Sharing the Secret

by Nick van der Bijl

  In the midst of the disruptions of Options, when Union Rail proposed to drive the Channel Tunnel High Speed Link Rail from London to Paris and Brussels past Templer Barracks, the Ministry of Defence took advantage of defence reconfiguration to declare that it was ‘by no means certain that the Intelligence Centre will be able to remain in Ashford’. In many respects, the Barracks had outgrown the Joint nature of the Corps and within the year, the former US Air Force intercept base at Chicksands near Bedford had been identified by Brigadier Michael Laurie, the new Director, as a suitable replacement with transfer projected for 1996/1997. Screened by woods, Chicksands is a striking military base that is overlooked by the Officers Mess housed in the imposing 12th century Gilbertine Priory that had been home to nuns and monks for 400 years until the 1538 Dissolution of the Monasteries. From 1576 until 1938 the Priory was owned by the Osborn family and then during the war, it was used as a RAF Y Station supporting Bletchley Park. It was briefly occupied by the Intelligence Corps associated with MI8.

  On 1 June 1996, Intelligence and Security Group (United Kingdom) reformed as 2 Military Intelligence Battalion to support Land Command. The separation of Intelligence and Security was merged into Military Intelligence thus:

  • 3 Military Intelligence Company: 3rd Division and its subordinate brigades and 32 (Commando) Intelligence Section.

  • 4 Military Intelligence Company: 5 Airborne and 24 Air Mobile Brigades Intelligence Sections. The reforming of 89 Parachute Intelligence Section as 41 Airborne Intelligence Section was not entirely successful.

  • 5 Military Intelligence Company; Security Company (West).

  • 6 Military Intelligence (Training) Company.

  The move to Chicksands was made on time during the tenure of Brigadier Laurie and as the Corps establishment increased to about 1,350. One organisational change was the shrinking of the Directorate into a small staff with the balance of posts helping to create HQ Defence Intelligence and Security Centre. Warrant Officer 1 Helen Loughborough was the first woman to be appointed the Corps Regimental Sergeant Major.

  The Defence School of Intelligence at Chicksands consists of several wings that included Bletchley (Signals Intelligence), Brackenbury (Applied Intelligence, formerly Operational Intelligence). Kell (Counter-Intelligence) and Medmenham (Imagery Intelligence) while the Defence College of Intelligence encapsulates the Schools of Intelligence, Languages at Beaconsfield, Photography at RAF Cosford and Military Survey at Hermitage. Templer Wing alone retained the connections with Intelligence Corps trade training of junior officers and other ranks. It was later named Templer Company.

  At Sandhurst, increased applications for Corps commissions were subjected to rigorous selection Boards chaired by the Deputy Colonel Commandant. Other rank recruitment remained equally rigorous with interviews at an Army Careers Office and two days of assessment at an Army Development and Selection Centre. Phase I Basic Training was moved from the Deport to the Army Training Regiments at Winchester and Pirbright at which Intelligence Corps Soldiers Under Training attended the fourteen week Common Military Syllabus Recruits course. Several Intelligence Corps officers and NCOs were Directing Staff. The Operator Intelligence and Security trade became Operator, Military Intelligence and although the skill set remained the same, the language in Army Life: Your Guide to the Intelligence Corps changed to:

  fusing together information from a wide variety of sources to create a profile of the enemy’ … It’s about identifying the holes in our defences, using investigative skills where the nation and Army are weak … You also have a big hand in shaping security strategy, gaining security and risk management qualifications along the way.

  After two years, other ranks specialize in one of four roles. Territorial Army soldiers receive the same training and operational opportunities. The explosion in digitalization and airwaves loaded with information on landlines, mobile phones and information technology systems gave Signals Intelligence Analysts increased opportunities and widened their platforms from lightweight equipment carried in Bergens to medium systems in armoured personnel carriers to heavy infrastructure in buildings. Signals Intelligence Linguists attend eighteen month language course that blend writing, history, colloquialisms, customs and non vocal communications. People have always been a major intelligence resource and the once dysfunctional Human Intelligence resources were assembled into the Defence Human Intelligence Unit. Although desirable, a language is not a necessity since Human Intelligence can be achieved using interpreters and Signals Intelligence Linguists.

