1972, Sappers on Patrol
By John (Ginge) Bradley
We were very young but obeyed orders without question, not understanding, for the most part, our reasons for what we thought we were accomplishing. Arriving at Aldergrove Airport, or should I say the runway (we never saw an airport) we were herded out of the back of a Hercules into a nearby hanger. For the next few days this was our new home. We passed the time playing cards and reading our yellow cards. What a joke.
"Sergeant, do we have to give three warnings if we are being shot at?" or "Sir, what if they are too far away to hear me warn them before I shoot?" These were the kind of ramblings on over those silly yellow cards. Later one of our squad corporals would find out that he should have adhered more closely to that card and its rules but that's another story.
Equipment and maps issued and briefings over, we were off to fight the good fight. It was an exciting time and we were all glad to be doing our part. We ran into some lads who were on the rear party of the regiment we were taking over from. They said, "You will be needing these," and gave us a bunch of 7.62 rounds. How neieve of me. Why would I want these things? I later learned that extra rounds would come in handy. They also showed us how to enhance a rubber bullet and told us that in a tight situation this modified "dildo" would come in handy. Simply slip the bullet out of it's cartridge and saw off the back inch. A penny was about the same size. Insert enough pennies to replace what had been cut off and replace the bullet into the cartridge. How ingenious! "What damage could this do?" we wondered? Off we drove, four to a rover; driver, NCO, and 2 idiots standing on the tailgate. I remember, like it was yesterday. I felt like a moving target in a shooting gallery. Yes I was 'stupid' standing on the tailgate. Off we rode into east Belfast on some sort of planned route looking for Lord knew what. Over the next eight days we learned that this was the chosen method to familiarize us with the local landscape. We got to know the street names and where our lads had 'sangers' and guard posts, what streets were supposedly friendly and what streets where hostile. Being engineers we picked things up very quickly. After a week we were on the move and our first hotel was the cop shop, on Mount Pottinger road. Ruddy HQ, just my luck. I liked being around my old and steady Sgt. Exton. He was the only one I trusted. He had seen action in the Suez and wore a red beret. He had my complete respect. That was until I came across our WOI. 'Mick the nick' we called him because he would nick you for walking across his bloody square back in 'Oznatraz'. Being a paddy himself he was having fun locking up curfew dodgers.
It was unfortunate enough to have done a radio training program so I got stuck humping those old and heavy walking packs issued back in those early days. One night on a foot patrol I remember we had been out for just over an hour and not much going on until we came to a very dingy, half-darkened street. I had forgotten to check in with a 'sit rep' and, as I realized, my guts jumped into my mouth. We creeped along silently, listening to a few noises coming from the derelict housing ahead. Suddenly, "23 foxtrot sit rep over?" my radio squawked. I almost pissed myself. Taff and Sammy squealed at me, "Turn that thing down." I did and we walked on a bit further. That's when I turned to Taff and suggested we check in and report the noises we heard. "Bollocks. We've got nothing yet," he barked as we crawled further down the street. Nothing is what we had as we waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity. (An eternity on that street was more like 15 minutes.) Taff led the way and off we went to the end of the street. As we reached our mark he turned to me and said "OK Ginge," (my nickname in those days) "give HQ a sit. rep." "Gladly" I thought. So I pressed myself against the house and checked in. With only one head phone on and the other dangling around my neck, I got the reply from HQ. I leaned there stunned as the reply echoed in the darkness from somewhere other than my dangling headphone. I took off the headset all together and told HQ to, "say again, garbled message, over." I could heard the reply as clear as day coming from the window behind me. I stood there horrified before calling Taff over to listen to what I had just heard. "HQ say again over." They replied "23 foxtrot sit. rep. received, out." Again it blared from the house window behind us, clear as day. Taff took a couple of steps backward and peered through the window. He saw that the broadcast was coming through chrystal clear from the resident's television. The bloody telly was rebroadcasting all of our transmissions. And it wasn't just that one house. Every house with a television could intercept our communications. When we returned to HQ later that night all hell broke loose over that one. Mick the nick was none to happy. We were ordered to keep radio traffic to an absolute minimum while on the street and 2 weeks later the patrol NCOs got issued police walkie talkies complete with ear piece. It was a 'learn as you go' tour.
