FLASHBACKS — SOUTH ARMAGH 1973…

By Hermes History Editor Geoff Butler

[Editorial Foreword — Hermes does not necessarily endorse the views of its contributors but t does uphold the concept of editorial freedom, a component of the wider freedom defended in many places by the British Armed Forces against sundry fascists, gangsters, criminals and psychopaths from the jungles of Africa and Asia to the streets and fields of Northern Ireland who consider democracy an obstacle to their dark plans and ambitions.

Geoff Butler writes:

I was recently invited to a memorial service organised in Manchester Cathedral by the South-East Fermanagh Foundation (SEFF), a Northern Ireland-related survivors’ group whose members have all been victims of The Troubles in various ways. Some of them were wounded. Others lost husbands, wives, children and other family members. Some lost friends. SEFF helps them with physical and mental wounds, compensation claims and other problems.

SEFF holds a Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service. Membership is open to  veterans of the Ulster Defence Regiment and its Greenfinches , the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the Royal Military Police, the Northern Ireland Prison Service and civilians. The Foundation is active in Ulster and has a presence on the UK Mainland with representatives based around the Nottingham area, reflecting its hands-across-the-sea ethos. The Director of the group comes from Crossmaglen in South Armagh. Crossmaglen is a name that triggers bad memories for many people including me. 

During the weekend that I spent in Manchester with SEFF and some of its members, a lady came up to me and asked me if I had known Ron Vines. I was very taken aback. “Yes.”, I replied. “He was my boss and was with me when he was killed.”. She said: “I am a lancer’s wife and the widow of John Gibbons. Can you tell me what happened as I was in Germany at the time?”. It was a flashback moment for me. I had seen Ron die and her husband had died in my arms shortly afterwards. In my mind, I was back near Crossmaglen on May 5th 1973.

John Gibbons’ widow had been trying to find out more about her late husband’s death for fifty years. Nobody had told her the truth. She wanted to know if anyone was with him when he died. I told her the story that I recount below and we both burst into tears. I hope it has given her comfort and closure.

I spoke with other people that weekend about those they had lost, including the sister of a man said to have been shot dead by the Paras. She was three years old at the time. She was not bitter but just wanted to know more. As a former Justice of the Peace, I am keenly aware of the risks of talking about The Parachute Regiment in the context of Northern Ireland, especially in view of the Starmer government’s intention to repeal The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Act 2023.   

I could not tell this lady about her brother as I was still too young to serve in Northern Ireland and, in any case, 2 PARA was not involved in the incident during which her brother had been killed. However, I was able to tell her that she should not believe all she heard, that we were not the thugs and savages the Provisional IRA (PIRA) and Sinn Féin made us out to be. Although we were highly trained and disciplined, most of us were just young working-class lads. As recalled in Hermes‘ article on the 1972 Aldershot bombing, the Official IRA had declared British service personnel off-limits as targets for this reason. 

The PIRA was formed by those who wanted out-and-out war with London, which had sent the British Army into Ulster in 1969 to protect Catholics from Loyalist violence.  There was a time until relatively recently when this Catholic lady would have been tarred and feathered or severely beaten up for coming up and talking to me. She might even have been murdered and her body made to vanish like those of the PIRA’s other ‘disappeared’. 

All the same, it took me by surprise that she would talk to a Para. This is the way forward towards healing and closure and I fully support SEFF in what they are doing. It is surely better than dragging elderly British Army veterans in front of courts run by PIRA/Sinn Féin sympathisers who have obtained power in the Northern Ireland judiciary, exchanging their guns and electric drills for wigs and gowns. 

Memories of 1973 and Bandit Country…

The build-up to 2 PARA going to South Armagh in 1973 had seen the Battalion deployed in Northern Ireland first in 1971 and 1972, including three tours in Belfast. When 1 PARA left in June 1972, a riot happened as the culprits thought ‘no Paras here now’. Another non-Para unit was told this and when they threatened to call the Paras in, the culprits said: “no Paras are here.”. However, 2 PARA were still in Ulster, finishing off a tour. We got sent in and they ran away upon seeing us. Shortly after this our tour ended.

