Failures attract much more attention that successes
Paul Crick
In 1980, Major General James Glover, then Director, Defence Intelligence Staff and previously Commander, Land Forces Northern Ireland, predicted in his assessment Operation Banner in Northern Ireland: Future Terrorist Trends that the Army would remain in Northern Ireland until the mid-1980s. He suggested that in relation to the Provisional IRA that if the word ‘terrorist’ was substituted by ‘soldier’, his comments about it could equally refer to an Allied army. Growing politicisation within the republican movement led to the Provisional spokesman Danny Morrison famously asking in 1981,
‘Who here really believes we can win the war through the ballot box? But will anyone here object if, with a ballot paper in one hand and an Armalite in this hand, we can take power?’
Over the next decade, force levels generally remained at about 10,500 divided into six resident, four roulement and several Ulster Defence Regiments battalions controlled by 8 and 39 Infantry Brigades. In the meantime, 3 Infantry Brigade had been disbanded, its operational area transferred to 39 Brigade. In 1980, one in eight Regular soldiers was directly involved in intelligence activities and the quality of the product sufficiently good that for two years at the end of the decade, the Provisionals were prevented from mounting a bombing campaign in Belfast.
Operation Banner: An Analysis of Military Operations in Northern Ireland, was prepared in 2006 under the direction of General Sir Mike Jackson, who had initially been commissioned in the Intelligence Corps before joining the Parachute Regiment and was Chief of the General Staff. It describes how three elements of the conventional four-phase Manouevrist Approach strategy of Find (identifying those involved), Fix (with surveillance) and Strike (arrest or interdiction), interfaced with framework operations – such as patrols, vehicle check points and searches – denied the terrorists room to manoeuvre. The final stage, Exploitation (using propaganda) was not widely used by the Army.
With the Way Ahead strategy firmly established, the Security Forces essentially now held the line to give politics a chance. In Operation Tonnage, bases were target-hardened against mortar and missile attacks. Weapons Intelligence tracked the development of IRA mortars that eventually ranged from Mark 1 ‘copper tube and 6in nail’ in the early 1970s to Mark 15 industrial gas tubes ‘Barrackbusters’. The nature of terrorist mortar attacks meant that fire control was limited and overshoots causing co-lateral damage not unknown. Brigade Headquarters developed meticulous plans for the convoys transporting plant and construction material to sites with battalions providing route and flank protection. Imagery Intelligence played a vital role in plotting main supply routes diversions and plotting potential obstacles, such as telegraph lines and pylons, pinch points, for example, the obstacles of bridges and crossroads, and identifying ambush sites of culverts and embankments. International protocols surrounding surveillance of the border were solved by a chain of watchtowers. Elsewhere, purpose-built observation posts, generally fitted with Information Technology terminals and cameras, replaced the breeze block and corrugated iron bunkers equipped with radio or field telephone. International intelligence co-operation had established that the IRA had acquired Semtex explosive, 12.7mm DShK Soviet machine guns and SA-7 Grail surface-to-air missiles from Libya to add to their arsenal of RPG-7s and Projected Recoilless Improvised Grenades. Several consignments were intercepted by foreign customs operations.
In West Germany, a British Security Service Organisation suggestion that British nationals were not prime IRA targets was rather undermined in February 1980 when Colonel Mark Coe (late Royal Engineers) was shot dead outside his Bielefeld married quarter. As the Provisional IRA strategy switched from insurgency to terrorism and spread to Germany, Belgium and the Netherlands, HQ Intelligence and Security Group (Germany) re-reformed 2 Intelligence Company and enhanced Human Intelligence by attaching a section to each Company. It also supported West German counter-terrorist operations monitoring relationships between the IRA and domestic urban guerillas and hostile intelligence services. By 1983, the need for timely and accurate intelligence led to the adoption of Operational Security by combining Human, Signals and Photographic Intelligence with Protective Security, a philosophy designed to prevent the discovery of the three-stage Security Intelligence strategy of assessing the threat, installing counter-measures and systematic Protective Security assessments.
