November 7, 2014

“Inside Man” by William “Plum” Smith: a review

It’s too late.

Wranglers,  Ben Shermans  and Match of the day,

Reading the Dandy and watching your team play,

D.M.s and skinners,  homework on the bus

Collected the boney, what was the fuss.

We didn’t start the fight, we put no one down

Born to one  flag and told this is our ground

Told of taigs and rebels,  you’ll  fight nail and tooth

We didn’t know what coming, for the loyalist youth.

——————————————————————-

Seen the riots on TV,   the bodies on the ground

Had to grow up fast, for fear is all around

Parts of our country is lost to the other side

Our country is calling,  lets go for  a ride

Real rifles cracked,  bombs lit up the sky

Where are our young men, so we answered the cry.

Parents worried sick, while politicians twisted the truth

But its already too late for the loyalist youth

—————————————————

We marched and trained, and swore loyalty to the clan

Trained with real guns and took orders to a man

Our knowledge was poor but passion was great

We stood by each other and then met our fate

We stood in the court before our own crown

The judge looked puzzled but still sent us down

We had done our duty,  to fight off the  south

But it was too late for a loyalist youth.

—————————————————————————–

Sitting in the Kesh, the years roll by

We learn the reality as our mothers cry

Boys grow into men,  in a cage of wire

We seek our own truth and see who’s the liar

Our sentence is served and freedom arrives

But the world it has  changed, so what of our lives?

Go back to the family and fight the untruth

But it’s still too late for the loyalist youth.

————————————————————————-

Doors are locked and minds are not right

Jobs  are denied while the gutter dogs write

It’s a  different world and it’s not mine

We’re a generation born,  at the wrong time

Never forgiven and always remembered

Old men now;  but more even tempered.

Life’s moved on but the past is our truth

It was always too late for our loyalist youth.

William Millar

———————————————————-

Mad Mitch’s Tribal Law: Aden and the End of the Empire
Dr: Aaron Edwards

During the years of the conflict in Aden I was a schoolboy..moving from Primary  to Grammar education in 1966.  This was of course pre-conflict, as we in Northern Ireland know it,-although the fledgling UVF were making themselves known.  On a worldwide stage the Vietnam War dominated the news and

