SAS Veteran Breaks Silence: We Saved IRA Critic Bernadette Devlin

Special Forces soldier reveals 44-year secret of how regiment thwarted UDA assassination attempt, contradicting politician's long-held claims

The Irish republican Bernadette Devlin’s life was saved by the SAS, the Daily Mail has revealed in an exclusive interview with a solider who was first through the door.

Disgusted at Labour’s betrayal of his comrades, the SAS veteran has broken his silence after 44 years to reveal his regiment saved the life of Devlin after a horrific murder attempt, reports Robert Hardman.

A hit squad from the outlawed loyalist Protestant paramilitary, the Ulster Defence Association, broke into her home, shooting her husband then her while their three children screamed.

The SAS had been deployed having been told there could be an attempt on a ‘celebrity’ politicians life. The plan was to set up an observation post to protect her. They had just arrived at first light and were still doing their initial circuit of the property, when a car carrying three members of the UDA, Andrew Watson, Thomas Graham and Robert Smallwood, armed with a Smith & Wesson revolver and two 9mm Brownings.

They broke into the home, shot Bernadtte and her husband multiple times and rushed out again, only to be confronted by the SAS soldiers who had sprung into action and called for back-up, which arrived within 15 minutes.

Thanks to the the SAS soldiers’ courageous restraint the gunmen were arrested.

Bernadette and her husband were heli-vacced to a military hospital.

Bernadette would always maintain that the SAS soldiers were from the hated Paras, had no interest in saving her and had made no effort.

“Had it been left to the Paras, I would be dead,” she told the Mail in 2002, claiming that it was the Argylls who saved the day.

“Rob the medic saved our lives. He called a military helicopter and got the Paras to hand over their medical packs to stem our wounds.

“The Paras were confused and paralysed. It was the Argylls who took control, and we did not die.”

She gave a crystal decanter to the military surgeon in hospital who had saved both her and her husband (even though the doctor was a Para).

The current Left-wing rewriting of the history of the ‘Troubles’ in Northern Ireland, is repainting the Special Forces as villains and besmirching the reputation of the Regiment.

Now the truth is out, will it make a difference?

“One can but wonder what Bernadette would say if she knew what really happened that day. The Mail has approached her for comment,” reported the Mail.

Online version here (behind paywall): https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14901681/SAS-veteran-breaks-silence-44-years-ROBERT-HARDMAN.html