1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, 1980–81
I joined 1 Para late in 1979 and the battalion was based at Bruneval Barracks in Aldershot where I had been with 3 Para. When I was in 3 Para the commanding officer had not been very popular and some large graffiti had been painted on one of the main walls of the ‘covered way’ – this was a part of the barracks where we could load vehicles and equipment etc. under cover. It was hastily painted over at the time by the 3 Para provost staff. I was amused to see now some four years later that the graffiti was again emerging through its camouflaging paint. The CO was a thin aesthetic man, but was and still is an extraordinary long-distance runner. When I first joined 3 Para Patrol Company, I was told with great glee how, before my time, when the CO had been the officer commanding Patrol Company on an exercise in Cyprus he had overlooked his Sterling sub-machine gun and the Toms buried it! I do not believe that it was ever found but he must have managed to get away with its loss. This may be an apocryphal story, but it was certainly retold to me with great sincerity. This particular CO was not fond of the SAS and was not pleased when I left 3 Para to join them.
It was very interesting joining 1 Para and being back in the ‘normal’ regimental system. The previous OC of A Company had been an American exchange officer and he had fitted in well although soon after joining the company he badly broke his leg in a parachuting accident and spent a great deal of his time in a plaster cast. My company sergeant major (CSM) was Paul C, a very serious but professional SNCO who later received a Q Commission. He was replaced by ‘Flash’ F, another really professional SNCO with a good sense of humour who was also later commissioned. My NCOs were a good team and we soon formed a very tight-knit group. My NCOs and soldiers were, as Field Marshal Montgomery described, ‘every man an emperor’ – Ivor Pringle, Andy Warner, Kev Whittle, Ray Toon, Barry Waters, Sean Johnson, Gaz Grant, Stu Aitkin, Andy Gough – but I always had to keep my wits about me with them! I knew I had a bit of work to do when I was checking the platoons prior to departing on our first field training exercise together and saw one of the Toms with a tray of fresh eggs balanced on his bergen. How he expected to be able to patrol in full webbing and carrying a heavy bergen and his rifle, as well as these eggs, I do not know. As always, the Toms were great; they worked really hard, disliked inactivity and could take anything that was thrown at them but with the inevitable downside – they played hard! One of the things I implemented was the wearing of camouflage, disruptive pattern material (DPM) trousers with the Para smock and a camouflage cap with hessian attached. This did lead to some of the other companies calling A Company ‘Bob Marley’s wailers’ because the hessian on our caps looked like Rastafarian curls. I am a great believer in personal camouflage, it is a lifesaver. If the enemy has difficulty seeing you, he is likely to have difficulty in shooting you. Interestingly, I was criticised by the CO because he said, I quote, ‘Paras should always wear denims (green trousers), smock and beret for identification’. This was unsurprising; my new CO, despite being an airborne officer, lacked initiative or flair. I was glad not to have to go to war with him.
I had two lieutenant platoon commanders and rode them hard. I wasn’t particularly liked by them as a result but they both went on to have excellent army careers. One, John Y, was later badly injured in the Falklands War, but then, through sheer determination recovered to pass 22 SAS selection, becoming first a troop and then a squadron commander. The other, Simon S, commanded troops in Oman and then became an extremely successful businessman working in some of the most dangerous parts of the world.
Hong Kong, 1980
In 1980, 1 Para was posted to Hong Kong for several months to man the border area with the People’s Republic of China. This was a job normally done by the Gurkhas, but they were to be withdrawn for their annual training. The border area, which was closed to civilian access, ran beside an area of no man’s land between Hong Kong and China. Very large numbers of illegal immigrants (IIs), known as ‘eye-eyes’, would attempt to cross the gap between the two countries.
At that time, the Hong Kong government allowed illegal immigrants to obtain residency if they were able to present themselves at certain locations in the centre of Hong Kong or Kowloon. This was known as a ‘home run’. This policy was designed to stop a subculture of illegal immigrants within Hong Kong. This did, however, present an incentive to the ‘runners’. Along the high ground overlooking the border were large bunkers with battlements called MacKenzie forts (I liked that name!) and in these lived a section of soldiers whose job was to patrol the high ground and intercept the illegal immigrants coming into Hong Kong. The border area had a high, razor wire-topped fence running the length of the border with a road running parallel with it. Unfortunately, the road was on the outside of the fence. This fence had a number of locked gates allowing access through it, but if any illegal immigrant was seen climbing a fence the military patrol had to run to the nearest gate, unlock it and then locate the ‘runners’ who were, by now, over a mile away. The ‘runners’ were well briefed and, at night, would climb a part of the fence as far away from the access gates as possible. Despite the razor wire, the illegal immigrants could cross the fence in minutes. They would wear excess clothing to protect themselves from the wire and slip off the clothing as it got caught in the barbs, rather like a snake shedding its skin.
