The British Army in Northern Ireland 1975-77

by Ken Wharton

  On day six of the strike, the UFF announced that it might be forced to ‘coerce’ loyalists in Northern Ireland into supporting the UUAC strike. Ian Paisley, then leader of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), reiterated his belief that the strike had already been a success even if at some point it had to be called off. However a spokesman for the UUAC stated that there was ‘no chance’ of the strike being called off.

  On the evening of the 8th, a Co Fermanagh man, Robert Crawford (36) was visiting Belfast and was drinking in what he must have considered a safe Loyalist area. His heavy border accent however may have led to him being mistaken for a Catholic from the Republic. Whatever the reason, it was sufficient ‘evidence’ for UFF members to drag him outside the bar in which he was drinking and shoot him in the head. His body, like so many others before him, was dumped in the Forthriver Road in North West Belfast.

  During major Loyalist riots in conjunction with the strike in Portadown and Armagh City, over a dozen RUC officers were injured. Amongst the injured policemen were two inspectors who were hit on their heads with slabs of paving stone as they walked along Bridge Street, Portadown. The rioters blocked off much of the town centre with farm machinery for most of the day and businesses ground to a halt. The police were stoned by the striking Loyalists and several police vehicles were set on fire. In Belfast, bombs destroyed a drapery shop and an electricity pylon and also a petrol filling station and a branch of Mackies supermarket. At one shop, a brave staff member picked up a device and carried it into the street and kicked it away. It exploded, blowing a three-foot crater in the road and badly burning his hand. The petrol filling station on the Crumlin Road was severely damaged and a fireman had a lucky escape when the fuel in the pumps exploded.

  Three people would die on the 10th and all would be Protestants. The UFF killed another fellow Protestant – the reasons would appear to be his failure to observe the Loyalist strike. Bus driver Harry Bradshaw (46), father of five, had previously been assaulted during the strike as he drove along the Shankill Road. On the day he was murdered, he had stopped his bus to pick up passengers on Crumlin Road. One UFF gunman – Kenneth McClinton – had waited in a queue and was the last to get on the bus. As he did so, he looked straight into the driver’s eyes and shot him twice in the head at very close range. He calmly got off and walked into nearby Queensland Street, where an accomplice took the weapon, whilst he went back to the bar where he had been drinking in order to finish off his drink. McClinton was later convicted and jailed for murdering Mr Bradshaw.

  On the very same day, a car bomb, very likely the work of either the UFF or the UVF, exploded at a garage on the Crumlin Road and killed another Protestant, this time a UDR soldier. Corporal John Geddis (26) had been looking for petrol during the strike and he and his wife found one open and pulled in to fill up. A car bomb, likely to have been planted by Loyalist paramilitaries, angered at the station remaining open, exploded and killed the part-time soldier and badly injured his wife, who received severe facial burns. The couple, who lived in Ballygomartin, had been searching for petrol for quite some time before they found an open site; the owner had been warned by striking Loyalists to close, but had ignored their warnings. Ironically, the soldier’s father was one of the strike leaders. If it was indeed Loyalists, it meant that they had killed three fellow Protestants in the space of just a few days.

  Before that fateful day of the 10th ended, another Protestant would be dead, this time a UFF member, William Hobbs (44) and another, James McClurg, would be fatally injured. The two Loyalist paramilitaries had been planting incendiary devices in a row of derelict houses in Seagoe Gardens on the Monkstown Estate, Newtownabbey as part of the Loyalist strike protest. There was an explosion by the only door in the house and as the windows were all boarded up, the two UFF men were trapped in the house and overcome by the heat and fumes. Hobbs died at the scene and McClurg, who had managed to jump from an upstairs window, died on 7 June.

  There might well have been a fourth – and a further Shankill Butchers’ victim – death that day when a man came close to death. The Shankill Butchers kidnapped and tortured a Catholic civilian in Belfast. He was found in an alleyway off the Shankill Road after the gang had beaten and stabbed him, and slashed his wrists. More importantly, he survived the horrific attack and was able to give the RUC their first decent leads in the hunt for the psychopathic killers. Gerard McLaverty had been found in a terrible condition in Emerson Street, close to the Shankill Road. The survivor’s testimony was to prove extremely helpful in ending Murphy’s reign of terror. The first of the Butchers was arrested a few short days later.

