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It is not often that a letter of such sensitivity is posted within this forum, however, at the request of the father to one of the above, (who is also a NIVA member, and a close personal friend), I have agreed to post. On doing so, at this stage I must emphasise that this letter contains some very moving references to those comrades who paid the ultimate price on the 24th October 1990, which some readers may find upsetting.
May I say that others have been consulted on this issue, and anyone so adversely affected can contact either myself, any other Admin, or a member of our NIVA Welfare Team, at any time.
Sweep, Gonch, Bugsy, Beachy and Vinny, Killed by Enemy Action October 24th 1990.
'To Their Families, Whose Courage and Stoicism Will Forever Be an Example.'
The Horse’s Mouth…
***** you have asked me to recall to the best of my knowledge the events leading up to and after that unforgettable date: Oct 24th 1990.
I just wanted to outline a couple of points just to make it easier for you to understand the background…Our call sign for my team was ‘Tango One One Charlie’ (T11C). The team consisted of 4 soldiers and was also known as a ‘Brick’, brick setup that night was as follows…
Gaz (that’s me as you know)
Gonch
Sweep
Brownie
Due to the sensitive nature of what I am saying I am leaving out army numbers.
We had been inserted into Fort George for some weeks prior to the date mentioned, duties for my team included everything from Sanger duties to house searches and we were working 17/18hour days. This was normal working hours for everyone and it became second nature.
Tues the 23rd of October:
I had not long returned from a week in Hereford having been taught how to use and instruct on a piece of equipment called a Spyglass. This is a state of the art night sight and can be used in any terrain and condition, basically this is the dog’s bollocks of all night sights. My team had already been out that day on a local patrol, so the rest of the day should have been free, I can remember that my brick was knackered and I kicked them straight into their pits after doing the basic admin and weapon cleaning and getting any kit ready for any sudden fast balls.
At about 7pm I was called to the ops room and told that they would like me my team to go up to Victor 2 border crossing point and set up the Spy-glass. I must remind you that was not an order but they did dangle 24 hours off in front of me for my team when the job was done. My lads jumped at the chance even though they were still knackered.
I sent them back to bed because I didn’t need them until 10pm. My boss (no name) was also bringing out a team so we discussed the insertion of teams and where we were going to set up the spy-glass. We were being dropped of by the QRF about 2 miles out from the Victor, fully cammed up and loaded for action. We were given the usual INT brief that was a bit more hyped up than usual this seemed like INT had done their homework for once
.
It was around about 9:30pm and I remember being at the loading bay inside Fort George preparing our weapons and someone came up with a camera and asked to take a picture of the team, I refused. What a big mistake that turned out to be.
The bosses’ team and myself loaded into the QRF vehicles and we headed out to our first RV point. We travelled east after being dropped of by the QRF parallel with a disused railway line and made our way into the rear doors of Victor 2.
Wednesday the 24th of October:
Just after midnight I took my team up on a vantage point east of Victor 2 about 300 yards away and set up the Spy-glass, I had arranged with the boss to change over at around 3am. It was a clear but cold night but the team was in good spirits knowing that after this patrol they were going to get some well deserved time off. As well as our usual weapons we also had the G.M.P.G with us and this was being manned by Sweep.
(I used to have two other guys in my team called T H and G M, they had been taken off me a number of weeks earlier due to promotion and I remember thinking that is was going to be impossible to replace them. I was given Brownie and Sweep, I couldn’t have picked better)
Gonch had been in my team from the start and I had put him as 2IC without any reservation whatsoever. He was a great soldier and his promotion was well overdue.
He had had a N/D early in September whilst we were in Cookstown. It was not his fault, it was a weapon default but the C.O wouldn’t take my explanation. Some years later the s.a 80 was recalled and revamped due to a large number of unexplained negligent discharges. I am sure Gonch was saying ‘I ****ing told you so’ when he was looking down at that
At around 3am the boss shouted me up on the radio to let me know he was on his way out with his team to change over. He had told me what direction he was coming in from and I observed his team moving into my location. The boss had been fully briefed on the use of the spy-glass so it was a quick changeover. When were leaving to go down to the Victor the boss had asked me to set up a VCP (vehicle check point) before first light.