My company was based at the police station in Sha Tau Kok. This was a small fishing village, which was bisected by the eastern end of the border between Hong Kong and China. The actual border was a line in the paving in the middle of the street. A glowering PRC (People’s Republic of China) soldier, complete with AKM rifle, stood on one side of the street and we stood on the other. Beside the police station was a dug-in platoon defensive position on the high ground dominating the village and the border crossing point. On 8 July 1967, during rioting in Hong Kong instigated by the Chinese Cultural Revolution, hundreds of armed militia from the People’s Republic of China had fired at the Hong Kong police at Sha Tau Kok. Five policemen were killed in the brief exchange of fire. After this attack both the police station and the defensive position were built.
My company headquarters was based in the police station with one of my platoons, another platoon was based in the defended location nearby and the third platoon was spread along the hills in the MacKenzie forts. The platoon in the defensive position essentially had to live underground. One of my NCOs, ‘Big’ Danny Keown, was the original troglodyte and thrived in this underground complex.
We took over from a Gurkha company and before they left we carried out a number of combined patrols with them. Along the border fence itself we had to work a reverse daily routine, patrolling by night and resting by day. Patrols would go to night locations at known or likely crossing points and await the movement of the illegals as they attempted during the night to cross from China into Hong Kong. Most of the Paras had not worked with Gurkhas before, gauging them on their impressive World War II reputation. Sadly, the Gurkhas we worked with were lazy and slovenly. Once they had consumed their nightly issue tot of rum they got into their sleeping bags and went to sleep. Their OP areas were filthy with rubbish and human waste. On one of these combined patrols a Gurkha was in the process of arresting an ‘eye-eye’ but got himself into a panic and managed to spray himself directly in the face with a can of mace. We had to organise his medical evacuation. My Paras were appalled, and their previous image of the Gurkhas was shattered. The Gurkha officers were an anachronism and were lorded over by their batmen and waiters. We were not sorry to see them, and their men, leave.
Each day, at dusk, on the hills along the Chinese side of the border little groups of eye-eyes could be seen gathering like Comanche Indians on the tops of the hills. As it became dark, they would filter down towards the Chinese border troops on their side of the border. We would hear shouts, screams and dogs barking; see lights flashing and hear an occasional shot being fired. Then there would be silence. But in the early hours of the morning rustling would be heard in the overgrown area between the two borders as groups and individuals would start creeping towards the Hong Kong side. My patrols would wait in ambush and apprehend these eye-eyes as they tried to cross the road and scale the fence. There were more eye-eyes than we had patrols so quite a few eluded us. The eye-eyes were never violent and would wait patiently to be taken back to the police station. Next day they would be collected by the Hong Kong police transport and at some stage they would be repatriated back to China through the border crossing point at Lo Wu. During our tour we apprehended several whom we had already caught before.
I enjoyed this period because the company was very much left alone and the visits from battalion headquarters based in Fan Ling were few and far between. However, because of Sha Tau Kok’s strategic location, we did receive several high-powered political visitors from the United Kingdom who wanted to see first-hand how the ‘eye-eye’ prevention programme was working.
The country on the Hong Kong side behind the border fence was steep and hilly so I introduced daylight mounted horse patrols so that we could cover more ground. The first problem was teaching a number of the company to ride. We were fortunate in that relatively close to the border was a riding school which had many fine horses, the majority of which were former racehorses. We spent quite a bit of time riding around and around the training ring under the very strict supervision of a fearsome lady instructor. She took no nonsense from the Toms – or anyone else. She would have made an excellent regimental sergeant major. We were taught how to saddle the horses and learned all about the the tricks the horses used to make it as difficult as possible to put them in harness. They could be very cunning and mischievous beasts. Then the great day came, and we set off on our first outing. My horse was called ‘Thunder’ – that should have given me some warning about his nature. His party trick was suddenly to stop and lower his head; his rider, unless fully alert, would slide quickly and dramatically over Thunder’s head onto the ground. If the reins were not tightly gripped Thunder would then trot happily back to the stables.
