This page is a record of notable attacks by paramilitary organisations on Ulster Defence Regiment personnel during the Troubles resulting in two or more fatalities, or notable firsts:

1971

1972

  • 4 March - Captain Marcus McCausland, formerly of D Coy 5 UDR is abducted and killed by the Official Irish Republican Army (OIRA). He was the first UDR officer to be killed.[3]
  • 21 September - a member of C Coy, 4 UDR and his wife are shot dead by the Provisional IRA as they watched TV at home near Derrylin.[4]

1974

  • 10 April - Major George Saunderson (Brevet Lt Col), until the previous year second-in-command of 4 UDR, was killed in the kitchen of the school in Derrylin where he worked by gunmen who then crashed through a Garda checkpoint to escape into the Republic of Ireland.
  • 2 May - attack at the Deanery base of C Coy, 6 UDR in Clogher. Opening fire using mortars then continuing with small arms and rockets, the estimated 40-man IRA team [5] mounted a sustained attack lasting for 25 minutes against the small contingent in the base who reply with automatic rifle fire, supported by Ferret armoured personnel carriers from the 1 Royal Tank Regiment. During the attack, Private Eva Martin was hit by a rocket fragment and died shortly after. She was the first woman UDR soldier to be killed. Sean O'Callaghan was later convicted of murder after confessing his participation in the assault.[5]
  • 28 October - a bomb attack at the joint 3 UDR and regular army barracks at Ballykinlar destroys the Sandes soldiers canteen on the base, killing two members of the Duke of Edinburgh's Royal Regiment.

1991

  • 1 March - A mobile patrol from the 2nd Battalion was the subject of the first recorded use of the Mk12 horizontal mortar[6][7] Two soldiers were killed as a result of the attack. The funeral of one of them, Private Paul Sutcliffe, an Englishman, was held in Barrowford, Lancashire - the only UDR funeral to be held outside Northern Ireland.[7] The second casualty, Private Roger Love, from Portadown died after three days. His kidneys were donated to the NHS.[7]
  • 31 May - At 11:30 PM a driverless truck loaded with 2,000 lb (1,100 kg) of a new type of home made explosive was rolled down a hill at the rear of the barracks and crashed through the perimeter fence, coming to rest against a corner of the main building.[8][9] Automatic fire was heard by witnesses just before the explosion.[9] The blast left a deep crater[8] and it could be heard over 30 miles away, as far as Dundalk.[9] Three UDR soldiers – Paul Blakely (30), Robert Crozier (46), Sydney Hamilton (44) – were killed and ten were wounded.[9] Four civilians were also wounded.[9] The Provisional IRA claimed responsibility two days later.[9]

1992

  • 17 January - Two off-duty UDR soldiers, working in the rebuilt of a British Army barracks at Omagh were seriously wounded when a civilian van carrying them and 12 others back home was struck by an improvised explosive device at Teebane, a rural crossroads between Omagh and Cookstown in County Tyrone. Eight other workers, one of them a member of the Royal Irish Rangers, were killed in the blast.[10]
  • 17 June - In one of the last attacks on the regiment as an operational unit, a bomb in central Belfast wounded five UDR soldiers and two RUC constables.[11]

Sources

  • A Testimony to Courage - the Regimental History of the Ulster Defence Regiment 1969 - 1992, Major John Furniss Potter, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2001, ISBN 0-85052-819-4
  • The Ulster Defence Regiment - An Instrument of Peace?, Chris Ryder, Methuen 1991, ISBN 0-413-64800-1

References

  1. ↑ Sutton Index 1971
  2. ↑ A Testimony to Courage - the Regimental History of the Ulster Defence Regiment 1969 - 1992, Major John Furniss Potter, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2001, ISBN 0-85052-819-4 (1971)
  3. ↑ Sutton Index of Deaths - 1972
  4. ↑ A Testimony to Courage - the Regimental History of the Ulster Defence Regiment 1969 - 1992, Major John Furniss Potter, Pen & Sword Books Ltd, 2001, ISBN 0-85052-819-4 (1972)
  5. 1 2 "First female UDR soldier killed by IRA. | Royal Irish - Virtual Military Gallery". www.royal-irish.com. Retrieved 3 January 2019.
  6. ↑ McKittrick p565
  7. 1 2 3 Potter p350
  8. 1 2 Oppenheimer, A.R. (2009). IRA: The Bombs and the Bullets. Dublin: Irish Academic Press. p. 123. ISBN 978-0-7165-2895-1.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Whitney, Craig. "I.R.A. Says It Planted Truck Bomb That Killed 3". The New York Times, 2 June 1991.
  10. ↑ Potter, p. 357
  11. ↑ Fortnight, Issues 302-312, p. 22
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