Operation Banner


Book Description

The book opens by setting the historic backdrop to The Troubles.In summer 1969 the annual Loyalist marching season sparked violence in Londonderry which spread rapidly. After three days of violence the British Government deployed troops in support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Initially the Catholic community welcomed the Armys presence but this was to change over the years.The first soldier was killed in 1971 and a further 48 died that year. January 30 1972 Bloody Sunday galvanized IRA recruitment and the British Embassy was burnt in Dublin. The Official IRA bombed Aldershot HQ of the Parachute Regiment and in August 1972 the Army launched Op MOTORMAN to clear No Go areas. Internment followed and the Province was firmly in the grip of sectarian violence. The next 30 years saw a remorseless counter-terrorist campaign which deeply affected the lives of all the people of Northern Ireland and several generation of the British Army.The Peace Process ground on for over ten years but the campaign formally ended in 2007 with the establishment of hitherto unimaginable power sharing.




Operation Banner


Book Description

The book opens by setting the historic backdrop to The Troubles. In summer 1969 the annual Loyalist marching season sparked violence in Londonderry which spread rapidly. After three days of violence the British Government deployed troops in support of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Initially the Catholic community welcomed the ArmyÍs presence but this was to change over the years. The first soldier was killed in 1971 and a further 48 died that year. January 30 1972 _ Bloody Sunday _ galvanized IRA recruitment and the British Embassy was burnt in Dublin. The Official IRA bombed Aldershot HQ of the Parachute Regiment and in August 1972 the Army launched Op MOTORMAN to clear No Go areas. Internment followed and the Province was firmly in the grip of sectarian violence. The next 30 years saw a remorseless counter-terrorist campaign which deeply affected the lives of all the people of Northern Ireland and several generation of the British Army. The Peace Process ground on for over ten years but the campaign formally ended in 2007 with the establishment of hitherto unimaginable power sharing.




The Northern Ireland Troubles


Book Description

The British campaign in Northern Ireland remains one of the most controversial actions in recent history. This new book by Aaron Edwards considers the strategic, operational and tactical aspects of what become the longest ever campaign embarked upon by British troops. The 38-year campaign, codenamed Operation Banner, went through a number of phases. It began as a peacekeeping operation, morphed into a counter-insurgency operation and ending as a policing and counter-terrorism force. Banner was massive in scale. No less than 10,000 troops were on active service throughout the campaign and at one point as many as 30,000 men and women were deployed on Ulster's streets. Drawing on extensive new research, this book presents an authoritative introduction to the 'Troubles', providing a strategic analysis of the successes and failures of the campaign.




Operations (ADP 3-0)


Book Description

ADP 3-0, Operations, constitutes the Army's view of how to conduct prompt and sustained operations across multiple domains, and it sets the foundation for developing other principles, tactics, techniques, and procedures detailed in subordinate doctrine publications. It articulates the Army's operational doctrine for unified land operations. ADP 3-0 accounts for the uncertainty of operations and recognizes that a military operation is a human undertaking. Additionally, this publication is the foundation for training and Army education system curricula related to unified land operations. The principal audience for ADP 3-0 is all members of the profession of arms. Commanders and staffs of Army headquarters serving as joint task force (JTF) or multinational headquarters should also refer to applicable joint or multinational doctrine concerning the range of military operations and joint or multinational forces. Trainers and educators throughout the Army will use this publication as well.




Remembering the Troubles


Book Description

The historian A. T. Q. Stewart once remarked that in Ireland all history is applied history—that is, the study of the past prosecutes political conflict by other means. Indeed, nearly twenty years after the 1998 Belfast Agreement, "dealing with the past" remains near the top of the political agenda in Northern Ireland. The essays in this volume, by leading experts in the fields of Irish and British history, politics, and international studies, explore the ways in which competing "social" or "collective memories" of the Northern Ireland "Troubles" continue to shape the post-conflict political landscape. The contributors to this volume embrace a diversity of perspectives: the Provisional Republican version of events, as well as that of its Official Republican rival; Loyalist understandings of the recent past as well as the British Army's authorized for-the-record account; the importance of commemoration and memorialization to Irish Republican culture; and the individual memory of one of the noncombatants swept up in the conflict. Tightly specific, sharply focused, and rich in local detail, these essays make a significant contribution to the burgeoning literature of history and memory. The book will interest students and scholars of Irish studies, contemporary British history, memory studies, conflict resolution, and political science. Contributors: Jim Smyth, Ian McBride, Ruan O’Donnell, Aaron Edwards, James W. McAuley, Margaret O’Callaghan, John Mulqueen, and Cathal Goan.