After that four-month tour in 1972, followed by two weeks’ leave, we came back to Aldershot and were nominated as Spearhead Battalion. The Belfast bombings remembered as Bloody Friday were perpetrated after 2 PARA left the province and went on leave. Once back in Aldershot as Spearhead Battalion, 2 PARA was immediately ordered back to Northern Ireland as part of Operation Motorman.

We were rushed off down to Portland Harbour by Weymouth while HMS Intrepid was steaming at full speed from the Isle of Man to pick the Battalion up. HMS Intrepid was one of the Royal Navy’s two amphibious warfare ships, popularly known as ‘commando ships’. Her sister ship, HMS Fearless, was familiar to generations of youthful modellers as an Airfix kit. Ten years later, the Argentines would sign their surrender on HMS Intrepid’s deck in Port Stanley harbour. 

We went ashore and smashed the barricades down in the Ballymurphy, Turf Lodge and Whiterock areas of Belfast. When heavy patrolling denied the Provisional IRA (PIRA) the ground and stopped their killing and torture of their own people, they fled. We remained on tour in Ulster for another couple of months and then we had our Christmas leave.  When we got back from leave on January 2^nd 1973, we were sent on jungle training in Malaya for six weeks. On our return from Malaya, we were told we were going back to Northern Ireland again. The Battalion was now very short of personnel, many guys having left as morale was not good.

Some were older men who had given long service and did not renew their engagements.  The CO had to ask all the guys what they wanted to do in the Battalion and what company they wanted to be in to try and balance the numbers throughout the Battalion. I put in for the Anti-Tank Platoon — Support Company — but was told I was going to C Company or Patrol Company, the elite of the Battalion. I certainly was not expecting that but being ex-Junior Parachute Company, I was signals and medic-trained. I had also survived the Aldershot and Donegall Street bombings in 1972. So I was being posted to Patrol Coy whether I liked it or not because I was classed as experienced by the officers. 

2 PARA filled the gaps in its ranks with a few recruit intakes. We then found out that Patrol Coy was going to South Armagh and would be based in Crossmaglen Police Station for four months. I was very much learning Patrol Company extra skills on the job as we had no time to train. We would be surrounded by 13,859 Ulster Catholics — some of whom were PIRA — and 817 Ulster Protestants who felt threatened by the Provisional IRA and their sympathisers. 

The Protestants loved us and were relieved that we could protect them as a minority. The area was notorious for bomb ambushes, snipers,  booby traps, people being shot and left on the side of the road or just going missing. Many are still missing today. We had to protect the Royal Ulster Constabulary or RUC as they went about their normal duties. We learnt that the only safe way in and out of our base was across the fields or by helicopter.

Stay off the roads and trust no one. Be careful where you cross the fields. Do not use gates as they may be booby-trapped. The terrain consisted of open, hilly, boggy fields with dry stone walls and hedgerows that made it easy for the enemy to observe us. There was little cover if we came under fire. The weather was very wet. In Belfast, we knew when an attack was coming because the streets went quiet. Here, we had to presume that an attack was imminent all the time, especially as the PIRA had spotters everywhere reporting our movements to them.

Arriving in Crossmaglen, which we knew as XMG, the first thing we saw was a hole in the wall of our home in the Police Station made by an RPG 7 rocket fired by the local PIRA. ‘Home’ was a Portakabin with thirty-two of us in bunk beds. We learned that we would not be served in local shops. Our food would be brought in by helicopter and we would be a target for PIRA snipers firing from across the border when we went to unload it. 

We did town patrols, constantly wary of any parked vehicles and booby-trapped bikes. Some of the lampposts did not work because their time clocks had been stolen to make bomb timers. Then we did guard duties for a couple of days while the Machine Gun Platoon patrolled the countryside. We were on standby to back them up if necessary. Then our roles reversed and we went out on patrol, setting up rolling road blocks as a deterrent or hiding up in hedgerows watching known PIRA areas of activity or known PIRA members. 

