by Simon Cursey
MRF SHADOW TROOP
The untold true story of top secret British military intelligence undercover operations in Belfast, Northern Ireland, 1972-1974
By Simon Cursey
Copyright © 2013, Simon Cursey
For security and legal reasons, all names of the surviving members of this undercover unit have been changed. Minor alternations, omissions and changes had to be made in this book to disguise, protect and secure the identity of all former MRF members.
It is not the critic who counts
Nor the man who points out how
the strong man stumbles.
Or where the doer of deeds
could have done better.
The credit belongs to the man
who is actually in the arena;
whose face is marred by dust
and sweat and blood;
Who knows great enthusiasm,
great devotion and triumph
of achievement.
And who, at the worst, if he fails
at least fails whilst daring greatly –
so that his place shall never be
with those odd and timid souls
who know neither victory nor defeat.
You’ve never lived until you’ve almost died.
For those who have had to fight for it
life has truly a flavour
the protected shall never know.
In memory of:
Ted Stuart - Len Durber - Richard Miller (Bob)
Together with all surviving members of the MRF, who cannot be recognised while they are alive.
Table of Contents
Copyright
Introduction by the editor
Foreword by Simon Cursey
Prologue
Chapter One – The Wall
Chapter Two – The Call to Special Duties
Chapter Three – Fired-Up and Fine-Tuned
Chapter Four – Covert Whispers
Chapter Five – Blue on Blue
Chapter Six – Duck, Dash, Get Down
Chapter Seven – Lucky to Escape Alive
Chapter Eight – Lying in Wait
Chapter Nine – Firing on Automatic
Chapter Ten – First, Fast and Furious
Chapter Eleven - A Faceless Enemy
Chapter Twelve – Cut It Off and Kill It
Chapter Thirteen – Hunters of Men
Appendix - Glossary
Images
Introduction by the editor
The existence of an elite, undercover military unit in Northern Ireland during the early 1970s was never officially acknowledged at that time by the British government, but neither was it ever denied. Not until its existence was confirmed in Parliament in 1994, some 23 years later. As a result, a rumour has persisted for almost four decades that speaks of a shadowy force which, released from the constraints of the regular Army, fought the IRA with lethal effectiveness and on their own terms. It was, so the rumour runs, a shoot-first, take-no-prisoners man-hunting squad, chasing IRA killers through the wet, dark and dismal streets of Belfast, as several querulous newspaper headlines of the time attest.
Over the years some claimed to have seen or served alongside these men, and have described their unkempt appearance – the long hair, moustaches and donkey jackets, the fast cars – in short, the utterly non-military demeanour of these ghost troops. Unfortunately, almost everything that has been written has either been marred by guesswork or mutilated by vainglorious claims and downright mendacious fictions. Nobody except those who served in it knew anything accurate about this shadowy force, until now.
Many titles for the unit have been appended to the rumour: somehow the initials ‘MRF’ made it into public discourse, and it was variously referred to as the Mobile Response Force, the Military Reconnaissance Force and the Mobile Reconnaissance force; all decent guesses, all as usual unconfirmed, and all wrong. The correct name, at least until 1974, was in fact the Military Reaction Force, and it was set up, experimentally in late 1971.
The military and intelligence disinformation seems to have worked only too well, for there has been no better-kept secret from the era of The Troubles than the true nature and operations of the MRF. It was said, out of the side of the official mouth, that some soldiers had gone wild and that their antics were swiftly closed down – that it had been an unsuccessful venture that got out of hand and was stamped on by the responsible authorities. Many things give the lie to this story, not least the fate of the unit’s officer commanding who, early in 1972, joined the MRF as a captain from the Parachute Regiment. Had he been in charge of a disastrous rogue unit, such as has been described (he was also himself charged at one point with possession of an illegal weapon – an allegation that was subsequently dropped), his career would have ended in ignominy. The Army does not easily forgive those who overstep the mark or fail so conspicuously. In fact, this OC subsequently enjoyed rapid promotion and retired with the rank of brigadier, after a sparkling career.
Likewise, the careers of those members of the MRF who survived their spell in Ulster were unimpaired, and those who remained for many years in the forces – indeed, even men such as Simon, who didn’t – were also successful and respected, not least for what they had achieved in Northern Ireland in helping to turn the tide against the IRA in the early, desperate years of The Troubles. Simon himself later continued for years with Military Reserves, and as a military and sometime Special Operations and Security trainer, through the Falklands war and into the period of the Balkans and early Gulf crisis. None of those who served in the MRF was penalised; indeed, the opposite. They were seen as valuable and highly experienced soldiers.
