There was a lot of confusion… We only knew that the pub had gone up and we had to go there and sort it out. Try and sort people out. Of course the people you were trying to sort out were the same people who were trying to kill you as well. They weren’t over helpful…
Anonymous Fusilier, 2018
Anonymous
1972. That first four months in winter was when I was there, in ‘72. Since then I’ve done four more tours, the last being in Andersonstown, where Faulkner’s house was.
I had a cushy number really, I was the Quartermaster’s driver. But where there was trouble, the Quartermaster went. So we were dragged up and caught in to quite a lot of trouble quite a lot of times. We went to the McGurk‘s bar when it got blew up. Not the moment it happened but we went straight out to it. We went up Andersonstown when there was trouble up there.
PD
Do you remember what it was like, that first night?
A
We arrived by ferry. And we came into Belfast not knowing what to expect. We got weapons, no ammunition, and just dressed as we are. And we were on the back of the Bedford wagon escorted by the people we were going to take over from. We were going through all of these streets not knowing. We were trained for it, but seeing it is different. You know what I mean? It was a bit of a surprise I think. More than anything a little bit worrying. You’re driving through, not knowing what to expect, and you’re thinking: I’ve got a weapon here but I’ve got no ammunition. These other guys, they’ve got it all. A bit overwhelming, if that’s the right word.
As soon as we got in there, we got everything we needed. We got flak jackets because we didn’t have flakjackets neither. So if they had attacked, attacked us for any reason when we were being escorted, we’d have been sitting ducks. Not that the flak jacket was much good.
One of our lads, I think it was at the funeral of the McGurk’s Bar, got shot from the top of a chuch tower. The bullet — the flak jacket doesn’t stop it, it slows it down and spins it. When the bullet came out of his back, he was paralysed from the waist down. Lucky enough I wasn’t there. I went down to Stoke Mandeville hospital to see him. He said, “In a way me life’s over.” It was upsetting. I never met him again. Seeing him like he was, he were so drained and thin, it was like “the end of the world for me. Nothing for me even though you’ve got me safe, and you’re looking after me.” Really upsetting, seeing him like he was.
PD
Oh god, that sounds desperate… Do you think being in Ireland changed you in any way? You were quite a young guy.
A
Personally it didn’t affect me. It has affected other people, more in modern times. I don’t know anybody in my era who was there at that time who had PTSD. Since then, whether it was worse out there I don’t know, but we had it rough.
PD
Most people agree that when the soldiers arrived in ‘69, they were welcomed by the Catholic community.
A
The first place we went to was Brown Street Police Station, which is on the edge of the Shankhill. Brown Street Police Station, which we lived in, was derelict. And there was a block of flats, a whole estate of flats which were Catholic. Every Saturday, from 1 o’clock in the afternoon, we had to surround these flats because Protestants would come down from Linfield football ground, march past shouting at them, and we were protecting em. They used to bring us cups of tea down and things like that.
Next tour we went on, the same cup of tea had glass in it. They turned like that. Why? We did a couple of raids on Unity flats, we had someone shot there. I shot a guy out there, we were being fired at from an alley. All the ladies and kids were there banging the dustbins. And they were firing at us coming down. I turned and fired one back…
The McGurk’s bar, even though the bomb had flattened it, there was still loads of fire… And we were still searching for people. To get them out. One of our officers got killed doing that. And there was another, can’t remember his name now. And (another soldier) he got shot through the back door of a Pig and that’s when they armoured them up more. It went straight through the door, through the metal door.
There was a lot of them… far more been killed in Northern Ireland than there was in Afghanistan, of our lads. These days they call them heroes, but they didn’t call the lads who were in Belfast heroes you know. It was a forgotten war, in a way.
PD
Do you think it’s because it was on British soil and that’s a very uncomfortable thing to remember? It must’ve been very strange for you a young guy, you arrive with your gun… in Britain.
A
In Northern Ireland what’s the difference? What’s the difference looking-wise between a Catholic and a Protestant? There is no difference. Same as house clearings, we used to go in, you’d throw a grenade in there. Who were you throwing a grenade at in Northern Ireland? We’re they a Catholic or Protestant? You couldn’t do that you had to go into the house and find out who they were. Get them to come out, but half the time they wouldn’t and you had to go and search for em. It took the safety away for us… you didn’t know who was in there, what weapons they had, or if they had a weapon. There was a case when one lad did go into a house and a lad was in bed, got up and his arm looked like a weapon and the soldier shot him. Unfortunate. There was a big stink about it at the time, shooting an unarmed man. But it’s in the dark, what do you do?