Security Intelligence operations against hostile intelligence services continued. Defector information was always useful. Debriefs of regular travellers employed by British Forces, Germany allowed military intelligence to be updated established that one in every ten reported direct approaches. One East German intelligence officer shocked a woman by describing her employment and a recent car crash and then attempted to trap her into blackmail by suggesting that she supply telephone directories, staff lists and information on forthcoming exercises. On returning to West Germany, she agreed to be played back by her local security section, which gave Security Wing the opportunity to ask questions and enhance its understanding of East German targeting. Travellers visiting relatives in and near the Permanently Restricted Areas out of bounds to the British Military Mission, in particular the Letzlinger Heide training area, regularly returned with information of value to Intelligence Wing. For years, Allied intelligence agencies suspected that East European commercial transport entering West Germany collected information about NATO activity. A British executive employed in a company trading deliveries of raw materials transported on Moscow-based Sovtransavto vehicles and talent spotted by an Intelligence Corps officer serving in Headquarters 1st Armoured Division in Verden, supplied sufficient information that enabled Security Wing to collate driver details and plot delivery routes, some of which passed through Permanent Restricted Areas out of bounds to the Soviet Military Mission. A source working for an import/export firm in Hamburg that was part-owned by a Russian, collected information on the movement of shipping containers, but a major failure in both instances was that civilian intelligence consumers failed to ask specific questions for future tasking.
Subversion of British military personnel was unusual but not unknown. During the mid-1970s, an investigation into the loss of classified information during an exercise that had apparently occurred in the thirty yards between a command post and a vehicle found that the individual responsible had fallen into a ‘honey trap’ while attending a sports scholarship in Moscow. During the 1980s, Operation Memphis was activated whenever evidence emerged that a Serviceman married to a German or a locally-employed civilian with relatives in Eastern Europe had been targeted because of their access to specific information. After a military Russian interpreter was asked to supply a copy of Jane’s All the Worlds Tanks, a BAOR newspaper and an out-of-date military telephone directory protected by a low classification, 2 Intelligence Company and a civilian security agency ran the counter-intelligence. During another meeting, the interpreter was asked to supply the names of Intelligence Corps living in a Sergeants Mess. After he had been posted to Northern Ireland and was then contacted, a plan was devised to expose IRA connections with the Soviet Consulate in Dublin, Intelligence Corps advice to a civilian security agency that the Russians and East Germans would not meet the interpreter in West Berlin, because it was too dangerous, was rejected. The operation collapsed. When an East German intelligence officer approached a former soldier married to a German who regularly visited her East German aunt, his wife displayed considerable aptitude when she persuaded the East German to visit the Soviet War Memorial in Berlin and insisted on taking photographs. In the words of the Intelligence Corps officer running the operation ‘You can see the pained expression on his face as he tried to smile and weep softly at the same time.’ The photographs confirmed other travellers had been approached by the same East German.
Intelligence and Security Group (United Kingdom) supported several Out of Area Operations, sometimes at short notice but always mindful that there was a requirement to keep the demands of Northern Ireland at full strength.
When the Rhodesian bid for Unilateral Independence collapsed in 1980, six Intelligence Corps joined the Commonwealth Monitoring Force in Operation Agila to supervise the ceasefire between the Rhodesian Armed Forces, who were confined to barracks, and the Patriotic Front dispersed in thirty-nine rendezvous points and fourteen assembly areas. Three collated intelligence at HQ Monitoring Force while the remainder collected information in a country the size of France.
Between 1983 and 1984, a contingent of seven Intelligence Corps supported Commander, British Forces, Lebanon in Beirut when a multinational force intervened during the civil war after the Israeli invasion. A sergeant was posted to the British Embassy and the remainder were on port and airfield security and intelligence collection, often under fire from the warring factions and insurgents from Syria.
One long-running, commitment was Belize. Shipwrecked English sailors first landed in 1638 and induced tension with Spanish loggers from their colony of Honduras throughout the 18th Century, not that the loggers settled in British Honduras. When the neighbouring Guatemala insisted in 1961 that the colony was an ‘associated state’, diplomatic relations collapsed and three years later, Britain took control of British Honduran internal security, foreign affairs and defence by deploying an infantry company. In 1973, in anticipation of independence and in spite of the persistent ‘Belice es Guatemala’, British Honduras was renamed Belize. The origins of the name are unclear with some suggesting it originates from the Mayan word be’lix, meaning ‘muddy water’, as applied to the Belize River. With the principal threat being military from Guatemala, others were subversion of the Mayan from fundamental religious bodies and the activities of intelligence services, not necessarily hostile. By 1977, the British military presence had increased to a 1,500-strong battle group supported by Harriers, Army and RAF helicopters, the Belize Defence Force and a Royal Navy guard ship lurking offshore. The annual Exercise Montezuma’s Revenge in about October saw a UK-based battle group test the defence of Belize. Force Intelligence was usually reinforced from Intelligence and Security Group (United Kingdom).
