Coming to Terms With War (Talk) 1914 -15

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Jun 232019
 

“COMING TO TERMS WITH WAR: THE EXPERIENCE OF ARMY CHAPLAINS IN 1914-15”

A Talk by

Reverend Dr Peter Howson

Was on the 23rd February 2015 in The McDonald Gallery, Gurkha Museum

The Reverend Dr Peter Howson has completed a number of studies into the organisation of Army Chaplaincy, including and especially during the First World War. His book Muddling Through, published in 2013, aptly describes the organisation of Army Chaplaincy in 1914-15. Chaplains, however, were never far from the front.

Two were captured on the retreat from Mons to Le Cateau. Peter Howson served 25 years as an army chaplain. He is now the minister in charge of Weybridge Methodist Church. His talk will centre on the different experiences of three chaplains who went to war in August 1914 as a means of illustrating what it was like to be a chaplain in the Army in 1914-15. Copies of his book Muddling Through will be available for purchase and signature.

Sourced from YouTube (Credited to The Royal Green Jackets Museum Winchester)

Ruby Ann Sings

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Jun 092019
 

Ruby Ann Sings

Angie Errigo and Simon Heffer explain why 1958’s ‘Carve Her Name with Pride’ deserves to be listed in Channel 5’s Greatest Ever War Movies. Lead actress Virginia McKenna also relates the emotional experience playing real-life heroine Violette Szabo.

Sourced From You Tube (Credited to HELLODAVES)

Violette Szabo Early Life

Violette Reine Elizabeth Szabo GC (née Bushell; 26 June 1921 – c. 5 February 1945) was a French / British Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupied France, Szabo was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.

Violette Szabo was born Violette Reine Elizabeth Bushell on 26 June 1921 in Paris, France. She was the second child of five and the only daughter of Charles George Bushell, son of a publican from Hampstead Norreys.

He was a taxi-driver, car salesman, and, during World War II, a shopkeeper. Her mother, Reine Blanche Leroy, was a dressmaker originally from Pont-Remy, Somme. The couple met in wartime France, where Bushell was a British Army driver, and later moved to London. Because of the Great Depression, Violette and Dickie, her youngest brother, lived with their maternal aunt in Picardy in northern France until the family was reunited in south London when Violette was eleven.

She was an active and lively girl, enjoying gymnastics, long-distance bicycling, and ice-skating with four brothers and several male cousins. She was regarded as a tomboy, especially as she was taught by her father to be a good shot. Violette attended school in Brixton, quickly relearning the English she had lost, where she was popular and regarded as exotic, due to her ability to speak fluent French.

At the age of 14, she went to work at a French corsetière in South Kensington and then at Woolworths in Oxford Street.
Her home life was loving, though she often clashed with her strict father and once ran away to France after an argument. The family, except her monolingual father, would often converse in French.

At the outbreak of World War II, she was working at Le Bon Marché, a Brixton department store.

World War II

In early 1940, Violette joined the Women’s Land Army and was sent to carry out strawberry picking in Fareham, Hampshire, but she soon returned to London to work in an armaments factory in Acton.

She met Étienne Szabo, a decorated non-commissioned officer in the French Foreign Legion of Hungarian descent, at the Bastille Day parade in London in 1940, where Violette had been sent by her mother, accompanied by her friend Winnie Wilson, to bring home a homesick French soldier for dinner.

They married at Aldershot Register Office in Manor Park on 21 August 1940 after a whirlwind 42-day romance;[8] Violette was 19, Étienne was 31. They enjoyed a week’s honeymoon before Étienne set off from Liverpool to fight in the abortive Free French attack on Dakar, Senegal. From there, Étienne went to South Africa before seeing action, again against the Vichy French, in the successful Anglo-Free French campaigns in Eritrea and Syria in 1941.

He returned to the UK for a brief leave later in the year.

After her marriage, Violette became a switchboard operator for the General Post Office in central London, working throughout the Blitz. Bored by the job, she enlisted in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) on 11 September 1941.
She was posted to Leicester for initial training before being sent to one of the first mixed anti-aircraft batteries of the 7th Heavy Anti-Aircraft Training Regiment, Royal Artillery in Oswestry, Shropshire for specialised instruction as a predictor and then to the 481st Heavy (Mixed) Anti-Aircraft Battery.

After further training in Anglesey, Gunner Szabo and her unit were posted to Frodsham, Cheshire near Warrington, from December 1941 to February 1942. Szabo found within weeks that she was pregnant, so she left the ATS to return to London for the birth.

Szabo took a flat in Notting Hill, which was to be her home until she left for her second mission to France in June 1944. On 8 June 1942, she gave birth to Tania Damaris Desiree Szabo at St Mary’s Hospital while Étienne was stationed at Bir Hakeim in North Africa. The following day, he took part in a valiant defence against the Afrika Korps, escaping with his battalion from the assault of the 15th Panzer Division on 10 June.

Violette sent her baby to childminders while she worked at the South Morden aircraft factory where her father was stationed. During this period, she was informed of her husband’s death in action. Étienne had died on 24 October 1942 from chest wounds received while leading his men in a diversionary attack on Qaret el Himeimat, at the beginning of the Second Battle of El Alamein; he had never seen his daughter. It was Étienne’s death that made Violette accept an offer to train as a field agent in the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) as her best way of fighting the enemy that killed her husband.

Special Operations Executive

It is unclear how or why Szabo was recruited by F-Section, as her surviving official file is thin, but her fluency in French and her previous service in the ATS probably brought her to the attention of SOE. She would have been invited to an interview regarding war work with E. Potter, the alias of Selwyn Jepson, a detective novelist and the F-Section recruiter. Szabo was given security clearance on 1 July 1943 and selected for training as a field agent on 10 July. She was commissioned as a section leader in the First Aid Nursing Yeomanry, a civilian service often used by SOE as a cover for female agents.

After an assessment for fluency in French and a series of interviews, Szabo was sent from 7–27 August to STS 4, a training school at Winterfold House, and after a moderately favourable report, to Special Training School 24 of Group A at Arisaig in the Scottish Highlands in September and October. Szabo received intensive instruction in fieldcraft, night and daylight navigation, weapons and demolition. Again her reports were mixed, but she passed the course and moved on to Group B.

Szabo was sent to the SOE “finishing school” at Beaulieu, Hampshire, where she learnt escape and evasion, uniform recognition, communications and cryptography, and had further training in weaponry. The final stage in training was parachute jumping, which was taught at Ringway Airport near Manchester. On her first attempt, Szabo badly sprained her ankle and was sent home for recuperation, spending some time in Bournemouth (it was this ankle that was to fail her later in France).

She was able to take the parachuting course again and passed with a second class in February 1944. On 24 January 1944, Szabo made her will, witnessed by Vera Atkins and Major R. A. Bourne Paterson of SOE, naming her mother, Reine, as executrix and her daughter Tania as sole beneficiary.

In 2012 Max Hastings wrote that Szabo was “adored by the men and women of SOE both for her courage and endless infectious Cockney laughter”, while Leo Marks remembered her as “A dark-haired slip of mischief….She had a Cockney accent which added to her impishness”.

First mission

Due to the ankle injury, Szabo’s first deployment was delayed, but it was during her second course at Ringway that she first met Philippe Liewer (d. c. 1948). While in London she also socialised with Bob Maloubier, so SOE decided she would work as a courier for Liewer’s Salesman circuit. However, the mission was postponed when F Section received a signal from Harry Peulevé’s (codename Jean) Author circuit warning that several members of the Rouen-Dieppe group had been arrested, including Claude Malraux (codename Cicero; brother of novelist Andre Malraux) and radio operator Isidore Newman.

This extra time meant Szabo could be sent for a refresher course in wireless operation in London, and it was then that Leo Marks, SOE’s cryptographer, seeing her struggle with her original French nursery rhyme, gave Szabo his own composition, The Life That I Have as her code poem.

On 5 April 1944 Szabo and Liewer were flown from RAF Tempsford in Bedfordshire in a US B-24 Liberator bomber and parachuted into German-occupied France, near Cherbourg.

Her cover was that she was a commercial secretary named Corinne Reine Leroy (the latter two names being her mother’s first and maiden names), who was born on 26 June 1921 (her real birthdate) in Bailleul, and who was a resident of Le Havre, which gave her reason to travel to the Restricted Zone of German occupation on the coast.

Under the code name “Louise”, which happened to be her nickname (she was also nicknamed “La P’tite Anglaise”, as she stood only 5’3″ tall), she and SOE colleague Philippe Liewer (under the name “Major Charles Staunton”), organiser of the Salesman circuit, tried to assess the damage made by the German arrests, with Szabo travelling to Rouen, where Liewer could not go as a wanted man (both he and Maloubier were on wanted posters with their codenames), and to Dieppe to gather intelligence and carry out reconnaissance.

It soon became clear that the circuit, which originally involved over 120 members (80 in Rouen and 40 on the coast) had been exposed beyond repair. Szabo returned to Paris to brief Liewer, and in the two days before they were due to depart, she bought a dress for Tania, three frocks and a yellow sweater for herself, and perfume for her mother and herself.

While the destruction of Salesman was a heavy blow to SOE, her reports on the local factories producing war materials for the Germans were important in establishing Allied bombing targets.

She returned to England by Lysander, piloted by Bob Large, DFC, of the RAF, on 30 April 1944, landing after a stressful flight in which the plane was hit by anti-aircraft fire over Chateaudun, and Szabo was thrown about the body of the plane. Large had turned off the intercom when attacked and did not turn it back on for the rest of the flight, so when the plane landed heavily due to a burst tyre, and he went to get Szabo out, she (thinking they had been shot down and not having seen her blond pilot) let Large have a volley of abuse in French, mistaking him for a German. When she realised what had really happened, he was rewarded with a kiss.

Philippe Liewer returned at the same time in another Lysander. On 24 May 1944 Szabo was promoted to Ensign in the FANY.

Second mission

After two aborted attempts, due to stormy weather on the night of 4 / 5 June and the abandonment of the intended landing ground on 5/6 June by the Resistance reception committee because of German patrols, Szabo and three colleagues were dropped by parachute from a USAAF Liberator flown from RAF Harrington onto a landing field near Sussac on the outskirts of Limoges early on 8 June 1944 (immediately following D-Day, and Tania Szabo’s second birthday).

Szabo was part of a four-person team sent to operate in the departement of Haute Vienne with the circuit code-name ‘Salesman II’, led by her SOE commander Philippe Liewer (now codenamed Hamlet), whose rolled-up Rouen circuit had been ‘Salesman’, and including Second Lieutenant Jean-Claude Guiet (codenames Claude and Virgile) of the US Army as wireless operator (W/O), and Bob Maloubier (alias Robert ‘Bob’ Mortier; codenames Clothaire and Paco), Violette and Liewer’s friend and comrade of SOE who was to act as military instructor to the local Maquis, and who had worked as weapons instructor and explosives officer for Liewer on the original Salesman I circuit. For this mission, Szabo’s cover was that she was a Mme Villeret, the young widow of an antiques dealer from Nantes.
It is possible Szabo had twisted an ankle on landing.

Upon arrival, she was sent to co-ordinate the activities of the local maquis in sabotaging communication lines during German attempts to stem the Normandy landings. When he arrived in the Limousin, Philippe Liewer found the local maquis to be poorly led and less prepared for action than he expected.

To better co-ordinate Resistance activity against the Germans, he decided to send his courier, Szabo, as his liaison officer to the more active Maquis of Correze and the Dordogne, led by Jacques Poirier, head of the renamed Digger circuit, who had taken over from Harry Peulevé of the Author circuit, upon the latter’s arrest.

However, due to poor intelligence gathering by the local Resistance, Liewer was unaware that the 2nd SS Panzer Division was making its slow journey north to the Normandy battlefields through his area.

Capture and interrogation

At 9.30 am on 10 June Szabo set off on her mission, not inconspicuously by bicycle as Liewer would have preferred, but in a Citroen driven by a young maquis section leader, Jacques Dufour (‘Anastasie’). He had insisted upon using the car, even though the Germans had forbidden the use of cars by the French after D-Day, to drive her half of the 100 kilometres (62 mi) of her journey. At her request to Liewer, Szabo was armed with a Sten gun and eight magazines of ammunition. She was dressed in a light suit, flat-heeled shoes and no stockings.

On their way across the sunlit fields of south central France they picked up Jean Bariaud, a 26-year-old Resistance friend of Dufour, who was meant to accompany them on the return journey.

Their car raised the suspicions of German troops at an unexpected roadblock outside of Salon-la-Tour that had been set up to find Sturmbannführer Helmut Kämpfe, a battalion commander of the 2nd SS Panzer Division, who had been captured by the local resistance.

When Dufour slowed the car, the unarmed Bariaud was able to escape and later warn the Salesman team of the arrest of his two companions.

According to Minney and Vickers, when they had stopped, Szabo and Dufour leapt from the car, he to the left and she to the right and the cover of a tree, as Dufour opened fire. A gun battle ensued during which a woman emerging from a barn was killed by the Germans. As armoured cars arrived at the scene, Szabo crossed the road to join Dufour, and they leapt a gate, before running across a field towards a small stream.

They then ran up a hill towards some trees, when Szabo fell and severely twisted an ankle. She refused Dufour’s offer of help, urging him to flee, and, dragging herself to the edge of the cornfield, she struggled to an apple tree. Standing behind the tree, she then provided Dufour with covering fire, allowing him to make his escape to hide in a friend’s barn.

Szabo fought the Germans for thirty minutes, killing a corporal, possibly more, and wounding some others. Eventually, she ran out of ammunition and was captured by two men who dragged her up the hill to a bridge over a railway. She was hot, dishevelled, and in pain. Szabo was questioned by a young officer whose armoured car had drawn up nearby.

The officer congratulated her and placed a cigarette in her mouth, but she spat out the cigarette, and spat in his face. She was then taken away, demanding that her arms be freed and that she be allowed one of her own cigarettes.

Szabo’s captors were most likely from the 1st Battalion of 3rd SS Panzer Grenadier Regiment Deutschland (Das Reich Division) whose commanding officer was the missing Sturmbannführer Kämpfe. In R.J. Minney’s biography, as above, she is described as putting up fierce resistance with her Sten gun, although German documents of the incident record no German injuries or casualties.

A recent biography of Vera Atkins, the intelligence officer for the French section of SOE, notes that there was a great deal of confusion about what happened to Szabo—the story was revised four times—and states that the Sten gun incident “was probably a fabrication”. Szabo’s most recent biographer, Susan Ottaway, includes the battle in her book, as does Tania Szabo in hers, and Philip Vickers in his book on Das Reich.

Violette Szabo was transferred to the custody of the Sicherheitsdienst (SD, the SS Security Service) in Limoges, where she was interrogated for four days by SS-Sturmbannführer Kowatch.[40] She gave her name as “Vicky Taylor”, the name she had intended to use if she needed to return to England via Spain. (Her reason for choosing this name is unknown, but it may have been a play on szabo being the Hungarian word for “tailor”.)

From there, she was moved to Fresnes Prison in Paris and brought to Gestapo headquarters at 84 Avenue Foch for interrogation and torture by the Sicherheitsdienst, who by now knew of her true identity and activities as an SOE agent.

Ravensbrück

With the Allies driving deep into France and George Patton’s Third US Army heading towards Paris, the decision was taken by the Germans to send their most valuable French prisoners to Germany. On 8 August 1944, Szabo, shackled to SOE wireless operator Denise Bloch, was entrained with other male and female prisoners, including several SOE agents she knew, for transfer.

