Our Troops - My Thoughts

[Geo the Sarge]

It was after this that I then had a period of quietness, the area was saturated with troops and was deemed safe, the quartermasters staff cam round with Norgie containers of tea and soup and it was then that I had my first opportunity to reflect on my first active engagement and it wasn’t nice. Whilst the adrenalin had kicked in and we went about our business, no thoughts were given to the closeness of death we had just gone through.

Suddenly as the adrenalin subsided and I started to reflect I found myself shaking all over, almost as I would imagine someone going cold turkey after a huge drug rush. I found it hard to speak for a wee while and kept going over things in my head:

What if ?– they had waited another 10 or 15 seconds before letting rip, they certainly would have caught some of us.

What if? – I had been injured or killed, who was going to tell my girlfriend (now my wife of 28+ years) who is going to look after her? Tricia stayed with her mother at the time but I still felt responsible for her, we were childhood sweethearts sort off, I was 15 Tricia 14 when we first started going out.

What if? – When we first responded to the incident and I ran past the house (as I should) and up the alley and my “buddy” had decided to stop at the house to have a good gander, leaving me faced with about 10 screaming IRA supporters, would I have done if they had decided to set about me? Luckily they only abused me and threw the odd object at me and I managed to back out of the alley to join some of the others.

But that’s life I suppose, it’s just full of what if’s? I frequently do this, look back at situations over my lifetime some connected with Army life, others not and ask myself What if?

And I always give myself the same answer:

Does it matter anymore? It’s the choice I took, the decision I made at the time.............just live with it.

Geo

[kinboshi]

Great read Geo.

More, more, more.

[mickyp]

Tremendous read George.Both my cousin and my brother inlaw were in the army and i've never even discussed what they went through. So its good to get an insight into what went on.

[Geo the Sarge]

Nothern Ireland and the IRA – part 2

27th August 1979.

I am in Victoria Barracks in Ballater near Balmoral as part of the Royal Guard. Each year the Queen spends some time at the Balmoral estate, during which time a company of soldiers spend 3 months  there not, as most expect, to provide protection for the Royal Family and their visitors but to carry out a number of what I always considered “non-soldier” tasks.

We supplied a “pony platoon” a group of soldiers who previously had been sent off to learn about looking after horses in order that they could take care of the fleet of ponies which were taken to the estate. These ponies were generally used to bring the deer down from the hills after having been hunted.

We also supplied walking ghillies, in effect gun and haversack carriers for the Royals and their visitors and we all, at some stage, took part as beaters, chasing out the Grouse  on shoots. I was one of the walking ghillies, whilst it could be pretty boring I had some interesting days doing this. More about that in later stories.
The significance of today was that it was the day the IRA blew up Lord Mountbatten in his boat at Mullaghmore. This obviously made all the headlines for the next few days up until the state funeral was held for Mountbatten.

However, on this day there was another incident, one which was the IRA’s biggest success throughout the whole campaign – Warrenpoint – in which a total of 18 servicemen lost their lives. To many it was a fairly simple case of a lorry being laden with 700lbs of explosive hidden in hay bales and detonated as a convoy carrying members of the Parachute Regiment passed. A subsequent secondary explosion then added to the casualties.

To others, including myself, it was one of the best pieces of planning, setting up and execution of an attack ever seen, not only in this conflict but of any conflict anywhere in the world.

This attack was so well planned, I had mentioned earlier that most of the known activists rarely gave you grieve when they were stopped in the street. They would use this opportunity to gain as much information as possible. How we patrolled, what actions we would take when stopping, what equipment we carried, was there anything new?  What was it? On many occassions during house searches we found various notes that had been made on patrols: Routes in and out of bases, numbers in patrols, equipment carried (including sketches of new equipment) positions taken up during patrols etc.

[Geo the Sarge]

At a higher level this was all being collated by the IRA chiefs and when they put it all together they came up with their plan for Warrenpoint. After the attack at Warrenpoint the Army were forced to totally rethink their drills and reactions to incidents of this kind, this was a real pain as it meant we all had had to be re-trained which meant more time away from home, time which was limited and precious, time that today’s soldiers have even less of.

