Operation Banner


Operation Banner was the operational name for the British Armed Forces' operation in Northern Ireland from 1969 to 2007, as part of the Troubles. It was the longest continuous deployment in British military history. The British Army was initially deployed, at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland, in response to the August 1969 riots. Its role was to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary and to assert the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland. This involved counter-insurgency and supporting the police in carrying out internal security duties such as guarding key points, mounting checkpoints and patrols, carrying out raids and searches, riot control and bomb disposal. More than 300,000 soldiers served in Operation Banner. At the peak of the operation in the 1970s, about 21,000 British troops were deployed, most of them from Great Britain. As part of the operation, a new locally-recruited regiment was also formed: the Ulster Defence Regiment.
The Provisional Irish Republican Army waged a guerrilla campaign against the British military from 1970 to 1997. Catholics welcomed the troops when they first arrived, because they saw the RUC as sectarian, but Catholic hostility to the British military's deployment grew after incidents such as the Falls Curfew, Operation Demetrius and Bloody Sunday. In their efforts to defeat the IRA, there were incidents of [|collusion] between British soldiers and Ulster loyalist paramilitaries. From the late 1970s the British government adopted a policy of "Ulsterisation", which meant giving a greater role to local forces: the UDR and RUC. After the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, the operation was gradually scaled down, most military facilities were removed and the vast majority of British troops were withdrawn.
According to the Ministry of Defence, 1,441 serving British military personnel died in Operation Banner; 722 of whom were killed in paramilitary attacks, and 719 of whom died as a result of other causes. It suffered its greatest loss of life in the Warrenpoint ambush of 1979.

Description of the operation

The British Army was initially deployed, at the request of the unionist government of Northern Ireland, in response to the August 1969 riots. Its role was to support the Royal Ulster Constabulary and to assert the authority of the British government in Northern Ireland. The main opposition to the British military's deployment came from the Provisional Irish Republican Army. It waged a guerrilla campaign against the British military from 1970 to 1997. Catholics welcomed the soldiers when they first arrived in August 1969, but Catholic hostility to the British military's deployment increased after incidents such as the Falls Curfew, Operation Demetrius, the Ballymurphy Massacre and Bloody Sunday. An internal British Army document released in 2007 stated that, whilst it had failed to defeat the IRA, it had made it impossible for the IRA to win through violence, and reduced substantially the death toll in the last years of conflict.
File:RUC, Crois.jpg|upright=1.2|thumb|Crossmaglen RUC/Army base, showing a watchtower built during the operation that was later demolished as part of the demilitarisation process. The barracks were handed over to the PSNI in 2007.
From 1998, after the Good Friday Agreement, Operation Banner was gradually scaled down: patrols were suspended and several military barracks closed or dismantled, even before the start of the decommissioning of IRA armaments. The process of demilitarisation started in 1994, after the first IRA ceasefire. From the second IRA ceasefire in 1997 until the first act of decommissioning of weapons in 2001, almost 50% of the army bases were vacated or demolished along with surveillance sites and holding centres, while more than 100 cross-border roads were reopened.
Eventually in August 2005, it was announced that in response to the Provisional IRA declaration that its campaign was over, and in accordance with the Good Friday Agreement provisions, Operation Banner would end by 1 August 2007. From that date troops were to be based in Northern Ireland only for training purposes, and reduced in number to 5,000; responsibility for security was entirely transferred to the police. The Northern Ireland–resident battalions of the Royal Irish Regiment – which grew out of the Ulster Defence Regiment – were stood down on 1 September 2006. The operation officially ended at midnight on 31 July 2007, making it the longest continuous deployment in the British Army's history, lasting over 37 years.
While the withdrawal of troops was welcomed by nationalist political parties the Social Democratic and Labour Party and Sinn Féin, the unionist Democratic Unionist Party and Ulster Unionist Party opposed the decision, which they regarded as 'premature'. The main reasons behind their resistance were the continuing activity of republican dissident groups, the loss of security-related jobs for the Protestant community, and the perception of the British Army presence as an affirmation of the political union with Great Britain.
Adam Ingram, the Minister of State for the Armed Forces, has stated that assuming the maintenance of an enabling environment, British Army support to the PSNI after 31 July 2007 was reduced to a residual level, known as Operation Helvetic, providing specialised ordnance disposal and support to the PSNI in circumstances of extreme public disorder as described in Patten recommendations 59 and 66, should this be needed, thus ending the British Army's emergency operation in Northern Ireland.

