The Sandbag Times Issue No: 29 - March 2017

The Historical Tommy Atkins
The Day Humanity Died
The episode is remembered by many as one of the
most shocking fatal incidents of the troubles, largely
because of the graphic television coverage which
showed dozens of men attacking their car. After being
taken from their car and beaten, the corporals were
driven to waste ground and shot. The incident, which
became known as ‘the corporals’ killings’, was seen as
both extraordinarily brutal. The sequence of events was
watched by an army surveillance helicopter on film
which was later produced in evidence at a series of
trials related to the incident. The film included
harrowing footage of the actual deaths of the soldiers
as they were shot by I.R.A. gunmen. The soldiers were
pulled from the car as they where blocked from getting
out of the area by black taxis. They where pulled out
though the windows by republicans, beaten and
stripped naked on waste ground before being executed.
The incident had its origins in the shootings of three
I.R.A. members, by the S.A.S. in Gibraltar. Their
funerals in Milltown Cemetery were disrupted by an
attack mounted by U.D.A. gunman Michael Stone,
who killed three people including I.R.A. member
Caoimhin MacBradaigh. The MacBradaigh funeral
was making its way along the Andersonstown Road
towards Milltown cemetery when the silver
Volkswagen Passat car containing the two corporals
appeared. The car headed straight towards the front of
the funeral, which was headed by a number of black
taxis. It drove past a Sinn Fein steward who signalled
it to turn. The car then mounted a pavement, scattering
mourners and turning into a small side road. On
finding that this road was blocked, it then reversed at
speed, ending up within the funeral cortege. When the
driver attempted to extricate the car from the cortege
his exit route was blocked by a black taxi. At this point
most of the mourners and the accompanying
republican stewards assumed the car contained loyalist
gunmen intent on staging another Michael Stone style
attack. Dozens of them rushed forward, kicking the car
and attempting to open its doors. The soldiers inside
the car were both armed with Browning automatic
pistols and Corporal Wood climbed part of the way out
of a window, firing a shot in the air which briefly
scattered the crowd. The television pictures showed the
crowd surging back, however, some of them attacking
the vehicle with a wheel-brace and a stepladder
snatched from a photographer. The corporals were
eventually pulled from the car and punched and kicked
to the ground. They were then dragged into the nearby
Casement Park sports ground where they were again
beaten, stripped to their underpants and socks and
searched. According to republicans, an identification
card which read ‘Herford’, a location in Germany, was
mistaken for ‘Hereford’, the headquarters of the
S.A.S… It appears this was important in sealing the
fate of the soldiers. With the
I.R.A. by now involved the
corporals were further beaten
and thrown over a high wall
to be put into a waiting black
taxi. It was driven off at
speed, camera crews
capturing its driver waving
his fist in the air. The
corporals were driven less
than 200 yards to waste
ground near Penny Lane, just
off the main Andersonstown Road. There they were
shot several times. Corporal Wood was shot six times,
twice in the head and four times in the chest. He was
also stabbed four times in the back of the neck and had
multiple injuries to other parts of his body.
Redemptorist priest Father Alec Reid, who was later to
play a significant part in the peace process leading to
the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, arrived on the scene.
One of the most enduring pictures of the troubles
shows him kneeling beside the almost naked bodies of
the soldiers, his face distraught as he administered the
last rites. The events of March 19, 1988, lasted only 15
minutes but, because of the nature of the deaths and
because much of the sequence was televised within
hours, they are regarded among the most shocking in
Northern Ireland’s recent history. Later in the day the
I.R.A. issued a statement. It said ‘The Belfast Brigade,
IRA, claims responsibility for the execution in
Andersonstown this afternoon of two SAS members,
who launched an attack on the funeral cortege of our
comrade volunteer Kevin Brady [Caoimhin
MacBradaigh]. The SAS unit was initially
apprehended by the people lining the route of the
cortege in the belief that armed loyalists were attacking
them, and they were removed from the immediate
vicinity of the funeral procession by them. At this point
our volunteers forcibly removed the two men from the
crowd and, after clearly ascertaining their identities
from equipment and documentation, we executed
them.’ The bodies of the dead soldiers were flown to
RAF Northolt by Hercules transport plane. Their
families watched as the coffins, draped in Union flags,
were carried from the aeroplane by colleagues, with
the band of the Corps of Signals playing in the
background. Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was at
the airfield. The soldiers’ deaths prompted one RUC
officer, Constable Clive Graham, to consider
emigrating but he was killed by the IRA just days later.
In November 1998,two Belfast men sentenced for their
involvement in the killing of the two soldiers were
released from the Maze prison as part of the early
prisoner release scheme in the Good Friday Agreement
“Lest we forget”
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