Intelligence Corps representation at HQ British Forces Belize in Airport Camp included the GSO 2 (Intelligence) and the Force Intelligence and Security Section, most on six month rotations, a few on two year tours. Intelligence sources included infantry patrols scouting the jungle and visiting Mayan villages, the armoured reconnaissance squadron, observation posts, such as Cadenas in the far south-west overlooking a Guatemalan camp, and the Joint Service Signals Unit, which had several Spanish-speaking Intelligence Corps, providing Signals Intelligence.
Initially, there were two Field Intelligence NCOs with one (West) accommodated in a bungalow at San Ignacio, not far from Salamanca Camp and covering the border crossing point. The Field Intelligence NCO (South) lived in the ‘cowboy town’ of Punta Gorda in the southern district of Toledo supporting the Battle Group HQ at Rideau Camp. As Great Britain discussed dual sovereignty during the early 1980s during several years of intense tension in Central America, a third Field intelligence NCO (South West) was established to provide an intelligence tripwire in the Mayan villages along the south-western border. Most undertook specialist training at Repton Manor and several completed intensive Spanish language courses at the South Bank Polytechnic at the Elephant and Castle, London followed by conversation with a native Spanish speaker before deployment. Their wartime role was counter-intelligence support to the Battle Group HQ and combat teams in the north. As had been practiced in Borneo and Northern Ireland, the Field Intelligence NCOs worked closely with Special Branch and since both covered two important points of entry from Guatemala, they applied Travel Control Security principles. The volatility of regional tension and communist subversion in Central America saw Belize being seen as an oasis of security and tranquility for backpackers. Most were keen observers and a mine of information about the volatile geo-politics of the region. The Field Intelligence NCO (South) masqueraded as an immigration official when the twice weekly launch arrived at Punta Gorda with backpackers and traders from Puerto Barrios. When two from Crossmaglen in Northern Ireland appeared at Punta Gorda in 1980, the Field Intelligence NCO was suddenly absent from the Customs office.
The indistinct nature of the jungle-clad border sometimes saw shallow patrols to nearby Mayan villages and there was limited contact with the Guatemalan Armed Forces. An unusual meeting point was a volleyball court hacked out of the jungle near the Tree Top Observation Post with the net following the border. Psychological operations focused on visits to villages, organizing football matches, monitoring expatriates for evidence of subverting Mayans, resolving minor administrative disagreements and guiding wealthy, well-meaning Americans. Late one very wet night in 1980, a group from Dallas who had spent the day dispensing pills and dentistry, were roused from their Punta Gorda hotel by the two southern Field Intelligence NCOs to help treat several accidental drug overdoses administered by a local Mennonite in a village.
After years of United Nations pressure, in 1980, Guatemala surrendered its claim, thereby paving the way for Belize to achieve independence in September 1981. British Forces, Belize remained for ‘an appropriate period’ in support of the Belize Defence Force. JNCOs from Force Intelligence wrote the first course for its embryonic Intelligence Section. In January 1982, as the Army adopted NATO terminology, Force Intelligence was renamed the All Source Assessment Centre and Force Security reverted to the Counter-Intelligence Detachment. Nevertheless, Guatemalan Special Forces continued to peck at Belize. On 31 July, Warrant Officer 2 Allan Hare was on a six-month tour as the Force Security Warrant Officer and was covering for the Field Intelligence NCO (West) when the Cayo Observation Post, covering the main Customs Post on the road leading to Belmopan and Belize City, reported four Guatemalans had crossed the border in a Mini Moke. Hare collected a police officer from Benque Viejo del Carmen Police Station and intercepted the car, apparently with a flat tyre, about half a mile from the border. As the police officer challenged the occupants and searched the vehicle, Hare was taking photographs when he saw a Guatemalan walk across the road and drop something in the undergrowth. Another Guatemalan did the same thing near the Moke. Hare later checked the area and found a US grenade. A second grenade was later found in undergrowth The Guatemalans were arrested with one admitting that he was the lieutenant colonel commanding the Kaibul (Special Forces) camp at Melchor. A search of the Moke revealed documents and camouflage clothing. Meanwhile, reports were being received that Kaibuls were massing across the border intending to seize the Belizean Customs Post. When the four were released, they were met by six heavily-armed Guatemalans who had crossed the border. Belize lodged a protest at the United Nations.
