1979 Warrenpoint attack
The Warrenpoint attack occurred in County Down on August 27, 1979 and was the IRA's most costly attack on the British Army in the Northern Ireland conflict . Eighteen soldiers were killed and six others seriously injured in two explosive attacks, with the second explosive device struck by forces who had been alerted as a result of the first explosion. A British tourist was shot dead after the first explosion and another injured after mistakenly mistaken for IRA fighters.
procedure
On August 27, 1979, the A Company of the 2nd Battalion of the Parachute Regiment of the British Army was to be relocated from its base in Ballykinler in County Down to Newry near County Armagh to replace the support company there of the 2nd Battalion. The route chosen was the A2 road along the coast, which ends as the main thoroughfare in Newry. From Warrenpoint, the road runs along the Newry River , which is the natural border with County Louth of the Republic of Ireland .
Shortly after the village of Warrenpoint and at the level of the ruins of Narrow Water Castle , an explosion occurred around 4:30 p.m. local time, which destroyed the last four-ton truck of a column of the A Company consisting of three vehicles. The explosive device, hidden on a roadside hay stacker, was later estimated to be around 500 pounds (226 kg), killing six soldiers and injuring two others. A nearby unit of the Royal Marines reported the explosion to the Army, which then set a rescue chain in motion.
Meanwhile, the survivors of the attacked column opened fire on several people on the Irish side of the river, killing the 29-year-old Englishman William Hudson, the son of a worker at Buckingham Palace who was on vacation . His cousin was shot and injured. The soldiers justified themselves by being shot at from the Irish side and mistaking the onlookers for IRA fighters. However, it could never be proven that a shelling from the Irish side had taken place.
Additional forces of the Parachute Regiment were marched on the road to the scene of the attack, while a medical emergency team and rapid reaction forces with Lt / Col David Blair as the chief of operations were flown in by helicopter. Blair was in command of the 1st Battalion in the Queen's Own Highlanders Regiment, which was together with the B Company of the 2nd Battalion in Bessbrook , five kilometers from Newry .
A tactical command post was set up in a small gatehouse below a large country house around 180 m from the site of the explosion. About 30 minutes after the first attack, there was a second explosion of an estimated 800 pounds (362 kg) of explosives that had been hidden in milk cans at the hut. Due to the force of the explosion, the hut was completely destroyed and a Westland Wessex helicopter with the two injured on board was damaged. The second explosion killed twelve soldiers and seriously injured four others. Lt / Col David Blair was the top military casualty in the Northern Ireland conflict. His radio operator LCpl Victor MacLeod and ten soldiers from the Parachute Regiment, including Major Peter Fursman, the commander of A Company of the 2nd Battalion, also died in the explosion.
After the attacks, Brigadier David Thorne took responsibility for the crime scenes. Major Barry Rogan of the support company, injured in the second explosion, was replaced as chief officer on site by Major Mike Jackson of B Company. Jackson had the area cordoned off and the crime scenes secured. He set up his command post in Narrow Water Castle, which was previously examined for booby traps.
Results and reactions
According to the investigation, the attack was carried out by the South Armagh Brigade using the same type of explosives as previous IRA attacks. The explosive charges themselves are said to have been detonated remotely by at least one person with visual contact to the attack sites. The densely overgrown Irish bank at Omeath offered possible perpetrators sufficient protection from detection and also gave them an excellent view of the traffic on the A2. In addition, there were no obstacles that could interfere with or hinder a radio signal. Since it was not easily possible for Northern Irish or British forces to cross the Irish state border, the perpetrators also had a real possibility of escape.
From the behavior observed by the British Army, the IRA knew that after an attack a command post, a so-called incident command point , was always set up to coordinate rescue and investigative measures in the vicinity of the attack. The IRA had foreseen the small gatehouse at the foot of the large country house as this. Major Mike Jackson spoke of a perfect ambush .
As a direct result of the incident, troop transport on the roads from Ballykinler to south Armagh was suspended. From now on, larger troop movements were carried out with helicopters. In isolated cases, unmarked civil vehicles were also used. This tactic was criticized by Chief Constable Kenneth Newman of the RUC , as it allowed the IRA more freedom of movement on the ground. A week after the attacks, a memorial service was held in the presence of the Prince of Wales for those killed in Aldershot .
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher traveled to Northern Ireland after the attacks and held talks with politicians, the police and the army. She called the former MI6 director Maurice Oldfield to Belfast as security coordinator , who reorganized the field of work between the RUC and the army. The Northern Irish Police should increasingly take on the tasks of the British Army and thus help to reduce tensions. Oldfield also found that there were no secure communications links with the security forces and that the IRA had message decryption equipment.
The attack is seen as the IRA's propaganda victory. The organization had succeeded without loss, at the English holiday August Bank Holiday 16 paratroopers of the Parachute Regiment and two soldiers of the Queen's Own Highlanders to kill, including a battalion and a company commander. This was the most casualty attack on the British military in the entire Northern Ireland conflict and the most casualty for a British paratrooper unit since Operation Market Garden in World War II. Just a few hours before the attacks in Warrenpoint, Louis Mountbatten , former head of the United Kingdom's defense staff, was killed in an IRA attack in Ireland.
The paratroopers were considered particularly hated by the IRA after soldiers of the Parachute Regiment shot unarmed civilians several times. B. at the Ballymurphy massacre in 1971 and on Bloody Sunday in 1972 .
Suspects
On the day of the attack, the two IRA members Brendan Burns and Joe Brennan were arrested by the Garda , the Irish police, on a motorcycle for a traffic offense near Omeath . They had given false names and addresses, and one of the men had scrub scraps on his clothes. However, due to lack of evidence, they were released. Burns was a friend of Thomas McMahon, who was later sentenced to life in prison for the Louis Mountbatten bombing. Burns himself died in an explosive device in South Armagh in February 1988. Joe Brennan was arrested in 1995 and convicted of other explosives offenses.
Investigators complained about the lack of cooperation between the Irish authorities, who classified the attack not as an act of terrorism but as politically motivated. In 2012, two former RUC officials testified anonymously about the investigation in the Smithwick Tribunal on Garda's involvement with the IRA. They were only allowed access to the possible ignition site on the Irish side after three days. When a spot with depressed vegetation, leftover food and cigarette butts was found there, this area was not guarded by the police overnight, which could have led to the loss of important clues. At a meeting of the Garda with the RUC in Dublin in 1980, Patrick McLaughlin, as deputy police commander of the Garda, is said to have not announced any further support by order of the Prime Minister . James O'Donovan, founder and former head of the Irish State Forensic Laboratory, also testified before the tribunal. He spoke of the burden of proof that should have been enough to detain the two suspects again.
According to journalist and author Toby Harnden, Thomas Murphy was said to have planned the attack.
literature
- Soldier: The Autobiography by General Sir Mike Jackson
- Northern Ireland: Past and Present by Manfred Tieger
- The Northern Ireland Troubles: Operation Banner 1969-2007 by Aaron Edwards
Coordinates: 54 ° 6 ′ 41.5 ″ N , 6 ° 16 ′ 43.6 ″ W.