Role of the armed forces

The support to the police forces was primarily from the British Army, with the Royal Air Force providing helicopter support as required. A maritime component was supplied under the codename of Operation Grenada, by the Royal Navy and Royal Marines in direct support of the Army commitment. This was tasked with interdicting the supply of weapons and munitions to paramilitaries, acting as a visible deterrence by maintaining a conspicuous maritime presence on and around the coast of Northern Ireland and Lough Neagh.
The role of the armed forces in their support role to the police was defined by the Army in the following terms:
  • "Routine support – Includes such tasks as providing protection to the police in carrying out normal policing duties in areas of terrorist threat; patrolling around military and police bases to deter terrorist attacks and supporting police-directed counter-terrorist operations"
  • "Additional support – Assistance where the police have insufficient assets of their own; this includes the provision of observation posts along the border and increased support during times of civil disorder. The military can provide soldiers to protect and, if necessary, supplement police lines and cordons. The military can provide heavy plant to remove barricades and construct barriers, and additional armoured vehicles and helicopters to help in the movement of police and soldiers"
  • "Specialist support – Includes bomb disposal, search and tracker dogs, and divers from the Royal Engineers"

    Number of troops deployed

At the peak of the operation in the 1970s, the British Army was deploying around 21,000 soldiers. By 1980, the figure had dropped to 11,000, with a lower presence of 9,000 in 1985. The total climbed again to 10,500 after the intensification of the IRA use of improvised mortars toward the end of the 1980s. In 1992, there were 17,750 members of all British military forces taking part in the operation. The British Army build-up comprised three brigades under the command of a lieutenant-general. There were six resident battalions deployed for a period of two and a half years and four roulement battalions serving six-months tours. In July 1997, during the course of fierce riots in nationalist areas triggered by the Drumcree conflict, the total number of security forces in Northern Ireland increased to more than 30,000.

Equipment

Vehicles, aircraft and ships used by the British military during Operation Banner, some of which were developed for the operation, include:
  • Alvis Saracen
  • Alvis Saladin
  • Ferret armoured car
  • Humber Pig
  • Centurion AVRE 165
  • Saxon
  • Land Rovers, including the Snatch Land Rover
  • Bell H-13 Sioux helicopter
  • Aérospatiale Gazelle helicopter
  • Aérospatiale SA 330 Puma helicopter
  • Chinook helicopter
  • Westland Lynx helicopter
  • Westland Wessex helicopter
  • Westland Scout helicopter
  • de Havilland Canada DHC-2 Beaver surveillance aircraft
  • Britten-Norman Defender surveillance aircraft
  • HMS Bildeston
  • HMS Cygnet
  • HMS Kingfisher
  • HMS Fearless
  • HMS ''Maidstone''

    Controversies

The British military was responsible for about 10% of all deaths in the conflict. According to one study, the British military killed 306 people during Operation Banner, 156 of whom were unarmed civilians. Another study says the British military killed 301 people, 160 of whom were unarmed civilians. Of the civilians killed, 61 were children. Only four soldiers were convicted of murder while on duty in Northern Ireland. All were released after serving two or three years of life sentences and allowed to rejoin the Army. Senior Army officers privately lobbied successive Attorneys General not to prosecute soldiers, and the Committee on the Administration of Justice says there is evidence soldiers were given some level of immunity from prosecution. Elements of the British Army also colluded with illegal loyalist paramilitaries responsible for numerous attacks on civilians. Journalist Fintan O'Toole argues that "both militarily and ideologically, the Army was a player, not a referee".