Dr: Aaron Edwards

was broadcast live into our living rooms.  No teatime was complete without the latest bulletin from Saigon or Hanoi.  By 1966 the little known colonial outpost in the Middle East-Aden-was starting to creep into our vocabulary.  Aden, an area of South Yemen had been a Crown Colony since 1937 when it became separated from British India and had always been occupied by British forces.  Aden had long been one of the most important trading ports in the Middle East and its situation meant that it was invaluable to trading between Britain and the Far East.  Since it’s inception in the late 30’s Aden had always had sporadic bouts of upheaval and violence-mainly due to the numerous factions co—habiting.  During the War Years there was an upsurge in violence directed at Jewish settlers who eventually would leave when the new state of Israel emerged from the British mandate of Palestine.
By the early sixties again there were rumblings from the myriad of factions in Aden.  There was by this time a growing number of anti-British guerrilla groups..all with varying political objectives.  Out of this quagmire there basically emerged two main organisations.  On the one hand you had the NLF—the national Liberation Front, and on the other FLOSY—Front for the Liberation of South Yemen.  Both of these fanatical organisations not only fought the British but more often than not each other.  Over the next couple of years both of these organisations waged a campaign of militancy ranging from street disorder and riots to shooting and grenade attacks against the British Forces.  In December 1963 an attack occurred at Aden airport where a grenade was launched at troops injuring a number of them.  This sparked the Aden Emergency..which would last until 1967.  During that time the targets for the guerrillas were mainly off duty soldiers and policemen.  Crater town was traditionally the old Arab quarter of Aden and it was here that most of the trouble and anti British activity occurred.  By July the trouble had escalated and tension rose further during the Six Day War between Israel and Arab States in early June.  In one incident 22 British soldiers were killed.  By this stage it is estimated that there were at least 400 NLF and FLOSY guerrillas within Crater City.  The escalating trouble became too much for the Police hence the introduction of British Troops to quell the unrest.  On the 5^th July 1967 the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders under the command of Lt. Colonel Colin Mitchell..who would later earn the sobriquet Mad Mitch because of his actions..marched into Crater..accompanied by fifteen regimental pipers, and took command of the area.  By the next morning Mitchell had regained control of Crater and amazingly without loss of life.  From then until the eventual withdrawal of British troops from Aden in November Mitchell managed to keep control.  There were many stories of his hard line tactics—some allegations of atrocities but during his tenure as a “peacekeeper” in Crater there was only one fatality.  After the withdrawal of British Forces from Aden the area was declared the Peoples Republic of South Yemen.  Mitchell remained as a soldier for a few more years before entering politics in the early seventies and latterly taking up a position of a security expert in later years.
The author has produced a wonderful book.  His research is overwhelming and he has managed to present a fantastic addition to the British Military tomes.  Edwards must have felt an affinity towards Mitchell such is the in-depth research and certainly at times we could be forgiven for thinking that they may have been close friends.  Again this is testimony to the extraordinary amount of investigative studies involved.  For the reader the book perfectly encapsulates an era of the rapidly diminishing British Empire…and the extent to which Britain would go to in clinging on to the last vestiges of times gone by.  Edwards doesn’t get bogged down in militaristic jargon—he sets the scene extremely competently and paints a picture of a man-Mitchell-who was a profoundly proficient soldier with an impeccable background.  Aden, of course—apart from casting him in some quarters as a ruthless tyrant-was the catalyst for his notoriety/fame.  If he hadn’t an ego, pre July 1967, Mitchell certainly developed one post Crater.  He revelled in his new found eminence and the publicity that followed.  It is interesting to find out that Mitchell was never decorated for his actions in quelling the situation in Crater.  The notion is that despite orders to the contrary, he devised his own plan and carried it out disregarding the Top Brass.  In normal circumstances he may have been awarded something like the OBE but an honourable mention is all he received.  Within a very short period of leaving Aden Mitchell resigned from his officership within the British army.  By mid 1968 he returned to civilian life.  Two years later he was elected as a  Conservative Member of Parliament for Aberdeenshire West.  He served that constituency for four years before leaving politics.
Aaron Edwards gives us a unique and fascinating insight into a controversial and grossly interesting character.  Mitchell was the epitome of the British attitude of those times.  He seen himself as the guardian—both morally and literally—for all that Britain stood for in those twilight years of a crumbling Empire.

Beano Niblock

Lethal Allies:  Anne Cadwallader (Mercier Press)

Seen all the media hype and ‘who-ha’ around the book but as usual I won’t know what’s its really like until I read it for myself.  It doesn’t  take very long to get into the slant of the book which in fairness the author makes explicit early on.  So the author must take on board that this will sound like Republican propaganda dragging up the old, old stories. Everyone in the early 70s knew dirty tricks where going on. The recent fuss over the MRF is puzzling to a person, like myself,  who was involved in the troubles,  went to prison,  had friends killed,  seen buildings blew apart, etc, etc.

I read the book with a rather untypical slant. I was a UVF life sentence prisoner, I grew up in central Belfast  (admittedly a long way away from most of the events in the book) but I had one friend executed by the police on a  Belfast street and another friend shot and seriously wounded by the police.  It is a given, that my wounded friend was to be executed also only for the intervention of a bystander. I had friends killed by loyalists and British soldiers. I had friends killed by Republicans. I may be a Prod but am no stranger to dirty tricks, beatings by the police, harassment by the army, etc.  For many people the ‘70s in N.Ireland was a semi-war zone.

The basis of the facts are taken for granted. The shootings,  bombings and events are well documented and now supplemented by the HET. But, as noted in a previous book review on this site there is a distinct lack of context.  The early ‘70s in this country were ferocious and horrible. What of the continued IRA violence, which we as young loyalists, responded to,  especially after 1972? The emotional aspects to the killings and the suffering of the families are powerful testimony in this book. I just hope that the many readers will consider the anguish and pain that took place in thousands of homes here and in England, Scotland and Wales. Mother losing sons and never really getting over it.

There are some details I am puzzled over. Given the nature of the book with so many names flying about why was the author coy about not naming the two people convicted of killing young Duffy? (see page 72) I know the two men well and they were regarded as different,  namely in that they were innocent compared to the rest of us. So maybe this fact does not fit in well with the thrust of the book namely that the UVF and security forces were in cahoots, slaughtering innocent Catholics. In this case 2 UVF men were set up by the very security forces that were in collusion with them? The two men served out 15 years each for something they did not do.

