by Simon Cursey
I kept out of the way and felt that it was best to wait in the gents’ toilets until Tug and Dave arrived to pick me up. After they found me we went out to my car and picked up all the equipment which I’d wrapped in a jacket and locked in the boot earlier, while the doctors were taking care of Bob. We waited for about 15 minutes there until the car was picked up and transported to Lisburn Army HQ. Little was said during the 40-minute drive back to our base. I sat quietly in the back just staring out of the window most of the way. I must have looked awful, covered in Bob’s blood.
Back at base, I had to go straight in to see the OC for a debriefing of the events while they were fresh in my mind. Before I went in, I handed in mine and Bob’s weapons together with the vehicle documents, maps and radio equipment. The atmosphere in the ops room was very sombre as everyone knew what had happened and just nodded to me and tapped my shoulder as they walked by me. I was still shocked and couldn’t say very much at the time; but there was little to say anyway, except for general descriptions of the gunmen and the type of car they were driving. The Boss said he would write out the report of the shooting which I could check over and sign the following day.
‘OK, Sy,’ he added, ‘You go and get yourself cleaned up, have some rest and something to eat and I’ll see you in the morning. Take it easy tonight and we’ll see how you feel tomorrow. If you’d like a bit of time off, just let me know.”
As I left his office, I said, ‘I’ll be OK in the morning, no problem.’
After dumping my jeans, shirt and jumper in the bin, for burning, I had a long hot shower and spent most of the evening on my bed listening to some easy music on Tug’s tape recorder. Some of the other guys popped in occasionally to see how I was or offer me a pot of tea and have a chat.
We had been very unlucky that day, just in the wrong place at the wrong time, perhaps overstaying our welcome. We were sussed and the IRA did a number on us, and I was just very lucky to survive. I lost three very good friends from the unit in my three years and all were in very dramatic circumstances. I feel that casualty rate was rather high, at ten per cent, considering the size of the unit at the time.
If any other Army unit lost ten per cent of its strength during its stay in Ulster, there would have been hell-to-pay all the way back to Downing Street. But in many ways, our job was many times more demanding and dangerous than that of the regular soldier on the streets.
It has been mentioned, in other recent books, that it was much later in the 1980s that the first undercover agents were killed in confrontations with the IRA. But in reality, the first under-cover agents were actually killed during terrorist activities in the early years of the 1970s and not later.
It was my understanding now, that the Army and government went to great lengths to keep the activities of the MRF tightly under wraps during 1971-74 and there is very little or almost nothing accurate published about the MRF operations during this period, except for some media extracts from some previously publicised incidents we were involved in. It was not until it was confirmed in Parliament in March 1994 that the MRF actually existed. Even though there are many people around, some of them quite influential, making assumptions and claiming or pretending to know all about the MRF, in fact, over 40 years later, there remains only a small handful that truly knows anything of this secret undercover unit and its activities.
During our off-duty 12 hours we almost always stuck together playing cards or reading. Sometimes a small group of us borrowed one of the cars and went off to Bangor to sit by the shore, just relaxing as best we could. One time I went out for a drive in the country with Kev and Colin, the two lads in the section. Off-duty we always travelled fully armed and ready in case we had a call-out while we were away from base, so we were able to go directly to the incident in question and link up with the rest of the section, without wasting precious time.
The weather was quite clear and sunny and we had a really lovely day out, initially heading off towards Bangor then tootling into and around the country side, visiting some local beauty spots and a couple of country pubs where we had a beer and relaxed over some lunch. Later, on our way back, we suddenly realised that we had spent most of the afternoon over the border in Eire. The actual border wasn’t specifically marked on most maps and it was very easy to simply wander over to the other side if you were close.
Had we been stopped by the Garda, we would have had a very difficult time trying to explain away the reason for the maps, radios and weapons we were carrying. Not to mention Kev’s eight-inch flick knife. We would have probably been arrested on the spot, perhaps causing quite a problem for the Army and government in the north.
