The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  On the 4th, as the US celebrated their ‘Independence Day’ the UVF marked the event with a series of four bombing attacks inside the Irish Republic, including the capital city of Dublin as though to comment on the Irish-American support for the Republican terrorists. The Loyalists – likely to have been UVF – detonated bombs in luxury hotels in Dublin, Limerick, Rosslare and Kilarney. The Gresham in O’Connell Street in Dublin was hit by a large device as were the Great Southerns in Rosslare and Kilarney and a young child was injured at the Royal George in Limerick where a wedding reception was taking place. Thankfully, there was no repeat of the carnage caused by the same terror group at Dublin/Monaghan in 1974. On that notable day for the USA, PIRA struck in the centre of Londonderry, hitting three economic targets. A 50lb device caused Kelly’s Drapery shop in Foyle Street to be demolished after a major explosion; McIntyre’s Boutique was destroyed and the Broomhill Hotel also suffered extensive damage. The Belfast Brigade also ‘celebrated’ the USA’s big day with a series of concerted and well-coordinated attacks on the Army and RUC hitting Suffolk and Glassmullan camps and North Queen’s Street police station as well as firing shots at a foot patrol in Finaghy Road North.

  On the 6th, Samuel Gardiner (26) who was wounded in an IRA attack at the Goodyear factory in Craigavon (see previous chapter) died from his wounds. His only ‘crime’ was to have shared a car with a UDR soldier. Later that same day, following a PIRA ‘kangaroo court’ the West Belfast Brigade’s ‘nutting squad’ were called to deal with a sentence of death placed on Andersonstown man Vincent Heatherington (24) who was suspected of being a ‘Fred’ in the pay of the British MRF. Abducted on the 4th, he had been held in a ‘safe house’ in Andytown and had been interrogated and tortured, either physically or mentally by his captors. He was beaten and then hooded and forced to kneel before a PIRA executioner fired two rounds into the back of his head. His lifeless body was found on the Glen Road in Andersonstown by two youths walking past Colin Glen Bridge. As Martin Dillon in his excellent book ‘The Dirty War’ (Arrow Books, 1990) writes: ‘In this instance, the IRA was letting everyone know the penalty for ‘treachery.’ ‘The Belfast Brigade… accepts responsibility for the execution of Vincent Heatherington. After extensive and exhaustive enquiries, he was found guilty of the highest form of treachery – complicity with British Forces.’ (p.89). Having read both the Dillon book and a further article by Lost Lives editor, David McKittrick, I remain convinced that Heatherington was probably not a ‘Fred’ but may have been planted by British Intelligence to sow disinformation within the ranks of the Provisionals. At the same time, there is some speculation that he was sacrificed by an informer within the ranks of the West Belfast Brigade to deflect attention away from himself. There is, according to the writer Martin Dillon, much to link this death with another West Belfast man’s death in 1977; that of Myles McGrogan [see Chapter 28].

  The following morning, a Loyalist murder gang from the UDA/UFF targeted a Catholic shopkeeper at his greengrocer’s shop on the Upper Newtownards Road. They calmly parked their stolen motorbike outside the shop and one of the men walked in as though to do business and shot James Rooney (45) father of five at very close range, fatally wounding him before walking outside and driving off on the motorbike. Mr Rooney died in hospital the following day from his wound. His widow – the family commuted every day from Andersonstown – was touched by the outpouring of support she received from her Protestant customers and revealed that she had been begged to carry on trading. She regretted that this was impossible and yet another senseless sectarian slaying had cost both communities dearly. On the same day as the murder of Mr Rooney, the IRA attempted to kill a part-time member of the UDR at his place of work in a timber yard in Newry, Co Down. Masked men fired four shots at the soldier but instead hit a fellow worker, causing several bad wounds; the UDR man managed to jump out of a window and escaped the assassination attempt. Within the hour, the IRA decided that they didn’t wish their community in the Antrim Road area to patronise a newly opened supermarket which had been built on the site of the old Capitol Cinema. A large device caused extensive damage to the premises and an Army EOD team narrowly escaped death and injury in the delayed explosion.