Shortly after arriving, we heard that two members of Support Company’s Anti-Tank Platoon had been killed in the Newtonhamilton area on April 7^th 1973 when a bomb detonated in front of their Land Rover. Cpl Steven Harrison RIP and L/Cpl Terence Brown RIP were 2 PARA’s first casualties. A PIRA terrorist was arrested and convicted but his conviction was quashed on appeal. He was later killed during a PIRA attack on the British Army. 

The Battalion area covered Newtonhamilton, Newry, Bessbrook, Forkhill and Crossmaglen. We had the border zone and it was easy to stray over onto the wrong side as the line zigzagged. Often, we would see the Irish Army or the Gardai watching our every move. On one occasion, the chopper put us down on the wrong side of the border and I had to call on the radio to get the pilot to come back by which time Irish soldiers and police had arrived. All was well. The Irish forces accepted that it was a genuine mistake. Spike Milligan had a theory that the Irish border was drawn on a map in a pub where they were all pissed and could not draw a straight line. I think he was right.

Our area was quiet for the first couple of weeks and then we were tasked with investigating a suspected milk churn bomb on a border road. We all knew this was an IRA ambush we were going into. We can call it ‘The Milk Churn Ambush’. Our Patrol Commander was Colour Sergeant Sid Taylor. I was his radio operator on this patrol.

Patrol Company had its own way of doing things. We had about thirty-two men  The numbers varied depending on guys on leave or sick.  We worked in 2 x 16-men troops. Sometimes split into 8-men troops. In open countryside, we never patrolled on the roads but in the fields on either side of the road. This was because of the constant risk of bombs and booby traps as well as sniper fire. 

In the centre, just inside the fields, sometimes to the right of the road, would be the main patrol commander, his radio operator — myself on this tour — and the patrol medic. The patrol second-in-command or 2ic would be inside the fields with his radio operator on the other side of the road. In other words, on the left if the patrol commander was on the right. The rest of the guys were spread out from the centre across the fields in an extended line with their own commanders and signallers. There would be a GPMG gunner on each flank. 

A major enemy on Observation Post or OP duty were the cows. When the farmers let them out, these cows would find our well-hidden positions, hold an O group next to us and give us away to the PIRA, who had their own OPs. Even the cows were Republicans, it seemed. OP duty was boring; most of the time, we could not move about. 

For town patrols in XMG and other urban zones, we just sent out small patrols who moved through the streets and built-up areas as per Standing Orders Procedures or SOPs in Belfast and other urban environments. We also did road blocks or VCPs as Vehicle Checkpoints were known. We would sometimes land by helicopter, stop a few cars and trucks and then move to another location and repeat the exercise as a deterrent. We sometimes had the RUC with us.

The journalist presenting this Irish television news report from Crossmaglen in 1973 wrongly stated that the Paras featured in the report were from 3 PARA. They are, in fact, from Patrol Company, 2 PARA. C/Sgt Sid Taylor is shown checking underneath a car and talking to a car driver the patrol has stopped. This report was filmed before the Moybane Road Ambush. 

In later years, PIRA graduated to attacking helicopters and succeeded in shooting a few down. After Patrol Coy had left XMG, a petrol tanker pulled up in front of the police station, sprayed petrol over the front of the main building and set it alight. When we left the police station on foot patrol, we ran out zig zagging into the market square. XMG was a bomber and sniper alley. When we returned, we ran back in zig-zagging. We were sitting ducks .

However, we got the drop on the PIRA on the morning of The Milk Churn Ambush. As I already wrote, our patrol was commanded by C/Sgt Sid Taylor and I was his signaller or radio operator. We moved through the fields in extended line formation until we found some wires, which led across the field towards the high ground. We cocked our weapons and followed the wires. We expected contact at any time, and a gun battle, but all was quiet. 

The PIRA were clearly expecting us to approach from the direction of XMG but we had come in from the other direction. Once the terrorists realised that we had rumbled their ambush and were moving towards their detonating point, they ran away. The wires went under a gate, which was probably booby-trapped so we knew not to use it. We got over the dry-stone wall further down. We reached the other side and spread out. 

Sid Taylor spotted the wires going into a battery box with a push button on it in the middle of the field. We walked up to it and stopped a few yards short. I put out a sitrep — situation report — to other patrols on the radio. Sid crawled closer until he was an arm’s length from the box. We were all lying prone twenty yards apart. 