For the Warrenpoint attack the IRA had studied many incidents and in fact had staged a number of smaller  incidents, not so much to kill and maim but to have scouts in the area to monitor the response of the Armed forces: What postions did they take up?  where did they set up their Incident Control Point?  where did they place their cordons? What were the routes taken in and out of the ICP? What were the reaction times of the follow-up agencies? And many many other considerations. They then set about a plan which ultimately was very clever and produced their greatest result in the conflict.

They practised themselves in the drills that the Army soldier used, they then set about looking for a place where they could set up the ideal scenario that they could then use the Army’s own drills to their advantage. I’d imagine they must have studied many different locations until they found this area at Narrow Water Castle.
They had found a position on a main route used by the Army that could be set up for the perfect response to an attack on the armed forces.

Whilst most of the troop movement to and from the south of the country was done by helicopter, the Army still quite regularly used this route to transport troops in soft skinned vehicles. On this day a Parachute Regiment convoy of 4 ton trucks led by a land rover where passing by a flatbed lorry loaded with hay bales,  as the last truck passed the flatbed, the IRA set off one of the first ever radio controlled devices used in the province. This totally destroyed the truck, killing 6 of the Paras outright.

[Geo the Sarge]

Army drills then kicked in, the convoy stopped, troops took cover and then began to try and locate the enemy. There was a bit of a firefight with the soldiers firing across the border to suspected firing locations with a civilian, ironically the son of one of the queen’s coachmen who was on holiday, being killed by the troops. It is now generally thought that there was no gun attack and infact where the soldiers believed they were being shot at, was actually ammunition exploding from within the destroyed truck.

The soldiers then settled into their follow up routine, they could not do a follow up pursuit across the border so set about securing the area. One of the first tasks was to find a suitable location for the Incident Control Point (ICP.) The perfect position was presented to them in the form of the gatehouse of Narrow Water Castle. It afforded good cover with a large surrounding wall, it gave good access and an area for all the vehicles  and personnell who would soon be swamping the ICP as various agencies reported in and it also supplied a good area to move the casualties to in preparation of medivac.....................It also provided the IRA with an amazing target which they had hoped and prepared for.

Within 20 minutes the place was swarmed with support troops, one of which was the Commanding Officer of the Queens Own Highlanders who had arrived by helicopter. It was at this point that the IRA initiated what they had set up the whole thing for, a much larger device that had been buried at the gate house which took out 12 others including the CO and his helicopter.

[Geo the Sarge]

Due to the furore and blanket media coverage of the death of Mountbatten at the time, this incident was a mere footnote in the days media. On the day of the state funeral for Mountbatten,  there were 6 other funerals for troops who lost their lives in the attack, hardly a mention was given.

The Army had been given a severe lesson this day, all their practices and drills used against them and the IRA could not have hoped for a better result. Throughout our time in Northern ireland we were always playing catch up. The IRA had previously used command wires and so we had to adjust our methods to avoid or detect them. They then introduced Radio Controlled Improvised Explosive Devices (RCIED’s) which forced us to look for Electronic Counter Measures (ECM), they improved on this and we had to be continually upgrading our ECM and these became known as Electronic Counter Counter Measures (ECCM.)

With the introduction of RCIED’s it meant that the operator didn’t have to be at the line end of the device and this made it so much harder for the forces to gather evidence and also lessened the chance of capture during the follow up.

A difficult day for the Army and obviously a great day for the IRA.................at times you just have to stand up from the table and say:

GG WP.

Geo.

[AndrewT]

A very refreshing series of posts Geo.

Too often wars are simply reduced to 'good guys v bad guys', resulting in warped, one-sided views of conflicts. This is particularly true of Americans - I'm reminded of the fuss caused by comments made by Bill Maher (US talk show host) who, in the aftermath of 9/11, said that he disagreed with the commonly said comment that the hijackers were 'cowards'. They could be called a lot of negative things, but they were never cowards - hijacking a plane and flying it into a skyscraper, knowing you'll die in the crash, is not the act of a coward - it takes guts. He lost his job and was made a pariah.

