Warrenpoint Ambush

Warrenpoint ambush
Part of The Troubles
A British Army lorry destroyed in the ambush
Date 27 August 1979 16:40 BST 17:12 BST Location Narrow Water Castle near Warrenpoint, County Down 54°6′41.45″N 6°16′43.62″W / 54.1115139°N 6.2787833°W / 54.1115139; -6.2787833Coordinates: 54°6′41.45″N 6°16′43.62″W / 54.1115139°N 6.2787833°W / 54.1115139; -6.2787833 Result Provisional IRA victory Deadliest attack on the British Army by the Provisional IRA
Belligerents
Provisional IRA	United Kingdom British Army
Commanders and leaders
Joe Brennan Brendan Burns	Lieutenant Colonel David Blair †
Strength
1 active service unit	~50 troops
Casualties and losses
None	18 killed 6 wounded
1 civilian killed, 1 wounded by British Army
Location within Northern Ireland

Provisional IRA victory

 United Kingdom

The Warrenpoint ambush or Narrow Water ambush (also called the Warrenpoint massacre or Narrow Water massacre) was a guerrilla attack by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) on 27 August 1979. The IRA's South Armagh Brigade ambushed the British Army with two large roadside bombs at Narrow Water Castle (near Warrenpoint) in Northern Ireland. The first bomb was aimed at a British Army convoy and the second targeted the reinforcements sent to deal with the incident. IRA volunteers hidden in nearby woodland also allegedly fired on the troops. The castle is on the banks of the Newry River, which marks the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland.

Eighteen British soldiers were killed and six were seriously injured, making it the deadliest attack on the British Army during the Troubles. An English civilian was also killed and another injured when British soldiers fired across the border after the first blast. The attack happened on the same day that the IRA assassinated Lord Louis Mountbatten.

At 16:40, a British Army convoy consisting of one Land Rover and two four-ton lorries was driving past Narrow Water Castle on the A2 road. As it passed, a 500-pound (227 kg) fertiliser bomb, hidden in a lorry loaded with strawbales and parked near the castle, was detonated by remote control. The explosion caught the last lorry in the convoy, hurling it on its side and instantly killing six members of 2nd Battalion, The Parachute Regiment, whose bodies were scattered across the road. There were only two survivors amongst the soldiers travelling in the lorry; they both received serious injuries. Anthony Wood (19), the lorry's driver, was one of those killed. All that remained of Wood's body was his pelvis, which had been welded to the seat by the fierce heat of the blast.