Big Boys' Rules

by Mark Urban

  Somehow the IRA discovered the existence of the OP. According to one version of events the Provisionals became suspicious following the discovery of a transmitting device in a weapon hidden in Dunloy. But an Army special forces soldier who was serving in Northern Ireland at the time says members of 14 Intelligence Company subsequently felt that it was likely that the OP had been sited too close to a street light and that movements by the soldiers had been noticed. The mistake was a simple one, but because the men had to approach the OP from the rear, they did not have the luxury of being able to inspect their hiding place from the front – the aspect from which other people saw it.

  The discovery of a covert OP is almost an everyday event in Northern Ireland. It is often a farmer’s dog or children playing who find the soldiers. Words may be exchanged between the civilians and the camouflaged soldiers whom they inadvertently encounter, but the soldiers will normally radio for transport to remove them from the scene as quickly as possible. Sometimes they are barracked by local people.

  A one-time member of 14 Intelligence Company describes the strain and the humour which resulted from long hours in covert OPs in constant fear of discovery:

  The unit ran on a sense of humour. Someone got pissed on by a passer-by – it actually happened. Cows started to eat things you didn’t want them to eat. A period of high tension could be followed by unstoppable laughter, you know how it is when you try to stop yourself but that makes it worse.

  The OP teams had their own term for coming close to discovery and getting away with it – the ‘adrenalin kick’.

  When the Dunloy IRA unit discovered the presence of the OP they meant not to embarrass the soldiers, but to kill them. Henry Hogan and Declan Martin, an eighteen-year-old from another part of Dunloy, produced a plan to attack the OP. According to the IRA there was a third member of the ambush party. The security forces said three weapons – an Armalite, a sub-machine-gun and a shotgun – were recovered from the scene, but they maintained that only two IRA members were involved in the assault.

  At about 8 p.m. on 21 February the IRA members set out to mount their attack. Like the soldiers they chose to approach the OP from behind, across the field. This is probably why they were not seen. The Provisionals came close to the soldiers before opening fire on them. One of the soldiers, realizing what was happening, radioed for help. But it was too late for Sergeant Oram and the other soldier, who were hit many times. Sergeant Oram died of his wounds but the other man, although seriously injured and left for dead by the IRA, made a recovery.

  The events which followed remain highly confused. There was gunfire, possibly from a third member of the OP, as the IRA members tried to flee across the field. Two unmarked cars arrived on the scene very quickly. Their speed indicates that they were a back-up team already deployed on the ground rather than the QRF. The special forces soldier quoted above says they were not SAS but fellow members of Sergeant Oram’s surveillance detachment.

  A neighbour heard one of the soldiers shouting, ‘Get the hell out of the way!’ as he ran towards the scene. It was not known whether he was shouting at a bystander or possibly a surviving member of the OP team. There was more firing at the end of which Hogan and Martin were dead. The IRA maintains a third volunteer escaped.

  Local people said that they had heard an injured IRA man calling for help before being “finished off’ and the IRA claimed the men had been ‘surrounded by the SAS’ before being shot. The allegations highlight the problem of trying to separate the truth about such an incident from the rhetoric generated by the strong passions which are aroused when local people die, almost literally on the doorstep of a republican area.

  However, it is certain – even one of the soldiers who arrived on the scene later admitted it in a statement at an inquest – that the IRA men were killed as they lay injured in the field. The soldier said he had approached the men and that one had made a movement which he felt endangered his life, so he fired into Martin and Hogan.

  Considerations about whether the soldiers had been on a mission to ambush the IRA do not arise. It was the Provisionals who fired the first shots – an attack which culminated in death for their own men. Dunloy had been a routine surveillance mission which had gone disastrously wrong for 14 Intelligence Company. The only legal question surrounded the issue of whether the back-up soldiers might, in ‘hot blood’ at the loss of their comrade, have shot men whom they could otherwise have taken prisoner.

  After its initial cry of ‘foul’, Sinn Fein chose not to make propaganda capital out of the incident. The men had died, in the words of the IRA statement, ‘in action against enemy occupation forces’. This had an heroic appeal to many republicans. When the inquest into the deaths came up in May 1986 Sinn Fein made little fuss about it. The Hogan and Martin families did not have legal representation and the hearing was hardly reported. Both sides drew their lessons from the deaths of three young men in Dunloy.

  A curious postscript to the incident involves the reports of Sergeant Oram’s death which appeared in some newspapers. A few days after the shooting The Times ran a story headlined, ‘SAS Man’s Courage Was Kept Secret.’ It did not carry a journalist’s by-line but said that Sergeant Oram had been the soldier who had killed George McBrearty and Charles Maguire in the shoot-out in Londonderry during the 1981 hunger strikes (see chapter fifteen). It added that the young NCO had been decorated with the Military Medal for this feat.