  The Londonderry Brigade was busy again the same day when they fired shots at a routine foot patrol of the Royal Artillery from the top of Rossville Flats. One of their snipers fired whilst a female member of the public was walking past the soldiers and both she and a soldier were hit and wounded. The female was hit in the thigh and the soldier received an arm injury. A follow-up search of the notorious Republican flats netted an American Armalite rifle; the Brigade attacked two further properties causing extensive damage on the following day.

  That day – the 8th – finally ended with another attack by PIRA on an off-duty UDR soldier as he left his full-time job in Lurgan for the day. His car was riddled by bullets from a sub-machine gun but whilst extensive damage was caused to the car, the soldier survived unscathed.

  In 1976, the Newtownabbey area of Belfast was known to be still mixed; today it is very much Protestant/Loyalist. In what the SDLP claimed was: ‘… a deliberate, murderous campaign to drive Catholics from Newtownabbey …’ the UFF forced their way into a house in Longlands Road and shot dead Rosaleen MacDonald (24) in front of her toddler child and tiny baby, leaving her lying in a pool of blood in front of her distraught child. They then chased her husband Mervyn (26) through the house, shooting him dead as he attempted to escape through the back door. Seamus who was two and his baby sister Margaret were orphaned in the senseless sectarian slaughter of their parents. The following day’s headlines read: ‘Slaughter In Front Of The Innocents,’ as the children’s relatives struggled to comfort the infants. Even if one didn’t have the benefit of hindsight, it is still impossible to understand how murdering the parents of two babies could possibly advance the Loyalist cause. Seamus would now be 38 (at the time of writing) and Margaret would be 36. Perhaps a Loyalist spokesman might be prepared to apologise to them? There are contrasting opinions on the forced sectarian removals and a Protestant told the author ‘Parts of nearby Bawnmore such as Dandy Street and Longlands were mainly Protestant – they had their own Orange Band – but are now 100% Republican. In that area, it was the Prods who were forced to move out.’

  Scottish troops in an area of Bawnmore, Belfast. (Mark ‘C’)

  Later that day, PIRA gunmen fired almost a dozen shots at an Army VCP in Middletown, Co Armagh on the A3, just a few hundred yards from the border with the Republic. No soldiers were hit, but in returning fire, they claimed two terrorists hit and wounded. The men were forced to retreat back over the border with their wounded, no doubt to receive a welcome as ‘freedom fighter’ and then medical attention from either a struck-off Irish doctor or a sympathetic medical man.

  On the 10th, the KOBR were again in action on what for them was a most eventful tour. A four-man team, part of a two-vehicle mobile had an incredible escape on the Suffolk Road in West Belfast when a team of PIRA gunmen, concealed in an upstairs window of a derelict house fired several bursts from at least two Armalite rifles; at least 26 rounds impacted in or around their Land Rover. Several rounds hit the superstructure of the vehicle and several more passed between the startled troops and ricocheted into the road where civilians were going about their everyday business. The unscathed but shocked troops dived from their vehicles and well-rehearsed drills and professionalism kicked in. The four soldiers, Corporal Harkness and Privates Carruthers, Rowlands and Walker – quickly established the firing point. They could see that the shots were coming from a house some 30 yards away. Four of the troops assaulted the front of the house and burst in only to find the gunmen jumping over a 6’ garden wall. Whilst his comrades secured the house, Private Carruthers hoisted himself onto the wall and tried to fire at the gunmen who were about to get into what turned out to be a stolen car. He was unable to do so, as innocent people were in the way. He quickly informed the patrol commander and a quick radio me
ssage enabled a snap VCP to be thrown up a short distance away. Based on the car colour and registration details provided by Private Carruthers, the car was stopped. All three gunmen were arrested and several Armalites recovered.

