Most conclusions appear deceptively simple, unlike the complex process by which they are acquired
Paul Crick
The tension in Northern Ireland remained unresolved and when, at the end of January 1970, HQ 24 Brigade exchanged with HQ 8 Brigade, 1 Intelligence and Security Section had found the situation to be ‘intricate and complicated and even at the end of the tour, no single root cause or solution had emerged’. So began a series of six month rotations between the Strategic Reserve brigades and HQ 16 Parachute Brigade. Inquiries into the violence published in early 1970, the consequent restructuring of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and disbandment of its reservist B-Specials led into loss of intelligence, albeit not always unbiased, although it was ameliorated by the raising of the reservist Ulster Defence Regiment. Primacy for internal security was transferred to the Army.
The adoption of the Intelligence Cycle by HQ Northern Ireland in Lisburn and the Brigade Intelligence and Security Sections, laid the foundations for the provision of the intelligence product for Operation Banner. Collation began with the recording of information onto cards cross-referencing to other files, for instance, incidents, personalities, weapons, vehicles and addresses, each entry dated and graded according to the quality of the source and credibility of information, and which was then disseminated in Intelligence Reports and weekly Intelligence Summaries.
Ideological disagreements during the year saw the IRA split into the Official IRA and the hardline Provisional IRA, with its aspirations to establish a 32-county Marxist Ireland and declarations of ‘No Go’ areas in several nationalist estates defended and policed by the IRA. A gable wall in Columba Street, Londonderry announcing ‘You are now entering Free Derry’ was an early example of the sectarian murals. The republican Easter Marches induced further violence and an escalation of gunmen firing across the sectarian divide. In June HQ 8 Brigade moved into Ebrington Barracks, Londonderry, formerly Naval Base HMS Sea Eagle. The planned infantry company search for weapons in a house in Balkan Street in the Lower Falls, Belfast on 3 July escalated into a four battalions operation and gave the Provisional IRA the opportunity to accuse the Army of not being impartial. Nevertheless, the first Protestant marching season in July passed ‘without too much upset’.
By early 1971, HQ 16 Parachute Brigade was based in the former seven storey hosiery factory in Lurgan that became known as the ‘Knicker Factory’. Attacks on the Security Forces escalated, with Gunner Robert Curtis, of 94 Locating Regiment, being the first soldier to be killed on active service in February. The first incendiary devices in early March and the first directional anti-personnel device (a claymore) on 8 May led to an average of twelve major incidents per month, including protracted firefights. As internal security deteriorated and reinforcements poured into Northern Ireland, Intelligence Corps units in the United Kingdom and West Germany supplied personnel, particularly SNCOs, on emergency tours of usually between four to six months. This resulted in other intelligence and security sections operating at about fifty per cent capacity for several years. As battalions rotated on six month tours, Protective Security concentrated on security surveys of requisitioned schools, factories and disused mills being used as Security Forces bases, with the Northern Ireland Security Standing Instructions proving valuable in convincing HQ Northern Ireland to finance recommendations. While 3 Infantry Brigade was reforming in Portadown, a sergeant, on an emergency reinforcement posted to the Counter-Intelligence Detachment (Northern Ireland) in Lisburn, was visiting Bessbrook Mill with the Brigade Major and used his recent experience of Oman to recommend that a single storey building selected as the cookhouse should be reinforced against mortars. The Brigade Major scoffed at the very suggestion that the IRA had mortars and were capable of using them. By the summer Operation Banner had developed into a counter-insurgency operation with both IRA wings forming bodies controlled by identifiable command structures which ranged from companies upwards to Army Councils, and politics managed through Sinn Fein. The workload was relentless, nevertheless, Corps Day 1971 in Lisburn provided a ‘welcome break’ for about thirty Intelligence Corps able to attend, a tradition that was repeated throughout Operation Banner.
In August, Stormont Prime Minister Faulkner assessed that the IRA intended to make Northern Ireland ungovernable and on 5 August he persuaded Prime Minister Edward Heath that internment, under the 1922 Special Powers Act, was the only option. Historically, the measure had previously proven effective, most recently in the 12 December 1956 – 26 February 1962 Border War. Although Lieutenant General Harry Tuzo, the General Officer Commanding, believed that the IRA threat could be undermined with intelligence gained from fifty suspects, he had no option but follow the political lead, but the HQ 39 Infantry Brigade Intelligence Section team assembled information supplied by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, it was noted that some was historical.
Operation Demetrius commenced early on 9 August with about 340 suspects arrested amid unrest. About half were released within twenty-four hours, however, Sinn Fein allegations of Security Forces brutality led to a complaint being filed with the United Nations by the Social Democratic and Labour Party. In his Report of Enquiry into Allegations Against the Security Forces of Physical Brutality in Northern Ireland Arising out of Events on 9th August 1971, dated 16 November, Sir Edward Compton, the Northern Ireland Ombudsman, acknowledged that while the Army had exercised significant restraints, some techniques used in holding centres constituted physical mistreatment. Matters worsened after Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972 when a Minority Report penned by Lord Gerald Gardiner of Kittisford as an addendum to the Lord Chief Justice Hubert Parker Report of the Committee of Privy Councillors Appointed to Consider Authorised Procedures for the Interrogation of Suspects of Terrorism concluded that no crucial intelligence had been gained and blamed:
those, who, many years ago, decided that in emergency conditions in Colonial-type situations that we should abandon our legal, well-tried and highly successful wartime interrogation methods and replace them by secret, illegal (methods), not morally justifiable and alien to the traditional methods used by the greatest democracy in the world.
As political and diplomatic pressure forced Prime Minister Heath to accept the Minority Report, he announced in the House of Commons that these techniques ‘will not be used in the future as an aid to interrogation’. Two years later the European Court of Human Rights convicted Great Britain on a charge brought by Ireland of ‘inhumane and degrading treatment’. During 1972, there were 10,628 terrorist incidents involving firearms resulting in 129 soldiers killed in action compared to forty-eight in 1971.
On 1 April 1972, seven years after the Group system was first mooted, Lieutenant Colonel D.R. Holmes formed Intelligence and Security Group (United Kingdoms) to support the Strategic Command and Home Commands:
• 8 Intelligence Company to support 3rd Division and NATO, the British Army of the Rhine and Out-of-Area commitments. It included 84 (Allied Mobile Force (Land) and 89 (16 Parachute Brigade) Parachute Intelligence and Security Sections. 3 Commando Brigade had reverted to a Royal Marines Intelligence Section with limited Intelligence Corps support.
