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124 EAGLE AND CARBINE
The Northern Ireland Conflict
(Personal recollections of Operation BANNER tours by John Potter)
The Northern Ireland Conflict, also called The Troubles, was a violent sectarian conflict from about 1968 to 1998 between the overwhelming Protestant unionists (loyalists),who desired the province to remain in the United Kingdom, and the overwhelmingly Roman Catholics nationalists (republicans), who wanted Northern Ireland to become part of the Republic of Ireland. The other major players in the conflict were the British Army, Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR), and their purpose was to play a peacekeeping role, most prominently between the Irish Republican Army (IRA) and the unionist para- military forces such as the UVF and UFF. The aggres- sion was marked by street fighting, sensational bomb- ings, sniper attacks, roadblocks and internment without trial and, although categorised as a ‘low-intensity con- flict’, had all the characters of a civil war.
Some 3,600 people were killed and 30,000 more were wounded before a peaceful solution was effectively reached in 1998, leading to power sharing in the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont.
Upon returning to the Regiment in Edinburgh in 1971, I went out to Northern Ireland for 2 months as a troop leader with B Squadron who were to assist the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) in their efforts to stop the civilian violence. We were based in Enniskillen with our armoured cars and found little serious trouble where we were stationed. The local people were pre- dominantly protestant and as such looked on us as a friendly force. We were equipped exactly as we would be for normal fighting in a European war, with Ferret Scout Cars but very quickly realised our limited ability to assist the RUC in any meaningful way, particularly in controlling any rioting. The British standard 7.62mm SLR Rifle was totally unsuitable for crowd control and at that time we had no CS Gas or Rubber Bullet guns. Luckily, we never had to face a serious crowd and after 2 months came back to Edinburgh to think again about how we could affectively assist the RUC, should we have to return to Northern Ireland.
Once we knew we were to go back for a proper 4 month tour in 1972, we started training using all the experience gained by other troops serving there in the early 70’s and, as from the Spring, the whole Regiment was stationed in Ireland, on rotation, with Regimental Headquarters based in Bessbrook RUC station, County Down, under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Tony Bateman and the squadrons based further north at Gosford Castle. My job as Regimental Signals Officer (RSO) was redundant
and instead I took over as a ‘Watchkeeper’ at Bessbrook with 3 other officers. The area we were responsible for was the countryside around Newry, down to the Irish border and along the border towards Middletown in the West. This area was known to all the troops there as ‘Injun Country’. It was a very busy tour but not particu- larly exciting for the ‘watchkeepers’ as we were aware of what our colleagues were up to, but were personally not directly involved very often.
At this time the local IRA were using home-made bombs made from basic fertiliser which they placed under road culverts. If caught in one of these explo- sions, the damage to vehicles was large and loss of life was expected, but luckily many failed to go off. We lost one trooper from one of these bombs when his Ferret Mk2 was blown up. Colonel Tony decided that the best way to get around his area of command, in a Landrover, was to drive ‘flat out’, thereby giving the bomber less warning to detonate the device. With this in mind he would drive down to Crossmaglen as fast as he could. Luckily his idea seemed to work. However, whenever he asked if any Watchkeeper would like to accompany him on his outings, we all would find better things to do. I only went once on one of these mad outings, and vowed never to go again. Other troops visited Crossmaglen regularly but they travelled there by helicopter!
We did have a major fire fight during our tour when there was a cross border night battle which included us using our Armoured Cars, which had two Browning machine guns, one in the turret and one mounted on the hatch cover. They also were armed with a 76mm main gun but this was not for use in Ireland. So much ammunition was fired on this occasion that we had to re-supply some ammunition for the battle via helicop- ter. The final casualties on the following day were found to be one cow which was caught in the cross fire. This infamous battle was followed by a much more satisfac- tory border encounter, where we set a trap to encourage the IRA, who had taken to firing across from the border, at the North/South road between Newry and Dundalk, in the south. Luckily, the point where the IRA gunmen had set up their ambush could be almost completely surrounded due to the closeness to the border, and the lie of the land. Once the trap had been sprung and the firing started, we let loose with all our armoured cars machine gun fire power and eventually the building, from where the gunmen were firing, caught fire and nobody escaped. We believed at least four gunmen were killed and this battle was considered a high suc- cess point of the tour. Several years later the Parachute