Relationship with the Catholic community

Many Catholics initially welcomed the British Army's deployment, as Catholic neighbourhoods had been attacked by Protestant loyalists and the RUC. However, relations soured between the British Army and Catholics. The British Army's actions in support of the RUC and the unionist government "gradually earned it a reputation of bias" in favour of Protestants and unionists. In the British Army's campaign against the IRA, Catholic areas were frequently subjected to house raids, checkpoints, patrols and curfews that Protestant areas avoided. There were frequent claims of soldiers physically and verbally abusing Catholics during these searches. In some neighbourhoods, clashes between Catholic residents and British troops became a regular occurrence. In April 1970, Ian Freeland, the British Army's overall commander in Northern Ireland, announced that anyone throwing petrol bombs would be shot dead if they did not heed a warning from soldiers.
The Falls Curfew in July 1970 was a major blow to relations between the British Army and Catholics. A weapons search in the mainly Catholic Falls area of Belfast developed into a riot and then gun battles with the IRA. The British Army then imposed a 36-hour curfew and arrested all journalists inside the curfew zone. It is claimed that because the media were unable to watch them, the soldiers behaved "with reckless abandon". A large amount of CS gas was fired into the area while hundreds of homes and businesses were forcibly searched for weapons. The searches caused much destruction, and there were scores of complaints of soldiers hitting, threatening, insulting and humiliating residents. The Army also admitted there had been looting by some soldiers. Four civilians were killed by the British Army during the operation, and another 60 suffered gunshot wounds.
On 9 August 1971, internment was introduced in Northern Ireland. Soldiers launched dawn raids and interned almost 350 people suspected of IRA involvement. This sparked four days of violence in which 20 civilians were killed and thousands were forced to flee their homes. Of the 17 civilians killed by British soldiers, 11 of them were in the Ballymurphy Massacre. No loyalists were included in the sweep, and many of those arrested were Catholics with no provable paramilitary links. Many internees reported being beaten, verbally abused, threatened, denied sleep and starved. Some internees were taken to a secret interrogation centre for a program of "deep interrogation".
The five techniques, the interrogation techniques, were described by the European Court of Human Rights as "inhuman and degrading", and by the European Commission of Human Rights as "torture". The operation led to mass protests and a sharp increase in violence over the following months. Internment lasted until December 1975, with 1,981 people interned.
Image:Bloody Sunday Banner and Crosses.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Banner and crosses carried by the families of the Bloody Sunday victims on the yearly commemoration march
The incident that most damaged the relationship between the British Army and the Catholic community was Bloody Sunday, 30 January 1972. During an anti-internment march in Derry, 26 unarmed Catholic protesters and bystanders were shot by soldiers from the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment; fourteen died. Some were shot from behind or while trying to help the wounded. The Widgery Tribunal largely cleared the soldiers of blame, but it was regarded as a "whitewash" by the Catholic community. A second inquiry, the Saville Inquiry, concluded in 2010 that the killings were "unjustified and unjustifiable".
On 9 July 1972, British troops in Portadown used CS gas and rubber bullets to clear Catholics who were blocking an Orange Order march through their neighbourhood. The British Army then let the Orangemen march into the Catholic area escorted by at least 50 masked and uniformed Ulster Defence Association militants. At the time, the UDA was a legal organization. That same day in Belfast, British snipers shot dead five Catholic civilians, including three children, in the Springhill Massacre. On the night of 3–4 February 1973, British Army snipers shot dead four unarmed men in the Catholic New Lodge area of Belfast.
In the early hours of 31 July 1972, the British Army launched Operation Motorman to re-take Northern Ireland's "no-go areas", mostly Catholic neighbourhoods that had been barricaded by the residents to keep out the security forces and loyalists. During the operation, the British Army shot four people in Derry, killing a 15-year-old Catholic civilian and an unarmed IRA member.
From 1971 to 1973, a secret British Army unit, the Military Reaction Force, carried out undercover operations in Belfast. It killed and wounded a number of unarmed Catholic civilians in drive-by shootings. The British Army initially claimed the civilians had been armed, but no evidence was found to support that. Former MRF members later admitted that the unit shot unarmed people without warning, both IRA members and civilians. One member said, "We were not there to act like an army unit, we were there to act like a terror group". At first, many of the drive-by shootings were blamed on Protestant loyalists. Republicans claim the MRF sought to draw the IRA into a sectarian conflict to divert it from its campaign against the state.
In May 1992, there were clashes between paratroopers and Catholic civilians in the town of Coalisland, triggered by a bomb attack on a British Army patrol in nearby Cappagh that severed the legs of a paratrooper. The soldiers ransacked two pubs, damaged civilian cars and opened fire on a crowd. Three civilians were hospitalized with gunshot wounds. As a result, the Parachute Regiment was redeployed outside urban areas and the brigadier at 3 Infantry Brigade, Tom Longland, was relieved of his command.