• 9 Security Company formed up with Security sections in Colchester, Taunton and Bulford, Preston, York and Edinburgh.
• 162 Special Military Intelligence Training Section moved from Repton Manor.
• 163 (Counter-Intelligence) Section formed in September and became the specialist counter-sabotage section with a role to survey national Key and Vulnerable Points against attack by Soviet Special Forces, or Spetsnaz, during the Transition to War phase.
The term ‘Detachment’ was dropped in favour of ‘Section’. During 1973, Security as a skill underwent an important evolution when the term ‘counterintelligence’ was dropped in favour of Security Intelligence in recognition that hostile intelligence services operations could be neutralized by ‘gathering timely and accurate intelligence concerning the organization, methods and motives’. Security Intelligence applied the offensive function of security while Protective Security applied the principles of the Intelligence Cycle and Defence in Depth was the defence to ensure that:
Classified information and material are successfully protected from loss, disclosure, espionage and sabotage, and personnel are protected against subversion. (Security Handbook for Tradesmen (Intelligence Corps))
On the same day, 12 Intelligence and Security Company was formed in Northern Ireland with most of its soldiers posted on two year tours, some accompanied by their families, thus:
• Company HQ in Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn.
• 120 Security Section, co-located with Company Headquarters, followed the standard practice of dividing into Protective Security and Counter-Intelligence detachments to support the brigades. Prior to computerization in 1980, its Records Section vetted 250,000 locally employed civilians and Ulster Defence Regiment applicants.
• 121 (Headquarters Northern Ireland) Intelligence Section in Lisburn.
• 122 (8 Infantry Brigade) Intelligence Section in Londonderry.
• 123 (39 Infantry Brigade) Intelligence Section also in Lisburn.
• 124 (3 Infantry Brigade) Intelligence Section in Portadown and then Lurgan.
The impartiality expected of the Army saw the Intelligence Sections, which were often commanded by warrant officers, divided into Nationalist and Loyalist detachments. Staff clerks administering classified information and photographers were provided by the Royal Army Ordnance Corps. Problems of missing intelligence in the early 1970s as roulement units in the infantry role rotated every four to six months was resolved by the development of Continuity NCOs who were made responsible for ensuring that the pace of intelligence collation was maintained and that records were not removed from Security Forces bases when units rotated. Most were Intelligence Corps senior corporals. During late 1974, a system of Liaison Intelligence NCOs (at first Intelligence Corps SNCOs but later other cap badges serving on two-year tours) acted as advisers to roulement regimental and battalion intelligence officers and at military units providing guard forces at the prisons. The Special Military Intelligence Unit was reformed and configured a network of Military Intelligence Officers to liaise with Royal Ulster Constabulary Divisional commanders. The Field Intelligence NCOs concept that had worked so well in Borneo supported Special Branch. In 1974, HQ Northern Ireland and the brigades formed Research Offices and as intelligence became embedded into the military culture, Regimental Intelligence Officers and NCO Courses were conducted at the School of Service Intelligence. The meticulous intelligence collection and collation lasted throughout Operation Banner.
In addition to the routine of the intelligence offices, some NCOs joined patrols to ‘chat up’ people and gauge opinion and were thus expected to be competent infantrymen. Several joined Royal Navy minesweepers patrolling the Irish Sea and boarded vessels ranging from yachts to merchant ships seeking intelligence, in particular connections between Northern Ireland terrorism and other parts of the world. Brigadier Colin Wallis-King, who commanded the five battalions in 3 Infantry Brigade from 1972 to 1974 and later became Director of Service Intelligence, regularly took an NCO on his weekly helicopter visits to units. One important resource was the development of maps by Royal Engineers surveyors and draughtsmen showing sectarian demarcations street by street – green for Catholic, orange for Protestant and white for mixed. Civilian clothes and fashions of the eras were widely adopted, as were ‘civilianized’ Army cars. Shoulder or belt-holstered 9mm Brownings and Walther 7.65mm PPK pistols and the occasional .38 revolver were personal weapons.
The bombing of the HQ 16 Parachute Brigade Officers Mess in Aldershot in March saw the Security Companies worldwide develop and adopt counter-terrorist measures, which saw armed sentries guarding barracks for the first time since the Second World War, increased security technology, the checking of vehicles against improvised explosive devices and the banning of the Army, in particular, walking out in uniform and hitch-hiking, a measure that saw the Armed Forces disappear from the streets of England until Iraq and Afghanistan returned Service personnel into a high profile not seen since National Service. Templer Barracks removed any indication that just outside Ashford was a sensitive military installation.
When the 1973 Emergency Powers Act gave the Army legal powers to detain those suspected of terrorism for a maximum of four hours before transfer to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, ‘screening’ emerged as a Human Intelligence asset. Patrols acknowledged the value of the rapid transfer of suspects to Unit headquarters where some might be debriefed by Brigade Intelligence Sections and Continuity NCOs before transfer to the police. Those arrested in rural areas had the advantage of competing against the clock. The 1988 Criminal Evidence (Northern Ireland) Order instructed that refusal to answer and the right of silence could be held against suspects.
The first public inkling that the Army was engaged in covert operations emerged in October 1972 when the story of the Four Square Laundry broke. In early 1971, Brigadier Frank Kitson, then commanding 39 Infantry Brigade and author of the iconic Low Intensity Operations, used his counter-intelligence experiences in Malaya, Kenya and Cyprus to form the Mobile Reconnaissance Force to conduct covert surveillance. The Intelligence Corps supplied some operational support. When residents in the nationalist estate of Twinbrook were suspicious of a brother and sister employed by the laundry doing brisk business from a Bedford van, Belfast Provisional IRA Brigade investigations concluded that it was associated with the Army and, during the morning of 2 October, launched three co-ordinated attacks that included ambushing the van and killing the ‘brother’, a Royal Engineer from Co. Tyrone, and wounding his ‘sister’, a Women’s Royal Army Corps lance corporal attached to the Royal Military Police. Their Intelligence Corps controller left their office shortly before it was attacked. The rationale of the operation was to use forensics to examine laundry and link evidence of explosive or weapon handling to addresses. While the Provisionals claimed the ambush was as devastating a blow against military intelligence as the attack on the Cairo Gang in Dublin in 1920, that the Army were prepared to deploy covert operations led to lasting suspicion throughout republican factions. When Brigadier Kitson learnt that HQ Intelligence and Security Group (Germany) had a surveillance capability, namely 8 Detachment, and inquired if it could be transferred to Northern Ireland, an operational assessment concluded that it would take three months to convert it; in the meantime monitoring of the Soviet Military Mission would lapse. Although surveillance had been an Intelligence Corps skill since the Second World War, its global deployment and small size prevented its ability to mount rescues. This led to surveillance before arrest by uniformed Security Forces and the protection of people and property under threat being passed to a HQ Northern Ireland asset. An important part of intelligence collection was air imagery.
