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July 2022 29
T
HE BRUTALITY displayed by Soldiers
F and G of 1 Para in Derry on Bloody
Sunday, 30 January 1972, was not an
aberration. After murdering a number
of unarmed civilians, they were
taken to Fort George where they beat up a
group of innocent prisoners including a priest.
They then returned to Belfast. What is revealed
here for the first time is how they used the
armoured personnel carrier or ‘pig’ assigned
to them as a mobile torture chamber to
electrocute people in Belfast in the weeks after
Bloody Sunday.
Soldier F and G have been named by Village
magazine in a number of articles which are
available on the internet. Their Saville inquiry
cyphers will be used to describe them in this
article as it will be going on sale in Northern
Ireland where an injunction remains in place to
protect their identities. The injunction applies
although Soldier G is dead and his life is
therefore not in any danger.
Their names can be found by visiting
Village’s online Bloody Sunday archive at:
https://villagemagazine.ie/tag/
bloody-sunday/.
Soldier F is alive and may yet face criminal
charges for his actions on Bloody Sunday when
he and Private G were conveyed in their ‘pig’
into the Bogside at speed. They leapt out of the
vehicle and took up positions behind a low wall
adjacent to a ramp on Kells Walk, from where
Again Nameless
Thugs
By David Burke
Soldier F and G’s Mobile
Torture Chamber
They used the armoured personnel carrier
or ‘pig’ assigned to them as a mobile torture
chamber to electrocute people in Belfast in
the weeks after Bloody Sunday
they shot Michael Kelly. Kelly was standing at
a nearby rubble barricade and unarmed, a
threat to no one.
F, G, Corporal E and Private H, [the EFGH unit]
moved into Glenfada Park North, where their
killing spree continued.
The Saville Inquiry found that F or H shot
William McKinney dead; and that this unit was
responsible for the shot that wounded Joe
Mahon, and that either F or G fired the shot that
wounded Joe Friel.
Saville determined that the ‘EFGH’ unit also
murdered William Wray, injured Joe McMahon,
Joe Friel, Michael Quinn and Patrick O’Donnell;
and possibly injured Daniel Gillespie.
There was no justification for their behaviour.
According to Saville:
“In our view none of the soldiers fired in the
belief that he might have identified a person in
possession of or using or about to use bombs
or firearms”.
Saville also found that:
“The last gunfire casualties were Bernard
McGuigan, Patrick Doherty, Patrick Campbell
and Daniel McGowan, all shot in the area to the
south of Block 2 of the Rossville Flats within a
very short time of each other.
We are sure that Lance Corporal F fired at and
shot Bernard McGuigan and Patrick Doherty,
and it is highly probable that he was also
responsible for shooting the other two
casualties.
This soldier fired across Rossville Street from
the Rossville Street entrance way into Glenfada
Nor th”.
Soldier F was a cruel, cynical and clinical
killer. He shot Patrick Doherty in the buttock
while he was on the ground crawling away from
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POLITICS
30 July 2022
him. As Doherty lay crying out in pain, his life
draining away from him, Barney McGuigan, an
exceptionally brave and humane man, stepped
forward with a white handkerchief looking to
help Doherty.
F dropped to one knee, aimed his rifle and
shot McGuigan in the head.
After the shootings, F and G led the ‘beasting’
of prisoners at Fort George in Derry. According
to a local priest, Fr. Terence O’Keee, who was
among the prisoners, G had “scary eyes” and
an “almost psychotic look”. The pair “roamed”
among the prisoners, stamping on their feet,
kneeing them in the groin, forcing their faces
up against electric heaters, spitting in their
mouths and engaging in other acts of “idle
brutality”. Fr O’Keee recalled G as having had
“the sadistic edge” on F.
When they got back to Belfast they showed
no remorse. Byron Lewis (Soldier 027) was a
radio operator who accompanied them on their
patrols.
In 1975 he provided an account which was
discovered by Tom McGurk in 1997.
This key discovery led to the establishment
of the Saville Inquiry as it constituted new
evidence. Some passages from it were
published in The Sunday Business Post, and
later at Saville.
The unpublished passages — quoted here for
the first time — reveal that a few weeks after
Bloody Sunday, F, G and others were briefed by
‘Lieutenant 119’, another veteran of Bloody
Sunday, for an operation at the Divis Flats on
the Falls Road.
According to Lewis:
“Several blokes”, by which he means young
Catholic residents of the area were “beasted
severely”. He was “in a pig parked in between
the main tower and the annex 30 or 40 metres
away was [Redacted] pig on waste ground
among some derelict buildings.
Beyond that could be seen the glow of the
fires. Then I noticed [G] and [F] running towards
the pig with a bloke bent double between them.
They kept him going head first into the armour
plating. The bang was quite audible where I
was. He was temporarily knocked out but was
revived and thrown into the back of the pig.”
There was a purpose in hauling the prisoner
to the back of the ‘pig’. F and G had prepared it
for the torture of any prisoner they brought
back to it. Lewis wrote: “The most fiendish
screams and squeals then let loose [F and G]
had wired [the captive] to the batteries and
were electrocuting him”.
Lewis and his comrades in 1 Para referred to
other regiments of the military as ‘crap-hats’.
The ‘crap-hats’ on duty with them let the torture
session continue.
As Lewis has revealed: “Meanwhile during
this racket the [Commanding Ocer] of the
crap-hats had walked over to where I was
standing. He remarked about what was
happening. [Soldier H] and I passed it o
lightly. He then went on to ask if we had been
in Derry the previous month. On answering,
yes, he turned and walked away with an air of
turning a blind eye”.
This deplorable behaviour was not confined
to F and G. Lewis reveals that: “At this point the
other pig disappeared for ten minutes.
The bloke inside had been castrated,
electrocuted, the features of his face sliced
with a knife and generally kicked and beaten.
Lt 119 was also aware of what was going on but
the bloke was in no fit condition to be taken to
Musgrave [Hospital] or vetted as was the
normal practice. So he had no other choice than
to turn his back on the situation while the body
was taken to the Shankhill to be dumped - a
fate worse than death for a Catholic to be
placed in the middle of a Protestant area if his
identity is known or vice a versa.
He was dropped outside the Horseshoe Bar
and Provs [presumably ‘Prods’] were informed
(at this time, a few weeks after Bloody Sunday
we were angels in their eyes and could do no
wrong). The fellow crawled to try and get back
on the vehicle as it drove o”.
As there is no recorded death of a Catholic in
Belfast in February 1972 which matches the
Their Saville inquiry cyphers will be used to
describe them in this article as it will be going
on sale in Northern Ireland where an injunction
remains in place to protect their identities
delivery of the young man to the Shankill, this
victim appears to have survived the ordeal.
Lewis has described how the individual “had
been castrated, electrocuted, the features of his
face sliced with a knife and generally kicked and
beaten”.
Lewis was not present in the small confines
of the ‘pig’ to witness the steps taken during the
torture. One can only hope that the victim was
not actually castrated, but rather stabbed in the
groin.
Still, it is deeply shocking that the soldiers
involved in that assault later boasted that they
had castrated the captive believing that this
was what had happened. If anyone is aware of
the victim of this attack, Village would be
grateful for any available details. Village can be
contacted at: editor@villagemagazine.ie
David Burke is the
author of ‘Kitson’s
I r i s h W a r ,
Mastermind of the
Dirty War in Ireland’
which examines the
role of counter-
insurgency dirty
tricks in Northern
Ireland in the early
1970s and the
template it set for
the Troubles.
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