Sun-Tzu probably said something like 'not respecting your enemy puts you on the path to defeat'. No doubt that the experience gained from fighting the IRA in Northern Ireland has helped save British soldiers lives out in Iraq and Afghanistan, experience the Americans don't have (as none of the serving troops will have actually fought a ground war against an enemy armed with anything more than rocks).

[Rod Paradise]

An interesting read Geo, your assessment of Warrenpoint matches that of books I've read on the 'Troubles'. Although there's a feeling that while militarily a 'great day' for the IRA, Warrenpoint & the Mountbatten killing being in the early days of Thatcher's leadership were a test for her & her hardline attitude from then on was at least in part precipitated from the 2 attacks & lengthened the conflict as until Thatcher moved on there was no negotiation & the alleged shoot to kill policy.

Geo, can I ask what your opinion is, as an army man, on people like Iain Thain & Lee Clegg, who having been convicted of murder, were quite soon after pardoned & welcomed back into the Army?

[Geo the Sarge]

A very refreshing series of posts Geo.

Too often wars are simply reduced to 'good guys v bad guys', resulting in warped, one-sided views of conflicts. This is particularly true of Americans - I'm reminded of the fuss caused by comments made by Bill Maher (US talk show host) who, in the aftermath of 9/11, said that he disagreed with the commonly said comment that the hijackers were 'cowards'. They could be called a lot of negative things, but they were never cowards - hijacking a plane and flying it into a skyscraper, knowing you'll die in the crash, is not the act of a coward - it takes guts. He lost his job and was made a pariah.

Sun-Tzu probably said something like 'not respecting your enemy puts you on the path to defeat'. No doubt that the experience gained from fighting the IRA in Northern Ireland has helped save British soldiers lives out in Iraq and Afghanistan, experience the Americans don't have (as none of the serving troops will have actually fought a ground war against an enemy armed with anything more than rocks).

Thanks for the reply Andrew.

I would never consider them cowards, much like people who commit suicide whether it be medical or mental reasons that have driven them to this but whose families live with the taunts of "it was a cowardly thing to do." I cannot think of anything less cowardly than to take one's own life or forsake that life for another.

In my opinion, and from my experiences working with American troops, they lack respect for other nations. They tend to go with the mentality of "we are America, the greatest power on this earth (debatable), we have more resources and manpower and we will use it."

History has shown too often, as you state, that if you do not respect your enemy, understand their ways of working and their capabilities and aslo in my opinion your own failings then you will struggle.

America led us into the 2nd Iraq war and they did it their way.The British troops went in with the hearts and minds methods that had led to a lot of success in N.I. (see later response to Rod's questions.)

I believe that latterly our troops suffered in Basra due to the continual mis-management of the conflict in other parts of Iraq by the US troops. The British Troops where almost wholly responsible for tasks in Basra and after the initial invasion they received a good response from Iraqi's in the area. I can't deny that at times some of our troops may well have over stepped the mark but I do know that anyone proven to be doing so would be punished.

However, as the Brits built up a decent rapport with the people in Basra, the Americans were not doing the same. This along with the fact they were finding softer targets within Basra was used by some of the Iraqi groups to re-generate attacks against the British forces there.

The inevitable happened, we had too few troops to cope and we withdrew back to base, limited our patrols and concentrated on the training of the Iraqi Army.

Should we have been there in the first place? imo no, but anyone with any sense recognises that.

Geo

[Geo the Sarge]

An interesting read Geo, your assessment of Warrenpoint matches that of books I've read on the 'Troubles'. Although there's a feeling that while militarily a 'great day' for the IRA, Warrenpoint & the Mountbatten killing being in the early days of Thatcher's leadership were a test for her & her hardline attitude from then on was at least in part precipitated from the 2 attacks & lengthened the conflict as until Thatcher moved on there was no negotiation & the alleged shoot to kill policy.

Geo, can I ask what your opinion is, as an army man, on people like Iain Thain & Lee Clegg, who having been convicted of murder, were quite soon after pardoned & welcomed back into the Army?

Thanks Rod,

I'm not totally convinced that these events did have any effect on how Thatcher dealt with N.I.