At some point in the journey, probably outside Chalons-sur-Marne, an Allied air raid caused the guards to temporarily abandon the train, allowing Szabo and Bloch to get water from a lavatory to the caged male prisoners in the next carriage, the two women both providing inspiration and a morale boost to the suffering men.

When the train reached Reims, the prisoners were taken by lorries to a large barn for two nights, where Szabo, still tied at the ankle to Bloch, who was in good spirits, was able to wash some of her clothes in rudimentary fashion, and to speak about her experiences to her SOE colleague Harry Peulevé.

From Reims, via Strasbourg, the prisoners went by train to Saarbruecken and a transit camp in the suburb of Neue Bremm, where hygiene facilities were nonexistent, and food was only indigestible bread crusts. After about ten days, Szabo and most of the other women were sent on to Ravensbrück concentration camp, where over 92,000 women were to die during the war. The exhausted women arrived at this notorious place of disease, starvation, and violence on 25 August 1944 after a terrible eighteen-day journey.

Although she endured hard labour and malnutrition, she helped save the life of Belgian resistance courier Hortense Daman, kept up the spirits of her fellow detainees, and, according to fellow inmate Virginia Lake, constantly planned to escape.
While at Ravensbrück, Szabo, Denise Bloch, Lilian Rolfe and Lake were among 1,000 French women sent to the Heinkel factory at the sub-camp of Torgau. Here they protested and refused to make munitions, and were forced to work in the vegetable cellar outside the camp walls and then to dig potatoes.

The British women also made contact with French prisoners at a nearby POW camp who, being better fed, provided them with extra rations and offered to send messages to London with a transmitter they had built (there is no evidence they were successful).

After the Torgau incident, Szabo, Bloch, Rolfe and Lake were part of a group of around 250 prisoners sent back to Ravensbrück on 6 October, where Violette was put to work in the fabric store.

In late October 1944, the protest women were transferred to a punishment camp at Königsberg, where they were forced into harsh physical labour felling trees, clearing rock-hard icy ground for the construction of an airfield and digging a trench for a narrow-gauge railway. Violette volunteered for tree-felling in the forest, where the trees gave some shelter from the bitter winds (Lilian and Denise were too ill to join her).

In the bitter East Prussian winter of 1945, each day the women were forced to stand for Appell (roll-call) in the early morning for up to five hours before being sent to work, many of them freezing to death. Szabo was dressed only in the summer clothes she had been wearing when sent to Germany and the women received barely any food and slept in frozen barracks without blankets.

According to Christine Le Scornet, a seventeen-year-old French girl whom Violette befriended and Jeannie Rousseau, the co-leader of the Torgau revolt, she maintained her morale, was optimistic about liberation and continued to plan to escape.[49] On 19 or 20 January 1945, the three British agents were recalled to Ravensbrück and sent first to the Strafblock, where they were possibly brutally assaulted and then to the punishment bunker, where they were kept in solitary confinement.[50] The women were already in poor physical condition—Rolfe could barely walk—and the abuse finally weakened Szabo’s morale.

Execution

Szabo was killed in the execution alley at Ravensbrück, aged 23, on or before 5 February 1945. She was shot in the back of the head while kneeling down, by SS-Rottenführer Schult in the presence of camp commandant Fritz Suhren (who pronounced the death penalty), camp overseer and deputy commandant Johann Schwarzhuber, SS-Scharführer Zappe, SS-Rottenführer Schenk (responsible for the crematorium), chief camp doctor Dr Trommer and dentist Dr Martin Hellinger, from the deposition of Schwarzhuber recorded by Vera Atkins 13 March 1946.

Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe—neither of whom could walk and were carried on stretchers—were shot at the same time, by order of the highest Nazi authorities; the bodies were disposed of in the camp crematorium. Their clothes were not returned to the camp Effektenkammer (property store) as usually happened after executions.

Along with Szabo, Bloch and Rolfe, one other member of the SOE was also executed at Ravensbrück: Cecily Lefort. She was killed in the gas chamber sometime in February 1945. Of SOE’s 55 female agents, 13 were killed in action, 12 by execution, one from typhus in a Nazi concentration camp and one in hospital by meningitis.

While there is some confusion about the precise circumstances of her execution, Szabo, along with her male and female colleagues who died in the concentration camps, is recorded by the War Office as having been killed in action. As an agent dressed in civilian clothes operating behind enemy lines, Szabo was regarded by the Germans as a Franc-tireur not protected by the Geneva Convention and liable to summary execution. Though she was treated harshly at Ravensbrück, there is no conclusive proof that she was tortured or sexually assaulted by the Germans; her biographer, Susan Ottaway, thinks it unlikely.

Awards and honours

Szabo was the second woman to be awarded the George Cross, bestowed posthumously on 17 December 1946. The citation was published in the London Gazette.

St. James’s Palace, S.W.1. 17 December 1946

The KING has been graciously pleased to award the GEORGE CROSS to: —

Violette, Madame SZABO (deceased), Women’s Transport Service (First Aid Nursing Yeomanry).

Madame Szabo volunteered to undertake a particularly dangerous mission in France. She was parachuted into France in April, 1944, and undertook the task with enthusiasm. In her execution of the delicate researches entailed she showed great presence of mind and astuteness. She was twice arrested by the German security authorities but each time managed to get away. Eventually, however, with other members of her group, she was surrounded by the Gestapo in a house in the south-west of France. Resistance appeared hopeless but Madame Szabo, seizing a Sten-gun and as much ammunition as she could carry, barricaded herself in part of the house and, exchanging shot for shot with the enemy, killed or wounded several of them. By constant movement, she avoided being cornered and fought until she dropped exhausted. She was arrested and had to undergo solitary confinement. She was then continuously and atrociously tortured but never by word or deed gave away any of her acquaintances or told the enemy anything of any value. She was ultimately executed. Madame Szabo gave a magnificent example of courage and steadfastness.

The Croix de guerre avec etoile de bronze was awarded by the French government in 1947 and the Médaille de la Résistance in 1973. As one of the SOE agents who died for the liberation of France, Lieutenant Violette Szabo, FANY, is listed on the Valençay SOE Memorial.

Both Violette and Étienne Szabo were awarded the French Croix de guerre for their bravery in the field. On 17 December 1947 their five-year-old daughter Tania received the George Cross from King George VI on behalf of her late mother. Violette and Étienne Szabo are believed to be the most decorated married couple of World War II.

On 22 July 2015 Violette Szabo’s medals and numerous associated items were sold at auction, realising £260,000 (£312,000 including buyer’s premium). The purchaser was Lord Ashcroft,] who placed the George Cross on permanent display at the Imperial War Museum from 7 October 2015.

Museums and memorials
Violette Szabo has no known grave. Her official point of commemoration is the Commonwealth War Graves Commission Brookwood 1939-1945 Memorial[66] to the Missing in Brookwood Military Cemetery, Surrey. She is named on panel 26. column 3.

There is a blue plaque on the wall of the house where Violette Szabo grew up in Burnley Road, Stockwell.

By Steve Bowen (talk)

The Violette Szabo GC Museum is located in the cottage in Wormelow Tump, Herefordshire, that Violette’s English cousins formerly owned, and that Violette would visit before the war to enjoy walks in the surrounding hills. She also stayed at the farm while she was recuperating from her ankle injury and between her two missions to France. Tania Szabo attended the museum’s opening in 2000, as did Virginia McKenna, Leo Marks and members of SOE.

The Jersey War Tunnels have a permanent exhibition room dedicated to Violette Szabo.

The Royal College of Music offers an annual award called the Violette Szabo GC Memorial Prize for pianists who accompany singers.

There is a mural dedicated to Violette Szabo in Stockwell, South London, painted in 2001: Stockwell War Memorial, Stockwell Road. Painted on the exterior of the entrance to a deep level shelter, this mural was executed by Brian Barnes (with the assistance of children from Stockwell Park School). It features Stockwell’s famous people such as Violette Szabo and Vincent Van Gogh. It also commemorates the local people who gave their life in the war.

By camerawalker 

In 2008, a bronze bust of Szabo by sculptor Karen Newman was unveiled at the Albert Embankment of the River Thames, in front of Lambeth Palace.

At the entrance to Lambeth Town Hall there is a plaque commemorating Violette’s residence in that borough.

There is a memorial to Violette Szabo in Le Clos, close to where the Salesman II team landed on 8 June 1944. She is named on the memorial to the SOE agents who were killed in France at Valençay, and also on the memorial to the SOE agents who flew from England but did not return at RAF Tempsford.

There is also a memorial to Szabo at the entrance to the rugby field in the village of Salon La Tour, where she was captured.

Media

Szabo’s daughter, Tania Szabo, wrote a reconstruction of her two 1944 missions into the most dangerous areas in France with flashbacks to her growing up. Author Jack Higgins wrote the foreword and US-French radio-operator, Jean-Claude Guiet, who had accompanied her on the mission in the Limousin, wrote the introduction.

On 15 November 2007, at the launch of the book, Young Brave and Beautiful: The Missions of Special Operations Executive Agent Lieutenant Violette Szabo (ISBN 978-0750962094), at the Jersey War Tunnels, the Lieutenant Governor of Jersey said of her, “She’s an inspiration to those young people today doing the same work with the risk of the same dangers”. It is said that Odette Churchill GC said, “She was the bravest of us all.” (unconfirmed)

Szabo’s wartime activities in German-occupied France were dramatised in the film Carve Her Name with Pride, starring Virginia McKenna and based on the 1956 book of the same name by R. J. Minney.

The 2009 video game Velvet Assassin by Replay Studios is inspired by Szabo’s life as an allied spy during the Second World War, with the protagonist sharing her first name.

Sourced from Wikipedia

Poetry from the PTSD MIND

 Articles  Comments Off on Poetry from the PTSD MIND
May 102019
 

Foreword by Stephen Barker

I left School in 1979 and within a month joined the Royal Green Jackets in Winchester, after completing training joined 3 RGJ in Cambridge.

I Continued to serve until 1989 in which I saw service in Cyprus on the UN, Germany, Ireland, Falklands, Canada, and of course the UK.

In 2017 after many years of suffering, I was diagnosed with PTSD from three life threatening events during my service.

Part of my recovery at Combat Stress someone suggested I should begin writing. I have now published two other books called

‘The Lighter Side Of Cruising’ and ‘The Lighter Side of Cruising Part two.’

Both are available on Amazon.

During my last two week stay at Combat Stress in April 2019, I started to write Poetry for the first time with this book being the first.
As with all my books, 25% of the profit on each sale goes to Combat Stress.

Therefore, as part of my own recovery have put together what can loosely be classed as poetry.

Please enjoy the collection as we take you on a journey.

Steve Barker

WHY

Why Ho, What I’ve seen.

Grown men Cry, Strong men, weep, Of memories, all so real.

Some fear to go into the night, Why is sleep is a stranger to souls of war.

Ho, why do emotions treat me as a stranger.

Why can’t I have scares for all to see, Instead, I suffer in a world away from view.

Ho, why emotions do you treat me as a stranger.

Is that a friend or foe that dares approach my unseen world,

Instinct or fear, our battle plans are drawn, Stay away, our battle cry.

Stand down you souls of war, Just a friend who’s broken through your invisible wall.

Ho, why do emotions treat me as a stranger.

Stay Calm

No need to fear, no need to panic,
Stay calm, remember the training long since done,
Feel for the pistol, away from inquisitive eyes,
One more deep breath, settle the nerves,
Do your duty and watch the space.

Scan to the left, scan to the right,
Nothing to see, but cars all in a row,
People come, people go, bags full to bursting,
What’s in the bag, is it a bomb,
Stay calm, remember your training.

Scenarios run through the mind, but what if,
Sit back, stay calm, there is nothing to fear,
Count the cars as they come and park,
One more deep breath, settle the nerves,
Remember your training.

Eyes to the front, watch the shadows,
Rays of light dance off the darkened metal,
Check the door, count the bricks, all secure,
Nothing to see, but the weighbridge door,
Stay Calm, remember your training.

Time to scan once more, fist to the left then the right,
What’s that, in my field of view,
No need to panic, only three men, smartly dressed,
Feel for the pistol, away from inquisitive eyes,
Just for comfort, to settle the nerves,
Relax, Stay Calm, remember your training.

Men approach, time stands still,
The body begins to tension, adrenalin makes you blush,
Hairs once flush, now stand on end,
With sweaty palms, we grip the wheel,
Eyes never for a moment, leave the men,
Relax, deep breath, stay calm, remember your training.

But a moment past, three men, in the distance stood,
Now, but an arms reach away, they now stand,
The middle man, with outreached hand, a pistol held,
No time to act, no time for training long since done,
Only time to sit and stare,
No time for life to flash before your eyes,
No time to think of loved ones, on faraway shores,
Just time to watch the trigger pulled, its time to die.

No loud bang, no pain to feel,
What happened, I should have died, but I’m still here,
The sound of laughter filled the air,
Three men disappeared from my field of view,
Ho, why did I forget my training,
Stay calm, your still here, you survived.

Vehicle Check Point

Just a drive, no need to worry,
I’ve done it many times,
A trip to the country,
Through rolling hills and fields of green,
The sun shines, birds sing in the winter air.

The sound of Lock & Load breaks the winter air,
Open the gates, danger awaits,
Take a breath, check your weapon, its time to go.

Through the city, into the country,
Peace and tranquillity in abundance,
Follow the twists, follow the turns,
Throw caution into the wind.

Round the bend, come to a halt,
Bottom of the hill two lone figures stand,
Time to check all around,
Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide,
Check the safety, is there one up the spout.

No time to panic, just stay calm, remember your training,
Fear & calm, strange bedfellows, make,
The bodies numb, sweat trickles down the spine.

Inch forward one at a time,
One car cleared, another takes its place,
What if’s, play havoc in your mind,
Stay calm, remember your training.

The mind plays memories of happier times,
Of loved ones, past and present,
Things you should have said and done,
Will this be it, will I be remembered.

Another one through, we’re getting close,
Mind back in the game,
Eyes fixed with a hollow stare,
Just ahead, the vehicle checkpoint stands,
One hand on the wheel, one sweaty grip on the weapon.

Why am I here, I don’t want to die,
Ho, I wish my brothers & Sisters in arms were now, here,
Instead, I sit here all alone,
No knowledge of what’s to come.

Two more cars to go,
The body stiffens with anticipation,
Heart quickens, with rapid breaths, it’s hard to breathe,
The two lone figures, now in full view,
Armed to the teeth, looking like police,
Ho, I hope that’s true.

Time to do or die, we’re in next,
One approach, the other stands clear,
Ho, I wish I wasn’t here,
Gently does it, no sudden moves,
Remove the ID from its place of hiding,
Stay calm, remember your training.

One last check, the weapons ready, just in case,
The window glides without a sound,
One grip on the pistol, the other on ID,
With a cautionary glance, our pass is seen,
The figure waves us through.

We are through, now with haste, we part this place of danger,
The heart rate lowers, a regular pace is set,
I made it, I’m still alive.

In to the Night

The sunsets over the horizon,
Beyond the dark grey building, of a war-torn city,
A four-man patrol returned to its place of sanctuary,
Each face etched with a thousand-yard stare,
Bodies dipped, a sign let out, they had lived to fight another day.

