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Corporals killings
Part of The Troubles
Father Alec Reid administers the last rites to Corporal David Howes.
Location	Andersonstown, Belfast, Northern Ireland
Coordinates	54°35′03.25″N 5°58′41.20″W / 54.5842361°N 5.9781111°W / 54.5842361; -5.9781111
Date	19 March 1988
Target	British Army personnel
Attack type	Shooting, stabbing
Deaths	2

The corporals killings was the killing of corporals David Robert Howes and Derek Tony Wood, two British Army soldiers of the Royal Corps of Signals, on 19 March 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The non-uniformed soldiers were killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), after they drove into the funeral procession of an IRA volunteer. Three days beforehand, loyalist gunman Michael Stone had attacked an IRA funeral and killed three people. Believing it to be another loyalist attack, dozens of bystanders attacked the soldiers' car. During this, Corporal Wood brandished a gun and fired a shot in the air. The soldiers were then dragged from their vehicle, driven to nearby waste ground, stripped and shot dead.

Because it was fully captured by television cameras, the incident has been described as one of the "most dramatic and harrowing images" of the conflict in Northern Ireland.

Background

The killings took place against a backdrop of violence at high profile Irish republican funerals. A heavy security presence was criticized as instigating unrest, leading authorities to adopt a "hands off" policy with respect to policing IRA funerals. On 6 March 1988, three unarmed IRA members preparing for a bomb attack were killed by members of the Special Air Service in Gibraltar during Operation Flavius. Their unpoliced funerals in Belfast's Milltown Cemetery on 16 March were attacked by Ulster Defence Association (UDA) member Michael Stone with pistols and hand grenades, in what became known as the Milltown Cemetery attack. Three people were killed and more than 60 wounded, one of the dead being IRA volunteer Caoimhín Mac Brádaigh. Mac Brádaigh's funeral, just three days after Stone's attack, took place amid an extremely fearful and tense atmosphere, those attending being in trepidation of another loyalist attack. The attendance at the funeral included large numbers of IRA volunteers who acted as stewards.

According to the British army, Howes and Wood ignored general orders to stay away from IRA funeral processions. It has been presumed that the two men drove into the procession by accident.

The killings

David Howes and Derek Wood were wearing civilian clothes and driving in a silver Volkswagen Passat car. The Mac Brádaigh funeral was making its way along the Andersonstown Road towards Milltown Cemetery when the car containing the two corporals appeared. The car headed straight towards the front of the funeral, which was headed by several black taxis. It drove past a Sinn Féin steward who signalled it to turn. Mourners at the funeral said they believed they were under attack from loyalists. The car then mounted a pavement, scattering mourners and turning into a small side road. When 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.

When the car was surrounded and the windows smashed, those surrounding attempted to drag the soldiers out. Wood produced a handgun, which certain off-duty members of the security forces were permitted to carry at the time. Corporal Wood climbed part of the way out of a window, firing a shot in the air which briefly scattered the crowd. Television pictures showed the crowd surging back, with 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.

Journalist Mary Holland recalled seeing one of the men being dragged past a group of journalists: "He didn't cry out, just looked at us with terrified eyes, as though we were all enemies in a foreign country who wouldn't have understood what language he was speaking if he called out for help." They were dragged to the nearby Casement Park sports ground. Here they were again beaten and stripped to their underpants and socks by a small group of men. According to the BBC and The Independent the men were also tortured. A search revealed that the men were British Army soldiers. 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, while camera crews captured one of its passengers waving a fist in the air.

Shortly after, the IRA released a statement:

Despite media reports, we are satisfied that at no time did our Volunteers physically attack the soldiers. Once we confirmed who they were, they were immediately executed. But we understand why a section of the mourners attacked them and given what happened in Milltown Cemetery on Wednesday, these people acted with exactly the same motive as those who were commended for pursuing loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone.

The two men were driven less than 200 yards to waste ground near Penny Lane (South Link), 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 later played a significant part in the peace process leading to the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, arrived on the scene.

According to photographer David Cairns, although photographers were having their films confiscated by the IRA, he was able to keep his by quickly leaving the area after taking a photograph of Reid kneeling beside the almost naked body of David Howes administering the last rites. Cairns' photograph was subsequently designated one of the best pictures of the past 50 years by Life magazine.

Aftermath

Northern Ireland Secretary Tom King acknowledged that the Milltown Cemetery attack and the killing of Howes and Wood were "wholly unacceptable and do require immediate review in regard to policing to be followed at any future funeral." Conservative MP Michael Mates nonetheless defended the "hands off" policy, saying "A return to heavy-handed policing could provoke riots, which is what the IRA want so they can say to the world 'They won't even let us bury our dead in peace.'"