Operationally, the history of the MRF runs as follows: from early 1972 through 1974 it was a small covert under cover unit of three eight- or nine-man sections, operating from a secret compound location near Belfast. There was only one officer, already mentioned, and almost all the operational members of the MRF held ranks ranging from lance corporal to WO2. It was, however, a ‘flat’ not a hierarchical structure. No ranks were referred to among members (except for the OC, who was ‘Boss’), and the milieu was democratic and open, with everyone contributing their opinion and ideas. Each section had a leader, but it was as unmilitary as you could imagine. There was no saluting or anything like that. It was not, an SAS operation, although some of the members were indeed former SAS members. Some also came from the SBS, others were from the Parachute Regiment or the Royal Marines, the Military Police, or were specialists from numerous other regiments, as Simon was.
More important than their background, was their personality and aptitude, their sang-froid, their ability to act alone and blend in under pressure, to kill up-close when required and not from half a mile away. One of the most fascinating things for me about Simon’s account is his description of the selection process, which was indeed a gruelling, lengthy and highly selective one. Simon says that from over 50,000 soldiers, only around 120 were considered for the 30-man unit, and even allowing for turnover during the two or three years of its existence as he knew it, 45 soldiers at most could have made the grade.
In the early years the MRF undertook all the tasks that later came to be split between two different entities. The MRF was both an intelligence gathering organisation and a counter terrorist force.
Alongside the MRF in the early 1970s there was an extra very small section which specialised in running informers and surveillance projects but resided in another location, and which seemingly evolved years later, slightly separately into the Force Research Unit (or FRU) but this cannot be fully corroborated, although certain of its members stayed with 14 Intelligence Company.
I use the word ‘evolution’ because the transformation appeared to hav
e been ongoing, and the end-point had neither been decided nor planned completely at the time. As Simon himself says, there was a period in early 1974 when much was changing in the MRF, its name and many of its operations. That it was masterminded from very high up, however, was never in doubt.
MRF: Shadow Troop takes us back to the time of the inception of the MRF. Simon joined in early 1972, a few months after it began to be fully operational. His document deals with the heyday of the unit in its most aggressive and formative stages, when Belfast was a war zone of burned-out houses and rubble-strewn streets, of aggressive vigilante groups and rifles being carried openly by IRA active service units. It was a time when the regular Army was acknowledged to be not fully in control of the situation on the ground. That was not the Army’s fault: they were bound to abide by a system of formal conduct that allowed lawless terrorists to often run rings around them and which left them as sitting ducks. The regular Army had the wrong equipment – bulky overpowered weapons, outsized and sluggish vehicles, high-profile uniforms – that rendered them vulnerable and occasionally ineffective in what we have now learned to call ‘asymmetric warfare’.
Somebody influential realised this, and the MRF was the first, tentative result. Simon argues that the MRF was a prototype among counter-terrorist units, probably one of the first to exist and one which honed and refined ways in which terrorists could be confronted and beaten – beaten in the sense of being deprived of their best advantages: fighting a ‘courteous’ enemy that could not break the law; and at the same time being able to disregard the law themselves while still enjoying its privileges and protection.
The MRF, stated bluntly, regularly put a stop to all that nonsense. It was designed, and its members were told, to take the battle to the enemy in its own front garden. ‘To beat the terrorists, you have to think and act like a terrorist,’ as Simon was informed. This meant living on the edge of the law in some respects, or at least very often stretching its boundaries. If the IRA believed they could get away with indiscriminate murder and mayhem, it was the MRF’s job to curtail their activities and put a stop to all that. And it worked.
Just when the IRA felt it was in total control of the streets, and had begun to strut around Ulster as if it was a law unto itself, suddenly it had to start looking over its shoulder; suddenly it became scared and nervous; suddenly it began to watch what it was doing. That was because of the MRF, just 30 men, applying pressure and turning the screw. They turned it so tight that the IRA never again enjoyed the ascendance it thought it had won by 1972. Civil war was averted. Years later, 14 Intelligence Company obviously knew more and more about the enemy. Eventually the IRA would sue for peace: it all started with the MRF in 1971, with the obvious support and input of the uniformed forces.
I regard Simon’s book as an historical document. There have been other books – many other books – making bold claims and telling tall tales about the period and even the MRF itself. Some of these are, as stated above, simply mendacious; some are erroneous and others are self-glorifying. Many have been ghost-written, second-guessing what the book-market demands: unlikely bravado and an almost Carry On-style cast of characters and repartée. This is intensely annoying to Simon, especially on those occasions when it comes from those who should know better. Simon did not want a ghost-writer to make his book more ‘commercial’: he couldn’t care less about that. He is a serious, modest man blessed with a clear-sightedness that comes from not having an outsize ego. All he wanted to do was to tell the truth as accurately as he could recall it, and to honour the memory of his dead comrades.
As an editor, I have done very little beyond copy-editing and very slightly shaping the structure of the book. I was impressed by the honesty and the total lack of false sensationalism in what Simon wrote (he says he wanted to make dealing with terrorists sound like going shopping, ‘as it was and should be’), and I think the result, nothing to do with me, is a unique and uniquely valuable document in which you can hear Simon’s voice and Yorkshire accent clearly. He was above all concerned to get the facts right – especially the little ones.