The initial patrols were very successful but one of the main difficulties was training the Toms not to steer the horses like a motorbike and to accept that horses were very intelligent and could avoid obstacles themselves.
As former racehorses, these particular mounts remained fiercely competitive. This was not a problem when we set off on our day-long patrols, but it certainly was on our return. The return journey was mainly downhill along small paths and the horses knew exactly when we had turned for home. They would get a glint in their eyes and start moving faster and faster until they were almost galloping. This was despite the ineffectual input from the Para on board. As we got closer to the stables the paths had sharper and sharper corners and the horses were now racing their companions. At nearly every corner there would be an aggrieved Para painfully getting up off the ground having been flung off. The final turn was from the dirt path onto the tar-sealed road leading into the stables. Here the horses slid and careered amidst sparks and stones as they took this final corner home. I think only about 50 per cent of each patrol managed to return home still on their original horse. I now know horses can look smug because I have seen them!
We were on the border during Easter so ‘Flash’, my CSM, and I sat up all day painting boiled eggs so that we could give one to every soldier in the company. I am not sure they appreciated it but at least they knew that we in the ‘head-shed’ were thinking of them. Delivering the eggs to the MacKenzie forts, like any visit to them, proved to be a little hazardous. The forts were on the top of very sharply inclined ridge lines and steep steps had to be climbed to reach them. Every so often a raw potato would come hurtling down through the air. This was obviously one of the sporting activities – try to hit the OC and/or the CSM with a potato volley. Needless to say, whoever was in charge of the post denied all knowledge of any potato missiles.
The leave policy we had in Hong Kong for the troops was badly thought out and not particularly generous. The Toms were only allowed two-and-a-half days’ leave every three weeks or so. They would go on leave into Kowloon or Hong Kong Island from a rest camp away from the border area. The Toms had been working hard and inevitably they played hard but added to this equation was the fact that the resident battalion was the Queen’s Own Highlanders based in Stanley Fort on Hong Kong Island and commanded by my namesake Lieutenant Colonel Jeremy MacKenzie. The Paras and the Jocks took to each other with a passion and kept the Hong Kong police busy with their antics. It even reached the stage where the rest of the army wore T-shirts in town stating, ‘I am NOT from 1 PARA’ so they would be allowed into the bars and nightclubs. I could never understand why the CO found all this surprising. I did not condone the excesses of some individuals but if you train Paras to be extremely aggressive for a potential war role then you mustn’t be too surprised if they do not behave like saints in peacetime. The core attributes and aggression of Paras would be demonstrated most ably not long afterwards in the Falklands War.
The CO had also decreed that no soldiers were to have tattoos in Hong Kong because of the high incidence of Hepatitis B. In their own inimitable way, the Toms took this as rather a personal challenge. The first I knew of any ‘disobedience’ of this order was when we were having a farewell BBQ kindly arranged by the local police inspector at his house just on the outskirts of the border area. The Toms had had a few beers and were becoming somewhat boisterous, so it was a good time for the BBQ to finish and for us to return to our duties. Almost as one, about 20 of the Toms formed a line, turned away and mooned the assembled officers and senior NCOs. On each of their right backsides was a tattoo of a pink ‘Lil’ Devil’ holding a pitchfork and wearing Para wings. The CSM and I decided to ignore this little display of independence and the subject of tattoos was never mentioned in A Company again.
Return to the United Kingdom
Following the tour in Hong Kong, the company returned with the battalion to Aldershot and we continued on with company training. I took the company to Salisbury Plains and we worked in Imber Village, which had originally been requisitioned during World War II as a training area and had now been converted into an urban training area. We practised using Molotov cocktails and other devices against buildings and vehicles. We also took the opportunity to test the 66mm anti-tank rocket as an anti-sniper weapon in a built-up area. It wasn’t very successful, but it showed how the rocket worked in an area which was quite different from the normal sterile anti-tank range. All these activities, while realistic, would have given the range staff the ‘vapours’ if they had known about them.
