Op Banner

brum wrote:

Later, on our Lurgan area tour, one of our batteries managed to be allowed to wear Doc Martens. The blokes doing the Footsies thought they looked the biz.
Within a few weeks they were back in the old DMS, the Docs just fell apart under the strain.

Our RSM, right up to the time your mob arrived, had a little office that overlooked the search area. In this office he had a mic to a loudspeaker which he took to bellowing down whenever the fancy took him. One day he roared "you'd better get out here, quick !" Out we rushed, clutching our rifles and wearing our war faces, to find that the barrier had broken and had collapsed over the road. Bloody anti climax !

Searching the young ladies ? If only ! They did have to book in with us though, which was some consolation, some of them were stunners.

I always thought the Docs were much more comfy than army issue. Mine were cherry red!

I seem to recall the loudspeaker, and I might well have come across your RSM being as he would have been one of the last to leave on hand-over. We were out the gate within an hour or so of arriving in the landrovers.

As we were only attached to 32 Engr Regt for the tour, I had no idea what their RSM looked like. But I do remember the odd RSM hanging about the main gate. I used to put as much space between myself and RSMs as possible.

Our then brand new SSM was a really good bloke who was 'an old sweat' from 9 Sqdn RE/Paras. He didn't mind us wearing docs. he used to wear a commando para smock. He didn't much like bullshit.


I think the young ladies came in from the Malone area of Belfast IIRC.

You couldn't get up to much after the disco closed though. Although we did hear stories of blokes having their todgers chopped off via young lady plus razor.

I always thought the Docs were much more comfy than army issue. Mine were cherry red!

[/quote]



Why am I not surprised?

Shelldrake wrote:

I always thought the Docs were much more comfy than army issue. Mine were cherry red!

Why am I not surprised? [/quote]

Cherry red Docs were 'de rigeur'. they were 'all the rage' !

[quote="pete26"]


The trouble with Docs is that they have a cardboard insole and when that breaks up your toes push down into the "cells" in the sole itself.

Funnily enough we had a para smock-wearing GSM at Woolwich. He called his smock his office, all the pockets were stuffed with paperwork.

The girls that came through Main Gate during our time were from the smaller towns and the rural areas.
I'd never realised the Ulster accent could sound so good !

(I suspect Todger removal is another Urban Myth. Everybody knew somebody who knew somebody who'd had it happen to him !).

[quote="Shelldrake"]

brum wrote:

Gordon. wrote:

Politics politics politics...

Well, she did it, she shook his hand. I wonder if the blood will ever wash off ?

They finally unveiled a Bomber Command memorial. That it took so long should be national disgrace.

Rant ends.

Out !

[quote="brum"]

Shelldrake wrote:

brum wrote:

Gordon. wrote:

Politics politics politics...

Well, she did it, she shook his hand. I wonder if the blood will ever wash off ?

They finally unveiled a Bomber Command memorial. That it took so long should be national disgrace.

Rant ends.

Out !

re above pic. Meanwhile the real world..........



I used to have the greatest respect for HM The Queen.

Her pics with McGuinness are disgraceful IMHO.

Behind the scenes!!

Shelldrake wrote:

Behind the scenes!!

Well done that cartoonist !

(I'm not on my own then. )

Ah yes, i remember the ladies arriving at Thiepval BKS for the disco, quite shocked at kicking out time to hear the foulest language from a girl with the face of an angel, the CPL she was with looked a bit surprised as well. LOL.

You get that in Glasgow every day Jim...

[quote="pete26


We were out the gate within an hour or so of arriving in the landrovers.

Did you ever have to go on a search inside Pete ?
When we went in the Blanket Protest was still on. (Dirty buggers).
I'm only asking because I was reminded of when we went in to the Proddy huts as well.
The scr . . ahem, Prison Officer had to get permission from the Block Commander, Gusty Spence, before we went in. The whole place was immaculate, they even had a duty roster pinned to a notice board.

brum wrote:

[quote="pete26


We were out the gate within an hour or so of arriving in the landrovers.

Did you ever have to go on a search inside Pete ?
When we went in the Blanket Protest was still on. (Dirty buggers).
I'm only asking because I was reminded of when we went in to the Proddy huts as well.
The scr . . ahem, Prison Officer had to get permission from the Block Commander, Gusty Spence, before we went in. The whole place was immaculate, they even had a duty roster pinned to a notice board.

Yeh mate and I did Op bouncer a few times. I was a baton gunner.

We were only allowed into the internment prisoners. Spence was up at the top end of towers 2 IIRC and a convicted prisoner.

We used to shout daft orders out of the towers when they were marching up and down.

I was quite close to Gerry Adams !


When I was in the towers the IRA did the M62 coach bombing. A squad of blokes came rushing up the catwalk right to the top of towers 2, so we radioed in. Reply was, it was OK, not to worry.

Comes out, one of the lads in the towers had family that were killed in the coach bombing.

