The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  Harold Wilson, Prime Minister, together with Merlyn Rees, held a meeting with Margaret Thatcher, the new leader of the Conservative Party, to brief her about a number of matters including Northern Ireland. It is alleged that the minutes of this meeting reveal that the British government was concerned about suggestions of collusion between the security forces, particularly the UDR, and Loyalist paramilitaries.

  John Doherty (29) was injured the previous month (see Chapter 8) in a UFF attack on the Harp Bar in Belfast city centre. On the 10th, he died of his injuries in the RVH.

  On the same day that the future Prime Minister met with the Government, a member of the Irish Police force – Gardaí Siochana – was killed by Republicans as he attempted to foil a bank raid near Dublin. Officer Michael Reynolds (27) was off-duty at the time and drove after the escaping robbers in the direction of Raheny, a coastal suburb of Dublin. He managed to grab one of the robbers but the accomplice shot him twice at very close range and he died immediately. The two robbers were both Republicans and had been members of Official Sinn Fein until two years earlier.

  PIRA’s credibility in relation to their much-holed ceasefire finally came to end when they indulged in yet another sectarian murder. John Snoddy (32) lived in the southern outskirts of Belfast and his only connection with Loyalists was that he was a committed Protestant and involved with the Orange Order. A murder gang from the IRA drove to his home and knocked on the door, pushing aside a child as he opened it and then entered the family’s lounge and shot Mr Snoddy at close range, killing him instantly. On the same night, the UVF attempted unsuccessfully to blow up a Catholic family in North Belfast.

  PIRA DISCIPLINE

  Jock 2413, Royal Artillery

  The Londonderry IRA’s finance officer was accused of dipping into the funds and got a double kneecapping for his pains. That same night, a footsie got a hold of a kid’s plastic doll, burned out the knees with a fag and posted it, along with a well-greased baton round through his letterbox for his wife. Later, it turned out that the fiddling charge was part of an Int sting and the IRA were forced to publish an apology in the ‘Republican News’. It goes to prove that ‘black ops’ can be sometimes funny. Believe it or not, despite being crippled by PIRA, he went back to his old job with them. I saw him in 1975, and he was walking like one of the Thunderbirds puppets.

  It is somewhat self-evident that when the knowledgeable Lost Lives describes the killing of any civilian by the Army the circumstances are ‘questionable’ or ‘disputed’, but the same terms are never applied to the death of a soldier or policeman. Therefore, whilst this author is indebted for research purposes to this publication, at times one has to take their descriptions with a pinch of salt. Late on the evening of Saturday 13th, a British Army patrol on the Catholic Turf Lodge observed two men with rifles. Under ROE they were allowed to fire and did so, hitting one of the men. The man, Leo Norney (17) was observed to fall and the second man picked up his rifle and ran off. The young man was a postman, employed by the Royal Mail and was not known to be a member of any Republican movement.

  As a consequence, his death is described as ‘disputed’ by the aforementioned publication. This author has no evidence to contradict this statement, but it is not beyond the realms of possibility, as happened a myriad number of times in such circumstances, that Sinn Fein are playing mind games. When a gunman was hit, dickers and other helpers would spirit away any weapons or spent cartridges, even the wounded or dead gunman himself. PIRA’s mouthpieces would soon be in action, flanked by the dead man’s grieving relatives, informing gullible, sensation-seeking journalists that the British Army had again killed an innocent Catholic for ‘… no reason at all.’ The Irish-American press would lap it up and the bleeding hearts of the British Left would see yet more ‘evidence’ of wrong-doing by the ‘Army of Occupation.’

  Is it not also possible that young Norney was simply – innocently but naively – doing a favour for a friend, and simply carrying the weapon? PIRA have never been backward at coming forward in relation to using children for their nefarious purposes. Whatever the ‘real’ reason – and one could speculate until the end of time – soldiers believed that they had acted correctly, and a young 17 year old was dead before his time. This author accepts that the boy was in all probability, innocent and his death is extremely regrettable and would latterly like to express his condolences to the Norney family.