By 1973 the ‘No Go’ areas had become politically unacceptable. After NATO had permitted Great Britain to reinforce Operation Banner, in a reinforcement that demanded tight Operational Security, 12,000 troops, mostly from West Germany, took force level to 28,000 and included the delivery of four Armoured Vehicles, Royal Engineers from 28 Amphibious Engineer Regiment in Hamelin. Early on 31 July, Operation Motorman dismantled the barricades in Londonderry and several other towns. Meanwhile, meticulous intelligence collation was achieving notable results. During an operation targeting the Belfast IRA in the spring of 1974, the arrest of four IRA at a ‘snap’ vehicle check point led to 123 Intelligence Section providing sufficient information for the arrests of three successive IRA Brigade commanders and 106 officers. Security Forces operations reduced the operational survival rate of Provisional officers in Belfast to the same as subalterns in 1916 on the Western Front – about four weeks – to the extent that, by December, the Provisional IRA had been so weakened by attrition, internment and Volunteers ‘on the run’ in the sanctuary of Ireland that a ceasefire was agreed over the Christmas period. But intra-faction and inter-sectarian violence continued largely unabated.
By 1975 the battleground between the loyalist Mid-Armagh Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and the South Armagh IRA, in an area encompassing East Tyrone and Co. Armagh within the tactical area of operations controlled by 3 Infantry Brigade, was nicknamed the Murder Triangle. Working with Weapons Intelligence, 124 Intelligence Section tracked weapons and personalities from shootings and bombings. By the middle of the year the ceasefire had largely vanished and then, in January 1976, after the murders of twelve Protestant textile workers near Kingsmill, Prime Minister Harold Wilson announced two days later that the SAS, fresh from Dhofar, would deploy to South Armagh for ‘patrolling and surveillance’ tasks. However, justifiable concerns were expressed about the Regiment operating in an environment in which the ‘Yellow Card’ governed the Rules of Engagement.
The collapse of the Federation of South Arabia after the British left Aden in 1967 and the adoption of Marxist ideology by the People’s Republic of South Yemen (PROSY) saw the Omani province of Dhofar threatened by the nationalist Dhofar Liberation Front of several tribes living on the jebel above the capital of Salalah. South Yemen recognized that isolating Dhofar offered opportunities for further nationalism but when Sultan Sa’id bin Taimur was overthrown in 1970, there was little point in continuing the rebellion. But the Front had been infiltrated by the Marxist People’s Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG).
Seconded to the Sultan’s Armed Forces was a British military mission, including Major Peter Goss, one of the two Brigade Majors, and a sergeant attached to HQ Sultan’s Armed Forces at Bait al Falaj as a collator. In 1970 British Army Training Team (Dhofar) was formed as a shield for the deployment of a SAS troop, in Operation Storm, with a strategy to focus on humanitarian and economic matters, collect intelligence and conduct psychological warfare by gathering information on local life and culture, the overall aim being to undermine subversion. Several Intelligence Corps served with the Regiment during the campaign. While the Sultan’s Armed Forces conducted operations on the Central Jebel against communist threats developing from Dhofar, the SAS formed irregular groups of independently-minded tribesman into firqat units. In 1969, Captain Philip Springfield was appointed its Intelligence Officer after its Commanding Officer, Lieutenant Colonel John Slim, the son of Field Marshal Slim, wanted a specialist. Springfield, who had served in Aden and was parachute-trained, formed an Intelligence Section, which first consisted of two warrant officers, a sergeant, two corporals and a lance corporal. On one occasion, Sergeant Dave Duncan was with a naval patrol patrolling the western border when it was engaged by a 75mm gun and a machine gun. He was then mischievously asked to train a Bren mounted on the bow on several dhows that were being searched and recalls becoming queasy in the heavy swell of the Indian Ocean! Corporal John Boden, then serving with the Training Team, was part of a patrol taking ammunition to a Muscat Regiment detachment in contact with the enemy, which was ambushed several times and ran a gauntlet of mines. Another sergeant ran an intelligence-gathering network of local tribesmen in North Dhofar. By 1971 the Sultan’s Armed Forces had blocked insurgency supply routes through the Eastern Jebel to PROSY.
When Dhofar Area was formed the following year from the Dhofar Brigade, two members were the Arab linguist Major Peter Boxall appointed the Deputy Assistant Adjutant and Quartermaster General and Captain David Venn as GSO 3 (Operations). The Brigade had a seconded Intelligence Corps section, which included a corporal on his second tour. When the People’s Front attacked the SAS at Fort Mirbat in July 1972, in spite of the poor weather, Captain Venn played a crucial role in organizing an Omani Air Force Strikemaster strike at a critical time in the battle. After the defeat, the Front badly needed a breakthrough to maintain its credibility; however, a defector in a souk in Muscat spotted a senior member and alerted his escorting intelligence officers. The Intelligence Section mounted the surveillance Operation Yellow Shoes, because the suspect wore yellow footwear, and over several months collected sufficient information to implicate the People’s Front in a plot to take out the entire British and intelligence operation in Muscat and assassinate the Sultan on Christmas Day. The launching of Operation Jason in December to interdict weapon smuggling and the interrogations of forty rebels which led to to the recovery of a huge arms cache was a significant success at a pivotal moment. Five Omani officers were executed for their role. By mid-1975 the Sultan’s Armed Forces, reinforced by an Iranian brigade, had largely defeated the insurgency; nevertherless, the Corps remained in Dhofar for several more years providing seconded officers and other ranks and helping to develop the Oman Intelligence and Research Department. In proportion to its small size, the Intelligence Corps provided as many officers and men to the Dhofar campaign as any other regiment in the British Army, a fact that is commendable because the Corps was so heavily committed to Operation Banner.
While Northern Ireland was dominating the Corps, security activities against the Soviet and East German intelligence services in West Germany were equally interesting. The principal threat being monitored by Intelligence Wing was the largely conscript Soviet 3rd Shock Army and its five tank and motor rifle divisions and its perceived axis of attack across Letzlinger Heath and Luneburg Heath before driving for the Channel ports.