While we weren't allowed to have personal radios in the towers, some used to hide them in there and they were worried the lad might hear the IRA had killed someone in his family on radio news bulletins, and he might take full useage of the SLR with 20 rounds to take 'pot shots' at IRA prisoners.

They got him out pronto, and he didn't have a radio in his tower.

[quote="pete26"]

brum wrote:

[quote="pete26





When I was in the towers the IRA did the M62 coach bombing. A squad of blokes came rushing up the catwalk right to the top of towers 2, so we radioed in. Reply was, it was OK, not to worry.

Comes out, one of the lads in the towers had family that were killed in the coach bombing.

While we weren't allowed to have personal radios in the towers, some used to hide them in there and they were worried the lad might hear the IRA had killed someone in his family on radio news bulletins, and he might take full useage of the SLR with 20 rounds to take 'pot shots' at IRA prisoners.

They got him out pronto, and he didn't have a radio in his tower.

Full marks to somebody for fast thinking there Pete. That could've been a disaster, (well a political one anyway !).

One day during my shift, Ian Paisley and William Craig came in to visit the "Loyalist" prisoners.
(I've still got the Day Passes with their monikers on them, what's my chances on ebay ?).
After they'd moved on, a half dozen heavies who were with them came back to leave their weapons with us. There was a right collection of old cannons, it was like somebody had robbed a museum !

My first tour was not offically Op Banner, 18 month resident regiment tour based at Omagh. 1973/74. Manned by RAC units from before the troubles began until the end of 1982 when the infantry took over. Finally did OP banner in 1977 (Londonderry) and finished off with a PGF (Maze) tour over Xmas and new year 1986/87.

During our '72 tour it emerged that some right-thinking RE in the postal service put it around that our wives could send us 200 fags a week from Germany, if they were wrapped in plain brown paper. All the ladies had to do was address the package to us, no postage to pay. Brilliant !
One day on "Ulster Calling" some prat shouted "keep on sending the duty frees girls !".
That was it, some brass hat heard it and the perk stopped.
Anybody remember that ?

aghart wrote:

My first tour was not offically Op Banner, 18 month resident regiment tour based at Omagh. 1973/74. Manned by RAC units from before the troubles began until the end of 1982 when the infantry took over. Finally did OP banner in 1977 (Londonderry) and finished off with a PGF (Maze) tour over Xmas and new year 1986/87.

It is a gray area whither or not 'Resident Tours' were part of Operation Banner or not? which was the operational name for all of the British Armed Forces' operations in Northern Ireland from August 1969 to July 2007, not just the short tours.

My take on it is if the days qualified for the Northern Ireland Bar to the General Service Medal 1962, and as time served towards the Accumulated Campaign Service Medal they were.

Anyone got any daft ideas for training that you were put through for your tour of Northern Ireland ?

I remember, before the days of NITATs, doing IS Trg on the Square in Devizes. The BSM was giving us instructions on the correct method for donning Respirators when CS Gas was deployed. He pulled the Respirator on and continued talking for about 10 mins, I think Dads Army pinched the idea for a sketch!

Not Banner related but even so. At Hereford we were doing gun drill without a gun.
One kid got bollocked for not closing the breech smartly enough !

Due to being on exercise i couldn`t join the rest of the unit for NI Training in Sennelager, so ended up having to go to Ballykinler.
Part of the course was meant to involve a race carrying large logs (ex Telegraph Posts),
Why? It`s the Army i suppose.

Well, the day before we were to do it the instructors made the mistake of telling us we were to do it.

That night the posts mysteriously disappeared, and as far as i know were never seen again.

I wonder where they went?

brum wrote:

Not Banner related but even so. At Hereford we were doing gun drill without a gun.
One kid got bollocked for not closing the breech smartly enough !

What's wrong with that, he obviously didn't want to trap his fingers?

bigmal wrote:

Due to being on exercise i couldn`t join the rest of the unit for NI Training in Sennelager, so ended up having to go to Ballykinler.
Part of the course was meant to involve a race carrying large logs (ex Telegraph Posts),
Why? It`s the Army i suppose.

Well, the day before we were to do it the instructors made the mistake of telling us we were to do it.

That night the posts mysteriously disappeared, and as far as i know were never seen again.

I wonder where they went?

They gave them to the Artillery's bloody PTIs, that's where they went !

They went to a good cause, then.


I always thought that they went into the sea.

We were supposed to go to Castlereagh RUC in late 1973, but it was put back about 4 months and we were sent to Maze prison instead.

So we had to do extra Ulster training.

So they stuck us into the forests outside Hohne where the snow at the time was over
6 ft deep ! No one could see each other, it was total madness and extremely cold.

I tried to explain to our 'troopie' that what we were doing was stupid as they don't have the extreme cold and snow that deep in Northern Ireland and they didn't have forests in central Belfast either.

Running with telegraph poles was a common method of fitness training when doing basic training at 1 Training Regiment at Cove, Farnborough for RE's.