In the corner, alone soldier stood,
Mind, body & soul contemplating the night,
Of dangers yet to come,
A wishful glance, envious eyes cast over our brave patrol,
There they stood, body armour bulging,
Our brave Soldier, nothing but overalls to protect.

The time has come to venture into the darkness,
With memories of events, hours since past,
A mistake, an error, which could cost lives.

The plans for the night had been told,
Still, our brave Soldier ventured into the night.

An eerie Silence fell, over this war-torn city,
Only the sound of clanging metal, to break the silence,
Out of the darkness, a group of men appeared,
Dancing in and out of the shadows,
Still, our brave Soldier approached, his mission at hand.

Our Soldier had seen all before,
Like an angry volcano, rocks and stones aplenty came,
Deafening sounds as rocks struck home,
Fist a few, then came many,
Sounds of smashing glass came from the left,
This truck, not made for war.

On into the night, our brave Soldier went,
Past parked cars, each a potential threat,
Out of the night, a junction did appear,
Please let the lights be green, danger lurks on every corner.

Not far now, just a mile,
A new place of sanctuary will appear, a place to rest,
From under the dash, a radio crackled into life,
A voice, time will never forget, broke the air,
Time to stop, time to hide,
Don’t come closer the voice cried out.

Earlier a mistake, our brave Soldier made,
Plans were told, powers to be, ignored,
Loss of life, the price could have been,
A car, a bomb, now awaits our brave Soldier at the gate,
Thanks to the men at the gate, lives well saved that day,
Our brave Soldier lives to fight another day.

The Street

The day has come, no more time, no more excuses,
Covert plans, run within our minds,
All routes covered, none left to chance,
Deep breath, time to go.

We’re here, our goal, but a short distance,
Threats to the left, to the right,
Eyes scanning, all to see,
Deep breath, one step more,
People move, some slow, others quick,
Dancing in & out, our field of view,
Stay calm, you’re safe, one more step.

What’s that sound, minds flashback, to days since past,
With instinct, we head for safer ground,
No need to panic, no need to fear,
Just the sound of a car backfiring,
Stay calm, your safe, one more step.

Hyper-vigilance skills, once finely tuned, come into play,
Check the window, check the doorway,
Why’s that person there, Don’t forget to look behind,
Stay calm, your safe, one more step.

People come our way, senses intensify,
With skills once perfected, we scan the treat,
How many, what’s their mission,
Look for weakness, is that a limp,
Now they’re close, the body prepares in expectation,
The moment passes without peril,
Stay calm, you’re safe, one more step.

Not far, our goal close at hand,
In the doorway, trained eyes respond, to dangers a new,
Why’s that person, who, but a moment ago, not there,
Now, stands between me and my goal,
Scenarios run wild, within our mind,
Slow down, check the window, who’s close at hand,
Avoidance techniques long since refined, play our hand,
Stay calm, you’re safe, one more step.

We’ve reached our goal, we’re safe for now,
Time for grounding, time to come back to hear and now,
Time to practice lessons learned, at our place of safety,
Our task for today, now complete,
Stay calm, you’re safe.

The Shop

Remember the days, when duty done,
Terrors you faced, without a flinch,
There you stood, side by side, with brave souls of war,
Don’t let the fears of the day, overcome.

Deep breath, the hard part done, we’re here,
We stand, a quiet time, we wait,
Remembering lessons learnt, from our place of safety,
Grounding techniques, we search,
Our pockets, hands dig deep,
One hand a phone, the other our keys,
Deep breath, its time.

We’re in, threats lurk all around,
We turn left, then left, and left again,
Just in case people, are a following,
Standoff we must, our target, seen,
Watch and wait, until the cost is clear.

The coast is clear, time to move in,
Like shadows moving within the night, we approach,
Abort, abort, someone stands close,
Retreat to our standoff point, we must,
We stand and stare, we wait, until target clear.

At last, target clear, time to move once more,
Now with caution, we move in, our minds on our goal,
It’s just there, an arms reach away,
At last, our DVD obtained,
Time to beat a swift retreat.

Remembering training, long since past,
A different path, we must take,
Our mind into surveillance mode, has slipped,
People approach, first a few, them many,
Our eyes search around, a safer way, we must find,
Turning this way and that, our objective now in view.

Once again, our standoff position we must find,
Time to stand and stare, a quieter time we await,
The queue has gone, time to move,
Breathing techniques in hand, we stand and wait.

The body tingles, senses heighten, hairs stand on end,
Someone stands to close, in our protective zone,
Why so close, what do they want, don’t they understand,
Time stands still, while we wait,
One eye on the goal, the other on the person, so close,
We made it, we survived, let’s leave this place of danger,
Stay calm, it’s only a shop.

Invite

A chance has arisen to escape, my unseen world,
But, only for a moment in time,
Time to break free from my lonely world,
To you, a small invite, to me, a chance at life,
Just an invite to a local pub, to me the world.

One day to go, my mind has started, its unfair games,
Outcomes, some new, some old, play within my soul,
Fear has risen its ugly head, paranoia sets in,
Should I go, should I stay,
It’s an invite I want to go.

Zulu time, but two hours from now,
Time to get ready, but what’s that sound,
Need to do this, need to do that, maybe I shouldn’t go,
If I go, lousy time will be had, by all,
Excuses run rife within my mind,
Head for the shower, clean the body, cleanse the mind,
No more excuses, you have an invite, after all.

Zero hour, plans are made, nothing left to chance,
Not far to go, but still, our mind takes a different route,
Will I be left to ponder, on my own, will people talk,
Stay calm, you brave soul of war, it’s only an invitation.

We’re here, strange noises come from far and near,
The door, just there, you can do it, just one more step,
One brave step, we’re in, a crowded room, we’re faced,
With flashbacks, our mind seeks days long since gone.

In the doorway, we stand, frozen in a moment,
Eyes dart around the room, dangers we do seek,
Each group we scan in turn, dangers lurk all around,
All five senses, now in play, we watch, we listen,
Where is the escape route, just in case.

Don’t think less of me, if I sit with my back to the wall,
I’m anxious about what I can’t see, no control, you see,
But don’t leave me alone, come and chat,
Everyone having fun, despite my presence here,
Maybe it isn’t me, that destroys the night.

Thanks for the invite, but it’s time to go,
My past is back, with its vengeful stance,
Everyone in the room, now a potential threat,
Every sound, now echoing in my head,
Panic sets in, my way is blocked, I need to leave,
Please don’t think less of me,
Thanks for the invite, but I need to go.

Night

Come with me into the shadows of the night,
Where terrors hide in the darkness,
For our brave souls, they lay in wait,
Many fear to tread, where they’ve been before,
Too many times they’ve danced in the shadows.

Those who dare to go into the darkness,
Sleep, but a short affair,
Two hours, maybe four, we take our chance,
How many nightmares will this night bring,

If you hear me cry out in the night,
Don’t feel pity, just a memory, just stay close,
For those, yet to venture into the darkness,
The journey they must make,

Some lay awake, into the night, they stare,
Others wait for the cold light of day,
At last, first light, the terrors of the night, left behind,

Time to greet another day,
But the day is just a double-edged weapon,
What terrors, wait for our brave souls of war.

Come Home

Come home you brave souls of war,
Leave the darkness, enter the light,
Without fear, without pain,
Tread a new path.

Leave behind the shadows that dance in the night,
Forget the voices, that play tricks on the mind,
Leave the nightmares that haunt the night,
Come in from the cold, you brave souls of war.

Forget the battlefield, but remember the few,
Replace the images, with ones a new,
Patrol, no more as you walk the streets,
Be vigilant, but walk not in fear,
It’s time to come home, you brave souls of war.

Tie up that black dog, its walk complete,
You’re alone no more,
There is a place for you, right here, by my side,
Together, we can walk a new path,
Time to come home you brave souls of war.

Talk

Don’t sit there alone, without emotion,
Remembering the things you’ve seen & done,
Terrors that make you scream, but in the night,
Sights that would make everyday folk, run with fright,

Talk to your loved ones, before it’s too late,
Tell them of the horrors you’ve seen,
Ones that make you call out in the night,
Tell them of sights, intense in your mind,
Why you fear to venture into the night,

Don’t hide the events, of days long since absent,
Open your voice, to those that will listen,
Let the tears flow, don’t be ashamed,
Those that love you the most will not judge,
Welcome them in with open arms,

Have a place in your heart, for loved ones, driven away,
Terrors you have witnessed, you couldn’t talk
Outbursts not meant for them,
The days you sat and wept, not destined for them to see,

Feel the warmth, feel the love, from those you’ve let in,
Terrors may still haunt our days & nights,
Now with a loving hug, our problems shared,
When we sit alone, in our solitary world, we relax,
They now know, It’s our place of safety,
You did your duty, it’s time to talk.

Stay Close

When you look at me, what do you see,
A vigorous person, full of life, full of joy,
Look deeper, past my mask, what do you see.

Just there, inside my mask, a soul lost within their mind,
A place, nightmares run wild in the night,
Terrors of the past, play havoc, throughout the day,
Stay close, we need you now.

Don’t be fooled by our mask,
Those who’ve seen war, behind our masks we must stay,
Not for shame, not for guilt, Inside we cry in pain,
Our aim, protect you from horrors, we’ve seen,
When our words cut the air, our actions aggressive,
Remember, they’re not meant for you.

When we call, please make time,
It’s taken us an hour to call,
At first, it may seem hard to comprehend,
Time to listen, we need to talk, of terrors seen & done,
A friendly voice, all we need, in our hour of need,
Stay close, we need you now.

If you see me all alone, sit by my side, stay awhile,
But don’t get angry, get not upset,
If a barrier between us, I do make,
Read between the lines, it’s not there for you.

If I retreat to my safe place or cry out in the night,
Please don’t leave me, or go away, stay by my side,
It’s lonely, trapped here, within this world of torment,
Please stay close, we need you now.

Family

As you venture onto your solitary path of recovery,
Stop, but for a moment, take a look around,
Who’s that, who dares, to stand close,
It the darkest days, all seemed lost, they were there,
When you retreated to your safe place, who was there.

Some have been there all their lives,
Others, but a short space in time,
Without hesitation, when you needed someone,
They were there, no price to be paid,
They wiped your tears, they held your hand,
On them days, when all seemed lost.

When you were on your own but wanted to talk,
Who was there, but a phone call away,
In the night, when you called out in fear,
They were there, but a short distance away.

On the days when life seemed too hard to bear,
Who held out, that supporting hand,
No price was paid, no price was asked,
Without question, there support, they gave,

When you desired nothing more than a loving hug,
No need to ask, they were already there,
With there care, our road to recovery, assured,
If only, we could give back, just a small amount.

Love for our family, so much we owe,
They were there, in our darkest hour,
Our daughters, our sons, partners to,
Without them, our road, a hard path to follow.

Treatment

Our long road to recovery has arrived,
With trembling hands, we read,
Not one, but two weeks we must go,
Question formulate, within our minds,
Am I worthy, what of the brave souls, limbs they’ve lost,
More justified, this place of healing.

Our acceptance letter, given, but a cautionary glance,
Fear of the unknown, takes hold, within our minds,
Will, I need to bare all I’ve seen & done, for all to see,
Terrors kept inside, for so long, now to be exposed,
Will, I need to talk, in a group, not doing that.

The day has come, at the front gate we stand,
One deep breath, one step more, family close at hand,
With trepidation, we enter this place of healing,
A welcome smile, a friendly voice, meets us at the door,
Our body, but a moment ago, numb, now relax.

Our farewells said we’re left alone, time for calm,
A moment in time passes bye, we wait,
A faint knock at the door, a friendly voice, calls out,
No need to panic, it’s only a nurse,
Go with them we must, our state of mind, assessed.

Time has come for interaction, fellow Veterans met,
Past fears put aside, they’re just like me,
An unbreakable bond, our souls of war, sustain,
On eggshells, our Veteran tread triggers not yet known,
Time has come to venture into the night.

With apprehension, we wait, the start of this new day,
The days plan, all laid out, for all to see,
As time slips past, fear of the unknown runs wild,
The hour fast approaches, time to meet our demons.

In the room Veteran sit, each, their backs to the wall,
Each an individual, But with a common goal,
We need to know, why terrors play havoc in our minds,
Time has come, no more running from our past.

Silence fills the room, all unsure what to say,
It took awhile, help from a friendly voice is all it took,
Slowly our voice could be heard, we’re not alone,
Too many days passed, believing, it was just us,
Crying out in the night, horrors faced, each & every day,
We’re not alone, it’s not just me.

We leave the room, our shoulders, a heavyweight lifted,
Fears were unfounded, no need to panic,
For once a glimmer of hope now surrounds us all,
The next meeting, we wait with anticipation.

One to One

We enter the room of despair,
There we sit in fear and anticipation of what’s to follow,
Time is near, panic raises from deep within,
The body stiffens with anticipation.

The sound of rooms being unlocked,
Come from deep inside your head,
Questions attack from every angle.

Tears flow in your mind, from events long since past,
Still, we sit alone in the room of despair,
Nothing but our thoughts playing their harsh games.

The heart quickens, sweat flows from your brow,
While your eyes accelerate towards the door,
At first a squeak, then a rush of air
The door opens wide.

Stand down you souls of war, It’s only the therapist,
They’ve come to talk, of terrors you’ve seen,
Let them in, share the pain.

In My Head

There in my head, again,
Nowhere to run, Nowhere to hide,
There is nowhere to go.

Words sharpened to a point,
Like surgeons, they hack away,
First to the left, then to the right,
They’re coming at me from all angles,
Quick, put up a defence, don’t let them in,
There’s no way out.

There in my head, again.
My feelings are out for all to see,
At last, they are out, calm and peace are back again,
Tears shed, muscles stretched,
The mind has relaxed.

They were in my head again.

Place of Safety

Dawn has broken over our place of safety,
The air, full of anticipation,
Some with fear, some with joy,
Its time to leave our place of safety.

Echos of encouragement fill the morning air,
From angels that keep us safe,
Others from brothers & sisters in arms,
Within our place of safety.

Remember lessons learned,
Take that brave new step,
Into the world outside, with heads held high,
Its time to leave our place of safety.

Armed with knowledge a new, courage aplenty,
Say our sad farewells,
We head off on our brand new journey,
Our place of safety left behind.

Don’t panic, don’t fear
Them angels, but a call away,
Within our place of safety.

Encouragement

Onward boys, from this place of learning,
With heads full to bursting,
Lessons learned, ideas aplenty.

Dangers may lay on the road ahead,
Encouragement echoing from far and near,
Each step forward is a step from the past.

Go forward with hope aplenty.
It’s there, just ahead,
The life you’ve been looking for,
Remember the past, not just the bad,
It’s there, just one more push.

Well done, you’ve reached that point,
Feel the pride, feel the joy, time to celebrate,
Remember most, of all those still on the road,
Share the head full to bursting.

Go forward with hope aplenty.

Simon

In the silence of the morning light.

The eerie mist of war has risen from its slumber.

The Guns have fallen silent.

The only sound is the defiant sound of nature welcoming the morning.

A solitary flash in the distance disturbed the peaceful scene.

But, stand down you souls of war.

Its only Simon on another photo opportunity.

George

The last rays of light disappear over the horizon,
Strange, unearthly sounds echoed out of the darkness,
Blankets of mist lay, where dogs fear to tread.

An eerie silence surrounds all that dare to listen,
Alone soldier with his battle-hardened Chihuahua
entered the darkness.