It's well documented that she had her own ideas (not just on N.I.) and that she stuck by these. The shoot to kill theory had been taken up long before Thatcher came to power. Whether it existed within the higher echelons of British forces and RUC I haven't a clue, to me it's another conspiracy theory that may never truly be solved.

Were there activists that were "taken out?" I think I'd be foolish to say there wasn't, however at what level these decisions were taken and with whose collusion and who actually carried these out would be difficult to tell. This relates to all groups involved in the conflict. What makes it all the harder is that no matter what side you listen to or read up on, you will always receive a blinkered view.

There have been a few articles by individuals claiming to have been involved in these operations, however I only ever see these when the individual is facing punishment for offences and in effect make claims that they were acting with assistance from government or government officials and can't help thinking they do this in an attempt to lessen any forthcoming sentence, I may just be too cynical.

What may amaze a lot of people but no doubt you will be aware of, there was actually a lot of collusion between rival factions when it was deemed good for both sides that a certain individual from either side should be taken off the scene.

I truly believe we reached the Good Friday Agreement due to increasing lack of support for the IRA, not because all these politicians worked so hard behind the scenes. Too many atrocities, by both sides, the Loyalist support also waned.  A lot of the top chiefs within these organisations became more involved in organised crime (Slab Murphy being one of the most high profile ones) which was made so much easier for them due to the power they held. To this end I believe it was the hearts and minds of the good people from both sides which helped this through as opposed to any great work by the politicians.

Then again, we can only hope it remains as there have been a few murmurs that all is not as good as Joe public are being led to believe.

[Geo the Sarge]

The Thain and Clegg cases:

Thanks for  the info on Thain I wasn’t aware of the case and I’ve replied to  you by PM.  I’ll have a good look through this and respond separately at a later time.

The Clegg case I know pretty well.

He was convicted of the murder of a young lass who had been joyriding, with others, one of whom also died, in a stolen car whilst joyriding.

From what I know of the case:

His initial defence was that he had thought that the car had been driven at another soldier and had thought the car had hit the soldier. The prosecution's case was that the final shot deemed to have killed her was fired after the car had passed and that they were no longer a threat. He was convicted and sentenced to life.
At his appeal his defence was that there was evidence that the bullet had entered the side of the car and that the car hadn't passed when the fatal shot was fired.

At the appeal no conclusive evidence could be given by either party as to whether the shot entered from the side or the rear of the vehicle and as his conviction had been on the fact that it was considered that it was after the car had passed, the initial verdict was deemed unsafe and he was cleared.

As he was cleared, in all honesty the Army would have been hard pressed not to allow him to continue service as in the eyes of the law he was not gulity. Not allowing him to serve again would ultimately lead to a challenge from Clegg.

Here is my take on it:

In 1979 we had a similar incident in Andersontown when one of our soldiers was driven at whilst attempting to stop a car, he had to dive out of the way to avoid being hit and a number of shots were fired. None of those in the car were injured, however one of our own lost an eye after he was hit by a ricochet.
When the car came to a halt and the occupants were apprehended it became obvious that they had stolen the car and were joyriding, had panicked and tried to avoid the vehicle checkpoint.

After an extensive investigation, no charges were levelled at the soldiers who had fired that day as in effect, the rules of engagement at the time were a bit ambigious and the soldiers' defence was that the vehicle was being used a weapon by driving straight at the soldier.

After this and a couple of similar incidents we were briefed that a car avoiding a checkpoint did not give rise to firing a weapon to bring it to a halt being allowed. This was stressed in all subsequent lessons on rules of engagement that I ever attended and would not have been any different in Cleggs day.

A scenario often used during these lessons is:

You are on patrol and a gunman appears from a side street and shoots and kills one of your patrol, he immediately drops his weapon and makes off, can you shoot him?

The answer is no as he is no longer a threat and to shoot him to stop him from fleeing would be deemed as using unreasonable force. In all these latter lessons it was stressed that a vehicle breking through a checkpoint did not in itself warrant the use of weapons as a means to stopping the vehicle.

In Cleggs  case, even if he did think that a fellow soldier had been hit, it had happened and they were trying to flee. IMO he should not have fired. The case and subsequent evidence used to convict him was actually incorrect as far as I am concerned, the argument should not have been whether the shot was fired from the front, side or rear. The argument should purely have been whether he was entitled to use the force he did, my feeling is that he should not have.