On page 80 there is reference to a named source. Given nearly everyone else (except 2 ) are named why not reveal this? This is a form of censorship by the author?

A bigger question that arose while reading this book was, given the power of the security forces, why did they not target the real activists, operators, players?  It appears from every case here  (bar Green who could not be easily denied as an activist) that each and every victim was innocent.  (The majority of people killed by Republicans were innocent.)  The question is;  why would these trained soldiers and policemen,  presumably with an agenda to halt IRA violence,  not target the IRA men they knew where involved?  As a reader of the book I have to assume from the author that the police and army were so stupid they had not the foggiest idea who the IRA activists were?  This also do not sound reasonable when one considers today just how infiltrated the IRA had become.  There appears to be no IRA supporters in south Armagh, no usual haunts or pubs they frequent. I think we all accept now that the British Army and more so its intelligence branch took time but riddled the PIRA from the inside. (The RUC/Special branch riddled the loyalists from the inside.) I suspect there were deeper moles in the IRA long before Stakeknife and Callaghan.  Why would the security forces target innocents and drive people towards the IRA?

The author is asking us to believe that the police, the courts, the Lord Chief Justice and senior civil servants all are in cahoots here. I leave out the army because they were fighting a terrorist movement using all means at their disposal for a political end.

This is a well-researched book with a clear agenda but that does not mean we have to take it to be the entire truth.   Finally, what does this book mean in the larger context of N.Irealnd, its future and dealing with the legacy of the conflict? Does it help and heal? Given the way the story is delivered it will not be seen as helpful within the  loyalist community.  It has the feel of continuing the ‘struggle’ in a different guise. All of us have to agree on something about the past otherwise we are all going to limp on to an uncertain future.

Menin.

LEVIATHAN

Colossus like—head and shoulders—stands out from the crowd
Bellows—a frank acerbic stream—a torrent clear and loud
A  steadfast Giant—articulate–in his calculated prose
A new—and rising—reprising star—and the one the masses chose.

Charismatic and engaging—rhetoric skilled and finely honed
Representative of those who formerly felt alone
Talismanic—his astute charms did woo the common man
And lead the way– in disarray— to a distant promised land.

HE reached that shore-of a Province torn-and with disciples cast aside
HE gained his crown—did not look down—took censure in his stride
HE claimed his throne-and stood alone—and cast his gaze below
Contemptuous then-up to the end—still basking in the glow.

(John Coulter, Irish Daily Star)

Irish people must use Armistice Day to commemorate its real patriotic dead, not terrorist killers.

On this day in 1918, World War One’s guns fell silent. The so-called war to end all wars cost the lives of tens of thousands of Nationalists and Unionists who fought and died side by side.

These Catholics and Protestants – not the terrorist gang who planned and planted the Poppy Day Massacre in Enniskillen in 1987 – are the genuine Irish patriots who should be remembered at 11 o’clock this morning.

That was also the agreed time on November 11th, 1918 when the Great War would be officially declared over.

I will be remembering my great uncle William Holmes, whose surname I carry as one of my middle names.

Great uncle Willie has no known grave. Each Remembrance Week, the Royal British Legion plants on the family’s behalf a small wooden cross bearing his name at Belfast City Hall.

Willie died at the Battle of Cambrai in November 1917, just under a year before the war ended.

That bloody battle on the Western Front was famed for the British using tanks for the first time in a major offensive.

Bachelor Willie had agreed to give his home leave to a married chum so that his pal could go back to Ireland to visit his wife and family.

Taking his friend’s place, Willie went ‘over the top’ as he had done on so many occasions since the outbreak of war three years earlier in 1914.

But as Willie advanced with his comrades, he was hit by a German shell and literally blown to bits. There was no body to recover and no grave for our family to visit in a well-kept, tranquil military cemetery.

For years when I lived in Clough Presbyterian Manse in Co Antrim, the only family memory of Willie was a framed portrait in the guest bedroom.

While Willie perished, another of my great uncles, Billy Coulter, survived the horrors of the trenches.

Billy went on to become one of Scotland’s leading Freemasons. When he stayed with us at the manse, he would tell me stories about the history of the masons.

Billy loved his 6 am tea, and I would sneak down to sit with him in the kitchen as he proudly showed me his collection of Masonic certificates and medals.

It was a scene straight from the Hollywood blockbuster National Treasure where hero actor Nicolas Cage recalls identical stories from a Masonic relative.

