Warrenpoint ambush

Warrenpoint ambush
Part of The Troubles

A British Army truck destroyed in the ambush
Date 27 August 1979
Location near Warrenpoint, County Down
Result IRA's biggest success against British military[1][2][3][4][5]
Belligerents
Provisional IRA British Army
Commanders and leaders
Brendan Burns Lieutenant Colonel
David Blair †
Strength
1 active service unit ~50 troops
Casualties and losses
None 18 dead
1 civilian killed, 1 wounded by British Army

Timeline – Directory

Ireland
Battle of the Bogside – August 1969 riots – Battle of St Matthew's – Falls Curfew – Scottish soldiers' killings – Operation Demetrius – Ballymurphy massacre – McGurk's bombing – Bloody Sunday – Abercorn bombing – Springhill massacre – Bloody Friday – Operation Motorman – Claudy bombing – Four Square Laundry – Ulster Workers' Council strike – Dublin & Monaghan bombings – Miami Showband killings – Bayardo Bar attack – Drummuckavall ambush – Reavey & O'Dowd killings – Kingsmill massacre – Flagstaff incident – Chlorane Bar attack – Jonesborough Gazelle shootdown – La Mon bombing – Warrenpoint ambush – Dunmurry explosion – Nellie M attack – Hunger strike – Glasdrumman ambush – St Bedan attack – Ballykelly bombing – Maze Prison escape – Newry barracks – Ballygawley barracks – Loughgall ambush – Enniskillen bombing – Milltown Cemetery attack – Corporals killings – Ballygawley bus bomb – 1989 Jonesborough ambush – Derryard checkpoint – Derrygorry Gazelle shootdown – Operation Conservation – RFA Fort Victoria – Proxy bomb attacks – 1991 Cappagh killings – Glenanne barracks – Coagh ambush – Clonoe ambush – Cloghoge checkpoint – Coalisland riots – South Armagh sniper campaign – 1993 Castlerock killings – 1993 Shankill bombing – Greysteel massacre – Crossmaglen Lynx shootdown – Loughinisland massacre – Drumcree conflict – 1997 Coalisland attack – July 1997 riots – Omagh bombing
England
Aldershot bombing – M62 coach bombing – Guildford bombings – Birmingham bombings – Marylebone siege – Hyde & Regent's Park bombings – Harrods bombing – Brighton bombing – Deal bombing – Downing Street attack – Warrington bombings – Bishopsgate bombing – Docklands bombing – Manchester bombing
Elsewhere
Operation Flavius, Gibraltar 1988 – Osnabrück barracks 1996

The Warrenpoint ambush[6][7][8] or Warrenpoint massacre[9][10][11][12] was a guerrilla assault[13] by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA)'s South Armagh Brigade on 27 August 1979. The IRA attacked a British Army convoy with two large bombs at Narrow Water Castle (near Warrenpoint), Northern Ireland. It resulted in the British Army's greatest loss of life in a single incident during the Troubles in Northern Ireland, with 18 soldiers being killed.

Contents

Ambush

First explosion

At 16:40, an Army convoy consisting of one Land Rover and two four-ton trucks was driving past Narrow Water Castle on the A2 road. As it passed, a 500 pounds (227 kg) fertiliser bomb, hidden in a lorry loaded with strawbales and parked close to the castle, was detonated by remote control. The explosion caught the rear truck in the convoy, killing six members of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment.[14]

After the first explosion, the soldiers, believing that they had come under attack from the IRA, began firing across the narrow maritime border with the Republic of Ireland, a distance of only 57 m (187 feet). An uninvolved civilian, Michael Hudson (an Englishman whose father was a coachman at Buckingham Palace) was killed as a result, and his cousin Barry Hudson wounded. According to RUC researchers, the soldiers may have mistaken the sound of ammunition cooking off from the destroyed Land Rover for enemy gunfire from across the border.[15] However, two IRA members arrested by the Gardaí and suspected of being behind the attack, Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan, showed traces of firearms in their hands and in the motorbike they were riding on.[16] Author Peter Taylor asserts that there was sniper fire on the soldiers after the first bomb ripped through the truck.[17]

On hearing the first explosion a Royal Marine unit alerted the Army of an explosion on the road and reinforcements from other units of the Parachute Regiment were dispatched to the scene by road. A rapid reaction unit, consisting of medical staff and senior commander Lieutenant-Colonel David Blair (the commanding officer of the Queen's Own Highlanders), together with his signaller Lance Corporal Victor MacLeod, were sent by Gazelle helicopter; another helicopter, a Wessex, landed to pick up the wounded. Colonel Blair assumed command once at the site.[18]

Second explosion

At 17:12, thirty-two minutes after the first explosion, a second device concealed in milk pails exploded against the gate lodge on the opposite side of the road, destroying it. The IRA had been studying how the Army acted after a bombing and correctly assessed that the soldiers would set up an incident command point (ICP) in the nearby gatehouse.

