Orders, Decorations, Medals and Militaria

A fine ‘Operation Nimrod’ campaign pair awarded to Staff Sergeant I. N. Pape, B Squadron, Special Air Service, formerly 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, a member of the iconic S.A.S. hostage rescue force during the Iranian Embassy Siege, 5 May 1980 - He was accredited with the eventual capture of ‘Ali’, real name Fowzi Nejad, the only terrorist to survive the storming of the embassy.

Pape went on to serve with the Regiment in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, and came to the fore again when a tragic climbing accident occurred during a 9 Troop training exercise in Botswana in June 1985. An equipment failure led to the death of one of the S.A.S. climbers, and Pape exhibited his climbing expertise and sheer brute strength as he took it upon himself to abseil down a mountain with the body of the casualty strapped to his back. His eventual success was witnessed, in a gathering storm, by Andy McNab who was there with 7 Troop, ‘it was about two hours before Ivor [pseudonym] got to us. He was in shit state; he was sweating heavily and covered in grime, he had cuts on his elbows and knees, and his face and arms were bruised from the effort of moving a very heavy Joe off the mountain. He had put Joe into a mountain stretcher and then started to abseil down. It was a major feat of strength to kick himself and Joe over the overhangs. He should have got a medal that day. We took the body the rest of the way down.’

General Service 1962-2007, 1 clasp, Northern Ireland (24393251 Tpr I N Pape SAS); South Atlantic 1982, with rosette (24393251 Cpl I N Pape 5 Innis DG (SAS)) first with named card box of issue, and with scan of recipient’s Regular Army Certificate of Service, good very fine (2) £8,000-£10,000

Ivan Nicholas Pape was born in July 1959, and attested for the 5th Royal Inniskilling Dragoon Guards, Royal Armoured Corps at Carlisle in May 1976. He went on to pass selection for the Special Air Service Regiment, and served with 22 SAS, 13 August 1979 - 22 June 1990. During which time he served Northern Ireland, 4 January - 2 February 1980; 1 May - 10 May 1981; and 7 September -15 September 1981. He also served with the Regiment during the Falklands War.

The Iranian Embassy Siege, 5 May 1980

Perhaps of most note during Pape’s military career was his part in Operation Nimrod - the breaking of the Iranian Embassy siege in London. Bob Curry’s autobiography, The Psychic Soldier, gives the following background to the hostage rescue team of which he and Pape were members:

‘On return to Hereford we were taken on our next role. For the next six months we were assigned to the national counter terrorist team. This was early 1980. If there was a local problem, you would ring 999 and expect the police, ambulance or fire brigade to attend to your problem. Well, if there was a terrorist incident in this country, the national counter terrorist team would deal with it, and as you would expect, it was the country's blue-light service, just like your local services always on call, always ready, highly trained, and very effective against any terrorist organisation that wanted to perform in this country. My advice to the terrorists was, 'Don't even think about it.'

I was trained as an assault team member. These are men that go into the building where the terrorists are located and clear the rooms - the sharp end of the job, as you've seen on the films and television, giving the bad guys the good news. Never shooting a hostage - this was what the training was about. Picking out the good from the bad and dealing with the situation that you found yourself in at the time.

I was also trained as a sniper, both day and night. The use of night observation equipment was important in the training to see and not be seen. 'Surprise' was always the word.

After a series of exercises confirming the team were ready to take on the role, finally we took over the national counter terrorist team responsibilities. Every day was training, long and hard, and no stone went unturned. We were ready, should the call come, and in May 1980 it did. We were just coming back from training. It was lunchtime, and the troop sergeant, Roy, said to us, 'The Iranian Embassy in London has been taken over by a group of terrorists. We are on standby to go.' And we were ready. We were always ready. The kits were always packed to go. We were given the word to deploy to London.

There were hostages being held in the building at Princes Gate in London. There were several terrorists, all armed, holding them. They had even taken a policeman from the front door, holding him hostage. This had never happened in England before, but since the Munich Olympics and the disaster that had happened there, we'd had a team. This team was from the best unit in the British Army, the SAS, and I'm sure to this day that had the terrorists known of our existence, this incident would have never happened. They wouldn't have dared to try this. We have a saying in the military: 'Prior planning and preparation prevents piss-poor performance.' They hadn't followed this rule.