  On the 11th, a young soldier aged 18 was badly wounded when his unit’s mobile patrol was ambushed by PIRA gunmen at Loughall Road in Armagh City. One of the rounds entered his vehicle and he was hit in the back. The high velocity round, likely to have been fired by an Armalite, passed through him and narrowly missed another soldier. He was badly injured but fortunately survived the wound. Shots were returned at the gunmen but they escaped. The day after, a tanker driver defying the strike had an amazing escape when Loyalist gunmen opened fire as he drove along the Donegal Road, towards the M1 motorway in Belfast. Despite a hail of bullets entering his windscreen, he escaped with nothing more than cuts. A woman walking past at the time was also untouched, but she had to be treated for shock. In Portadown, a gang of masked youths attacked a policeman’s home in the Brownstown area and hurled rocks and other objects at the house where the officer was asleep with his family. The house was badly damaged, but there were no injuries.

  On the same day, at Larne, Co Antrim, there were a number of ferry sailings to and from the port despite the fact that workers were still on strike. To mark the death of Harry Bradshaw, who had been killed by Loyalist paramilitaries, bus services were halted. However elsewhere in the Province, the situation appeared to be stabilising, with electricity supplies continuing as normal and with apparently fewer street disturbances. In Donaghdee, Co Down the Copelands Hotel was destroyed in a suspicious fire. The incident is alleged to have followed the decision of the owners to stay open during the strike.

  MY FIRST ENCOUNTER WITH A BOMB!

  Dave Judge, Royal Green Jackets

  In Londonderry early in our two-year tour; it had to be early in the tour as it was the first explosion I was to attend. Later we had so many they were commonplace and nothing to write home about! This was a little on the funny side and I suppose wasn’t a bad one to be broken in with so to speak! Not far from our base at Waterloo car park there had been an explosion reported; we didn’t know where it had occurred and really we found out about it by a member of the RUC asking for a military presence I think.

  It was so long ago I can’t remember who was with me or any other details other than as follows. There was no type of brick or multiple patrolling back then; you were just told you are on patrol at ‘x’ time on ‘x’ day etc. We went to a street at the top of a long road and we turned right into the street where the device had exploded. There were press men there and I think some TV cameras too. A bomb had been placed/thrown onto the doorstep of a large three-storey dwelling; the whole front wall had fallen into the street. That was as much as I could see. I wasn’t given any kind of briefing as to what had happened and was just told to keep any crowds back at a safe distance.

  We had been there for quite a long time and things had gone quiet. It was basically all done and dusted. Then I heard a voice, but I couldn’t see where it came from initially. Then I saw a bloke in his pyjamas, staring out of one of the high up windows. It turned out that he was a policeman and he had slept through the blast and the front wall falling down into the street! We later found out that it was a police house for single policemen. He had slept with ear plugs in so that he could get a good night’s kip! It was just so funny to find he was in blue striped jim-jams and had slept right through it all!

  On the 12th a Justice of the Peace – Douglas Deering (52) – was killed at his business in Roslea, Co
Fermanagh. He was looking after his shop, which included a petrol filling service, when a car pulled in, presumably for fuel. As his assistant went out to serve, two men got out of the car and walked into the shop where they shot Mr Deering dead. Leaving the father of three in a pool of blood, they calmly walked out and drove away. That the JP was murdered is in no doubt; what is in doubt, is who murdered him. The Provisionals are the more likely suspects and they were in a murderous campaign against the judiciary at the time. However, Mr Deering was a Protestant and had defied the Loyalist strike in staying open and it was a possibility that he was killed by either the UVF or the UFF.

  On day 13 of the UUAC Strike, which fell on 13 May, the United Unionist Action Council (UUAC) called an end to it. The strike had failed to stop many aspects of industry and commerce, although predictably enough Ian Paisley declared the strike a success. Many however considered that in comparison with the Ulster Workers’ Council Strike of 1974 the UUAC strike was not a success. The RUC reported later that three people had been killed, 41 RUC officers injured, and 115 people charged with offences committed during the strike.

