Warrenpoint ambush

Warrenpoint ambush
Part of The Troubles/Operation Banner

A British Army lorry destroyed in the ambush
Date27 August 1979
16:40 and 17:12 BST
LocationNarrow Water Castle near Warrenpoint, County Down
54°6′41.45″N 6°16′43.62″W / 54.1115139°N 6.2787833°W / 54.1115139; -6.2787833Coordinates: 54°6′41.45″N 6°16′43.62″W / 54.1115139°N 6.2787833°W / 54.1115139; -6.2787833
Result

Provisional IRA victory

  • Deadliest attack on the British Army by the Provisional IRA.[1][2][3][4][5]
Belligerents
 United Kingdom Provisional IRA
Commanders and leaders
United Kingdom Lt Col David Blair †
United Kingdom Maj. Peter Fursman †		 Joe Brennan
Brendan Burns
Units involved
British Army unknown
Strength
50 soldiers unknown
Casualties and losses
18 killed
6 wounded		 none
Civilian:
1 killed
1 wounded
Location within Northern Ireland

The Warrenpoint ambush[6][7][8] or Narrow Water ambush,[9][10][11] also called the Warrenpoint massacre[12][13][14][15] or Narrow Water massacre,[16][17][18] was a guerrilla attack[19][20] by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 27 August 1979. The IRA's South Armagh Brigade ambushed the British Army with two large roadside bombs at Narrow Water Castle (near Warrenpoint) in Northern Ireland. The first bomb was aimed at a British Army convoy and the second targeted the reinforcements sent to deal with the incident. IRA volunteers hidden in nearby woodland also allegedly fired on the troops. The castle is on the banks of the Newry River, which marks the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Eighteen British soldiers were killed and six were seriously injured, making it the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles. An English civilian was also killed and another injured when British soldiers fired across the border after the first blast. The attack happened on the same day that the IRA assassinated The 1st Earl Mountbatten of Burma.

Ambush

First explosion

At 16:40, a British Army convoy consisting of one Land Rover and two four-ton lorries was driving past Narrow Water Castle on the A2 road. As it passed, a 500-pound (227 kg) fertiliser bomb, hidden in a lorry loaded with strawbales and parked near the castle, was detonated by remote control. The explosion caught the last lorry in the convoy, hurling it on its side and instantly killing six members of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, whose bodies were scattered across the road.[21] There were only two survivors amongst the soldiers travelling in the lorry; they both received serious injuries. Anthony Wood (19), the lorry's driver, was one of those killed. All that remained of Wood's body was his pelvis, which had been welded to the seat by the fierce heat of the blast.[22]

Immediately after the blast, the soldiers said they were targeted by sniper fire, coming from woods on the other side of the border.[23][24] Two uninvolved civilians—William Hudson, a 29-year-old from London, and his cousin Barry Hudson, from Dingle—went to the shore on the Republic's side of the border to see what was happening. The pair were partners in Hudson Amusements and had been running their funfair in Omeath at the time.[25] Soldiers fired across the water at them, killing William and wounding Barry.[24] According to Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) researchers, the soldiers may have mistaken the sound of ammunition cooking off for enemy gunfire.[26] However, two IRA members arrested by the Gardaí and suspected of being behind the ambush, Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan, had traces of gunsmoke residue on their hands and the motorbike they were riding on.[27]

On hearing the first explosion a Royal Marine unit alerted the British Army 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.[28]

Second explosion

The IRA had been studying how the British Army behaved after a bombing and correctly predicted that they would set up an incident command point (ICP) in the gatehouse on the opposite side of the road. At 17:12, thirty-two minutes after the first explosion, an 800-pound (363 kg) bomb hidden in milk pails exploded against the gatehouse, destroying it and hurling lumps of granite through the air. It detonated as the Wessex helicopter was taking off carrying wounded soldiers. The helicopter was damaged by the blast but did not crash.[29]

