40s and 50s Memories
to separate the two communities. Now forces
from a number of countries were sent in as
United Nations replacements for the British.
I took over as Camp Commandant of the UN
Headquarters, situated on a disused part of
Nicosia Airport. I was commanding officer of all
British soldiers at the UN Headquarters, plus an
Army Air Corps troop and a REME workshop.
A few of the individual replacements were
used by units as an opportunity to get rid of
'bad hats'! So there was the odd court martial
or two. However, most of the lads were good
soldiers. In off duty time at weekends I was able
to organise trips around the island.
As UN Forces we could travel anywhere on
the island as long as we were in uniform and
wearing UN blue berets. I went to the Cyprus
race course once and saw there the infamous
assassin, Nichos Sampson. He had escaped
execution by the British authorities on some
technicality. I was wearing UN uniform but he
knew I was a Brit and I knew who he was. We
just 'eye balled' each other!
After Cyprus I completed a course for Military
Intelligence Officers, designed for those going
to act as links between the army and the police.
I was due to go to Basutoland. Unfortunately,
I had a heart attack caused by TB. This took
a long time to sort out. When I was eventually
discharged from hospital a medical board
down-graded me and advised me to retire on
medical grounds, saying there was no future for
me in the army. However, I decided to 'wait and
see', as the long departed Prime Minister, Mr
Asquith would say, or so I was told by my late
mother-in-law!
I spent some time at HQ Southern Command
at Wilton before going back to 17th Training
Regiment RA at Oswestry, as HQ Battery
Commander. A very busy six months followed
as the regiment was preparing to move to
Woolwich. In the summer of 1968 there was
a final Pass Out Parade of recruits. The next
day the Regiment moved out of Park Hall camp
and drove, in convoy down to Woolwich. A
more spectacular journey was carried out by
a subaltern and a troop of potential officers.
They sailed and paddled some half dozen small
dinghies, by way of locks, canals and rivers,
from Oswestry to Woolwich. A large photograph of them sailing in the Thames appeared in The
Daily Telegraph.
In 1968, the Second in Command of the regiment
decided to take one of the army redundancy
schemes and retire. The Commanding Officer
asked if I would like the appointment and
I accepted it with much enthusiasm. Then
followed a very rewarding two years running
the Royal Artillery recruit training. This covered
foot drill, small arms training including weapon
firing, gunnery training and firing on Salisbury
Plain artillery range, field craft training, Physical
Training and education.
In 1971 I joined the Army Public Information,
the link between the army and the news media.
After a short introduction to the work I went to
Northern Ireland. I was there when the first British
soldier was killed in Belfast. I was attached to
the Brigade Headquarters at Lisburn, nine
miles west of Belfast. I went into the area of
the killing and met the Northern Ireland Times
corresponent who happened to be on the spot
when an agitated crowd opened up and allowed
a gunman to open fire and kill a soldier, who was
part of a cordon holding back the rioters. The
crowd immediately disappeared. Thus began a
steady deterioration of the security situation in
Northern Ireland.
One night I called into the Brigade Operations
Room as I usually did. There was just the duty
watch officer there. Then a call came through
from the RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary)
saying three bodies of young men in civilian
clothes had been found in a ditch in country
north west of Belfast. It was confirmed that
they had short haircuts, so it seemed they were
off duty British soldiers. I told the duty officer I
would drive out to the scene of the murders and
departed. I arrived at the place and found the
police had cordoned off the area concerned.
Spotlights illuminated the crime scene. It was
indeed the grimmest of sights. The three bodies
of the soldiers had been thrown into the ditch,
one on top of the other. The top body showed
that the young man had been shot in the head
at point blank range. Broken glass in the ditch
suggested that the assassins had tricked
the young soldiers into going for a drink with
them. After drinking it would seem the soldiers
were overpowered, driven into the country and
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