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 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 IRA's biggest success against British military[1][2][3][4][5]
Belligerents
Provisional Irish Republican Army	British Army: Queen's Own Highlanders Parachute Regiment Royal Engineers Royal Marines
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

The Warrenpoint ambush^[6][7][8] or the Warrenpoint massacre^{[9][10][11][12]} was a guerrilla assault^[13] by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) 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.

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] The hands, however, of two IRA members arrested by the Gardaí and suspected of being behind the attack, Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan, showed traces of firearms.^[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 the wounded up. Col. 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.

Narrow Water Castle

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 blown into the water. 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]

Lt-Col 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

• Timeline of Provisional Irish Republican Army actions
• Attack on Derryard checkpoint

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

• Blair, Alexandra (28 August 2004). "The day my dad was killed by the Provos". Irish Independent. http://www.independent.ie/unsorted/features/the-day-my-dad-was-killed-by-the-provos-160814.html. 
• Blair, Alexandra (6 July 2009). "Open letter to Lieutenant-Colonel Rupert Thorneloe's daughters, from the daughter of a murdered officer". The Times (London). http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article6669097.ece. 
• Warrenpoint falls silent as soldiers’ families recall IRA massacre
• Warrenpoint ambush remembered