Narrow Water Castle

The second explosion killed twelve soldiers: ten from the Parachute Regiment and the two from the Queen's Own Highlanders.[30][31] Mike Jackson, then a major in the Parachute Regiment, was at the scene soon after the second explosion and later described seeing body parts scattered over the road, in the water and hanging from the trees. He was asked to identify the face of his friend, Major Peter Fursman, still recognisable after it had been completely ripped from his head by the explosion and recovered from the water by divers from the Royal Engineers. Only one of Colonel Blair's epaulettes remained to identify him as his body had been vaporised in the blast.[22] 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.[32]

Press photographer Peter Molloy, who arrived at the scene after the first explosion, came close to being shot by an angry paratrooper who saw him taking photographs of the dead and dying instead of offering to help the wounded. The soldier was tackled by his comrades. Molloy said, "I was shouted at and called all sorts of things but I understood why. I had trespassed on the worst day of these fellas' lives and taken pictures of it."[33]

Aftermath

The Warrenpoint ambush was a propaganda victory for the IRA. It was the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles and the Parachute Regiment's biggest loss since World War II, with sixteen paratroopers killed. The 1st battalion of the Parachute Regiment was responsible for Bloody Sunday on 30 January 1972 where 14 unarmed protesters were shot dead. The IRA made clear it was targeting British paratroopers because of Bloody Sunday. General Sir James Glover, Commander of British forces in Northern Ireland, said it was "arguably the most successful and certainly one of the best planned IRA attacks of the whole campaign".[34]

The ambush happened on the same day that Lord Louis Mountbatten, a prominent member of the British Royal Family, was killed by an IRA bomb aboard his boat at Mullaghmore, along with three others.

Shortly after the Warrenpoint ambush, IRA volunteers Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan were arrested by Gardaí (the Irish police). They were stopped while riding a motorbike on a road opposite Narrow Water Castle. They were later released on bail due to lack of evidence.[35]

Immediately after the Mountbatten and Warrenpoint attacks, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) retaliated by shooting dead a Catholic man, John Patrick Hardy (43), at his home in Belfast's New Lodge estate. Hardy was targeted in the mistaken belief that he was an IRA member.[36]

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 brought back and that liaison with the Gardaí should be left in the hands of the military.[37] Sir Kenneth Newman, the RUC Chief Constable, claimed instead that the British Army practice, already in place since 1975, of supplying their garrisons in South County Armagh by helicopter, gave too much freedom of movement to the IRA.[38][39] 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 between the military, MI5 and the RUC. The other was the expansion of the RUC by 1,000 members.[40] Tim Pat Coogan asserts that ultimately, the death of these 18 soldiers hastened the move to Ulsterisation.[41]

Lieutenant-Colonel Blair is remembered on a memorial at Radley School.[42]

Burns was killed in 1988 when a bomb he was transporting exploded prematurely.[43] Brennan was jailed in 1996 on explosives charges not related to Warrenpoint. He was released under the Good Friday Agreement.

