by Simon Cursey
After the end of an operational day, we’d usually finish back at the North Howard Street Mill location and get some snap and tea before going into a debriefing. There, we’d discuss everything with the local Int. boys, then write our reports of the day’s activities for the local unit and perhaps SIB before making our way back to our base. Sometimes we picked up fish and chips on the way home, after radioing in, to take supper orders from anyone present in our ops room.
Back at base, we’d clean and hand in our weapons and radio equipment, have a chat with the Boss and settle down in front of the TV or perhaps take a long hot shower, before a welcome night’s sleep. The next morning we spent an hour or so getting our gear ready again for our next stint on ‘standby’, followed 12 hours later by our ‘on duty’ period again. For me, this routine went on day-in, day-out for almost three years.
Like all the others, I felt fear when the shooting started but I was never so afraid that I lost control of what I was doing. Your training kicks in and you do the very best you can at the time, firing aimed shots and supporting each other with fire and movement, using whatever cover is available.
If somebody didn’t feel the fear, it would mean he was simply crazy and we wouldn’t have wanted anyone like that with us. For me, it was only later, after a contact, that I used to suffer a little. Perhaps over a pot of tea, my hands would be shaking slightly. Then I’d look across at the others sitting around me and their hands would be shaking just the same. Probably it was just delayed shock, egress of adrenaline perhaps, but it would pass.
Sometimes we would laugh nervously at how lucky we had been to get away from a particularly dangerous situation – a kind of military black humour. But looking back, I feel training played a larger part than luck; our planning, preparation and execution was always meticulously polished to the finest detail, as it had to be if we were to stay alive.
In ‘the book’, the official reaction to effective enemy fire is Duck – Dash – Get down – Crawl – Observe – Return fire – Win the fire fight – Follow through – Reorganise. The first three parts of this sequence tend to come to you completely naturally and don’t need much training. But the rest needs concentration and practice. If you can’t keep moving under fire – terrifying though it is, and against the iron will of every cell and fibre in your body, which just wants to disappear in the earth and stay still – then you will be dead in moments. The average terrorist gunman when firing and fired at will indeed Duck – Dash – Get down … and that’s when you can get him. He or she will normally stay in the general area where they dropped for cover. Then you just fire at that area they are hiding in and firing from, or shoot at the object they’re hiding behind.
To survive and fight you must always move, crawl away to a fire position, observe and return fire … from a different place to the one you went down in. Fortunately for us all, in uniform or plain clothes during that period, many of the ‘players’ were not as highly trained in weapons and tactics as most people think. It was only on rare occasions when we or regular troops would be involved in a full-scale, toe-to-toe gun battle with the IRA. Most of the aggressive operations they carried out involved gunmen emerging from a rioting crowd, firing a few shots and then disappearing, some quick hit-and-run ambushes, bombing attacks and sniping incidents. Of these it was the sniping that was carried out by those IRA members who had some reasonable amount of weapons training – some of them courtesy of the British Army years earlier.
Another day about a week later, we were back at North Howard Street Mill. But this time the streets were very quiet during the day and we didn’t catch anyone; after hanging around there for about six hours, sitting and waiting, we were planning to call it a day and go back to our base. The weather was clear and dusk was settling in on us, when suddenly we heard some gun fire, three or four rounds fired on automatic from out on the streets. Almost at the same time, the main gate uniformed guard collapsed like a sack of potatoes.
We all dived out of our cars and jumped into positions of all-round-defence and just watched and listened for a moment or two. The gate guard was flat on his back and didn’t move. Mike indicated to me and the others to stay in position, while he and Dave, his SMG man, edged over to the soldier to see how he was.
As Mike and Dave slowly inched along the wall towards the prostrate soldier, the strangest and eeriest thing happened. First, the gate guard moved a little, and then he started to sit up and slowly got back onto his feet, in a kind of ghostly slow-motion way. Mike got to him and led him back to where we were, while Dave covered them both.
We sat him down against one of our cars and asked him what happened but the guard was quite shocked and couldn’t say much. Mike and Dave started to check him out for gunshot wounds while we all held our positions, barrels pointing everywhere, but Mike realised he was unhurt.
A few minutes later the soldier gathered together his senses, and on closer inspection it was discovered that he had been shot in the chest but the bullet had lodged in his flak-jacket. The round, a .45 from a Thompson, had been a stray shot fired from quite a distance away somewhere in the streets – somebody else’s argument – and it had struck him square in the chest, on the zip of his jacket. Those old flak-jackets used to have a pleat/fold-over in the centre where the zipper was. The ‘lead’ .45 round fired from far away had randomly hit him flush on the fob of the zip and moulded itself onto the zip with two layers of flak-jacket between the round and him.
It was obvious that it was just an unlucky, stray shot that had struck the soldier. He had a large bruise on his chest but was otherwise unhurt and was in fact very lucky that day. If the round had hit him in any other area, it would have undoubtedly caused quite a serious injury.
I felt that the whole incident was quite spooky, as we all saw at first that the gate man had clearly been shot and probably killed. It was almost supernatural to watch as moments later he slowly climbed and staggered back onto his feet as you might see in a horror film.
