Long, Long War by Ken Wharton

Author:Ken Wharton [Wharton, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Helion
Published: 2008-05-15T23:00:00+00:00

BELLEEK: 1979

Mick O'Day, HQ 3 Infantry Brigade

Belleek is very close to the border and a lot of shit went on, down there. On one particular occasion, a Republican march was being organised by Sinn Fein and as ever, we knew that PIRA would be around so we'd be watching.

[The IRA were past masters at laying just over the border on the Republic side, sniping at SF targets and remote detonating explosive devices which they had planted on the Northern side.]

We drove into the RUC station there on a photographic op to see which players we could spot and we found two Special Branch (SB) from the RUC in attendance who took command of the op. No planning, no preparation, no discussion, the four of us in my car just drove out of the gates and a the few metres from the station to the ‘T’ junction then sat with our stills and video kit waiting. My mucker and I just looked at each other in disbelief, we both thought that the entire thing was a fiasco so far – anyone who might be interested – had seen us drive out of the fortified RUC compound, down the road and then stop! Who were we trying to fool? We were sitting ducks.

As the march got near us, as expected, all sorts of bricks and bottles and shit came raining down on the car; the video man got a great movie of a man hurling a brick and the brick arcing through the air and crashing through the rear windscreen! Of course, we immediately drove back to the RUC station fortunately only a few seconds drive away; the mob knew exactly who we were; it was so amateurish. Lucky for us, they were only chucking bricks and bottles.

So there we were, sitting in the compound, car wrecked and the licence plate now known to the IRA – for all the jokes about the Irish, their intelligence was spot on – and we were in trouble. We put in a request for air-evacuation to Portadown but we were refused. Fortunately for us, the IRA are not always that quick to react – they put a lot of effort into making sure they could strike, then run away to safety (IRA … I Ran Away) so they planned their ops thoroughly to reduce the risks. So we set off, half expecting the worst, tails between our legs in a battered, windowless car which had just been pelted by a mob because it had been sitting by the roadside, with four guys in it, two of whom were waving big lenses around and pointing them at the marchers. No mistaking who we were; this op had broken all the rules.

We were armed of course but not heavily armed. As we drove off down a long single track road – too narrow to turn the car around on – we saw a car parked at the side a few hundred metres away and four men moving with what appeared to be ‘longs’ (rifles).

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