Stand firm came the cry,
Brave souls tensioned in anticipation,
Forward you, souls of war, into the darkness, for Queen and Country.

An unearthly sound came from the darkness once more,
Brave souls shuddered where they stood, on their piece of little earth.

Forward you souls of war,
Out of the mist, an unholy sight emerged,
Stand down you souls of war.

Its only George using his dog to clean a tank, a
Guardsman to the end.

©Steve Barker

 

The Siege of Derry 1689

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Apr 022019
 

The Siege of Derry 1689

A great documentary detailing the rebellion in which the citizens of Derry locked their king and his men out of the city in 1689, in support of the Dutch invasion of England.The great academic historians of this generation tell the story of Derry’s siege and related incidents.

Sourced From You Tube (MICKYK897) BBC Documentary.

Richard O’Hara a former Royal Green Jacket

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Mar 312019
 

Richard O’Hara a former Royal Green Jacket

The family of a nine-year-old girl killed more than 40 years ago has demanded to know why the Northern Ireland man suspected of her manslaughter was allowed to walk free – to rape and murder a woman from Belfast.

Sharon Sparks’ body was found with severe head and facial injuries on a country lane in Milnrow, Greater Manchester, on September 11, 1974.

Richard O’Hara, a Belfast-born security guard, admitted in police interviews to killing Sharon, telling detectives he had picked her up from a bus stop before accidentally running her over.

O’Hara, a former soldier, then 21, was charged with a string of offences, including manslaughter, abduction, and child stealing. But in 1975, a nine-man jury at Sharon’s inquest recorded a verdict of accidental death by a majority of eight to one – despite the coroner suggesting a manslaughter conclusion.

All charges against O’Hara were dropped and no-one has ever been brought to justice for Sharon’s death.

Seven years later, O’Hara was jailed for life for the rape and murder of 19-year-old secretary Deborah Robinson. The young woman, who was from south Belfast, was strangled during a trip to Dublin.

O’Hara abducted her before taking her to a factory where he raped and killed her. He then drove her body 30 miles to the Kildare countryside and dumped it in a ditch.

In 2004 he married Carole Cathcart, a Presbyterian deaconess, who stepped down from her role after O’Hara’s past was revealed by the press.

The family of Sharon Sparks is now demanding to know why O’Hara was allowed to walk free to kill again.

Tanya Taylor was just seven when Sharon, her half-sister, died.

She said: “It’s about getting justice for Sharon.

“I want answers. How can O’Hara get away with what he did? If he had not been allowed to walk free after killing Sharon, Deborah Robinson would be alive today.

“That tragedy could have been avoided. Why was that allowed to happen? That’s what I can’t get my head round.

“He should face justice for what he did.”

After a huge investigation involving 60 detectives at the time, forensic evidence led cops to a blue Ford Escort owned by O’Hara.

After several police interviews, he admitted killing Sharon, telling police he had picked the schoolgirl up from a bus stop near her home in Shawforth, Lancashire.

O’Hara said he had driven until Sharon “started screaming”, before she got out of the car in a lay-by off Wildhouse Lane in Milnrow, seven miles away, where he had accidentally run her over.

Tanya, a carer who now lives in Rawtenstall, Lancashire, said: “I would go visit her on a weekend because she lived with our grandma.

“We’d play doctors and nurses, I can remember her in a nurse’s outfit with a little doctor’s bag.

“She was always the nurse and I was the patient and she would shout at me if I moved. She was so bossy but so funny.”

Despite being too young to initially understand what had happened to Sharon, Tanya, now a mum-of-four and a grandmother-of-five, said her death had a devastating effect on her.

“Mum and dad told me Sharon had been picked up by a bad man, but in those days it was hush, hush. We didn’t really speak about it.

“It didn’t really sink in. At that age I didn’t really understand what had happened, but I can remember thinking ‘Why can’t I go to see Sharon any more?’.

“It was only later, when I was about 11 or 12, that I really began to understand,” Tanya said.

“It had a massive effect on me and my life. Because of what happened to Sharon my dad was really strict with me. He wouldn’t let me out of the house, so I had no teenage life really.

“It meant that whenever I got the chance I rebelled.

“I made some bad decisions and that’s had a knock-on effect throughout my life. It also had a massive effect on the village. Everyone talked about it.

“To this day people in Shawforth still talk about what happened to Sharon.

“I have no other sisters and she was older than me so I looked up to her. I still think about her most days.”

In a remarkable statement, O’Hara told the 1975 inquest how he saw a “little girl thumbing a lift” at the bus stop. O’Hara, then of Brimrod, in Rochdale, told the hearing: “I stopped and told her she shouldn’t thumb lifts, then offered to run her home.”

Sharon “seemed happy enough with me” continued O’Hara, so the pair drove around Rochdale.

But when they got to Wildhouse Lane he said Sharon “started screaming, saying she wanted to get out”.

O’Hara added: “I was panicking and decided to look for somewhere to stop so I could calm her down.

“I saw the lay-by so I turned in. I was going about 50-60mph and I saw the passenger door open. When I stopped she wasn’t there.

“I reversed the car. There was a wobble of the steering wheel as if I had run over something.

“I got out and she was lying under the wheel. I felt for a heartbeat but I couldn’t feel anything.

“I panicked and tried to get help by radio but there was too much static.

“I lifted her up and put her over the wall but I thought I heard her moan so I left her on a grass verge. She was dead when I left her.

“I wouldn’t have left her if she had been alive.

“One of her shoes was still in the car so I threw it out over Pilsworth, near Heywood.

“The journey was innocent and I intended to take her home. I didn’t mean her any harm. I was afraid of the consequences and this is why I didn’t come to the police station.”

Later that month all charges against O’Hara were dropped when the prosecution offered no evidence during a hearing at Rochdale Magistrates Court.

The prosecuting solicitor told the court he was acting on the advice of the Director of Public Prosecutions.

O’Hara, the court heard, had served with The Royal Green Jackets in Belfast for two years, but in 1972 was discharged for disobeying orders after refusing to go back for a fourth tour of duty.

He returned to Ireland, the court heard, but lived in constant fear of the IRA, who had twice threatened him because of his Army background

He moved back to England in 1973, settling in Rochdale.

At some point in the years following Sharon’s death, O’Hara once again returned to Ireland.

In September 1980 he met Deborah Robinson, a secretary from south Belfast, as she waited for a bus home at Parnell Square in Dublin, following a blind date in the city.

O’Hara lured Deborah back to the factory where he worked and then raped and strangled her to death.

The next day he drove 30 miles outside Dublin to dump her body in a ditch near Clane, Co Kildare.

O’Hara confessed to the killing but denied raping Deborah. That was a lie. He claimed he got angry when Deborah told him she “felt nothing” after they had sex.

O’Hara was sentenced to life in jail in 1982 and eventually served 25 years behind bars, becoming one of Ireland’s most notorious and longest-serving prisoners.

On his release O’Hara again made the headlines when he married Ms Cathcart, at the time a Presbyterian deaconess. She later stepped down.

Previously he had been jailed for two years in December 1975 when he admitted attempting to rob a young woman he gave a lift to near Newry.

Police investigating the Deborah Robinson murder also discovered that O’Hara had been given a suspended sentence at Winchester, Hampshire, for housebreaking and assaulting a 15-year-old girl.

The National Archives hold a file on the Sharon Sparks case, but it is not due to be made public until 2054.

Tanya believes it could hold the key to explaining why O’Hara walked free.

But both Tanya and the press have had requests for the file to be released turned down on the grounds that it contains “sensitive personal information of a number of identified individuals assumed to be still living, including financial information, unsubstantiated allegations, and details of the personal lives of named individuals”, and that the release of the information would be “unfair and risk causing damage and distress”.

Credited to The Belfast Telegraph

 

Rifleman G.A. Littler

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Mar 242019
 

Rifleman G.A. Littler

The international football cap awarded to Rifleman G.A. Littler of The King’s Royal Rifle Corps for representing the England Amateur Football Team in a friendly match against the Netherlands on 24th March 1913.

Littler, who was later promoted to the rank of Sergeant, died on 11th May 1915, aged 27, as a result of wounds received while serving with 2 KRRC at Neuve Chapelle.

Background

George Albert Littler was born in 1888 in Hulme, Manchester. He enlisted in The King’s Royal Rifle Corps before the First World War and was well known for his ability as a forward on the football field.

In the 1911-1912 football season he played for the very successful 1st Battalion team in their Fourth Round FA Cup tie against Brentford FC. According to a report of the event:

The weather on the day was atrocious and a wretched crowd of just 1,475 saw Brentford surprisingly held to a 1-1 draw. The soldiers wanted the replay to take place on their ground at Aldershot, but the FA refused and Brentford duly triumphed 4-1 at Griffin Park before another poor crowd (2,600).

Littler, however, must have impressed Brentford FC as he ended up on their books, playing for their Reserves.

In the autumn of 1912 Littler was posted from the 1st Battalion to The Rifle Depot. The 1st Battalion’s records refer to the loss of Littler, stating: ‘We were at the beginning of the season (1912-1913) greatly handicapped by losing two of our best players, namely, Corporal Kemp and Rifleman Littler.’

During the 1912-1913 season Littler represented The Rifle Depot. Despite being knocked out of both the Army Cup and the Amateur Cup, the Depot team were top of the South Hants League at the half way point in the season

On the 7th December 1912 he played for the South against the North in an England Amateur Trial held in York, scoring in a 4-0 win. As a result of his performance, he earned a call-up to the England Amateur Team and on 24th March 1913 represented the England Amateur International Team in a friendly match against the Netherlands 1st Team. The match was played in Den Haag (The Hague) in front of 20,000 people. England were beaten 1-0.

The original cap awarded to Littler for playing in this match and the shirt he wore have recently been presented to the Museum.
During the 1913-14 football season Littler played regularly for Brentford FC. His footballing career, however, was halted by the outbreak of the First World War. By 1915 he had reached the rank of Sergeant.

Sergeant George Littler died on 11th May 1915, aged 27, as a result of wounds received while serving with 2nd Battalion, The King’s Royal Rifle Corps, at Neuve Chapelle.

In a review of the 1915-1916 Brentford FC football season, it was written:

The war began to affect the lives of everyone in Britain, and Brentford were shocked in the close season to learn of the death of their former player, England Amateur International Sergeant G. Littler, who played several times for the ‘Bees’ (Brentford FC) in the 1913-1914 Southern Alliance.

Sergeant Littler is buried in Béthune Town Cemetery in France, having played, fought and died for his Country.

Credited to The Royal Green Jackets Museum

Sourced from Facebook

 

An Angry Mob and a Gravy Train.

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Mar 182019
 

Robin E Horsfall

Here is the transcript from the Robin E Horsfall

Video.

An Angry Mob and a Gravy Train.

I challenge anyone to face down thousands of angry people carrying clubs, bottles and bricks and describe them as ‘unarmed, protesters’. If a person holds a large stone with the intent of throwing it they are armed, if a person carries a bottle full of petrol they are armed, if a crowd corners an individual and attacks him or her they are dangerous to life. The question of whether they are carrying guns is irrelevant; – a point ignored by the BBC, Sky and other media sources when reporting the finding of yet another Bloody Sunday inquiry.

One hundred and forty-five million pounds of taxpayers money over forty-seven years to obtain the prosecution on one junior rank, one soldier among many who was on the streets facing a baying mob of rioters, not as the media would have it, ‘peaceful, unarmed protestors’.

So who benefits from this decision to prosecute? Certainly not those hoping for justice, because if justice was what they wanted then they would have to prosecute the politicians, the police, the march organisers, the military commanders, the IRA the UDA and those who attacked the security forces. They can’t do that because almost all of those in the aforementioned list have died in the intervening period. So they are left with one squaddie.

So who benefits? Not those who were seeking compensation because in spite of the attempt to prosecute as many soldiers as possible, there has never been enough evidence to prosecute. So the millions in compensation that might have been expected by the families of the dead has been reduced dramatically.

So who benefits? £145,000,000 goes a long way where law firms are concerned. Win or lose they come out on top. It’s not a complicated scam, find an aggrieved family, give them high expectations and then drag the case out over as many years as possible. By the end of the Saville inquiry in 2010 fourteen lawyers had earned more than one million pounds in fees. In the intervening years I would imagine that the number has doubled. The feigned shock and horror displayed when it was discovered that lawyers were raking it in with fake cases from Iraq is simply a more recent version of the same scam.

It is interesting that the latest investigation into Bloody Sunday has resulted in only one prosecution. I am tempted to think that this individual is a bone of appeasement thrown to the wolves to prevent violence from breaking out again. The recent parcel bombs sent to different addresses in the UK were sent as a warning to the authorities by the IRA. Not a group ‘claiming to be the IRA, but the IRA. They knew the secret code word that identified them to the media and the police. The law is only useful to criminals when it goes their way when it doesn’t they will return to the bombs and bullets of yester-year.

There is no guarantee that there will be a guilty verdict at the end of this case. The case will drag out over the next few years; the defendant will get older and may well pass away. It will be interesting to discover why Soldier F has been singled out.

The prosecution of ‘Soldier F’ whichever way it goes will not be the end of the matter. The trough is now being filled with more cash to investigate the ‘Ballymurphy Massacre’ and when that is over there will be another and another case to drag up from history. The driving force is easy money. It’s akin to picking a scab from a wound that can never heal

If the UK is to draw a line under the decades of violence in Northern Ireland then the first step must be to cut off the funding for these spurious cases. It isn’t possible to get justice for those who died in Northern Ireland between 1969 and today which is why the Good Friday Agreement was accepted and killers were released from prison. It isn’t possible to get meaningful convictions – and it isn’t possible to become a compensation millionaire – unless of course you are a lawyer.

I call on the Government to cut the funds that feed this gravy train, I call on the media to stop spouting Republican propaganda and I call on all the peoples of Northern Ireland to put the past away – none of us can get our dead friends back. Keep on looking to the future and continue to build a prosperous Northern Ireland where the next generation can have peace.

©Robin Horsfall 2019

 

Operation Banner Soldiers Stories

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Feb 102019
 

Operation Banner Soldiers Stories

The British Army’s arrival in Northern Ireland. They were deployed on 14th August 1969 by the Wilson government, as law and order had broken down in the province. Over the next three decades, some 300,000 British troops would serve in what became a war in all but name. Occasionally they were welcomed, more often, they were spat at, pelted with missiles or shot. Operation Banner ended at midnight on 31st July 2007 making it the longest continuous deployment in the British Army’s history, but the memories of the soldiers who had served here would last a lot longer… This documentary for HISTORY, presented by former soldier Ken Hames and based on the in-depth interviews conducted by Northern Ireland veteran Ken Wharton for his books on The Troubles, provides a new and unique insight into the conflict in Northern Ireland. Soldiers have never before given such personal interviews and reveal stories of bombings, humour in the face of adversity, of strong comradeship and of heartache, from their own personal perspective. In the four decades that British troops were stationed in Northern Ireland they were subjected to bombings and shootings on a daily basis. This was a brutal and terrifying time that scarred all who served there.

Sourced From You Tube (Credited James Buchan)

Who Really Shot James Bryson ?

In the original manuscript about the demise of James Bryson, which was written by Ed Maloney and James Kinchin-White it was illustrated with a photograph of a vehicle which was purported to be the vehicle that James Bryson met his death in.