When Colonel John Hughes-Wilson, an Intelligence Corps officer, wrote in his Military Intelligence Blunders (1993) that ‘The Falklands War came about through a combination of complacency, government misunderstandings and failure of national policy – on both sides’, the intelligence ingredients of both sides led to two countries with historically, friendly relations going to war.
By 1982, the Argentine junta in power calculated that Britain had lost interest in the Falklands Islands and the South Atlantic dependencies and would not dispute its 1833 Argentine claim. On 2 and 3 April, Argentina seized South Georgia and the Falkland Islands and captured Naval Party 8901 and men from the HMS Endurance Ship’s Detachment, all mainly Royal Marines. Although taken by surprise, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher accepted that distance and air cover was favourable and despatched Combined Task Force 317 to remove the trespassers in Operation Corporate.
Every function from the Allied Maritime Command Headquarters at Northwood to battalions had an intelligence component. A composite Section was formed at Ashford to support HQ Land Forces Falklands Islands. HQ 5 Infantry Brigade was already being supported by 81 Intelligence Section and HQ 3 Commando Brigade, which formed the Landing Group, had an Intelligence Section of eight Royal Marines supported by the in-post Intelligence Corps staff sergeant. The defence of the South Atlantic was a Fleet task but, initially, virtually no intelligence about Argentina emerged from Defence Intelligence. Hostilities with Argentina were not expected. With collection and collation a critical resource, sufficient information was collected from public libraries and television news broadcasts were scavenged for information, appeals made for photographs and several people who had been ‘down south’ debriefed to allow a reasonable intelligence assessment to be presented at the first Landing Group Orders Group at HQ Commando Forces on 5 April. The chronic lack of Spanish linguists was partly alleviated by the arrivals of an RAF Flight Sergeant who had served at Joint Service Interrogation Wing and a Royal Marines driver of Gibraltarian extraction. At sea, the Commando Brigade Intelligence Section on board HMS Fearless faced further problems:
• The inadequate size of the Intelligence office for a Brigade Intelligence Section. In fairness, Fearless was designed to lift a battalion. The Section eventually moved into part of the Gun Room allowing, for the first time, a 1:50,000 map to be marked.
• Several thousand ungridded maps of the Falkland Islands.
• The arrival of highly classified Intelligence Summaries and Reports from Northwood preventing dissemination.
Nevertheless, the Intelligence Section briefed Brigadier Julian Thompson, the Landing Group commander, that the Argentines were likely to convert Stanley into a stronghold supported by strong garrisons at Goose Green, Port Howard and Fox Bay.
At a two-star conference at Ascension Island on 17 April chaired by Major General Jeremy Moore, Commander Land Forces, Falkand Islands, Major David Burrill, the SO 2 G2, brought a small volume entitled Argentine Army Equipment Technical Data Sheets prepared by Technical Intelligence (Army) and current intelligence, some of which came from the debriefings of the captured British Servicemen and several Falkland islanders repatriated to UK. The inability to disseminate Intelligence Summaries was partly solved when, at Ascension Island, the HMS Fearless Electronic Warfare Office intercepted credible welfare telegrams transmitted to and from Argentina by Cable and Wireless, each identifying individuals, units and giving ‘a feel’ of the state of morale. The risk of deception was regularly checked against co-lateral from other sources. Shortage of Argentine tactical doctrine and military philosophy improved when a marine infantry field manual was captured at South Georgia after the island was recaptured on 25 April. Several prisoners were interrogated. Imagery Intelligence increased when the naval and air offensive began on 1 May, as did Special Forces reports. When photographs of an Argentine ship lurking off Ascension appeared to show human torpedoes, during the day, the ships moved continuously and the Georgetown anchorage emptied at night. A short period of censoring of mail was ordered after military information was washed onto a beach. Leaving Ascension on 6 May, as the Landing Group convoy headed into the early winter of the South Atlantic, intelligence collection was again limited to classified signals and despatches dropped by a C-130 Hercules. Any chance of being lost in the ocean’s grey expanse disappeared when the convoy was overflown by Soviet Air Force Tu-95 Bears patrolling between Cuba and Angola.
On 12 May, after exercising in a heatwave in Wales, 81 Intelligence Section embarked on Queen Elizabeth 2 at Southampton. One of the NCOs remarked:
Eating QE2 gourmet meals on the way to war, practicing small arms drills among the staterooms and doing Intelligence work among the padded armchairs of the ladies hairdressing salon; they were so bizarre that the whole experience was one of make-believe.