PD
And you are expecting to be shot. And so you think: is it him or me?
A
Self-preservation is your first thing, you look after yourself. Okay a mistake was made, but how do you rectify that mistake? You just didn’t know what you were going into at all. The Catholics used to live in Unity flats, the Protestants up Shankhill Road. But there were still blocks where people were mixed together, they hated each other but they still mixed together. How do you tell? If you’ve got a German helmet on I can tell, but with them you don’t know.
PD
You were in a grey area and that also makes it hard to say that it was a heroic conflict. It dragged on for so long, people got sick of it, it was as if it would never end.
A
I’m so old that I don’t know the answer anymore! I’ve never been back, I’d like to put it out me mind. I’m told it’s as bad now as it was then. I don’t know whether it is or not. I’m not interested, it’s a thing of me past, I would like to forget it. It wasn’t very nice. Some of the people were great, but the same people were horrible. How do you protect them against us? That was the case to be answered. We were told we were going in to protect the Catholic people, but it was the Catholic people who were shooting at us. Now where is the logic in that?
PD
It’s very tangled. You’re talking about things that I didn’t really understand.
A
Went to a Protestant school did you?
PD
Yeah it was a C of E school in a place called Glencraig, on the other side of Holywood from Belfast.
A
I’m just wondering what they taught you. A lot of the problems that we had with the kids and their mums, the females. They knew and we knew that the kids carried guns. Of course we weren’t allowed to touch them, same as with a female, we weren’t allowed to search a female… bloody horrible, the things they were doing, and we knew we couldn’t touch them. They were hitting dustbins which alerted all the men — ‘there’s something going on here’. If we went to search the house, then they’d come down, dustbin lids on the floor. They caused so much trouble and knew we couldn’t touch em…
PD
An interviewee who I was talking to, also did several tours early on in Northern Ireland, he said sometimes when things peaked they were doing a 20 hour day. He said you’d go back and sleep 4 hours. Somebody else would hop out the bed and you would have it 4 hours and then you’d be up and out again.
A
We would quite often be out 20 or 24 hours. Then sleep. Until you can get relieved, if there’s quite a lot going on, you don’t sleep. Let’s say McGurk’s Bar, they surrounded the place, where they thought the bombers had gone, so they could search that, and protect that. Whoever was around would replace them. Quite often things happened in twos and threes and fours, so there was no relief for you. We all had to do the same job, the officers were the same. It wasn’t split up with the squaddies doing 24 hours and the officers doing eight or something. We were all in the same boat. You have to do what had to be done, you just couldn’t do nothing about it.
PD
Could you talk me through what happened at McGurk’s Bar, because it’s quite a well-known incident?
A
I probably was asleep. The QM came and got me, “Come on we’re going to McGurk’s Bar.” Of course, things had already happened then. It’d blown up. It was a big muck up really. One was trying to do one thing and the other trying to do the other. They were trying to get ambulances into a road that was blocked by debris from the bomb. There was a lot of confusion… We only knew that the pub had gone up and we had to go there and sort it out. Try and sort people out. Of course the people you were trying to sort out were the same people who were trying to kill you as well. They weren’t over helpful. In some cases they were unhelpful by stopping us doing what we were doing, trying to get people out, throwing rubble out.
PD
You were trying to get people out of a Catholic bar that had been blown up —
A
— and rubble was all over em. And you didn’t know how many was in there to start with. It was a matter of hand-pulling all the bricks and whatever to try to get to the bottom of it all. In the middle of this, the officer got shot. Another soldier got shot as well, both in different locations. The ambulances were coming in and they didn’t know who they were picking up. They didn’t know about the second shooting and I think at one stage, they both finished up chasing one person and the other one was still suffering. Nobody knew what had gone on, what had set the thing off, was it an intentional thing, was it IRA, were the Protestants tied to it? All we knew was it was a bomb that could’ve been placed by them, or could’ve been the Protestants. Utter confusion. Horrendous. I wasn’t involved in moving the bricks, because I had to stick with my Quartermaster. I was his bodyguard, as such. Some of the lads were pulling bricks up and then there was an arm there. You think oh shit, not a pretty sight. Something you’re not used to, no matter how much training you do. You can’t do nothing about it you’ve just got to carry on. Got a job to do by getting the bricks out and trying to save somebody, you don’t know who, or even if they have survived under all that rubble. Some did come out, but there was no thanks to the troops for getting them out.
(ENDS)
Interviewed by Philip Davenport, 2018, Manchester