Ballymurphy Massacre Inquest

[Barrie Stevens]

As I recall it the army was deployed to N Ireland in August 1969 as the civil administration could not cope and the RUC exhausted. The N Ireland army garrison was more or less a token presence. The Catholic people in Belfast were under threat from Protestants and the army was initially welcomed as it kept them apart.

The old or original IRA was unable to protect the Catholics in the North hence the comments above that it had become ineffectual although the then IRA leader Cathal Goulding did move some IRA units with arms to the border counties. There intention was to attack RUC positions.

At the time the IRA was held in such low regard the Catholics in Belfast asked for the loan of the revolvers used to fire over coffins in IRA funerals. 

As I recall the key elements of the army were on exercises in Germany and a force was pulled out of the field and dashed across to France where ferries were effectively taken over and the force drove up north to get the ferries to N Ireland. They were quite wound up by the time they got there.

It was the ineffectual nature of the old IRA that give rise to the Provisional IRA.

One of my enduring memories of Bloody Sunday is the ITN News at 10 newsreel footage of the Paras firing into civilians and their officers telling them to be sure of their targets and calling for them to stop firing wildly. Many continued to shoot and it was a while before the officers regained control.

Some soldiers were found to have fired more rounds than they were issued with which was normally 20. It was the practice for ammunition to be saved from the ranges and by way of creative accounting a small unofficial reserve was built up. This was approved at Battalion level.

The officer and NCO corps then came from a different time and place. The Commander Land Forces at the time and responsible for the massacre was General Robert Ford 1923-2015. He was commission into the Royal Armoured Corps 1943, served in Palestine and by 1968 commanded 7th Armoured Brigade.

Many people in Derry were suffering at the hands of the Derry Young Hooligans and Gen Ford was under pressure. On 7th January 1972 he wrote to his commander saying that the best thing would be to shoot the ringleaders after due warning. He later claimed not to recall this memo. Several teenage men were killed on Bloody Sunday.

Gen Ford left command in 1973 and held a series of very good army "non-jobs"..

In addition to all of this we now know that army volunteers were selected to form a squad murdering civilians to make it look like the IRA were doing it. The British did this in Dublin during the earlier troubles and the grandfather of that "Mrs Brown's Boys" show author/actor was killed in this way. It was on "Who do you think you are?

My neighbour was in the army in Belfast and the soldiers were aware of this hit squad.

So overall the early days of N Ireland may have come under the influence of officers whose policies were derived from WW2 and such as Kenya, Malaya and above all Aden because the "Jocks" took a terrible revenge on the Arabs when Col Mitchell commanded the Argylls in the Crater district. There was a lot of sniping by Jocks up on the high grand picking people off on the streets below. You can get very a authentic fly on the wall programme and footage on You tube.

The Aden emergency ran from 1963-1967 and you can see that a lot of what went on there was initially used in N Ireland by shock troops anyway. Most of the soldiers were other things like gunners, and tradesmen and logisticians plodding about like walking targets.. 

 

 

[dilligaf]

[Neil Down]

1 hour ago, Barrie Stevens said:

As I recall it the army was deployed to N Ireland in August 1969 as the civil administration could not cope and the RUC exhausted. The N Ireland army garrison was more or less a token presence. The Catholic people in Belfast were under threat from Protestants and the army was initially welcomed as it kept them apart.

The old or original IRA was unable to protect the Catholics in the North hence the comments above that it had become ineffectual although the then IRA leader Cathal Goulding did move some IRA units with arms to the border counties. There intention was to attack RUC positions.

At the time the IRA was held in such low regard the Catholics in Belfast asked for the loan of the revolvers used to fire over coffins in IRA funerals. 

As I recall the key elements of the army were on exercises in Germany and a force was pulled out of the field and dashed across to France where ferries were effectively taken over and the force drove up north to get the ferries to N Ireland. They were quite wound up by the time they got there.

It was the ineffectual nature of the old IRA that give rise to the Provisional IRA.

One of my enduring memories of Bloody Sunday is the ITN News at 10 newsreel footage of the Paras firing into civilians and their officers telling them to be sure of their targets and calling for them to stop firing wildly. Many continued to shoot and it was a while before the officers regained control.