When intelligence flowing into Northwood mentioned a reserve airfield called Calderon, the HQ Land Forces Falkland Islands Intelligence Section assessed that none referred to mainland airfields or to Stanley. Major Burrill:
Our analysis came up with three or four possibilities of which Pebble Island was one. Special Force patrols were despatched to carry out surveillance on the possible locations. Pebble Island was identified as ‘Calderon’ and the airfield was attacked by the SAS who destroyed several aircraft and ensured the airfield could not be used.
The presence of Major Burrill, described variously as the Principal Intelligence and Security Officer and the G2, was something of a milestone because he was the first Intelligence Corps officer ever to be appointed as a Theatre head of intelligence and security.
Soon after Brigadier Thompson had issued his Landing Orders on 13 May, but not D-Day, an Intelligence Report arrived in the Commando Intelligence Section indicating that Combat Team Guemes (Eagle) had deployed from Goose Green to Port San Carlos and observation post, later known as the Fanning Head Mob, had been placed on the headland overlooking San Carlos Water and north Falklands Sound. Concerned that the landings might have been compromised, the prime focus of intelligence attention switched to Task Force Mercedes at Goose Green. Following the collapse of political negotiations, during the night of 20/21 May, the Landing Force Group arrived off Fanning Head. Staff Sergeant Nick van der Bijl with the Commando Brigade Intelligence Section,
From the half-deck, I saw the small blue navigation lights of the landing craft assembling at the stern and then the night was shattered by HMS Antrim opening fire on the Fanning Hill Mob, a few moments of silence and then crumps and flashes, followed by the distant machine gun chatter of the SBS attack. I was to land with Brigadier Thompson’s Tactical HQ. Next morning, I was on the upper deck admiring the scenery of San Carlos Water waiting to be called forward when all the ships opened up on Lieutenant Crippa’s incredible flight over San Carlos Water.
The unexpected Argentine air raids resulted in the landing plan changed to give priority to the infantry and artillery. Throughout D-day, in between eleven air raids, the Commando Intelligence Section watched for indications of an Argentine counter-attack. An important asset was the Special Task Detachment on HMS Intrepid providing tactical Signals Intelligence. Usually based with Communications and Security Group (United Kingdom) at Woodhouse Eaves, Loughborough, it was part of 2 (Royal Signals Special Operation Training) Squadron with a role to support rapid, airportable deployments and was a precursor to the Light Electronic Warfare Troops. The Squadron second-in-command, Captain David Thorpe, later recalled his experiences The Silent Listener (2011). With photographic interpreters on the two aircraft-carriers miles offshore and the delivery of Imagery Intelligence limited, it had been accepted that Human Intelligence of debriefing prisoners and settlers, the latter also as part of the counter-intelligence operation, and Document Exploitation would be vital. The Commando Forward Interrogation Team interrogated a sergeant who had spent six weeks at Goose Green, three Air Force manning radars guiding Argentine aircraft to San Carlos anchorage and a marine infantry lieutenant commander captured inside the beachhead perimeter. A Detailed Interrogation Centre was later established inside the Refrigeration Plant at ‘Red Beach’ (Ajax Bay). Documents captured by 3 Parachute Battalion at Port San Carlos included a net diagram and radio frequencies of 12 Infantry Regiment at Goose Green. Every night, Intelligence Summaries were prepared for collection by unit liaison officers, however not all were collected. Indeed, a large bundle for one of the Parachute Battalions remained uncollected for several days.
On the day before 2 Parachute Battalion attacked Goose Green on 28 May, four prisoners, including the 12 Infantry Regiment Reconnaissance Platoon commander, were captured but unfortunately were not transferred to the Forward Interrogation Team. It was not known until after several interrogations that 400 of the 1,200 prisoners captured had been logistic troops moved to a safer location on 27 May from the naval gunfire and Harrier attacks on at Stanley, not that they took any part in the fighting. Most of the prisoners were repatriated.
On the day of the battle, Terry Peck was debriefed by the Commando Intelligence Section. He was a former Falklands Chief of Police who had escaped from Stanley and was ‘on the run’ with a group of friends armed with weapons concealed by a Naval Party 8901 section that had briefly avoided capture in April. While Peck advised him that the military situation was under control, he also identified a Falkland Islander with military skills who could be brought out of Stanley with Special Forces assistance, but no sooner had he sent the agreed codeword ‘Rubber Duck’ confirming everything was ready, than the Argentinians imposed a strict curfew in Stanley.