I did a tour of 'double duty' as it became known. We poor engineers had to complete both tasks - building bloody sangers and street patrols. Mind you, it made the time go by a lot better. We were split into different groups for different tasks. Search teams made up surveillance teams and engineer teams. Occasionally we'd bump into some covert guys, but we dared say hello. Someone should have told me. I recognized a sergeant once from the 16sqn, long side burns in civilian cloths. I went over to say hello and got bollocked.
One of my more exciting assignments was a two week stint I did with my fellow engineers, a real job doing bomb disposal. Now this was interesting stuff. Me and my mate Kenny were assigned to guard these two from the bomb disposal unit. Cars were the biggest target for these lads. If a vehicle had a package in it and was parked on a street where it didn't belong, we were called. One job involving an old Morris comes to mind. I remember it because it got the 'shotgun treatment'. That was when a car, once given a quick walk around, was blasted with a shotgun from 75 yards away. They would blast a couple of well aimed shots at the boot and bonnet (glad it wasn't my car) and two more random shots. If it still didn't blow, then the engineers were called to haul it away with an armored Allis Chalmers loader. I'm glad I wasn't in that moving target.
Just like in a few big cities today, some stupid people created their own entertainment by leaving boxes and packages with protruding wires in the middle of the street or down a dark alley. They'd get their kicks watching us dismantle the phony bombs. I think early on, before the serious trouble began, a few idiots got their jollies watching us play soldier. We were always on alert for an ambush, set up a dummy to shoot a dummy we said.
Without a doubt the toughest night for me was when we were called over to guard this new estate in the dead of night. Turf lodge I think it was called, somewhere in the falls road district. I was with about 50 lads that were sent to this area to wait for trouble in the absolute dark. We had learned that an illegal meeting was taking place and Bernadette Devlin herself was in the area. We had been called in case of booby traps and the like. We never found Devlin or any booby traps that night, but as Kenny and I talked about later, waiting for trouble for four hours in the pitch black was enough to make anyone soil their trousers. Waiting in the dark for something to happen put us all on edge. I think it's when I first began to fear the unknown. We aged on that job I tell you.
Escort duty was another job I did to get off the street. I got to meet the 'reverend' himself once as we escorted him into Belfast one day. His attitude was enough to make the steadiest of soldier want to shoot him, antagonistic bastard. Another trip with Lance Corporal Baz to Londonderry saw us try to break the land speed record there and back. We had escorted some politicians (to this day, I have no idea who they were) to some secret meeting place in a little village church. It was some secret meeting of both sides, the kind that you didn't ask about. On this journey, the joke of the day became 'flinch when you pass a milk churn.' This was our first out of town trip and we were new to the idea of the country lane bomb. After my stint with the disposal lads I believed every bomb story I heard. Somehow we felt safer in the city despite the fact that there were many more hiding places for an ambush. After all, walls stop bullets, hedges don't. At least these jobs broke the monotony of daily street patrols. When we returned from the Baz escort, we were told to pack up our things. We were moving again.
Our next posting would see us making base on the HMS Maidstone for four months. What a sight it was after those dingy streets of Belfast. It was all very exciting until we were taken down to our bunks; triple bunks that were so close together, if the guy below you got a hard on, your face would be jammed into the ceiling. Everything was cold and metal and filthy. The toilets looked like they hadn't been cleaned in months. What a shitty mess to move into. And as if that weren't enough to keep you on your toes, bulkheads every few feet and low pipes overhead made things especially difficult for the taller lads like me. The upside was the menu in the galley. Yes, we were given a choice of main courses and deserts. This was something new for us poor squaddies who had eaten nothing but what was put in front of us for the first four months. My favorite moment came after our first night patrol. We had come back to the ship at about 5am and the sun was just coming up. Tired and dirty, I was ready to hit the sack until a cook asked us if we were hungry. This was new, a cook who cared. We looked at each other and followed him to the galley where he proceeded to take our orders. It was absolutely amazing what he cooked up: sausages, bacon, black pudding, eggs any way you wanted them, beans, tomatoes, mushrooms and fried bread or toast. We dined like kings as if it were our last meal. Love those navy cooks. My waist grew about 2" while on board that ship.