Intelligence Sections earmarked to support brigades and additional intelligence officers were provided by 7 Intelligence Company, with Company HQ placed alongside HQ 1st (British) Corps, supported by 8 Intelligence Company and Intelligence and Security Group (V). In the late 1970s brigades were briefly known as Field Forces. Well-trained Intelligence Sections are a valuable resource, however, most experienced the same problem as the Intelligence Platoons of being administered by the Intelligence Corps but managed by Royal Signals headquarters and signals units. At brigade level it was not unusual for sections to be set tasks other than intelligence. Intelligence duties were usually confined to visits to War Rooms to amend maps. This mismatch applied equally to some staff intelligence officers, one in HQ 6 Armoured Brigade describing himself in 1971 as the ‘GSO 3 Air, Sport, Recreation, Intelligence and Security in that order’. The training year in West Germany revolved around a cycle of command post exercises in the winter and spring, the Corps-level Exercise Summer Sales in the summer, mostly practising defence but not necessarily including realistic adherence to Soviet tactics to test commanders, and two-week NATO field exercises in the autumn in which, again, intelligence was rarely played. Weakness of recognition training and awareness of Soviet orders of battle and tactics throughout the BAOR led, in 1976, to HQ 7 Company producing the first edition of the iconic Threat periodical that set out to educate on the Soviet threat with articles, photos, recognition training, unit structures and tactics. In 1990, Threat helped educate troops deployed to Saudi Arabia on Iraqi weapons and tactics. Two years later, in order not to upset former Warsaw Pact members clamouring to join NATO, the title was changed to the anagram, The Rat.
On 31 March 1958, 309 FSS had morphed into the British Intelligence Unit (Berlin) until, in 1960, it reformed as the Counter-Intelligence Platoon (Berlin). Five years later the introduction of Intelligence and Security Group (Germany) saw it converted to the largely independent 3 Intelligence and Security Company that combined Operational Intelligence, Protective Security and counter-intelligence. In 1971 it moved into Yorkshire Block at the pre-war Olympic Stadium alongside the British Security Service Organisation and the Royal Military Police Special Investigations Department.
With a role to provide HQ Berlin British Sector with an Intelligence Section, it liaised with the British Military Mission to the Soviet sector and Allied intelligence agencies and helped to maintain the British right of access to all parts of Berlin through East Berlin Flag Tours, which collectively developed into an intelligence operation to monitor Soviet troop activity, particularly after the erection of the Berlin Wall in August 1961 and the crushing of the Prague Spring in Czechoslovakia seven years later.
In April 1966 the Company contributed to a technical intelligence operation to recover a Soviet Air Force Yak-28 ‘Firebar’ fighter that crashed into a lake while ‘buzzing’ West Berlin. After the bodies of the two aircrew were returned to the Soviet Air Force, sensitive equipment was removed under the noses of furious Soviet observers for detailed technical assessments. The aircraft was later returned in smaller pieces than when it crashed.
Located within HQ Berlin Brigade and supported by a forward operating base in a small mansion in Potsdam in East Germany was the British Military Mission, or BRIXMIS, as agreed by the 1946 Robertson-Malinin Agreement. Intelligence Corps representation was initially confined to Russian linguists and two National Service collators until 1957 when the deployment was discontinued, however, the increased tension during the early 1960s saw Major Angus Southwood appointed GSO 2 (Operations) and then as Tour Officer between 1965 to 1968. During this period, BRIXMIS gradually switched to intelligence collection with Tours patrolling East Germany for between two and five days, seeking intelligence indicators that the Group of Soviet Forces, Germany was preparing to attack NATO. In the belief that three Soviet divisions surrounding Berlin were tasked to seize the city, its circumference was patrolled every day by an Allied Mission. The lack of expert collation was resolved in 1971 with the arrival of a corporal. Pre-posting training was formalized by attendance on the Defence Attaches Course at the School of Service Intelligence, and then the Defence Intelligence and Security School, until in October 1972 when the Foreign Armies Study Branch developed a four-week Intelligence (Special Duties) Course as a cover for the Mission. In 1974 the senior photographic interpreter was formally tied to the Corps, the first incumbent being a major, who undertook three BRIXMIS postings. Sergeant Geoff Greaves coordinated recognition training until it was upgraded to a Warrant Officer Two Photographic Interpreter and Foreign Army Studies Branch instructors. Intelligence representation grew with the establishment of the Operations and Intelligence Cell to analyse Tour Reports, study rail and road military activity, plot deployments, maintain Target Briefs and prepare briefings. The month-long annual Soviet troop rotation meant observing convoys, troop trains and airfields for evidence of Warsaw Pact mobilization and deployment of new equipment. Tours generally left West Berlin in the early hours in order to reach the first target before many people were about. Overnight halts were spent camped in hides. Intelligence scoops included that numbers painted on Soviet tank turrets and markings on East German Army vehicle windscreens, accompanied by a series of numbers, could be matched to units. An apple thrust into a barrel of a gun left an impression of its calibre. Rubbish collected from barrack tips and exercise areas proved so fruitful that in 1982 Russian and German interpreters joined BRIXMIS, their cover being the provision of an interpreter to support the guarding of Rudolf Hess in Spandau Prison. Discarded documents included the order of battle of an SS-21 missile regiment. But unlike the tolerance afforded to the Soviet Military Mission in West Germany, the East Germans regularly disregarded agreed protocols.
When new equipment was evident, tours usually swamped target areas in order to deflect the aggressive East German Military Intelligence Service surveillance teams, or ‘Narks’ from preventing surveillance. The ‘Narks’ generally worked in teams of about six cars that aimed either to trap BRIXMIS tours for several hours or hand them over to the Soviet Kommandatura (military police) and the inevitable accusations of espionage. Dangerous cat-and-mouse car chases resulted in tour cars being rammed. In early September 1976 an Opel containing Major Simon Gordon-Duff (Army Air Corps), Sergeant Bob Thomas, masquerading as a Royal Corps of Transport driver, and RAF Corporal Tony King, were observing an exercise area south of Berlin when an East German Air Force truck forced their car off the road while they were trying to avoid two civilian motor cyclists who were blocking it. Gordon-Duff and King crawled from the wreckage, concussed, however, Thomas was trapped with leg, rib and head injuries. After local villagers helped to extract him from the wreckage, Thomas was transferred to an East German hospital by a Soviet ambulance driver and underwent several operations until he was discharged sixteen days later. Arrangements were made for Mrs Thomas and their two daughters to visit him in hospital. A strong complaint about the ramming and the ‘incomprehensible attitude’ of a Soviet military police major at the scene was lodged with the Headquarters Group of Soviet Forces, Germany.
