3rd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, 1973–76
Joining the British Army
We received travel warrants and, with our baby daughter, flew via Singapore and then by VC-10 to RAF Brize Norton in the United Kingdom. I was posted to 3rd Battalion in Aldershot much to my great excitement!
On our arrival in the UK we were met by a Parachute Regiment corporal in a Land Rover. As we drove towards the army base in Aldershot we saw road signs warning about deer and we looked at each other and giggled – we were finally in England!
Our army quarter was in a housing area in Keogh Close which was opposite the Royal Army Medical Corps barracks near Mytchett in Aldershot. Our new home was a lovely two-storey stone house. We were used to New Zealand Army housing which was a plain wooden bungalow with only the very basic utilities such as an electric stove and a wood ‘chippie’ (small wood-burning stove) fire in the kitchen. Curtains and carpets were either brought from a previous house or purchased from the departing house occupant. This house was fully furnished including cutlery, crockery and everything else. We were very impressed by what the British Army provided for its officers in comparison. We couldn’t be happier and I felt incredibly proud finally to be a member of the famed Parachute Regiment.
Regimental headquarters, or more likely the RAF (affectionately known as ‘crabs’), wanted me to do a complete parachute course. The basic para course was about six weeks long. As a fully qualified paratrooper I wasn’t too happy about this and I managed to convince the ‘powers that be’ to allow me to ‘re-qualify’ after doing four balloon jumps – two by day and two by night onto Hankley Common near Aldershot. These balloon jumps were to be followed by a number of jumps from a C-130 Hercules.
Jumping from a tethered barrage balloon is a very unsettling experience. This massive beast, which in its former life had been a World War II barrage balloon, was winched up to 800 feet. The parachutists and the RAF dispatcher stood in a wicker basket suspended beneath the balloon. There were four ‘jumpers’ in the cage, as it was called, and a small gap in the side of the basket across which was a singularly inappropriate-looking skinny metal bar. The jumpers naturally pressed themselves into each corner of the cage desperately trying not to look over the side. The wind whistled through the balloon rigging lines making an eerie sound and this was complemented by the fearless and totally sadistic RAF parachute jump instructor (PJI) whistling happy tunes as he strolled about the tiny space remaining in the middle of the cage floor. Once the balloon had reached jumping height of 800 feet the PJI asked the jumpers to whistle a tune. This was a pointless exercise as each parachutist’s mouth was completely dry! He then became very formal and ordered number one jumper forward. The PJI would then remind all jumpers that a green light in an aircraft and a command in a balloon were both military orders and must be obeyed.
The jumper moved to the basket entrance, the PJI lifted the bar and said loudly, ‘Red on; Green on: Go!’ On this command the jumper launched himself into the abyss shouting at the top of his voice, ‘One thousand – two thousand – three thousand. Check.’ He then thrust his head up to see if his canopy had deployed correctly. This was rather difficult as the World War II parachuting helmets and, later, the new ballistic helmets, were held forward by the parachute rigging lines as the parachute deployed, particularly if the parachute had twists.
Meanwhile, his companions, almost frozen with fear and quite ashen-faced, proceeded to carry out the same procedure under the orders of the PJI.
Following my balloon jumps I then had to complete a couple of jumps from a Hercules. In those days the RAF had ‘stream training’ which meant the aircraft would fly at low level for several hours, at about 200 feet, and then pop up just before we jumped out. This was to defeat the Soviets’ radar. I can still remember the look on another Para’s face when I asked him to remind me of the exit drills from a Herc! He did not want to be anywhere near me when we exited. Each plane carried only a few Paras and the flights were mainly to give the pilots practice in formation and nap-of-the-earth or contour flying.
It was a bit unnerving as the flights were very low and very turbulent and if you peered out of the plane’s little portholes you could see that the hills were above the aircraft. In those early jumps I still have no idea where I boarded these aircraft or where I jumped out – I suspect I emplaned at RAF Lyneham and jumped out over Salisbury Plain. But all that mattered was that they gave me the tick in the box and so I was now accepted as a fully fledged 3rd Battalion, Parachute Regiment officer.
On arriving in the Parachute Regiment I was given the rank of lieutenant even though I was a captain in the New Zealand Army. So, soon after arriving, I was required to attend a promotion course which was a practical course over several days. I did the course at Mynley Manor which is a lovely old manor house in Hampshire then used by the Royal Engineers. Part of the course was to give operational orders and I was highly confident in doing what was required. I remember the officer running the course saying, ‘You have obviously done this for real!’ I felt rather proud to hear him say that.
I was posted to D (Patrol) Company where my officer commanding was Major Chris K; he would later win a DSO in the Falklands War. But much to my horror he sent me on a three-week unit accounts course at the Royal Army Pay Corps (RAPC) Centre at Worthy Down. Interestingly, this camp had been a Royal Flying Corps airstrip in World War I. However, to me, that was the most fascinating part of the entire course. I had spent my entire commissioned life in the New Zealand Army avoiding such courses. The instructors were wily senior warrant officers and I was given delicately phrased encouragement at various stages of the course such as, ‘Do you know what your problem is, Sir? You can’t fucking well count!’ and, ‘Do you know, Sir, nobody has failed this course yet and you are not going to be the fucking first!’
Cecilia and I thoroughly enjoyed battalion mess life but there was one early toe-curling embarrassment when I turned up to our first curry luncheon in the colonial de-rigueur outfit of shorts and long socks. I was mercilessly ridiculed. A slight adjustment to my colonial background was quickly required.
Overall, I found the British Army officers more relaxed than their New Zealand Army colleagues. In New Zealand it was expected that a captain would salute a major and address him as ‘Sir’ and a lieutenant colonel was always as addressed as ‘Sir’ and never as ‘colonel’. In New Zealand, status amongst officers was greatly valued and grudges were frequently maintained. In the British Army there was a much more relaxed relationship between the officers, and Christian names were used quite frequently. I believe this was mainly to do with the size of the British Army; in the New Zealand Army, which is tiny in comparison, the attitude of individual officers could adversely impact upon the entire career of a more junior officer. Moreover, in the British Army, although there was a gulf between officers and other ranks (OR), ORs were more forgiving of the inadequacies or immaturity of young officers, and NCOs could be relied upon to play a part in the forming of a good officer.
3 Para was my benchmark for the Parachute Regiment. I found the officers, especially the company commanders, very professional and old school. They were proud to be company commanders of Parachute Regiment soldiers – ‘every man an emperor’. In later years, the ranks of the Parachute Regiment officers were increasingly filled with what I called ‘thrusters’ who were using the regiment as a stepping stone to stardom. I much preferred the old school version. There was Gentleman Malcolm ‘Bertson’ C; Brian ‘The Beast’ W – a nightmare at mess rugby; Geoffrey C who had wonderful stories about his time as a defence attaché in Paris and who only drank Campari and soda; Edward G who was a freefall guru; quiet but forceful Graham F; John PW, another gentleman, but one who would fall asleep during his own ‘orders’ group, much to the consternation of those present (he suffered from narcolepsy); and Pat C. I was privileged to serve amongst such illustrious company.
After the RAPC course I was sent on a combat survival course held by the SAS in Hereford. Talk about the sublime to the ridiculous – the courses could not have been more different! This course formed part of the SAS selection continuation training for their own members, but NATO pilots and Para Patrol Company personnel could also attend. The course, designed to prepare personnel who may become trapped in enemy territory, had two phases – the first was ‘combat survival’ and the second was ‘resistance to interrogation training’. The course was primarily run in the Hereford area. The final exercise was held over a barren, godforsaken part of North Wales.