On 2 August 1988, Lance-Corporal Roy Butler of the Ulster Defence Regiment was shot and killed in Belfast with one of the guns taken from the corporals.

Two men, Alex Murphy and Harry Maguire, were found guilty of the murder of the corporals. They were jailed for life in 1989, with a recommendation of a minimum 25 years. Murphy received a further 83 years, and Maguire 79 years, for bodily harm, falsely imprisoning the soldiers, and possessing a gun and ammunition. Sir Brian Hutton, sentencing, said

All murders are brutal, but the murders of Corporal Howes and Corporal Wood were particularly savage and vicious . . . They were stripped of most of their clothing and they lay in their own blood in the back of the taxi when you took them to the waste ground to be killed, and in that pitiable and defenceless state you brought about their murders as they lay on the ground.”

Both men had been listed as senior members of the IRA's Belfast Brigade. At the age of 15 in 1973, Murphy had been the youngest republican internee in Long Kesh jail, which later became the Maze. Maguire became a member of the IRA's "camp staff" in the Maze, one of the senior IRA men effectively in control of the republican wings, and met Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam when she visited the jail to negotiate with prisoners. In November 1998, Murphy and Maguire were released from the Maze prison as part of the early prisoner release scheme under the Good Friday Agreement. Maguire is now Belfast chairman of the 'Community Restorative Justice' group.

A further three men were in 1990 found guilty by common purpose of aiding and abetting the murder. The men (Pat Kane, Mickey Timmons, and Seán Ó Ceallaigh) were dubbed the "Casement Three" by Republicans who disputed the validity of their convictions. Kane's conviction was quashed on appeal due to the unreliability of his confession. Ó Ceallaigh was released in 1998 under the Good Friday Agreement.

Terence Clarke, the chief steward on the day, was sentenced to seven years for assaulting Corporal Wood. Clarke had served as Gerry Adams' bodyguard, and died of cancer in 2000.

See also

• 1971 Scottish soldiers' killings
• Milltown Cemetery attack

References

1. ^ Taylor, 284.
2. ^ IRA funeral killers freed. Independent, 27 November 1998.
3. Lost Lives 2007 Edition, p1121-24. ISBN 978-1-84018-504-1
4. ^ Tyler Marshall, 5 Slayings Prompt Review of Policy on IRA Funerals Los Angeles Times 22 March 1988
5. Taylor, Peter. Brits: The War against the IRA. London: Bloomsbury, 2001. 284. ISBN 0-7475-5007-7
6. ^ IRA claims killing of policeman Associated Press 21 March 1988
7. ^ Bob Aylott, David Cairns - Under fire Amateur Photographer 7 June 2007
8. David McKittrick, Northern Ireland: The longest tour of duty is over The Independent 31 July 2007
9. ^ More prisoners released. BBC News, 26 November 1998. Retrieved on 1 August 2008.
10. O'Brien, 164
11. "Obituary: Mary Holland The Independent". Independent.co.uk. 10 June 2004. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
12. McKittrick, David. Northern Ireland: The longest tour of duty is over. Independent, 31 July 2007.
13. Iris: The Republican Magazine, Number 21, Spring 2008, ISSN 0790-7869, pg.27
14. Ryder, p217
15. "Sutton Index of Deaths". Cain.ulst.ac.uk. Retrieved 19 November 2011.
16. Linklater, Magnus. "Fair, firm and unclubbable. The judge who could bring about the fall of Tony Blair". The Times, 24 January 2004
17. Corporals' killers are released from Maze By Toby Harnden and Robert Shrimsley Electronic Telegraph, 27 November 1998.
18. More prisoners released BBC News, 26 November 1998.
19. O'Broin, Eoin (26 June 1997). "Freedom for one of Casement Three". An Phoblacht. Retrieved 10 December 2010.
20. Randall, Colin. "Judges free man jailed over IRA funeral murders" The Daily Telegraph, 21 June 1997. Retrieved 4 August 2008.
21. Corporals killings man stays in US. Sunday Mirror, 25 April 2004. Retrieved on 9 August 2008.

Sources

• O'Brien, Brendan. The Long War - The IRA and Sinn Féin. Syracuse University Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8156-0597-8
• Ryder, Chris. The Ulster Defence Regiment - An Instrument of Peace?. Methuen, 1991. ISBN 0-413-64800-1
• Taylor, Peter. Brits. Bloomsbury, 2000. ISBN 0-7475-5806-X

• Use dmy dates from November 2011
• The Troubles in Belfast
• Royal Corps of Signals
• Deaths by firearm in Northern Ireland
• Lynchings
• People killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army
• Provisional Irish Republican Army actions
• British Army in Operation Banner
• Conflicts in 1988
• 1988 in Northern Ireland