  Later in this book, we will look at the allegations of collusion between the security forces and the Loyalist paramilitaries. Collusion is one of the most emotive of all Troubles-related subjects and the bleeding hearts of Sinn Fein will always have this word on their lips as they seek to prove that the Army colluded in the killings of Catholics by either overtly assisting or turning a blind eye to Loyalist paramilitary activities. However, suffice to say, it was a unit of the British Army which captured a Loyalist murder gang from the UFF and saw the murderers through to conviction after the murder of an innocent Catholic.

  On the night of the 14th, William Hardy (19) from the Catholic Lenadoon area of Belfast was drinking in a bar in the City Centre. He was abducted and bundled into a car by UFF gunmen and driven to the Protestant Shankill Road area. He was questioned and assaulted, before being driven to the vicinity of Rosebank Street, where, as one of his murderers admitted in court, he was forced to kneel and then shot in the back of the head. However, the shot was heard by a passing foot patrol from the Parachute Regiment and the men were observed driving off. The Paras forced the car to stop and searched it. In the confusion, one of the UFF killers had thrown the death weapon into the gutter and nothing was found in the car. Fortunately just before the occupants were released, an eagleeyed soldier spotted the pistol and the men were arrested. So much for collusion and no doubt the UFF would have pleaded along the lines of: ‘Sure fellas, you and us are on the same side!’

  Four days later, the UFF again behaved in an insidiously evil and cowardly way and killed another innocent Catholic. Brendan Doran (29) was not a member of any paramilitary organisation, nor had he expressed any strong political convictions; moreover, he was known to show the same respect to the customers in the shop in which he worked, irrespective of their religious beliefs. He was a Catholic who lived and worked in the Loyalist area of Cregagh a small estate in the south-eastern point of the city, a place where the late George Best honed his footballing skills as a child. Very early in the morning of 18 September, he was in the shop serving newspapers to customers, en-route for their places of employment. Masked UFF gunmen burst into the shop and shot him several times at close range; he died almost immediately, another innocent victim of a senseless slaying.

  On that same day, there was a series of bomb attacks on towns across the Province. The IRA claimed responsibility for some of the attacks thus putting further strain on the truce. Many commentators considered that the truce was effectively over by this time. In the modern idiomatic vernacular: ‘… tell us something we don’t already know.’

  On the 26th, a Leeds boy, Private David Wray (18) of the Prince of Wales’ Own, was shot and fatally wounded whilst on a routine foot patrol on the Creggan Estate in Londonderry. As the patrol was patrolling north east up Iniscarn Road with Derry City Cemetery on their right and were close to Linforts Drive when a single shot from an high velocity hunting rifle fired by an INLA gunman hit Private Wray in the right-hand side of his chest. He was rushed to Altnagelvin Hospital. He was terribly injured and died in hospital on 10 October with his parents at his bedside. He is buried in Killingbeck cemetery in the author’s hometown of Leeds. The author himself attended the funeral there of a dear friend, Anne Spellman in the summer of 1983.

  The England team struck at another soldiers’ pub on the mainland, this time at Maidstone in Kent. The local barracks was served by the ‘Hare and Hounds’ and was targeted by PIRA on the evening of the 29th. Extensive damage was caused but there were no serious injuries.

  Three soldiers died in the month of September, all as
a result of RTAs; true it wasn’t direct terrorist action, but they had died in Northern Ireland, directly or indirectly as a consequence of the Troubles. It still required the dispatching of three CVOs (Casualty Visiting Officers) to three families to make three solemn announcements concerning their loved ones.

  The UDR lost Sergeant William Millar (53) who died on 19 September and the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers lost Corporal David Llewellyn (21); he died on the 28th. Sergeant Millar it is thought was from Ballyesson, Co Down and Corporal Llewellyn was from Whitley Bay in the North-East of England. The 13/18 Hussars lost Barnsley boy Trooper Robert Barraclough (18) to an RTA also on the 28th.