The docks were a great spot to be based out of. For some reason we felt very safe here. It was more like the barracks back in Germany. There were daily inspections, drills on the back deck. I got busted for a dirty SLR once on a quick inspection. That cost me a fiver. From there we could hear and see a lot of what was going on. It was a way to find out about the patrols that were about to take over our lives. June 28 at midnight. This would be a day I will remember for the rest of my life. People were talking about a cease fire so any news broadcasts were turned up and sent out over the raido. But that day we were given our usual street patrol assignments. Our squad got the usual route around a quiet area near some prefab houses at the end of the main road. Hollywood down to the QE bridge was our route. It was about 8pm when we started and just before midnight when we would finish, until we heard gunshots coming from the north. The very familiar sound of a Thompson - crack, delay, crack, delay, crack. The sound came with the usual radio traffic. At about 23.10 pm we were given orders to come in off the street and head to the nearby short strand bus depot. The brass wanted all of us off the streets early as a sign of good faith I guess. When we pulled into the yard it was packed with lads from all types of regiments. We had not been the only ones pulled in. No troops left out on the street by 'midnight' was the order. It was about 23.45hrs, 15 minutes before the cease fire was to take effect. There were lads milling around having a cuppa and a smoke when a shot ran out. It seemed very close and the place started buzzing, what was wrong. The radio started to go berserk with the shrieks no military man wants to hear. One of our lads had been shot. It was S/Sgt Banks from 16sqn. He had been out making sure all our lads were off the street by midnight when he was hit by an IRA bullet from a sniper - the last shot fired before the cease fire began that night. The tension was incredible that night. Everyone was shouting and thoughts of revenge clouded out minds. Our RSM took charge and calmed everyone down. We were kept in that yard for what seemed like an eternity before being released in squads to return to our bunks.
No go night, now that was a RIOT in more ways than one. We got to escort the Colonel around for most of the evening but the day started very slowly. The tension was building until the early evening when the whole town seemed to have gone mad. Violent erupted everywhere and the rioting was out of control. Everywhere we went, burning, overturned cars and lorries. Anything that could be used as a barricade was thrown into the streets. It was chaos but in fact, looking back now, it was a masterful plan that kept the soldiers at bay. The same soldiers who the day before had been patrolling those very streets. It was the most action we had ever seen for sure. The Colonel took assessment of the situation and then left our squad at a critical intersection with strict orders that nothing was to block it. Temple Moore Avenue I think it was. With all that was going on I was glad to be rid of the Colonel when everyone else was having fun. With Taff as our NCO, we stood and watched everyone else getting in on the fighting. That was until we spotted a rubbish truck coming down the side street with about 100 tartan kids following it. The truck took a sharp turn, stopped and the driver got out. It looked like the mob was about to overturn the truck into the intersection, so Taff took charge with Sammy and I right behind him. With nothing but our batons, a few rubber bullets and a whole lot of adrenalin pumping, the three of us stormed the mob like fools. They turned and ran until they realized we were only three to their 103. The numbers were not in our favour. It wasn't long before we were the ones being chased.