We made our way down to Victor 2 which was being manned at the time by the anti-tank platoon. V2 was big enough to house at least 35/40 men and this was done by a different platoon and the change-over was done every 10/12 days. It also consisted of a search bay area which was manned by 3 men, and there were also 2 Sangers (look-out towers) situated on the edge of the Victor.
The boys were inside in the living room area watching MTV and eating toast, we decided we would get the VCP out of the way and I sent one of the lads over to wake up Danny who was the duty RCT driver and was needed to drive the pig (armoured vehicle) to where I was going to set up the VCP south of the Victor and about 200 yards short of the border. It was coming up to 4am and I told the lads to load up, I couldn’t move Sweep away from MTV, he had his eyes fixed on some babe singing (I later found out that the song was number 1 in the charts and was sung by Maria Magee and was called ‘Show Me Heaven’) Once outside and whilst the lads were sorting themselves out I was having a chat with Bugsy who was in charge of the search bay area. The other two Kingos that were with Bugsy was Stevie B & (No name here).
I joined my regiment in West Germany at the tender age of seventeen in 1984 and I was put in the anti-tank platoon, I remember that one person to take me under his wing was Bugsy and I never forgot that and I always looked up to him even though we were the same rank. Bugsy was a great guy and always had a smile on his face, he made me laugh, he was a funny ****er.
I jumped into the front of the pig and told Danny to drive out of the search bay area and head south, as he put the pig in motion a Postman Pat type van drove into the search bay area (cones are put across the road so that every vehicle coming from the south in the dark hours has to go through the search bay area) Danny had to back up the pig a couple of feet so that the van could get through. As the van was passing the front of the pig I recognised the driver but it did not register whether he was a goody or a baddy.
04:10hrs:
It felt as if someone had punched me on my nose; my initial reaction was that Danny had bumped into the van. What seemed like minutes must have been a split second.
Reality had set in: We had just been blown up. I didn’t hear or feel a thing. I was totally disoriented and not sure where we were. I felt no pain but I knew I was injured because I tried to talk into my radio and no words were coming out. It was pitch black and for a few seconds it was silent. Then Danny was screaming in pain. I tried to grab my weapon; I couldn’t move my right arm. Between Danny and myself we managed to cock the weapon. A vehicle was approaching from the north with its full beam on so my night vision was ****ed. Danny shouted at the occupants to ‘turn the ****ing lights off’ and get out of the vehicle and lie down, they did neither, I took the safety catch off my weapon and put it on automatic and took the best aim I could. They were given a further warning, but still gave no reaction. I applied pressure to the trigger and was just about to shoot **** out of the car when one of the occupants shouted ‘Don’t shoot, RUC, RUC.’ I was a split second away from killing 2 policemen. I needed to get to the back of the pig; I had not heard anything from my boys.
Shots were fired from the rear of Victor2 and luckily Tim R who was still standing on one of the Sangers was quick to react and returned fire. (An ASU –active service unit- had tried to enter the rear of the Victor and basically finish everyone who off was left standing) I later found out that the regiment tried to charge Tim with a negligent discharge until they found traces of blood at the rear of the victor, thank you Tim for your courage.
By the time I got to the rear of the pig the boss’s team were with us. Bergie had told me that I had a lot of blood pouring from my neck and head and he was having trouble stopping it, the only pain I was feeling was from my shoulder, I had dislocated it and every time Bergie touched me I screamed. The boss’s team were struggling to move all the rubble from the back of the pig. I looked towards where I could hear other lads working to move rubble away from where the search bay was, I then realised that the blast had blew us about 50 feet from where we were, 4tons of vehicle having moved that distance meant that this was a big ****ing bomb. I tried to talk to Bergie, I wanted to know where my lads were, I couldn’t speak, the adrenalin was wearing off and pain was setting in.