In fact this vehicle was not the said vehicle that James Bryson met his demise in, the vehicle shown in the original document written by the two authors Ed Maloney and James Kinchin-White was in fact unrelated to the death of James Bryson, this vehicle had one year earlier been involved in another shooting.

The vehicle which James Bryson met his demise in was another vehicle, which is only known to the intelligence officers of the British Armed Forces.

The day’s events have a few unanswered questions they are:

How was it that James Bryson had been seen earlier in the estate driving around purported to waving a weapon around, there was intelligence to say this and therefore he was in the radar and was heading towards a rendezvous point, the question is why if the intelligence knew that Bryson was heading towards this area, were two soldiers left in a roof space as sitting ducks?

Two soldiers that should have been on patrol in a formation of more than two soldiers where were the others?

Why were they not sent back up?

Was Bryson working for the intelligence services undercover?

Was his waving of the weapon previously in a residential area an action made to flush out the security forces or was it too show a signal of strength to let other terrorists know he was there or to strike fear in innocent people, both would make sense if he was working for the security forces as has been suggested previously?

Was Bryson going to the final destination under the lull of a sense of false security, he thought he was going with his intelligence officers, others who were working for the armed forces as Ira officers, in the car and his Ira companion unaware that they were going to a rendezvous which would be the capture of his Ira colleague, hence Bryson did not fire at the two soldiers that were sitting as sitting ducks when they kicked the roof space in? 

Soldier who opened fire by his own omission did not give the required warning before he opened fire, why was this, did he panic or did he know he didn’t need to? (Unbeknown to his colleague another Soldier who did not get decorated for his action, although he was in equal danger, as the Soldier who opened fire, this was a pre arranged incident hence only two Soldiers, lay in wait)

The Soldier who opened fire, was it his bullet that killed Bryson, where is the postmortem report to show this?

Did somebody in the car sacrifice Bryson; was he shot in the car?

In fact was this a two for one exercise gets rid of a rogue intelligence officer and an Ira terrorist at the same time?

The only way we will know this is when we know how many occupants were in the car, it is purported that there were 5 in the car, it is also purported that the other 3 were intelligence officers working with the Ira having infiltrated them.

How many occupants were in the car?

Where is the car?

Did the car scream off as was stated by a resident nearby?

What happened to the other occupants?

Were Bryson and his colleague thrown out of the car?

Where are Bryson’s’ bullets, surely he would have returned fire, If he didn’t then was he actually being aggressive, showing aggression with his weapon?

Was this the reason for the Soldier to fire at him?

If no firing was taking place at the time, how come a Soldier fired on Bryson?

Was this a pre organized exercise?

Bryson and his colleague were they shot in the car and to legitimize the incident the Soldier knew he had to put a round down, to cover the tracks of the intelligence officers that had killed Bryson?

How many bullets were in Bryson did they all match the British Soldiers ammunition?

Did the Soldier get The Military Medal as a hush award, to keep his mouth shut a pay off?

All of the above have been circulated unanswered for 45 years.

Of course given the nature of the incident, it is safe to say that the Dead tell no lies, and the answers have died with the x-rays. (X-ray a term used for the dead terrorist in Army speak / Military speak).

He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.”

Charles Peguy.

To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men –

Ella Wheeler.

Who Really Shot Jim Bryson

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Jan 202019
 

Jim Bryson and Paddy Mulvenna

Relatives are now Fighting for Justice over the Killings 

(The Relatives for Justice report is in the link below if you wish to read it)

https://www.relativesforjustice.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Bryson-Mulvenna-Rep-OCT-2018-LRes.pdf

Who Really Shot James Bryson ?

In the original manuscript below, about the demise of James Bryson, which was written by Ed Maloney and James Kinchin-White it was illustrated with a photograph of a vehicle which was purported to be the vehicle that James Bryson met his death in.

In fact this vehicle was not the said vehicle that James Bryson met his demise in, the vehicle shown in the original document written by the two authors Ed Maloney and James Kinchin-White was in fact unrelated to the death of James Bryson, this vehicle had one year earlier been involved in another shooting.

The vehicle which James Bryson met his demise in was another vehicle, which is only known to the intelligence officers of the British Armed Forces.

The day’s events have a few unanswered questions they are:

How was it that James Bryson had been seen earlier in the estate driving around purported to waving a weapon around, there was intelligence to say this and therefore he was in the radar and was heading towards a rendezvous point, the question is why if the intelligence knew that Bryson was heading towards this area, were two soldiers left in a roof space as sitting ducks?

Two soldiers that should have been on patrol in a formation of more than two soldiers where were the others?

Why were they not sent back up?

Was Bryson working for the intelligence services undercover?

Was his waving of the weapon previously in a residential area an action made to flush out the security forces or was it too show a signal of strength to let other terrorists know he was there or to strike fear in innocent people, both would make sense if he was working for the security forces as has been suggested previously?

Was Bryson going to the final destination under the lull of a sense of false security, he thought he was going with his intelligence officers, others who were working for the armed forces as Ira officers, in the car and his Ira companion unaware that they were going to a rendezvous which would be the capture of his Ira colleague, hence Bryson did not fire at the two soldiers that were sitting as sitting ducks when they kicked the roof space in? 

Soldier who opened fire by his own omission did not give the required warning before he opened fire, why was this, did he panic or did he know he didn’t need to? (Unbeknown to his colleague another Soldier who did not get decorated for his action, although he was in equal danger, as the Soldier who opened fire, this was a pre arranged incident hence only two Soldiers, lay in wait)

The Soldier who opened fire, was it his bullet that killed Bryson, where is the postmortem report to show this?

Did somebody in the car sacrifice Bryson; was he shot in the car?

In fact was this a two for one exercise gets rid of a rogue intelligence officer and an Ira terrorist at the same time?

The only way we will know this is when we know how many occupants were in the car, it is purported that there were 5 in the car, it is also purported that the other 3 were intelligence officers working with the IRA having infiltrated them.

How many occupants were in the car?

Where is the car?

Did the car scream off as was stated by a resident nearby?

What happened to the other occupants?

Were Bryson and his colleague thrown out of the car?

Where are Bryson’s’ bullets, surely he would have returned fire, If he didn’t then was he actually being aggressive, showing aggression with his weapon? 

Was this the reason for the Soldier to fire at him?

If no firing was taking place at the time, how come a Soldier fired on Bryson? was this a shoot to kill exercise?

Did the Sniper and his team first on the scene to identify those shot?

Was there rounds found in the car? 

Was this a pre organized exercise?

Bryson and his colleague were they shot in the car and to legitimize the incident the Soldier knew he had to put a round down, to cover the tracks of the intelligence officers that had killed Bryson?

How many bullets were in Bryson did they all match the British Soldiers ammunition?

Did the Soldier get The Military Medal as a hush award, to keep his mouth shut a pay off?

All of the above have been circulated unanswered for 49 years.

Of course given the nature of the incident, it is safe to say that the Dead tell no lies, and the answers have died with the x-rays. (X-ray a term used for the dead terrorist in Army speak / Military speak).

Article by Julie Ann Rosser

He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.”

Charles Peguy.

To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men –

Ella Wheeler.

https://www.relativesforjustice.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Bryson-Mulvenna-Rep-OCT-2018-LRes.pdf

31st August 2022 was the 49th Anniversary

of this Eventful Day 

in

The Royal Green Jackets Diary

Events of Friday 31st of August in 1973

In the original manuscript below, about the demise of James Bryson, which was written by Ed Maloney and James Kinchin-White it was illustrated with a photograph of a vehicle which was purported to be the vehicle that James Bryson met his death in.

In fact this vehicle was not the said vehicle that James Bryson met his demise in, the vehicle shown in the original document written by the two authors Ed Maloney and James Kinchin-White was in fact unrelated to the death of James Bryson, this vehicle had one year earlier been involved in another shooting.

The vehicle which James Bryson met his demise in was another vehicle, which is only known to the intelligence officers of the British Armed Forces.

The day’s events have a few unanswered questions they are:

How was it that James Bryson had been seen earlier in the estate driving around purported to waving a weapon around, there was intelligence to say this and therefore he was in the radar and was heading towards a rendezvous point, the question is why if the intelligence knew that Bryson was heading towards this area, were two soldiers left in a roof space as sitting ducks?

Two soldiers that should have been on patrol in a formation of more than two soldiers where were the others?

Why were they not sent back up?

Was Bryson working for the intelligence services undercover?

Was his waving of the weapon previously in a residential area an action made to flush out the security forces or was it too show a signal of strength to let other terrorists know he was there or to strike fear in innocent people, both would make sense if he was working for the security forces as has been suggested previously?

Was Bryson going to the final destination under the lull of a sense of false security, he thought he was going with his intelligence officers, others who were working for the armed forces as Ira officers, in the car and his Ira companion unaware that they were going to a rendezvous which would be the capture of his Ira colleague, hence Bryson did not fire at the two soldiers that were sitting as sitting ducks when they kicked the roof space in?

The Soldier who opened fire by his own omission did not give the required warning before he opened fire, why was this, did he panic or did he know he didn’t need to? (Unbeknown to his colleague another Soldier who did not get decorated for his action, although he was in equal danger, as the Soldier who opened fire, this was a pre arranged incident hence only two Soldiers, lay in wait)

The Soldier who opened fire, was it his bullet that killed Bryson, where is the postmortem report to show this?

Did somebody in the car sacrifice Bryson; was he shot in the car?

In fact was this a two for one exercise gets rid of a rogue intelligence officer and an Ira terrorist at the same time?

The only way we will know this is when we know how many occupants were in the car, it is purported that there were 5 in the car, it is also purported that the other 3 were intelligence officers working with the Ira having infiltrated them.

How many occupants were in the car?

Where is the car?

Did the car scream off as was stated by a resident nearby?

What happened to the other occupants?

Were Bryson and his colleague thrown out of the car?

Where are Bryson’s’ bullets, surely he would have returned fire, If he didn’t then was he actually being aggressive, showing aggression with his weapon?

Was this the reason for the Soldier to fire at him?

If no firing was taking place at the time, how come a Soldier fired on Bryson?

Was this a pre organized exercise?

Bryson and his colleague were they shot in the car and to legitimize the incident the Soldier knew he had to put a round down, to cover the tracks of the intelligence officers that had killed Bryson?

How many bullets were in Bryson did they all match the British Soldiers ammunition?

Did the Soldier get the M.M as a hush award, to keep his mouth shut a pay off?

All of the above have been circulated unanswered for 45 years.

Of course given the nature of the incident, it is safe to say that the Dead tell no lies, and the answers have died with the x-rays. (X-ray a term used for the dead terrorist in Army speak / Military speak)

He who does not bellow the truth when he knows the truth makes himself the accomplice of liars and forgers.” Charles Peguy.

To sin by silence when we should protest makes cowards out of men – Ella Wheeler.

The Regimental Sniper who shot and Killed Bryson and Mullvenna has since become a Regimental Bully and Keyboard Warrior.  

The Bryson Report

James Bryson 25 years, an IRA activist, he was shot and fatally wounded by undercover British soldiers in the Ballymurphy area on the 31st of August in 1973.

bryson-car-rear

This was not the car Jim Bryson and others were shot in, as was first stated by Ed Maloney and James Kinchin -White.

We are now being told it was from another incident the year before

SO WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO THE CAR 

( Jim Bryson, Patrick Mulvenna, ʻBimboʼ OʼRawe and Frank Duffy used)

Jim Bryson and Patrick Mulvenna were IRA volunteers shot during a gun battle from a concealed British Army observation post of The Royal Green Jackets on the Ballymurphy Road, Bryson later died in hospital on the 22nd of September 1973. Patrick Mulvenna (19), also an IRA activist was shot dead in the same incident. Both men were getting out of a car when they were shot.

JB

Historians’ understanding of the development of the Provisional IRA in the 1970‘s and its transition into a smaller, leaner but more politically attuned group – the precursor of the body that endorsed the Republicans’ journey into the peace process – may have to be revised in the light of a recently acquired British military account of a crucial phase in the war between the IRA and the British Army.

This Poem was written by Sheila at the Belfast Primary School in the April of 1972

SOLDIERS IN ULSTER

Out in the wind and the rain

Taunted and ridiculed time again

Vainly endeavoring peace to maintain

Who are you

A BRITISH SOLDIER.

What are your thoughts as you stand erect?

Buildings and citizens you try to protect

Every newcomer you must suspect

Courageous and valiant

SOLDIER.

Your chosen career took you over the sea

Far from your friends and country free

And way out sight of your family

Gallant and brave

SOLDIER.

Hundreds of people you`ve helped save

Thanks to your speedy actions brave

Alas, those of your comrades their lives they gave

We thank you oh

BRITISH SOLDIER.

Yours is a debt we can never repay

Nobody knows how long you must stay

From the morning to the evening, from day to day

We thank you oh

BRITISH SOLDIER.

(The original poem is at the base of this page)

The Bryson Incident By Ed Moloney 

“The Royal Green Jackets (RGJ) Chronicle of 1973”, a privately circulated journal which includes an account of a tour of West Belfast by the regiment’s 3rd Battalion during the summer and autumn of 1973, challenges a central pillar of the Provisional leadership’s narrative of their own rise to power.

It reveals that the IRA’s re-organization into cells – credited with rescuing the organization from defeat in the late 1970’s – was forced upon the group not because of a destructive ceasefire called by the IRA’s national leadership in Dublin in 1974-75, as the conventional account claims, but because of critical setbacks in Belfast more than a year earlier when Gerry Adams was the city’s commander.

The RGJ account reveals that after a series of security force successes against the IRA in the August of 1973, the then Belfast commander, Ivor Bell planned a massive re-organization in the city: scrapping the IRA’s battalion and company structure and replacing it with thirty-two cells or Active Service Units (ASU’s). The new cells would be under his direct control. By contrast the accepted account, which has underpinned the rise of the current Sinn Fein leadership, says that the cell system was not introduced until 1977 in response to the setbacks caused by the 1974-75 ceasefire.

This revelation comes alongside a graphic description in the RGJ Chronicle of an undercover ambush by soldiers from the regiment which resulted in the deaths of two prominent IRA members from Ballymurphy in West Belfast. One was Jim Bryson, a notorious and fearsome gunman and the other was Patrick Mulvenna, who was Gerry Adams’ brother-in-law.

The two men had been chosen by Bell to be members of the new Ballymurphy cell and their deaths were hailed by the Green Jackets as evidence that the British were “inexorably winning a kind of military victory in Belfast”. Their killing was characterized publicly then and ever since as a chance event but this previously undisclosed background raises the possibility that the ambush may have been intelligence-led.

The Royal Green Jackets account challenges the hitherto prevailing version of history by showing that long before the 1974-75 ceasefire the IRA was in such danger of defeat in Belfast, its most important arena, that the leadership in the city was obliged to contemplate a radical re-structuring to survive. This new account suggests that attempts by the Adams’ leadership to put the blame on the Dublin leaders for the IRA’s woes in the mid-1970‘s, at least in Belfast, may at least be misplaced or overstated.

While Ivor Bell planned a large scale re-organization of the Belfast Brigade in the late summer of 1973, a series of security force successes against the IRA at that time, including the killing of Bryson and Mulvenna, forced him to scale his plans back and instead, according to the Chronicle, just twelve cells were created, each with five members. Nonetheless this was a radical break with IRA organizational tradition and a pointer to the pressure then facing the IRA in Belfast.