  Northern Ireland

  By the beginning of the 1990s, Northern Ireland appeared to be nearing a solution. Now 12 Intelligence and Security Company numbered 230 all ranks, about a quarter of the Corps establishment. Although Information Technology was enhancing the performance of the Intelligence Cycle, the rationalization of military operations led to 122 (8 Brigade) and 123 (39 Brigade) Intelligence Sections being reduced in size while 121 (HQ Northern Ireland) Intelligence Section formed an enlarged All Sources Cell. When a Rathfriland farmer was murdered by loyalists in 1990 on the pretext that he was associated with the IRA and Sinn Fein then identified an opportunity to accuse the Army of partiality, this signalled a controversial thirteen years during which the reputation of the Intelligence Corps was tested. In 1991, 12 Company reformed as the Force Intelligence Unit (Northern Ireland):

  • 120 Security Section remained as the Counter-Intelligence Company with 1 (Protective Security), 2 (Records), 3 (Security Education and Training), 4 (Screening) and 5 (Security Intelligence) Detachments.

  • Intelligence Support Company was formed from the Brigade Intelligence Sections and Close Observation Platoon Teams (North) and (South) at Ballykelly and Portadown.

  • Intelligence Database Management emerged from 125 Intelligence Company to manage Information Technology. The upgrading of two major networks and modernizing capabilities was a good example of the ‘core’ skills of the Corps achieving the objectives.

  • Special Military Intelligence Unit (Northern Ireland) was placed under command of the Force Intelligence Unit and remained located in the Green Hut at RUC Castlereagh. Often assumed to be an ‘undercover’ name, it was the colour of its accommodation that aided travel directions thus ‘On entry, after the check-point, follow the one way circuit and once past the car wash, we are in the green hut on the left hand side!!’ The office was permanently manned to include JNCO usually based at RUC Knock on night duty.

  On its third iteration and following a directive that off-duty social facilities be provided within the barracks for Intelligence Corps, and their dependents, a new Greenfly Club was built in Thiepval Barracks during the early 1990s. The Greenfly was the latest in a long list of clubs, such as the 10 Intelligence and Security Company ‘Green Dragon Club’ in Hong Kong and the HQ 5 Security Company ‘Quick Drop Club’ in Hannover, that permitted Intelligence Corps to entertain and develop liaisons outside other Messes, except that most were self-financed and not infrequently ‘do it yourself’ builds. The ‘Greenfly Club’ carried on the tradition but was unique in that it also fielded several sports teams. Previously in Northern Ireland, and elsewhere, Intelligence Corps units in the early Regular-era formed sports teams whenever possible, for instance 12 Intelligence and Security Company cricket and rugby union sides during the 1970s. HQ Intelligence Corps in Ashford ran a successful soccer team drawn from Permanent Staff and the Depot. Due to its wide global dispersal, individual Intelligence Corps could regularly be found in sports unit teams at all levels, including Army and Combined Services representation. The withdrawal from the Far East and downsizing in other theatres, such as Germany, has given the Intelligence Corps improved opportunities to participate in Corps-organized adventure training, such as mountaineering, ‘IntSki’ and ‘IntSail’ and examining its heritage with expeditions to war graves and battlefields, all which provide valuable opportunities in leadership, administration and personal challenges. Groups have also visited the armies of count
ries that once formed the Warsaw Pact.