See also

References

  1. ↑ Barzilay, David: British Army in Ulster. Century Books, 1981. Vol. 4. p. 94. ISBN 0-903152-16-9
  2. ↑ Wood, Ian: Scotland and Ulster. Mercat Press, 1994. p. 170. ISBN 1-873644-19-1
  3. ↑ Geddes, John: Highway to Hell: An Ex-SAS Soldier's Account of the Extraordinary Private Army Hired to Fight in Iraq. Century, 2006. p. 20. ISBN 1-84605-062-6
  4. ↑ Forest, James J. F. (2006). Homeland Security: Critical infrastructure. Greenwood Publishing Group, 93. ISBN 0-275-98768-X
  5. ↑ Kennedy-Pipe, Caroline (1997). The origins of the present troubles in Northern Ireland. Longman, p. 84. ISBN 0-582-10073-9
  6. ↑ Bowyer Bell, John: The IRA, 1968–2000: Analysis of a Secret Army. Taylor & Francis, 2000. p. 305. ISBN 0-7146-8119-9
  7. ↑ Faligot, Roger: Britain's Military Strategy in Ireland: The Kitson Experiment. Zed Press, 1983, p. 142. ISBN 0-86232-047-X
  8. ↑ Ellison, Graham, and Smyth, Jim: The Crowned Harp: Policing Northern Ireland. Pluto Press, 2000, p. 145. ISBN 0-7453-1393-0
  9. ↑ "Smithwick Tribunal to examine bomb attack that killed 18 soldiers". Belfast Telegraph, 5 December 2011.
  10. ↑ "Garda 'told not to aid ambush probe'". Irish Examiner, 13 March 2012.
  11. ↑ Moloney, Ed. A Secret History of the IRA. Penguin UK, 2007. Index.
  12. ↑ "1979: Soldiers die in Warrenpoint massacre". BBC News "On This Day"
  13. ↑ "Telegraph". Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  14. ↑ "Police net closes in on Omagh murder gang". Irish Independent, 5 January 1999.
  15. ↑ "Warrenpoint massacre – Google Search". Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  16. ↑ O'Brien, Brendan. The Long War: The IRA and Sinn Féin. Syracuse University Press, 1993. p. 205
  17. ↑ "Narrow Water para returns after 30 years". Belfast Newsletter, 24 August 2009.
  18. ↑ "Top diplomat thought Hume wanted return of internment". Belfast Telegraph, 30 December 2009.
  19. ↑ Carr, Matthew (2007). The infernal machine: a history of terrorism. New Press, p. 173. ISBN 1-59558-179-0. "...the assassination of Lord Mountbatten at his holiday home at southern Ireland on 27 March 1979, the same day that another IRA unit ambushed and blew up eighteen British soldiers at Warrenpoint in a more conventional guerrilla operation."
  20. ↑ Geraghty, Tony (1998). The Irish War: The Hidden Conflict Between the IRA and British Intelligence. JHU Press. p. 212. ISBN 0801864569.
  21. ↑ Harnden, Toby (1999). Bandit Country. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 198. ISBN 0-340-71736-X.
  22. 1 2 Jackson, General Sir Mike (5 September 2007). "Gen Sir Mike Jackson relives IRA Paras bombs". The Daily Telegraph.
  23. ↑ Taylor, Peter (1997). Behind the mask:The IRA and Sinn Féin. TV books. p. 266. ISBN 1-57500-061-X.
  24. 1 2 McKittrick, David. Lost Lives: The stories of the men, women, and children who died as a result of the Northern Ireland Troubles. Mainstream, 1999. p. 799
  25. ↑ "Saw his cousin shot on the day of the Narrow Water bomb". The Argus. 2 September 2009. Retrieved 27 August 2016.
  26. ↑ Harnden, p. 200
  27. ↑ Harnden, p. 204
  28. ↑ J Bowyer Bell (1997). The secret army: the IRA. Transaction Publishers, p. 454. ISBN 0-8156-0597-8
  29. ↑ McKittrick, p.796
  30. ↑ Malcolm Sutton's Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland: 1979 — Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
  31. ↑ Harnden, p.199
  32. ↑ 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.
  33. ↑ "These are the last pictures I ever took... I went home & threw out my camera; I was so sickened. Warrenpoint Massacre: 25 Years On We Revisit Horror of IRA Bombings". The Mirror (London, England). Jilly Beattie. 17 June 2004
  34. ↑ "Shoot to Kill" – Transcript. BBC. Retrieved 20 May 2015.
  35. ↑ Harnden, p. 205
  36. ↑ Taylor, Peter (1999). Loyalists. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp. 163–164
  37. ↑ Harnden, p. 212
  38. ↑ "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, p. 213
  39. ↑ "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
  40. ↑ Arthur, Paul (2000). Special Relationships: Britain, Ireland and the Northern Ireland problem. Blackstaff Press, Chapter 8. ISBN 0-85640-688-0
  41. ↑ Coogan, Tim Pat (1995). The Troubles: Ireland's Ordeal, 1966–1995, and the Search for Peace. Hutchinson. p. 245. ISBN 0-09-179146-4. 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.
  42. ↑ Lusimus magazine Archived 22 July 2011 at the Wayback Machine.
  43. ↑ Malcolm Sutton's Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland: 1988 — Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
  • Blair, Alexandra (28 August 2004). "The day my dad was killed by the Provos". Irish Independent.
  • Blair, Alexandra (6 July 2009). "Open letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe's daughters, from the daughter of a murdered officer". The Times. London.
  • Warrenpoint falls silent as soldiers’ families recall IRA massacre
  • Warrenpoint ambush remembered

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