  On the 14th, one of the most enduring legends, indeed mysteries, of the Troubles was born. An undercover soldier, Captain Robert Nairac, GC (29) of the Grenadier Guards was abducted from a pub near Crossmaglen and, having been tortured, was shot dead. His body has never been recovered, and he remains the only soldier killed during the Troubles whose remains have never been found. He had served with the Grenadier Guards and later was attached to Intelligence. Although he worked in civvie clothes, he had been photographed in uniform speaking with locals whilst on patrol in the Ardoyne area of North Belfast. During his time in Northern Ireland he had been attached to 14th Int, also known as Det 14 and had almost certainly trained with the SAS, although it is unlikely that he was a member of that Regiment.

  On the night that he disappeared, he had checked out of his base at Bessbrook Mill and had driven a ‘Q’ car towards Drumintree, close to Forkhill, some three miles from the Irish border. He was armed with a pistol – thought to have been a semi-automatic Star 9mm – and had driven to the Three Steps Inn near Drumintree. Over the years, he had perfected a Northern Ireland accent and had taken to calling himself Danny McErlean, claiming to be a ‘stickie’ (a volunteer in the OIRA). He sang several Irish rebel songs during the course of the evening, including The Broad Black Brimmer, telling people that he was ‘Danny from Belfast.’ Towards the end of the evening, he was seen to go to the exit of the pub where he was grabbed by two, possibly three men and dragged outside into the car park. There was a scuffle and he may have tried to break away and possibly even reached his own car before being dragged into another car and driven off.

  Where he was taken next remains a mystery, but he was badly beaten and tortured, before being driven to a bridge at Ravensdale, Co Louth a few miles north east of Dundalk inside the Irish border. He was again beaten but managed, even in his weakened state to grab a pistol from one of his captors but was not strong enough to get away. He was beaten again and one of his killers – later convicted in court for Nairac’s murder – stated that Nairac, himself a Catholic, knowing that he was going to die, asked for a priest in order to make absolution; this was refused, although one of his abductors, Terry McCormick, allegedly posed as a priest in order to extract a confession from him. His captors put a gun to his head, but it misfired and one can only begin to speculate at the sheer amount of terror and unnecessary suffering this bloodied, but defiant soldier endured. Minutes later he was shot in the head and, it is thought, died instantly. During his brutal, bloody torture, he was punched, kicked, smashed around the head with a heavy piece of wood and pistol-whipped.

  What happened to his body after that is known only to the PIRA men who disposed of it and to the Provisionals’ Army Council. What is certain is that from that day to the publication of this book, he has never been seen or heard of again. There is much speculation that his body was so badly mutilated – one theory is that he was tortured with electric drills and angle grinders – that the IRA could not allow his terrible injuries to be made public. Whether or not they considered that this would upset their own supporters in the Nationalist communities or their adoring Irish-American financial backers is of course, open to debate. His killers told the court that Nairac never once gave any information and resisted to the very end. McCormick has been on the run in the USA, guarded by his sycophantic Irish-American supporters and unbothered by a sympathetic US legal system. Rumours persist that Nairac’s mutilated body was ground up in an animal feed machine; others claim that he was buried in the Republic but that his body was later exhumed and reburied somewhere even more remote. Like some of the children murdered by the sick Ian Brady and his equally sick accomplice Myra Hindley and buried on the Yorkshire/Lancashire moors, his body is unlikely to ever turn up.

  The Republicans have done much to demonise the image of this undoubtedly brave, if foolhardy young soldier. They have claimed that he was involved in the Miami Showband Massacre on 31/7/75 (see Chapter 7); that he was involved in the cross-border shooting of an IRA man near Dundalk – John Green on 10/1/75 (see Chapter 1) – and that he was also involved with Loyalist murder gangs. This author does not believe that he was a member of the SAS; involved with, even seconded to, but not a member. Further, this author believes that the claims of his collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries are untrue. One former soldier told the author in an off-the-record conversation: ‘When I met him, I could see that he was arrogant and reckless; he was a disaster waiting to happen.’