  Thomas McKenzie (45) was a native of Northern Ireland and he was a Protestant and lived in the Newtownards Road in East Belfast; he was just unfortunate to have an English accent, having worked in England for a number of years. That was sufficient justification for a group of Republican thugs – who clearly sought to emulate the Loyalist ‘Shankill Butchers – to sentence him to death. He was observed in Divis Street and, added his ‘foreign’ accent, the fact that he was also a stranger was their perverted justification to kill him. Mr McKenzie was brutally stabbed to death, suffering no less than 13 deep, agonising wounds. His mutilated body was dumped close to the Divis Street flats.

  Over the course of the next four days, the ranks of both wings of the IRA were thinned by three members as a combination of the UFF and the ever endemic risk of own goal explosions killed men from the Belfast and Co Tyrone brigades. Gerard Gilmore (19) was a member of the Official IRA and was a resident of Co Donegal in the Republic. On the night of the 13th, he was on what a spokesman for the OIRA described as ‘vigilante duty’ close to the Shore Road in North Belfast. The Shore Road, one of the main arterial routes in and out of Belfast passes through both Republican and Loyalist areas and it is thought that either he strayed into a UDA/UFF patrol or that they had entered a Republican area. Either way, he was shot in the head by Loyalists and mortally wounded. He was found close to the rear of the Boundary Bar and rushed to hospital; he died en-route.

  Four days later, two members of the Provisionals were in the process of transporting a large amount of explosives from the Irish Republic to an unspecified target inside the North. Their vehicle had just reached Killeter Road in Castlederg, Co Tyrone when the volatile explosives became unstable and exploded. The car was reduced to scrap metal and PIRA members Peter McElcar (24) and Patrick Cannon (20) were blown to pieces. The Provisionals were also involved in another death that day as they targeted two off-duty members of the RUC. Gordon Liddle (28) was a postman, employed at Newtownbutler Post Office and was en-route to work on the morning of the 17th when he triggered a bomb which was intended for other members of his family who were part-time policemen. He was mortally wounded by the blast at Drumgole, Co Fermanagh and died shortly afterwards. In Omagh, the Army EOD defused at small device which had been left in a wholesaler’s warehouse close to the centre of the town. Initially the detonator had fired, but the explosives failed to explode and the building was saved. However for the third time in just over a month, PIRA ordnance was found by children and it was only by a miracle that no children were hurt. In the latest instance several schoolchildren found a hand grenade on Barrack Street, Strabane and handed it to a teacher. A nearby Army EOD made the grenade harmless.

  On the 14th, another soldier from the King’s Own Border Regiment was wounded, this time on the Whiterock Road. He was Private Armstrong of Arnhem Company and was riding ‘shotgun’ in the back of a Pig when he was hit in the shoulder with a round from an Armalite. The sniper was thought to have been concealed in the City Cemetery; Private Armstrong joined two of his wounded comrades in the MPH. [The author is indebted to Major Andrew MacDonald of the KOBR for this information from his Regiment’s publication The Red Diamond, and also for that relating to the incidents on 3 and 10 July.]

  On the 15th, five PIRA terrorists escaped from Green Street Special Court in Dublin. The escape took place when they placed an explosive device against the inner wall of the court whilst the court was in recess for lunch. At the same time another PIRA member placed an explosive device against an outer wall. Both devices exploded at the same time creating a corridor for them to escape. However during the confusion and thick dust created by the explosions, one of them – Donal Murphy – took a wrong turn and was arrested inside the courtroom. The remainder, Jim Monaghan, Joe Reilly, John Hogan and Michael O’Rourke, managed to escape. Monaghan, Reilly and Hogan were arrested by Special Branch a short distance away at Granby Place. O’Rourke headed towards O’Connell Street, hailed a taxi and escaped to north Co Dublin. He subsequently made his way to America where he was eventually arrested.

  The Provisionals planted two bombs in Castledawson, Co Londonderry, but either intentionally or through a problem of communication, failed to notify the authorities of the second device. Villagers fleeing from the first bomb almost ran head-on into the path of the second. Fortunately the RUC spotted the second device and it exploded harmlessly once the people had been taken to a place of safety. However, three women were injured by the first blast in Main Street, planted in a horsebox, and were taken to hospital. In Lisburn, a lone Catholic youth was spotted by a Loyalist murder gang and they fired four shots at him but all missed and the youth was able to escape. On the same day, a mobile patrol of three Army Land Rovers was hit by an IRA device planted at the side of Glen Road, Andersonstown. Several soldiers were treated for shock, but a 19-year old girl who was passing the device was injured; clearly the IRA had no qualms about killing or injuring one of their own just so long as they were able to strike a blow against the Brits.