From 1945 until 1961, when air trooping became normal, the military train, ‘The Berliner’, ran from Hannover to West Berlin. At the Helmstedt crossing point, an East German locomotive was coupled up amid military ceremony that saw the Officer Commanding Train, his Warrant Officer and their interpreter formally exchange the passenger manifest list with a Soviet officer. As overt photography was forbidden on the journey through East Germany to West Berlin, one task entrusted to 3 Intelligence and Security Company by General Staff (Intelligence), Headquarters British Army of the Rhine and Berlin Brigade was photography of Soviet military activities bordering the Helmstedt Corridor railway for evidence of mobilization. Conducting its own operations, 6 Photographic Intelligence Company used aircraft and often gave technical help and provided advice on tasking.
While contributing to Anglo-American intelligence co-operation projects 6 Photographic Intelligence Company enjoyed considerable autonomy and also achieved a continuous study of military activity in East Germany. One advantage was that while the collection of intelligence by BRIXMIS was inhibited by Permanently and Temporarily Restricted Areas, their boundaries did not extend vertically. About forty per cent of Soviet and East German military installations lay up to ten miles astride the Helmstedt Corridors, which allowed Allied aircraft to collect the information without the risks associated with the penetrative sorties into East German airspace. After 1958 Intelligence Corps NCO photographic interpreters became common, with reinforcements supplied from 21 Intelligence Company (V). By 1972 the Company was supporting the Reconnaisance Interpretation Centres at RAF Bruggen, Wildenrath, Laarbruch and Gütersloh, where tasking was treated as the ‘real thing’ with annotated photos expected within forty minutes of engine shutdown. Images taken on exercises allowed Allied commanders to review camouflage and field discipline. The Midge surveillance Troops of 94 Locating Regiment RA in Celle, supporting 1st (British) Corps, possessed an operational radius of thirty miles. Imagery was processed in the Photographic Processing and Interpretation Vehicle commanded by an Intelligence Corps sergeant.
By 1970 13 Signal Regiment was employing about eighty Women’s Royal Army Corps on intelligence duties and feeding information to the Government Communications Headquarters. Its forward operating base at Gross Gusborn in the ‘Dannenberg Salient’ was manned between March and October, otherwise inclement weather prevented permanent habitation, until 1971, when the Americans converted the base into a permanent site. It was transferred three years later to H Troop, 1 Squadron, so named because of the design of the gantry supporting the antennae. It wasn’t until the mid-1970s that 1st (British) Corps gained a direct intercept capability, when Defence Intelligence pressed for real-time tactical electronic intelligence to be available to the divisions; 14 Signal Regiment (Electronic Warfare) was formed at Hildesheim in May 1977 from the independent 225 and 226 Signal Squadrons, 30 Signal Regiment in Blandford, and 9 Signal Regiment in Cyprus. It later moved to Ironside Barracks at Scheuen, near Celle, where the Intelligence Corps complement initially consisted mainly of officers trained on scanners, jammers and direction-finding sensors. Intelligence Corps other ranks arrived later. However, unfamiliarity about the quality of information and strict need-to-know impositions meant that 7 Intelligence Company sections were initially reluctant to use the product. The development of Intelligence Corps and Royal Signals Electronic Warfare Liaison Officers as interfaces eased the passage of information, as did tactical philosophies, for instance measures to prevent the jamming of a target from which another Allied Signals Intelligence unit was obtaining information.
In 1980 Lieutenant Colonel John Dobson formed the Communications and Security Group (United Kingdom) from all relevant Signals Intelligence assets in the country.
In 1985 the Regiment replaced 94 Locating Regiment in Celle and was joined by 1 Squadron from Langeleben, minus a Troop commanded of a Royal Signals Warrant Officer 1 with an Intelligence Corps as his deputy and renamed ‘Field Station Langeleben’. N Troop, formerly 226 Signal Squadron and located in the German Army barracks in Wesendorf, near Celle, figured in more investigations than any other Signals unit. An example was when the word ‘Tontauben’ (clay pigeons) was incorrectly translated as ‘recording tapes’ (Tonbände) in an allegation involving a local person and a perceived attempt to subvert a member of the unit.
Interesting postings were 4 and 5 Security Companies, submitting reports to Security Wing, West Germany. Most sections were still based in houses in residential streets, as Field Security had done since May 1945. The 5 Company Osnabruck section was regularly commanded by an Australian Intelligence Corps officer. The Security sections were divided into Protective Security and Counter-Intelligence/Security Intelligence detachments and were supported by a Royal Army Ordnance Corps clerk administering classified information and, until the appearance of word processing, a typist. Most had a bar for liaison purposes. The principal threat remained from hostile intelligence services, in particular the Soviet and East Germans, conducting subversion and espionage. Sabotage was estimated to be likely during the transition to war. ‘Magdeburg Annie’ churning out daily five-figure coded transmissions from an East German radio station was a constant reminder of the threat. The 1969 The Rose and The Laurel revealed:
Among the highlights of the year was the perceptive ‘squaddy’ who was heard to remark in a loud voice during a ‘Threat’ presentation that ‘Magdeburg Annie’ never performed live for our demonstrations because she had been ‘tipped off’ that we would be listening for her. What touching faith!
Domestic subversion and Irish terrorism were added to the threats during the early 1970s.
Protective Security was an equally important function in ensuring that formations and units were guarded by conducting security surveys and inspections directed at the management of classified documents, protection of equipment and security of arms and ammunition. Until the early 1970s Sections used a variety of techniques to test barrack security, as their predecessors had done since 1940. A Royal Signals Yeoman of Signals was available to conduct technical ‘sweep’ of War Rooms and conference rooms for listening devices while a Security Section detachment carried out a physical inspection at the same time. Devices were discovered, particularly during the early occupation of HQ BAOR, probably clandestinely lodged during the construction phase. Interestingly, a report based on defector information suggested that Warsaw Pact intelligence agencies were reluctant to undertake technical attacks against British military and diplomatic premises outside their own countries because counter-measures were highly effective. While the Headquarters had its own Security Section to manage access into the ‘Big House’ itself, a detachment of the 4 Security Company section in the garrison conducted security reviews of the Branches. During exercises, the Security companies collected litter and material from vacated positions and checked for hides and presented their findings of breaches of security to, usually, shocked intelligence and security staff officers.