Each course had a ‘hunter force’ which tried to capture the ‘runners’, us, as we made our way through the Welsh hills. On my course the hunter force was provided by my own battalion, 3 Para, and they were undoubtedly very keen to catch me.
I was grouped with Captain John A, a Royal Engineer from 9 Para Squadron and a combined services rugby representative, and also a Para Brigade Education Corps officer (a ‘schoolie’), although I wasn’t sure why the ‘schoolie’ needed to be on the course. In the pre-escape ‘strip-search’ we managed to hide some tights about our persons. We were driven to the escape area, around Lake Vyrnwy in bleak North Wales and were dropped off in our threes, not the normal pairs, because of the extremely bad weather. We were wearing battle dress trousers and jacket; no shirt; boots with no laces or socks; a greatcoat; and carried a bottle and tin each. We jumped out of the truck as ordered and raced off the road into the rugged hillside to get as far away from the road as possible and to avoid the ‘hunter force’ which would be already looking for us.
The rain was pouring down and there was an icy bitter wind. The wind-chill was soon starting to affect us as we tramped over the hills following a bearing on our escape ‘button’ compass. We put the tights on our heads to try to minimise our bodies’ heat loss. At one stage we looked at each other and fell onto the wet tussock laughing, almost hysterically. We looked like three giant rabbits with long droopy ears from the ‘legs’ of the tights. We appeared ridiculous as we stumbled along, each clutching our precious tin and bottle, and wondered about the reaction of a Welsh farmer if he suddenly came across these three giant rabbits with long ears in the mist and darkness on the Welsh moors.
The escape phase of this course involved moving across country to a final rendezvous (RV) as if we were escaped prisoners of war. We had to call in at checkpoints en route where we would be given a stale loaf of bread and the location of the next RV. At each RV would be an individual in civilian clothes and we would have to exchange passwords before we obtained any food or information. Prior to entering each RV, we would carry out a reconnaissance to ensure that hunter force personnel were not in the vicinity. We would then watch the RV until the designated time to enter it, with only one person approaching the RV.
Unfortunately, our ‘schoolie’ not only got one of the RV days wrong but went straight up to a military Land Rover and gave the password! Immediately, the Paras tumbled out of the vehicle and gave chase. The ‘schoolie’ ran straight towards our hiding place. John A jumped up to escape, lost his glasses and promptly ran into a tree and was put in the ‘bag’ as was the ‘schoolie’. I ran as fast as I could away from the area. As I was running I heard footsteps running hard behind me and I readied for a fight to resist capture. I leapt over a fence and briefly turned around to see another ‘runner’ trying to get away as well. He had inadvertently been caught up in our melee.
Once we had both got our breath back we decided to move together. By now it was dark, and I was very hungry, so I went into a farmer’s barn and found a bag of what I thought were sheep nuts for winter sheep feeding. I started eating them but half way through my second handful I had a sudden fit of panic – could they be rat poison pellets? I quickly dropped my trousers to obtain my ‘escape capsule’ which was concealed in my rectum. In this capsule was a candle and matches. I quickly lit the candle and to my relief discovered that what I had been eating was indeed sheep food. Yum!
We now had to make our way to an RV to the south of Lake Vyrnwy. The RV was on the other side of a small bridge through a town; this was an obvious choke point for the hunter force to be waiting. We managed to avoid their patrols and carried on into the countryside on the other side of the town. We found an old collapsed stone shepherd’s hut to hide in and managed to light a small fire to try to dry ourselves a little. We also took the opportunity to brew some nettle tea and cook some rabbit that we had caught.
My new friend and I then cautiously left the hut and headed towards the area of the final RV. We found a huge Dutch (open-sided) barn nearby in which we could hide. I dug my way right into the middle of the straw and hid there. Interestingly, I heard the hunter force’s dogs sniff all around the barn, but they did not find me. I don’t know exactly where my new friend hid but he wasn’t discovered either so at nightfall we met up again. We went to the RV where there was a large cattle truck waiting in the darkness. By this stage we were completely immersed in the full exercise scenario and really felt like fugitives!
We slowly crept up to the cab of the truck. I had a big stick with a nail at the end. My friend knocked on the driver’s door while I waited by the passenger door thinking that if there was any aggression it would come from the passenger. The door opened, and I presented my stick with the nail but the driver and escort quickly identified themselves as the genuine article. They opened the little side door of the cattle truck and we climbed in and tucked ourselves into the piles of straw lying on the floor. Other runners began to join us in the back of the truck. These were mainly SAS aspirants including Cedric D and Arthur D, who both went on to become generals. The truck set off several hours later and we took the opportunity to try to sleep while we were being driven as we didn’t know where we were going.
But it was a set-up! The truck took us straight to a disused Army training area in the SAS Pontrilas training area. The holding pens were in old World War II ammunition bunkers. A few years later these would be replaced by a bespoke, state-of-the-art complex.
The truck stopped, and we could hear low voices outside. The little side door opened, and a deep and threatening voice said, ‘First one, oot!’ We were now sitting up in the truck covered in bits of straw and all looking apprehensive. We looked at each other and somebody climbed slowly out through the door. We heard sounds of a short scuffle and then silence. Back in the truck I looked at the others and indicated that I was going to try to make a break for it through the cordon. Arthur D tried to dissuade me, saying that we would all be beaten up but my mind was made up. The scary voice now said, ‘Next!’ I moved to the door, put my fingers on the outside, and hurled myself out. Big mistake! There was a ring of grim-looking Paras outside the door and they merely extended the ring as I sat there growling and snarling like a Tasmanian devil. The result was very brief. The Paras simply closed in and enthusiastically overwhelmed me. I was dragged firmly into the cold, draughty concrete bunker, blindfolded, searched and made to lean on my fingertips, at an angle, against the wall for many hours.
I heard others being dragged in. I could sense Para guards moving silently amongst us. If I moved my hands or tried to stand upright firm hands would push me back into the leaning position. It is surprising how the smallest dimples in a concrete wall can become like needles on the ends of fingers after several hours. Occasionally, I would be forced down into a sitting cross-legged position with my hands on the top of my head. This made the muscles in my arms burn with pain and any dropping arms would be firmly and forcefully replaced on my head. After about six hours I was made to sit down and given a piece of dry bread and some water. My blindfold remained on, but I was able to glimpse other prisoners sitting or leaning on the walls around me.
I had heard scuffling noises and soon it was my turn as I was dragged off to a tent for my interrogation. The guards stood behind me and I was forced to sit on a low, one-legged stool. My blindfold was removed and, blinking in the light of a lamp focused on my face, I could discern a uniformed officer sitting behind a desk. I was asked who I was and I proceeded to say the appropriate mantra of number, rank, name and date of birth with which we had been trained to respond. As I became more and more tired and hungry this was a very effective mantra to repeat. Whenever I was asked for additional information I would simply say, ‘I cannot answer that question, Sir.’ This went on for some time and the interrogators would change around so that one was ‘Mr Nice’ and one was ‘Mr Nasty’. All the while I was trying to maintain my dignity and stay upright on the wobbly one-legged stool.
Suddenly, Mr Nasty leapt to his feet while shouting abuse at me. Unfortunately, his foot must have caught in the power cord and we were all plunged into darkness. Mayhem prevailed! I jumped up and tried to find the entrance to the tent we were in, Mr Nasty was shouting at the sentry to catch me, and the sentry was trying to find me in the darkness. I managed to get out of the tent and was clambering up a chain-link fence when reinforcements arrived, pulled me down by my legs and I was bundled back into the pen and put up against the wall again.
