"My gut instinct tells me your "squaddie" was shooting you a line."

I agree. The fact that no ex-squaddie has ever come forward to confirm this, and the fact that no investigative journalist has (to my knowledge anyway) ever produced any proof suggests that it was never anything more than an urban myth.

BTW. Pizel. It's true that if any soldiers had been involved they would have been sworn to secrecy and made to sign the Official Secrets Act. Even so, I don't think that the threat of loss of pension would be an issue here, simply because of the scandal that would have erupted if any of them had spoken.

CTTOI, an ex-soldier taking a story like that to the newspapers would probably make far more money out of it than he could expect to lose by being de-pensioned.