  The article contained several inaccuracies. Sergeant Oram was not an SAS man – his own regimental journal had listed his assignment as ‘Int and Sy Gp (NI)’, whereas research shows that SAS members of this unit would more normally be listed as ‘SAS’, and colleagues have confirmed to me he was in 14 Intelligence Company. Oram’s obituary in his regimental journal, and mentions in earlier issues of the journal, show that he was serving in West Germany at the time of the Londonderry incident. The sergeant’s commanding officer said that the Military Medal had been awarded for ‘supreme personal courage on an independent operation’ during his second tour with the surveillance unit, which had begun early in 1983. Articles at the time of the Londonderry incident had, in any case, identified the soldier as an officer not as an NCO, a fact confirmed by my own research.

  There is some evidence to suggest that the errors in the newspaper piece were the result of deliberate official disinformation. The article appears to have been written with the co-operation of the Army and quotes Sergeant Oram’s ‘colleagues’ as saying he was ‘a special kind of guy’. Three days earlier The Times had published a photograph of Oram. Clearly neither the picture nor the quotes, if genuine, were likely to have been obtained without the co-operation of Lisburn. It would appear highly unlikely that the author of the piece linking the dead soldier with the 1981 Londonderry incident would not have checked his or her theory with an Army press officer at Lisburn, if it was indeed their own supposition, when obtaining the quote.

  As Sergeant Oram is still regarded by many in the Army as a hero, what was the point of cynically using a dead man’s name in this way? The answer would seem to be that the Army had intelligence that the Derry Brigade was, even three years after the humiliation, desperate to get revenge for the Londonderry shooting. So an author of a disinformation plot might feel that linking a dead man to the incident would result in the IRA stopping its hunt for the real man who had shot his way out of the trap. The false claim that Oram was in the SAS was consistent with Lisburn’s long-term policy of disguising the activities of the surveillance unit, although the Army later issued an on-the-record denial that he was in the SAS. ‘The SAS always take the rap for 14 Company,’ says a member of the former, explaining that this practice arose to safeguard the surveillance unit’s identity and tactics.

  Two days after the article in The Times, the Irish News suggested that Sergeant Oram was involved not in the 1981 McBrearty/Maguire shooting but in a fatal confrontation in Londonderry with a man called Liam McMonagle in February 1983. McMonagle, an INLA member, was kill
ed by a plain-clothes soldier who also shot and injured Liam Duffy, another INLA member. The soldier claimed in a deposition to a later inquest that the men had been armed, but that no weapon was recovered from the scene. A CID officer at the inquest admitted that the court only had the soldier’s word as proof that the INLA men were armed. People involved with undercover warfare confirm that the soldier was a member of the Londonderry Detachment of 14 Intelligence Company. So was the confrontation with McMonagle and Duffy the occasion on which Sergeant Oram had shown ‘supreme personal courage’ and won the Military Medal? It is not possible to answer this question with certainty, but it would seem quite likely.

  *

  In March 1984, intelligence officers were to mount a highly unusual operation. I learned of it in 1991 while talking informally at a briefing with a very senior member of the security forces. He told me that an agent high in the ranks of the Ulster Defence Association, the loyalist paramilitary group, had tipped them off about a plan in 1984 to assassinate Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein leader. The information ‘did not tell us the exact time and street where the attack would take place, but did give us the basic information that there would be an attempt on his life when he went to the court house’. An independent security forces contact has confirmed this version of events.

  Early in the afternoon of 14 March 1984, Gerry Adams left Belfast magistrate’s court, where he had appeared on an obstruction charge. Security considerations had already prompted the republican leader’s lawyer to try to get permission for him to enter the court by a back entrance – something the authorities would not agree to. Adams was travelling along Howard Street on his way back to west Belfast in a car with four colleagues when they were overtaken by another vehicle. Two members of the Ulster Freedom Fighters, the UDA’s terrorist arm, opened fire. Twelve shots were fired injuring Adams and Sean Keenan, one of the other passengers, severely. Adams’ driver kept the car under control and drove to the Royal Victoria Hospital.

  Very shortly after the shooting an unmarked car which had been following Adams’ vehicle intercepted the UFF vehicle. Several men in plain clothes carrying 9 mm pistols apprehended the UFF gunmen. Gerald Welsh and John Gregg, who had fired the shots, were each subsequently sentenced to eighteen years in jail. Colin Gray, the driver, was given a twelve-year term.

  In the aftermath of the incident, Sinn Fein said that SAS soldiers had been responsible for following Adams. The Army Press Office said that two off-duty members of the Royal Military Police and an off-duty UDR soldier had been in the area by coincidence and had taken action. Two days later the Army modified its line saying that the military policemen had been on duty but that, ‘Their involvement in the incident was a complete coincidence.’ The police described Sinn Fein claims of SAS involvement as ‘nonsense’. These claims were maintained during the trial of Welsh, Gregg and Gray the following year.

  Admitting that Int and Sy Group soldiers had indeed been there would have been very embarrassing to the Army. Why then were UFF men apprehended only after the shots were fired? Why had Adams not been made aware of the threat to him, and why was his court appearance simply postponed without explanation? How come the loyalists were apprehended alive when it often seemed so difficult for the SAS to do the same with armed republicans? None of those jailed for the incident claimed to have been put up to the crime by the security forces. The soldiers’ presence and the arrest of the UFF men make it improbable that intelligence chiefs actually commissioned the attack. It is much harder to be sure that they did not allow it to run in the hope it would be successful.