I had not had my British Army regimental number for long and so, as the isolation periods dragged on I started to worry that I might forget it or jumble up the numbers confusing it with my New Zealand Army number. This would have immediately brought me to the attention of the interrogators – which was not something I wanted.
The interrogators would try to elicit a ‘nod’ or ‘shake’ of the head or obtain a signature on an apparently insignificant document. These could later be used in a totally different context for propaganda purposes. The hours dragged slowly and painfully. Although there was no physical violence we were now being entertained by ‘white sound’. This is noise which has no rhythm, just abrasive ever-changing sounds. It can be compared to the static on a badly tuned radio. It is impossible to ignore and can become rather stressful. The white sound, blindfolds, isolation, lack of sleep and food took its toll on a number of candidates, who requested to be withdrawn from the exercise.
After several other interrogation sessions and some 36 hours I was finally taken out of the pen, my blindfold was removed, and I was told by someone in uniform wearing a white armband that the interrogation exercise was now finished for me. I refused to believe what I was told and continued with the mantra of number, rank, name and date of birth. Finally, I was persuaded that he was indeed a member of the directing staff (DS) and that my interrogation phase was actually complete. I received a very good grading on this course. It was undoubtedly an excellent learning experience and gave me a real insight into my mental boundaries and limitations which has been useful throughout my life.
Northern Ireland Tour, 1974
3 Para was warned off for a Tour of Duty in Belfast, Northern Ireland in early 1974, and the battalion started its lengthy pre-Northern Ireland training. This involved numerous briefings and lectures about the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the ‘Troubles’. The term ‘Troubles’ intrigued me; it was a typical British Army understatement. The ‘Troubles’ started in August 1969 and were not technically concluded until 1 August 2007. They resulted in the deaths of 656 British soldiers and over 300 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) policemen. The police and military deaths in the Troubles were more than those of the Falklands (255), Operation Telic in Iraq (179) and Afghanistan (456) wars combined. Some troubles!
The battalion was to be deployed to Belfast and would be based in the Flax Street Mill, which was located, unsurprisingly, in Flax Street, between the staunchly pro-IRA Ardoyne Road and the strongly Protestant Shankill Road. The battalion had been deployed to the Flax Street Mill on a previous tour so a number of the more senior officers and NCOs were familiar with the area. As part of this pre-Northern Ireland training, the battalion was deployed to the range camps at Hythe and Lydd. These ranges had been in use since the Napoleonic times. As well as the shooting ranges there was a bespoke training facility called Rype Village. This was an impressive complex which included streets and houses built to look like Northern Ireland as well as indoor areas with pop-up targets. In these indoor ranges the ‘Toms’ (Parachute Regiment soldiers) patrolled day and night, using a .22 Heckler and Koch insert in their 7.62 SLRs. Wooden targets would appear in windows and doorways, but not all of them were hostile and they could include women and children. This was to reinforce the strict rules of engagement (RoE) for Northern Ireland, and every soldier and officer had a copy of his Yellow Card with full details of when and where he was permitted to open fire. It was very prescriptive and was designed to avoid casualties amongst innocent civilians.
There were also a number of normal outdoor ranges where shooting competitions were held. I won the 7.62 SLR shooting competition and still have my bronze medallion. Hythe and Lydd was a very quaint coastal area with pebbly beaches and grey seas. We were training in late November and conditions were cold and wet. Fitness training involved long marches or ‘tabs’; speed marches; and painful runs across the pebbles and boulders on the local beaches. Rype Village also had a ‘tin city’ which represented a typical NI security force base inside a small village complex. Companies and their platoons would be based here and patrol into the surrounding streets in four-man patrols or ‘bricks’. The inhabitants of the village were provided from other units. Riots would be organised and included the use of stones, bricks and firebombs being thrown at troops as well as much verbal abuse. The ‘villagers’ entered into these riots with great enthusiasm, and this was responded to in kind by the Paras. These events had to be fairly tightly controlled to ensure that no major injuries were caused to either side. The training programme was controlled and managed by a military organisation called the Northern Ireland Training and Advisory Team (NITAT). This organisation prepared units due to depart on a four-month tour. Some units were deployed to the rural areas of South Armagh, but most were based in the main towns and cities hence the significance of the training. The NITAT team had the task of confirming or otherwise if a unit was ‘cleared’ for service in Northern Ireland. This gave them quite a bit of power – something they seemed to revel in. It was worth more than a CO’s career if his battalion did not satisfactorily complete its NITAT course.
It was extremely cold in the south of England and bitter winds swept through the training areas. To my embarrassment, I developed a huge, red infected nose which I assumed was something to do with the weather. The Patrol Company Toms were rather amused by my bulbous red ‘shonk’. I remember Roger J, one of the company SNCOs, finding the matter particularly amusing. It was only many years later, back in New Zealand, that I found out that the infection was caused by toxin poisoning as a result of my service in Vietnam which had only been 18 months before I joined 3 Para.
Patrol Company’s tasks in Northern Ireland would be patrolling in open Land Rovers and establishing covert observation posts in areas of interest. The Land Rovers had an angle-iron in the centre, which stood above the passengers and was bent forward at the top. This was a crude but effective method of defeating wires stretched across the road to behead any of the vehicle’s passengers. The rifle companies had protected Land Rovers covered in Makrolon polycarbonate armour, which could defeat a low-velocity bullet and some high-velocity rounds. They had a hatch in the roof from which one of the patrol would observe to the rear of the vehicle. This protection would also assist against improvised explosive devices (IED) or nail bombs. The battalion also had old Humber armoured APCs called ‘pigs’. This is about as simple an armoured vehicle as one can get. A basic truck chassis with a six-cylinder, five-speed manual transmission, 4x4, and seating for half a dozen or more with armoured protection on top of that. This vehicle was no speed demon. It was carrying a lot of extra weight so steering and braking were events that had to be given some thought. There were also the more modern Saracen APCs. This vehicle could carry, besides the driver and commander, a squad of nine soldiers. Most models carried a small turret on the roof and there were ports on the sides through which troops could fire. When the Toms deployed to areas of rioting they would wave their red berets out of these rifle ports to let the population know ‘the Paras are coming!’
The normal dress on patrol was the red beret with the Para badge painted black and Vietnam-era body armour worn beneath the distinctive camouflaged Denison Para smock. The Denison smock had been worn by the Parachute Regiment in all theatres during and since World War II. It was eventually replaced in the late 1970s by a Para smock in normal disruptive pattern material (DPM), much to the despair of Paras everywhere. The primary weapon was the 7.62 SLR, and one end of the rifle sling was attached to the butt of the rifle, with the other end attached to the holder’s wrist. This was to prevent the weapon being snatched away in a melee. Steel airborne helmets were available if required. We enjoyed the fact that we looked different to the rest of the army, the ‘crap-hats’, with our red beret or distinctive airborne steel helmet and our classic Para smocks. Mind you that did not endear us to our military colleagues or to the army hierarchy.
Each patrol would carry one or two rubber bullet guns which fired a non-lethal, black rubber bullet-shaped projectile. This was known as a ‘Derry dildo’ or a ‘rubber dick’ by soldiers throughout Northern Ireland. It was surprising how many disappeared into the Ulster female community after they had been fired during an incident. There was also a more solid plastic round. This plastic round could not be fired without permission from a unit’s headquarters as they could be lethal. Each patrol had a radio, which was either simplex or duplex. The simplex radios worked one-to-one, whereas the duplex radios went via a rebroadcast transmitter on a high feature in the area.