While Protective Security provided the visible defence, Security Intelligence investigated subversion and espionage. The West German constitution permitted freedom to express political opinion, including for those employed by the British Army of the Rhine. Nevertheless, watching briefs were maintained on politically-involved, locally employed civilians and military personnel showing subversive left- and right-wing sympathies. A civilian driver was dismissed for distributing Maoist propaganda and a combined Celle-based 51 Security Section and Royal Military Police operation conducted against neo-Nazis using the Lüneburg training area resulted in several arrests. When the Rhodesian Intelligence Service targeted soldiers with ‘kith and kin’ connections in the country, an investigation concluded most had received Rhodesian Army call-up papers in envelopes using correct military details and addresses and postmarked ‘Pretoria, South Africa’. Peace and pacifist movements were regarded as subversive because of their known infiltration by hostile intelligence services and thus, when the West German government concluded that a strata of rock near Dannenberg was ideal for the storage of nuclear waste and peace protesters pitched a camp near H Troop, 225 Signal Squadron, 51 Security Section in Celle discovered the activists had little interest in the Troop. Religious organizations with pacifism as a core belief were of concern, particularly those which sent preachers to visit the vulnerable dependants of soldiers serving in Northern Ireland. The theft of weapons in the early 1970s from a battalion about to deploy to Northern Ireland, and their recovery after the surveillance operation of a railway station left luggage locker, identified a link between an embryonic Black Power cell and the IRA. Swift military discipline prevented the subversion that was haunting US forces in Vietnam. Investigations into losses of identity cards usually led to heavy fines. Drug abuse investigations were transferred to the military police in the 1980s, except when there was an indication that users held a vetting clearance giving access to information classified Secret and above or there had been a breach of security.
The Mixed Service Organisation (MSO) was formed by the British in 1946 in order to give employment – for instance guarding ammunition compounds, drivers and defence units – to displaced Eastern Europeans former prisoners and concentration camp detainees reluctant or unable to return to their homelands. Employment generally followed national lines, for example, 612 Tank Transporter Squadron was mainly Polish. It was not unusual to find in the same unit, Mixed Service Organisation, some who had fought with the Allies, some former prisoners of war and some who had escaped malnutrition and ill-treatment by joining the German Army. The Organisation was vulnerable to subversion on two counts; first, the fractious politics of Eastern European emigré associations and secondly, some still had relatives living east of the Iron Curtain. When a Russian Intelligence Service assassin defected in the early 1970s and was identified to have been involved in an émigré organization, in 1973 most Allied security agencies reviewed their subversion threat assessments. Meanwhile, 4 and 5 Security Companies re-aligned their operations closer to developing sources. While ‘intelligence nuisances’ offering questionable information and spiteful denunciations were not uncommon, gems emerged, often generated by motives other than financial gain.
One Ukrainian had been a forced labourer at the V-2 manufacturing complex near the Nordhausen concentration camp in the Harz Mountains. Many of his colleagues were Slavs who converted their hatred of the Nazis into sabotaging the gyroscope bearings with powder and fine sand. But the sabotage was discovered and at every morning parade for several weeks a SS officer arbitrarily executed members of his group. When the Ukrainian was liberated from Belsen, he found employment with the British but then contracted TB and was treated in a military hospital. The sympathetic treatment he received paid dividends in 1973 during investigations into another Ukrainian supplying details of Liebenau Ammunition Compound to a contact in the Russian Intelligence Service in East Berlin. In June, Security Wing used the 51 Security Section offices to mount Operation Stern Post, in which joint Intelligence Corps and West German Security Services operations lifted several suspects in early morning raids. They were taken to Celle for interrogation on matters affecting British military interests before being transferred to the local authorities. One was led away shouting ‘Wait until the T-62s get here!’ Operation Rail Spike in December was directed against several Poles and locally employed civilians suspected of having contact with the Polish Intelligence Service and Polish Military Mission in West Berlin, where a favourite rendezvous was the Beate Uhse sexual appliances shop. So much information was collated over the next four years that it was allotted a separate cover name. When it was suspected that 23 Base Workshops in Wetter, near Dortmund, which repaired and refitted armoured vehicles, had been infiltrated by a hostile intelligence service, in an operation that solidified relationships between British and West German security agencies, an Intelligence Corps staff sergeant specifically posted to Wetter uncovered attempted and actual blackmail of German employees. Among those involved in the subversion was a Greek national. These operations so effectively undermined Mixed Service Organisation subversion that one Ukrainian émigré organization resorted to developing surveillance of its membership. By the 1980s the retirement of older MSO and recruitment of younger refugees recruited in West German resettlement camps saw a less frenetic atmosphere in units.
In 1972 the Counter-Intelligence Company (Near East Land Forces) in Cyprus reformed as 11 Security Company with the Dhekelia and Episkopi Detachments converted to 111 and 112 Security Sections. Soon after a right wing Junta had seized power in Athens during the year and enosis again threatened, Lieutenant General Grivas clandestinely returned to the island and resurrected EOKA as EOKA-B. In early 1974 links had been established between EOKA-B and the Cypriot National Guard while the pro-Makarios Police Special Tactical Reserve reported increased arms smuggling from Greece. Strained relations between Archbishop Makarios and Greece finally collapsed when Makarios claimed that the National Guard was being subverted by Greek National Contingent officers.
Anxious Turkish-Cypriots could do little but observe as, on 15 July, EOKA-B launched a coup d’etat that saw Makarios replaced as President by the EOKA gunman Nicos Sampson. Learning about the coup a few hours before it broke, 11 Company, deployed its two Security Intelligence detachments outside the Sovereign Base Areas to collect information while the Protective Security element established an intelligence cell to pass information to Joint Intelligence Staff (Near East Land Forces). Amid spreading violence it soon became apparent that the contingency plans to evacuate Service dependants to the Sovereign Base Areas were flawed and 11 Security Company was tasked to help guide convoys. Corporal John Condon and a sergeant from 111 (Dhekelia) Security Section were guiding a convoy from Larnaca to the Eastern Sovereign Base Area when it encountered factional fighting. Condon returned to Lion House, the welfare centre in Larnaca, and, although trapped for the night, he passed information to Commander Dhekelia Area until the next morning. Finding a British combat jacket and United Nations blue beret, he gingerly drove between the opposing forces and reached the perimeter of Eastern Sovereign Base Area, where he used his Special Authorisation Card to persuade a suspicious lieutenant that he was Intelligence Corps. A staff sergeant and a lance corporal from the same section were both captured in Famagusta by a National Guard patrol commanded by a Greek Army officer. Suspected of being Cypriot Intelligence Service, they were robustly interrogated until another Greek officer realized that they were British soldiers. Another pair from 112 (Episkopi) Security Section helped evacuate families from Limassol.
