Page 191 - The History of the Royal Army Veterinary Corps 1962–2021

THE HISTORY OF THE ROYAL ARMY VETERINARY CORPS 1962 – 2021
resulting in the discovery of 613 weapons, more than 73,000 rounds of ammunition and 21,000 kilos of explosives. In addition, they uncovered 500 items of vital bomb-making equipment and led to the arrest of 248 people.31
Some of the finds, inevitably, were not all they seemed to be as AES dog, ‘Ebor’ discovered (on 19th March 1980) when, alongside his handler, Corporal Cusack of 5 UDR, he indicated on what looked very much like a barrel bomb. Fearing the worst and risking a closer examination, the barrel turned out to be an illegal still! The official report concluded, with the wry comment: ‘O, Bacchus where art thou’. With the humour came the absolute relief that they had survived yet another potentially dangerous situation. There could only ever be one of two conclusions in situations like that: failure or success and on that occasion the combined skills of Ebor and Cusack made all the difference.
In clear support of all dog and handler partner- ships, a WO2 from the Search Cell – 3 Royal Anglian at Fort George – outlined in a letter to all Units in his TAOR (Tactical Area of Responsibility): “...that advice given by dog handlers during search operations had been ignored.” He went on to say that “the majority of handlers serving in the Province have a wealth of search related experience because they have served all over NI, seeing many different trends. They see how what is successful today in South Armagh could be successful in Londonderry tomorrow. The dog handler is a specialist. His attitude towards search, and search awareness, is normally driven by his desire to ensure that both he and his dog stay alive during Operations and a strong will to deprive the terrorist of his ammunition, arms, and explosives. Regardless of how many Operational tours we (the Infantry) have done, we should not assume that we hold the monopoly on knowledge and any advice should be welcomed and evaluated prior to making a command decision. In our present Operational environment ignorance is not bliss, it is a crime”.
Talking Numbers and Peace
The one factor that made the greatest difference to the number of Military Working Dogs in NI was the signing of the Good Friday Agreement on 10th April 1998. Until then, the numbers had remained relatively constant through the hostilities. Also known as the Belfast Agreement, the document was at the core of a peace process which had three central issues: paramilitary disarmament,
policing reform and devolution. To the wider world, these terms heralded an ‘official’ end to the Troubles. What followed, to contrast the years of violence, was a period of ‘normalisation’ which was gradually introduced to NI society. For the military, the change involved scaling down the presence of soldiers on the streets in the Province and replacing protection helmets with berets in order to conduct a ‘hearts and minds’ exercise in communities where the British Army had become so reviled. This new approach affected the role of the dogs and handlers alongside every man and women in uniform.
However, as the ‘normalisation’ process began to take hold with its promise of peace, at 15.10pm on Saturday 15th August 1998, a car bomb was detonated in the busy market town of Omagh. The horrific explosion killed twenty-nine people, including a pregnant woman expecting twins, and injured more than two hundred more civilians. It was the largest loss of life in a single incident during the Troubles. The Real IRA (RIRA) took responsibility at the time but later denied it. No one has ever been convicted of the murders.
The reaction of outrage towards the bombing which targeted local people just going about their normal daily life reflected that an overriding majority in the NI community were growing weary of violence. In that uneasy territory, the notion of peace started to be embraced as an achievable reality. The far-reaching implications of this saw troops withdrawn and tasking levels plunge. Throughout the Troubles the pull on the RAVC’s dog supply had forced sharing between a number of expeditionary Operations in which the Corps was active at the time including Gulf War 1 (August 1990 to March 1991), but now the ADU had entered a weird twilight zone. While there was a need to react to the request to wind-down; the mixed messages on the streets still supported the existence of a clear and present danger. And where there was danger – there had to be dogs.
By the spring of 2003, there were one hundred and seventy dogs: by 2005 there were one hundred and fifty-one. All through 2004-2005 the tasking for dogs was split: 60% were force protection associated – searching vehicles at Permanent Vehicle Check points or mortar base plate checks, near the perimeters of security force bases. In the twelve-months from January 2005-January 2006 an average of 320 tasks were carried out every month. However, by August 2006, the Unit in NI underwent a review resulting in a reduction in numbers to only thirty-five deployable personnel
31 Soldier Magazine article October 1996.
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