They threw bricks, stones, bottles, everything they could find at me as I ran for my life back the way I came. Without thinking I jumped into the cab of that rubbish truck and pushed a red button. The bloody truck fired up, in gear no less, and lurched forward into a house. I reefed on the steering wheel and just missed the wall as I turned the truck away from the rioters. Taff and Sammy clung to the side of the truck as bottles and firebombs flew all around us. We made it back alive to our side of the junction. We got on the radio immediately and reported to HQ what had just happened. Not 10 minuets later the Colonel himself came back to asses the situation. He patted Taff on the back and the Wo2 told me to hand the truck over to this bloke who I swore just took it back to the rioters. I was pissed off all night over that because I risked my neck getting the truck away from these madmen only for some bloke to give it back to them. Anger and frustration soon turned to sheer exhaustion. It all died down after 36 hours straight and I slept for two days.
Later those 'no go' areas became quit sophisticated. Cement barricades, barbed wire and sentry sangers just like ours. They had been watching us set up shop for so long they just copied what we did and when we did it.
As another sign of good faith, and to appear as less of a threat, we were told to remove our flack jackets and helmets. Now that was the best news I'd had since I arrived. I always wondered how the 'paras' got away with that. They looked so cool with stripped down rovers and no helmets. Now we could do the same and life got a lot more comfortable. Just how long these bloody 'no go' areas were going to stay that way was anyone's guess except for the brass. You could tell they had something else in mind when they told us to map out every post, every barricade and how they were manned. This became a cat and mouse game every day spying from the roof tops to see who was doing what. Letting the barricades go up was a slap in the face to us and everyday they stayed up pressed our patience to the limit. It was only going to be a matter of time before they came down, that was the talk. I got sent up on the bloody roof all the time because I was good shot.
(Before we left Germany, after we were training up at Putlos in the north, we were sighting our SLRs and I had a good grouping. It was so good that Mick the Nick decided to challenge me to a winner take all, 10 marks to the winner. At 100 yards it was no contest. I got five shots inside an inch. Beginner's luck he said, and we went back to 200. Same result. My group was about two inch square and he reluctantly handed over the fiver. He never forgot me after that and that was to prove useful later.)
So I got to watch the Orange day parade from the roof top. We started out by building these monster walls so high that the Catholics couldn't see the orange men as they marched. We blocked off every street in east Belfast that looked onto the parade route. Then I got up on this roof that looked all the way down the Newtownards road to the bridge. I sat up there for about four hours, bored out of my head, wondering what the hell would I shoot at if somebody did something stupid. I tried to remember the firing rules? But when I thought about it, I realized I wasn't given any. Maybe I was supposed to shout three warnings like that bloody yellow card said I was supposed to, but nobody would hear me that high up. And how would I know who the villains were? Lots of silly things went through my mind. I spent a lot of time on the roof tops after that, mostly at night. One night, after a roof top stint at a local east Belfast Fan works (Sirocco), we returned back to our bunks, new neighbours arrived. Hundreds of them, screaming annoying bloody jock's from the Royal Scotts. Waking up in the morning to a yard full of desert camouflage Saladin APC's. When did this lot get here? They kept coming and coming, APC's by the score and truck loads of lads. It didn't look like those 'no go' areas were going to be around for long, we thought. Not with this lot in town. Everyday the force grew and grew; the boat was buzzing with activity. Everywhere you looked lads were coming and going. Then there was the training and more training. We just went about our business as usual, getting as much sleep as we could between patrols. We discovered we had a huge vantage point from the roof tops at night and were issued with starlight scopes for our SLR's. Trouble was we only had four between the whole company so we never got them sighted to our personal weapons. They were just for observation purpose, which I thought was foolish. I later learned I thought right. For three nights in a row the 20,00hr patrol was fired at while walking near Mount Pottinger.