After Christmas at home, I deployed with the advance party to go to Belfast on 20 February 1974. This involved a long road journey from Aldershot to the docks at Liverpool to join the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Sir Galahad. Tragically 48 soldiers and crewmen would be killed on the Sir Galahad during the Falklands War, just eight years later, when it was attacked by Argentinian Skyhawks.
After a cold, but uneventful night in a shared cabin I woke early to see the port of Belfast appear out of the gloom. The day was grey and grim and so was the port. We linked up with our escort from the 1st Battalion, Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, loaded rifles and set off for Flax Street. The journey was very much an anti-climax after the hype of our pre-tour training. I looked at all the street names, now familiar thanks to my rigorous Northern Ireland training sessions. The streets looked normal except for the large concrete caisson roadblocks and some areas of bomb damage. We turned into Flax Street and almost immediately into the gateways of a tall, square red brick mill building to be greeted by ‘Muttley the dog’, the mascot of Flax Street Mill.
Beside the mill, surrounded by a high barbed wire-topped wall, was a large vehicle park in which were parked numbers of Land Rovers, Humber ‘pigs’ and Saracen APCs. But to my surprise, around the outside of the mill were normal houses, some of which overlooked the base area. This was not my only surprise. Over half of the mill was still functional but with entry for the workers through a different gate.
The handover programme involved being briefed by the intelligence staff of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders and then carrying out combined patrols around our new ‘patch’.
The Ardoyne was virtually a ghetto with sullen residents, many blocked-up, empty houses, bomb-damaged shops, and several grubby corrugated-tin drinking clubs. The Shankill looked more normal, slightly, and the people were not openly hostile but cautiously friendly. It also had its share of empty bricked-up houses and seedy-looking drinking establishments. The unoccupied houses were bricked up to stop them being used by terrorists from either side as shooting positions. We also patrolled into Belfast city centre with its myriad of roadblocks and one-way streets. Here the scale of bomb damage was much more apparent. Armed patrols moved amongst the shoppers and business people, drifting into cover from doorway to doorway but being completely ignored by the public. The Northern Irish police, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) manned the various pedestrian checkpoints supported by armed soldiers. At its peak the RUC had around 8,500 officers with a further 4,500 who were members of the RUC Reserve. During the Troubles, 319 members of the RUC were killed and almost 9,000 injured in paramilitary assassinations or attacks, mostly by the Provisional IRA. By 1983, this made the RUC the most dangerous police force in the world in which to serve. As part of the peace process it was eventually renamed the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).
To my great disappointment I was advised that I was to be a watchkeeper at the battalion tactical headquarters. This was co-located with the RUC in the Tennant Street police station. The company commanding officer, Chris K, was to be the battalion operations officer or ‘Kestrel’ in military-speak. He was quickly nicknamed ‘Budgie’ by Patrol Company soon after. As well as being a watchkeeper, my job was to manage the company patrol programmes and supervise the company administration matters and, whenever possible, accompany the patrols. I could see this was going to be a very long four months. Most of the battalion had already served at least one tour in Northern Ireland and growing up in the United Kingdom, they were very familiar with the situation in Ulster.
My arrival in Northern Ireland was a great eye-opener for me. I was particularly surprised by two things – the first was the low key, almost defeatist attitude of many of the senior officers; and the second was the almost casual acceptance of casualties received by the security forces, even our own Para casualties. I have had experience of serving in several national armies now and I do not believe any other troops could behave in such a disciplined fashion over so many years. As an example, on 27 August 1975, the IRA murdered 17 soldiers of 2 Para (including my friend Captain Peter F) in a bombing at Warrenpoint in South Armagh. I was amazed that the enraged Paras did not take the nearby town of Newry apart piece by piece in a violent response.
The main body of the battalion arrived several days after my advance party and soon settled into the task of ‘maintaining an acceptable level of violence’ – this was the extraordinary stated political task of soldiers in Northern Ireland! The facilities in the Flax Street Mill were very basic, but there was an SNCOs’ mess as well as an officers’ mess while the Toms had a canteen. There was also the resident char-wallah, who lived in two small rooms in the bowels of the mill. The char-wallahs, who were typically either Indian or Pakistani, maintained small kitchens from which they produced sweet tea, coffee and amazing ‘egg-banjos’! No matter what time it was, day or night, the loyal char-wallah would be on hand with his beverages and ‘butties’. These men were the unsung heroes of the war in Northern Ireland although they received little formal recognition and several unarmed char-wallahs were murdered by IRA gunmen in acts of pure spite.
Watchkeeping duties were certainly not my idea of soldiering and I resented the time I spent in the operations room. The room was on two levels with a clear plastic map board on which the locations of patrols and permanent observation posts (OPs) were marked. Hours were spent logging patrols in and out of the main base and the company sub-bases which were in separate locations from Flax Street Mill. The late-night shift – the ‘graveyard’ shift – received trays of sandwiches from the main battalion cookhouse. Unfortunately, by the time the control post (CP) staff received them they were completely stale and curled up at the edges. Nevertheless, after a long night watchkeeping we still enjoyed our ‘smilies’.
Patrols, or ‘bricks’, always deployed in tandem so that each patrol could back up another and this also made it difficult for gunmen to ensure they had a clear exit route – their main requirement. Typically, a gunman would collect a weapon from a middleman/woman, who had obtained the weapon from a hidden cache. The gunman would engage his target, successfully or otherwise, leave the weapon and quickly make his escape ensuring that his hands and clothing were cleaned as soon as possible to remove any residue from the weapon’s cordite. The weapon would then be collected by another stooge and concealed until next time.
Whenever a patrol entered the Ardoyne area the ‘dickers’, young children acting as lookouts for the IRA, would pass this information on to their handlers. Interestingly, the term is still used by UK troops in Afghanistan to describe children acting as lookouts for the enemy.
The street corners in the Ardoyne were painted white to show up patrols as they cautiously moved around the narrow streets. Individuals in a patrol would move from doorway to doorway to minimise their physical exposure and the last man in the brick would be watching the patrol’s rear. We carried out a movement called ‘ballooning’ where you would constantly be moving your upper body as though you were a balloon in order to disrupt the target picture of a likely sniper. Yet we were all paid the princely sum of 50p per day ‘danger money’, which was, to be frank, somewhat of an insult.
The foot patrols I accompanied were mainly to carry out ID checks or personnel checks (P-checks) on the people in the streets. This information was radioed back to the battalion headquarters and the intelligence staff would check to see if any of the individuals were of interest. We would also carry out searches of the menfolk – these could be somewhat unpleasant due to a lack of personal hygiene. We could only search females if we were accompanied by a female MP or a female UDR soldier known as a Greenfinch. The Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) was an infantry regiment of the British Army which began duties in 1970. Raised through public appeal, newspaper and television advertisements, its official role was the ‘defence of life or property in Northern Ireland against armed attack or sabotage’ but unlike troops from Great Britain it was not used for crowd control or riot duties. It consisted mostly of part-time volunteers until 1976 when a full-time cadre was added. Uniquely in the British Army the UDR was on continuous active service throughout its 22 years of service. In 1992, the UDR would be amalgamated with the Royal Irish Rangers to form the Royal Irish Regiment.
