Continued
An army patrol of two Land-Rovers was ambushed by three IRA gunmen. Five soldiers were injured but none of them died.
The squaddies were members of the Royal Green Jacket's third battalion. During its four-month tour of duty in Ulster three men were killed and 27 injured.
Since then the third has visited the province twice and only one soldier has been injured. That happened just three days before I visited the battalion last week.
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The third has special ties with the East End and many of the lads come from Waltham Forest. One such is 19-year-old Ray Wells of Winns Avenue, Walthamstow.
In his two years in the army he has been to Northern Ireland twice.
"Ulster is part of a soldier's life," he said. "It could have been here or Cyprus. I joined the army so I have got to accept it."
Ray, a rifleman, was in the Junior Marines until he "got fed up with the bull." He knew a Green Jacket who told him there was none of that kind of thing in his regiment and suggested he joined them.
The friend was killed in Ulster in 1971.
Although Northern Ireland is not the violent place it once was life is still very hard for the squaddies. They are on duty 24 hours a day seven days a week.
They are allowed to buy two cans of beer from the Char Wallah each day but never allowed to go out to a pub or a shop in Belfast.
As 19-year-old Rifleman Dave Moreland of Trelawn Road, Leyton, says: "You are locked in. There is no social life. You just work and sleep. It is just one continuous stagger."
But Northern Ireland is also an "experience" and a chance to get away from the hum-drum routine of life.
"I quite look forward to going to Ulster because I get extra money and I think you get to know the blokes better because you have to pull together.
'How many times'
"Even so when I get back from a tour I sit down and think how many times has some sod had his sights on me. It only takes one man with a little bit of organisation.
"But if we thought like that over here we would all end up like gibbering idiots."
Dave has been in the army nearly three years and this is his second tour of duty in Ulster. He has also been to Singapore and Malaya.
Rifleman Tony Statters, 21, of Farnan Avenue, Walthamstow, has served in the province three times in his two-and-a-half-years in the army.
He certainly doesn't like coming to Ulster but not because he is frightened. "I am fed up," he said. "It seems a waste of time. It used to be exciting but now it is just boring. You lose all your freedom and all you do is wasted."
When he joined the army he knew he would be going to Ulster and almost looked forward to the prospect.
"But the first time I was shot at it scared the life out of me because I couldn't understand that there was someone out there who wanted to kill me," he said. "After that it almost excited me."
Married man Corporal Barrie Mitchell, 28, of Buckland Road, Leyton, has another problem. His wife is pregnant and doesn't think much of him being away from her.
Jonathan Brind