February 6th 1971 – First soldier killed in Troubles

Gunner Robert Curtis was shot dead in Belfast, the first of more than 500 soldiers to die.

On February 6th 1971, Gunner Robert Curtis, a member of the Royal Artillery, was shot dead during rioting in the New Lodge area of north Belfast, becoming the first British soldier to be killed in the course of the Troubles. He was 20 years old, and a native of Newcastle upon Tyne, England. According to the book Lost Lives – considered by many to be the definitive source of information on those killed in the conflict – Curtis was the first of 503 members of the British Army to die in Northern Ireland between 1971 and 1997, with an additional 206 members of the Ulster Defence Regiment, Royal Irish Rangers and Royal Irish Regiment also killed.

More than 50 people had died in the Troubles prior to Curtis, the first thought to have been 28-year-old John Scullion, a Catholic who was shot by the Ulster Volunteer Force near his home in the Clonard area of west Belfast, dying two weeks later, on June 11th 1966. The death of Gunner Robert Curtis, however, saw an escalation in the conflict. In 1970, a total of 19 people were killed in the Troubles. In 1971, the number of fatalities was more than four times as high, with 94 people killed in total, including 44 members of the British Army.

On February 5th, a riot began on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, when schoolchildren from Protestant and Catholic areas began throwing stones at one another. Martin Meehan, a member of the Provisional IRA who would later serve as a Sinn Féin councillor on Antrim Borough Council, was in his mid-twenties at the time, and witnessed first-hand the disturbances which spread that night, saying that British soldiers opened fire on rioters, killing Bernard Watt, a 28-year-old father-of-two. Soldiers claimed that Watt was about to throw an object which was alight when he was shot, though Watt was not known to be a member of the IRA, unlike James Saunders, a 'staff officer' in 'F' Company of the Provisional IRA's Third Battalion. Saunders, aged 21, was hit in the chest by an army marksman positioned to the upper houses in Louisa Street that night, and killed.

By early morning, February 6th, the rioting had spread to the New Lodge area. Billy Reid, a member of 'C' Company in the Provisional IRA's Third Battalion, is said to have arrived, and, in retaliation for the deaths of Watt and Saunders, opened fire on the soldiers with a submachine-gun. According to one who was standing next to Curtis, the bullet came “up the street, hit the wall, bounced off it and hit him. It deflected into his chest and killed him instantly.” The witness also said, “Nobody told us they were using weapons. Nobody trained us for that.”

Curtis's wife, Joan, who was three months pregnant at the time, was placed under heavy sedation after learning of her husband's death. She gave birth to a baby girl six months later, and said, “I didn't cry much, just a little weep, you know, for what might have been... I wanted to be on my own, you see, just me and Bobby's baby. That way we will grow into a family, the way Bobby wanted it. He joined the army to give us security.” Curtis's father spoke of his anger upon learning of his son's death, saying that, “when he went to Ireland, they all told me that there was no real danger of a soldier getting killed. I reminded them of that when they broke the news to me.”

James Chichester-Clark, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland and leader of the Ulster Unionist Party, spoke about Curtis's death the following day:

“Some of our fellow-citizens in Great Britain may well be asking the question: For what did this young soldier die and for what are other lives being put at risk? The answer is plain. He died in defence of the right of people – citizens of the United Kingdom – to live in peace, to determine their own future through the ballot box, to be free from intimidation by groups of terrorist thugs. These are things which matter to us all.

Of course, others who were engaged in attacks on the Army died too. There will be those who will say that they 'died for Ireland'. But all down the years there have been too many people ready to die for Ireland, or to see others die for it, or indeed to push women and children into the firing line.”

Sources

David McKittrick, Lost Lives: The Stories of the Men, Women and Children who Died as a Result of the Northern Ireland Troubles (Edinburgh: Mainstream, 1999)

Northern Ireland: Hearings. Ninety-second Congress, Second Session. February 28 and 29; and March 1, 1972.

Taylor, Peter, Provos: The IRA and Sinn Féin (London: Bloomsbury, 1997).