House searches were a real eye-opener for me. We would try to keep a balance between security of the area and intrusion. A house would only be targeted as a result of reliable information received. The house would be surrounded and a ‘search team’ would enter and carry out a thorough search of the premises. At the end of the search, the search team commander would have to obtain a signature from a member of the household confirming that no damage had been done. The majority of the houses were absolutely heaving and the search team members needed to have strong stomachs. Often, gross used personal items such as nappies, sanitary pads or even worse would be placed in drawers to conceal weapons or other items. Frequently there was also aggression from the occupants of the house as well as their neighbours. Paras do not frighten easily and the abuse given by the residents was mainly verbal. However, it usually did not take long for a very loud aggressive crowd to appear outside the house being searched. This was an incredibly threatening experience especially when we were grossly outnumbered.
At one stage of the tour I was in the Shankill Road on a patrol. The Shankill residents were not normally a threat but there was a confrontation with another Para patrol in a side street and a large mob had gathered and was attacking an armoured ‘pig’. The mob had actually managed to rip off the driver’s main door and attack him. How they tore off a steel door I have no idea. The patrol commander was a young Para officer. He was forced to open fire in self-defence and one of the mob was killed and several wounded. The word about the killing soon spread around the area. I was with a Patrol Company foot patrol in the Shankill Road accompanied by two open Land Rovers driving alongside us. Suddenly, the atmosphere turned very nasty and we were set upon.
It was like a football crowd suddenly appearing with the sole intention of lynching you. We withdrew towards the Land Rovers ready to quickly embus and drive away. However, one of the patrol sergeants, Alec C, fell, or was knocked down, and I have a clear image of a man raising a beer barrel to smash on his head. The whole issue of the Yellow Card had been drummed into our heads and, for a split second, I paused. I raised my rifle to shoot the man with the beer barrel. The sergeant then rolled away, quickly got to his feet, and jumped into the Land Rover. I jumped into mine and we rapidly left the area. My vehicle driver that day was Chris H, who like a number of Paras later joined 22 SAS, but sadly he was killed in Oman.
The battalion standing operating procedure at that time was for all the patrols, foot and vehicle, to immediately return to Flax Street in the event of a major incident. I personally thought that this was tactically unsound, and I wonder what would have happened if my patrol had been overwhelmed and all the other patrols had rushed back to Flax Street. It would have been too late to assist us. It was not the first time that I thought the battalion commanding officer was more concerned about not getting involved in dealing with the Irish and possibly getting a bad mark than looking after the safety of his own men. The Para officer was subsequently awarded the Queen’s Gallantry Medal (QGM) for this action. He later left the army to command the Sultan of Oman’s Parachute School.
Not all the patrols were as exciting as this and frequently the patrols would stop for a ‘tea-stop’ at a sympathetic Protestant individual’s house. One or two patrol members would go into the house and chat with the occupants to collect information. I was a little naive back then and now I am quite sure that at least one of my senior sergeants – no names no pack drill – used his tea-stop as a ‘bonk stop’.
At that time, there were two extremely popular TV programmes – Top of the Pops with the very attractive Pan’s People dancers and Star Trek. It was very, very unusual to have any incidents when these two programmes were showing. This made me cynical about the real political intention of the gunmen if they could postpone their ‘struggle’ until their favourite TV programme was finished.
One of my colleagues in 3 Para was Dave C. He was training for SAS selection while we were in Belfast. He would train by running up and down the stairs in the Flax Street Mill with sandbags on his back! On our return to Aldershot he successfully passed the SAS selection course and was later posted to Hereford. He subsequently served with 2 Para in the Falklands War and was awarded a Military Cross. He was quite a ‘centurion’ – that is, a very tough professional soldier. One of his quaint signs of ‘endearment’ was to walk up and stick a wet finger in your ear. In later years, he commanded one of the Sultan of Oman’s Special Force Regiments as a contract officer.
I was certainly learning that the Paras, the Toms and the junior NCOs, in particular, were an unconventional lot and I always had to keep my wits about me. I recall being called into the city centre because of a bomb warning. We deployed in a cordon in the vicinity of the suspect vehicle. My Toms were taking cover generally in doorways of shops. I then took particular note of what sort of shops these were. The soldiers were hiding in the doorways of jewellers and the high-value shops but not in the doorways of Woolworth’s or standard grocery shops. I have to say I smiled to myself – they were incorrigible. The bomb was eventually safely defused by an ammunition technical officer (ATO) so I did not have to carry out any personal searches of my soldiers before we returned to the Mill.
Towards the end of the tour, while on a vehicle patrol near the city centre, I received an urgent message to return to the Mill. My wife, Cecilia, had been taken seriously ill in Aldershot. The area around the city centre was a maze of dead-end streets which were blocked with concrete caissons and one-way streets. My drivers performed miracles, mostly involving some nifty pavement manoeuvres, to get me back as quickly as possible. It was a Sunday so there were no pedestrians about. Unfortunately, the end of the tall metal angle-irons on the Land Rovers went through all the shop front suspended lighting as we drove along the pavements. I was home in Aldershot within four hours.
Cecilia had had a brain aneurysm and had been taken to Cambridge Military Hospital and then to the Southampton Hospital neurological ward. Some kind neighbours had looked after little Juliette. I drove straight to Southampton to see her. Luckily there was no permanent damage, but it was a very frightening experience for both of us. I received compassionate leave and drove to Southampton each day to see her. Cecilia’s mother was in England and so she came to look after Juliette and I returned to Northern Ireland to finish the tour. Cecilia was able to return home after spending several weeks in hospital.
The end of my tour in Belfast was a relief. Serving in Northern Ireland was an experience that I was not interested in repeating. The bigotry and the viciousness of both Protestants and Catholics were sickening to watch and this was underpinned by the zealots in the terrorist organisations which were all criminally based. The fear and the distrust of the civilian population were deliberately exacerbated by those who pretended to be seeking some moralistic outcome.
British Army Exercises
On returning to Aldershot, Patrol Company was heavily involved in a series of British Army exercises. On one of these the battalion deployed to Germany and Patrol Company was attached to the local infantry brigade headquarters as its reconnaissance asset. The company was based in a cow barn, complete with cows. The company HQ was located near the brigade HQ. I was most surprised to see how well the ‘normal’ Germany-based infantry officers lived on exercise in the field. They had full officers’ mess facilities, complete with white tablecloths and regimental silver. We were all living in a wood and the other officers watched with some intrigue as I lived beside our command post under my Vietnam-era Australian poncho strung between two trees and cooked my meals on my hexamine cooker.
The next exercise was a parachute drop into the north of Italy as part of a battalion exercise with the Italian Army. Patrol Company was to fly straight from RAF Lyneham and jump on the first pass. It was a long flight and in a first for me we stacked our bergens and parachutes when we loaded onto the aircraft and after several hours on board we had a hot meal!
The conditions over the drop-zone were very marginal and there was quite a severe thunderstorm over the area. But a group of Italian VIPs were watching so clearly national pride was at stake – ‘when in doubt get ’em out!’ About 40 minutes out from the DZ we kitted up which was somewhat difficult as the aircraft was jumping around in the sky. We flew straight over the DZ and all exited on the first pass. We arrived just on dusk and as we were descending in the twilight there was the rumble of thunder and flashes of lightning all around us. It was exactly what I imagine a major operational jump would have been like in World War II.
Afterwards we were based in the Italian Ariete Armoured Brigade barracks at Aviano which were very smart. There were quite a number of Italian World War II armoured vehicles on plinths around the camp with details on the bases of great Italian armoured victories during the war – those were news to me. The Italian soldiers, mainly conscripts, lived rather well in their messes and the Toms were exceedingly pleased to see that wine was available with all meals. Also on the base were the Bersaglieri, a high-mobility light infantry unit. They can be easily recognised by the distinctive wide-brimmed hat decorated with black capercaillie feathers that they wear as part of their dress uniform. The feathers are also applied to their combat helmets. Each Bersaglieri unit had a band without percussion instruments called a fanfara, who played their instruments at the run while on parade.