HQ Land Forces Falkland Islands (LFFI) crossed-decked from Queen Elizabeth 2 to HMS Antrim to HMS Fearless and arrived in San Carlos Water on 30 May. On 2 June, 81 Intelligence Section deployed with HQ 5 Infantry Brigade to Darwin where it scavenged Argentine positions for information. The shortage of radios meant those used by the Special Task Detachment were redeployed and Captain Thorpe transferred to MV Norland and, exploiting its satellite terminal, kept HQ LFFI supplied with intelligence.
During the first fortnight of June as the British advanced toward Stanley, 5 Infantry Brigade was on the coastal right flank, while 3 Commando Brigade tackled the mountains on the left. The arrival of an Intelligence Corps Spanish linguist and a RAF Regiment officer as an interpreter doubled the size of the Commando Forward Interrogation Team. Among prisoners captured by the Commando Brigade were five 602 Commando Company at Top Malo House and an Argentine Special Forces Group sergeant knocked unconscious during a clash with the Special Air Service on Mount Kent. During this engagement, a member of the Intelligence Corps badged as Special Air Service was wounded. The lack of more prisoners during the preparatory stages before the assault on the Outer Defence Zone (Mount Longdon, Two Sisters and Mount Harriet) meant that the intelligence product almost ceased, in particular the vital ‘over the hill’ information for the planned immediate exploitation by 5 Brigade to the Inner Defence Zone (Tumbledown and Wireless Ridge). Its advance in a complex naval operation had been hindered by the shortage of helicopters. Meanwhile, 81 Intelligence Section landed at Fitzroy in time to witness the Skyhawk attack on the two Landing Ship Logistics, Sir Tristram and Sir Galahad.
During the night of 11/12 June 3 Commando Brigade unlocked the Argentine defences. Among several prisoners that arrived at the Forward Interrogation Team were a commanding officer and a Forward Observation Officer captured by 42 Commando on Mount Harriet. The remainder of the prisoners were sent to the Divisional Cage at Fitzroy. The exploitation by 5 Infantry Brigade was delayed for twenty-four hours because it was still reorganising, a decision not well received by the Commando Brigade because Argentine shelling was causing casualties. On the eve of the 5 Infantry Brigade attack on Tumbledown on 13 June, a Special Forces report suggested that a self-propelled 155mm howitzer had been identified at Stanley. The Argentines had modern Citefa L33 towed guns but the possibility of self-propelled became a critical intelligence problem. HQ Land Forces Falklands Intelligence Section were sceptical about the report and, re-assessing their intelligence database, concluded that only towed howitzers were on the islands, Major Burrill advised Major General Moore that 5 Infantry Brigade should attack, as planned. 3 Commando Brigade experienced a similar problem when the mistranslation of information suggested tracked howitzers, as opposed to towed. Following the Argentine surrender, four towed howitzers were captured.
Later in the day, an attack by four Skyhawks on HQ 3 Commando Brigade forced a night ‘crash move’ just as both Brigades crossed their start lines to attack Wireless Ridge and Tumbledown Mount respectively. About thirty minutes later, Signals Intelligence advised Brigade HQ that it was about to be raided! As Main HQ column followed a track to the base of Mount Kent during the night of freezing winds and snow, the heavily-laden Intelligence Section BV 202 SnoCat capsized while crossing the River Murrell. At about midnight amid the crescendos of battle, the column was halted near the summit when Stanley below was suddenly illuminated by streetlights. Next morning, covered by the column, the Intelligence Section ‘pepper-potted’ to a group of soldiers seen in the rocks. It turned out to be a Scots Guard Forward Observation Party. By the time, Brigade HQ reached its location at dawn, most of the BVs had been drained of fuel to support those with radios and 81 Intelligence Section moved forward onto Mount Harriet. Another blizzard was screaming across the white valleys when ‘Argentines have surrendered’ was heard on the radio.