With the Turkish-Cypriot minority at risk from a resurgent EOKA, Turkey invoked the Treaty of Guarantee and intervened on 20 July by a parachute landing north of Nicosia and amphibious forces near Kyrenia, while a ceasefire was agreed on 22 July. Headquarters British Forces needed information on the situation in Kyrenia and Corporal Condon and another from 111 Security Section joined the aircraft-carrier HMS Hermes, which had orders to evacuate about 1,500 tourists and foreign nationals trapped in the town. Using a Land Rover on the pretext of searching for refugees, the pair collected information on the Kyrenia beachhead. Next day, Sampson was replaced by Glafkos Clerides; however, talks between him and the Turkish-Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash, failed and on 14 August the Turks broke off its beachhead. Corporal Condon was at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Ayios Nikolios, monitoring Greek-Cypriot refugees for spies and terrorist-related individuals fleeing from Famagusta to the tented refugee camp at Athna Forest inside the Eastern Sovereign Base Area. Major Alastair Kennedy at Headquarters, British Forces played a major role in resolving the massive refugee problem. On his second day at the checkpoint, Condon was accompanied by a Greek-Cypriot policeman and a Gurkha private when several Turkish tanks and armoured personnel carriers took up positions on an escarpment. Amid growing refugee panic, a 16th/5th Lancers troop and two sections of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers took up defensive positions while a British officer negotiated with a Turkish officer. In the troop was Trooper Paul Harman, who later transferred to the Corps. In violation of repeated United Nations Security Council Resolutions, Turkey seized about thirty-eight per cent of the island north of a demarcation line from Morphou to Famagusta that was eventually patrolled by the United Nations Forces in Cyprus. The island soon became a hot bed of communist, Palestinian and local intrigue.
Since the emergence of The First 100, many transferees from regiments, more interest was being taken in the heritage of the Intelligence Corps, in particular by the Depot Quartermaster, Lieutenant Colonel Bill Leary BEM, and Major Parritt, then commanding the Depot; however, artefacts and archives were not centralized. The two officers asked Colonel Tom Carter, the Corps Lieutenant Colonel, if they could develop a Corps Museum. However, he said that there was not enough material and anything of interest was bound to be classified. Notwithstanding this rebuff, they approached Colonel Jack Fielder, then commanding the Intelligence School, and he agreed that it would be a good idea. A small building opposite the Guardroom was identified and to disguise its proposed use, it was designated the ‘Recruit Training Room’. Meanwhile artefacts, documents and photographs were being assembled and then one day, the sign ‘Museum’ appeared. For several years, the Museum was organized on a self-help basis and then, on Corps Day in 1970, an important step was taken when Field Marshal Sir Gerald Templer formally opened the Intelligence Corps Museum. In its present location at Chicksands, it is recognized to be an Army Museum and has three full time employees.
In 1977 His Royal Highness the Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh accepted the post of Colonel-in-Chief.
For those members of the Intelligence Corps not wearing civilian clothes, the everyday uniform of the bottle green sweater and distinctive green and grey side-hat had been distinctive. When the Army Dress Committee gave the Corps the opportunity to select a distinctive headwear, in a decision that took the Army and members of the Corps by surprise, Lieutenant General Sir Michael Gow, the Colonel Commandant, supported the adoption of the Cypress Green Beret on 1 July 1977. Grey had been the original choice but it clashed with the berets of the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards, and Cypress Green, the traditional colour of military intelligence, emerged. The 6 Armoured Brigade and Signal Squadron Sergeant Major in Soest refused to allow the Brigade Intelligence Section to attend the weekly parade in their berets! Captain Chris Holtom, transferring from the Royal Tank Regiment in 1978 and apparently unaware of the new beret, was persuaded by a colleague to buy his Service Dress cap. On 14 October 1981 the Army Dress Committee authorized the Corps to be ‘all beret’ with effect from 1 January 1982. From the colour of the beret emerged the Corps being known as ‘Green Fly’ and ‘Green Slime’.
On 16 May 1979 the Intelligence Corps was awarded the Freedom of Ashford and, in spite of security concerns, a contingent assembled from the United Kingdom, Cyprus, Germany and Northern Ireland paraded through the town, commanded by Major Mark Durman. The previous June the 1939-1945 Roll of Honour was transferred to Ashford Parish from Winchester Cathedral, where it joined a second volume commemorating those who had lost their lives on active service since 1945. Brigadier Parritt recalled in 2011:
While carrying out research for The Intelligencers in the mid-1960s, I came across two facts. The Intelligence Corps War Memorial had been placed for safekeeping in Winchester Cathedral. At the end of the War, the officers and soldiers of the Intelligence Corps had subscribed money, I think about £1,500, towards an Intelligence Corps Chapel. I went to Winchester Cathedral and spoke to the Dean who had no idea that the Intelligence Corps War Memorial was in the Cathedral. He emphasised the marvellous displays recognising the Rifle Brigade and Gurkhas but had no knowledge of an Intelligence Corps Memorial. Eventually, he asked a gentlemen who had worked for a long time in the Cathedral who explained that ‘Yes, indeed the Memorial was in the Cathedral but was sited in a dark corridor outside the main visitor area.’ We discovered that it was a wooden stand beautifully carved with a Roll of Honour placed inside. On returning to Ashford I spoke to the Parish Priest of St Mary’s Church, Canon Sharpe, and asked if he would give room to the Memorial. He agreed, but there was significant opposition from Winchester who now wished to retain the Memorial. Eventually, Major John Burgess, who had taken over from me as OC Depot, went to Winchester with his RSM and brought the Memorial back to St Mary’s. It was well sited with a flower stand at the side. Each week, Corps wives in rotation would arrange a flower display and a recruit would turn a page.
The Chapel Fund was used to repair carvings on part of the church leading to the Altar and sides of the Choir at St Mary’s. A Corps Badge Memorial was sited behind the Altar. A Corps War Memorial was also placed on the gate leading to St Bartholomew’s Church at Maresfield. During the move from Ashford to Chicksands in 1996, the Roll of Honour was placed in the Church of St James, Garlickhythe, Garlick Hill, London, which had close connections with the Volunteers and the Worshipful Company of Painters-Stainers. A duplicate was placed in the Church in Chicksands. The Museum holds an electronic register of those killed on active service entitled ‘In the Name of the Rose’.
