By the 1980s the conflict in Northern Ireland had become something of a stalemate, to the extent that, according to the government of the day, an ‘Acceptable Level of Violence’ had been achieved. In today’s risk averse world this statement seems horrifying but back then it was the best that could be achieved: there was no end in sight.
The soldiers who patrolled the streets came from ordinary British cities and towns to stifle the murderous ambitions of the terrorists who blighted the smallest of the home nations – Northern Ireland. It was bewildering. They patrolled country lanes like those found in Devon or streets replete with the shops found in their own towns: Marks and Spencer, Boots, Woolworths. Their enemies looked the same as the civilians they had been sent to protect and they all spoke in an unfamiliar accent.
For most it was the only operational service they would see in their careers and when their tours of duty had finished they returned to the mainland or to Germany to practice for a war which thankfully never broke out.
Theirs was a corporals’ war: sections of eight men, armed with rifles, at large in a strange, alien part of the UK under the command of a junior NCO in his mid-twenties. The eight-man section could split into two ‘bricks’ of four men until the term ‘brick’ was deemed too insulting to use. They were in touch with their ops room via radio and sometimes patrolled with a police officer.
The soldiers were eighteen, nineteen, twenty. Their mates back home worked in factories and shops, and none of them really understood what they did or how they passed their days in Northern Ireland. The soldiers had three women in their lives: The Queen, Mrs Thatcher and their mum.
Come rain, come shine, they patrolled. Often they patrolled on foot, ‘bomb bursting’ out of camp to make themselves a difficult target for their enemies. On other occasions they would use two Land Rovers for their patrols, halting at various pre-determined locations to set up vehicle check points (VCPs) in which the traffic was stopped in both directions, then fed through a chicane with certain drivers being questioned and certain cars being searched. The locals assumed that on any given day, blue cars had been selected, or Fords, or red Vauxhalls but in fact the selection process was much more random.
Of course, every now and again they’d stop a known terrorist (usually called ‘players’) and they would question them, search their car and so on. But by the 1980s the terrorists knew better than to get caught in possession of a bomb or a rifle…
Best of all were Heli-Ops in which the eight men were deployed by the RAF or Army Air Corps. Heli-Ops were exciting… or at least they began that way, often turning into just another slog in the countryside.
There is only so long that you can maintain a high level of alertness, especially when the action you are ready for is infrequent, short-lived and in most cases entirely absent. The troops had to suppose that their mere presence was perhaps deterring the terrorist from making his attack but it was impossible to know if that was really the case. Constantly in touch with base, the corporal was ever ready to send the phrase, ‘Contact. Wait Out’ over the air, in which instance the radio net became his as he dealt with the shooting, bombing, whatever trap had been sprung. No one else interfered or spoke. The Ops Officer and the signallers back in base hung on in silence waiting for the grid reference and for further details of the incident to come through. It was the corporal, a young man from Solihull or Perth or Cardiff who took charge, who fought back. At that moment it was his war to fight…
But such contacts were rare for the most part.
At some point during their tour the soldiers would get a night out in Bangor, one of the safer towns. With their short hair and T-shirts they stood out a mile and yet the locals in this town at least made them welcome.
After which it was back to base, back to patrols, back to queueing up for food in the steamy cookhouse.
Red, white and blue kerbstones denoted a safe area. Green, white and gold? Enemy territory. Likewise the graffiti: FTQ or FTP. If you can’t work out what they mean then ask a veteran of the army’s longest campaign.
David Roy is the author of The Plaster Saints, published by Chiselbury.