That night we moved into position in the building next door to the Iranian embassy to await the outcome of negotiations. If they failed, we were the next card to be played. There was a television programme on at the time where competitors went over an assault course, and to get double points they could play their joker card if the competitors felt they were good at one particular subject that the game demanded. This card was held by the government that day, and unfortunately, I knew what would happen. I thought: They're not going to let sixty rottweilers loose in London, are they?, by this I mean the SAS.

We had been there for five days in all. Negotiations went on and on.  I was convinced that this would all end in a peaceful settlement. The terrorists didn't know what was sitting next door, and if they had, I think they would have given up fast.

We were in assault teams of two men per team, and we all had jobs to do. First of all, we had to get in. This would be achieved by blowing an entry point at the rear of the building using explosives. It would be an electronic initiation. However, if the explosives failed to detonate, my job was to run forward and gain entry with a sledgehammer.

My team's final assault position was behind a small wall that we all had to lie down behind. It could not have been more than two feet high, which would not be much cover from a big blast. We waited for the big bang. It did not happen. Instead I got a slap on the head from one of the team. Go, go. I thought it must have been a misfire.

A misfire occurs when there is a problem with the circuit or when the detonator fails to explode and set off the main charge. Whatever had gone wrong, it was now up to me to get us in. I got up and ran forward. The explosives were still there on a long, flat length of wood leaning against the wall. Well, consider this: I thought that it was a misfire. The safety time for an electronic initiation misfire is ten minutes; this means you don't go near a device that has been attempted electronically for ten minutes.

Well, it was obvious that we did not have time to hang around and wait, so I kicked the charge out of my way, thinking, Well, if it goes off, I won't know anything about it. I'll be all over the park. And then I started to make an entry point through the window to my front. It had wooden shutters behind it, which were closed, and heavy draped curtains behind those. It didn't take me long, as obviously the adrenaline was rushing. I made an entry point. I remember removing the safety catch on my MP5 submachine gun with my thumb. Ready to deal with the aggressor that I might now meet inside, I climbed in. We were in.

Rooms were cleared of terrorists one at a time and hostages were handed out to the rear of the building. All had to be ID’d and the opposition dealt with. Regrettably, a fire had been started, so we had to get out as soon as the task was completed, which we did.

We were back next door, our task had been completed, we had saved all the remaining hostages and captured one terrorist, the other terrorists died due to their actions. Unfortunately the Embassy caught fire but this was brought under control and today it has been rebuilt to be as grand as it ever was.’

Capturing a terrorist

The capture of the terrorist was in no small part due to Pape. Whilst Curry was part of Rusty Firmin’s ten-man assault team at the rear of the Embassy, Pape was also at the rear as part of the eight-man hostage reception team. He was to be engaged in Phase Four of the Deliberate Assault plan - Evacuation: On completion of Phase Three (Stronghold Assault and Domination), teams to evacuate the hostages via a secure route to the secure hostage reception area in the embassy’s rear garden.

More detail is given in Rusty Firmin and Will Pearson’s Go! Go! Go!:

‘In the rear garden, more SAS call signs... stood ready... the hostage reception team would also continue to act as the rear cut-off group for any hostile runners.

As the hostages came tumbling out, the garden team grabbed them, told them to lie face down on the grass and cuffed their hands behind their backs with plastic ties.... If you’re genuinely innocent and six terrorists have been holding you at gunpoint for six agonising days, the face down and handcuff treatment doesn’t sound very friendly. Standard procedure, it was designed to be assertive: no one knew for sure if all the terrorists had been killed. There could still be more sleepers trying to escape in the throng. The SAS had just detected one terrorist - plus grenade - attempting to mingle with innocent hostages on the stairs. The pattern of behaviour suggested the terrorists had all been told - or agreed - to detonate grenades as an action of last resort. It was therefore essential to identify every single one of the people now lying face down on the embassy lawn.’

Sim Harris, one of the hostages, identified a terrorist as being amongst those in the rear garden. He gives the following detail in a book he co-authored with fellow hostage Chris Cramer:

‘On the other side of the lawn the one thing which the S.A.S. feared had happened - one of the gunmen had been brought out of the embassy in the confusion. It was the terrorist with the European features, Ali, who had thrown himself down among the hostages just seconds before the S.A.S. entered the telex room. As the embassy continued to blaze Ali was tossed out of the building, along with the people he had been holding hostage for six days.

Ali was first spotted by a police marksman deployed on the sixth floor of a block of flats in Kensington Road. The officer had seen the gunman earlier in the day leaning out of an embassy window.... The officer frantically began to shout down to the S.A.S. below. Sim too had noticed to his horror that Ali was among the hostages. The gunman was crawling on all fours towards one of the women hostages. He clawed at the girl’s sleeve and gripped tight.

“Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him. He’s a nice boy.”
The girl was crying and pleading with an S.A.S. man [Pape] to leave Ali alone. The soldier screamed into her face.
“Is he a terrorist or a hostage?”
The girl refused to answer and continued to sob. “Don’t hurt him, please don’t hurt him.” She turned her head away. Sim shouted out across the lawn. “He’s a terrorist. There’s no doubt about it.”

The man ran over to Sim. He was dressed scruffily in jeans and a sweatshirt. He knelt down.
“Are you sure. Are you positive he’s one of the terrorists?”
“There’s no mistake,” said Sim, “He’s definitely one of them.”
“Who are you? Harris?”
“Yes.”

Three or four men stepped forward and grabbed hold of Ali, ripping his bound hands from the girl’s shoulder. They held him upside down by his arms and legs. Ali was screaming with fright. Next to him the girl was still sobbing.

The men started to move with Ali and were joined by a uniformed police officer with an Alsatian dog on a lead. He spoke to them briefly and then together with another policeman, led Ali away, across the garden and round to the front of the Embassy.’

Botswana - a training exercise with tragic results

Following the success of the Iranian Embassy Siege, Pape continued to serve with the SAS including service during the Falklands War and postings to Northern Ireland, as well as training specialist units around the world in the art of counter terrorism.

Pape was posted as part of B Squadron to Botswana in June 1985. The Squadron was posted in consequence of a series of cross-border attacks carried out by South African forces, all of which culminated ‘in June 1985 [when] South African forces carried out a raid on Gaborone, the capital of Botswana. Several homes were raided and twelve men, allegedly ANC members, were killed in their sleep. The South African government alleged that Botswana territory was used by ANC guerillas to launch attacks inside South Africa, including recent mine blasts which had killed white farmers near the border. Botswana rejected the claims, arguing that it did its utmost to prevent ANC military activities inside its territory.

Botswana appealed to the British for help; the appeal was approved by Foreign Secretary Sir Geoffrey Howe and a Regiment squadron of eighty men was to be sent to train Botswana’s soldiers to defend their country against border raids by Big Brother. Selected soldiers from the BDF (Botswana Defence Force) would be given special training, including techniques of aggressive counter-attack to neutralise South African raiding parties. We were told the training would take place in the north of the country, well away from the South African border. We would not be involved in any contact with the SADF (South African Defence Force).’ (Immediate Action by Andy McNab refers)

Pape was serving with 9 Troop up in the Tsodilo Hills, when an accident occurred during a training exercise. Two of the troop were stranded up one of the mountains, and the following is recorded about the incident by Andy McNab (who was there as part of 7 Troop) in Immediate Action:

‘We could hear on the radio that Ivor [the pseudonym used for Pape in the book] was now with them on the mountain and needed everyone’s help. About 5’7” and wiry, Ivor was a mountain goat from somewhere up north. He came from an armoured regiment and had been at the Embassy and the Falklands. He wasn’t one to mince his words on the net.

“Joe is dead,” he said. “The boss is going to be taken down by Harry and George. This is what I want to happen.”

He wanted everyone to get as far up the mountain as possible and meet him coming down. How he was going to do it we had no idea, but we started up towards him.

The storm now looked as if it was just teasing us. There was a little rain but nothing to worry about, apart from time. The heli didn’t want to leave at night; we had to get a move on or it would leave without Joe, Slaphead [injured earlier in the day] being the main priority now.

It was about two hours before Ivor got to us. He was in shit state; he was sweating heavily and covered in grime, he had cuts on his elbows and knees, and his face and arms were bruised from the effort of moving a very heavy Joe off the mountain. He had put Joe into a mountain stretcher and then started to abseil down. It was a major feat of strength to kick himself and Joe over the overhangs. He should have got a medal that day. We took the body the rest of the way down. The heli then had two bodies on board instead of the one they had expected.

We learned that a device used to attach a person to the rock face had given way, and Joe had gone bouncing down the hill until he got stopped by his next ‘safety’. The Boss had climbed down to Joe and tried to save him but it was too late. However a casualty is not dead until he is confirmed dead, so he tried anyway.’

Pape advanced to Acting Staff Sergeant, and was discharged, 22 June 1990, having served 14 years and 50 days with the Army.