In the late summer of 1972, a uniformed company from my original parent unit was caught up in quite a long-running gun battle in the Lenadoon area of Suffolk, on the west side of Belfast. The exchange lasted more than a few hours, through the day and into the evening, fortunately with few casualties on our side. I remember one of my friends was shot in the hand but all he seemed worried about at the time was that his watch that had been blown off his wrist and destroyed. Another friend was shot in the back of his legs while he was running across the street and another lad, half his size, ran after him and hauled him over his shoulder before carrying him into some cover. Some weeks later, the smaller lad tried to lift up his larger friend again but found it impossible: it must simply have been the adrenalin rush at the time of the shooting that made such a physical feat possible.
Stories of such intensive battles were quite rare and most of the uniformed troops were mainly occupied with riot control, patrolling and bombing situations. They also had to deal with being sniped at and to cope with the odd hit-and-run gunman appearing from rioting crowds.
Some of my old friends in uniform did eventually realise what I was up to with Dave and Ben. Occasionally we came across members of our old parent unit whilst out and about in the city. If they happened to stop us randomly in the crowded streets to be checked, we indicated who we were and for them to treat us and search us just like anyone else. We immediately informed them that we were armed, but whispered to them not to pull the weapon out or make any fuss that we were carrying a firearm. Occasionally we passed messages and asked them to say hi to some of our pals in uniform back at base.
Chapter Seven – Lucky to Escape Alive
Weapon handling played a major part in our unit and we all spent many hours on almost daily weapon training. Some of our members had their own private weapons, which ranged from Smith & Wesson .38 Specials and .357 Magnums to Colt .45s. I don’t know if these weapons were unauthorised or not and were used mainly on the ranges for practice. It wasn’t my bus
iness and I presumed they were authorised as they were there together with the .45 Thompson. We had a job to do and all we were interested in was that the weapons worked, were accurate and not too big and bulky. We didn’t mind what they were as long as they fired bullets, were easy to use and powerful enough. I don’t know if the authorities were aware of these weapons, I just presumed they were.
One of our chaps in Section 81 was sitting on his bed casually cleaning his own personal .357 Magnum, which had interchangeable barrels and a variety of ammunition. After he had finished cleaning it and while he was putting it back together and screwing on the snub-nose two-inch barrel with its specially designed key, he had an ND (negligent discharge).
It used to be called an ‘accidental discharge’ a few years earlier, but the Army decided on a change of name because someone up high felt that it was more negligent than accidental. So, while he was tightening the barrel with its special tool, the weapon fired accidentally or negligently, depending on your opinion, inside the living accommodation we all shared. He had obviously had a couple of rounds in the cylinder and was gripping the weapon very firmly while putting the short barrel on. The round, being ‘armour piercing’ and made of tungsten steel, ripped its way through three prefabricated walls, two metal lockers, and a metal bed frame before embedding itself in the OC’s desk while he was sat there and everyone else in the area was diving for cover. The OC was really not very happy, and quite visibly shaken by the incident. The man responsible came out of his room looking rather sheepish, was later charged and awarded a £200 fine – which was quite a lot in those days. At dinner that evening, the guilty chap apologised for shooting up our living accommodation and assured us all that it wouldn’t happen again.
Another time, one of the Intelligence collators, a friendly tall blonde chap called Mark, also had an ND. He had been out and about with one of the sections for some familiarisation of the Andersonstown area and had been gone for about five hours touring the city – one of our regular general surveillance patrols. He’d met a few of the other Int. people on his rounds and had taken quite a few photos of different parts of the city while he was away.
We sometimes took them out with us to show them the type of areas we worked in and give them a break from the monotony of life in the ops room, where they would sit at the radio console for hours on end, listening in to us and tracking us on the large wall maps while we were out in the city. We liked to give them a flavour of what we did and where we did it, which they always seemed to appreciate.
On his return Mark had cleared his weapon, a standard 9 millie Browning pistol, in the usual gravel patch area near the vehicle park, before going into the ops room. There he put the loaded magazines and odd loose ammunition on top of the radio console and started to strip the pistol down for cleaning. A few minutes later, having cleaned the weapon and chatted to the other lads in the ops room about his trip into the city, he started to re-assemble it.
While he was checking and testing the actions (working parts) he inadvertently popped on the magazine, cocked the pistol and almost simultaneously fired off a round while standing beside the radio console. The radio operator at that time was a chap we had nicknamed the ‘Colonel’ because of his university accent and large curly moustache, who was unfortunately sitting in the line of fire.
Normally when you have cocked the Browning 9 millie ‘without’ a magazine on – perhaps after cleaning – you would usually push a finger up inside the pistol grip to depress the sear. This means you are able to pull the trigger to allow the hammer to rest forward. Some people, however, prefer to place the magazine back on the weapon after cocking it, which in turn depresses the sear, and then pull the trigger. This practice is or was generally acceptable, but if the weapon handler gets his sequence wrong it can easily lead to an accidental (or negligent) discharge of the weapon.
