Military Wiki
Register
Advertisement
Warrenpoint ambush
Part of The Troubles
File:NarrowPoint-79.jpg
A British Army lorry destroyed in the ambush
Date27 August 1979
16:40 BST
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 Deadliest attack on the British Army by the Provisional IRA[1][2][3][4][5]
Belligerents
IrishRepublicanFlag Provisional IRA United Kingdom British Army
Commanders and leaders
Thomas Murphy
Brendan Burns
Lieutenant Colonel
David Blair
Strength
1 active service unit ~50 troops
Casualties and losses
None 18 killed
6 wounded
1 civilian killed, 1 wounded by British Army
<templatestyles src="Module:Location map/styles.css"></templatestyles>
Warrenpoint ambush is located in Northern Ireland
Warrenpoint ambush
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] by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA)'s South Armagh Brigade on 27 August 1979. The IRA ambushed the British Army with two large roadside bombs at Narrow Water Castle (near Warrenpoint) in Northern Ireland. The castle is on the banks of the Newry River, which marks the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The first bomb targeted a British Army convoy and the second targeted the reinforcements sent to deal with the incident. Eighteen British soldiers were killed and six were seriously injured, making it the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles. A civilian was also killed and another injured when British soldiers fired across the border after the first blast.

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.[20] 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.[21]

Immediately after the blast, the soldiers were under the impression that they were receiving sniper fire from woods on the other side of the border,[22][23] a distance of only 57 metres (187 ft). The soldiers began firing across the water. An uninvolved civilian, Michael Hudson (an Englishman who was a coachman at Buckingham Palace), was killed by the soldiers' gunfire and his cousin Barry Hudson wounded. They had been birdwatching on an island opposite the castle.[23] 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.[24] However, according to Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) researchers, the soldiers may have mistaken the sound of ammunition cooking off for enemy gunfire from across the border.[25] 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.[26]

Second explosion[]

At 17:12, thirty-two minutes after the first explosion, a second bomb hidden in milk pails exploded against the gate lodge on the opposite side of the road, destroying it and sending lumps of granite flying through the air. The IRA had been studying how the Army behaved after a bombing and rightly assessed that the soldiers would set up an incident command point (ICP) in the nearby gatehouse.

Narrow Water Tower - geograph.org

Narrow Water Castle

The second explosion, caused by an 800-pound (363 kg) fertiliser bomb, killed twelve soldiers: ten from the Parachute Regiment and the two from the Queen's Own Highlanders.[27][28] 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 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.[29]

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. 25 years later, Mr. 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."[30]

Aftermath[]

Two men arrested after the bombing, Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan, were later released on bail due to lack of evidence.[31]

The Warrenpoint ambush happened on the same day that Lord Louis Mountbatten, the cousin (strictly, second cousin once-removed) of Queen Elizabeth II and uncle of Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, was killed by an IRA unit near Sligo along with three others.

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 by the UVF Belfast Brigade in the mistaken belief that he was a member of the Provisional IRA.[32]

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.[33] 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.[34][35] 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.[36] Tim Pat Coogan asserts that ultimately, the death of these 18 soldiers hastened the move to Ulsterisation.[37]

Lieutenant-Colonel Blair is remembered on a memorial at Radley School.[38]

IRA member Brendan Burns was killed in 1988 when a bomb he was transporting exploded prematurely.[39] IRA member Joe Brennan was jailed in 1982 for carrying out an armed bank raid to raise funds for the organisation. He left the IRA in 1986 and went on to become a successful property developer and novelist.[40]

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. Daily Telegraph
  14. "Police net closes in on Omagh murder gang". Irish Independent, 5 January 1999.
  15. Google Search
  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
  20. Harnden, Toby (1999). Bandit Country. Hodder & Stoughton. p. 198. ISBN 0-340-71736-X. 
  21. 21.0 21.1 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. Taylor, Peter (1997). Behind the mask:The IRA and Sinn Féin. TV books. p. 266. ISBN 1-57500-061-X. 
  23. 23.0 23.1 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
  24. Harnden, p. 204
  25. Harnden, p.200
  26. J Bowyer Bell (1997). The secret army: the IRA. Transaction Publishers, p. 454. ISBN 0-8156-0597-8
  27. Malcolm Sutton's Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland: 1979Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
  28. Harnden, p.199
  29. 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. 
  30. "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
  31. Harnden, p. 205
  32. Taylor, Peter (1999). Loyalists. London: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc. pp.163-164
  33. Harnden, p.212
  34. "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
  35. "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
  36. Arthur, Paul (2000). Special Relationships: Britain, Ireland and the Northern Ireland problem. Blackstaff Press, Chapter 8. ISBN 0-85640-688-0
  37. 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."
  38. Lusimus magazine
  39. Malcolm Sutton's Index of Deaths from the Conflict in Ireland: 1988Conflict Archive on the Internet (CAIN)
  40. http://www.sundaymercury.net/news/midlands-news/2012/02/01/multi-million-dollar-fraud-exposed-in-birmingham-could-be-heading-for-hollywood-66331-30218705/

External links[]

All or a portion of this article consists of text from Wikipedia, and is therefore Creative Commons Licensed under GFDL.
The original article can be found at Warrenpoint ambush and the edit history here.
Advertisement