大象传媒

This story is taken from an interview with John Luke, and has been added to the site with his permission. The author fully understands the site's terms and conditions. The interviewer was Mark Jeffers, and the transcription was by Bruce Logan.
====

The war wasn鈥檛 long started until the first troops came into Ballymena (The Monmouthshire Regiment). I remember them marching in the road from Larne. They stopped on Larne Street for a break and the housewives made them tea and sandwiches but the officer in charge would not let the men eat any of it. I was told later by a member of the Regiment that they had been warned about coming to Ireland that everybody was to be treated with suspicion. The IRA was very active in Manchester I think around that time, so to the army the Irish were all their enemies. But as time went by they discovered the truth about the Ulster people. The army were on the move everywhere you went, manoeuvres in the country, route marches. I recall a big army manoeuvre in the Cushendall Road area, a Spitfire Fighter was 鈥渁ttacking鈥� the troops on the road; one wing hit an electric cable between two houses and it crashed into the field beside the road. Unfortunately the pilot was killed.

漏 Copyright of content contributed to this Archive rests with the author. Find out how you can use this.