However, we kept the location of our little afternoon jaunt to ourselves. The OC would have gone shitless if he had known where we had been that day. He couldn’t have done much about it but he would still have gone nuts.
Some days, while on standby section, we’d all slope off in two or three cars to the nearby 30-metre firing range about two miles away for some practice with the various weapons we had in our armoury. We’d load up the cars with all the guns we could get our hands on, including Browning 9 millies, Walthers, SMGs with and without silencers, plus some of the other weapons – .357 Magnums and Smith & Wesson .38s. We also took the Thompson .45 whenever we could, just to play with.
I always enjoyed those range days; the atmosphere was relaxed and the banter was good. Mike usually played the range officer, checking the safety procedures and setting out the plans for the day’s shooting. Tug normally controlled the ammunition, splitting open the boxes and setting the bullets out in batches for us to load into the magazines, while Kev, Colin and me would be checking and lightly oiling all the weapons, getting them ready for firing. John, usually helped by Dave, was in charge of making sure we had some food and tea available for lunch break while at the same time organising some targets for us all. This left Ben complaining, as always, that he had nothing to do but sit and watch us.
We didn’t bother to use regular targets like figure 11s or 12s, and instead just threw some tin cans or cigarette packets on the ‘butts’ (sandbank behind the target mountings) and practiced on them. After a few months handling and practicing with a 9 millie, my best score was nine out of twelve rounds within the area of a cigarette packet (6 × 4cm) at 30 metres, which I felt was pretty good shooting with the 9mm Browning pistol. The rounds that missed were only an inch or so off the packet, which seemed good enough to me as they would all have been kill shots. The overall grouping spread was about four to five inches in diameter, which I felt was good enough for a hand-held pistol at that distance.
I remember one day, one of the lads in our section brought with him a flak jacket he had picked up at one of the Army locations a day or so earlier. It had a bullet hole with dried blood around the upper chest area and the lads in the section wanted to test the weapons on it to gauge the effect different types of ammunition would have on the body armour.
I wasn’t too keen on the idea, though, and didn’t fire at it, because I couldn’t help thinking that some poor guy had probably died wearing it. However, the lads threw the jacket onto the range target area and the tests went ahead using 9mm, .45, .38 and .357 rounds, which clearly proved that flak jackets weren’t much use against gun fire and their main protection was from bomb blasts or nail bombs. Perhaps that’s why they were called flak jackets and not bullet-proof jackets. Many years later, an extra armoured ballistics plate was inserted in the frontal section so the more modern jackets offered at least some protection from gunfire.
We also practiced firing from various obscure positions, such as from out the rear window of one of the cars, over the bonnet and boot, or across the front of the driver’s face from the passenger’s position. It can be naturally unnerving when someone fires a 9 millie pistol about two or three inches from your nose, especially when you’re trying to drive at the same time. The empty cases eject out from the upper right side of the pistol and you need to force your firing hand
across the driver’s chest and out through his window, otherwise the cases of the spent rounds would hit the driver ‘oven ready’, right in the face – not to mention the eyes. (In the USA or Europe where they drive on the right the cases would bounce off the windshield and into the driver’s lap: only a slightly better scenario.)
During one of our practice sessions we also developed a technique where we could fire a semi-automatic Browning 9 millie pistol so it appeared as if it was firing on full automatic. What you have to do is turn sideways to the target and hold the pistol tight in one hand, preferably the right. Hold it close to your body, horizontal at about waist height and forward on your leading hip. Then, with the other hand, placing your index finger straight through the trigger guard, you move it forward and back horizontally in a rhythmic fashion. If you get it right, you can fire off a full 12-round magazine in about five seconds. It’s not a very accurate method and is best used in an emergency situation where you have to fire into a group or down a small passageway. If you didn’t hit anyone, you would sure frighten the hell out of them, allowing you a few valuable moments to escape.