It was 25 minutes before the first ambulance arrived, I heard later that the IRA had put a vehicle across the road to stop access and this also meant that this could have been a secondary device. I was also told that a RUC officer had got into this car and without any thought for his own life he drove it off the road. There was no way I was getting into that ambulance without the rest of my team. When I finally did get in there were two lifeless bodies on stretchers already inside. I was lying next to two dead soldiers, it was Gonch and Sweep; I have never felt as lonely in my life as I did at that moment.
I remember getting into Londonderry hospital and the nurses were cutting my clothes of with scissors, one of the doctors began to take my ammunition mags out of their pouches, I wanted to stop him but I was helpless. Apparently they lost me for a few seconds on the operating table.
I kept waking up over the next few days and remembered seeing Danny and Davey W, a good friend from the anti-tanks
I wasn’t sure what day it was but I woke up in a different room with a large nurse straddling me massaging my chest. When the nurse was gone I noticed a guy at the bottom of my bed, he came over to me and whispered in my ear that his name was Tony and he was here to look after me. I noticed his Browning pistol, he was a plain-clothes RMP. Tony had got me a pen and note pad so that I could write questions that I wanted answered. I had a large tube down my throat so I still couldn’t speak. I asked Tony how my boys were, he said he didn’t know but he would try to find out, the nurse came back and Tony was whispering to her, I couldn’t hear what was being said. I wrote to ask the nurse for a mirror, she declined with some ******** excuse. Tony had gone out of the room and for the first time I noticed that I wasn’t on my own. There was 3 other beds with people in them, I didn’t recognise anyone. It turned out I was in a private room with 3 Irishmen. Tony returned and pointed to a window and said that Brownie was through there and he would try to find out how he was.
I remember that every time I woke up Tony was always there at the end of my bed, he ended up being a good friend and got me plastered one night at Clooney barracks, it was full of W.R.A.C.S. A girl took me back to her room she shared with two other girls, they were lesbians, oh what a night. That sort of R&R should be mandatory.
Every time I asked about the lads I got fed some cock & bull story as usual. It was now Thursday night and I still did not know about my lads were. I found out through a newspaper Friday morning…the Irish guy in the next bed threw it to me. I couldn’t stop crying and Tony didn’t know what to do, I was angry at finding out like this and I made sure the C.O knew that I was when he came visiting a couple of hours later, with his entourage following: Prick
They had come to tell me that my parents were going mad at not being allowed to come over to see me. I later found out that my mum was on her way whether the bloody army liked it or not.
I was transferred to Belfast Military Hospital later that day. When I was pushed into the ward I was shocked at how many Kingos were in the beds. I had not had a cig since the incident and I was gagging, I got one of the lads to light up for me and to pass it over…he said though it was a no smoking ward, it wasn’t anymore. A nurse came in to tell me not to smoke; she left a little upset when I told her to **** off. Our ward was now a smoking zone.
We started to talk between us, the lads didn’t really know what to say to me; a lot of tears was shed that day. At about 3pm a lady called Jane came to see me; she was from the Red Cross within the hospital. She was about 37/38 years old, very pretty, if I had the strength to muster a hard-on I would have shown it to her.
She told me that my parents were in the corridor waiting to see me, I told Jane to sure that they only sat on the right hand side of the bed as I did not want them seeing my facial injuries. My mam and dad came in and I remember how beautiful she looked, she always did. She tried to give me a hug and then realised her mistake. My dad could not bring himself to look at me, when he did I noticed how red his eyes were. (I had only seen my dad cry just once and that was when I told him I was joining the army, I was 16 and turning my back on being a professional footballer. We didn’t really speak for a couple of years because of that; now he realises that the football was his dream not mine.)
My mum was like any mum and was fussing around me a lot; not just me but making sure all the lads were ok. I remember she went over to Davey W and asked him if he needed anything. He replied by asking my mum to get into bed with him…that was my first chuckle since that day.
