Ulster Defence Regiment - Formation

Formation

The Ulster Defence Regiment Act 1969 received Royal Assent on 18 December 1969 and was brought into force on 1 January 1970.

General Sir John Anderson GCB, KCB DSO (5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards) was appointed as the first Colonel Commandant and the first regimental commander was a WW2 veteran, Brigadier Logan Scott-Bowden CBE DSO OBE MC & Bar.

The Belfast Telegraph reported on 18 February 1970 that the first two soldiers reported as signing up were a 19-year-old Catholic and a 47-year-old Protestant. The regiment was intended to be nonpartisan, and it began with Catholic recruits accounting for 18% of membership. However as the Troubles worsened suspicion and disenchantment among the Catholic community grew, especially after events such as Bloody Sunday. In addition to this some units suffered from tension between Catholic recruits and former B Specials, and the Provisional IRA waged a campaign of intimidation and targeted killings against Catholic UDR soldiers. In time a combination of these factors reduced Catholic membership to around 3% of the Regiment's soldiers.

The response from the B Specials was mixed. Some felt betrayed and resigned immediately, while others grasped the new opportunity and made application to join the UDR as soon as forms were available. The B-Specials had another option open to them after disbandment: to join the newly formed RUC Reserve. Many did so, especially in Belfast, where during the first month of recruiting, only 36 Specials applied to join the UDR compared to a national average of 29% - 2,424, one thousand of whom were rejected, mainly on the grounds of age and fitness. Around 75% of the men of the Tyrone B Specials applied and, as a result, the 6th Battalion started life as the only battalion more or less up to strength and remained so during its history. The border counties in general followed this pattern. It also meant that former B Specials dominated these battalions. The story was different for Belfast, Londonderry, Down and Antrim, where the figures were markedly more balanced with a high proportion of Catholic recruits. The results at 3 UDR were best in this respect. The battalion commenced duty with 30% of its numbers as Catholic.

By March 1970, when deputy Minister of Defence Roy Hattersley answered questions in the House of Commons, there had been 4791 applications to join, of which 946 were from Catholics and 2424 from current or former members of the B-Specials. 2440 had been accepted, including 1423 from current or former B-Specials. The breakdown for each area was:

Battalion	Applications	Accepted	USC	Accepted
Antrim (1UDR)	575	221	220	93
Armagh (2UDR)	615	370	402	277
Down (3UDR)	460	229	195	116
Fermanagh (4UDR)	471	223	386	193
Londonderry (5UDR)	671	382	338	219
Tyrone (6UDR)	1187	637	813	419
Belfast (7UDR)	797	378	70	36

The table above shows the number of B Specials who joined the regiment before it began duties. By 1 April 1970, only 1,606 of the desired 4,000 men had been enlisted, and the regiment began its duties much under strength.

According to Potter, a number of former members of the B Specials felt aggrieved at the loss of their force and were not prepared to join the UDR. In some cases, they even booed and jeered passing UDR patrols and that most resistance was by the B Specials in County Down where the District adjutant of the Specials actively campaigned in an effort to persuade B Specials not to apply for the new force.

Potter wrote that unless the numbers of recruits from both communities reflected the demographics of Northern Ireland, it would never become the model Lord Hunt intended it to be. Whilst Catholics continued to join the regiment he says, the numbers were never sufficiently high enough, except in 3 UDR. The 3rd (Co. Down) Battalion was, according to Potter, the unit with the highest percentage of Catholic members throughout the Troubles, beginning with 30%. In 3 UDR some sections were staffed entirely by Catholics and this led to protests from the B Specials Association that in 3 UDR "preference for promotion and allocation of appointments was being given to Catholics". This he suggests can be explained by the fact that the local Territorial Army company of Royal Irish Fusiliers had been disbanded in 1968 and the vast majority of its members had joined up en-masse.

The new company commander of C Company was the former company commander of the TA unit and according to Potter, was amazed to see that virtually all of his TA soldiers were on parade, in the TA Centre, in exactly the same drill hall as they had previously used, for the first night of the new regiment. He noted according to Potter, that there were some former B Specials in the room and made the observation that they did not initially associate with the others - not on the grounds of religion but because the former TA soldiers all knew each other socially and sat together on canteen breaks whereas the B Men kept to their group of comrades but within a week both groups had melded together.

Many Catholic recruits found themselves reporting for duty in B Specials drill halls according to Chris Ryder and in some cases the new Catholic recruits were cold-shouldered or ignored and generally made to feel unwelcome to the point where they resigned. Despite this he says, many Catholics stayed in the regiment but following Operation Demetrius there was a general outcry by nationalist politicians because no Protestant paramilitaries were interned: only Catholics suspected as members of the IRA. On 18 August 1971 SDLP MP Austin Currie (whose own brother was a member of the regiment) publicly withdrew his support for the regiment, and noted that for some time the IRA had been discouraging Catholics from joining but following Operation Demetrius more serious intimidation began to emerge.

The first serving Catholic to be killed was 32-year-old part-time Private Sean Russell of 7 UDR, who was shot in 1970, in front of his wife and children, by members of the Irish Republican Army who burst into his home in the predominantly Catholic area of New Barnsley, Belfast. The last was part-time Private William Megrath of 11 UDR who was shot dead in July 1987 as he drove through the Twinbrook area of west Belfast on his way home from his civilian job.

The Belfast Telegraph reported that, as a result of IRA pressure and disillusionment with the government's attitude towards the minority community over internment, 25% of Catholics in the regiment resigned in 1971, 50% of those in the months following internment.

The threat of intimidation against members of the UDR is a serious matter. The UDR is more than an army regiment. It is an experiment in co-operation between Protestants and Catholics. If the Catholics leave, the UDR will become a purely Protestant force by default. —The Belfast Telegraph

The regiment attempted to halt the exodus of Catholics in a number of ways Potter notes, including allowing battalion commanders to appear on television (normally not permitted for the rank of Lieutenant Colonel at that time), with appeals to religious and political leaders and the implementation of extra personal-security measures. Although the Ministry of Defence never admitted to any intent on the matter, he comments that when Brigadier Scott-Bowden's term as Commander UDR finished in 1972, his successor was Brigadier Denis Ormerod, a Catholic whose mother's family came from the Republic of Ireland. His second-in-command (Deputy Commander UDR), Colonel Kevin Hill, was also Catholic, as was his successor Colonel Paddy Ryan, whose father lived in Donaghadee, Co Down. Ormerod admitted in his memoirs that his religion and appointment as the senior Catholic Army officer in Northern Ireland helped him considerably in his rapport with Catholic religious leaders but that, conversely, these appointments also created unease with Protestants and he was visited by a number of concerned politicians including, notably, Ian Paisley.