Later in the day of frequent blizzards, the Commando Intelligence Section landed from an overloaded Sea Commando on Stanley Racecourse and, filing through a minefield, followed the coast road to Stanley. All the Intelligence Corps in the vicinity of Stanley and several others who had attached themselves to the Commando Intelligence Section crossed the ceasefire line and began searching enemy headquarters. Government House, which had been the Argentine GHQ, had a conservatory full of ripe grapes. The detachment spent the night occupying the Argentine Consulate next door to the Post Office. Next day, HQ Land Forces Intelligence issued orders for the repatriation of about 12,000 prisoners, the first batch of 4,000 boarding Canberra that night. In addition, 600 special category were to be retained for detailed interrogation by a Joint Services Interrogation Wing detachment en route from Ascension Island. Amid snow squalls and darkness illuminated by a spotlight from a captured patrol boat moored to the jetty near the British Antarctic Offices, the prisoners were searched by Royal Marines Police and relieved of everything except their uniforms, a blanket, washing kit and a spoon, and were then briefly interrogated for suitability as special category. A field hospital of 400 wounded, injured and sick prisoners was searched and a medical officer with a pistol concealed in his medical satchel transferred to a Red Cross official. Disruption by hardline officers was countered by linguists mingling with the prisoners listening to conversations, as well as unearthing several officers masquerading as other ranks. Eventually a one-sided conversation between a brigadier-general and the 5 Infantry Brigade Royal Military Police captain solved further disruption. Meanwhile, during the counter-intelligence operation, nine Polish seamen who had ‘jumped ship’ were interviewed by an Intelligence Corps linguist.
A week after the surrender, the Commando Intelligence Section embarked onto the Canberra and three weeks of compression of report writing, sunbathing and socialising. On 12 July, the liner was escorted to her Southampton berth by hundreds of boats and greeted by relatives and military bands.
Most of those who took part in Operation Corporate did not immediately appreciate its iconic place in British military history. Fought without atrocities, 7,000 British landed against all the odds after 8,000-miles voyage to a southern hemisphere winter and then plodded across pathless moors and freezing mountains to defeat 13,000 opponents in well-defended positions. One lesson that emerged was that the conduct of the prisoners captured by the Argentinians, which also included a Harrier pilot and a member of the SAS, proved the value of resistance to interrogation training. Just one award was made to the Intelligence Corps of Member of the British Empire to Captain Algernon Thomas. When responsibility for the defence of the Falklands and South Georgia was transferred to Land, the Intelligence and Security supported the garrison with accurate intelligence and security strategy. It moved into comfortable accommodation at Mount Pleasant in 1986. The Specialist Task Detachment reformed as the Joint Signals Unit Falkland Islands. Several who took part in the campaign were in Northern Ireland within weeks. As for the intelligence product during the campaign, Brigadier Thompson:
The response by those members of the Corps involved in the operation was positive and professional. As the brigade commander charged with carrying out the initial landings on the Falklands, what impressed me most was the quality of the intelligence assessments that were produced from quite early on and right through the campaign by the intelligence staffs in my superior headquarters and in my own headquarters. The ‘piece de resistance’ was the identification of positions occupied by the Argentine regiments before we landed, which proved to be amazingly accurate. I also felt that the way the Intelligence Staffs coped with the interrogation of prisoners, a mammoth task, when one considers the numbers taken, and the short time available in which to process them, was a model of efficiency and humanity.
For a short time in the 1950s, the Notes on the British Army had graded the Intelligence Corps as a ‘Teeth Arm’ alongside the Infantry and Cavalry. However, this view then underwent a period of Ministry of Defence indecision of whether it should be an Arm or a Service. Matters came to a head in 1979 when the Ministry stipulated that an Arm was a ‘Corps or Regiment whose role is to be in close combat with the enemy to weaken his ability to fight’. While the Corps was not often in close combat with an enemy in the conventional sense, its counter-intelligence role from its inception in 1940 in peace and war meant that close contact had disrupted hostile intelligence service operations, and had kept the Army largely unaffected by espionage, subversion and sabotage. Its contribution to Combat, Signals and Photographic Intelligence collection and threat assessments meant that enemy operations were always at risk of disruption. In many respects, while other Arms and Corps had bursts of close combat, the Intelligence Corps was on permanent active service.
The burgeoning reputation of the Intelligence Corps led to its Directorate bidding that it should be recognized as an Arm citing that it not only had a proven record in combat zones, often its soldiers on a limb or alone collecting intelligence before the Arms went into action, one good example being the Corps out during the siege of the Iranian Embassy in 1979. The tally of Queen’s Gallantry Medals and other awards emerging from Northern Ireland strengthened the case. To outwit Ministry bureaucracy, Brigadier Parritt CBE ADC, the Director, recalled:
Deciding on humour, at Christmas 1983, I toured the corridors of the MoD pitifully explaining that I was not invited to either of the main Christmas Parties. We were not recognized as an ‘Arm’ and so were not invited by the Vice Chief of the General Staff to his party, and were not regarded as a Logistic Corps and so were not invited by the Vice Quartermaster General. It worked and on 1 February 1985, I was then invited to the Commander-in-Chief’s annual Heads of Arm conference at UK Land Forces Wilton – the only Brigadier among Major Generals, quizzically asking why was he, in his distinctive beret, there.