END…
Footnote: This letter was written over eighteen years ago, and has always remained private and confidential up until now. RIP Lads, You will never be forgotten.
Dave.
May I say that others have been consulted on this issue, and anyone so adversely affected can contact either myself, any other Admin, or a member of our NIVA Welfare Team, at any time.
Sweep, Gonch, Bugsy, Beachy and Vinny, Killed by Enemy Action October 24th 1990.
'To Their Families, Whose Courage and Stoicism Will Forever Be an Example.'
The Horse’s Mouth…
***** you have asked me to recall to the best of my knowledge the events leading up to and after that unforgettable date: Oct 24th 1990.
I just wanted to outline a couple of points just to make it easier for you to understand the background…Our call sign for my team was ‘Tango One One Charlie’ (T11C). The team consisted of 4 soldiers and was also known as a ‘Brick’, brick setup that night was as follows…
Gaz (that’s me as you know)
Gonch
Sweep
Brownie
Due to the sensitive nature of what I am saying I am leaving out army numbers.
We had been inserted into Fort George for some weeks prior to the date mentioned, duties for my team included everything from Sanger duties to house searches and we were working 17/18hour days. This was normal working hours for everyone and it became second nature.
Tues the 23rd of October:
I had not long returned from a week in Hereford having been taught how to use and instruct on a piece of equipment called a Spyglass. This is a state of the art night sight and can be used in any terrain and condition, basically this is the dog’s bollocks of all night sights. My team had already been out that day on a local patrol, so the rest of the day should have been free, I can remember that my brick was knackered and I kicked them straight into their pits after doing the basic admin and weapon cleaning and getting any kit ready for any sudden fast balls.
At about 7pm I was called to the ops room and told that they would like me my team to go up to Victor 2 border crossing point and set up the Spy-glass. I must remind you that was not an order but they did dangle 24 hours off in front of me for my team when the job was done. My lads jumped at the chance even though they were still knackered.
I sent them back to bed because I didn’t need them until 10pm. My boss (no name) was also bringing out a team so we discussed the insertion of teams and where we were going to set up the spy-glass. We were being dropped of by the QRF about 2 miles out from the Victor, fully cammed up and loaded for action. We were given the usual INT brief that was a bit more hyped up than usual this seemed like INT had done their homework for once
.
It was around about 9:30pm and I remember being at the loading bay inside Fort George preparing our weapons and someone came up with a camera and asked to take a picture of the team, I refused. What a big mistake that turned out to be.
The bosses’ team and myself loaded into the QRF vehicles and we headed out to our first RV point. We travelled east after being dropped of by the QRF parallel with a disused railway line and made our way into the rear doors of Victor 2.
Wednesday the 24th of October:
Just after midnight I took my team up on a vantage point east of Victor 2 about 300 yards away and set up the Spy-glass, I had arranged with the boss to change over at around 3am. It was a clear but cold night but the team was in good spirits knowing that after this patrol they were going to get some well deserved time off. As well as our usual weapons we also had the G.M.P.G with us and this was being manned by Sweep.
(I used to have two other guys in my team called T H and G M, they had been taken off me a number of weeks earlier due to promotion and I remember thinking that is was going to be impossible to replace them. I was given Brownie and Sweep, I couldn’t have picked better)
Gonch had been in my team from the start and I had put him as 2IC without any reservation whatsoever. He was a great soldier and his promotion was well overdue.
He had had a N/D early in September whilst we were in Cookstown. It was not his fault, it was a weapon default but the C.O wouldn’t take my explanation. Some years later the s.a 80 was recalled and revamped due to a large number of unexplained negligent discharges. I am sure Gonch was saying ‘I ****ing told you so’ when he was looking down at that
At around 3am the boss shouted me up on the radio to let me know he was on his way out with his team to change over. He had told me what direction he was coming in from and I observed his team moving into my location. The boss had been fully briefed on the use of the spy-glass so it was a quick changeover. When were leaving to go down to the Victor the boss had asked me to set up a VCP (vehicle check point) before first light.