  In contrast to the 30 lives lost the previous month, September witnessed the deaths of 25 people to the Troubles. Of these, three were British soldiers killed in RTAs and one was an Irish Policeman. An alarming 21 were innocent civilians of whom, 10 were Catholics and nine were Protestant; this figure included two civilians killed on the mainland. The Republicans were responsible for 11 deaths and Loyalists killed eight.

  10

  October

  If September had started badly with seven deaths on the first day, then as a direct consequence of the UVF’s desire to kill as many Catholics as possible, October was catastrophic with 11 people killed and one mortally wounded, on the second day of the month. The figure includes the deaths in a classic own goal explosion of four Loyalist terrorists. So sickening was the violence, even by their own murderous standards, that the British Government was forced to act and the day after the 11 deaths, the UVF was made a proscribed organisation. That it was made into an illegal organisation was no surprise; the surprise was that it took so long in coming.

  That day, that terrible day of 11 killings and 16 bombings – 13 of which were made by the UVF – began at Casey’s Bottling Plant, Millfield, Belfast. Millfield is close to the City Centre and is located close to the Catholic Divis Street and south of the Protestant Shankill. It employed mainly Catholics, many of whom would have had just a short walk to their place of work. Masked UVF gunmen entered the premises and singled out two sisters – Frances Donnelley (35) and Marie McGrattan (47) – daughters of the owners of the plant. The two women were forced to kneel and then were both shot dead; the two were Catholics. The gang – amongst who was the psychopathic leader of the Shankill Butchers, Lenny Murphy – then moved to another part of the premises. There they found two storemen, Gerard Grogan (18) Thomas Osborne (also 18) in the bottling room. Both young men were shot, with young Grogan dying instantly and Thomas Osborne being mortally wounded; he died in hospital 21 days later.

  During the research for this book, the author saw a photograph of the aftermath of this appalling attack. One victim is covered by a white sheet, her left arm is uncovered and splayed out in what the late writer Charles Whiting would have described as ‘the extravagant poses of the dead.’ Another lady lies there, uncovered and wearing blue jeans and a white top and white trainers; two other odd shoes lie around them. It is easy and almost clinical to write of sectarian murders but when one is confronted by the tragic and visual results of these attacks, the story becomes human and less clinical.

  The violence then moved eastwards over the River Lagan and into My Lady’s Road, north of the Ormeau Embankment and south of the Republican Short Strand. The UVF knocked at the door of the Winters’ residence where the manager of a Protestant pub – the London Bar – was collecting his father. He was shot and then chased through the house before he collapsed and was shot in the head as he lay helpless on the floor. Ronald Winters (26) was a Protestant and the manager of The London Bar where known UVF members were frequent drinkers. The author is not aware of the motive and the killing may have been as a consequence of a personal grudge.

  The afternoon was just three hours old when the UVF made a sectarian attack on a Catholic shop-owner in Carlisle Circus, North Belfast. Carlisle Circus sits at the junction of where the Loyalist Crumlin Road meets the Antrim Road and might be well described as a sectarian interface. Thomas Murphy (29) was a Catholic who ran his own photographic business and was singled out for killing. UVF gunmen shot the man dead before planting a device which exploded shortly after they had roared off in a stolen car. The blast wrecked the premises and severely wounded a passerby who lost a leg and part of an arm. The murderers were observed laughing and joking as they ran towards their vehicle.

  Footsies on Benares Street, Lower Falls area. (Mark ‘C’)

  The scene switched to the then, small village of Aldergrove outside Belfast. Today the site is now a major, bustling international airport but back in 1975 it was less well-known. McKenna’s Bar was a Catholic-owned and frequented pub in the village and it was the chosen venue for another UVF bomb and gun attack. A murder gang drove up to the pub and opened fire from the outside before throwing an explosive device through the pub window. Three people were injured in the attack, but John Stewart (35), a merchant navy sailor on leave was badly injured and died at the scene.

  Six Catholics were now dead and a seventh was dying in hospital; several had been injured, one had lost limbs and the day was far from over.

