SAS soldiers arrived in the area. Soldier A, a thirty-four-year-old SAS NCO, said in his later court deposition, ‘As a result of information received we were on the look-out for a blue van of foreign make.’ The soldiers had driven into the area by 11.30 p.m., according to Soldier A, which was one hour before a woman rang Kesh RUC station with the ‘come on’ warning about firebombs at the Drumrush Lodge. The soldiers’ task was made far more difficult as there was thick, freezing fog that night, cutting visibility to a few metres.
According to the Army, Soldier A was accompanied by two other men and there was a second unmarked car with another four troops in it. According to an SAS man, their mission was to intercept the bombers following an informer tip-off. It is unclear, though, whether this was regarded as an ambush or an arrest-type mission. Certainly there were enough troops to have mounted an ambush once they had established the IRA unit’s location.
Things did not go well for the soldiers. They sighted a suspicious van and the two cars went into position to block both ends of the road on which it was parked. Soldier A’s car was parked further away from the van, on a narrow section of the road bordered by hedges. By simple bad luck they had stopped their car just a few feet from where two or three IRA members were preparing the firing point for the bomb. The IRA men, who were on the other side of the hedge, watched as two of the SAS men, Soldiers A and B, got out of the car and began to walk towards the van. Each of them was carrying an HK53 5.56 mm compact assault rifle and a 9 mm pistol. Another SAS man, Soldier E, stayed with the car to keep in radio contact with the others. Versions of what happened next differ.
The IRA members decided to open fire on Soldier E, after which there was pandemonium. Getting up from behind the hedge, they shot at point-blank range. Lance-Corporal Alistair Slater died. The twenty-seven-year-old soldier, who had combined a public school education with service in the ranks of the Parachute Regiment before passing selection and serving with B Squadron, 22 SAS, became the second member of the Regiment to be killed in action in Ulster.
After the shots, several of the IRA members decided to run for it. Tony MacBride had stayed with the blue van. He was not carrying a gun and it seems he also tried to run. Statements by the soldiers to a later inquest indicated that MacBride was first captured but then ran off and that the soldiers, thinking he might have taken one of their rifles, opened fire on him. The IRA claimed that MacBride had been apprehended, beaten and shot before other volunteers attacked the SAS, killing the Lance-Corporal and wounding two others.
Both versions are discounted by someone who is familiar with the Army’s internal version of the case, who suggests that there was no struggle, as the soldiers suggested in their court depositions, but that the soldiers simply saw MacBride running away and shot him. It is important to establish when the soldiers knew their comrade was mortally wounded, because this might have led them to shoot MacBride out of a desire to avenge their fallen comrade.
The soldiers’ statements make no mention of hearing the shots which killed Lance-Corporal Slater. Instead they simply say that they discovered him lying by the car after they had apprehended MacBride and before he tried to escape. The omission of any mention of having heard the shots is extraordinary, since they would undoubtedly have heard rifle fire so close. The four SAS men who were in the other car would also, surely, have heard the exchange. If there really was another SAS team, why didn’t they then come forward to assist their colleagues? Soldiers A and B make no mention of them playing any role in these events.
A woman living 100 metres from the scene told the Irish News that she was woken by two shots. ‘A flare was fired into the sky, and she heard several more shots and then saw a second flare fired. This was followed by a burst of rapid fire.’ The soldiers said that they had fired warning shots at MacBride, and then a flare to see him more clearly; they had then apprehended him after which there was the struggle, escape and then the fatal shots were fired.
The other explanation for what the witness heard is this. The first shots were the IRA men attacking the SAS man. Lance-Corporal Slater’s colleagues returned fire and, it would seem, fired the first flare. As one group of IRA men escaped, Soldiers A and B fired another flare and opened fire as their targets disappeared into the mist, killing MacBride.
Bramley and Clark entered a house near Pettigo, before hijacking the family car. Gardai officers saw the car stop and turn around at a checkpoint. It was pursued by a police car and the men were arrested. The British government subsequently filed for their extradition. In 1990, after a long legal battle, the Irish courts refused to extradite Clark, the IRA member who had escaped from the Maze, on the grounds that he might be beaten up by prison officers if he was returned.
Fleming disappeared without trace. After a few days the IRA issued an appeal to anyone who might know his whereabouts. On 21 December his corpse was found. He had jumped into the Bannagh River while escaping from the scene. Fleming had been wearing several layers of bulky clothing, in an attempt to keep warm on that bitterly cold night, and had drowned.
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Despite the death of Frederick Jackson in the Tamnamore incident, security chiefs were still determined to catch terrorists in the act of attacking a soft target. But the kind of intelligence required to make such an operation