We made our way down to Victor 2 which was being manned at the time by the anti-tank platoon. V2 was big enough to house at least 35/40 men and this was done by a different platoon and the change-over was done every 10/12 days. It also consisted of a search bay area which was manned by 3 men, and there were also 2 Sangers (look-out towers) situated on the edge of the Victor.
The boys were inside in the living room area watching MTV and eating toast, we decided we would get the VCP out of the way and I sent one of the lads over to wake up Danny who was the duty RCT driver and was needed to drive the pig (armoured vehicle) to where I was going to set up the VCP south of the Victor and about 200 yards short of the border. It was coming up to 4am and I told the lads to load up, I couldn’t move Sweep away from MTV, he had his eyes fixed on some babe singing (I later found out that the song was number 1 in the charts and was sung by Maria Magee and was called ‘Show Me Heaven’) Once outside and whilst the lads were sorting themselves out I was having a chat with Bugsy who was in charge of the search bay area. The other two Kingos that were with Bugsy was Stevie B & (No name here).
I joined my regiment in West Germany at the tender age of seventeen in 1984 and I was put in the anti-tank platoon, I remember that one person to take me under his wing was Bugsy and I never forgot that and I always looked up to him even though we were the same rank. Bugsy was a great guy and always had a smile on his face, he made me laugh, he was a funny ****er.
I jumped into the front of the pig and told Danny to drive out of the search bay area and head south, as he put the pig in motion a Postman Pat type van drove into the search bay area (cones are put across the road so that every vehicle coming from the south in the dark hours has to go through the search bay area) Danny had to back up the pig a couple of feet so that the van could get through. As the van was passing the front of the pig I recognised the driver but it did not register whether he was a goody or a baddy.
04:10hrs:
It felt as if someone had punched me on my nose; my initial reaction was that Danny had bumped into the van. What seemed like minutes must have been a split second.
Reality had set in: We had just been blown up. I didn’t hear or feel a thing. I was totally disoriented and not sure where we were. I felt no pain but I knew I was injured because I tried to talk into my radio and no words were coming out. It was pitch black and for a few seconds it was silent. Then Danny was screaming in pain. I tried to grab my weapon; I couldn’t move my right arm. Between Danny and myself we managed to cock the weapon. A vehicle was approaching from the north with its full beam on so my night vision was ****ed. Danny shouted at the occupants to ‘turn the ****ing lights off’ and get out of the vehicle and lie down, they did neither, I took the safety catch off my weapon and put it on automatic and took the best aim I could. They were given a further warning, but still gave no reaction. I applied pressure to the trigger and was just about to shoot **** out of the car when one of the occupants shouted ‘Don’t shoot, RUC, RUC.’ I was a split second away from killing 2 policemen. I needed to get to the back of the pig; I had not heard anything from my boys.
Shots were fired from the rear of Victor2 and luckily Tim R who was still standing on one of the Sangers was quick to react and returned fire. (An ASU –active service unit- had tried to enter the rear of the Victor and basically finish everyone who off was left standing) I later found out that the regiment tried to charge Tim with a negligent discharge until they found traces of blood at the rear of the victor, thank you Tim for your courage.
By the time I got to the rear of the pig the boss’s team were with us. Bergie had told me that I had a lot of blood pouring from my neck and head and he was having trouble stopping it, the only pain I was feeling was from my shoulder, I had dislocated it and every time Bergie touched me I screamed. The boss’s team were struggling to move all the rubble from the back of the pig. I looked towards where I could hear other lads working to move rubble away from where the search bay was, I then realised that the blast had blew us about 50 feet from where we were, 4tons of vehicle having moved that distance meant that this was a big ****ing bomb. I tried to talk to Bergie, I wanted to know where my lads were, I couldn’t speak, the adrenalin was wearing off and pain was setting in.
