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The 1989 Deal barracks bombing was the destruction of a recreational centre and accommodation barracks of the Royal Marines School of Music at the Royal Marines barracks at Deal, Kent, England on September 22, 1989. The building collapsed following the detonation of a Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) bomb inside the building at 8:27am GMT. Ten marines were killed instantly and another died 36 days later as a direct result of the wounds he suffered in the blast.

The bombing

The Royal Marines School of Music is a professional training centre for musicians serving with the marines or the Royal Navy. It takes students at school-leavers age of 16 and trains them for 32 months to become both professional musicians and battlefield medics. Orginially created at Portsmouth in 1930, it moved to Deal in 1950 and in 1989 was still there as part of the Walmer Barracks. Throughout the 1980s, the IRA had conducted a paramilitary campaign against targets in Britain and Northern Ireland with the stated aim of achieving the separation of Northern Ireland from the rest of the United Kingdom. These operations had included an attempt to kill the British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1984 and a similar attack on a military band in London in 1982.

At 8.27 a 15lb time bomb placed in the recreational centre changing room at the School of Music by persons who have never been positively identified, detonated. The blast destroyed the recreational centre and levelled the three story accommodation building next to it blowing the roof right off and causing extensive damage to neighbouring structures and nearby civilian homes. Residents reported that the blast was heard several kilometers away, shaking windows in the centre of Deal, and created a large pall of smoke over the town. The majority of the personnel who used the building as a barracks had already risen and were practicing marching on the barracks parade ground when the explosion occurred. The marines therefore witnessed the buildings collapse, and many of the teenaged personnel were in a state of shock for days afterwards.

Some marines had remained behind in the building for a variety of reasons, and thus received the full force of the explosion, many being trapped in the rubble for hours, despite desperate rescue efforts. Kent ambulance services voluntarily agreed to end industrial strike action to aid those wounded by the blast and firemen and military heavy lifting equipment were needed to clear much of the rubble to rescue those trapped beneth it. In all, ten marines died at the scene, most trapped in the collapsed structure, although one body was later found on the roof of a nearby house. Another 23 were seriously injured and received treatment at hospitals in Deal and Canterbury. One of these men, 21-year old Christopher Nolan, died of his wounds on the 18 October.

Reactions

The IRA claimed responsibility for the bombing, saying it was a continuation of their campaign to rid Northern Ireland of all British troops who had been deployed in the region for nearly twenty years. Many British people were shocked at the attack carried on a ceremonial military band whose only military training was geared towards saving lives. The public were also shocked by the ages of those killed, as many were new recruits to the School and the majority of those injured were in their teens.

The government were highly condemnatory of the IRA action, Margaret Thatcher made a statement from Moscow where she was on an official visit that she was "shocked and extremely sad", whilst the leader of the opposition, Neil Kinnock, described the attack as an "awful atrocity" and that "Even the people who say they support what the IRA calls its cause must be sickened by the way in which such death and injury is mercilessly inflicted". There was also controversy over the base's security, which was partly provided by a private security firm. This prompted a thorough review of security procedures at all British bases and the replacement of the firm's employees at Deal with Royal Marine guards.

One week after the bombing, the staff and students of the School of Music marched through the town of Deal watched and applauded by thousands of spectators. They maintained gaps in their ranks marking the positions of those unable to march through death or serious injury. A memorial bandstand was constructed at Walmer Green to the memory of those who "only ever wanted to play music". A memorial in the Walmer Barracks chapel was destroyed when the building burnt down in 2003, but the site is now a memorial garden. The surviving barracks at Walmer were converted into flats when the base was decommissioned in the late 1990s, and the School of Music is once again based in Portsmouth.

No one has ever been arrested or convicted in connection with the Deal bombing.

Notes

1. ^ royalnavy.mod.uk, 'Royal Marines School of Music', retrieved March 6, 2007
2. ^ P.374, Williams & Head
3. ^ P.376, Williams & Head
4. ^ BBC On This Day, '1989 Ten dead in Kent barracks bomb', retrieved March 6, 2007
5. CAIN incorrectly states that the bomb was placed in the concert hall at the base. CAIN database, Chronology of the Conflict - 1989, retrieved on March 6 2007
6. ^ P.377, Williams & Head
7. ^ BBC On This Day, '1989 Remembering the Deal bombing', retrieved March 6, 2007
8. Inscribed on the bandstand, P.379, Williams & Head
9. ^ P.379, Williams & Head

References

• Anne Williams & Vivian Head (2006). Terror Attacks: The Violent Expression of Desperation - Attack on the Royal Marine School of Music. Futura. ISBN 0-708807-83-6.

• Terrorism in the United Kingdom
• History of Kent
• Terrorist incidents in the 1980s
• Provisional IRA actions
• 1989 in the United Kingdom
• Dover
• PIRA killings