radio Station that was operating from a house in Andersonstown. At about midday, through our binoculars, we began to see crowds of people gathering in Lenadoon. We learnt from the Pirate Radio that they were addressed by the local priest, Father Jack Fitzsimmons. He was encouraging them to leave their homes and join a march protesting that the security forces had made life for the Catholic community in Lenadoon unsafe. He encouraged them to move out of their homes until the British Army had vacated schools and other premises they had occupied. They then led off down Stewartstown Road. There were many newsmen covering the event and it all looked carefully choreographed for maximum effect. Women and children could be seen carrying placards as they struggled along the road with suitcases, bedding and food. Hundreds of people were involved. The Republican movement put the figure at 8,000, the media subsequently gave 5,000 and we, counting them as they passed a specific lamp post, reported the number as around 2,000. The march halted at Casement Park, the Gaelic Football Stadium where they sat on the grass and were addressed by a number of people, before beginning to disperse at around 1800. Some went to schools and halls for the night, some were put up by folk in Andersonstown and, we suspected, many returned to Lenadoon.
A few days after the march, with the general situation more under control, most of the troops moved out of Lenadoon. By so doing, enough of the protestors’ demands had then been met for the families to be able to return to their homes, claiming to have won a significant moral victory through the power of peaceful demonstration. However, the Army occupation of Lenadoon had probably only been intended as a short-term measure to deal with the crisis there at that time.
The events around Lenadoon provide excellent illustrations of the way the Republican movement skillfully manipulated situations to project their cause in the media in the most favourable light. There had been a real housing problem for the Catholics, but the situation was provoked by the Catholics so that the government response appeared heavy-handed. The security forces had to go into Lenadoon hard because there was an extreme level of violence there. At one stage an excavator was hijacked, a bomb placed in its bucket and it was driven towards an Army patrol base. Bomb disposal staff came under fire, there was a huge gun battle and a number of soldiers suffered gunshot wounds as well as the IRA! If law and order was to be restored in Lenadoon, then the security forces had to remain on the ground and they could only do so, in the short term, by being billeted in the local area in places like schools and community centres. How many of the people who marched out of Lenadoon that day really intended not to go back? Some fled south to the Republic of Ireland, some never marched, many went back that night and I suspect that, if the Government had dug their heels in and the troops had stay
ed put, others would have returned in their own time. These facts didn’t read well in the press and, besides, stories of Catholic victimisation went down better in Boston!
17th July was a warm summer’s day. We spent the morning relaxing in the areas outside the portacabins, reading and being amused by a radio tuned, as usual, to the IRA Pirate Radio Station. ‘… and the next record is for all the Army lads sunning themselves in Andersonstown bus depot. We’ll see you soon boys!’ In a flash everyone rushed for cover. It was a great spoof. My, how we laughed – eventually.
During the afternoon we saw a large procession pass the police station to Milltown Cemetery for the funerals of several IRA members. The coffins were draped with Irish tricolours and were flanked by men in combat jackets, berets and dark glasses. Intelligence staff filmed the event with long lenses from an observation post high in the grounds of the police station. The Republican burial plots were out of our sight, but we heard the volley of shots fired over the graves. It was all very frustrating. The very men we wanted to apprehend were marching past our gateway and we could do nothing about it. We would have needed a huge force to capture them and military action at a Catholic funeral would have been a public relations nightmare.
On the evening of 17th July the sentry in the bus reported that a group of youths had remained by the swimming pool in the Falls Park after the park had closed. As darkness fell he continued to observe them through a Night Vision Device (NVD). I got ready with a party of eight, the 28 Battery members plus three from N Battery, in case the situation developed. Around midnight the sentry reported that he had positively identified that one of the people was carrying a weapon. Peter Smeeth’s thoughts were that the group would eventually use a rat run through one of the holes in the wall round the City Cemetery to get back to Whiterock.
We cocked our weapons and moved out, heading as quickly and quietly as possible for one of the spots that Smeeth had shown us on our earlier patrol. We found the gap in the wall and I put two men in the cemetery to act as a cut-off group to stop anyone escaping and arranged the others in an arc facing the gap. I knelt in a fire position behind a huge pine tree, slipped the safety catch off and we waited. The area was eerily quiet with the muffled sounds of the city in the background. Through the unbearable tension I could hear my heart pounding with expectation as over and over again I went through the rules of engagement, conditions that had to be met before we could open fire. They were explained on a yellow card that we all carried. ‘Use the minimum force. You must positively identify that the person is carrying a firearm. You must warn the person before you open fire. If he fails to respond you must warn him twice more. You may only fire if he fails to respond to the warning.’
I could hear voices coming along the footpath. A group of people were chatting as they made their way. This was it. In the moonlight I saw the shape of a weapon. My throat was so tight, could I shout the warning? ‘Halt – Hands up’. A shot was fired and all hell broke loose. Red flashes zipped around the area and the sound was deafening. Bark flew off the tree trunk above my head.
When the shooting stopped a voice cried out. ‘Hey mister, Charlie’s been hit.’
‘Come forward with your hands up.’
Six people came through the wall, four with their hands up, the fifth, with one hand nervously aloft, the other hand supporting the sixth person who had been shot in the leg.
I radioed the N Battery’s Operations Room and asked for an ambulance for the injured person. The wound was not serious, most likely caused by a ricochet and one of our group was putting direct pressure on the wound with a field dressing which we all carried.
