1994 Crossmaglen mortar attack

1994 Crossmaglen mortar attack
Part of The Troubles
A British Army Lynx helicopter
Location	Crossmaglen, County Armagh, Northern Ireland
Date	20 March 1994 20:27 (GMT)
Target	British Army base
Attack type	Mortar
Injured	4
Perpetrator	Provisional IRA

The 1994 Crossmaglen mortar attack was an improvised mortar attack carried out by a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) unit on 20 March 1994 against the British Army base at Crossmaglen, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. The single round lobbed at the compound shot down a Westland Lynx helicopter hovering over the helipad.

Background

Since the 1970s, the IRA developed a series of home-made mortars. The goal was to produce devices to be use as "stand-off" weapons, capable of being launched from safe ranges upon police or military outposts, and easy to conceal on dead-ground.^[1] The different designs evolved in 1992 into the Mark 15 mortar, widely known as "Barrack buster". The mortar shell consisted of a one metre long metal propane cylinder with a diameter of 36 cm that contained around 70 kg of home-made explosives and with a range between 75 and 275 m. The cylinder was an adaptation of a commercial 'Kosangas' gas cylinder for heating and cooking gas used in rural areas in Ireland.^[2] The first use of the "Barrack Buster" took place on 7 December 1992 against a security base in Ballygawley, County Tyrone.^[3]

The attack

IRA's Barrack Buster mortar

On the evening of 20 March 1994 a Lynx helicopter, serial nº ZD275, was in the process of landing at the large British army base at Crossmaglen. Meanwhile, an IRA unit had mounted a Mark 15 mortar on a tractor, concealed behind bales of hay. The tractor was parked 150 yards from the intended target, on waste ground. At 20:27, there was a sudden blackout across Crossmaglen's square and at the same time, a single mortar shell was lobbed into the barracks. The IRA had used the mains for the collapsing circuit of the firing pack, turning off the street's power supply. When the Lynx was hovering 100 feet over the helipad, the mortar round hit the aircraft on the tail's boom, which was severed from the fuselage. The machine span out of control, but the pilot was able to crash-land the Lynx inside the base. A Grenadier Guards' patrol spotted a huge orange ball from a mile away. Three members of the crew managed to get out with minor injuries, but a member of the RUC was trapped inside the blazing wreckage. The constable was rescued just before the fuel tanks and the ammunition started to explode. Author Toby Harnden described the incident as the most successful IRA operation against a helicopter in the course of the Troubles.^[4][5][6]

Aftermath

After the incident, the IRA and Sinn Féin bore criticism from SDLP top politician Seamus Mallon, who said:

God knows how many people could have been killed. When you realise this mortar was lobbed over a number of houses it brings home the enormity of the danger so many people faced. Yet again you have Sinn Féin talking peace in the morning and carrying out these murderous attacks through the IRA in the evening.

John Fee, a local SDLP councillor which dubbed the attack as "an act of lunacy" was later beaten by two men outside his home. The IRA denied responsibility.^[7] Corporal Wayne Cuckson of the Royal Logistic Corps was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal for dragging the wounded constable out of the crashed aircraft.^[4]

There was a second mortar attack on a British military helicopter on 12 July 1994 at Newtownhamilton, when a RAF Puma crash-landed on a soccer pitch after being hit on its tail by another Mark 15 mortar launched from a tractor.^[4]

The downing of two helicopters, along with the increasing sniper activity, was both a morale and military blow to the British forces in south County Armagh.^[8]

See also

• Barrack buster
• 1985 Newry mortar attack
• Downing Street mortar attack
• Osnabrück mortar attack
• Provisional IRA South Armagh Brigade
• Chronology of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions (1990-1999)

Notes

1. ^ Geraghty, p. 187
2. ^ Geraghty, p. 193
3. ^ Ryder,p. 256
4. ^ ^{a b c} Harnden, p. 398
5. ^ Geraghty, pp. 198-199
6. ^ UK Military Aircraft Losses
7. ^ Geraghty, p. 199
8. ^ Harnden, p. 399

References

• Geraghty, Tony (2000). The Irish War. Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0002556170
• Harnden, Toby (2000). Bandit Country: The IRA and South Armagh. Hodder & Stoughton. ISBN 034071736X
• Ryder, Chris (2005). A Special Kind of Courage: 321 EOD Squadron - Battling the Bombers, Methuen. ISBN 0413772233

Coordinates: 54°4′33.5″N 6°36′32″W / 54.075972°N 6.60889°W / 54.075972; -6.60889