It was the prosecutions failure to use this in an attempt to get conviction that allowed his appeal and subsequent release.

We had one of ours who was convicted of passing info and mug shots to a member of a Loyalist group. In reality, she was a soldier in the UDR who he was knocking off during a tour at Girdwood Park. He maintained that she had actually lifted these when she visited him in his room at camp one evening.

He was convicted and sentenced but returned to the unit at a later date. We were aghast and very dissapointed that he had been allowed to return, one of the biggest things for a soldier is to be able to trust those you work with. We couldn’t do this with him even though he had been a good mate to many. He subsequently left our regiment and transferred to a Corp.

As a footnote, it’s interesting also that the IRA and some Loyalist groups, in an effort to stop joyriding actually carried out punishment shootings on youngsters who would do this, and I believe they still do.

Geo

[Colchester Kev]

This thread is without a doubt my favourite on the forum ... superbly written and fascinating.

[Teacake]

This thread is without a doubt my favourite on the forum ... superbly written and fascinating.

+1

Keep them coming Geo, hope the war wound is healing nicely 

[Geo the Sarge]

The Royal Guard

Each year the Queen spends a couple of months at the Balmoral estate on Royal Deeside in Aberdeenshire. During her time there she entertains all sorts of guests, from Heads of State, heads of business from across the world and showbiz and sports personalities.

Why they call it the Royal Guard is a mystery as we do not actually guard any of the Royal Family during this time, it’s all done by special branch and SAS types.

In 1979 I first found myself as part of the Royal Guard and moved up to Victoria Barracks in Ballater. We generally moved up 3 to 4 weeks before the Queen was due to arrive during which time some went off to be taught how to look after the Queen’s ponies and became part of the pony platoon.

Others, including myself where responsible for camp security and at times sent up to the Balmoral estate to carry out various tasks which included walking ghillies as previously mentioned and also as beaters on the Grouse shoots. Whilst not doing any of this we all had to attend Scottish Country dancing lessons, usually held on the main square of this smallest of camps, it certainly made for great entertainment for the many tourists who would visit Ballater at this time and would pop by the camp to watch all us two left-footers struggle through the dances.

The only reason for this dance training was that during her stay the Queen would host 2 “Ghillies balls” for the soldiers and members of the household staff. Basically two parties, one at the beginning and one at the end of her stay. They were fancy events with great food and lots of drink, however as you can imagine, the Snco’s would keep an eye on any of us deemed to be partaking in a little too much and becoming potential embarrassment and have them removed.

Whilst the Queen was in attendance it was always the Scottish Country dancing which went on. Later in the evening once the Royals had left, a disco would start up and the Jocks took this opportunity to get to know the household staff a wee bit better.

It was during this time at Ballater that I had one of the experiences of my lifetime. I arose one morning, washed, shaved and began to prepare for the days camp duties. The duty Sergeant paraded us outside the barrack block to distribute the days tasks and today I was informed that I was going up to the castle to be a walking ghillie for the day. Until then I hadn’t a clue what this entailed, however I was quickly informed that I would basically be a gun bearer and pack carrier for some old fart who was a guest of the Queen and would escort them and one of the actual estate ghillies as they wandered the hills looking for a stag to shoot.
At this point it is only fair to mention that this is all actually part of the annual cull in order to maintain the herds of deer on the estate. The ghillie decides which animal to choose and he does this by age, health etc.

These guys are amazingly talented on all things nature and reading some of Red Dog’s tales takes me back to the many times I had sat and listened in awe to some of the stories told by these guys. What a lot of people don’t tend to understand is that these guys know the importance of all the animals on the estate, they don’t just kill for the fun of it, they do it because it is necessary to maintain the estate to it’s best.

Another important thing about these guys is that they would never allow anyone that they thought was not capable, take a shot at any animal. Their worst case scenario is actually that an animal is not killed outright and have indeed spent days on end searching a wounded animal to put it out its misery. To be on one of these visits and only wound an animal is considered as one of the worst things ever and anyone so doing would never, ever be offered a return visit.