  On Wednesday 21 July, the British Ambassador to Ireland was killed in a PIRA landmine attack. Christopher Ewart-Biggs (55) had only been in his appointment in Dublin for two weeks and he had taken previous precautions to avoid such an incident by varying his route many times a week. As he drove towards his residence – at Glencairn, Sandyford outside of Dublin – approximately 150 yards away, a land mine with approximately 200lbs of explosives detonated just as his car passed. The huge device was hidden in a culvert and was triggered by remote control. Both Ewart-Biggs and fellow passenger and civil servant Judith Cooke (26) were killed instantly. Driver Brian O’Driscoll and another passenger, Brian Cubbon, the highest-ranking civil servant in Northern Ireland at the time, were badly injured. Merlyn Rees, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, was originally to have travelled in the car as well.

  Miss Cooke was from Victoria in London and was one of life’s talented people, her future cut short by Irish terrorists. She was once described by Merlyn Rees as ‘…exceptionally bright….someone we have all marked for higher things.’ The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had escaped, but before the Troubles had run their course, several Members of Parliament would be killed by PIRA and INLA. The Republic launched a man-hunt involving 4,000 Gardaí and 2,000 soldiers. The British Prime Minister, James Callaghan and the Irish Taoiseach Liam Cosgrave were united and Cosgrave said: ‘… this atrocity fills all decent Irish people with a sense of shame.’ James Callaghan condemned the assassins as a: ‘… common enemy whom we must destroy or be destroyed by.’ Thirteen suspected members of the IRA were arrested during raids as the British and Irish governments attempted to apprehend the killers, but no one was ever convicted of the killings.

  Several hundred miles north, as Gardaí Siochana and the British Diplomatic Service were dealing with aftermath of the assassination, Royal Engineers Sergeant David Evans (28) was also killed by an IRA bomb. The father of two young children was from Wiltshire and it is thought that he had been attached to the Royal Artillery. He was stationed at Ebrington Barracks in Londonderry and had just returned there to rest, when a device planted underneath his bed exploded. It had been smuggled into the rest area by three civilian workers – security vetted and trusted – working on behalf of the Provisionals. As soon as the Royal Engineer laid down, it exploded, mortally wounding him; he died very shortly afterwards. A further device was found underneath another soldier’s bed some 10 days afterwards but it failed to explode. The three civvie workers were all convicted of murder and jailed for long periods. On the same day, a Loyalist murder gang cruising through the Republican Ardoyne spotted a lone Catholic man on Berwick Street and fired a total of six shots at him, hitting him the back and badly wounding him.

  PIRA activity was reaching a crescen
do during the summer of 1976 and their bombing campaign was in evidence throughout the Province. On Saturday 24th, two devices exploded at the rear of the Charles Hurst car showroom in Belfast’s Adelaide Street. Unseen by the Army, two IRA men had planted the bombs in plastic carrier bags and they exploded without warning, causing extensive damage. Minutes later in York Street, fire bombs wrecked several shops, including the Regency Furniture store, although the Army managed to defuse several others near the store. Another IRA bombing unit then detonated further bombs in Alexander Devon’s Paint Shop on the Albertbridge Road and the resulting blaze completely gutted the premises. In nearby Albert Street, another device was placed outside Reid’s Car Showrooms and an Army EOD made an attempt to defuse it. However it too exploded and severe damage was caused to the building and many cars were destroyed. Minutes later, Robinson’s and Cleaver’s shop in Donegal Place was evacuated after several explosive devices were left there. One of the devices detonated but other than a small fire, no further damage was caused. Finally, in one of over a dozen incidents in or around the city centre, a timber merchant on the Springfield Road was firebombed and over 200 telegraph poles belonging to the GPO were burned to ashes.