MOD in Whitehall there is a very official description of our mission in Northern Ireland, but I can guarantee you that nowhere does it mention the true nature and objective of this unit. So, in the absence of an official version, I will give you the unofficial version.
‘JCU-NI is responsible for the covert surveillance and apprehension of terrorist suspects, both Republican and Loyalist, in support of RUC counter-terrorist operations in Northern Ireland. Note, I said in support of the RUC. We do not share sources and methods with the RUC and we are not a police force. We are here to gather intelligence and where deemed necessary we act on that intelligence, either through the RUC or directly ourselves.
‘The unit’s emblem, the hundred eyes of the Argus, is precisely what we are: the hidden eyes of British Intelligence in Northern Ireland. We are the watchers. The big difference here is that this Argus has teeth: highly trained operators, not only skilled in covert surveillance but experts in weapons and tactics. This, coupled with attachments of SAS and SBS troopers to each Det, and a dedicated SAS interceptor unit, makes us a highly potent and deadly force.’
I sat there in stunned silence. Can I really be listening to this? I asked myself. I now understood the CO’s objections to my being in the unit. It was insane that someone from my background should be privy to information like this. While I had read and heard much about British Intelligence operations in Northern Ireland over the years, this was the first time I had heard it described so matter-of-factly; and by those who had actually carried out many of those operations. I resigned myself to the fact that, as Dave had put it, I really might not be at this unit for too long. The instructor continued.
‘Contrary to what the rumour mill might say, the first Det to be established in Northern Ireland was in Derry not Belfast, and so North Det has been given the honour of being called 1 SCT. North Det provides surveillance covering everywhere from Portrush, through Coleraine, Limavady and Derry, down through Strabane and Omagh and finally to the bandit country of East Tyrone and South Armagh. For any of you heading to North Det, bear in mind that their motto is “Train hard, Fight hard, Play hard”, and they certainly live up to it.
‘2 SCT is based at Moscow camp in the Belfast Docklands and they are responsible for transporting top-secret JCUNI documents around Northern Ireland [I would later learn that this was not their actual mission]. 3 SCT is based at Palace Barracks in Holywood, Belfast, and they provide surveillance for the entire city of Belfast and surrounding areas. 4 SCT, affectionately known as ‘the Arse’, is JCU-NI HQ here at Lisburn, providing strategic intelligence and technical and administration support for the outlying operational surveillance Dets.
‘5 SCT, 6 SCT, 7 SCT, 8 SCT and 9 SCT are all located in a secure compound at RAF Aldergrove. Between them they are responsible for the southern areas of Fermanagh, Down and South Antrim. They also, through 7 SCT, produce specialist covert imagery systems; in other words, cameras disguised as rocks, trees, et cetera, whatever is needed. While North, East and South Dets all have their own SAS and SBS attachments, there is a permanent dedicated SAS interceptor unit also located at Aldergrove, and when necessary they provide the heavy tactical support to an operation.’
I’m fairly sure my mouth stayed open long after the lecture was over. But it was another lecture that hit the hardest: the story of how two Royal Signals corporals, Derek Wood and David Howes, were killed during their posting at JCU-NI. Like anyone my age, with even the slightest awareness of Northern Ireland, I didn’t need to be told the story, but that morning we were given the graphic, noholds-barred version, and I could feel my stomach tighten and my nerves on edge throughout.
In the darkened room, we were shown the crystal-clear images taken by the specialist camera of an East Det surveillance helicopter that had been covering the funeral of IRA volunteer Kevin Brady on Saturday, 19 March 1988. The funeral cortège was shown moving down the Andersonstown Road in West Belfast towards Milltown cemetery. Sinn Féin stewards were marshalling traffic and providing security in anticipation of another Loyalist attack. Armed PIRA volunteers were mingling with the mourners. The security forces were noticeably absent, giving the area, as it were, a wide birth in an effort to reduce tensions. Three days previously, during the funerals of three IRA volunteers shot dead by British Special forces in Gibraltar, Loyalist gunman Michael Stone had launched a gun and grenade attack at the funerals in Milltown cemetery. Three people had been killed, including Kevin Brady. The events of those two previous weeks had produced some of the tensest moments of the Troubles. Northern Ireland at the time was a powder keg just waiting to explode.
A silver VW Passat was shown approaching the cortège and being stopped by the Sinn Féin stewards and directed to turn around and move away. The vehicle reversed at speed and mounted the pavement. Panic set in among those in the cortège. Was this another Loyalist attack, they must have wondered.
In fact, in the vehicle were Corporal Derek Wood and Corporal David Howes, both members of the British army’s Royal Corps of Signals and attached to 2 SCT of JCU-NI. Nonetheless, the vehicle was quickly surrounded, with black taxis either end boxing it in from the front and rear.
As the crowd surrounded the vehicle, Wood drew his pistol and for a few moments the crowd withdrew a little. Wood used this time to try to get out through the window on the driver’s side of the car, which had already been smashed in, but the crowd moved in again and began to drag him out of the vehicle.
On the passenger side, the window was smashed and Howes was set upon, though he didn’t produce a weapon at any stage. A warning shot was fired into the air by Wood, it was the first and only shot to be fired by either soldier that day. (I had always wondered why they hadn’t fired more.)
The crowd forced TV camera crews to stop filming and in some cases confiscated or smashed equipment, although East Det’s helicopter kept filming. Both men were eventually dragged to the rear of nearby Casement Park where they were strip-searched and beaten further. A man could now be seen trying to hold back the attackers from the two men as they lay prone, side by side on the ground. He was escorted away though he remained close by. That was Father Alec Reid, a Catholic priest who would go on to be instrumental in the signing of the 1998 Good Friday Agreement.
The men were then thrown over a wall, bundled into taxis and taken a couple of hundred metres away to waste ground near Penny Lane. The beatings and then stabbings continued until both men were eventually shot multiple times at point-blank range. From their arrival on the scene of the funeral, Corporals Wood and Howes were dead in just over twelve minutes.
The television screen went blank and the lights in the room came up. There was a lump in my throat and I swallowed hard to keep down whatever it was. I was sitting in the front row, the only Irishman in the room, – and I could feel the eyes burning into the back of my head. I understood how they must be feeling. It was a deeply uncomfortable moment and for the first time in my British army career I felt ashamed to be Irish.
Thankfully, no one said anything, and the lecture continued.
How this happened from a procedural point of view was the question we needed answered. In the immediate aftermath and for many years thereafter, there was considerable speculation about the two men and why they were in that particular location that day. As always, the MOD had refused to comment and had never clarified what they knew. I only learned the truth that afternoon.
Our second training officer, a huge Welsh man who had spent the previous twenty years as a special duties operator in Northern Ireland, stood at the top of the room and gave us the full story.
‘Wood was the “pronto” for 2 SCT. A pronto is the head communications Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) in a Det. Wood was coming to the end of his current tour in Northern Ireland and was due to rotate back to a normal Royal Corps of Signals unit. Howes was the incoming pronto, just arrived in Northern Ireland and as green as grass as far as working with JCU-NI was concerned.
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