We thought we looked rather smart in our red berets but in the fashion and musical stakes the quick-stepping feathered Bersaglieri had us beaten hands down!
We were involved in a number of joint exercises with the Italians and then we put on a major display of our equipment. The demonstration of the MILAN anti-tank weapon was somewhat interesting as on initial firing one of the control wires broke. The missile then started a journey of its own making, much to the concern of all the viewers, me included. Fortunately, it ran out of steam and fell out of the sky safely into the range impact area. The anti-tank platoon also featured on our return to the UK when we were going through customs at RAF Brize Norton. A few cunning old hands had concealed large containers of duty-free red wine in the barrels of their 106mm Wombat anti-tank guns. An alert customs official spotted this and so we were all kept at the airport for several hours while the customs officers pored over every inch of our kit! But at least we had been able to do some sightseeing before we left Italy. Most of the battalion visited Venice and I was amused to spot several Toms cooking meals in doorways on their hexamine stoves; Venice, after all, was and is an expensive city. The battalion had some engineers from 9 Para Field Squadron, Royal Engineers attached for this exercise. On their local leave they chose to go to a taverna and start drinking. Not surprisingly they became somewhat unmanageable in the evening after drinking a great deal of the powerful Italian red wine. The taverna owner called the police. The police in this case were the Carabinieri, who were not known for their subtlety. A stand-off took place with the Carabinieri nervously fingering their automatic weapons and the Para engineers standing back to back holding the buckles of their web-belts in their fists. The battalion RPs (Regimental Policemen) with the indomitable Sergeant Paddy Brownlee managed to get between both parties and defuse the situation. I don’t think the engineers got a chance to see much of Venice after that.
Historically, this part of Italy had been staunchly communist since the end of World War II and the locals did not seem very pleased to see us and so this incident did not help the cause of NATO in the area.
I had done a military sport freefall course at Netheravon a few weeks prior to this Italian exercise and took the opportunity to carry out some jumps from the Army Air Corps Scout helicopter that was attached to us for the exercise. I admit to not being a very good or brave freefaller. Over the years I have done most air sports – except gliding. I have a fixed-wing licence and I have flown hang-gliders, paragliders and para-motors. As I said I’ve never been a natural in the air and it is a love-hate relationship. In later years, on a military adventure training exercise to Spain with the Services Hang-gliding Centre I took off for my first major long-distance flight and got caught by the wind and promptly flew straight back into the mountain – I was soon back in the UK with a broken arm from the crash.
I am obviously not alone in being a Para who didn’t love all air sports. On my basic freefall course in Netheravon there was a Para major. I was a captain at the time. He later became a general. I don’t think he enjoyed freefalling very much either. While parachuting in the local area we witnessed an RAF C-130 dispatching a parachutist who plummeted straight into the ground. We only found out days later that this was a dummy used for testing parachutes. The experience unsettled the whole course. I was surprised to see my Para colleague then withdraw himself from the jumping flight despite being manifested. Interestingly, he knew I had noticed and later at annual airborne forces cocktail parties he would make a conscious effort to ignore me. Funny that!
In early 1975 I went to the Jungle Warfare School (JWS) in Pulada, Johore Bahru, Malaya. I had spent some time there previously when I was in the New Zealand Army carrying out pre-Vietnam training. I was now attached to the current eight-week JWS course as an observer and also a participant. Later in the year 3 Para was going to carry out a six-week exercise and I was to coordinate the training. The JWS was run by an ancient infantry officer, Lieutenant Colonel Tony S, an eminent mountaineer. Unfortunately, he was a reactionary who insisted on continuing to teach tactics used by the Commonwealth troops during the Malayan Emergency when the opposition was small groups armed with World War II weaponry.
Our tactics for Vietnam had evolved so that patrolling was more aggressive and structured to enable our patrols to fight against a well-trained and well-armed enemy. I had a difficult time trying to convince this officer, for example, that circular harbours where troops would go into a circle in all-round defence at night had been superseded by the triangular harbour, which as the name implies, was in the shape of a triangle with a machine gun at each point. These machine guns could then effectively fire across the front of each part of the triangle. Sadly, this officer was a Luddite and I made little progress in sharing my Vietnam jungle warfare experience with him.
The course was based in attap (grass) roofed huts in a large camp surrounded by numerous shooting ranges and tall lallang grass. This grass was difficult to move through and in the tropical heat it was like trying to move through a furnace. Once inside the jungle canopy conditions improved. Generally primary jungle is quite pleasant to operate in but the worst tropical environment is secondary jungle which has grown up in an area where the primary jungle has been cut down. This type of jungle is very thick and difficult to penetrate.
There was another Para on the course from my battalion, Lieutenant Roger ‘Todge’ W. We lived in the officers’ mess at HMS Terror naval base in Singapore, near the causeway to Malaya. We would drive up to Pulada for the week’s training and then return to Singapore at the end of the week. In another nearby camp, Nee Soon, was a British infantry battalion. At the end of a lengthy Friday ‘happy hour’ in the Nee Soon officers’ mess, Todge needed to get back to HMS Terror. The only available vehicle he could see was the battalion duty officer’s Land Rover. Using his airborne initiative (ABI), he decided to borrow the vehicle and drove himself back to his billet. He was very thorough and made sure that when he arrived he cleaned all his fingerprints off the vehicle, using the handiest material available, which just happened to be the duty officer’s white mess kit jacket. Satisfied, he then went into his room and to bed. All would have gone well, if he had not parked the Land Rover outside his own room. The military police soon located the Land Rover – and him! Paying for the dry-cleaning of the duty officer’s jacket was only one of his many penalties. Todge later joined the Army Air Corps and became a well-respected helicopter pilot.
After the course I returned to the UK for leave and then travelled back to Singapore with the battalion advance party to prepare for the battalion’s arrival. The flight to Singapore was in an RAF C-130 Hercules which was stuffed full with equipment and people. One of the Toms spent the entire journey sleeping in one of the adventure training kayaks strapped to the top of a vast pile of stores. His ‘bed’ was much more comfortable than the extremely uncomfortable C-130’s webbing seats.
The journey was interminable. We landed at nearly every one of the RAF staging bases then in use – Akrotiri in Cyprus, Masirah off Oman, Gan in the Maldives and eventually, four days later, we finally arrived into Singapore. A week later, the rest of the battalion arrived and, after several days of acclimatisation, started exercising in the jungle. The battalion was based mainly at the Jungle Warfare School with periods of leave back into Singapore. This was the first time that the Paras had been back in the jungle since the days of Borneo. In Borneo, Para patrol companies work alongside SAS units. One old hand in the battalion was Major John ‘Patch’ W. In 1965, as a young NCO, he had won a Distinguished Conduct Medal, when his actions had helped defeat a major assault by the Indonesian Army on his jungle base during the Malaya Confrontation. He lost his eye during the fighting and wore an eye-patch. Despite his having to endure several surgeries on his injured eye, his career went from strength to strength; he became the regimental sergeant major of 2 Para and was commissioned into 3 Para.