They could not see who or where the shots were coming from but we could from the roof. It was only about 400 yards away. At 22,40hrs that night a lone gunman reached for his pistol and fired blind at our patrol as they came down the street. I knew that if we sighted him in our a scope, one of us could get this guy. I begged Exton to let me do it but he said no. I was infuriated by his stupid decision and decided to expose myself as a target just to get the gunman's attention. I turned out to be the stupid one. I almost got topped myself, exposed up there on that roof, a perfect silhouette against the night sky. My own guys from 16sqn nearly took a pot shot at me from the alley bellow. I will never forget the radio chatter after that. Baz who was the squad leader that night, nearly pasted me himself when I came down off that roof. Did I ever feel like an idiot, but that bloody gunman never did get caught and I saw him two nights out of the four he was taking shots. It did make everyone twitchy and it got Taff in a lot of trouble over the yellow card. He was on patrol one night when someone fired a shot at his patrol. Just one shot, but Taff returned fire with 14 rounds. He blasted at a window where he thought the shot came from without shouting a verbal warning first. The inquiry that followed cost Taff a lot of money. He didn't lose a stripe, but he did get a heavy fine and was put through the ringer as to why he shot so many rounds. This was the frustrating part of being in Belfast. It seemed what ever we did was wrong, conflicting with some dumb rule or regulation. We knew how to get these IRA guys but it seemed like nobody wanted to antagonize them, yet it was OK for them to take pot shots at us. It was frustrating and very nerve racking. Now I think I know why. The brass use young men for war, who don't need reasons to be there. They follow orders well and without question while the chess game is played by the war-makers, older chaps with the pip's on there shoulders. We were young enough not to be afraid because we didn't know what was coming next. It was a total game.
As the days went we were plagued with more bombs. More than usual at least. A big one went off at Oxford street bus station. A search team was assigned to pick up the pieces. That was a bloody mess to clean up and I'm glad it wasn't me that had to do it. A bomb at the Britannia bar on our own turf was a movie all in it's self - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly. It was good we got cases of Harp lager from the cellar of the bar after it blew up. It was bad that one of our lads was blinded by the blast while in a Sanger across the street from the pub. And ugly was the bloody mess we had afterwards. From what we were told, an Austin 1100 had pulled up outside and the driver went in for a pint. He must have had one too many because the bomb went off while he was still inside and the place was leveled. That was the first time I ever had to pick up body parts. It wasn't a pleasant job, going through that wreckage and smell. We were given face masks but the smell was awful. The only good thing that came out of it was the cases of beer we packed into the back of our Land Rover afterwards. (We got so much lager that we were given permission to host a dance on Maidstone the following week. We sold the beer to all those Royal Scotts Jocks. Security was a bit of a headache and getting the women on the ship was a bit of trouble, but there must have been 100 that showed up that night. They were all trying to marry a squaddie to get out of the country and would do anything to bed a squaddie. Now being a married man I turned a blind eye to it all, but about a year and a half later, I saw at least three girls from that dance walking in the barracks of Osnabruck in Germany, all pushing prams with wee ones. It's funny how my mind wanders from bombs to skirts, but that shows you what life was really like back then. We just never knew what to expect.)
I think it became known as 'bloody Friday.' Those Irish seemed to name everything and this was no different. I think it was this day that set the wheels in motion for what was to be the biggest gathering of troops I would ever see. We had one more bomb in store for us. A small side street that ran between the Short Strand bus depot's 15 ' high brick wall and a row of houses. We had watch towers at either end. I think it was about 03.30hrs and we had just come off patrol and returned to the Maidstone from the fan works roof when we heard the most deafening noise from about about 3 miles away. "That was a big one," Sammy screamed. Little did we know that it was a couple of hundred yards away from where we had just been? We had just got into bed when Danny boy came into the room and told us we were going out again. Pissed off, tired and hungry, we got back in the Land Rover and followed orders to go back to the bus depot. It was about 05.20hrs and the sun was just coming up. As we got closer we could see the plume of smoke rising from right next door. Bloody hell, what a mess. Ambulances and fire engines everywhere. It looked like the whole street had gone. The last six houses had just collapsed in on themselves. Broken windows and glass everywhere. "What a mess," we kept saying, "What a mess." Paramedics tended to a couple of our lads who were so close they were deafened and blinded by the blast. "Why would the IRA bomb themselves?" I thought. They must have been building bombs right under our noses in that row of houses and something went wrong. It was the only logical explanation. It turned out to be true. Search teams, more lads from HQ and the 16sqn were brought in to help clean up the mess. The usual bags, gloves and masks were issued and we were given an area as our own to search. We were looking for bodies of course, but we had no idea what was really in store for us. There wasn't an in tact body left in that rubble, little arms and feet and bits of intestines all gooey and slimy and bloody. I don't know who it was, but one of the boys always seemed to find humor in a bad situation. Seagulls had been swooping down on a Double Decker bus on the other side of the wall in the station. On the roof of the bus was obviously a piece of flesh that looked like someone ass. "That's a shity piece of meat," exclaimed someone. It took the gulls about a half hour to finish it off. That was one body part that never made it into a bag. Navy food or not, I still didn't eat for 2 days.