The established version of IRA history dates the genesis of the cell structure to a conspiracy against the IRA leadership led by Gerry Adams, Ivor Bell and Brendan Hughes from the cages of the Long Kesh internment camp from 1974 onwards. That conspiracy was inspired, according to this rendering, by an open-ended ceasefire called by the older, mostly Southern leadership.
The Adams’ critique of the 1974-75 ceasefire claimed that the IRA’s then leaders – represented in the Northerners’ demonology by Ruairi O Bradaigh and Daithi O Conaill – were suckered into the cessation with false promises of withdrawal by the British who used the time to reconfigure security policy.

Special category status was withdrawn from IRA inmates in the jails, internment was phased out, the RUC was given primacy in security matters and soon police interrogation centers were producing a conveyor belt of confessions to be processed by new no-jury, single judge courts and the jails began filling up with IRA prisoners who were now treated as common criminals.

THE IRA IN RETREAT

The IRA’s Dublin leadership was blamed for bringing the organisation to the verge of defeat, a charge that both justified the Adams-led conspiracy and produced the plan to re-organize the IRA.

While there is no doubt that the Adams’ critique had considerable validity and that the 1974-75 ceasefire did enable the British to revamp security and seriously intensify pressure on the IRA, it is also evident, if the Royal Green Jackets’ version is correct, that the IRA in Gerry Adams’ own backyard in Belfast was in such deep trouble that cellular re-organization was forced upon its leaders long before all this.

According to the conventional narrative of this period the cellular structure was not introduced into the IRA until 1977, four years later, when Adams and Bell were released from jail and other changes were introduced, including the concept of the “long war”, the creation of a Northern Command and Republican involvement in agitational politics, a transformation in the Provisionals’ character that led to the growth and ascendancy of Sinn Fein and ultimately to the peace process.

When Ivor Bell implemented his cellular plan, Gerry Adams and Brendan Hughes were already in jail. They had been arrested in July 1973 as they attended a Belfast Brigade meeting in the Iveagh district of West Belfast, apparently betrayed by another brigade member whose work for the British was a major factor in the organization’s degradation. The fact that Bell began the cellular re-organization so soon after Adams’ arrest suggests that the plans were in the pipeline for some time before. Bell replaced Adams as Belfast commander and stayed in that post until his arrest in the Spring of 1974. Brendan Hughes escaped from Long Kesh and replaced Bell as IRA commander in the city until he too was re-arrested in the early summer of 1974.

Although the RGJ Chronicle does not deal with events in the IRA subsequent to the arrest of Ivor Bell and Brendan Hughes, it is safe to assume that their successors, who were loyal to the pro-ceasefire leadership in Dublin, reverted back to the brigade structure and scrapped Bell’s cells. This is implicit in Brigadier James Glover’s famously leaked assessment of the IRA in 1978, ‘Northern Ireland: Future Terrorist Trends’ which dates 1977 as the year in which the cell structure was brought in. Glover also describes Gerry Adams as “the prime architect” of the change.

THE AMBUSH IN THE BULLRING

There were very few things that the Provisional IRA in Belfast and the British Army would agree about in August 1973 but on one issue they had no argument: James Emerson Bryson was a very dangerous character indeed. “A controlled psychopath”, is how an IRA colleague described Bryson to one of the authors in 2001. “A cunning ruthless killer”, was the judgement of the Battalion Intelligence Officer with the Royal Green Jackets regiment in his five-page account of the ambush by his soldiers that led to Jim Bryson’s death and the closing of one of West Belfast’s most violent chapters in the early years of the Troubles.

Bryson was only twenty-six when bullets fired by a soldier hidden in a covert observation post slammed into the back of his neck and mortally wounded him. But the Ballymurphy IRA activist had long before achieved legendary status in the Republican community and helped make his neighborhood in West Belfast one of the toughest and most uncompromising Provisional strongholds in Northern Ireland.

The ambush that was to claim his life also took that of Patrick Mulvenna whose wife, Frances was a sister of Ballymurphy’s most famous son, Gerry Adams. A cousin was Gerry Kelly, another Ballymurphy stalwart and currently a junior minister in the power sharing government in Belfast, who took part in the first IRA bombing of London in March 1973. At the time of the Bullring ambush, Mulvenna was commander of the Ballymurphy IRA ASU, arguably the cream of Ivor Bell’s new Belfast cell structure.

Although these days he disavows any connection to the IRA, Gerry Adams became ‘B’ Company’s very first commander when the local unit decided in early 1970 to break with the mainstream IRA, soon known as the Official IRA, and align with the newly formed breakaway group that, thanks to lazy journalism, would be dubbed the Provisionals. Formed in angry protest at the Officials’ failure to defend Catholic areas from Loyalist and police attacks the previous summer and committed to the gun as the only solution to political problems, the Provisionals were a natural home for the likes of Jim Bryson.

That Ballymurphy’s IRA activists became so feared and fearsome in the years following the birth of the Provisionals was due in no small part to the presence in the ranks of ‘B’ Coy of remorseless gunmen like Jim Bryson. There was, consequently, one other thing the IRA and the British Army could agree on that late summer day in 1973. Bryson’s death was a huge blow to the IRA; that of Patrick Mulvenna and the wounding and capture of a third member of the ASU completed a miserable day for the Provo command in Belfast. As the RGJ Chronicle account of the deadly ambush put it: “(The attack) destroyed arguably the best Provisional ASU in Belfast disposed of two of the most wanted and dangerous men in Northern Ireland.”

Gerry Adams’ relations with Jim Bryson were, by some accounts, complex. He has described Bryson as “a dear friend” and wrote in the first part of his autobiography, ‘Before the Dawn’ how, not long before the Bullring ambush, he had counsealed Bryson to keep a low profile: “…I had argued with him very earnestly….that he needed to keep his head down; things, after all, had changed from the time he could wander around the Murph at will.” as the British would be keen to remove him from the scene. But the late Brendan Hughes, quoted anonymously in ‘A Secret History of the IRA’, had a different view. “Bryson didn’t trust Adams, because he had never fired a shot,” he told one of the authors in 2001. “He was such a hard bastard, and I think Adams was basically frightened of him.” When Adams needed to curb Bryson, he added, he would send someone else to do the job, usually “a fellow operator” for whom Bryson had respect.

Bryson’s reputation was well earned. He had escaped from British custody three times. The first was from the back of a Saracen armoured car where he fought soldiers with his fists to get free. The second time was when he and six other IRA internees swam to freedom through the icy waters of Belfast Lough from the prison ship Maidstone. The third time was from the underground passage that linked Crumlin Road jail to the Crown courthouse. Using a smuggled pistol Bryson and another prisoner, who were facing arms charges, overpowered warders, changed into their uniforms and made their way out of the courthouse. Bryson made it to the street and then to safety, his collaborator was caught.

In the early years of the Troubles, Bryson’s favourite weapon was a vintage Lewis machine gun, a relic from the First World War which was standard issue for British forces up to the Second World War. He used the weapon to break the IRA’s 1972 ceasefire when he, Brendan Hughes and a fellow Maidstone escaper, Tommy Tolan opened fire on British troops during a confrontation in Lenadoon, in West Belfast. After his death, Ballymurphy Republicans created a wall mural to commemorate Bryson and Mulvenna. In the mural, Bryson is depicted carrying the Lewis gun, his IRA trademark. Bryson was also a feared sniper and used an Armalite rifle fitted with a telescopic sight. The British believed he killed a number of soldiers and policemen with this weapon.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JP_1uilj0mE

THE ROYAL GREEN JACKETS

In the British Army they have a nickname for the Royal Green Jackets. They call them “the Black Mafia”, black after the colour of the buttons worn on the shirts of their dress uniforms and mafia because of the number of senior, influential officers produced by the regiment since it was formed in 1966 from the amalgamation of elite infantry regiments that date back to the early days of the British Empire.

The RGJ Association approvingly quotes a rival complaining that “the Green Jackets run the (British) Army”, and it is hard to quarrel with that. A snapshot of senior officers in 1984 produced by the association showed that in that year there were no less than twelve RGJ officers above the rank of Major-General, including two Field Marshalls, one of them Sir Edwin Bramall, Chief of the Defence Staff.

The Green Jackets also had a name for producing some thoughtful and liberal-minded officers. A former battalion commander was Sir David Ramsbotham who went on to become Britain’s Inspector of Prisons, in which capacity he quarrelled with both Conservative and Labour governments over his insistence that prison should be about reform not punishment. He was eventually sacked by Labour Home Secretary, Jack Straw – a badge of honour by itself in some quarters – when he complained that his reports were being ignored, including one that protested about a woman who gave birth in chains.

The CO of the 3rd battalion in the summer of 1973 was Robin Evelegh, who later wrote a book about his experience in Northern Ireland in which he questioned the usefulness of many military operations. He also had an intriguing take on informers, noting that while they were the “most effective weapon for destroying terrorists”, “the rank of the informer in the subversive organization is of less significance than might be supposed. A relatively junior member…can do enormous damage…in achieving the operational destruction of the organization.”

There is however one former RGJ officer whose name invariably evokes darker images. Sir Frank Kitson, a former commander of the 1st Battalion of the RGJ will always be associated with the murky side of the British military during the dying days of empire. In the early 1950’s he headed military intelligence operations in the bloody campaign against the Mau Mau, organising terrorist-type counter gangs to oppose them. He then served in Malaya during the war against communist guerrillas and in Cyprus during the Eoka uprising.

In 1969 he spent a year at Oxford refining ideas on counter intelligence developed in these outposts of a vanishing imperium which were published in book form in 1971, with the title Low Intensity Operations. The previous year he was given command of the British Army in Belfast. 1970 was the year the IRA’s campaign began and Kitson was able, at the very start of the Troubles, to put into practice some of his counter intelligence ideas.

(General Sir Frank Kitson – a former commander of the Royal Green Jackets)
One was the use of covert observation posts, both to collect intelligence and to ambush terrorist activists (Kitson’s emphasis on intelligence-led operations to produce contact with the enemy, by 1973 universally accepted by the British Army in its war with the IRA, suggests that the Bullring ambush may not have been just as unplanned as it looked).

The other was the creation of an Irish counter gang, called the Military Reaction Force (MRF). Specialist plain-clothes soldiers formed the core of the MRF but agents were also recruited from the ranks of both branches of the IRA, some of whom served in the MRF and the IRA at the same time. The MRF both collected intelligence on the IRA and roamed the streets of Belfast in civilian vehicles ready to shoot or assassinate IRA targets,
One initial goal of the MRF was to capitalize on the intense and sometimes violent rivalry that existed in the early years of the Troubles between the Official and Provisional wings of the IRA in Belfast. The two groups regarded each other as threats to their existence and rivals for popular support in the Catholic ghettoes while some of their leaders harbored personal grudges against each other dating from the acrimonious split of 1970. It was fertile ground for trouble making.

Frank Kitson would have two reasons then to heartily approve of the ambush in the Bullring. The IRA’s plan to create a network of secret cells in Belfast had been disrupted through the use of a covert observation post ambush – known in military jargon as Observation Post/Reactive – while one consequence, albeit unintended, was that afterwards the Provisionals blamed the Officials for killing their two men and the two groups were at each other’s throats.

The truth as revealed by the RGJ Chronicle was more prosaic and even pathetic – the Official IRA, led in Ballymurphy by Ronnie Bunting, had indeed set out to kill Jim Bryson that day but the lone gunman who volunteered for the task developed a bad case of fright when he encountered Bryson and his team and fled home.
(Ronnie Bunting – Official IRA commander in Ballymurphy in August 1973)
Nonetheless, the fallout was intense as Provo supporters in Ballymurphy pointed the finger at the Officials. Fights between Provisional and Official remand prisoners broke out in Crumlin Road jail, there were numerous assassination bids and it took a fortnight of diplomacy between the two groups before peace was restored. The RGJ Chronicle (p.104) recorded the violence and tension that followed the Bryson/Mulvenna killings, but revealing in the process considerable naivete about the potential of the Officials:

The shooting of Bryson and his compatriots highlighted the increasing friction between the Official and Provisional wings of the I.R.A. The feud intensified dramatically in the Ballymurphy with a large number of shooting incidents which did not involve Security Forces. Both sides seemed to have designated members of the opposing I.R.A. wing for execution. The Provisionals were firmly convinced that the Officials had been responsible for the shooting of Bryson, Mulvenna and O’Rawe. In the Clonard and Beechmount there was increasing evidence of dissension between the two factions. The Official I.R.A. had slowly spread their insidious influence as the decimated Provisionals lost more men. The Officials had become highly motivated and politically aware. Their leaders are educated and probably sincere in their wish for a Socialist State gained by political means. Equally they are prepared to terrorise and “hood” when expedient to do so. Tough, arrogant men well versed in the handling of weapons and their use. They repudiate the R.U.C. and angle strongly for a locally raised police force, namely themselves. They are a real danger, now and in the long term, to the R.U.C. and politically to the still shaky S.D.L.P.

ASSESSMENT sourced from the www.
In its summary of the 3rd Battalion RGJ’s four month tour of West Belfast, from the end of July until the end of November, the Chronicle devotes two fascinating paragraphs to the Bryson Incident, in which the shooting of the Ballymurphy ASU is placed in the context of Ivor Bell’s cellular re-organization of the Belfast IRA. They read:

On the last day in August the Bryson incident occurred which was of such importance that it is the subject of a separate article. Undoubtedly the shooting dead of Patrick Mulvenna, the wounding and subsequent death of Jim Bryson and the capture of James O’Rawe was was not only the most significant single event of our tour but brought to a close one more chapter of the I.R.A. campaign. History may show that the 31st August was an important landmark in the fight for peace in Northern Ireland.

The weapons recovered in this remarkable incident and the follow up amounted to thirteen rifles and pistols including ammunition and explosives. After this event and other steady success it was hard to resist the conclusion that the Security Forces were inexorably winning a kind of military victory in Belfast, if not Ulster.

Six gunmen were killed in August bringing the approximate number of terrorists put out of action, one way and another, to one thousand two hundred and sixty-five, including one hundred and ninety five Protestants. In Belfast the three Provisional battalions, which were sited in the Andersonstown, Ardoyne and our own district virtually ceased to exist. In their place the I.R.A. tried to create small Active Service Units, A.S.U.’s whose members would be known only to others in the same unit and which would be directly responsible to the Belfast Commander, Ivor Bell.
The original I.R.A. plan for eight A.S.U.’s each of five men in each of the three battalion areas, had to be revised because of the shortage of dependable men. The compromise of four A.S.U.’s in each district had to be modified as a result of the level of attrition achieved by the Army and R.U.C. The Ballymurphy A.S.U., which had included the gunman Jim Bryson, had been eliminated.

The author of ‘The Bryson Incident’, Captain Robert G K Williamson was the Intelligence Officer for 3rd Battalion The Royal Green Jackets. When he retired from the British Army he teamed up with his commanding officer, Col Robin Evelegh and another former RGJ officer to set up a company specialising in the international transit of explosives. He declined to be interviewed for this article. Evelegh died in 2010.

The Lance-Corporal who killed Bryson and Mulvenna was promoted to corporal and awarded the Military Medal, he also shot to fame within The Royal Green Jackets.

James ‘Bimbo’ O’Rawe recovered from his wounds, and was convicted for his role on the 31st of August , 1973 but less than ten years later was free. He was briefly an IRA ‘supergrass’.