Another trick with the quite bulky Browning 9 millie pistol was to take off the plastic pistol-grip side panels to make them a little slimmer and easier to conceal under our jacket or in our waist bands. We did have shoulder holsters but very few of us used them, as they were also quite bulky and we preferred to just slip them in the waistband of our jeans. With the barrel pointing vertically down the back of the hip and the butt end pointing forward, you could almost feel it wasn’t there. The only problem we had with this method of carrying the pistols was that we had to give the barrels a good scrub and light oiling every day. This was because the heat from your body would cause some condensation, resulting in a build-up of a rust film in the barrels.
When we were travelling in a car, we normally slipped our pistols under our thigh with just the tip of the grip showing so it was easy to get at even if using the radio or the maps. However, with the Walthers (the James Bond pistol) we almost always used shoulder holsters. These guns could easily slip out of your waist band if carried this way as they were smaller, slimmer and less bulky. We normally carried Walthers when we worked in a hotel or restaurant environment, where we operated close to people and needed to wear closer-fitting clothes or suits.
Occasionally while on the ranges we used a ‘willing volunteer’ from our section to act as a guinea pig to practice ‘fire and movement’ drills. We threw a few tin cans on the butts in different places, moved up close to within a couple of metres and took our guinea pig ‘hostage’ by grabbing him around the neck. Then with the other hand we’d fire double taps at the targets as we backed away. Again, it was not a very accurate method, firing with one hand, but it was an effective way of backing off from a dangerous situation in an emergency. The main idea is to put fire down on the targets, while you increase your distance from them and escape. You try to keep a constant blanket of suppressive fire on the targets, forcing them to run or hide and allowing you a few valuable moments to make your move.
Another type of fire and movement we practiced was as a half section. We lined up with two full magazines of 12 rounds each for our 9 millies and the SMG man also had two full magazines of 28 each – the Sterling SMG mags took 30 bullets, but we would never fully pack them because it would fatigue the springs and could lead to jams (stoppages). The two or three pistol men quickly moved forward a couple of metres beyond the firing point and dropped down onto one knee to fire three or four rounds each, while the SMG man moved forward through and between us. He then took up a firing position a couple of metres forward of us, in his turn firing eight to 12 rounds, double tapping. And as he was firing we moved forward past him and so on until we were on top of the targets.
The aim was to keep a constant flow, a blanket of fire going down on the targets while members of the section are moving to new positions with no halts in the shooting. We all had to quickly change our magazines halfway through the sequence by counting our shots. That’s not so difficult on the range, but it’s a whole new ball game trying to count your shots when you’re live on the streets and being fired at by terrorist gunmen.
However, it proved a very effective method of moving forward onto the targets while keeping up constant fire. It takes a lot of practice to be effective, and we also practiced it in reverse – an excellent way of backing off from a target or group of targets and keeping accurate covering fire going down at the same time.
The Sterling SMG and the 9mm Browning pistol have similar actions and characteristics in many ways, except that the SMG has a fixed firing pin. Therefore, with the SMG, when the working parts (breech block) are cocked back, they stay locked back. Whereas the 9 millie breech block slides forward when released from your grip and feeds a round into the breech, or chamber, and is only discharged when the trigger is pulled. The SMG breech block is only released from its locked-back position on pulling the trigger when it’s set on semi-automatic (single shots,) feeding a round into the breech and firing, all at the same time because the firing pin is fixed and solid on the block.
The recoil (re-cocking) system is virtually the same in both weapons and that is a ‘blow-back’ system. The SMG blows back to its locked-back position to fire single shots when not set in the fully automatic mode, whereas the 9 millie breech block blows back and immediately slides forward, placing a fresh round in the breech ready to fire. The round being fired in the breech chamber ejects the spent case on both weapons to restart the cycle. Both weapons have a safety catch but the 9 millie pistol has a secondary safety system on the hammer itself. After cocking a 9 millie, the hammer can be released forward under control to rest on the firing pin and then gently pulled back to a first stage click, resting two or three millimetres back off the head of the firing pin.
