Chelsea Barracks IRA Bomb
London Newspaper Group — CN/WPN 16-10-1981
'May have hit wrong target' say Guards
By Christopher Long
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As anti-terrorist and bomb squad officers set to work to trace the four or five men believed responsible for the Chelsea Barracks bomb, there was speculation that the IRA missed their real target.
If the bombers had triggered the device a few minutes later they would almost certainly have caught two bus-loads of Irish Guards travelling in close convoy from Buckingham Palace perhaps doubling the carnage that in fact occurred.
"One way and another I think we could almost say we've been very lucky," said one officer as he speculated on what might have happened had two buses been hit simultaneously.
A further stroke of pure luck was that a group of about thirty boy cadets was not caught up in the affair.
The cadets were guests of the Irish Guards and had walked out of the barracks earlier in the morning to walk to Buckingham Palace to watch Saturday's last Changing of the Guard by members of the 1st Battalion Irish Guards before they prepared for a few years of service in Germany.
The boys, dressed in army cadet uniforms, walked back from Buckingham Palace for refreshments at Chelsea Barracks. By mistake or good fortune they approached the barracks from the north and entered by the West Gate instead.
Officers of the Irish Guards and Press officers were unable to say that the bombers has 'picked the wrong target', but they were agreed that Saturday's incident could have been even more tragic if the timing had been different.
As the already tight security at the Chelsea Barracks was made still more stringent there was understandable relief that the attack had come from outside rather than inside the establishment.
The explosion could not have come at a more poignant moment for the Irish Guards. Banned from taking part in security operations in Northern Ireland during the past 12 years of the 'troubles', they have concentrated their effort on security operations in Great Britain and overseas – including Belize.
Guardsmen come from all over Ireland and from both Protestant and Roman Catholic communities in Liverpool and Birmingham. Only half an hour before the explosion occurred, officers of the Guards had been saying at Buckingham Palace that the battalion represented the sort of peaceful existence and harmony that most people would wish to see in Ireland itself.
Ten minutes later the previous night's guardsmen were on their way back to Chelsea Barracks from Buckingham Palace in two buses.
The deafening explosion was clearly heard by Guards officers and off-duty journalist Christopher Long as they made their way from Buckingham Palace to the Officers' Mess at St James's Palace.
Within minutes news of the disaster reached senior officers and police and security teams who cordoned off the area fearing that a second bomb would be detonated later.
Twenty-two of the twenty-three guardsmen in the bus were injured as Pimlico resident Mrs Nora Fields lay dead in the road and a total of 40 were ferried to Westminster Hospital for treatment.
Among those injured were two children and one guardsman who has lost the sight of one eye and was described as being in a serious condition.
The picture above was taken by John Tyson shortly after the explosion. More news and pictures on the bomb on pages two and three.
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By pure chance I was a private guest of Irish Guards officers at a lunch at their mess in St James's Palace that day. With me was a friend and colleague, Carol Allen. Our conversation had inevitably included the subject of the IRA bombing campaign in mainland Britain and the fact that the British army was among the IRA's principal targets. Minutes later we heard a loud explosion and we dashed into the yard below to see a tall column of black smoke from far beyond the facade of Buckingham Palace. Immediately we knew that this came from Chelsea Barracks and that the target must include the bandsmen we had been speaking to only minutes before. Driving at break-neck speed across Victoria we were on the scene within minutes and able to enter the exclusion zone around the nail-bombed coaches and blood-drenched young bandsmen.
This tragedy need never have occurred - see Hyde Park IRA Bomb:
As in other almost identical IRA bombings in London during this period, the building opposite the explosion – a block of flats – was covered in scaffolding. After reporting so many of these IRA bomb attacks in London, it became clear to me that they occurred at or very near places where buildings had scaffolding on them. This was the case in incidents such as Knightsbridge, Harrods, Regent's Park, Chelsea Barracks, etc.
However – and astonishingly – when I contacted Scotland Yards 'bomb squad' and the security services to suggest that there might be a link between bomb attacks and the presence of scaffolding (from which bombers posing as builders could lay cables, have a good view and an easy means of escape), my information was rejected out of hand and disregarded. The IRA's London bomb attacks continued remorselessly throughout the 1980s – killing and maiming hundreds. This need not have been the case.
© (1981) Christopher Long. Copyright, Syndication & All Rights Reserved Worldwide.
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