As an example, here is a detail which somebody (who will remain nameless but should know better) wrote in a recent book about a button in the footwell of an MRF car that would operate the radio transmitter. The button was there so that nobody could see you were switching on the radio and talking over the air into a microphone, which was itself concealed in the sun visor. This person claimed that the button was on the passenger’s side foot well. Think about it. What if you were driving alone in the car, as was often the case? How could you reach across and press it with your foot without swerving into a lamp-post? Of course, the button was – and had to be – located on the central 70s style dashboard. Simon was angry about that for quite some time, and it impressed on me the seriousness and the importance of getting tiny things correct.
‘I am not a naturally aggressive person,’ Simon told me, and I believe him. He is a professional, and he learned his trade on the hard, unforgiving streets of Belfast in the grim early 1970s, fighting hand to hand with some of the most psychotic murderers the British Isles have ever produced. MRF: Shadow Troop testifies not just to what the MRF achieved, but also to what has to be done in extreme circumstances to preserve civil society. Condemn it if you wish, but then don’t complain when the ‘baby-killers’, as Simon calls the terrorists, come for your children.
Foreword by Simon Cursey
I would just like to say here that I know for certain the true story of the MRF has never been accurately or comprehensively told. I have read everything that has been written on the unit in which I served, and to be honest it is a classic example of the proverbial roomful of blind men trying to describe an elephant. We weren’t the Military Reconnaissance Force or Mobile Reconnaissance Force or anything else. I am dealing in facts, and not ghost-written romances of heroic derring-do. I didn’t win any wars on my own and I am not a superhero. But everything you read in this document, bearing in mind that names have had to be changed with other alterations, to protect the safety and security of surviving former MRF members, is unvarnished and accurate. I want MRF Shadow Troop to withstand historical scrutiny and act as a reference source so that people can stop getting things wrong all the time. I want that, and one other thing: to honour my dead comrades, who were some of the finest and bravest soldiers I have ever served with.
You will have heard no doubt, that we were a bunch of cowboys running wild and that the Army quickly closed us down to save scandal and embarrassment. In fact the opposite was the case, as this book will show you, but the official disinformation worked well. It seemed clear, at that time and later mentioned, the MRF appeared to be the seedbed of 14 Intelligence Company, (‘the Det’ or ‘14 Int’), which years later grew in different directions and size.
We were a counter terrorist combat squad as well as a reconnaissance force, and it’s well known that the business end of MRF operations was later taken over by other specialist units. Today it can be seen that the Det has perhaps a new name: the Special Reconnaissance Regiment (SRR).
That’s all I want to say at this point. I’ll begin my story now, after leaving you with a few interesting quotes from news stories of the time that show that our later reputation for recklessness did not come from anything that happened back then:
‘They are not in business even to make arrests, but they are specialists operating in areas of greater risk than is experienced by ordinary soldiers in Ulster.’
‘They are 300 times more effective than an ordinary patrol.’
‘If we are going to have murderers and terrorists roaming about the towns, then we have to have somebody who is able to go out to find them.’
Finally, another report from when one of our members was killed:
‘Now that particular trick can’t be used again. But there will be other methods and other brave men to carry them out with no public recognition for their courage … Not while they are alive.’
‘Not while they are alive’ has it in a nutshell…
Prologue
In late 1993 I was running an architectural services company with an office on the outskirts of Bradford. I had a couple of staff and had been doing OK despite a housing slump that was finally nearing its end.
Early one afternoon my telephone rang.
‘Are you Simon Cursey, and were you on active service in Northern Ireland in 1972, based at Palace barracks, Belfast?’
‘Who is it wants to know?’
The speaker was an Army MP staff sergeant from nearby Catterick barracks. I told him I was busy and to call me back in one hour, and hung up. I immediately rang a mate in the Intelligence Corp at York.
He checked and got back to me, saying that three men, an SIB (a military Special Branch detective), and two Royal Ulster Constabulary officers had arrived at Catterick and were messing there for a few days.
It seemed to be on the level. The sergeant rang me back as requested and I asked him how they had got my name.
‘We talked to an uncle of yours, and he told us you were still in the area.’
So they’d gone through the phone book and checked off every Cursey until they found a link to me. That was very interesting: there was no other way they could have found me, and they clearly wanted to find me very badly. The sergeant asked if they could come to the office and take a statement, and I said sure. I sent the girls home a bit early that day, and after it was dark, at just past 6 PM, they turned up.
I wasn’t taking any chances. The industrial estate was quiet and isolated, and three men – two of them Irish – were turning up to meet me on my own. As they came in and latched the outer door behind them I stayed sitting out of sight at my inner office desk, where I had a special surprise waiting. If this was an IRA assassination team about to walk around the corner, I was determined it wasn’t going to go all their way.