But, for the majority of the battalion, living and training in the jungle was a new experience. Once the Toms realised the jungle could really be your friend they adapted well and became very proficient. In true Para fashion they worked and trained hard, and then partied hard. It didn’t take long for the men and officers to discover the infamous ‘Boogie’ Street in Singapore. On the roof of the public toilet building in the centre of the street the Paras performed many renditions of ‘Zulu Warrior’. This is a classic Para Party trick in which naked or semi-naked individuals compete in trying to sing all the words to the song ‘Zulu Warrior’ before a burning length of toilet tissue, which is clenched in their bottom, reaches a critical part of their anatomy. These antics were observed by a happy, cheering mass of soldiers, sailors and airmen – and bemused locals. It was only when the military police intervened that trouble would begin. To a tipsy serviceman the red cap of an MP is like a red rag to a bull. There was, however, little resistance when the local Singapore police arrived as they certainly did not mind breaking a few heads with their batons.
After six weeks the battalion returned to Aldershot, having survived Singapore and the jungles of Malaysia – and Singapore having survived 3 Para.
In late 1975, Patrol Company was sent down to South Armagh to carry out covert patrols along the border with Eire. This was before the SAS was formally deployed to Northern Ireland. We were based in Bessbrook Mill and loosely attached to the local battalion there – one of the foot guard regiments.
In the small officers’ mess in the bowels of the mill this regiment had a great slab of Stilton cheese. Beside the cheese was a World War II US steel helmet and beside the helmet was a polite little printed note which said, ‘In the event of a mortar attack, please place the helmet over the Stilton before retiring. Thank you.’ Such panache!
We carried out recces, performed covert patrolling, established OPs and investigated suspicious buildings and farms along the border. We could operate quite independently because everyone at the time was so frightened of the IRA in South Armagh. We were able to operate much more freely than when I went back there with the SAS. We had more explosives and equipment than you could shake a stick at. I had claymores, grenades, explosives – all sorts of things tucked into the Bessbrook Mill lift shaft. We used Scout helicopters a lot and became very fond of them. We were almost always overloaded and on several occasions I came back, almost frozen, standing on the skids as we flew into the Bessbrook Mill LZ. Some flights in the mist were interesting to say the least.
One night found us patrolling along the main railway line which had been frequently sabotaged. We saw some figures acting suspiciously near the line and when challenged they ran away into a field near a haystack. We could not find them and as I thought they must have hidden in the haystack I fired a Verey pistol into it. It burned nicely but nobody appeared. I got some very funny looks from my patrol as we watched the haystack burning – I suspect this was not the way the British Army normally operated.
We also established a fixed OP on Slieve Gullion Mountain overlooking the town of Flurrybridge and the border crossing point at Forkhill. This OP dominated the local area and gave us excellent observation of the houses of local Forkhill suspects over the border in Eire. It also overlooked a well-known farm that straddled the border which was used to smuggle livestock and petrol back and forth across the border. Unfortunately, the IRA never challenged us on Slieve Gullion as we were well protected with American claymore mines and other surprises. That was the first and only time I saw the claymore in use here. It was replaced by a pathetic little device called a PAD – protective area device. Apparently, the claymore was far too aggressive for Northern Ireland!
The intelligence we had at the time was minimal and we were not able to establish a useful link with the local RUC or Special Branch. One of the locations we also observed was the local pub, The Three Steps Inn, in Drumintee. This was where British Army officer Bob N was kidnapped in 1979 and later murdered in the woods above Jonesborough near the Forkhill border crossing point into Eire. He was foolishly carrying out an unauthorised undercover visit to the pub and had no backup. At the time he was rumoured to be operating as a liaison officer between the SAS and Special Branch.
We were only in South Armagh for about six weeks, but we came to know the local area very well and this greatly assisted me when I deployed back to Bessbrook Mill with the SAS in 1977.
The Patrol Company sergeant major was ‘Barnie’ B (RIP) who was a great character. He always chewed gum and never hesitated to voice his views on military matters. He was a highly experienced Para and well worth listening to. He had done an attachment with the Rangers in the US and he used to upset them, not deliberately, by sleeping in the body bag they were all issued with. He said it was perfectly weatherproof and was an ideal bivvie-bag. There were some excellent NCOs and Toms in Patrol Company and I really enjoyed working with them. Names such as Ernie R, Dave F, Alec C, Manny M, Dickie B, Dave ‘Blue’ H, Mick Q, ‘Blue’ C, Lou S, Ian J, ‘Digger’ G and many others. The company performed well under fire in the Falklands and several members received serious gallantry awards – John P a Distinguished Conduct Medal (DCM), ‘Beetle’ B a Military Medal (MM), Des F an MM and Kiwi Rick A an MM (posthumous). I met many of them after I had left 3 Para and we still keep in touch.
After the company’s spell on the border in Northern Ireland, I was posted from Patrol Company to take the appointment of battalion training officer.
I now worked in battalion headquarters, in the ‘head-shed’, and I had two senior NCOs to assist me – ‘Gonny’ Gonifas and Murray Smith. They were very experienced Paras but they both had a wicked sense of humour and I was frequently the subject of their mischief. They once rang the commanding officer, who was not known for having a sense of humour, and handed me the phone saying the CO wanted to speak to me. The CO and I then had a very confusing conversation as to who had rung whom. After I eventually hung up the phone, I noticed Gonifas and Smith choking with mirth at their desks across the office.
One of my first tasks as training officer was to organise and run a junior NCO course in Omdurman in Sudan. The battalion was due to be deployed to Sudan for a four-week exercise and to work with the Sudanese Army.
We were the first British troops to train in Sudan after its independence from the United Kingdom back in 1956. In 1972, the Sudanese government became more pro-Western and looked to the British Army for support and training.
We were based in an old, former British army camp in Omdurman, which was some 12 miles from the capital of Khartoum. I found it a fascinating country with a rich culture and a blend of the Arabic north and the African Christian south, which met in the melting pot of Khartoum and Omdurman. It was also, of course, an area rich in British military history. Here the battle of Omdurman had been fought in 1898 when the British, under the command of General Sir Herbert Kitchener, defeated the army of Abdullah al-Taashi, the successor to the self-proclaimed Mahdi, Muhammad Ahmad. It was a demonstration of the superiority of a highly disciplined army equipped with modern rifles, machine guns and artillery over a vastly larger force armed with older weapons, and marked the success of British efforts to re-conquer the Sudan. There had also been a famous charge by the 21st Lancers, 400 strong, who had attacked against a force approximately 2,500 strong. Four Victoria Crosses were subsequently awarded. I was pleased to discover that there was still a well-maintained memorial to the 21st Lancers near to our camp which I visited as well as some other battlefield sites.
The training area was hot, red stony desert, interspersed with small hills and wadis (gullies) and covered in sparse thorny bushes. On exercises in the surrounding desert we would pass long camel trains and once we came across a small well in the middle of a desert area and there was a Bedouin family, complete with goats and donkeys, filling up their goat skins and jerry cans.
We did a parachute jump with the Sudanese troops. We were told they were para trained, but I had my suspicions as I watched them hanging in their harnesses, grinning broadly as they descended to thump onto the desert floor. Their camouflage uniforms did not fit and they wore no socks with their boots. Their equipment was all from Soviet sources including their weapons and armoured vehicles. We had a combined sporting event with the Sudanese soldiers and they completely outclassed us on the cross-country but the battalion redeemed itself in the boxing ring.
Visiting the souk or market in Omdurman was a fascinating experience. It was filled with local produce in baskets sold by smiling, squatting women in their colourful garb. A lot of the menfolk were tall Arabs with extraordinarily large white turbans and long gowns or dishdashes. They walked in ornately covered leather sandals. The Sudanese Arabs have a reputation as teachers and in later years I would meet them throughout the Middle East. They were always well educated, well spoken and very polite. While I was wandering around the souk, several Sudanese came up to me and said, in perfect English, ‘Welcome to my country’. In Khartoum itself was the anachronistic Khartoum Club. This was a walled, colonial haven where the expats would congregate for tiffin and then nightly cocktails. It was a pleasant location, complete with a shaded swimming pool, ballroom and magnificent library.
