Attack on UDR Clogher barracks
Attack on UDR Clogher barracks | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Part of the Troubles and Operation Banner | |||||||
Ferret armoured car | |||||||
| |||||||
Belligerents | |||||||
| |||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||
Kevin McKenna | Harry Baxter | ||||||
Strength | |||||||
40 volunteers 9 hijacked vehicles improvised mortars |
20 soldiers armoured personnel carriers | ||||||
Casualties and losses | |||||||
None |
1 killed 1 wounded | ||||||
On 2 May 1974 the
Background
The situation at the political level in Northern Ireland by 1974 was tense. The new Assembly, established under the provisions of the
On the security side, the IRA had stepped up their campaign by April, in the hope that their actions could bring the political compromise to an end. The UDR was put on selective call-out; 100 extra servicemen per battalion were deployed each day. On 10 April 1974 Lieutenant Colonel George Saunderson, a former second-in-command of the 4 UDR Battalion, was shot and killed by IRA members at the school of Teemore, Derrylin, County Fermanagh, where he worked as headmaster. Saunderson was shot ten times with an AK-47 automatic rifle.[2]
On the same day as the Clogher attack, the
IRA assault
At 11:10 pm of 2 May 1974, when a training night at UDR Deanery barracks, a Georgian building manned by the 6 UDR Battalion, was coming to its conclusion, a group of approximately 40 IRA members opened up with small arms, antitank rockets and improvised mortars from two firing positions. Most of the hostile fire came from a hill 800 yards to the north, while a secondary position targeted the base from the south. The attackers also deployed forward observers equipped with radios. Fire was returned from the part-time guard and from Ferret Armoured Cars belonging to 3 Troop, A Squadron, 1st Royal Tank Regiment armed with Browning .30 machine guns.[5][6]
The IRA team struck the UDR outpost with two or three rocket propelled grenades and 15 mortar rounds, although little damage was done. One rocket passed through the base protective fence, landed in an open area and ricocheted upwards, exploding against the opposite fence. Another rocket hit a tree outside a window, and the outburst killed
Aftermath
UDR patrols rounded up a Garand rifle and 27 improvised mortar shells in the surroundings of the Deanery the next morning. Two days later, a patrol from the 6 UDR Battalion thwarted a car bomb attack in Enniskillen.[6]
Harry Baxter, 6 UDR Battalion commander, visited the barracks on the first hours of 3 May. He found the morale among the greenfinches high in spite of Martin's death.[6] Eva Martin's body was buried at Lisbellaw Presbyterian Church, Lisbellaw, County Fermanagh.[7] She was the first greenfinch and the first female soldier to be killed in action during the Troubles.[8] The wounded lieutenant recovered from his injuries, but he left the regiment some time later.[6]
See also
References
- ISBN 978-0-85052-819-0.
- ^ Potter (2008), pp. 125–126.
- ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
- ^ "CAIN: Sutton Index of Deaths". cain.ulster.ac.uk. Retrieved 24 July 2020.
- ISBN 0-413-64800-1.
- ^ a b c d e Potter (2008), p. 127
- ^ "In Memory of Private Eva Martin" (PDF). www.nivets.org.uk. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
- ^ "First female UDR soldier killed by IRA". Royal Irish - Virtual Military Gallery. Retrieved 31 December 2018.