But there was one topic that was completely out of bounds for the soft spoken great uncle Billy – the Great War and the things he suffered while fighting; the machine-gun bullets, the gas attacks, the shelling, and the loss of so many friends in his regiment.

Ireland needs to remember that the bullets, shells and gas did not differentiate between Unionists and Nationalists. Many Catholics and Protestants suffered the same fate as great uncle Willie during these bloodbaths.

It is these men that are the true patriots of the Emerald Isle, not the Martin Meehan IRA types plastered on banners in Ardoyne.

Next year, Ireland will commemorate the centenary of the start of World War One. But today in Ireland, we should all remember that we have freedom because of Willie and his comrades.

Willie and Billy simply can’t be compared with the two IRA men killed by their own bomb in 1973 who were celebrated with a parade in Castlederg, Co Tyrone.

November 12, 2013________________

This article appeared in the November 11, 2013 edition of the Irish Daily Star.

HOME

November 11th 1918

The last day of World War One was November 11^th 1918, known as Armistice Day. Despite November 11^th being the last day of the war, on many parts of the Western Front fighting continued as normal. This meant, of course, that casualties occurred even as the people of Paris, London and New York were celebrating the end of the fighting.

After three days of intense negotiations in a rail siding just outside of Compiegne (see photo), the German delegation that had been brought to the personal carriage of Marshall Ferdinand Foch was ordered by its government in Berlin to sign any terms put on the table by the Allies. Potentially serious social upheaval had forced the government in Berlin into giving out this instruction as people had taken to the streets as a result of chronic food shortages caused by the British naval blockade. Therefore, the German delegation led by Matthias Erzberger signed the terms of the Armistice.

This was done at 05.10 on November 11^th. However, the actual ceasefire would not start until 11.00 to allow the information to travel to the many parts of the Western Front. Technology allowed the news to go to capital cities by 05.40 and celebrations began before very many soldiers knew about the Armistice. In London, Big Ben was rung for the first time since the start of the war in August 1914. In Paris, gas lamps were lit for the first time in four years. But on the Western Front, many tens of thousands of soldiers assumed that it was just another day in the war and officers ordered their men into combat.

Quite a number of the final casualties were at Mons in Belgium – ironically one of the first major battles of the war in 1914. In a cemetery just outside of Mons in the village of Nouvelle, there are nine graves of British soldiers. Five are from August 1914 while four are dated November 11^th 1918.

The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) states that their records show that 863 Commonwealth soldiers died on November 11^th 1918 – though this figure also includes those who died on that day but of wounds received prior to November 11^th.

In particular, the Americans took heavy casualties on the last day of the war. This was because their commander, General John Pershing, believed that the Germans had to be severely defeated at a military level to effectively ‘teach them a lesson’. Pershing saw the terms of the Armistice as being soft on the Germans. Therefore, he supported those commanders who wanted to be pro-active in attacking German positions – even though he knew that an Armistice had been signed. In particular, the Americans suffered heavy casualties attempting to cross the River Meuse on the night of the 10^th/11^th with the US Marines taking over 1,100 casualties alone. However, if they had waited until 11.00, they could have crossed the river unhindered and with no casualties. The 89^th US Division was ordered to attack and take the town of Stenay on the morning of November 11^th. Stenay was the last town captured on the Western Front but at a cost of 300 casualties.

The CWGC records that the last British soldier killed in World War One was Private George Edwin Ellison of the 5^th Royal Irish Lancers. He was killed at Mons (where he had also fought in 1914) at 09.30, just 90 minutes before the ceasefire.

The last French soldier to die was Augustin Trebuchon from the 415^th Infantry Regiment. He was a runner and was in the process of taking a message to his colleagues at the front informing them of the ceasefire. He was hit by a single shot and killed at 10.50. In total, 75 French soldiers were killed on November 11^th but their graves state November 10^th. Two theories have been forwarded for this discrepancy. The first is that by stating that they died on November 10^th before the war had ended, there could be no question about their family’s entitlement to a war pension. The other theory, is that the French government wanted to avoid any form of embarrassment or political scandal should it ever become known that so many died on the last day of the war.

The last Canadian to die was Private George Lawrence Price of the Canadian Infantry (2^nd Canadian Division) who was killed at Mons at 10.58. Officially, Price was the last Commonwealth soldier to be killed in World War One.