Some soldiers were found to have fired more rounds than they were issued with which was normally 20. It was the practice for ammunition to be saved from the ranges and by way of creative accounting a small unofficial reserve was built up. This was approved at Battalion level.

The officer and NCO corps then came from a different time and place. The Commander Land Forces at the time and responsible for the massacre was General Robert Ford 1923-2015. He was commission into the Royal Armoured Corps 1943, served in Palestine and by 1968 commanded 7th Armoured Brigade.

Many people in Derry were suffering at the hands of the Derry Young Hooligans and Gen Ford was under pressure. On 7th January 1972 he wrote to his commander saying that the best thing would be to shoot the ringleaders after due warning. He later claimed not to recall this memo. Several teenage men were killed on Bloody Sunday.

Gen Ford left command in 1973 and held a series of very good army "non-jobs"..

In addition to all of this we now know that army volunteers were selected to form a squad murdering civilians to make it look like the IRA were doing it. The British did this in Dublin during the earlier troubles and the grandfather of that "Mrs Brown's Boys" show author/actor was killed in this way. It was on "Who do you think you are?

My neighbour was in the army in Belfast and the soldiers were aware of this hit squad.

So overall the early days of N Ireland may have come under the influence of officers whose policies were derived from WW2 and such as Kenya, Malaya and above all Aden because the "Jocks" took a terrible revenge on the Arabs when Col Mitchell commanded the Argylls in the Crater district. There was a lot of sniping by Jocks up on the high grand picking people off on the streets below. You can get very a authentic fly on the wall programme and footage on You tube.

The Aden emergency ran from 1963-1967 and you can see that a lot of what went on there was initially used in N Ireland by shock troops anyway. Most of the soldiers were other things like gunners, and tradesmen and logisticians plodding about like walking targets.. 

 

 

 

[dilligaf]

It is sad to see someone like Barrie, who obviously has a good brain and has achieved loads in his career, posting bullshit so often.

I mean, why would you ?

He is clever, yet still comes out with fantasy posts. 

[Barrie Stevens]

55 minutes ago, dilligaf said:

It is sad to see someone like Barrie, who obviously has a good brain and has achieved loads in his career, posting bullshit so often.

I mean, why would you ?

He is clever, yet still comes out with fantasy posts. 

All that I have posted may be confirmed by on line research if you try...It has all been said and reported...Back in the day late 1960s when N Ireland kicked off I was an Officer Cadet with the University of Sheffield OTC (Territorials) Somme Barracks, Glossop Road, Sheffield..

It was good playing at soldiers what with drills, weekend camps, weapons training, annual 15 days camp etc We got paid regular pay. good for students!..We were sent off to spend times with the regulars. I went to Catterick, Tidworth, Seaton Barracks Plymouth, Worthy Down, Larkhill, Kempston barracks Bedford, and some other god forsaken place in Lincolnshire.

Some of the lads were university entrant Second Lts who at times would go off to N Ireland with their regular units....Some others had Territorial commissions and were seconded for experience..(Not me!)

As a result I got to hear a lot about the early troubles in N Ireland...Our RSM was Mr Benson of the Royal Irish Rangers and whilst at the end of his career was asked to help form the Ulster Defence Regiment, Palace Barracks, Belfast. There was a lot of discussion about what was going on and of course I rubbed shoulders with regulars doing tours of duty.

I went on to do the Territorials for a few years more and we had talks and instructions academic mainly...Eventually I became a logistician with what was called the RTC (They then ran small ships)

I invite you take every salient feature of my post above and Google it..

In fact I did a quick check on it all myself just to make sure and General Ford was there on that day and he did have that background and Aden was a very nasty problem in its day. Google the footage.

I wrote a long archive about my time with Sheffield OTC and it is now in the National Army Museum, Chelsea, London. The curator said that so far I am the only to have written such memoirs....Not saying I would have ever made a real soldier. Maybe National Service like so many others as a temporary experience. 

Why do IOM people have such low horizons? 