The second explosion, caused by an 800 pounds (363 kg) fertiliser bomb, killed twelve soldiers: ten from the Parachute Regiment and the two from the Queen's Own Highlanders.[19][20] Mike Jackson, then a major in the Parachute Regiment, was at the scene soon after the second explosion and later described seeing pieces of human remains over the area and the face of his friend, Major Peter Fursman, still recognisable after it had been completely ripped away from his head by the explosion and recovered from the water by Royal Engineers divers. Only one of Colonel Blair's epaulettes remained to identify him as his body had been vapourised in the blast.[21] The epaulette was taken from the scene by Brigadier David Thorne to a security briefing with Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher to illustrate the 'human factor' of the attack.[22]

Aftermath

Two men arrested after the bombing, Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan, were later released on bail due to lack of evidence.[23]

Warrenpoint happened on the same day as Lord Louis Mountbatten, a cousin-once-removed of HM Queen Elizabeth II, was killed by an IRA unit near Sligo along with several others.

According to Toby Harnden, the attack "drove a wedge" between the Army and the RUC. Lieutenant-General Sir Timothy Creasey, General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, suggested to Margaret Thatcher that internment should be restored and that liaison with the Gardaí should be left in the hands of the military.[24] Sir Kenneth Newman, the RUC Chief Constable, claimed instead that the Army practice, already in place since 1975, of supplying their garrisons in south Armagh by helicopter, gave too much freedom of movement to the IRA.[25][26] One tangible security outcome was the appointment of Sir Maurice Oldfield to a new position of co-ordinator of security intelligence in Northern Ireland. His role was to co-ordinate intelligence across the security forces and the RUC. The other was the expansion of the RUC by 1,000 members.[27] Tim Pat Coogan asserts that ultimately, the death of these 18 soldiers increased the move to Ulsterisation.[28]

Lieutenant-Colonel Blair is remembered on a memorial at Radley School.[29]

Brendan Burns was killed in 1988 when a bomb he was transporting exploded prematurely.[30]

See also

References

  1. ^ Barzilay, David: British Army in Ulster. Century Books, 1981. Vol. 4. Page 94. ISBN 0903152169
  2. ^ Wood, Ian: Scotland and Ulster. Mercat Press, 1994. Page 170. ISBN 1873644191
  3. ^ Geddes, John: Highway to Hell: An Ex-SAS Soldier's Account of the Extraordinary Private Army Hired to Fight in Iraq. Century, 2006. Page 20. ISBN 1846050626
  4. ^ Forest, James J. F. (2006). Homeland Security: Critical infrastructure. Greenwood Publishing Group, 93. ISBN 027598768X
  5. ^ Kennedy-Pipe, Caroline (1997). The origins of the present troubles in Northern Ireland. Longman, p. 84. ISBN 0582100739
  6. ^ Bowyer Bell, John: The IRA, 1968-2000: Analysis of a Secret Army. Taylor & Francis, 2000. p. 305. ISBN 0714681199
  7. ^ Faligot, Roger: Britain's Military Strategy in Ireland: The Kitson Experiment. Zed Press, 1983, p. 142. ISBN 086232047X
  8. ^ Ellison, Graham, and Smyth, Jim: The Crowned Harp: Policing Northern Ireland. Pluto Press, 2000, p. 145. ISBN 0745313930
  9. ^ Soldiers die in Warrenpoint massacre — BBC News On This Day feature
  10. ^ Daily Telegraph
  11. ^ Irish Independent
  12. ^ Google Search
  13. ^ Carr, Matthew (2007). The infernal machine: a history of terrorism. New Press, p. 173. ISBN 1595581790
  14. ^ Harnden, Toby (1999). Bandit Country. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 198. ISBN 034071736X. 
  15. ^ Harnden, Toby (1999). Bandit Country. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 200. ISBN 034071736X. 
  16. ^ Harnden, p. 204
  17. ^ Taylor, Peter (1997). Behind the mask:The IRA and Sinn Féin. TV books. p. 266. ISBN 157500061x. 
  18. ^ J Bowyer Bell (1997). The secret army: the IRA. Transaction Publishers, p. 454. ISBN 0815605978
  19. ^ Sutton Index of Deaths — from the CAIN project at the University of Ulster
  20. ^ Harnden, Toby (1999). Bandit Country. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 199. ISBN 034071736X. 
  21. ^ Jackson, General Sir Mike (5 September 2007). "Gen Sir Mike Jackson relives IRA Paras bombs". The Daily Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1562283/Gen-Sir-Mike-Jackson-relives-IRA-Paras-bombs.html. 
  22. ^ Ezard, John (25 April 2000). "David Thorne - The general who served in Northern Ireland and the Falklands, and defended the regimental structure of the British army". The Guardian. http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/2000/apr/25/guardianobituaries.johnezard. 
  23. ^ Harnden, p. 205
  24. ^ Harnden, page 212
  25. ^ "But Sir Kenneth Newman, the RUC Chief Constable, was adamant that the policy of 'police primacy', introduced by Merlyn Rees should be remain in all areas, including South Armagh. The Army's decision not to travel by road in South Armagh was wrong, he argued, because it gave the IRA too much freedom." Harnden, page 213
  26. ^ "Since the mid-1970s virtually all military movement has been by helicopter to avoid casualties from landmines planted under the roads; even the rubbish from the security forces bases is taken away by air." Harnden, p. 19
  27. ^ Arthur, Paul (2000). Special Relationships: Britain, Ireland and the Northern Ireland problem. Blackstaff Press, Chapter 8. ISBN 0856406880
  28. ^ Coogan, Tim Pat (1995). The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal, 1966-1995, and the Search for Peace. Hutchinson. p. 245. ISBN 0091791464. "From the time of the Ulsterisation, normalisation and criminalisation policy formulations in the mid-seventies it had become obvious that, if the conflict was to be Vietnamised and the natives were to do the fighting, then the much-talked-about 'primacy of the police' would have to become a reality. The policy was officially instituted in 1976. But if one had to point to a watershed date as a result of which the police actually wrested real power from the army I would select 27 August 1979."
  29. ^ Lusimus magazine
  30. ^ CAIN - Sutton index of deaths - 1988