The last American soldier killed was Private Henry Gunter who was killed at 10.59. Officially, Gunter was the last man to die in World War One. His unit had been ordered to advance and take a German machine gun post. It is said that even the Germans – who knew that they were literally minutes away from a ceasefire – tried to stop the Americans attacking. But when it became obvious that this had failed, they fired on their attackers and Gunter was killed. His divisional record stated:

“Almost as he fell, the gunfire died away and an appalling silence prevailed.”

Information about German casualties is more difficult to ascertain. However, it may well be the case that the last casualty of World War One was a junior German officer called Tomas who approached some Americans to tell them that the war was over and that they could have the house he and his men were just vacating. However, no one had told the Americans that the war had finished because of a communications breakdown and Tomas was shot as he approached them after 11.00.

Officially over 10,000 men were killed, wounded or went missing on November 11th 1918. The Americans alone suffered over 3,000 casualties. When these losses became public knowledge, such was the anger at home that Congress held a hearing regarding the matter. In November 1919, Pershing faced a House of Representatives Committee on Military Affairs that examined whether senior army commanders had acted accordingly in the last few days of the war. However, no one was ever charged with negligence and Pershing remained unapologetic, remaining convinced that the Germans had got off lightly with the terms of the Armistice. He also stated that although he knew about the timing of the Armistice, he simply did not trust the Germans to carry out their obligations. He therefore, as commander in chief, ordered the army to carry on as it would normally do as any “judicious commander” would have done. Pershing also pointed out that he was merely carrying out the orders of the Allies Supreme Commander, Marshall Ferdinand Foch, that were to “pursue the field greys (Germans) until the last minute”.

Wilfred Edward Salter Owen, 1893 – 1918

Born Oswestry, Shropshire. Educated at Birkenhead Institute and Shrewsbury Technical College.

From the age of nineteen Owen wanted to be a poet and immersed himself in poetry, being especially impressed by Keats and Shelley. He wrote almost no poetry of importance until he saw action in France in 1917.

He was deeply attached to his mother to whom most of his 664 letters are addressed. (She saved every one.) He was a committed Christian and became lay assistant to the vicar of Dunsden near Reading 1911-1913 – teaching Bible classes and leading prayer meetings – as well as visiting parishioners and helping in other ways.

From 1913 to 1915 he worked as a language tutor in France.

He felt pressured by the propaganda to become a soldier and volunteered on 21st October 1915. He spent the last day of 1916 in a tent in France joining the Second Manchesters. He was full of boyish high spirits at being a soldier.

Within a week he had been transported to the front line in a cattle wagon and was “sleeping” 70 or 80 yards from a heavy gun which fired every minute or so. He was soon wading miles along trenches two feet deep in water. Within a few days he was experiencing gas attacks and was horrified by the stench of the rotting dead; his sentry was blinded, his company then slept out in deep snow and intense frost till the end of January. That month was a profound shock for him: he now understood the meaning of war. “The people of England needn’t hope. They must agitate,” he wrote home. (See his poems The Sentry and Exposure.)

He escaped bullets until the last week of the war, but he saw a good deal of front-line action: he was blown up, concussed and suffered shell-shock. At Craiglockhart, the psychiatric hospital in Edinburgh, he met Siegfried Sassoon who inspired him to develop his war poetry.

He was sent back to the trenches in September, 1918 and in October won the Military Cross by seizing a German machine-gun and using it to kill a number of Germans.

On 4th November he was shot and killed near the village of Ors. The news of his death reached his parents home as the Armistice bells were ringing on 11 November.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks, Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs And towards our distant restbegan to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind; Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling, Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time; But someone still was yelling out and stumbling, And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light, As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight, He plunges at me, guttering,choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace Behind the wagon that we flung him in, And watch the white eyes writhing in his face, His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs, Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues, My friend, you would not tell with such high zest 
To children ardent for some desperate glory, The old Lie;
Dulce et Decorum est Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen 8 October 1917 – March, 1918

Many years ago Bobby Hanvey–The Rambling Man–interviewed Gusty Spence for his Downtown radio programme.  Over two seperate programmes the former UVF leader tells of his early years as a young boy in pre war Belfast in Joseph Street, on joining the organisation in 1965–through his years of imprisonment and subsequent release in 1984.  Here you can listen to both recordings once again.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6jUrejhMlk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ziB316bUKBE&feature=youtube_gdata_player