Tommy Turtle

In the summer of 1980, at Hereford, the headquarters of the SAS, Turtle married Margaret McQuillan. They had two sons, Thomas and James, and four grandchildren, William, Freddie, Archie and Matilda. He died of cancer on 29 December 2020, aged 70. An obituary said of him that he was "a tall, strongly built Irishman possessed of good looks, charm, a gentle brogue and a genial but resolute disposition."

After the Falklands, Turtle joined 21 SAS (Volunteers) as an instructor, before returning to a long Royal Irish Rangers posting in Northern Ireland, where in June 1983 he was an Acting Sergeant and was mentioned in despatches for gallant and distinguished service between November 1982 and January 1983. In October 1988, while serving as a staff sergeant in the Royal Irish Rangers, he was awarded the British Empire Medal (Military Division) for meritorious service in Northern Ireland. In 1990, he became a warrant officer at the International Long-Range Reconnaissance Patrol School of the British Army of the Rhine. On 31 May 1992, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant into the newly merged Royal Irish Regiment, with four years’ added seniority, and the same day was promoted to lieutenant. This was first gazetted in June as a commission into the Parachute Regiment, and re-gazetted in July. In 1995, he returned to the SAS to serve in Bosnia, where he had an advisory role and was at the side of the US General Bill Nash at his evening briefings. His later appointments were in the Directorate of Special Forces, and he served again in the Middle East before retiring to civilian life in 2005.

With the SAS, in 1982 Turtle took part in several actions of the Falklands War. He was by then a corporal.

In his early years in the British Army, Turtle served in West Germany, Gibraltar, and the Middle East. Unusually, he graduated from the Parachute Regiment Battle School at Brecon, although not a member of the regiment, and in 1977 was accepted into the Special Air Service (SAS).

Thomas James Turtle BEM (24 December 1950 – 29 December 2020), known as Touché or Tommy Turtle, was a British Army soldier originally from Ireland who took part in many special forces campaigns, including the Falklands War and the Bosnian War.