  *

  In July 1984 security forces intelligence experts learned of a forthcoming IRA operation against Forbes kitchen fittings factory in Ardboe, Tyrone. A group of SAS men, at least nine strong, went to the area and were briefed on the evening of 12 July. Their intelligence appears to have been first-rate. One of the SAS men, who gave evidence to a subsequent inquest as ‘Soldier F’‚ recorded that the briefer told them that there would be an incendiary bomb attack against the Forbes factory, that it would be carried out by an ASU of four men and that they would be armed.

  Eight of the SAS soldiers made their way to the village. The ninth, Soldier J, waited nearby with a QRF made up of members of 1st Battalion, the Queen’s Regiment. Two of the SAS men, Soldiers D and E, took positions at about 10.35 p.m. on the Mullanahoe Road, which runs in front of the factory. It appears that their job was to act as a stop group to prevent anyone driving into or out of the area. The other five soldiers went into position about half an hour later. They appear to have been dropped off by a van in civilian colours. The soldiers were armed with a mixture of HK53 and AR-15 assault rifles. Several also carried 9 mm Browning pistols. These five men divided into two groups near the factory. The men were tense, not just because of their mission, but also because a crow scarer in a nearby field made a loud bang every two or three minutes.

  Their intelligence was sufficiently accurate that little more than one and a half hours after these two teams went into position, they caught sight of two men making their way along a hedgerow behind the factory. Soldier A told a later inquest that when the two men were about 30 metres away he shouted a challenge. The nearest figure ‘raised his hands up very fast’ and Soldier A shot him, adding ‘I heard him scream.’ He had hit and injured William Price, a 28-year-old IRA man. Price and the other man ran away. Soldier A fired again into the darkness but did not stop the other man.

  Two other members of the ASU – Raymond O’Neill and Thomas McQuillan – heard the commotion and decided to make a run for it. They came out of a field and onto the Mullanahoe road about 100 metres away from where Soldiers D and E were waiting. Soldier D said he shouted, ‘Stop or I’ll fire!’ O’Neill complied immediately, standing in the road with his hands in the air. McQuillan ran on, so Soldier D opened fire. In a deposition to a later inquest he said, ‘I thought he was going to escape so I took two quick aimed shots’. McQuillan fell to the ground, but was not hit. Soldier E went towards him and arrested him.

  Meanwhile Soldier A and several others were searching the fields behind the factory, trying to find Price and the other man. Eventually Soldier A stumbled on Price. He told a subsequent inquest that Price made ‘a sudden movement of his hands toward me’. Soldier A fired at Price, blowing off the top of his head, killing him instantly. The fourth Provisional escaped. Two loaded pistols and several explosive incendiary bombs were found in the fields.

  Several points about the incident are significant. As far as we know, it was the only SAS action of the period from 1984 to 1985 in which the SAS made arrests. As such it might provide significant proof that, despite the rash of ambushes during this period, no blanket ‘shoot-to-kill’ edict was in effect at the time. There are several possible explanations for why O’Neill and McQuillan were arrested rather than killed.

  The soldiers insisted at the inquest into Price’s death that they were on an ‘observation and arrest’ mission. The simplest reading of the incident is that their orders were of the ‘hard arrest’ rather than the ambush variety. We do not know why such orders might be given but one can speculate, and it is no more than speculation, for example that the intelligence officers who set up the operation believed there was a high chance that their source him or herself would take part in the fire bombing. They might also have received such orders because their commanders did not believe an ambush against IRA men engaged in an attack against property as opposed to people would be perceived as just. The killing of three IRA men and one bystander at Ballysillan in 1978 when the IRA was also attempting a firebomb attack against property had aroused considerable hostility from nationalist politicians and significant disquiet within some sections of the security forces.

  According to the republican movement O’Neill and McQuillan were not killed because Mrs Mary Forbes, a local woman, mistakenly thought one of the apprehended men might be her own son. She leaned out of her window, overlooking the Mullanahoe Road, and shouted to the so
ldiers not to harm the men.

  An inquest into Price’s death held in June 1986 was not attended by the man’s family. It subsequently emerged that they had not known about it. In June 1987 a second inquest was held following a court ruling that the finding of the first inquest was invalid because the family had not been represented there.

  PART FOUR: 1984–1987

  19

  Soft Targets

  At all levels of the security forces there is a recognition of the IRA’s power to intimidate locally recruited members of the RUC and Army through its policy of assassination. The problem is particularly acute among reservists – part-time members of those organizations – who can be attacked at home or at their place of work. Many of the reservists live and work in remote houses in rural areas where the two communities are intermingled and their identity as part-time members of the security forces is well known.

  The Ulster Defence Regiment has been a particular target for assassination. Of the 159 members of the Regiment killed between its formation and the end of 1986, 129 were off duty. In recent years the IRA has sought to justify these attacks by drawing attention to the links between UDR soldiers and loyalist paramilitary groups. But the very fact that the UDR is such an overwhelmingly Protestant force is due in part to the fact that many Catholic UDR members were killed by the IRA in the early 1970s, with the intention of intimidating others into leaving.