It was 25 minutes before the first ambulance arrived, I heard later that the IRA had put a vehicle across the road to stop access and this also meant that this could have been a secondary device. I was also told that a RUC officer had got into this car and without any thought for his own life he drove it off the road. There was no way I was getting into that ambulance without the rest of my team. When I finally did get in there were two lifeless bodies on stretchers already inside. I was lying next to two dead soldiers, it was Gonch and Sweep; I have never felt as lonely in my life as I did at that moment.
I remember getting into Londonderry hospital and the nurses were cutting my clothes of with scissors, one of the doctors began to take my ammunition mags out of their pouches, I wanted to stop him but I was helpless. Apparently they lost me for a few seconds on the operating table.
I kept waking up over the next few days and remembered seeing Danny and Davey W, a good friend from the anti-tanks
I wasn’t sure what day it was but I woke up in a different room with a large nurse straddling me massaging my chest. When the nurse was gone I noticed a guy at the bottom of my bed, he came over to me and whispered in my ear that his name was Tony and he was here to look after me. I noticed his Browning pistol, he was a plain-clothes RMP. Tony had got me a pen and note pad so that I could write questions that I wanted answered. I had a large tube down my throat so I still couldn’t speak. I asked Tony how my boys were, he said he didn’t know but he would try to find out, the nurse came back and Tony was whispering to her, I couldn’t hear what was being said. I wrote to ask the nurse for a mirror, she declined with some ******** excuse. Tony had gone out of the room and for the first time I noticed that I wasn’t on my own. There was 3 other beds with people in them, I didn’t recognise anyone. It turned out I was in a private room with 3 Irishmen. Tony returned and pointed to a window and said that Brownie was through there and he would try to find out how he was.
I remember that every time I woke up Tony was always there at the end of my bed, he ended up being a good friend and got me plastered one night at Clooney barracks, it was full of W.R.A.C.S. A girl took me back to her room she shared with two other girls, they were lesbians, oh what a night. That sort of R&R should be mandatory.
Every time I asked about the lads I got fed some cock & bull story as usual. It was now Thursday night and I still did not know about my lads were. I found out through a newspaper Friday morning…the Irish guy in the next bed threw it to me. I couldn’t stop crying and Tony didn’t know what to do, I was angry at finding out like this and I made sure the C.O knew that I was when he came visiting a couple of hours later, with his entourage following: Prick
They had come to tell me that my parents were going mad at not being allowed to come over to see me. I later found out that my mum was on her way whether the bloody army liked it or not.
I was transferred to Belfast Military Hospital later that day. When I was pushed into the ward I was shocked at how many Kingos were in the beds. I had not had a cig since the incident and I was gagging, I got one of the lads to light up for me and to pass it over…he said though it was a no smoking ward, it wasn’t anymore. A nurse came in to tell me not to smoke; she left a little upset when I told her to **** off. Our ward was now a smoking zone.
We started to talk between us, the lads didn’t really know what to say to me; a lot of tears was shed that day. At about 3pm a lady called Jane came to see me; she was from the Red Cross within the hospital. She was about 37/38 years old, very pretty, if I had the strength to muster a hard-on I would have shown it to her.
She told me that my parents were in the corridor waiting to see me, I told Jane to sure that they only sat on the right hand side of the bed as I did not want them seeing my facial injuries. My mam and dad came in and I remember how beautiful she looked, she always did. She tried to give me a hug and then realised her mistake. My dad could not bring himself to look at me, when he did I noticed how red his eyes were. (I had only seen my dad cry just once and that was when I told him I was joining the army, I was 16 and turning my back on being a professional footballer. We didn’t really speak for a couple of years because of that; now he realises that the football was his dream not mine.)
My mum was like any mum and was fussing around me a lot; not just me but making sure all the lads were ok. I remember she went over to Davey W and asked him if he needed anything. He replied by asking my mum to get into bed with him…that was my first chuckle since that day.
END…
Footnote: This letter was written over eighteen years ago, and has always remained private and confidential up until now. RIP Lads, You will never be forgotten.
Dave.
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