35 years ago this week - Narrow Water/Warrenpoint

Warrenpoint ambush

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Warrenpoint ambush
Part of The Troubles
A British Army lorry destroyed in the ambush
Date 27 August 1979 16:40 BST 17:12 BST Location Narrow Water Castle near Warrenpoint, County Down 54°6′41.45″N 6°16′43.62″WCoordinates: 54°6′41.45″N 6°16′43.62″W Result Deadliest attack on the British Army by the Provisional IRA[1][2][3][4][5]
Belligerents
Provisional IRA	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

[show] v t e The Troubles

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. An English civilian was also killed and another injured when British soldiers fired across the border after the first blast.

Contents

• 1 Ambush
  • 1.1 First explosion
  • 1.2 Second explosion
• 2 Aftermath
• 3 See also
• 4 References
• 5 External links

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] 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.^[24]
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.^[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 British Army behaved after a bombing and correctly predicted that they would set up an incident command point (ICP) in the nearby gatehouse.

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 vaporised 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, 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 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.^[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 between the military, MI5 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.<sup>[40]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warrenpoint_ambush</sup> 

Warrenpoint falls silent as soldiers’ families recall IRA massacre

Friday, August 28, 2009

By Jeananne Craig

A HUSH descended over a Northern Ireland beauty spot yesterday as families and ex-servicemen marked the 30th anniversary of an IRA double bombing which claimed the lives of 18 soldiers and a civilian.
The massacre beside Narrow Water Castle at Warrenpoint, Co Down, resulted in the army’s largest single loss of life in more than 35 years of the conflict.
The two bombs were detonated on the same day the Queen’s cousin Lord Mountbatten was murdered in an IRA bomb attack on his fishing boat off the west coast of Ireland.
As friends and staff of the Mountbattens held a church memorial in Mullaghmore, Co Sligo, former soldiers and relatives of those killed at Warrenpoint huddled in the rain as the names of the 18 army victims were read out.
A lone piper played a lament and wreaths of poppies were laid by military and political representatives, among them Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson.
“I well remember as a child hearing the explosions here at Narrow Water and not knowing then the tragic loss of life which had occurred,” Mr Donaldson said.
“I think it’s appropriate that we remember the contribution that the soldiers made to help get us to where we are today, which is thankfully a more peaceful society.”
The first explosion at Narrow Water killed 16 members of the Parachute Regiment, the second killed two members of the Queen’s Own Highlanders who had been sent to the scene.
Civilian Michael Hudson was shot dead while bird watching on a nearby island when soldiers opened fire across Carlingford Lough into the Republic from where they believed bombers had detonated the devices. His name was not included in the roll call.
Organisers said they have been unable to trace relatives to ask their permission.
Narrow Water was the biggest single loss of life in any one attack during the Troubles until the 1998 Real IRA Omagh bomb atrocity killed 29 people, including a mother pregnant with twins.
Terry Wood’s 19-year-old brother, Anthony Wood, was killed in the Warrenpoint massacre.
“It’s something that never goes away. I’ve lived for 30 years with the pain of my brother’s death and I’ve seen it in my own family. It’s important to keep that memory going,” Mr Wood said.
“I came here to never let the people that did it forget, and to show them that we’ll never forget.
http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/warrenpoint-falls-silent-as-soldiers-families-recall-ira-massacre-99651.html