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The corporals killings is the name commonly given to the deaths of corporals David Robert Howes (23) and Derek Tony Wood (24),^[1] two British Army soldiers of the Royal Corps of Signals killed on 19 March 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland. The non-uniformed soldiers were "executed" by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA), after they drove into the funeral of an IRA volunteer. Three days beforehand, a loyalist gunman 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 warning shot in the air. The soldiers were then dragged from their vehicle, driven to nearby waste ground, stripped and shot dead.^[2]

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.^[1]

Background

The killings took place against a backdrop of violence at high profile Irish republican funerals in 1988. On 6 March, three unarmed IRA members on a bombing mission were killed by members of the Special Air Service in Gibraltar during Operation Flavius. Their funerals in Belfast's Milltown Cemetery on 16 March 1988 were attacked by 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 an IRA volunteer, Caoimhin O'Bradaigh. O'Bradaigh'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.^[3] The attendance at the funeral included large numbers of IRA volunteers who acted as stewards. Given the presence of these men and the fear surrounding the funeral, the two British Army corporals who drove into the midst of the funeral procession were putting themselves in grave danger. How the corporals came to be in that particular street, at that particular time is uncertain, although official army sources state they arrived there by accident.^[4]

The killings

Corporal Derek Wood produces a weapon as he tries to hold back the crowd.

David Howes and Derek Wood were driving in a silver Volkswagen Passat car wearing civilian clothes. The O'Bradaigh 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 a number of 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.^[5] 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 cortège. When the driver attempted to extricate the car from the cortège 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. One of the corporals produced a weapon,^[6] which 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."^[7] 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 two British news sources, the men were tortured.^[5][8][9] 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.

Father Alec Reid administers the last rites to Corporal Derek Wood.

Shortly after, the IRA released a statement at the time which concluded:

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.^[10]

The two men 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 later played 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 body of Derek Wood, his face distraught as he administered the last rites.

Aftermath

In 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.^[11][12]

Two men, Alex Murphy and Harry Maguire, were found guilty of the murder of the corporals.^[8][5] A further three men were found guilty of aiding and abetting the murder, but the conviction of a third, Patrick Kane, was quashed on appeal due to the unreliability of his confession.^[13]

Murphy and Maguire were jailed for life in 1989, with a recommendation of a minimum 25 years, for the murder of the two corporals. 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.”^[14]

He also sentenced Murphy to a further 83 years and Maguire to another 79 years for bodily harm, falsely imprisoning the soldiers and for possessing a gun and ammunition.

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.^[15]

A third man, Sean Kelly, was sentenced in 1990 for aiding and abetting the killings and given life. He was released in 1998 under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.^[16] In November 1998, Murphy and Maguire were also released from the Maze prison as part of the early prisoner release scheme.^[17] Maguire is now Belfast chairman of the 'Community Restorative Justice' group. 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.

References

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

See also