External links

Participants in the Troubles Chronology Political Parties

• Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association formed (1967)
• Battle of the Bogside (1969)
• Riots across Northern Ireland (1969)
• Beginning of Operation Banner (1969)
• Social Democratic and Labour Party formed (1970)
• Internment without trial begins with Operation Demetrius (1971)
• Bloody Sunday by British Army (1972)
• Northern Ireland government dissolved. Direct rule from London begins (1972)
• Bloody Friday by Provisional IRA (1972)
• Power sharing Northern Ireland Assembly set up with SDLP and Ulster Unionist Party in power (1973)
• Mountjoy Prison helicopter escape. Three Provisional IRA prisoners escape from Mountjoy Prison by helicopter (1973)
• Ulster Workers' Council strike causes power-sharing Northern Ireland Assembly to end (1974)
• Dublin and Monaghan bombings by UVF with alleged British Army assistance (1974)
• Kingsmill massacre by South Armagh Republican Action Force (1976)
• Warrenpoint Ambush by Provisional IRA (1979)
• 1981 Irish hunger strike by Provisional IRA and INLA members (1981)
• Hunger striker Bobby Sands elected MP. Marks turning point as Sinn Féin begins to move towards electoral politics (1981)
• Maze Prison escape. 38 Provisional IRA prisoners escape from H-Block 7 of HM Prison Maze (1983)
• Brighton hotel bombing by Provisional IRA (1984)
• Anglo-Irish Agreement between British and Irish governments (1985)
• Remembrance Day bombing by Provisional IRA (1987)
• Peace Process begins (1988)
• Operation Flavius, Milltown Cemetery attack and Corporals killings (1988)
• Bishopsgate bombing (1993)
• Downing Street Declaration (1993)
• First Provisional IRA ceasefire (1994)
• Loyalist ceasefire (1994)
• Docklands bombing (1996)
• 1996 Manchester bombing (1996)
• Second Provisional IRA ceasefire (1997)
• Good Friday Agreement (1998) signals the end of the Troubles
• Assembly elections held, with SDLP and UUP winning most seats (1998)
• Omagh bombing by dissident Real IRA (1998)

• Unionist parties:
• Democratic Unionist Party
• Northern Ireland Unionist Party
• Ulster Unionist Party
• Progressive Unionist Party
• Conservative Party
• UK Unionist Party
• Traditional Unionist Voice

• Nationalist parties:
• Democratic Left
• Fianna Fáil
• Fine Gael
• Labour Party
• Progressive Democrats
• Sinn Féin
• Social Democratic & Labour Party
• Workers' Party of Ireland
• Irish Republican Socialist Party
• Republican Sinn Féin

• Cross-community parties:
• Alliance Party

• Historically important parties:
• Nationalist Party
• Northern Ireland Labour Party
• Protestant Unionist Party
• Vanguard Unionist Progressive Party
• Northern Ireland Women's Coalition
• People's Democracy
• Republican Labour Party
• Anti H-Block
• Irish Independence Party

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