Leading a regiment that patrolled the streets of Belfast in 1972, Dick Vincent received intelligence that the Provisional IRA was about to blow up a culvert in Andersontown Road. Displaying the clear strategic thinking that would distinguish him as chief of defence staff (CDS) in later years, Vincent ordered a Humber armoured car weighed down with sandbags to approach the scene. When the bomb was detonated the soldiers seized the terrorists at the firing point.
As a result Vincent sprang to notice as one of the few commanding officers to receive the Distinguished Service Order for service in Northern Ireland at a time when successive governments persisted in denying that there was a “war” on the streets of part of the United Kingdom.
However, as