He broke during RUC interrogation and agreed to implicate six colleagues in IRA activity, but he retracted before the case came to court. Ivor Bell went on to become IRA Chief of Staff but also fell foul of a supergrass and lost his seniority in the IRA. He later broke with Gerry Adams, accusing his former ally of moving the IRA away from armed struggle, was court martialed and left the IRA for good. He has refused all media invitations to talk about his life in the IRA. At the time of writing, General Sir Frank Kitson is still alive and is 86 years old.

The Royal Green Jackets

Account of the event

Published in a RGJ Chronicle

RGJ Chronicle Page 120/121

RGJ Chronicle Page 122/123

RGJ Chronicle Page 124

post sourced from links via The Broken Elbow 

The Bryson Incident: A Misbelief Corrected, An Insight Into Early IRA Cells

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Ulster Defence Regiment

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Jan 112019
 

Northern Ireland The Forgotten War

The Ulster Defence Regiment Operations

Most of the Ulster Defence Regiment operations were to assist the police by guarding key installations in Northern Ireland and to also provide patrols and vehicle checkpoints on public roads to hamper the activities of paramilitary groups.

The Ulster Defence Regiment was not permitted to engage in “crowd control” situations, due to the fear of pitting neighbour against neighbour. According to Chris Ryder in The UDR – An Instrument of Peace, this became more acute as Catholic membership dwindled in the regiment and the use of the predominantly Protestant force against Catholic protesters would have been singularly provocative. Additionally, Ryder notes, the regiment was forbidden from patrolling “hard-line Catholic” urban areas such as the Bogside in Derry or parts of west Belfast.

As the force was initially predominantly part-time, the presence of its members was mostly felt during evenings and weekends. It was expected to answer to general call-outs and was mobilised on a permanent basis on several occasions such as Operation Motorman to provide manpower assistance to the police and regular army, and during the bombing campaign against Belfast city centre in January 1992, when three battalions were called to full-time active duties. Full-time call-outs were restricted, however, because problems arose with part-time soldiers when they were taken from their normal day-jobs. During the Ulster Workers’ Council strike in 1974 the entire regiment was mobilised full-time for five days.

Many employers complained to local and provincial UDR commanders about being deprived of the services of their employees for so long and in some cases refused to pay wages. Despite negotiations with the Northern Ireland Office, no compensation package for part-time soldiers was ever agreed and on call-out they were reduced to the pay of a regular Army soldier of equivalent rank.

As the regiment evolved into a predominantly full-time unit and with Ulsterisation it assumed more duties previously assigned to the police or regular Army in support of Operation Banner. By 1980, the full-time element had narrowly become the majority and the regiment’s role had expanded to include tactical responsibility for 85% of Northern Ireland.

Because UDR soldiers lived within their own communities and not in barracks they were also able to provide intelligence to the Army, particularly part-time soldiers whose day jobs often took them into places which were hostile to police or army patrols. Tim Ripley and Mike Chappell, in Security Forces in Northern Ireland 1969-92′, note this also made many soldiers vulnerable to attack: 155 of all UDR personnel killed by the IRA were killed off duty, a further 61 after leaving the regiment.

A major advantage of the large numbers available to the UDR in each battalion area was the ability to seal off entire towns or rural areas through vehicle checkpoints (VCPs), thereby preventing the movement of weapons and explosives. This led to the discovery of many weapons and bombs which had been intended for use in the destruction of property in town centres. At VCPs patrols would use the Vengeful system to check the registration numbers of civilian vehicles and record the movements of these and their occupants.

The UDR was accused of discrimination against Catholics and collusion with loyalist paramilitaries. The number of successful operations against loyalist paramilitaries should be noted.
Listed below is a chronology of Ulster Defence Regiment operations:

Incomplete listings

1970

30th April – 2 UDR and 6 UDR provide 400 soldiers to assist the regular British Army in an 8-Brigade operation to intercept the movement of munitions from the Republic of Ireland across the border with Armagh, Tyrone and Fermanagh.

28th June-19th July – GOC NI orders the first call-out of the entire regiment to assist the regular army due to civil disturbance. 80% of the regimental strength turns out for the duration of the call-out.

1971

January – 1 3 & 7 UDR conduct an operation under the command of 7 UDR to seal off perimeter roads around Belfast preventing the movement of munitions into the city.

17th January – 2 & 3 UDR called out to close off all roads south of Belfast leading to the border in the wake of escapes from the prison ship HMS Maidstone.

18th January – a patrol from the Kilkeel company of 3 UDR as part of the operation come under fire from approximately 12 IRA men south of Carlingford Lough at Narrow Water. The ensuing gun battle lasts for 20 minutes with the UDR expending 101 rounds and taking approximately 150 inbound.

April – 5 & 6 UDR seal off the west of Derry city for 60 hours while rioting takes place in the city centre. 3 UDR deploy a tactical HQ to Crossmaglen to relieve the Scots Greys and Guards Parachute Company for other duties.

July – guard commences on vulnerable police stations.

29th July to 13th August – The regiment is called out for Operation Motorman. 5 UDR seals off Derry city. 7 & 10 UDR seal off Belfast. 2 UDR finds bomb-making equipment during a search operation near Portadown. 3 UDR arrests 5 PIRA operatives near Downpatrick and recovers £900 stolen from a bank in Carryduff, along with four handguns. 8 UDR arrests two men who threw revolvers out of a car window. 10 UDR opens fire on a car on the Shore Road, Belfast and wounds a suspect. 3 UDR boat section stops and searches 40 vessels off the County Down coast.

9th August to 13th September – the regiment is called out to assist with internment by relieving the regular Army from normal duties. 5 UDR searches 40,000 vehicles over 196 vehicle check points, and 3 UDR takes over the 24-hour guard on the Prime Minister Edward Heath’s home.

1972

2, 3 & 9 UDR along with 5 Airportable Brigade, deploy to Newry and seal the town off to prevent violence occurring at a civil rights march protesting against Bloody Sunday.

October – 9 UDR mobilised and billeted at Grand Central Hotel, Royal Avenue, Belfast, to help guard the city centre segment. 1,000 UDR soldiers deployed into Protestant east Belfast to defuse tensions between the UDA and regular Army.

October – Following an explosion in Newtownstewart, a mobile patrol from 8 UDR mounted a follow-up operation. A youth seen scaling a 15-foot security fence near the scene was challenged and did not respond so the patrol opened fire, killing him. It transpired that the youth, 16-year-old Alec Moorehead was almost totally deaf.

1973

January – 7 UDR arrest Tommy Herron, leader of the UDA, and several other men. 10 January – a patrol from 2 UDR comes under fire at Allistragh near The Moy. Fire is returned against two gunmen, one UDR soldier is injured in the wrist. A sub-machine gun is recovered in the follow-up. One week later the Glennane Company of 2 UDR arrest a known Provisional IRA man at a Vehicle Check Point (VCP) and seize an Armalite, an M1 carbine and two Lee Enfield .303 rifles. A further week later the patrol which had been ambushed at Allistragh arrests a man in Armagh city centre in possession of a 25 lb bomb.

February – 3 UDR conducts a search operation in Castlewellan and finds two rifles and ammunition. 4 UDR arrests three men in possession of an RPG-7 near Lisnaskea. 9 UDR arrests three men in a car in possession of a 25 lb bomb outside Randalstown.

March – 1 UDR arrests four loyalists suspected of petrol bombing a Catholic church. 10 UDR (along with Royal Marines) arrests four loyalists for bombing the Christian Brothers’ Club, Antrim Road, Belfast. A bomb and an SMG stolen from a UDR armoury are recovered. The regiment is called out to provide cover for the Border Referendum polling stations and counting centres.

April – 3 UDR foils a UVF attempt to seize arms from the guard at Knockbracken Reservoir, south Belfast. 9 UDR helps discover a UVF training area. In the follow-up, thirteen men are arrested and arms and ammunition seized.

13th May – 8 UDR shoots dead the commander of A Coy of the East Tyrone IRA battalion as he tried to shoot his way past a VCP.
10 UDR takes over night-time and weekend manning of the segment gates in Belfast city centre.

June – 8 UDR finds an M1 Carbine in a car at Dungannon and arrests the two occupants. An off-duty private from the UDR arrests a man at gunpoint after seeing him plant a bomb in the town centre. The bomb was defused. The private is awarded the Military Medal.

August – 8 UDR gives chase to three men with rifles running from a car at a VCP. They capture two. 2 UDR deploys a patrol in the city centre to catch bombers but comes under fire suffering one fatality and one wounded. 8 UDR finds a rifle in a planned search west of Dungannon. 5 UDR arrests three “Provisionals” on the wanted list.

September – 3 UDR mounts a major operation at Thunders Hill Wood above Rostrevor. Setting up a tactical HQ to co-ordinate the battalion, a Light Infantry unit, search dog, RAF helicopters and the Royal Navy warship in Carlingford Lough. Two hides containing weapon cleaning equipment are found.

October 28 – first Greenfinches deploy with 10th Battalion in Belfast.

November – 4 & 6 UDR provide cover for the Royal Engineers sealing off border roads in Tyrone and Fermanagh.
December – 3 UDR finds an old UVF Martini-Henry rifle with bayonet plus three pistols and ammunition in a graveyard in Kilkeel. 3 UDR apprehends three suspects at Rostrevor and recovers an M1 Carbine and .303 rifle plus ammunition.

1974

April – the regiment placed on selective call-out and each battalion instructed to provide 100 extra men per day to cover VCPs during a period of heightened Provisional IRA activity.

28th April – 3 UDR mounts a major search operation in Castlewellan and recovers 3 incendiary devices. In a follow-up three days later, two rilfes, ammunition and bomb-making equipment are found.

May 3–6 UDR recovers a Garand rifle and 27 mortar bombs following an attack on its base at Clogher. 6th Battalion also arrests two men at a VCP, recovers two pistols and in a follow-up operation discovers a 500 lb bomb in the boot of another car at a farm in Tempo. Also recovered were more explosives in a milk churn, bomb-making equipment and five assorted weapons. 5 more men are arrested. 3 UDR called out to seal off the south Down border following UVF attacks in Dublin.

June – 5 UDR stops a car on the Coleraine to Limavady road and finds a battery with a clock and wires attached inside. Two people are arrested and handed over to the police who later discover a bomb acting on information received from the two. Two men run away from a car at a 4 UDR checkpoint. Two bombs are found in the vehicle. 9 UDR intercepts a car bomb at Randalstown.

22nd June – a 10 UDR patrol comes under fire in Belfast and, supported by a detachment of 4 Light Regiment Royal Artillery, returns fire; a gunner is killed. 3 UDR mounts a plain-clothes operation, supported by uniformed patrols, to catch an IRA leader at a dance in Castlewellan. The ruse fails and the man escapes.

July 23 – Patrol from 5 UDR suffers a fatality in an operation to clear an area in Garvagh where a car bomb had been abandoned. 3 UDR intercepts a car bomb at Newcastle. 6 UDR finds 150 lb of explosive plus detonators, cordex and empty milk churns south of Strabane. A 6 UDR soldier drives a proxy bomb away from the base at Newtownstewart.

26th August – 3 UDR searches the hills around Newry and finds 400 rounds of ammunition.

September – 2 & 3 UDR provide a section for a joint observation with 45 Commando at Drumuckavall overlooking the Dundalk-to-Crossmaglen road. The post comes under mortar and small-arms fire and the defenders fire 107 rounds in return. 3 UDR joins 45 Commando in a search operation in Crossmaglen. 3 UDR discovers 200 lb of explosives during a planned search in south Down.

7th November – 8 UDR foils an attack on the Dungannon base by driving a proxy bomb into an open pit designed for the purpose. The bomb exploded harmlessly. 3 UDR carries out a major operation in Newry supported by a platoon of 1 DERR, D (Banbridge) Coy 11 UDR plus four Wessex and Puma helicopters. The 11 UDR company finds 56 lbs of Frangex explosives wrapped in newspapers dated three days prior. Later in the day the same company found two Armalite rifles, a No 4 Rifle and ammunition dug into a hide in the grounds of the St John of God Hospital.

15th November – 1 UDR finds a Sterling sub-machine gun, a shotgun and bag of ammunition in the roadway near their checkpoint.
21st November – 8 UDR patrol finds 200 .303 rounds including 10 which had been filed to create “dum-dum” rounds, concealed in a hedge near Coalisland.

December – 8 UDR assumes control of the permanent VCP on the Aughnacloy-Monaghan road border checkpoint.

22nd December – soldiers of 4 UDR are called out to emergency duty to support the police at Kinawley RUC Station which had come under attack. They foil an IRA attempt to detonate a bomb by engaging the bombers with small-arms fire.

1975

17th June – 5 UDR mounts an operation to search for weapons stolen from its armoury (by suspected loyalists) in Magherafelt the previous evening. The entire haul of weapons was recovered from a slurry pit by a 5 UDR search team late in the day.

December – the UDR “Province Reserve” is established which allows for the use of all 56 companies outside their normal area of operations into regions which are under threat. In practice, this normally meant South Armagh. Coming under the command of regular Army units already deployed, the Province Reserve continued until 1978 when it was phased out in favour of new schemes involving the full-time cadre.

31st December – 2 UDR called out to protect the republican enclave north of Newtownhamilton after multiple attacks along the border by the Red Hand Commando. A 200 lb bomb is detonated under one of the battalion’s Land Rovers causing only slight injuries to those inside.

The Provisional IRA ceasefire was in operation throughout most of the year

1976

Ulsterisation and Operations Platoons were introduced in 1976

In the first six months of the year, joint operations by 3 and 10 UDR recover 5,000 rounds of ammunition and 3,000 lb of explosives belonging to loyalist paramilitaries on the Ards Peninsula.

January – 3 & 11 UDR placed on selective call-out for four days following the Kingsmill massacre. 3 UDR recover 2,000 rounds of ammunition “dumped” by the B Specials in the River Bann near Hilltown.

22nd March – Ops Platoon 2 UDR on operations in Crossmaglen come under fire. Using a helicopter to give chase to a fleeing car, they arrest one man.

9th August – 1, 5, 7, 9 & 10th battalions (4,000 personnel) called out to assist in operations to quell civil disturbance on the anniversary of internment.

1977

“The way Ahead”

A plain-clothes operation by 5 UDR in Magherafelt recovers a Thompson sub-machine gun and three .303 rifles.
UDR patrols encounter a number of illegal VCPs mounted by former B Specials and send them home. 5 men are arrested and charged in County Armagh.

29th April until 13 May – All 11 battalions placed on call-out for two weeks to conduct operations against the loyalist United Unionist Action Group who planned a general strike to commence on 3 May. 1 RWF placed under command of 9 UDR at Ballymena to keep the main road through the town open. Ian Paisley and eight supporters arrested and taken to 9 UDR HQ in St Patrick’s Barracks. 7 UDR provides escorts to train drivers to prevent loyalist attack. 10 UDR finds two handguns and six loyalist paramilitaries are arrested as a result. 4 UDR finds an RPG 7, explosives, detonators and ammunition during a planned search.

9th–12th August – All 11 battalions called out to cover a visit by Queen Elizabeth II to Northern Ireland.
September – 3 UDR finds 11 incendiary devices in Downpatrick. A follow-up operation to seal off the town over the next five days leads to the arrest of ten teenage members of Fianna Eireann.

1978

1st January – 3 UDR takes over tactical responsibility for east & south Down from the regular Army. 1 UDR finds two handguns, a rifle and 600 rounds of ammunition in Larne, which were suspected to be loyalist weapons.