  On 2 June 1994, the Intelligence Corps suffered its greatest loss in a single incident when a CH-47 Chinook helicopter left RAF Aldergrove, carrying twenty-five intelligence officers from the intelligence community in Northern Ireland bound for Fort George to attend a conference, crashed in thick fog near the Mull of Kintyre lighthouse in Scotland, killing all those on board. The Corps lost Lieutenant Colonel Richard Gregory-Smith, Lieutenant Colonel Victor Williams, Lieutenant Colonel John Tobias, Major Roy Pugh and Major (retired) John Haynes, who had enlisted in the Corps in 1958 after National Service with the Cheshire Regiment. On 6 September, the Archbishop of Canterbury presided over a memorial service in Canterbury Cathedral. The number of intelligence officers attracted conspiracy theorists, including that the helicopter had been hit by a surface-to-air missile. In July 2011, a finding of gross negligence against the two pilots was set aside. A plaque at the site lists those who lost their lives. The Greenfly Club had been sufficiently profitable to afford the building of a conservatory to enhance the facility. A memorial plaque to the officers killed in the Chinook crash placed on a wall inside was formally unveiled by Major General Anthony De Leask, then Commander Land Forces, Northern Ireland.

  Although the Armagh Detachment, 123 Intelligence Section supported operations against the South Armagh Provisional IRA, such was the extent of the threat that 3 Infantry Brigade reformed at Mahon Road Barracks, Portadown to control operations. Continuity NCOs deployed to several company bases controlled by battalion headquarters at Bessbook Mill and Dungannon with those deployed to Crossmaglen experiencing several mortar attacks. Despite the cease fire declared by Sinn Fein in September 1994, Force Intelligence did not drop its guard, indeed further re-organisation saw the Special Military Intelligence Unit and the Intelligence Support Company reformed with the Weapons Intelligence into the Incident Investigation Company, thereby retaining the link between the Army and RUC weapons and explosives agencies. The suspicions were right. On 7 October 1996, two 800lbs car bombs smuggled into Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn that mortally wounded a Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineer warrant officer, injured thirty-one people and caused substantial damage to the 123 Intelligence Section accommodation, was a destructive reminder of the ‘ballot box and Armalite’ strategy. In July 1997, the Provisional IRA Army Council accepted the Mitchell Principles as a basis for a ceasefire. It also admitted that factional disagreements had led to dissidents forming the Continuity IRA and the Real IRA. The Real IRA tag seems to have entered common usage after dissidents manning a roadblock near Jonesborough are said to have told motorists, ‘We’re from the IRA, the real IRA’. In 1998, the Incident Investigations Company was renamed the Weapons Intelligence Company with a specific role to support operations against the South Armagh IRA and ‘South Armagh Sniper’, who was beginning to cause morale problems. An intelligence operation eventually captured several gunmen in a farm not far from Cullyhanna. And then on Good Friday 10 April, Mitchell announced ‘I am pleased to announce that the two governments and the political parties in Northern Ireland have reached agreement’ but it would be nine years before Operation Banner was concluded.

  The Balkans

  Under the paternalistic rule of President Tito, after the Second World War, the provinces of Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia, and the autonomous regions of Kosovo and Vojvodina, had co-existed as Yugoslavia. When he died in 1987, his successor, Slobodan Milosevic, embarked on a strategy to consolidate Serbian power, an early act being to isolate indigenous Albanians in Kosovo. When the European Community Monitoring Mission set out to de-escalate the tension by patrolling the border between Serbia and Croatia, Portugal was holding the Presidency when, in February 1992, it asked for British military security support. Warrant Officer Two Roy Millard BEM arrived as the Head of Security, and the only Briton, in Mission Headquarters at Zagreb. Reporting to a Portuguese cavalry officer appointed as Chief of Personnel and Security, Millard found that the Mission was hindered by democracy, military inexperience and indifferent intelligence and security and snipers, shelling and air attacks between Croatian forces and the Yugoslav National Army. After a near disastrous border crossing with a patrol of Monitors, he later wrote:

  I treat them as my people, their security and safety are paramount in this very dangerous country, in return the Monitors are happier now that someone is looking after them and that someone is available to listen to all their problems (Post Tour Report; Op Hanwood 10 Feb-7 May 92).

  Millard set about addressing the security diffidence by writing Security in the Field and issued a copy to every Mission member. He also developed protective security survey schedules, dispensed advice and, contributed to VIP and conference planning and regularly liaised with the police and UN Protection Force, which had been formed on 21 February to facilitate peace talks in three Protected Areas. After six months, Millard handed over to another Intelligence Corps warrant officer as the Presidency was transferred to the British and the promise of robust leadership. Millard was awarded the MBE to add to his BEM.