I even visited the former governor’s palace on the banks of the Blue Nile. Famously it was on the steps of this palace where General Charles Gordon of Khartoum met his death in 1885.
There were very few places for the soldiers to go for in-country leave between exercises so someone arranged for two- or three-day breaks to somewhere called Dum Dum Island on the Blue Nile. This island was opposite Khartoum and was reached by a very old-fashioned Nile steamer. The soldiers allowed on leave would take ration packs, beer and their tents and pile on to the steamer. Dum Dum Island was sandy and blisteringly hot with little shade. A stay there was almost a punishment. The Toms joked there was a raffle organised in which the first prize was two weeks on Dum Dum Island and the second prize was three weeks on Dum Dum Island. There were few, if any, facilities on the island, but it did ensure that the mean soldiery was kept well away from the expat community in Khartoum. The CO was always worried in case there was an incident which would not reflect well on his personal confidential report and so Dum Dum Island was the ideal answer for him.
I recall being woken one night during my spell on Dum Dum by a low singing. I looked out from under my pup tent to see a long line of buck-naked Paras walking through the sand on their knees singing the song from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs – ‘Hi Ho, Hi Ho, it’s off to work we go!’ They all had a can of beer in one hand and a piece of wood over their shoulders. I watched transfixed as this column made its drunken, happy way from one end of the small island to the other. It has to be one of the funniest sights I have ever seen.
One of the field training exercises I ran for NCOs was a realistic grenade range. Most grenade ranges in the UK are very formal concrete blockhouses from which grenades are thrown over thick blast walls. Soldiers are nervous of grenades, understandably, but if realistic training is managed properly this fear is replaced by confidence. In this case, the NCO students would lie behind small bunds dug into the sand and throw their grenade, observe where it landed, and then lie down behind the mound until it exploded. All was going well until one young NCO, who had decided to put masking tape around the handle of his grenade to stop it being accidentally detonated, threw his grenade forgetting to remove the tape before he pulled out the pin. The grenade did not detonate because the lever was held in by the tape. Contrary to normal practice I decided to recover the grenade so that we could carry on with our training rather than carry out a long-winded demolition process. But the heat of the sun and the sand were slowly melting the adhesive of the masking tape and the grenade lever was slowly moving away from the grenade. As I moved towards the grenade sitting malevolently in the sand I knew I had seven seconds before it would explode once the lever flew off. I could run a long way in seven seconds. I picked up the grenade, removed the tape, threw it into the desert and took cover. Bang! – job done.
When we had finished our exercises in Sudan we moved to Khartoum airport to meet the RAF C-130s which were to return us to the UK. We were sitting on the black tarmac, roasting in the sun, awaiting the imminent arrival of the ‘crabs’. We waited and waited until we were finally informed that our aircraft had been 30 minutes away from Khartoum when it developed a minor fault, so it turned around and flew some three hours back to Cyprus. There was obviously no way that the precious RAF crews were going to spend the night in hot, sweaty Sudan. We moved off the runway into the very basic airport building to spend a miserable hungry, thirsty and mosquito-besieged night. Ah well – if it ain’t paining then it ain’t training! We finally left the following day.
Back in the UK, the training team and I would also run NCO courses in the Otterburn training area in the north-east of the country on the border between England and Scotland. This was a wild, open expanse of hilly rolling country covered in tussock grass. The area seemed to attract the worst weather and in winter was covered in snow. It was also the home to a vast army of midges and sandflies! Running through the centre of the area was a well-preserved Roman road joining the remnants of several legion camps. It was easy to imagine columns of Roman legions trudging along this road to and from conflicts with the wild, woad-covered Celts in the north just as we trudged along the same routes.
In Otterburn, Gonifas and Smith continued to keep me on my toes. On one particular day, as one of the NCO courses was practising fire and movement with live ammunition, I was on a hill overlooking the range. I was firing over the heads of the soldiers so that they could experience the distinctive ‘crack’ and ‘thump’ of incoming small arms fire. Suddenly, Gonifas grasped his head and fell to the ground. I thought I had shot him and I was about to race down to minister to him when he stood up, gave me a cheery wave, and carried on as if nothing had happened.
Back in the accommodation in Otterburn, in the summer months, Gonifas would have strings of meat drying on the fence lines. He was of South African extraction and this was his precious biltong being prepared. There were also a number of plump pheasants in the training area near our billets and several dressed birds appeared in the cookhouse. Apparently, some of the training team would go hunting at dusk, after training had been completed for the day, armed with a .22 calibre Heckler and Koch insert in their SLRs. An SLR 7.62mm bullet does not leave much of a pheasant whereas the .22 bullet does not substantially damage the birds. Moreover, the SLR looks quite normal in the event of a suspicious gamekeeper appearing. More airborne initiative!
After I had completed the combat survival course I had applied to attend an SAS selection course. I had liked what I had seen of the unit and so I wanted to see if I was good enough to join them. But the Parachute Regiment was good to me, so I delayed my application until I had been with them for three years. I was eventually advised that I could attend the SAS selection course running in February 1976. This would be a winter selection and one which I preferred to the summer selection course. The selection course was based in Hereford and run in the harsh country of the Brecon Beacons and the Black Mountains.
I had been training seriously around the lanes of Aldershot running in boots and with my webbing and bergen. My fitness target was to be able to complete the final ‘endurance march’ of 30 miles in 16 hours carrying personal webbing, rifle and a bergen weighing 60 pounds.
As part of the training in November 1975 I took a patrol from 3 Para on the Cambrian March, now known as the Cambrian Patrol. This exercise is considered one of most arduous and prestigious military events, testing candidates’ leadership, field craft, discipline and both mental and physical robustness. Teams of eight were required to cover over 30 miles carrying an average of 66 pounds over unforgiving Welsh terrain in less than 48 hours. Patrols were also required to undertake a number of ‘tasks’ on their route, each testing a different aspect of soldiering such as map reading, first aid and casualty evacuation, recognition of aircraft, vehicles and equipment, a tactical river crossing, a speed march, and a shooting competition.
Each patrol task was set within the context of a narrative which involved teams having to traverse enemy territory and interact with friendly and not so friendly civilians or militia groups. Points were added or deducted depending on time and conduct while on the patrol. The Cambrian Patrol is still in existence, although it has evolved slightly to suit the requirements of modern soldiering. It is the closest thing to Special Forces selection many people will experience.
I am very proud to say my patrol won all the stages, with the exception of the shooting where we were pipped to the post by … I hate to say it … a Royal Marine patrol.
But I needed to train in the actual area where SAS selection was being held so I rode my 400cc Honda to Wales as often as I could. I stayed in the army barracks in Brecon and went off into the hills from there. The motorcycle journey was almost a selection course in itself, as the journey was so cold. I only wore my military clothing and, in those days, this was not very wind or waterproof. I would have to stop at many of the motorway service areas en route to try to defrost in the warm air from the hand-driers in the toilets. I was able to sharpen up my navigation skills in the rain and mist of the Beacons and made sure I knew my way around the dreaded Pen y Fan area. This steep Welsh mountain was to feature heavily in my selection course. Interestingly, it also had a Roman road running up to it from one side. Once again, I felt immense sympathy for those Roman legionnaires tramping along on those long, straight stone roads in the pissing rain of England, Scotland and Wales.