Meanwhile in Northern Ireland, the Provisional IRA Army Council switched its strategy from insurgency to one of the communist-style Long War, backed up by military and economic terrorism in England and Europe designed to persuade the British public to demand the withdrawal of the Army from Northern Ireland, curb investment in Ireland and Ulster and pave the way for an Irish republic governed by a revolutionary council. But the strategy was compromised when the Gardai in Dublin found draft proposals while arresting a hardliner. By 1977 the political three-phase Way Ahead strategy emerged from Stormont; ‘Criminalisation’ of terrorist acts and the removal of Special Category status from paramilitaries convicted of terrorism induced the ‘dirty protests’ in the H blocks at HMP Maze (formerly Long Kesh) that ended with several hunger strikes in the early 1980s. ‘Ulsterization’ saw government returned to Stormont and improvements in cross-border co-operation. ‘Normalization’ led to primacy being returned to the Royal Ulster Constabulary, aided by military support in areas of medium and high risk, for instance, parts of Belfast, South Armagh and East Tyrone. On 14 December the Intelligence Corps suffered its only ‘killed in action’ in Operation Banner when Corporal Paul Harman, aged 27 years and formerly 16/5th Lancers, was ambushed on the Monagh Road in West Belfast. In commemoration, the Harman Trophy replaced the Montgomery Trophy of a Corps round-robin football competition between the Military Intelligence Battalions held over a three-day weekend annually in September at Corps Headquarters. The final kicks off at 2.00pm on the Sunday with the winners presented with a FA Cup-style trophy. A ladies soccer competition was later added to the event. At its height of popularity, the Trophy competition was a date that Directors inked into their diaries and was an important gathering of Corps personnel outside of Corps Day. Fittingly, the first winners were the Force Intelligence Unit (Northern Ireland). Operational security had meant that 12 Intelligence and Security Company had not been mentioned in The Rose and The Laurel until, in 1979, an article described its size and outline of its activities, mentioning that the Corps tradition of a club, namely the Green Fly in Lisburn, had been maintained. Those who served in Northern Ireland will recognize these thoughts;
Life in all parts of the Company tends to be intensive – what is this word ‘weekend’ – but the obvious purpose leads to plenty of job satisfaction, which is often the first thing that strikes newcomers. But you know how it is, when you’re busy – you can always manage something more, and we manage to get people away for adventure training as well. This year, members of the Company will have taken part in mountain climbing in Italy, scuba-diving off Devon, gliding, sailing, ski-ing and walking around the Isle of Man. By the way, life would be quite different for many of us if it were not for the support from our wives.
Palestinian and domestic political extremism hardly affected British Forces in West Germany. The Provisional IRA switch to terrorism and consequent attacks on British forces and their dependants in Belgium and West Germany led to Security Wing, Headquarters British Army of the Rhine ordering wide-ranging security reviews that kept both Security Companies busy with Protective Security surveys and inspections, now enhanced in the Manual of Army Security to include ‘Protection from Terrorist Attack’. In Northern Ireland 120 Security Section had played an important role in developing counter-measures. This cryptic comment from 45 Security Section in Rheindahlen reveals much:
…should any of our valued readership come across the elusive “Mr Farrell” whose BMW boot-load of explosives got its fuse wet here in August 1978, thus failing to demolish a NAAFI packed full of families – then do let us know…
Although the West German authorities accepted that Irish extremism was not solely a British problem, the British Security Service Organisation, with some justification, insisted that it was a domestic problem, even though some Intelligence Corps posted from Northern Ireland recognized the same case files. The Organisation also disagreed with Intelligence and Security Group (Germany) that the Corps experience in Northern Ireland could balance German inexperience. In Ashford the Special Intelligence Wing moved into Repton Manor and concentrated largely on Special Duty training in Northern Ireland, Belize and elsewhere.
In the Far East, the disbandment of the Intelligence and Security Group in Singapore in 1970 left 10 Intelligence and Security Company as an independent command in Hong Kong that also supported British military interests in South Korea, Brunei and Nepal. It usually hosted an Australian Intelligence Corps captain and a SNCO and, by 1978, had absorbed three Hong Kong Military Service Corps NCOs into the Corps. Two Field Intelligence NCOs supported the 48 and 51 Gurkha Infantry Brigades patrolling the border until both formations amalgamated into the Gurkha Field Force in the mid-1970s. Its Intelligence Section was soon heavily involved when tides of Chinese illegal immigrants and refugees flowed from Vietnam seeking sanctuary. In 1977 the Company moved from Argyle Street to a new building in Gun Club Barracks. In addition to Security Intelligence investigations, the Company became an important intelligence agency for the Governor when the Royal Hong Kong Police mutinied in 1978 over investigations by the Independent Commission Against Corruption. Several of its investigators were former Corps. The Company was heavily involved providing architect liaison advice to major rationalizations of British Forces, Hong Kong during the mid-1970s, the most complex probably being the transfer of the sprawling Victoria Barracks to the 28-storey Prince of Wales Building at HMS Tamar Naval Base. Using the principles of Protective Security, and Security Intelligence because of hostile intelligence service interest, Captain Hugh Webb, the GSO 3 Security, began the Secure by Design architectural liaison process until day-to-day responsibility was transferred to Staff Sergeant van der Bijl, then with the Hong Kong Island Detachment. He then spent the next two years overseeing the security requirements, which included liaising with UK and Hong Kong government organizations from the Public Works Department site office, where his seat was a lavatory bowl, and ensuring that equipment and security furniture sent from UK was not compromised. His wife Penny (formerly Lance Corporal Weaver, Training Wing, Intelligence and Security Group, Germany) was employed in Q Quartering, which had direct responsibility for the project, and typed in the specifications that the ‘Officers’ Mess will have French widows in the ante room’–as opposed to ‘French windows’. Members of 10 Intelligence and Security Company brought up the rearguard when Victoria Barracks, which included Flagstaff House and the underground command post, was evacuated by carrying out final security sweeps. Also involved in the project were the HQ British Forces Security Officers. Throughout, support was given to the HMS Tamar Royal Naval Liaison Office.
The final act of 10 Intelligence and Security Company was to cover the military withdrawal before Hong Kong was handed to the People’s Republic of China in 1997. This left the only Intelligence Corps in the Far East to be those on loan to the Royal Brunei Armed Forces.