As this was happening Smeeth arrived with a section of men. He had been sitting quietly monitoring the situation as it developed through the evening. It was likely to be my first serious action and when we were scrambled he took control of the standby section and as soon as he heard shots, came running to where he knew we would be. He threw the injured man over his shoulder and the section quickly escorted the others to vehicles which had by now arrived.
The six had no weapon. We suspected it had been quickly hidden in the cemetery when the man had been hit so we spent the next hour looking for any clues in the darkness. When dawn broke we returned with a larger party and made a more thorough search, but to no avail. It was a needle in a hay stack.
The six men were taken to MPH for questioning. To our surprise, they were aged between sixteen and eighteen. No weapon was ever found so no charges were proferred, but no doubt one of them received a few shillings in compensation for his gunshot wound!
For those of us from 28 Battery it had been a terrifying event, our baptism, the first time we had been under fire. We had come through the crippling fear, the deafening noise, the chaos and confusion, but things would never be the same again. What until then had been a threat was suddenly a very real danger.
So the days continued, vehicle patrols on the white roads, foot patrols after dark and the occasional vehicle checkpoint. All the while we were soaking up information from our friends in N Battery, only too aware that they would soon be leaving. At 0700 on 19th July we said a sad farewell to them. At midday the remainder of 28 Battery began to arrive and settle in and at 1800 28 Battery formally took control of the Andersonstown area.
At last we were in charge.
Chapter 8
Life in the Bus Station
The IRA organisation used terminology similar to conventional armies. In 1972, in overall command was the Army Council with two brigades, Belfast and Londonderry. The Belfast Brigade consisted of three battalions. The First Battalion was commanded by Gerry Adams and consisted of six companies covering the Andersonstown area. At the time we believed that each company had about thirty active Volunteers. They were supported by Cumman Na Ban (the woman’s section) and Na Fianna Eireann (the youth section). With Andersonstown almost one hundred per cent Catholic, IRA activities received considerable support from the local community, both active and passive.
In the early days we would be very vulnerable to offensive action so our priority was to bring the newly-arrived members of the Battery up to speed as soon as possible. At 2300 I took a patrol of two Saracens around the white roads with the main aim of familiarising the newcomers with the area. Several times the second vehicle was shot at, but with no casualties and no clear idea of where the shots came from, we continued our route. Minutes later the Regimental Ops Room tasked us to investigate an explosion in Andersonstown. The road was dark and unlit as we approached Casement Park Stadium. Three people lay in the road and a man waved us down. This was one of the areas which we had been shot at from earlier in the patrol so, suspecting a set up, we drove on. In hindsight, it could have been a genuine incident and the people might have been injured as a result of shots fired at us earlier.
The following day we had a report of an abandoned car parked in Andersonstown Road. Some days previously the car had been stolen from the mother of two girls who had both lost limbs in a car blast. The story had made headlines as it was their only means of getting around. The car was in a ‘safe’ area of Andersonstown Road and Major David Storrey, the BC, personally brought it back to the bus depot and as a result excellent PR photographs were published in the local papers of him and the family. An abandoned stolen car was quite likely to have been booby-trapped so David Storrey’s action could be seen as either very brave or foolish!
Our first serious action was on 21st July and involved Sergeant ‘Scouse’ Moore, the Troop Sergeant, who was conducting a routine mobile patrol round the white roads. At about 1300 Regimental Ops tasked him to investigate a report of a vehicle bomb under the bridge where the M1 motorway crosses Finaghy Road North. He arrived to find 1 Troop from 5 Battery cordoning the area from the ‘safe’ south side of the motorway, but intense fire coming from the area known as MacAlpine’s Yard, between the Riverdale Estate and the M1, was preventing the Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO) from dealing with the bomb. The ATOs were always know
n by the radio nickname ‘Felix’ and appropriately used a cartoon cat as their badge because the cat had nine lives and so did the ATO – we hoped.
Sgt Moore ordered Lance Bombardier Young, who commanded the second vehicle, to park across the road and train the Browning machine gun, which was mounted in the turret of the Saracen, at the source of the firing. I believe at that time, although we carried ammunition for the Browning we were not authorised to use it because of its devastating effect. Sgt Moore then drove up and down Finaghy Road North several times. His vehicle was hit by dozens of small arms rounds and several blast bombs were throw at it, but by so doing he drew the fire away from ‘Felix’ who set fire to the vehicle hoping to burn the bomb rather than detonate it. However, the main charge was probably on a timer and still exploded with an almighty bang, but no one was hurt and the confines of the bridge took much of the impact, though windows were blown in on many of the nearby houses.
We had no idea at the time, but this bomb was part of a coordinated series of attacks all over Belfast. On 21st July 1972, between 1410 and 1515 the IRA exploded twenty-two bombs in various parts of the city. At times, people who had been evacuated from the site of one bomb were mistakenly moved into the vicinity of other bombs and newspapers reported that ‘… the middle of Belfast resembled a city under artillery fire; clouds of suffocating smoke enveloped buildings as one explosion followed another, almost drowning out the hysterical screams of panicked shoppers’. Nine people were killed including two soldiers. 130 were injured, most of them women and children. The bombings were ordered by the IRA’s Belfast Brigade in reprisal for the breakdown of the peace talks. In his memoirs, Seàn Mac Stíofáin, the IRA leader, described the operation as ‘a concerted sabotage offensive intended to demonstrate that the IRA was capable of planting a large number of bombs at once’. It is widely believed that Gerry Adams, referred to in the previous chapter as a moderate, willing to negotiate, was directly involved in the planning and execution of these atrocities. The day has become known as ‘Bloody Friday’ and was one of the darkest days of the Troubles.