In 1984, Brigadier Parritt attended the Commander-in-Chief’s Annual Conference along with the Directors of other Arms, all of whom were Major Generals. On 1 February, the Executive Committee of the Army Board agreed that the Intelligence Corps should be formally declared an Arm.
The Corps posting policy had been envisaged that Operational Intelligence and Protective Security NCOs would experience a series of balanced postings between their trade skills, however, Northern Ireland and increasing demands on the Corps meant that while experts had been developed in Imagery Intelligence, some aspects of Human Intelligence and counter-sabotage with 163 (Special Security) Section, there were other areas where expertise was required, such as Operational Intelligence, Protective Security and languages but it sometimes did not exist. In response, Lieutenant Colonel Snell produced a report in 1987 in which he suggested that SNCOs should be given the opportunity to specialize after Class A1 Trade Training and that personal aptitudes should suit experience, interests and ambitions.
After the Turkish Intervention, Cyprus continued to attract intrigue. Suspicions of East European intelligence activities manifested themselves in 1982 when a Bulgarian Intelligence Service espionage attack on 9 Signal Regiment proved the risk. US F-111s flying from Britain bombing Tripoli in 1985 and the expectation that Libya and her Middle Eastern allies would attack the Sovereign Base Areas led to British Forces, Cyprus adopting a war footing for the next three years. The attack of RAF Akrotiri by the extremist Palestinian Abu Nidal using mortars and small arms in August 1986 saw the Joint Intelligence Staff (Cyprus) assisting the RAF investigation by locating two 60mm mortars and providing a detailed assessment of the attack within three days. A Scotland Yard counter-terrorist team that arrived three weeks later took three months to reach the same conclusion. The kidnapping of Western hostages, aircraft hijackings to Cyprus and the possibility of military intervention led to two Corps attending negotiation courses and developing the notion that negotiators could also be intelligence collectors. Cyprus remains an important strategic and logistic platform for operations in the Balkans, Iraq and Afghanistan. When the Army and RAF components merged into the Joint Service Signal Unit (Cyprus), several Royal Signals transferring as Operators, Military Intelligence (Linguist).
After the attack on the 1984 Conservative Party conference in Brighton, the Manouevrist strategy in Northern Ireland was escalated, one result being the neutralisation of the iconic East Tyrone IRA Brigade at Loughgall police barracks. During the decade, 102 servicemen were killed, half during six bombings in Northern Ireland and three in England. In its ‘Tet Offensive’ that was launched in 1987, several soldiers, airmen and dependants, including the German wife of a soldier and a baby, were shot dead in West Germany. Once again, as had happened in Cyprus, Aden and during the 1970s, the families of Servicemen became targets of terrorism. An Army warrant officer driving his car fitted with a British Forces, Germany number plate was murdered near the Ostend ferry port. This security risk had been highlighted by 5 Security Company in 1976. In May 1988 in Bielefeld and June 1989 in Hannover respectively, the second in command of 7 Intelligence Company and a Royal Corps of Transport sergeant, whose wife worked at HQ 5 Security Company, both found bombs underneath their cars. The arrest by a German customs officer of an Active Service Unit on the Belgian border in June 1990 largely brought the IRA offensive in West Germany to an end. He admitted that a 45 Security Section presentation he had attended had convinced him that the Provisional IRA was taking advantage of unguarded crossing points to launch attacks.
Gibraltar, like Cyprus, was an enviable Mediterranean posting but when, in 1986, the recently-formed International Terrorism desk at the Defence Intelligence Staff concluded that Colonel Gaddafi, of Libya, was threatening the strategic choke points of the Straits of Hormuz, Suez and Gibraltar, the 90 Security Section Counter-Terrorist Team was tasked to review military security in Gibraltar. Initially, HQ United Kingdom Land Forces and the RAF in Gibraltar denied there was a threat, nevertheless the Team, accompanied by naval and air force security representation, surveyed Gibraltar in 1987 and predicted several terrorist targets, notably car parking spaces outside the Governor’s residence used by the military band during the weekly Changing of the Guard In early 1988, an identified IRA threat against Gibraltar saw enhanced Protective Security counter-measures enacted and then, in controversial circumstances, three well known Irish republicans were intercepted by the SAS after they had parked a suspect car bomb in the parking spaces. In fact, it seems that they had ‘reserved’ a space for their car bomb, which was later found in Spain.