  Captain Nairac’s elderly and distraught parents made an emotional appeal on television for information on the whereabouts of their son’s body. Their pleas fell on the stone-deaf ears of the Provisional IRA. In November 1977, PIRA volunteer Liam Townson from Meigh, near Newry, was convicted of Nairac’s murder. He confessed to killing the British officer and implicated other members of the murder gang. Townson told arresting Gardaí officers: ‘I shot the British captain; he never told us anything. He was a great soldier.’ He was tried in Dublin, found guilty and sentenced to life imprisonment. He served 13 years before he was released in 1990. In 1978, the RUC arrested five men from the South Armagh area and charged three of them with murder. On 20 May 2008 an IRA man – Kevin Crilly from Jonesborough, South Armagh – who had been on the run in the USA, sheltered by Irish-American politicians and the pro-IRA USA Supreme Court, was arrested after returning to Northern Ireland. The following year he was finally charged with Nairac’s murder; in May 2010 he was sent for trial in Belfast. Crilly was cleared on all counts in April 2011 as the judge considered that the prosecution failed to prove intention or prior knowledge on the part of Crilly.

  As previously stated, Captain Nairac has no known grave; he was posthumously awarded the George Cross, the second highest award that a British soldier can be awarded next to the coveted Victoria Cross. Speculation will continue for many, many more years. Nairac’s killing is one of those under investigation by the PSNI’s Historical Enquiries Team.

  FLYING THE FLAG IN BELFAST

  Tony Pearson, Royal Artillery

  I remember one time, whilst we were out on mobile patrol in Belfast, sometime in 1977, we were driving past one of hundreds of demolished buildings when one of my lads (Wigsy) shouts out: ‘Titch there’s a Union flag in the rubble: can we get it?’ ‘Yeah don’t see why not,’ says I. We dismounted, but naturally took up all-round defensive positions and, having scanned the area, I said: ‘Wigsy and Dog get the flag but search for booby-traps first; me and Skip will keep watch.’ After being satisfied that the area was clear, said flag was retrieved and we mounted up and carried on with the patrol.

  Later on, we were in the Smithfield Market area [close to where the Republican Divis Street meets Millfield] and we were receiving more than the usual amount of abuse and taunts from the locals, especially the black cab drivers. This amused us immensely and it was situation normal from the local PIRA-supporters and Brit-hat
ers. Just then a call came over the radio enquiring as to my location, which I duly gave. A brief pause and then I was ordered to return to base now and report to the Battery Ops room.

  When I got to there, I was greeted by a red-faced, growling and spitting Captain Cook, Ops room duty officer, who proceeded to give me a right bollocking. He informed me that I had been seen and reported by the RUC flying a Union flag from the back of my Land Rover. I explained what happened (omitting some incriminating evidence) but he was having none of it and I have to admit that we never got on. He then warned me for office, and when I questioned as to the reason, he spat back at me: ‘For attempting to start a riot!’

  Sure enough, next day, I was placed on Battery Commander’s orders. I was marched in to see Major John Cater who I used to drive for and who knew me well. He was a fair man and after Captain Cook gave his account of the incident, he was dismissed. Major Cater said to me ‘What happened Titch? And don’t forget I know you well, so let’s have the truth.’ I knew that he could see through me, so I gave him the true account of what happened and I thought he was going to bust a gut because he laughed so much, as did the BSM. ‘Well Titch,’ he says, ‘that has just cost you a £20 fine.’

  I didn’t really have a leg to stand on, so I accepted. He then said: ‘Titch: you are the only soldier I know who has been charged and fined for flying the Union flag; march out.’

  £20 was a lot of brass in them days; my missus was none too pleased.

  On the 16th an RAOC soldier attached to EOD was badly injured when he attempted to defuse a bomb which had been placed at the business premises of D. Nichol in Bedford Street, Belfast. As he was working on the device it detonated and he was badly cut by fragments of glass and shrapnel; he survived the injuries, but the four-storey building was gutted. The following day, the Provisionals planted a device at a car accessory shop in Belfast City Centre in York Street; there were no injuries, but a fierce blaze broke out and three fire crews were required to cope with the flames. Loyalists retaliated immediately, and a petrol bomb was hurled into a busy fruit and veg shop in the Ardoyne. The men – masked and armed – forced the staff and customers into the back; the device exploded and gutted the building, but there were no injuries. On the same day, PIRA gunmen shot at a UDR soldier as he guarded the fire station in Maghera, Co Londonderry. All the rounds missed, and the gunmen fled in a stolen car. On the 17th, a Gordon Highlander died in a car crash, ‘somewhere in Northern Ireland.’ Captain Richard Lamb had only recently celebrated his 29th birthday; no further details are known.