SAS Warlord: Shoot to Kill

by Tom Siegriste

There are no official military records available on the British Army's Military Reaction Force (MRF) and yet it played a dramatic part in the evolution of the Irish Troubles in the 1970s. SAS Warlord - Shoot to Kill, covers SAS soldier Jack Gillespie's time in Belfast with the MRF, which was tasked with seeking out and shooting IRA gunmen. Gillespie, a unit commander, posed as a press photographer deep in "enemy territory". Some days however the camera was left at home and the Thomson machine gun was brought instead. Among Gillespie's targets in 1973 was Gerry Adams.

SAS Warlord conveys the frantic tension in Belfast. Readers will scarcely believe the account as it contradicts the propaganda they were fed about the British Army in Northern Ireland for a generation. And for them to hear it from the inside makes it all the more remarkable.

Jack Gillespie was the youngest ever recruit to the SAS and was associated with the Regiment for more than 30 years, serving all over the world, from the Jungles of Malaysia, to the deserts of Aden, to the mean streets of Belfast. Due to his fearless reputation he became known as the "hardest man in the regiment".

360 pages, Paperback

Published September 19, 2011

Reviews

[john egan · Rating 1 out of 5]

In a word? Terrible, filled with hyperbole and pub warrior nonsense, the MRF was just a group of loyalist murderers guided by Military intelligence however anyone looking at the NI theatre of conflict can see that with all the hype, all the so called intel success the British army suffered from the same egotistical nonsense that saw the obvious outcome, their withdrawal after failure.
The fact that a modern army had to resort to murdering civilians in uniform and in mufti only emphasized their inability to control the battlespace
As for hardest man bull$**t, has he ever heard of paddy mayne? This guy would not last a week with stirling and mayne

[Nigel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jack Gillespie was the great, great grandson of Robert Gillespie, a buccaneer who rose to the rank of General in India and died in the war with Nepal in 1814. This character was a real roughneck and I’d read about him recently – the name Gillespie rang a bell. Clearly the genes of the family were passed on to Jack, the hero of this book, a sergeant-major in the SAS and a chip off the old block. As a former 'Rupert' I could smell the whiff of something genuine here in this tale - it's clear Gillespie had something to do with the telling of it.

However in the Author’s Note you will find ‘what has been written about the unit up to now has for the most part been fantasy or at best fanciful’. He’s writing about the Military Reaction Force or MRF, a special unit operating in Northern Ireland in the early 70s, which he refers to as a death squad. This book purports to be the story of the unit, albeit with the rider that ‘some names and places have been distorted to protect those involved’. It does not claim to be military history but a story of some brave men, and by implication we understand everything is true.

The book reads like a breathless thriller with hype made up from a mix of memoir, elaborated with imagination. With no sources indicated it’s impossible to judge if Siegriste falls into his own catagorisation of fantasy.

You can find Edward Hagerty's serious review of this book on the web and that will give you most of what you need to know. In addition you could look up the Army Rumours website where discussion categorises the book as poorly written fiction. Interestingly the Wikipedia article on the MRF doesn’t mention this publication.

If you need more books on the subject look for Simon Cursey's 'MRF Shadow Troop' but before buying that check out the Army Rumours website again for more opinion on fact or fiction. The BBC Panorama on the MRF in 2013 gives different details from former MRF operatives. An uncontroversial definitive military history, obviating personal agendas and official reticence, grounded in well sourced fact, is probably a chimera.