Special Reconnaissance Unit

The Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU) was an undercover British Army unit which operated in Northern Ireland from 1972. It is better known even within the Army, by a variety of cover names, most commonly 14 Intelligence Company.

Formation

According to a top Secret briefing prepared for Prime Minister Harold Wilson in April 1974, the Special Reconnaissance Unit replaced the Military Reaction Force units created in 1971:

In 1972 the operations of the MRF were brought under more centralised control and a higher standard of training achieved by establishing a Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU) of 130 all ranks under direct command of HQNI.

Secrecy and cover names

The April 1974 briefing states:

The term "Special Reconnaissance Unit" and the details of its organisation and mode of operations have been kept secret. The SRU operates in Northern Ireland at present under the cover name "Northern Ireland Training and Advisory Teams (Northern Ireland)" - NITAT(NI) - ostensibly the equivalent of genuine NITAT teams in UKLF and BAOR.

The secrecy about the unit's name appears to have been maintained until this briefing was released to the National Archives three decades later. One apparent reference comes in Martin Dillon's 1990 book The Dirty War, which reports that according to Special Branch inspector Jimmy Blair, Special Branch Sergeant Charlie McCormick and informer Anthony O'Doherty both "worked for a special unit of the Army. His use of the words 'special unit' is 'in itself' significant."

Most accounts refer to what is clearly the same unit by a variety of cover names. The clearest account of these is perhaps in Mark Urban's Big Boys' Rules. According to Urban, the NITAT name was replaced in 1978 or 1979 by Intelligence and Security Group (NI) or Int and Sy Group. As with NITAT, there were genuine Int and Sy Groups in England and Germany. In the early 1980s, this name was replaced in turn by 14 Intelligence and Security Company:

The name, usually contracted in speech to 14 Intelligence Company, 14 Company of simply 14 Int, became widely used within the Army. Indeed most people who have worked with the Army in Northern Ireland know it as such and that is why I will use this name, even to describe activities in the mid 1970s before the Army adopted it. This cover name suggested an analogy with 12 Intelligence and Security Company, a unit of report writers, index keepers and computer programmers rather than an organized force of undercover surveillance specialists.

Urban also states that 4 Field Survey Troop was a cover name for the 3 Brigade detachment of the unit during 1974.

Minister Roger Freeman confirmed the presence of 4 Field Survey Troop at Castledillon during this period in response to a question from Ken Livingstone in March 1988. He added:

Detailed information on this unit, which is not now deployed in the Province, is no longer available. The role of a Royal Engineer field survey is to provide or process aerial photographs, ground surveys and mapping for the Army as required. The strength of such a unit at that time varied between about 30 and 40, depending upon its specific task, and usually included two officers.

In response to a second question from Livingstone on the role of NITAT's in Northern Ireland since 1973, Freeman stated:

Detailed organisational information on this is no longer available. There is no Northern Ireland training and advisory team (NITAT) currently in Northern Ireland. The role and composition of the NITATs are as described in my reply to the hon. Member on 29 February at column 422.

SAS involvement

The SRU has had a close relationship with the SAS which has been the subject of some confusion. The first evidence came to light on 19 March 1974 when Robert Fisk reported in The Times that SAS members had been sent secretly to Northern Ireland "to serve as military undercover intelligence agents in Belfast and Londonderry:

Between 40 and 50 SAS men are serving in Northern Ireland. Attached to various regular army battalions on the province, they are operating mostly in plain clothes,carrying out patrols in civilian cars, keeping watch on the homes of suspected IRA men and Protestant extremists and, on some occasions, assuming false identities in order to gather information in republican and loyalist districts.

The April 1974 briefing states:

Men who have served with the SAS are serving in the SRU but no SAS units are operating in Northern Ireland. One officer and 30 soldiers serving with the SRU since early January are due to resume service with 22 SAS by 7 April. Their presence with the SRU went undetected until the Robert Fisk article in "The Times" on 19 March.

Attached to the briefing was a statement, which had been passed to the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs. It stated: “The facts are as follows. No SAS unit has been or is stationed in Northern Ireland.” The statement added that the policy had been not to use former SAS personnel on plain-clothes duties until two or three years after their service with the regiment had ended, but that in the past three months “use has been made of a number of volunteers, whose experience has been acquired only just beforehand.” There was mention of the fact that the soldiers involved would also be returning to the SAS immediately after serving in Northern Ireland.

Former senior SAS NCO Ken Connor has described the regiment's role in creating the unit he referred to as 14 Int:

The SAS developed a selection procedure, ran the induction course and training and staffed the upper echelons of the company with SAS officers.

That gave the Regiment a means of maintaining its influence over an area that should technically have been controlled by the Intelligence Corps. The SAS could have its cake and eat it too, maintaining an involvement in Northern Ireland without using manpower that was needed in the Middle East.

Role

The April 1974 briefing described the SRU's role as follows:

The prime task of the SRU is to conduct covert surveillance of terrorists as a preliminary to an arrest carried out by security forces in uniform. The SRU may also be used to contact and handle agents or informers and for the surveillance and for the surveillance and protection of persons or property under terrorist threat. The SRU works to a great extent on Special Branch information and the Special Branch have a high regard for it.

People

• Julian Ball - commanded 3 Brigade detachment in 1974.
• Robert Nairac - Ball's number two, or liason officer.
• William Hatton
• Captain Anthony Pollen
• Corporal Paul Harman
• Lance Corporal Alan SwiftAlan Swift
• Sergeant Paul Oram

Holroyd claimed that an SAS troop led by Captain Julian Ball and Captain Robert Nairac was operating at Castledillon in Co Armagh under two cover names, 4 Field Survey Troop, Royal Engineers and NITAT.

In response to a question from Ken Livingstone in 1988, ministers denied that the NITAT unit existed, and claimed that records relating to 4 Field Survey Troop were no longer available.

The emergence, two decades later, of records confirming the existence of a unit corresponding closely to the one described by Holroyd raises two questions: was the British Parliament misled? And if Holroyd was right about this unit’s existence, was he also right about its involvement in collusion?