Terror on a Summer's Day

By Russ Hoyle

In a grim week, the I.R.A. strikes in cold blood and new scandals erupt

The bright morning sun sparkled off the plumed metal helmets of the Blues and Royals troopers of the Queen's Household Cavalry as they left their barracks for the daily mounting of the guard at Whitehall. Resplendent in blue tunics, white buckskin breeches and silver-colored breastplates, the tips of their unsheathed swords jauntily resting on their right shoulders, the colorful 16-man troop trotted along Hyde Park's South Carriage Drive while admiring tourists lolled in the grass and snapped pictures. The cavalrymen never reached their destination. At 10:43, just as the regiment's scarlet-and-gold standard came alongside a parked blue Morris Marina sedan, a deafening explosion ripped through the detachment, filling the air with 4-and 6-in. nails and blowing the flesh of both men and horses yards around.

In Regent's Park, less than two miles away, the 30-man Royal Green Jackets Band was in the midst of playing a medley from the musical Oliver! when an equally powerful bomb pulverized the bandstand. It was 12:55. Said one of the 150 or so people who were attending the lunchtime concert: "Everything seemed to come up from the bottom of the bandstand and blow right into the air--bodies, instruments, everything. There were mangled bodies all over the deck chairs." The toll of the two grisly incidents: ten soldiers killed; 32 soldiers, two policemen and 21 civilians injured.*

Three hours after the Hyde Park blast, a terse and chilling telex message arrived in the offices of several newspapers in the Northern Ireland capital of Belfast. Said the cable: "The Irish Republican Army claims responsibility for today's bomb attack on members of the Household Cavalry. The Irish people have sovereign and national rights which no occupation force can put down." The I.R.A. action was the most dramatic on British soil since last October, when two persons were killed and 38 wounded in a similar bombing outside Chelsea Barracks. It was the most stunning incident of terrorism since the assassination of Lord Louis Mountbatten, the Queen's cousin, when I.R.A. terrorists blew up his fishing boat in August 1979. Said Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher: "These callous and cowardly crimes have been committed by evil, brutal men who know nothing of democracy. We shall not rest until they are brought to justice."

The bombings occurred as Britons expressed mounting concern about the effectiveness of their country's police and intelligence services. Details of how Intruder Michael Fagan had found his way to the Queen's bedroom two weeks ago stirred a heated debate about protection for the royal family. In a separate incident, the Queen's chief bodyguard, Michael Trestrail, resigned after admitting that he had had frequent sexual relations with a male prostitute. The scandal came to light when Trestrail's lover, noting the publicity swirling around the palace intrusion, tried to sell his story to a British newspaper.

Worse, revelations that a mole allegedly had penetrated the supersecret British intelligence system promised to cause new problems for the Thatcher government (see following stories). As if all that were not enough, unemployment last week reached a new record of 3,190,621, or 13.4% of the work force.

But it was the sudden shock of death that affected Britons most profoundly. Bystanders who rushed to help victims of the first blast in Hyde Park were repelled by the senseless attack on ceremonial guards. "I saw one trooper with his head blown off and two others lying on the ground covered with blood," said a businessman. Wounded troopers staggered in the road muttering, "Bastards, bastards." Of the 27 people who were injured by the nail bomb in Hyde Park, 17 were civilian bystanders. Said a worker in nearby Knightsbridge: "The first thing I saw was a middle-aged lady on her hands and knees screaming, with part of her foot blown away. Soldiers were lying on the ground partly hidden by the dead horses." In addition to the four soldiers who were killed, seven horses either died immediately or were so badly wounded that police had to put them to death.

At Regent's Park the devastation was, if anything, worse. One concertgoer described the scene: "I counted 16 soldiers lying on the ground. One was groaning, with his hands on his stomach and blood pouring through them. Another's head was a mass of blood." Others spoke of bodies, and of a single leg, literally flying through the air. A kettledrum and French horn came to rest 30 yds. from the blast. Said a grim-faced survivor: "It was a massacre without warning. Children were splattered with bits of the bandsmen's bodies." Six musicians died. The other 24 were wounded, twelve seriously.

The I.R.A. violence was condemned in Ireland and Britain alike. Ireland's Prime Minister Charles Haughey, who has had chilly relations with Thatcher ever since he declared Irish neutrality in the Falklands war, did not hesitate to condemn "those responsible for these inhuman crimes [that] do irreparable damage to the good name of Ireland and to the cause of Irish unity." Traveling in the U.S. to explain Britain's plan for returning local power to Northern Ireland, which is now governed directly from London, British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland James Prior urged Irish Americans to stop supporting the I.R.A. with money and weapons. Said he: "The way to make progress in Northern Ireland is through the ballot box, not by the use of violence."

Police investigators traced the blue Morris sedan to a parking lot at a hotel in Kensington. One witness also gave them a description of a man seen parking the car just before the Hyde Park bombing. Police believe that the 10-lb. nail bomb, probably hidden in the trunk of the car, was detonated by remote control from a spot within sight of the incident. If true, it was a measure of how cold-blooded the killers were. Police speculate that a similar device may have been used in the Regent's Park explosion.

Despite growing police pressure on I.R.A. terrorists in both Britain and Northern Ireland over the past year, authorities acknowledge the organization's continuing ability to stage spectacular attacks, especially during highly publicized ceremonial occasions. As Major General Desmond Langley of the Queen's Household Guards said: "We must do everything we can to stop I.R.A. attacks. But it is difficult because ceremonial duties are public, predictable, routine and totally nontactical. If we attempt to vary times and routes, we are not fulfilling our ceremonial function." At week's end the police had arrested no suspect.

Two days after the bombing, another detachment of Blues and Royals rode out as usual for the mounting of the guard, bearing the tattered standard of their comrades. As they approached the blackened spot where the car had exploded, the men on horseback saluted the fallen with upraised swords. It was a typically British display of 2 grit. Prime Minister Thatcher visited wounded members of the Green Jackets in London's St. Mary's Hospital. She moved from bed to bed and stopped to console Gillian Ward, 22, whose husband David, a clarinet player, lay heavily bandaged. Said Thatcher: "These brave young men are an example to us all." Sadly, too many more innocent men and women will be called upon for such bravery as long as cold-blooded terror is used as a political weapon. --By Russ Hoyle.

Reported by Edmund Outran/Belfast and Arthur White/London

*The dead: Lance Corporal Jeffery Young, 19; Lieut. Anthony Daly, 23; Trooper Simon Tipper, 19; Corporal Major Roy Bright, 36; Bandsman George Mesure, 19; Bandsman Keith Powell, 24; Warrant Officer 2 Graham Barker, 36; Corporal John McKnight, 30; Bandsman Laurence Smith, 19; Sergeant Robert Livingstone, 31.

With reporting by Edmund Outran, Arthur White

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