  Killyleagh is a sleepy village in Co Down which sits at the side of a quiet Lough, some 10 miles or so, north of Downpatrick. A UVF murder gang drove into the village in the late afternoon/early evening and approached the Catholic-owned Anchor Inn. They placed a device in the doorway and then drove away in their car in the direction of Bangor. The nowarning device exploded just as Mrs. Irene Nicholson (37) – ironically a Protestant – was walking past; the blast killed her instantly. Three UVF members from Bangor were later jailed for the murder which one of them claimed in court, was: ‘ … only a small one, to scare them!’

  Later that evening, proving to many neutral observers that there is perhaps some justice, four UVF members were killed in a classic ‘own goal’ explosion. En-route to plant a device in Coleraine, Co Londonderry, it exploded in their stolen car just outside the village of Farrenlester. The four members of the bombing team were all killed instantly: Mark Dodd (17); Fred Reid (28); Samuel Swanson (28) and Andrew Freeman (17). There was a touch of poignancy, when it was later revealed that Dodd was the son of an RUC officer who had been killed by PIRA four years earlier.

  Billy Wright of the Official IRA was accused of having taken part in a Dublin robbery but was acquitted. Unfortunately for him, he later made a statement to the Gardaí and he implicated a very prominent member of the Official IRA who had been Officer Commanding of the Dublin Unit. This person – believed to have been Dessie O’ Hare – had absconded to the Continent following the robbery but it is widely believed by the Gardaí Siochana that he returned specifically to ‘even the score’ with Billy Wright. On 2 October, he was shot and fatally wounded by machine-gun fire in his barber’s shop on Cabra Road, Dublin; he died in hospital on 19 October.

  That terrible day was at last over; 11 people were dead – six of them innocent victims of sectarian murder – and a twelfth was dying. The UVF would, within hours be declared illegal, but worse was to come; much worse.

  HUSH, HUSH IN MACRORY PARK

  Sergeant Dave Judge, 2nd Battalion, Royal Green Jackets

  I was on my second tour and we were based at Springfield Road RUC station with our TAOR being Macrory Park Belfast, just off the Whiterock Road and close to the Ballymurphy Estate. Our local patrols were in the area surrounding the SF base and this would typically have been of two hours’ duration; I must also confess that, with the passage of time, I can’t remember when we started doing those types of patrols, but I do remember that our base was 24 hour patrolling at this time. The tactic was that as one patrol returned, another one was just leaving. It meant that the local players never had chance for any respite. Over the years, they had gotten used to gaps between patrols and could move arms etc during the ‘lulls’ so to speak. Some patrols were mobile, using Land Rovers and some were foot patrols of about six men.

  Anyway, on this day, I was the section commander of this patrol
and it fell to me to plan where and for how long we were to be in any given area during the length of the patrol. At some stage, we entered the Westrock area which was to the rear of the SF base. The houses in that area were of a prefabricated design; they were probably built after the Second World War but they became a permanent feature probably due to cost. They were mainly painted white or cream in colour; some had badly grown hedges, around two feet high and some had posts in the ground but the fences had long since rotted away. It was generally a very run down estate of the worst kind!

  About a hundred yards or so inside the estate was an illegal drinking den. We had many an interesting visit to this place and you were always sure of spotting a few of the local players in there. After a few twists and turns through the estate, we turned a corner and there was a punch up consisting of about six to eight men/youths. As soon as they spotted my troops, the group scattered, leaving two slightly knocked about young men on the floor, and naturally we attended to them. They were only roughed up but one of them was close to hysterical. It seemed that there was more to this than I originally thought. It became clear that this was to have been a beating followed by a double murder or kneecapping for two! For their own safety, we arrested both of them and the hugely terrified chap couldn’t thank me enough, whilst his ‘oppo kept telling him to keep fucking quiet! I called for a Rover to take us into camp (Springfield Road police station) as this was the interrogation centre and police station nearest to us it was also Battalion HQ.