[Neil Down]

3 hours ago, Barrie Stevens said:

All that I have posted may be confirmed by on line research if you try...It has all been said and reported...Back in the day late 1960s when N Ireland kicked off I was an Officer Cadet with the University of Sheffield OTC (Territorials) Somme Barracks, Glossop Road, Sheffield..

It was good playing at soldiers what with drills, weekend camps, weapons training, annual 15 days camp etc We got paid regular pay. good for students!..We were sent off to spend times with the regulars. I went to Catterick, Tidworth, Seaton Barracks Plymouth, Worthy Down, Larkhill, Kempston barracks Bedford, and some other god forsaken place in Lincolnshire.

Some of the lads were university entrant Second Lts who at times would go off to N Ireland with their regular units....Some others had Territorial commissions and were seconded for experience..(Not me!)

As a result I got to hear a lot about the early troubles in N Ireland...Our RSM was Mr Benson of the Royal Irish Rangers and whilst at the end of his career was asked to help form the Ulster Defence Regiment, Palace Barracks, Belfast. There was a lot of discussion about what was going on and of course I rubbed shoulders with regulars doing tours of duty.

I went on to do the Territorials for a few years more and we had talks and instructions academic mainly...Eventually I became a logistician with what was called the RTC (They then ran small ships)

I invite you take every salient feature of my post above and Google it..

In fact I did a quick check on it all myself just to make sure and General Ford was there on that day and he did have that background and Aden was a very nasty problem in its day. Google the footage.

I wrote a long archive about my time with Sheffield OTC and it is now in the National Army Museum, Chelsea, London. The curator said that so far I am the only to have written such memoirs....Not saying I would have ever made a real soldier. Maybe National Service like so many others as a temporary experience. 

Why do IOM people have such low horizons? 

 

[Barrie Stevens]

On ‎3‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 6:17 PM, dilligaf said:

https://www.rte.ie/news/2013/1121/488078-undercover-army-unit-shot-civilians-in-belfast/

[Barrie Stevens]

On ‎3‎/‎16‎/‎2019 at 6:17 PM, dilligaf said:

https://www.irishecho.com/2011/02/memo-british-army-planned-killings-of-derry-ringleaders/

[the stinking enigma]

The british are experts in counter revolutionary and counter counter revolutionary warfare. Probably revolutionary warfare too. It's akin to planing chess against oneself, you may sacrifice a few prawns, maybe the odd bishop, but ultimately you control who wins. 

[Non-Believer]

They didn't call it, "The Dirty War" for nothing.

[Barrie Stevens]

4 hours ago, Non-Believer said:

They didn't call it, "The Dirty War" for nothing.

Watch this listen to the "Jocks" and see where the seeds of Bloody Sunday were sown...The Aden trouble took place just a few years before and the older officer corps took their lead from the way the Argylls worked in the Crater district...It was on the news daily in the 1960s...

[Neil Down]

RTE, Irish Echo and the BBC, is that the best you can muster. You are so full of bluster it’s embarrassing 

[Barrie Stevens]

10 hours ago, Neil Down said:

RTE, Irish Echo and the BBC, is that the best you can muster. You are so full of bluster it’s embarrassing 

I was around in those days. As I said everything I say can be successfully researched. Now you tell me what happened. You tell me what you can remember. You tell me precisely where I am wrong in your own words. Tell us all what you recall from those days.

[Barrie Stevens]

On ‎3‎/‎19‎/‎2019 at 8:00 PM, Barrie Stevens said:

Watch this listen to the "Jocks" and see where the seeds of Bloody Sunday were sown...The Aden trouble took place just a few years before and the older officer corps took their lead from the way the Argylls worked in the Crater district...It was on the news daily in the 1960s...

Just remembered the Royal Anglian Regt came to our school and demonstrated a few Aden incidents on the playing fields. Lots of blanks, thunderflashes etc...Then we got to hold the rifles etc and try and pick up spent cartridges. It was all the rage at the time and was the basis of Bloody Sunday. Watch the above and see...

[Neil Down]

1 hour ago, Barrie Stevens said:

I was around in those days. As I said everything I say can be successfully researched. Now you tell me what happened. You tell me what you can remember. You tell me precisely where I am wrong in your own words. Tell us all what you recall from those days.

I served in N Ireland, you're still full of crap