February – 8 UDR deploys two companies for four days in an attempt to catch IRA members suspected of killing a corporal. 19 February – 3 UDR diverts 9 patrols from a planned operation to search hotels in the Belfast area in the wake of the La Mon restaurant bombing. 1 UDR finds bomb-making ingredients in Dunloy.

April – 3 UDR mounts a major operation on the basis of a tip-off and discovers a 100 lb booby trap.

May – 10 UDR searches Balmoral Golf Club, Belfast and finds four sub-machine guns (three of them home-made), spare parts for the weapons and 600 rounds of ammunition: all suspected to be loyalist arms. 5 UDR arrests three suspects alleged to have been involved in attacks on bridges.

July – 8 UDR recovers a rifle and ammunition from a car: the driver escaped. Later in the month the Operations Platoon from 8 UDR finds a rifle during a search of The Moy.

August – 6 UDR discovers two IED’s near Carrickmore. 10 UDR finds a rifle hidden in an attic during a house search.
September – 1 UDR finds an SMG and a Sten gun at a farm outside Ballymena. These had been stolen by the IRA from Gough Barracks in 1954.

December – 3 UDR Operations Platoon deployed to assist the public in areas threatened by rising flood waters over several days, rescuing a number of stranded people and providing hot food and blankets to others.

1979

27th August – 3 UDR’s C (Newry) Company deploy to Narrow Water near Warrenpoint to assist in the aftermath of an explosion which killed six members of the Parachute Regiment. In a secondary explosion, the company commander designate (Major Peter Fursman) was killed.
28 September – border battalions deploy to prevent action by loyalists during the visit of Pope John Paul II to the Republic of Ireland.

1980
January – 48-hour saturation patrols by the operations platoon 3 UDR begin. By mid-summer, the local IRA units in south Down had been unable to mount any operations because of the continued UDR presence.

February – A search team from 1 UDR, acting on a tip-off, discover a cache of loyalist weapons – two home-made sub-machine guns, a zip gun, a pistol safety fuse, detonators and ammunition in a house near Ballymena.

March – 8 UDR finds two weapons at the old wartime airfield near Arboe.

April – A joint 2 UDR, 8 UDR and RUC search over several days of Blackwatertown yields two handguns, two .303 rifles, an SLR and 4,000 rounds of ammunition. Four days later, a patrol from 8 UDR in Cookstown discovers a 900 lb landmine in a culvert near Cappagh. 5 UDR stop and arrest three loyalists who had killed a Protestant man in Larne.

August – 7 UDR seals off the Short Strand area of Belfast and conduct house-to-house searches for two days, recovering bomb-making equipment, a sniper rifle and ammunition. An 18-year-old girl is arrested and subsequently charged with attempted murder.
November – 5 UDR ski patrol deploys for the first time, dropped into the Sperrin Mountains by helicopter.

1981

20th March – A mobile patrol from 10 UDR (permanent cadre) spotted a stolen car in Belfast city centre and gave chase. When the car reached the Lower Falls area the patrol opened fire on it, causing it to crash. One person escaped from the car but another was caught and Patrick McNally aged 20 was found wounded in the back seat. He was dead on arrival at hospital.

1982

January – A patrol from 2 UDR carrying out a search at a supermarket, following suspicious activity and a nearby incendiary attack, challenge two men running away from the scene. The patrol then fires two shots killing one of the men. The second is found hiding on a roof nearby.

April – 3 UDR mounts the first of a series of operations with the Royal Navy. In conjunction with the minesweeper HMS Cygnet, and utilising their own fast boat teams, the battalion searched 21 islands in Carlingford Lough.

June – 3 UDR mounts another combined search operation with the Royal Navy.

8th November – During a planned operation by 5 UDR, and following an exchange of fire with terrorists, a patrol arrests Seamus Kearney, a Provisional IRA man who was wanted for other offences.

December – Lt Jay Nethercott, commander of the operations platoon 8 UDR gives chase to gunmen who had just murdered a former UDR soldier. Opening fire on the gunmen with his 9 mm pistol, he forced them to abandon their vehicle and flee. Calling up one of his patrols in the area and mounting an immediate search operation resulted in the recovery of an Armalite rifle and the arrest of one of the gunmen. (Nethercott is awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal for his action.)

1983

January – Intelligence leads 3 UDR to believe that INLA is about to assassinate a member of the security forces living in the Mourne area. An operation lasting for six months is set up using vehicle checkpoints to prevent the movement of terrorists. The planned attack never happens but INLA members try to provoke UDR soldiers at checkpoints to create a disturbance which could lead to the withdrawal of the patrols. As a result, a woman is charged by the police for assaulting a UDR sergeant and a Greenfinch.

March – A patrol from 3 UDR carrying out search operations in Castlewellan finds a revolver down the back of a seat in a public house. A patrol from the Lisnaskea company of 4 UDR is dispatched to Inishfendra Island (home of the Earl of Erne) to investigate suspicious activity and arrest a party of German tourists who are removing an antique cannon from the island believing it to be abandoned.

10th May – Three foot patrols from 2 UDR are ambushed near St Patrick’s Roman Catholic Cathedral in Armagh. A man is seen running into the cathedral and in a follow-up search is arrested by the police who found him hiding in a confessional.

July – A foot patrol from 2 UDR are surrounded by a crowd in the centre of Armagh. Before the police arrive to take over the crowd-control a struggle ensues between a member of the patrol and one of the crowd during which a shot is discharged killing the civilian.

21st September – 7 UDR deploys a search team to a housing estate after a foot patrol spots several men suspected of robbing a bank nearby just minutes earlier. The RUC enters the suspect house and arrests two men and recovers a loaded shotgun plus a revolver which had been used in several sectarian murders. The 7 UDR search team recovered £7,000 in banknotes from the robbery.

An entire UVF cell was arrested as a result.

25th September – 8 UDR part-time soldiers find 1950 lbs of home-made explosives near the Cookstown-Omagh road. 3 UDR deploys on land and sea in a VCP-and-search operation in conjunction with the police and Royal Navy following a mass break-out from the Maze Prison by PIRA. Four prisoners are recaptured.

October – 8 UDR’s operations platoon provides a quick reaction force to cover an operation by the SAS in Dungannon. The operation is a failure and the terrorists escape. 1 UDR finds 845 lbs of explosives near the Tyrone border, 6 UDR finds 66 bombs totalling 3,800 lbs near Sixmilecross. 8 UDR finds 1,200 lbs of explosives and 11 UDR find a 700 lb device and two petrol bomb “factories” in Lurgan.

1984

14th March – An off-duty NCO from 10 UDR captures 3 members of the UFF who had just shot and wounded Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams. After giving chase in his own car he co-opted the services of an off-duty policeman and both held the attackers at gunpoint until a police patrol arrived to detain them.

May – 3 UDR (much reduced because a large contingent was training in England) is ordered to mount a major search. Troops are attached from three regular battalions and the RAF Regiment and two police DMSU units are also brought under command of the battalion. On the second day of the search a team from 1 RHF find ten beer kegs containing 2,000 lbs of explosives, a sack containing 1,000 lbs more, cortex fuse, detonators and a van with false number plates.

1985

January – 7 UDR arrests a man whilst on border duty. The suspect had driven through its VCP at speed and then become stuck in a field. The man was arrested after a struggle during which he grabbed a rifle and a shot was discharged. A hand grenade was found in the abandoned car.

December – The Regiment is heavily committed to operations protecting police stations in country areas due to a spate of PIRA attacks on these isolated buildings.

1986

28th May – A permanent cadre patrol from the Kilkeel Company of 3 UDR search a filling station on the Newry Road. During the search there is an explosion which kills Corporal Brian David Brown and his Labrador dog Oliver. Cpl Brown was posthumously awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal.

During a riot in Ballymena a patrol from 1/9 UDR arrest a leading member of the UDA.

11 UDR are deployed to protect Catholic homes from continued petrol bomb attacks. Arrests are made but the suspects are released when a large crowd gathers.

11 UDR provides a tactical and support base for 28 regular rifle companies deployed into the Drumcree area of Portadown to support the police during Loyalist disorder.

1987

January – The regular company in Keady-Middletown is withdrawn and replaced by a rotation of permanent companies from 1/9 UDR, 7/10 UDR and 11 UDR.

April – The Regiment is placed on limited callout following a spate of bombings and the killing of a High Court judge.
8th May – 2 UDR seal off the village of Loughgall after an 8 man PIRA ASU enters with a bomb in a mechanical shovel. The IRA unit is ambushed by undercover soldiers in the RUC Station who kill all eight and two civilians. The 2 UDR patrols remain in cordon around the village throughout the night.

July – 6 UDR mount a two day search operation near Castlederg and find a 600 lb landmine.

August – 5 UDR find 5,4oolbs of explosives during two searches.

October – During a period of extensive flooding 6 & 11 UDR are deployed to assist the public by evacuating those stranded and providing sandbags, pumps, food, heaters and putting out fires caused by electrical short circuits. Over 500 UDR soldiers are deployed over a 30-hour period. 6 UDR become involved in an operation to clear a device made up of 3,500 lbs of homemade explosives hidden in a stolen slurry tanker.

8th November – 4 UDR soldiers rush to barracks to volunteer for duties following an explosion at the war memorial in Enniskillen.

23rd November – 2 UDR seal off the border at Middletown-Keady using their own permanent cadre, companies from 1/9 UDR, 7/10 UDR and a battery of gunners in support of a major operation by British & Irish security forces searching for underground arms bunkers on both sides of the border. Dug into fields and ditches the UDR cointingent kept up their support of this operation for several months into 1988.

December – 5 UDR on checkpoint duty outside Limavady stop a car containing 40 lbs of explosives, two grenade launchers, eleven grenades, detonator cords, detonators and timers. The patrol arrests four men.

1988

2 UDR’s Glenanne Company receive information that a bank robbery has been committed by the son of one of their own senior NCO’s. The man is arrested by the UDR in a local hotel and handed over to the police. Four search teams from the battalion were deployed in a follow-up the next day which lasted for five days. A substantial haul of Loyalist weapons was found including; grenades, magazines, ammunition, a rocket launcher and rockets, seven rifles, two shotguns, three handguns, ammunition, radios and military clothing including maroon berets of the type worn by the Ulster Resistance movement.

December – Voluntary callout implemented in 1/9, 3, 7/10 and 11 UDR to maintain guards on army married quarters which had come under Provisional IRA bomb attack.

1989

In a joint operation with the RUC 3 UDR discover and put out of action a “sophisticated” Loyalist weapons factory in Ballynahinch.

14th March – Following the murder on the edge of Dungannon of a part-time private from 8 UDR the battalion flew in patrols supported by the police to conduct a follow-up search. The six men involved in the killing had abandoned their getaway car, two rifles, masks and clothing. All six were arrested and subsequently sentenced to life imprisonment. A patrol from 2 UDR stopped a car between Armagh and the Moy arresting all four occupants. A follow-up search (jointly with the police) recovered two AK47’s, two shotguns, two grenade launchers, ammunition, timing devices and Semtex explosive. 7/10 UDR arrest three Loyalists in possession of two homemade machine guns. They had been involved in a drive by shooting at a republican club in the Markets area of the city.

17th March – 8 UDR find a rifle, hand grenade, bomb making equipment and a bomb near Cappagh.

21st March – At the request of the RUC, 7/10 UDR conduct a search of the Markets area and recover two rifles and 200 rounds of ammunition. A similar search with the battalion and RUC later in the month turned up 600 lbs of homemade explosive hidden in a domestic coal bunker.

June – 8 UDR find an improvised grenade launcher and ammunition near Cappagh.

12th October – 7/10 UDR provide escorts to the police during Loyalist protest riots in east Belfast.

1990

April – 8 UDR mount a clearance operation at the parochial house in Dungannon where a 1,200 lb bomb had been abandoned.
May – Patrols from 11 UDR provide cover for bomb disposal teams and Royal Engineer search teams on the main Belfast-Dublin railway line at Lurgan. 8 & 11 UDR find explosives deployed and ready for use.

24 July – Brigadier Ritchie & Brigadier Ramsay see a man acting suspiciously on their way to visit 2 UDR on the Armagh-Killyleagh road. Shortly afterwards a bomb is detonated killing three police officers at the same location. Acting on a description provided by the two brigadiers, a patrol from 2 UDR engage in a search, find two AKM rifles and some rifle magazines and as a result two terrorists are arrested.

1991

July – On a planned search at Cappagh by 8 UDR a number of items are found including: an IRA training video, a GPMG, an AKM rifle and loaded magazine, a Heckler & Koch rifle with two loaded magazines, 825 rounds of ammunition for the machine gun and 2 lbs of Semtex explosive. Seven local men were arrested.

15th November – After 8 murders were committed in 5 days the GOC orders the callout of 1,400 soldiers from 1/9, 2/11 and 7/10 UDR who remained on duty until 2 December.

1992

10th January – 1/9 & 7/10 UDR called out for a week to man checkpoints in and out of Belfast due to a spate of car bomb attacks in the city centre. This was the last time the Ulster Defence Regiment was called out.

Sourced from Wikipedia

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Christmas 1915 and Boy Soldiers

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Nov 242018
 

Christmas 1915

Sourced from You tube (Credited to Celtic Thunder)

Bringing together their affinity for a great popular song with outstanding live performances, Irishmen Damian McGinty, Keith Harkin, Paul Byrom, Ryan Kelly and Scotsman George Donaldson of Celtic Thunder pay homage to cherished holiday favorites on their DVD Celtic Thunder – Christmas. Offering a holiday celebration for all the family, Celtic Thunder Christmas features all-time favorites such as ‘Winter Wonderland”, “It’s Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas” and “Let It Snow”, original compositions such as “Christmas Morning Donegal”, “Christmas Overture” and of course the Celtic Thunder fan favorites the a cappella “Amazing Grace” the poignant “Christmas 1915” and the Gaelic version of “Silent Night” amongst others. Celtic Thunder – Christmas is a diverse mix of international and Celtic holiday classics performed as always with the Celtic Thunder magic.

Boy Soldiers

A quarter of a million boy soldiers, some as young as 14, enlisted in World War One by lying about their age. Around 120,000 of them were killed or injured. One 17-year-old was shot for desertion. The government and military — desperate to boost recruitment — turned a blind eye to the thousands of child soldiers sent to the trenches.

Sourced from You Tube (Credited to Nowaglory)

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Sainsbury`s Christmas Advert 1914 – 2014

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Nov 242018
 

Sainsbury`s Christmas Advert  

Although the events we show in our ad are fictional, we’ve tried to make the details as accurate as possible. Everything from the insignia on the men’s uniform to the depth of the trenches is based on historical fact.

In this short documentary we talk to the experts who advised us, interview the grandson of a soldier who was there, and hear first-hand accounts from both sides.

We will be selling the vintage chocolate bar featured in the ad, with all profits (50p per bar) going to The Royal British Legion.
You can buy the bar in your local Sainsbury’s until Christmas, while stocks last. Subject to availability. Excludes online.

We’d like to thank Andrew Hamilton, Taff Gillingham of The Khaki Chums, Andrew Cleaver of christmastruce.co.uk, The Imperial War Museum for the use of their public archives and The Royal British Legion for their guidance, insight and support.

Story behind the Advert

Sourced from You Tube (Credited to Sainsbury`s)

ALL GAVE SOME – SOME GAVE ALL

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