Luckily for him as the round was fired, the Colonel just happened to turn his head to the right and looked directly at the Intelligence collator. The 9mm round struck him almost flush in the face, just missed his nose and skimmed his cheekbone about an inch below his left eye and exited just forward of his left ear. The shock of the round being fired in such a confined space threw him careering back off his chair, bounced him off the wall behind and sent him sprawling across the floor. The effect was just like in a Western, when two gunslingers have a disagreement over a card game. The rest of us stood there stunned for a moment before moving in to pick him up and take a look at the poor Colonel.
After patching up his face and sending him to the medics for them to have a go at him, we calculated that if the Colonel hadn’t turned his head at that precise instant, he would have been struck squarely in the side of the head and probably killed outright. Thankfully he moved and turned just as the round was being fired, and within a week he was back on duty, fully recovered from his little ‘contact’, even though it was ‘blue on blue’ – and he even seemed quite proud of his little battle scar.
I’m sure today, wherever he is, he’ll undoubtedly have given many versions of what exactly happened that day when he received his little war wound. The Int. chap responsible got the customary bollocking and fine, together with a full apology to us all, once again over dinner. Incidentally, the term ‘blue on blue’ comes from Intelligence battle-planning wall maps, where friendly forces’ positions are marked with blue pen and enemy forces are in red.
Also, incidentally, contrary to popular belief, when someone is shot they usually fall directly down – especially if killed outright. It’s not like in the movies, where you see cowboys flying through the air or getting blown through a window. The reason is that the projectile is travelling so fast, it simply just cuts through anything in its path like a knife through butter, destroying flesh and tissue on its way. The human body can, however, jolt or twitch when hit by a bullet, and this can be for a variety of reasons. Firstly, if someone is shot from close range or in a confined area, like the Colonel, the body can make an involuntary jolt, or can appear to jerk away with hands rising up. This is mainly from the noise and shock of the weapon being fired at such close range. Quite understandably, most people will jump and raise their hands if surprised by a gun being aimed and fired at them at close range.
On the other hand, a person can receive a gunshot wound and not even realise it for a moment or two, and this in turn can also depend on the type of ammunition being used. In Gibraltar in 1988, some witnesses claimed that the IRA terrorists put their hands up just as, or a moment before, they were shot by the SAS team. Yes, this is very possible because of the shock of being confronted and shot at, from close range within a matter of seconds. The movement of the hands going up is an involuntary reaction to the surprise of the situation – a natural defensive action.
Again, when John F. Kennedy was shot (as seen on the Zapruder footage), the first round that hit him struck him in the back of the neck and exited frontwards through his throat. Or vice versa, whichever report you choose to believe. At the moment of impact, there was very little if any movement in his body at all. A moment later, Kennedy started to tilt forward and bring his hands up to his throat, obviously realising he had been hit by something.
Three or four seconds later, it appears he was hit again on the forward right side of his head and this time his head jerked back and to the left before he collapsed. The round that hit him in the neck had passed directly through soft tissue with little reaction from the body. However, the round to his head struck dense bone and probably deflected slightly or disintegrated, transferring much of the energy from the round to his head. This was more likely the reason his head jerked back and to the left. At the moment the shooting started, Kennedy had little idea he was being shot at. And incidentally, I’ll never believe that any one person can fire three accurate, aimed shots from an old bolt-action rifle in less than six seconds.
There were many discrepancies that day, which anyone with some form of weapons or sniper training can see. The best shot from the book de
pository building would have been when Kennedy was approaching it. He would have been a much easier target moving towards the gunman rather than away from him after the presidential motorcade turned down Elm Street on Dealey Plaza. With a frontal target, the target grows larger as it gets closer. But after the target has passed, it gets smaller as it moves away.
Even though all members of our unit were extremely well trained, with most of us being expert weapons instructors and highly competent in the use of many weapons, NDs still sometimes happened, which we ascribed to the day-in, day-out constant stress of the job. A momentary lapse in concentration or a slight distraction of the mind is all it takes. Weapon handling is a drill which we all do automatically and probably the most dangerous time is the moment of unloading where you’re distracted for a split second. The drill you have practiced for perhaps many years misses a beat and you slip out of sequence – something that very easily can happen.
We had just arrived back at base early one evening from a task near the city centre. We parked our vehicles up against the fence inside the gate as we did every day, and went about unloading and clearing our weapons. Mike and the others had arrived a few minutes before us and were in the briefing room drinking tea and cleaning their weapons. I had cleared my 9 millie and so had Kev, together with his SMG. John, however, was busy in the boot of the car fiddling with the radio. He later walked around to the gravel patch to clear his weapon, in a bit of a hurry to catch us up while we walked down the path to the ops room.
As we were about fifteen metres along the path, over halfway there, I suddenly heard a loud crack from John’s weapon being fired. Kev and I both instinctively ducked and I looked around to see John going through the unload procedure once again. But somehow he had the sequence totally wrong. He had managed to fire off three rounds before I could get to him to take his weapon and clear it myself. Instead of the sequence of Safety catch – Magazine off – Cock and clear, he was cocking the weapon first, checking the chamber, releasing the slide and then taking the magazine off, thus firing it as he thought he was clearing it. And he was doing this repeatedly, in his flustered state, due to being out of synchronisation.