Air War Northern Ireland


Book Description

The story of the little-known battles between British helicopters and Provisional IRA units equipped with heavy machine guns, RPGs, and SAMs—includes photos. Famously dubbed “Bandit Country” by a UK government minister in 1975, South Armagh was considered the most dangerous part of Northern Ireland for the British Army and Royal Ulster Constabulary during the years of violence known as the Troubles that engulfed the province in the last three decades of the twentieth century. This was also true for the helicopter crews of the RAF, Royal Navy, and Army Air Corps who served there. Throughout the Troubles, the Provisional IRA’s feared South Armagh brigade waged a relentless campaign against military aircraft operating in the region, where the threat posed by roadside bombs made the security forces highly dependent on helicopters to conduct day-to-day operations. From pot-shot attacks with Second World War-era rifles in the early days of the conflict to large-scale, highly coordinated ambushes by PIRA active service units equipped with heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenade launchers and even shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), the threat to British air operations by the late 1980s led to the arming of helicopters operating in the border regions of Northern Ireland. Drawing on a wide range of sources, including official records and the accounts of aircrew, this book tells the little-known story of the battle for control of the skies over Northern Ireland’s “Bandit Country.”




Times of Troubles


Book Description

This is the first academic study of the British Army in Northern Ireland. It investigates the complex experiences of English, Scottish, Welsh and Irish soldiers alike during the often-controversial Operation Banner 1969-2007. The experiences of these soldiers raise many important and difficult questions on war and policy. When do 'troubles', riots and insurgency become war? How does a liberal state respond to an internal war within its own borders? How does it decide on its rules of engagement for its armed forces?Featuring key interviews with former soldiers, paramilitaries and Special Branch detectives, amongst other key actors, the authors attempt to answer these questions and enhance our knowledge of conflict resolution by providing a deep analysis of one of the most significant British military operations since the Second World War.







An Army of Tribes


Book Description

This is the first such study of Operation Banner, the British Army's campaign in Northern Ireland. Drawing upon extensive interviews with former soldiers, primary archival sources including unpublished diaries and unit log-books, this book closely examines soldiers' behaviour at the small infantry-unit level (Battalion downwards), including the leadership, cohesion and training that sustained, restrained and occasionally misdirected soldiers during the most violent period of the Troubles in Northern Ireland. It contends that there are aspects of wider scholarly literatures - including from sociology, anthropology, criminology, and psychology - that can throw new light on our understanding of the British Army in Northern Ireland. It also offers fresh insights and analysis of incidents involving the British Army during the early years of Operation Banner, including the 1972 'Pitchfork murders' of Michael Naan and Andrew Murray in County Fermanagh, and that of Warrenpoint hotel owner Edmund Woolsey in South Armagh.The central argument of this book is that British Army small infantry units enjoyed considerable autonomy during the early years of Operation Banner and could behave in a vengeful, highly aggressive or benign and conciliatory way as their local commanders saw fit. The strain of civil-military relations at a senior level was replicated operationally as soldiers came to resent the limitations of waging war in the UK. The unwillingness of the Army's senior leadership to thoroughly investigate and punish serious transgressions of standard operating procedures in Northern Ireland created uncertainty among soldiers over expected behaviour and desired outcomes. Overly aggressive groups of soldiers could also be mistaken for high-functioning units - with negative consequences for the Army's overall strategy in Northern Ireland.




The Soviet Strategic Offensive in Manchuria, 1945


Book Description

Volume I covers in detail the background, strategic regrouping, and strategic planning and conduct of the offensive.