Squaddies Voices - Ken Wharton

Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast: 1977

Lance Corporal ‘Tiny’ Rose - 2 Royal Anglian Regiment

I served in Northern Ireland, January - May 1977 and was stationed in Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast as Intelligence Unit, visiting the casualty department to see gun shot wound patients or anyone else who might be of interest. Funnily enough I should not have done this tour of duty but was assured that I was being sent on a safe job!

On 26 May 1977, mid day, I was walking along the corridor in the hospital to collect lunches, and thought it strange that the corridor was empty at this time of day as it was usually busy with people going back and forwards for lunch. I passed an open door, checked and there was nobody about outside and was about 15 metres past the door; the next thing I knew was that I was being shot at. As the first shot hit me in the left shoulder, it sent me tumbling to the ground and spun me round so that I was looking at the person shooting. Whereupon he fired 2 more shots at me, one of which hit me in the left leg, near the hip joint and the third one hit me on the right side ending close to the spine.

Each shot felt as though I had been kicked in the balls and the two which hit me after I had gone onto the deck actually lifted my body off the ground. The pain was terrible.

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As I fell to the floor the gunman was still shooting at me, and I tried to fire my Browning 9 mm but it had jumped out of the holster and was laid under me. When I got the weapon in my hand and went to fire, all I got was ‘click’ and realised that the mag had jumped out with the impact of hitting the floor. By the time I had resolved the problem with one hand - as my left side was useless - the gunman had fled out the door, leaving a knife on the floor and rounds of live ammunition. After I was removed from the scene, several further bullets were removed from the wall.

I was taken to the operating theatre, but stopped on the way to speak to my wife on the phone. Whilst in the operating theatre, they decided to clean the wounds and leave them open. On the following Tuesday I was transferred to the military hospital where I was taken to theatre once again for the wounds to be checked over and stitched up. The bullets were not removed as they decided it was too risky to remove as one could possibly leave me paralysed and the other would leave me impotent. To this day the bullets are still in me and in the last 3 years I have gone from being 30% to 60% disabled and getting worse every day.

My wife, June, was at first told that I had been stabbed and she was in a state of shock and confusion. Later, she would be speaking to my C.O. and she told me the following account. ‘It’s not nice when the CO comes to your bedside and says "I'm pleased it was your husband who was shot”’ It was only many months afterwards I realised that what he meant was that Tiny lived because he is 6' 6", a smaller man would have been dead as the bullet through his shoulder would have gone through the head and the one in his spine would have hit the heart area.’

The funny side of things was when my partner came to the casualty department to take my weapon from me and instead of ejecting the magazine, he ejected all the rounds into the sink and they had to get a plumber in to retrieve the ammo.

I was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital in Woolwich where I stayed until suitably fit to return to my quarter in Gillingham, Kent. I was back and forward to hospital for a year and medically discharged on 7 August 1978 with no help or guidance as to what would be my life in Civvy Street

Tiny Rose pictured with an xray which clearly shows the two IRA bullets still lodged in his body to this day.


Corporal Darren Ware, Royal Green Jackets The Mark 15 ‘coffee jar’ grenade was a fairly new type of device at the time currently being used by PIRA. It was first introduced on 25 May 1991 when a soldier was killed in an explosion within North Howard Street Mill in Belfast when the device was thrown over a wall and detonated inside the security force base. The grenade was based on a design seen in the early 1980’s. Up until the end of 1991 seven variants had been identified across Northern Ireland of which at least three had been seen in the Armagh area in a dozen incidents since July of 1991. The construction was very simple, consisting of a glass coffee jar which would have a tube inserted into it which would house the initiation device, on top of which was a bell push button. Surrounding the inner tube would be an amount of explosive and ‘scrap yard shrapnel’ - a collection of nuts and bolts designed to have the shrapnel effect when hit. The plastic lid would then be screwed on and at the same time pushing the bell push in to prime the device. When the coffee jar was thrown and smashed, the bell push would be released and detonate the device. There were slight variations to each device and mechanism.



Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast: 1977 Lance Corporal ‘Tiny’ Rose - 2 Royal Anglian Regiment I served in Northern Ireland, January - May 1977 and was stationed in Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast as Intelligence Unit, visiting the casualty department to see gun shot wound patients or anyone else who might be of interest. Funnily enough I should not have done this tour of duty but was assured that I was being sent on a safe job! On 26 May 1977, mid day, I was walking along the corridor in the hospital to collect lunches, and thought it strange that the corridor was empty at this time of day as it was usually busy with people going back and forwards for lunch. I passed an open door, checked and there was nobody about outside and was about 15 metres past the door; the next thing I knew was that I was being shot at. As the first shot hit me in the left shoulder, it sent me tumbling to the ground and spun me round so that I was looking at the person shooting. Whereupon he fired 2 more shots at me, one of which hit me in the left leg, near the hip joint and the third one hit me on the right side ending close to the spine. Each shot felt as though I had been kicked in the balls and the two which hit me after I had gone onto the deck actually lifted my body off the ground. The pain was terrible. . As I fell to the floor the gunman was still shooting at me, and I tried to fire my Browning 9 mm but it had jumped out of the holster and was laid under me. When I got the weapon in my hand and went to fire, all I got was ‘click’ and realised that the mag had jumped out with the impact of hitting the floor. By the time I had resolved the problem with one hand - as my left side was useless - the gunman had fled out the door, leaving a knife on the floor and rounds of live ammunition. After I was removed from the scene, several further bullets were removed from the wall. I was taken to the operating theatre, but stopped on the way to speak to my wife on the phone. Whilst in the operating theatre, they decided to clean the wounds and leave them open. On the following Tuesday I was transferred to the military hospital where I was taken to theatre once again for the wounds to be checked over and stitched up. The bullets were not removed as they decided it was too risky to remove as one could possibly leave me paralysed and the other would leave me impotent. To this day the bullets are still in me and in the last 3 years I have gone from being 30% to 60% disabled and getting worse every day. My wife, June, was at first told that I had been stabbed and she was in a state of shock and confusion. Later, she would be speaking to my C.O. and she told me the following account. ‘It’s not nice when the CO comes to your bedside and says "I'm pleased it was your husband who was shot”’ It was only many months afterwards I realised that what he meant was that Tiny lived because he is 6' 6", a smaller man would have been dead as the bullet through his shoulder would have gone through the head and the one in his spine would have hit the heart area.’ The funny side of things was when my partner came to the casualty department to take my weapon from me and instead of ejecting the magazine, he ejected all the rounds into the sink and they had to get a plumber in to retrieve the ammo. I was transferred to Queen Elizabeth Military Hospital in Woolwich where I stayed until suitably fit to return to my quarter in Gillingham, Kent. I was back and forward to hospital for a year and medically discharged on 7 August 1978 with no help or guidance as to what would be my life in Civvy Street Tiny Rose pictured with an xray which clearly shows the two IRA bullets still lodged in his body to this day.



Anonymous. On November 2, 1991, an IRA ‘sympathiser’ – a hospital porter – placed a bomb outside the Junior Ranks club at the hospital. It exploded whilst the off duty soldiers were watching television, killing two of them and injuring many. CSM Philip Cross (33) was married with two children and was from the north east of England. Craig Pantry was 20, single and was from the Gwent area of Wales. A contemporary press report of the time, naturally outraged at this attack read: ‘You Evil Cowards.’ ‘Even the heavens wept as a shocked world witnessed the depths plumbed in the IRA’s latest example of man’s inhumanity to man. Rain has washed much of the blood and gore from the scene of yesterday’s cowardly attack on the military wing at Belfast’s Musgrave Park Hospital. A bomb blast left 2 soldiers dead, dozens hurt and 8 people seriously wounded including a 7 year old girl. But nothing can erase the stain caused by a nation’s shame at a haven for the sick and dying being devastated by cold-hearted killers.’