We were required to carry out a certain number of parachute descents each year to remain ‘current’ but it was somewhat difficult to obtain RAF aircraft, so we used a balloon to jump onto Queens Avenue beside our camp. This was a good PR exercise as many civilians drove past the area. But none of us enjoyed jumping from the balloon; it was always eerily quiet except for the wind moaning through the balloon’s wire hawsers. In an aircraft there is a lot more going on to distract you. Besides, when you jump out of an aircraft you are swept along by a 120-knot slipstream rather than simply dropping like a brick as you do out of a balloon.
We jumped with our equipment containers from the balloon and this was an interesting experience because once you left the balloon cage you plummeted straight down incredibly fast thanks to the extra weight. More than once, if I had been able to find my reserve handle I would have pulled it because looking up my parachute seemed to take forever to deploy, but it was simply the long dropping sensation. On some occasions my family, who were living in military quarters nearby, would come and watch this balloon parachuting. I would look over the side of the balloon basket and see them as little dots 800 feet below. It felt good that I could share a little of my ‘airborne’ experiences with them.
On our defensive training exercises I tried to convince the company of the benefits of the DuPuy trench system. This is a defensive trench system where each defensive position defends the adjoining position by firing across its front. This was used very successfully by the Wehrmacht in Italy and elsewhere during World War II. Attacking troops were hit by enfilade fire as they assaulted each position. I had to compromise, however, and allow limited vision to the front of each trench. The Toms were simply not happy at not being able to see to their own front.
My final exercise with the battalion was at Camp Wainwright in Canada. This is a vast live-firing infantry training area infested by the biggest, angriest midges in the world! They could teach the feared Scottish midges a thing or two. One of the facilities at Wainwright was an underground defence position which the company occupied for several days. The Toms did not like living underground like moles and it was a full-time job for the senior NCOs to stop them sticking their heads out of their bunkers like Meerkats whenever they could. During the time in Canada I was assisted by a former SAS SNCO, Mick H, who was to be commissioned into the SAS permanent cadre. He contributed a great deal to the company’s training and at the end of the training he and I took the opportunity to tour the Rockies in a hire car.
It was on this exercise in Canada that I finally became disillusioned by the way the army training was going and especially the lack of imagination on the part of the battalion’s commanding officer. There was absolutely no drive or vision in the grooming of our soldiers for war. Peacetime soldiering, discounting the futility of operations in Northern Ireland, had taken its toll on the Parachute Regiment.
I decided to seek soldiering opportunities elsewhere. This was despite receiving an almost unheard of direct entry to the Army Command and Staff College at Camberley. This had been given to only one previous officer and that was General Sir Peter de la Billière KCB, KBE, DSO, MC and Bar. This was a huge compliment to me and had taken a great deal of lobbying by various officers in the SAS and the Parachute Regiment. I regret letting those people down to this day, but the thought of continuing to soldier in such a sterile and depressing environment was not for me. I had been in touch with the South African Defence Attaché in London, and after much correspondence, I was offered an appointment in the parachute brigade of the South African Defence Force (SADF).
However, before my official departure there was a formal duty I had to perform. I had the honour and the privilege of commanding a Parachute Regiment hundred-man Royal Guard of Honour for her Majesty the Queen Mother on 6 June 1980. The Queen Mother was unveiling a bronze statue of Field Marshal Bernard Montgomery on the Mall. We rehearsed in London under the watchful eye of the Grenadier Guards RSM who was obviously miffed that this Royal Guard was not being provided from the Foot Guards.
The great moment came, and the guard was drawn up and honours presented. The Queen Mother, escorted by Field Marshal Edwin Brammall, Baron Brammall, stepped from the dais to walk over and unveil the statue. Field Marshal Brammall, a short individual, tripped over his sword and pitched onto the ground. My heart sank – this was just the sort of thing that would have Paras in paroxysms of laughter. It just needed one person to start laughing, and the Guard of Honour would have dissolved into chaos – just like the scene with the centurions in the film The Life of Brian. I wondered whether I would have to cleave with my sword the first one to crack. To my eternal gratitude there was not a sound from the ranks behind me. The field marshal dusted himself off and the event continued without further drama. The South African defence attaché, who was one of the VIP guests, later complimented me on the high standard of the parade as did the Grenadier Guards RSM, albeit somewhat ungraciously.