When the magazine of the 9 millie pistol is empty, the working parts automatically lock back, like most other similar handguns, which allows for a quick and easy magazine change. When complete, you simply flip the lever with your right thumb, allowing the working parts to slip forward so you can carry on firing with a fresh clip. However, if you count you rounds while firing you should know when the last round is fed into the breech. Then you change the magazine and keep on firing without any interruption.
It often surprises me when, in films, the bad guys are told to drop their weapons and they happily toss them off to one side, bouncing and tumbling onto the floor. In reality it’s the worst thing you can possibly do with a handgun or SMG. Because of their design, they can easily discharge when dropped on the floor. With the SMG, this can happen because the breech block can ‘half cock’ itself, meaning it is not fully cocked and locked. In turn, this will feed a round into the chamber and fire off at the same moment of impact with the floor. The 9 millie pistol can fire off if the head of the hammer strikes the floor or if the concussion of the weapon hitting the floor disturbs the sear in the trigger mechanism.
The holding and aiming of these two types of weapons is obviously quite different. If you can’t hold and aim a weapon correctly, you’re not going to hit anything; it’s as simple as that.
I remember one time when John, driving with a couple of other lads in the car, stopped at a junction in the Andersonstown area late one night and a young boy came out of the shadows up to his side of the car. John turned to look at the boy, but came face to face with the wrong end of a pistol barrel. The boy was only about 12 or 13 years old and very nervous.
A moment later John saw a bright flash in front of his nose, perhaps less than a metre away, as the boy fired in his face. John’s reaction was to put his foot down to get away fast, not knowing initially if he had been shot. Fortunately neither he nor any others in the car were hurt and later, after checking the car, there were no holes to be found or any damage at all to the vehicle.
The young boy had aimed the relatively heavy pistol with one hand directly at John’s face from perhaps two feet away, fired it, but totally missed
the car. Therefore, correct holding and aiming is essential for accurate shooting. We decided that the boy, being quite small and nervous, must have pulled the pistol in an upward direction as he exerted pressure on the trigger. This, combined with a strong recoil action, meant that the round passed right over the top of the car and probably struck a house wall across the street. I don’t think we reported this. We very rarely bothered to report incidents such as this. We discussed them amongst ourselves, but never normally bothered to make out any official reports. The police had enough on their plates and something like this was just another minor occurrence, of many.
The SMG is held in the conventional way, as a rifle. In the standing position one hand, normally the left, is a cradle support under the stock of the barrel with that side of the body turned a little towards the target and feet open about shoulder-width apart. Meanwhile, the firing hand holds the grip, with the elbow kept high to keep the butt in the shoulder. If the elbow is down, the weapon can jump out of the shoulder when it’s fired.
The recoil from the SMG isn’t much of a kick; it is more like a rocking feeling. Firing on automatic, it’s best to fire in bursts of two to three rounds at a time. Anymore and it’s most likely that after three rounds the rest will be off target due to the recoil action, which kicks up and to the right. Your breathing pattern is also important as the weapon’s barrel will move up and down in the aim as you inhale and exhale. Therefore, when firing the SMG – like all weapons – I always found that it’s best to take in a deep breath, then exhale about a third of your breath and hold it, check your aim and fire.
The 9mm Browning semi-automatic pistol, like most others, is a totally different weapon to hold and aim, and generally speaking, the shorter the barrel the more difficult it is to be accurate. Again, in the standing position, the cradling hand and body is turned slightly towards the target. The firing arm and hand is held almost straight, forced forwards into the cradling hand towards the target with the pistol barrel like a direct extension of the arm. The firing hand grips the pistol grip with the middle two fingers, with the little finger just resting but not gripping too much. If you grip and pull in with the little finger the barrel is pulled downwards and the rounds will strike low on the target. Therefore, with the pistol held in a direct line with the firing arm, the barrel becomes like a pointing finger.