Things were starting to drag out a bit now. Lots of new faces and a whole bunch of equipment arriving daily. The new lads were sent for training and it was patrol after patrol for us. We had to keep an appearance of normality, what ever that was, but we just new it was only a matter of time before something blew. A few armored bulldozers and a couple of very old WW11 tanks modified as dozers arrived. 'I wouldn't mind a drive in one of those,' I thought. I saw them in action when we were out on our normal 22,00 to 02.00hr shift down at Sirocco. Everything seemed normal down the Sydenham road as we drove back to the ship. We hit our bunks straight away but were woken up around two hours later and were told to be outside in 30 minuets. 'Bollocks,' I thought. 'What's happened now?' I went down the gang plank and met up with Danny and Taffy to find out we were going back to Sirocco again, this time wearing our flack jackets and helmets. Off we went down the deserted streets. There wasn't a car in sight. We got there and back up on the roof I went. It was just before dawn. With the daylight came a sight I will never forget. From the roof I got a ring side seat to a fantastic sight of military might all crammed into side streets on our side of the bridge. Not a sound was being made as the lads scurried around getting into position, Pigs full of sqauddies and Saladin's by the score. Tanks and armored loaders, Land Rovers, you name it, it was there, ready to go and go they did. Right on 05.30hrs it was like a silent signal was given and all at once every engine started up and everyone started to move across the bridges. The Albert and Queens bridges both headed for the same place. Meadow St., I think it was called, and Lagan St.. The whole place was a 'no go 'area and within 30 minuets we had smashed it to pieces. It was very precise and very quick. I was stunned by what I was witnessing. I must have sat there with my mouth open for an hour. Occasionally a shot rang out, fired by one of ours I hoped. I think we had caught the micks sleeping as this was a 'walk over' almost. It must not have felt like it for the lads on the ground, but this was to be a perfect practice run for the real thing. I had forgotten how tired I was, the show had taken over. I think the brass wanted to prove that we could take back the streets anytime we wanted. It took a little while for it all to sink in, but when word came that we were still not going to be included in the big push I think we were all a little disappointed. The Ruperts had there reasons I'm sure but we felt put off and pissed off. We were left sitting on the roof again. Like an All Star who gets benched during the last quarter. It was a great show but I wanted so much to be a part of it. In less than six hours we had crushed any resistance and removed the so-called 'no-go areas'. It was all over except for the massive clean up - the thankless job we got landed with.
Sappers doing infantry work had a cross purpose and for the last three weeks did nothing but clean up the streets for the next bunch of lads to take over. I thought it was going to be the RGJ but then some artillery lads showed up so I never did find out who took over.
I was so happy to be going home I never wrote anything down for that last week or so. I did get to do a real sloppy thing though. You see I left behind my wife in Germany and she was pregnant (yes before I left, smart asses!) She was due in October and so while I was on the Maidstone I worked the BFPO radio with Gloria Honniford. This meant I could send my loving messages back home. I have a photo of that somewhere. I should have to find it.
It was a tough year all round but on October 6th 1972 at BMH Munster my life changed forever. My wife gave birth to the cutest baby girl ever born. How lucky was I to survive.
John being interviewed by Gloria Hunniford on HMS Maidstone in 1972 |
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