Sid pushed the box with the muzzle of his SLR. There was a bang. We were all covered in mud and cow shit. Sid’s rifle had been blown into the air, come back down and landed inches from his body, its barrel stuck into the ground. The flash eliminator had broken off and was on the ground nearby.

A message came through on the radio from the ATO (Ammunition Technical Officer) telling us not to move because we were in a booby trap field and that he would come and clear it. The radio call sign for ATOs or Bomb Disposal Officers was ‘Felix’ after Felix the Cat because these bomb disposal men were seen as having nine lives. Some of them may have had ninety-nine lives.

There was a farmer ploughing a nearby field whom we suspected of being a dicker [‘Dicker’ is slang for observer or watcher, used by British soldiers and criminals and based on the Romany verb ‘dik’, which means to keep watch — Editor] for the bombers, in place to tell them when to set off the bomb. He was away off down the road quickly after Sid set off the booby-trapped detonator. Sid Taylor’s SLR was later displayed in the Aldershot Airborne Forces Museum complete with its blown-off flash hider.

The day was not finished. Working around us, the Felix carried out controlled explosions of the milk churns and a gas-welding bottle. The bottom piece, which had been blown up in the first explosion when Sid Taylor had prodded the battery box with his rifle, had landed beside us. As the photograph shows, it still contained some explosive. There was a main ring of explosive devices twenty yards apart so the PIRA had worked our patrol and all-round defensive positions out. 

No local people — the farmer aside — were seen there that day. They were either warned off by the PIRA or ran away when the ambush was rumbled by our patrol. Luck was on our side. We had foiled the ambush. We were supposed to be hit by the milk churn bomb first. Then, on follow up, the other charges would have gone off and killed the entire patrol. The reports by the Intelligence people and the Felix said that three of the eight charges went off. The photographs show the milk churns and the remains of the gas-welding bottle, which nearly took us out in the first, non-controlled, explosion. Nobody was ever prosecuted for this attack on us. 

John Ap Iwan, who was with 2 PARA’s Intelligence Section, told me recently that this incident began with a lorry driver appearing at the XMG Police Station gate and reporting that his lorry had been hijacked by armed men on a ninety-degree bend in the road near an unapproved border crossing. The terrorists had placed a package in the cab and left the lorry in such a position that it blocked the road.

As the lorry was not affecting traffic because it was on an unapproved road, it was decided to leave it where it was. Over the next few days, helicopters carried out a number of sorties, photographing the terrain around the lorry using infrared and black and white equipment. The purpose of the infrared photography was to detect any dead vegetation in the area that might indicate the planting of any explosive devices. Nothing was found. Nothing was noted using the black and white photography either. 

A helicopter was then sent over the area using a McGregor Set to try to set off any radio-controlled explosive devices. Thirty radio control sets for model aircraft had been purchased in Reading before 2 PARA’s arrival and two of them had been fitted to PIRA bombs so far. Regarding our patrol that day, it had been noted that radio-controlled devices were just starting to be a threat. Ron had with him a McGregor Set which detected these devices and  could set them off. Ron had used it just before he was killed. This was the first time we had used one and no bombs had gone off. 

The wires had been buried by the terrorists a long time earlier. They were professionally hidden and could not be seen until after the bomb had gone off. The grass grew back over it. Despite the surveillance equipment fitted to the helicopters, the wires could not be detected by these means. It required boots on the ground in the shape of Army patrols and bomb disposal specialists, which in turn exposed soldiers to considerable risk.  

The devices used in the Milk Churn Ambush and the Moybane Road Ambush, in which Ron Vines and the two 17th/21st Lancers lads were killed, were laid out in the same pattern, with main ring charges and booby traps well-prepared long in advance. In the first case, the wires were visible on the field’s surface. In the other case, the wires were buried.

The PIRA had planted the milk churn bomb filled with ‘Co-Op Mix’ and a detonator about a year before. As I have written, they had left new vegetation to grow over it so that infrared photography would not detect the position of the bomb. However, the terrorists failed to take into account that, with the passage of time, the ‘Co-op mix’ explosive would settle lower into the churn and the detonator would then not be actually in the mix itself. When the charge was initiated the detonator went off but not the main charge. Why only three of the horseshoe charges went off, I do not know. Obviously, though, it demonstrated long-term PIRA planning abilities and a knowledge of the tools available to the Special Forces. 

