Page 177 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
CHAPTER 11
Northern Ireland – Operation Banner: Snapper, Wagtail And Groundhog
Operation BANNER – the operational code name given to British Forces deployed to Northern Ire- land – commenced on 14th August 1969 and end- ed on 31st July 2007. The 38 years of what became known as ‘the Troubles’ not only secured the re- cord for being the longest continuous active oper- ational commitment in the history of the British Army, its timing and special requirements con- tributed to the rejuvenation of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps.
It was against the backdrop of the demise of the British Empire and the rapid withdrawal from the colonies, post 1945, that the Corps found itself in serious jeopardy. However, as the developing unrest in Northern Ireland reached its peak in the late ‘60s, the Corps received a request to provide a specialism that could only be found in the unique capabilities of the dog. The launch of Op BANNER altered the dynamics of the conflict and confirmed the requirement for a revised Military Working Dog capability.
Background to Operation BANNER:
At one point, with 15000 troops under the command of the General Officer Commanding (GOC) Northern Ireland, Op BANNER was – second only to the Gulf War – the Army’s largest operational deployment in 50 years.
It was the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association marches of late 1968 and 1969 that prompted The Unionist Government to request the presence of British troops in the Province. The annual ‘marching season’ (lasting from April to August) often initiated civil unrest but in the late 1960s, as the situation intensified in Belfast and Londonderry, the Royal Ulster Constab- ulary (RUC) – then never exceeded more than 3500, and was being consistently exhausted by an unyielding pressure to maintain public order. It was this situation, of widespread inter-community disorder, that led directly to the involvement of the British Army in Northern Ireland affairs.
The GOC Northern Ireland assumed overall
responsibility for all security operations, including all those carried out by the RUC. By 1972, regular Army force levels rose to a peak with 26 major units and approximately 22,000 soldiers – not including the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR). Over almost four decades of the Troubles, 300,000 soldiers served in the Province at a cost of 722 killed in action and many thousands wounded and left with life-changing injuries – RAVC handlers and dogs included.
Army Dog Unit NI – in the beginning
Tuesday 1st April 1969: 1030 hrs Army Dog Training School, Melton Mowbray:
WO2 Alan Eames, the Chief Dog Trainer, summoned the presence of four RAVC dog trainers: Corporal Dave Langford, Lance Corporal Bryan Criddle, and Privates Phil Hobson and Terry McNeil and delivered the following orders: The men were to deliver guard dogs to an unnamed battalion at an unknown location. They had two hours to prepare for this deployment which, they were told, would last no longer than a few days...a week at most.
By 1230 hrs they were on their way, by truck, to the RAVC Tactical Dog Troop, Gallwey Road, Aldershot where they were joined by four other Corps personnel for a flight to Aldergrove military airport in Belfast. There, the group was met by members of the resident RAVC personnel who escorted them to their destinations end – the weekend training camp at Ballykinler, County Down. It was at this point, that the men discovered the real reason they were in Northern Ireland – they were told by The Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Yorkshire, Second in Command that they were on a six-month attachment to the Battalion.
This brand new RAVC operational commitment of four handlers and their dogs was the first to deploy ahead of the August launch of Op BANNER,1 so unsurprisingly, as the dog unit was a brand-new enterprise, the accommodation had
1 ‘The Formation of the ADU RAVC NI’ by Major P C Hobson BEM RAVC, Chiron Calling Winter 1998/1999.
169