  During the year, the US diplomat Cyrus Vance negotiated a ceasefire and although Serbia partially withdrew from Croatia, its forces rampaged into the neighbouring mainly Muslim Bosnia-Herzegovina. When, in mid-August, United Nation Security Council Resolution 770 demanded that member nations protect its High Commission for Refugees convoys delivering aid to Bosnia-Herzegovina, two months later in October, the British launched Operation Grapple and sent a composite Brigade headquarters to Divulje Barracks, Split in central Croatia and an infantry battle group under command on six monthly rotations. The Force Military Information Section included three Intelligence Corps officers, a warrant officer and four NCOs, who spent their time drafting Information Summaries and briefing endless visitors. NCOs were often detached to Battle Group headquarters with some being deployed with companies. An assessment by an experienced major serving with the UN Protection Force of the intelligence and security puzzles in his Operation GRAPPLE: British Armed Forces in UN Protection Force will be recognized by Intelligence Corps who had experienced post-1945 counterrevolutionary warfare and internal security operations, although the language may differ. The ‘Intelligence Preparation of the Battlefield’ (IPB), the ‘population really is key terrain’ and knowledge of historical perspectives and emotive locations, such as battle and religious sites, homes of local leaders and key economic activities’ :

  The lines of communication overlay with data provided from terrain and weather analysis and engineer intelligence provided convoy commanders with invaluable information to plan for those normally unforeseen difficulties and prompted the basing of engineer plant equipment on one main supply route … ‘Personalities’ really does become a 10th order of battle factor and not just a ‘miscellaneous’ element of the IPB. When faced with a military commander on one side who was a former Jugoslavian National Army commander (disciplined, trained, etc.), and a local ‘hood’ turned military commander on the other, this information becomes invaluable.

  Courses of Action really do multiply with Serbs, Croats, Bosnians, Bosnian Serbs, Bosnian Croats, Mujahideen, and even UN Allies with their own third party interests. They all have potentially conflicting hostilities with us and everyone else.

  Language. When faced with the problem of linguistic skills and having only limited resources within the Army, the obvious answer is to use locally employed interpreters. (It was useful to use Army linguists to monitor what they were actually saying.) Also, as the aid convoys crossed ethnic and military boundaries, these interpreters became an issue and were sometimes detained. Even the discretion of our own military linguists was sometimes in doubt if their languages were their “mother tongues,”!

  Security. What happens when a piece of your equipment is confiscated and parts of it may be classified? Counter-Intelligence personnel cannot perform all their functions unless they are given the flexibility to operate in civilian attire when necessar
y. The commander must have the confidence in them to do this. You do not have to be “special” to perform many liaison tasks, link this with an intelligence background and you can fulfil the requirement much more effectively.

  Debriefing. We gained enormous value from debriefing anyone who was available and willing. They provided mostly low-level information gathered recently in the region. This was particularly useful when building up the database of personalities used for future dealings and negotiations.

  Situation Awareness and Information Reporting. Even the “mail run” might pass that faction reinforcement convoy traveling otherwise unseen. Everyone must know the importance of reporting and how to do it. Memory joggers and acronyms were taught at every level:

  • OVERWHELM: Ordnance, vehicle type, electronics, recognition features, when, how many, equipment seen, location, morale.

  • WHAT: Wheels, hull, armament, turret.

  • BBWT: Barrel, Baffle, Wheels, Trail.

  The major concludes that while the Protection Force provided the platform for political negotiations, in the absence of robust military operations, the military mission was essentially Peace Enforcement, not Peace Implementation. But local perception that Force Protection was a mix of peacemaking, enforcement and humanitarian aid made the transfer from impartiality to partisanship and back to impartiality ‘nigh impossible’. Another member of the Corps commented that the Force tough stand on delivering humanitarian aid and reconstruction was undermined by the local joke that its Rules of Engagement were summarized thus:

  If you make a wrong move, I will speak to my colonel who will ask the general to ask our national defence minister to ask the prime minister to ask the rest of the UN to order me to open fire, so be warned.