We reached a point where we would ask the farmers or farm workers if milk churns belonged to them or their employers. No matter what they answered, we would ask them, politely, to move the churns. When they refused or looked scared, it was likely that they had been warned by the local PIRA that one of more of the churns had been converted into an anti-personnel bomb. Either that or they were as cautious as we were. The PIRA did not place much value on human lives apart from their own. Of course, some of them were PIRA themselves,

The previous year in June 1972, near XMG, the PIRA had set up a bomb estimated at 100lbs to 150lbs linked to four Claymore-type anti-personnel grenades fitted with anti-handling devices. Detonation wires were found leading across the border into the Irish Republic. The bomb and one of the ‘Claymores’ had exploded without causing any British military casualties. Presumably, the PIRA had learned from this and improved the layout the following year, when 2 PARA moved into the area. 

Another incident involved a British Army radio battery found in a field. Major Peter ‘Mary’ Morton carried it back to base and left it in his room, thinking that it had been dropped by a patrol. The ever-vigilant Felix asked him about it. When Major Morton explained, the Felix yelled: “Everyone out! It’s a new kind of booby trap!”. He then blew the battery up in a controlled explosion. Peter Morton was lucky as he had been in a helicopter with it. Major Morton, who told me this story himself a few years ago, was our OC at XMG.

This was PIRA Standard Operating Procedure at the time. In Whiterock in 1972, an army torch handed in by a member of the public to a B Company patrol was opened by Jim ‘Banzai’ Burton and  Bill Tindall. The two batteries had been replaced by plastic explosive with a detonator powered by a small battery. 

Our luck runs out…

All went quiet again until May 5th 1973. We had been patrolling the Moybane Road the previous day. WO2 William Vines was Patrol Commander that day. The Company Sergeant Major was known to us all as Ron. We had come in on May 4th 1973 and were planning to rest and watch the FA Cup Final the following day: May 5th. I was due to go on leave that day and the helicopter would be coming for me late in the afternoon. Around 0700 hours on Saturday morning, May 5th 1973, Ron came in and said: “We have all got to go out. We have a bomb on the Moybane Road.”. Then he said to me: “I need you as my radio operator. I know you are going on leave but I will get you back for your flight.”. Off we went. 

The patrol routine was the same as previously described. Ron and I were in the fields on the left-hand-side of the Moybane Road with Stuart ‘Baggy’ Bagot, the medic. The patrol 2ic Sid Taylor was on the righthand side with his radio operator, Mickey Jones. At one point, Ron stopped and, pointing towards the embankment at the foot of the hedgerow, asked me if I had seen the disturbed earth when we out on patrol the other day. I replied that I had not seen it. 

Ron told me to tell the patrol flankers to move forward checking for wires. After a short time the flankers stated no wires found. Ron said that he would check it before we moved on. He got up and moved towards the disturbed earth. I remained on one knee, ready, about twenty yards away.

There was a violent explosion. Ron died instantly. He was blown about thirty feet in the air. I will not go into graphic detail. It is enough to say that nothing could be done for him. Sid Taylor was staggering about on the road, confused and going into deep shock. Mickey Jones had been wounded by falling debris, probably a rock. I grabbed Sid and put him in the bomb crater in case we came under enemy fire. We had cover in the crater. Baggy ran over and sat with me treating Sid.

I sent a sitrep to All Stations requesting the Felix, a search team and the doctor. Shortly afterwards, flankers reported that they had found wires in a field on the other wide of a stone wall running parallel to the road on our side. These wires went into a stone wall at a gap in the hedgerow. The flankers then reported that the PIRA detonation point had been found.

The bomb disposal team arrived with an escort from the 17th/21st Lancers. I briefed the bomb search team and went off with the Felix to show him where the wires in the wall and the PIRA detonation point were. The Felix asked me to come with him because my radio was tuned to the right frequency. He told me to put out a warning that nobody was to touch the wires or go near the wall, which I did. 

