In addition the Provisionals would be shadowed by Army surveillance experts and those of the Special Branch’s E4A. It is also believed that members of the RUC’s highly trained HMSU were deployed in the area. At least fifty of the Army’s and the RUC’s troops most highly trained in surveillance techniques and the use of firearms were committed to the immediate operation, and several companies of UDR and regular Army soldiers as well as mobile police squads were to be available to cordon off the Armagh/Dungannon area after the operation. Loughgall was to be an operation involving hundreds of soldiers and police.
Lynagh’s group had hidden their explosives in a farmyard some kilometres to the north of Loughgall, close to the Armagh/Tyrone border and the republican strongholds of Coalisland and Washing Bay. It is clear from interviews and press reports at the time of the incident that this cache was under close surveillance for days or even weeks before the attack. It is thought that E4A were given this task.
A few days before the IRA operation had begun, the members of the SAS and other elements taking part in Operation JUDY – the code-name apparently used for the security forces plan to defeat the terrorists – attended a briefing. It set out the kind of attack which Lynagh and Kelly were believed to have planned. Most of the details were to be proven correct, although the briefing officers did get some things wrong. They said that it was believed likely that the IRA group would approach the police station across the football field across the Balleygasey Road, rather than by road. They also told the soldiers that they believed the IRA bomb would be set off by a timer or a remote control device (in fact it would be a simple fuse lit by one of the terrorists).
The SAS soldiers went into position many hours before the planned attack. Some of them were spotted by one of the elderly residents of the Balleygasey Road out walking his dog. Despite this ‘compromise’, it was decided that it would be safe for the troops to remain in place.
During the afternoon of Friday 8 May, IRA terrorists wearing masks hijacked a blue Toyota Hiace van from a business in Mountjoy Road, Dungannon. Some time after 5 p.m. they hijacked a digger from a farmyard, also near Dungannon. The digger was driven to the farmyard to be fitted with a powerful bomb.
Lynagh and Kelly had been joined for the attack by six other men: Patrick McKearney, thirty-two, who had escaped from the Maze and who came from the village of Moy halfway between Dungannon and Armagh; Gerard O’Callaghan, twenty-nine, from Benburb in Tyrone; Seamus Donnelly, twenty-one, from Galbally near Dungannon; Declan Arthurs, the same age and from the same village; Eugene Kelly, twenty-five, from Cappagh; and Tony Gormley, twenty-four also from Galbally. The complexity of the plan, and its similarity to the one used nine months before, would indicate that there were many other people involved as well, but these eight men were chosen to ride into the village. Gormley and O’Callaghan rode on the digger itself. The others went in the blue van which was driven by Donnelly. Lynagh was in the back of the van and Kelly probably rode beside the driver.
The men drew their weapons. They had three Heckler and Koch G3 7.62 mm assault rifles – a standard weapon of the German army – two 5.56 mm FNC rifles, an assault shotgun and the Ruger revolver taken from Reserve Constable Clements at Ballygawley. Subsequent tests were to show that the G3s and FNCs had been used in three killings of UDR men. They clad themselves in boiler suits, balaclavas and gloves and set off.
The digger made its way down small country lanes, rather than taking the main road from Dungannon to Armagh. The van went ahead to make sure the coast was clear. Given that the point where the explosive was collected was under observation, it is possible that there was also surveillance along the route, perhaps from unmarked cars or OPs. The undercover operators, after all, needed some assurance that the IRA really was going to attack the target.
The SAS troops in Loughgall were commanded by the most senior NCO in the Ulster troop – a Hereford veteran with the rank of staff sergeant. Their officers were not on the ground. The briefing had stated that the mission was an OP/React – an Observation Post able to react. As we have already seen, this was a coded term for an ambush, and the soldiers’ weaponry and deployment had more in common with what the regiment practises in the jungles of Brunei than is considered normal in Ulster. According to members of the SAS, there were two or more 7.62 mm belt-fed General Purpose Machine Guns in the ambush party, operated by members of the resident troop. Its other members carried newly issued 7.62 mm Heckler and Koch G3-A4K assault rifles, which had replaced the Armalite and HK53 assault rifles used by SAS troops in Northern Ireland prior to 1987. Most of the reinforcement troop from G Squadron carried 5.56 mm M-16 Armalites.
The main body – what would in Army manuals be termed the ‘assault’ or ‘killer’ group – was deployed in two main groups. The larger, including the belt-fed General Purpose Machine Guns, was positioned in the copse overlooking the RUC station close to the Armagh road in order to be able to concentrate fire on the football field in front of the station, reflecting the SAS commander’s belief