Accompanied by the 17th/21st Lancers officer, the Felix and I then crossed into the field further down and moved back up to the wires. The Felix put a rope around the wires and pulled them up from a safe distance. Satisfied that it was OK, we followed the wires and found that they went through a boggy area towards the bomb crater. 

There was another explosion followed by Baggy screaming to me by name for help. I ran over to him and saw the two 17th/21st lads lying motionless by the gap in the hedgerow. They had set the booby trap in the wall there off. Baggy and I both worked on the lancers, trying to save them. Lancer John Gibbons was still alive but died in our arms. There was nothing to be done for Corporal Terence Williams although Baggy had tried his best. 

As I sat waiting for the Doctor and the CO, I noticed a black van parked by a property near the ambush site. I watched as two men came out. They were looking around and appeared nervous. They were acting suspiciously. Something did not sit right with me. They got into the van and drove off. I used my initiative and radioed for a patrol to stop the van. 

The suspect van was seen to enter a farm just up the road and I said to find out who the occupants were. It was decided to send the other lancers to help our lads with the two suspects at the farm but the 17th/21st Lancers officer was very upset and in shock. I told him that his men were looking to him for leadership but he burst into tears. However, he got a grip and took his men to the farm to help our patrol there with the black van and its two suspicious-looking occupants. Why the two lancers pulled on the wires I do not know. Perhaps they had seen the Felix pulling on the wires and thought they were helping. It was a very tragic end for Terence Williams and John Gibbons.

Shortly afterwards, the CO — Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Howlett OBE — arrived by helicopter. He told me to go home and rest. I went back to XMG and waited for the helicopter taking me on leave later that day. I played no further part in the incident. When my father picked me up from Heathrow Airport, he said he had seen a news report that some of my mates were killed by a bomb in Crossmaglen.

I dared not tell him that I had been there as my mum would have had another mental breakdown. Mum  had worried so much after the Aldershot bombing and the Donegall Street carnage had been rough on her too. My partner was a Belfast girl I had met the previous year. She had moved to England to be with me, When I told her about the milk churn bombs in XMG, she had a miscarriage. I was given an extra week’s leave to comfort her.

I duly returned to XMG after that leave only to find that one of our Patrol Company sergeants, John Wallace — Ian to us — had been killed by a remote-controlled bomb in a house in Cullaville on May 24th 1973 with Royal Engineers bomb searcher WO2 Ian Donald of the Royal Engineers. This was the first radio-detonated bomb set off by the  PIRA. Ian Wallace died in Baggy’s arms as Baggy was trying to save him. The coroner described their deaths as “cowardly and brutal murder.”.

The PIRA terrorist known to have assembled and placed the bomb that killed Ron Vines, Terence Williams and John Gibbons on the Moybane Road near XMG that day was Thomas McMahon. A few years later, in August 1979, McMahon would murder Lord Louis Mountbatten, Doreen Knatchbull, 83, and two young teenaged boys, Nicholas Knatchbull, 14, and Paul Maxwell, 15, by blowing then up on Lord Mountbatten’s boat in the Irish Republic. Paul Maxwell was from a local family.

Although convicted and jailed, McMahon was freed under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. McMahon claims to have left the IRA in 1990 but certainly remained a Sinn Féin activist, helping with Martin McGuinness’ presidential campaign in 2011 and a Sinn Féin European election campaign in 2014. McMahon has refused several times to meet Paul Maxwell’s father but McMahon’s wife has described her husband as having “genuine remorse” about killing the two boys. 

We all carried on to the end of that tour with all the symptoms of what is recognised as Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or PTSD and no counselling. We did our jobs. Nobody asked if we were okay. We would have replied yes anyway because we did not want to be branded as wimps or lose our jobs and we couldn’t get another job with a mental health condition. We didn’t even know what PTSD was in those days. But it affected our performance and our behaviour sometimes. That much is certain. We had other incidents before we went home but no further casualties. A person shot dead by the PIRA and dumped in a road… A 600 lbs bomb in a culvert… These and other things come to mind. All dealt with okay.

I met Stuart Bagot by chance in Blackpool in 1992.  Baggy told me that he had PTSD and explained it to me as I had never heard of it. I had had the symptoms for years. Baggy got me help as I had it too. I can never thank him enough. We often talked about our Patrol Company days. Baggy died in 2015. Sid Taylor and other Patrol Company members who were on that 1973 tour have also died and, of course, others have died in other conflicts.

I shall round this off with an amusing story about Stuart ‘Baggy’ Bagot to cheer us all up. It begins with a surprise farm search early one morning when we swooped down on the target by helicopter. We got out, ran and jumped over the wall into the farmyard. We all landed in the farmyard okay except Baggy.

Baggy went over the wall further down and went headfirst into a manure pile, losing his weapon in the shit. He was rummaging  around in the dung heap for a while before he found it. He had completed a 360° somersault, having tripped on the top of the wall. He was covered in cow and pig shit and the flies were gathering in clouds around his head. He hosed himself down in the farmyard whilst we searched the farm. 

Baggy had my Bergen and radio. The boss came back with the farmer and asked Baggy what he was up to. “Nothing, sir!”, replied Baggy. He was told to open the Bergen and to our surprise, there was a live chicken in it. Baggy said to the chicken: “I told you not to get in that Bergen!”. The boss told him to give the chicken back. 

After the search, we all stayed upwind of Baggy as we moved away from the farm on a forty-eight-hour patrol. He went up front on point or  at the rear as Tail End Charlie depending on the wind and our direction of march. He stank and the flies were following him! When we bashered up that night, the boss asked what was for scoff. “Well,”, said Baggy, “We were going to have chicken but you told me to let it go.”.

Baggy was a character and well-loved by everybody. This article is in part a tribute to Stuart Bagot of 2 PARA and his service as a combat medic during those Provisional IRA ambushes. One of the photographs shows us on patrol together a few days before those tragic events.

On our return to the UK, we were assigned to Public Duties and accorded the honour of guarding Buckingham Palace, St James’ Palace and The Tower of London. I carried the lantern on the Keys Ceremony on two occasions and during the Changing of The Guard. We went back to our NATO role and actually did some parachuting in Turkey, Norway and West Germany, including the disastrous Kiel Canal jump, about which I have  also written.

Afterthoughts…

Anyone interested in South Armagh during The Troubles should obtain and read the latest edition of Toby Harnden’s exceptionally good book Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh. Harnden has just updated the book — originally published in 2000 — with lots of information that was not available to him in the late 1990s when he originally researched and wrote it. Harnden’s book has prompted the reinvestigation of a number of IRA killings although Britain’s new Labour government seems more interested in prosecuting British Army veterans than bringing to justice the equally elderly terrorists they were sent against. 

If you search for the Moybane Road on any maps, printed or  virtual, you shall not find it. We referred to it as such because it was the road that ran through the Moybane area to the south of XMG and Creggan, adjoining the border. We used Ordnance Survey maps as street signs were often changed around by the locals to confuse the Army and to delay the arrival any backup when we came under fire. 

I also heard that a local farmer had found Ron Vines’ wedding ring after the Moybane Road Ambush and handed it in at XMG police station. I would like to think that is true but if so, the farmer was  taking a considerable risk. He might have been severely beaten up or even knee-capped by the PIRA as punishment. 

Ron’s new wife, who was an Ulster girl, had arrived in Aldershot that day but could not move into the married quarters reserved for the couple. She was told that they would not need the quarters as WO2 Vines had just been killed. This level of breath-taking insensitivity on the parts of the Army and the MoD was quite familiar to us. We had seen similar treatment of the families of those killed in the Aldershot  bombing. 

Geoff Butler

Hermes History Editor

Parachute Regiment Association

18th December 2024

Geoff Butler and Hermes wish to thank John Ap Iwan for his help with researching the events described in this article. John served, amongst other posts, with 2 PARA’s Intelligence Section at the time of the Battalion’s 1973 Northern Ireland tour.

We would also like to thank Gerald Bell — who served with the Royal Air Force — of the UK & Commonwealth Forces Memorial Group who prepared the memorial cards reproduced below and very kindly let us use them.