What happened with Birmingham Pub Bombings?
Asked by
w2pow2 (
490
)
July 23rd, 2009
Birmingham, England, November 21, 1974. 21 people are killed in a bombing attack by the IRA (Irish Republic Army). But some things don’t add up- at 20:11 warnings were given by IRA representatives. At 20:17 the first bomb explodes. At 20:27 IRA representatives warn authorities of a second bomb just as it explodes in a pub not far from the first bomb. A third bomb fails to detonate.
The IRA have been known to give warnings an hour in advance for civilians to evacuate the building (Manchester bombing, Victoria Station bombing, Bloody Friday.)
So do ya see the mystery? 6 minutes difference between the first warning and first boom. Obviously the place won’t be evacuated in 6 minutes. So why the phone call?
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5 Answers
Possibly the one doing the warning thought six minutes was enough time for everyone to get out of a pub. Possibly the one doing the warning’s watch was wrong. Possibly the IRA or at least that particular bunch of IRA members really wanted someone in those pubs to die.
I doubt that there is a hard and fast rule that the IRA follows that says to always warn folks 1 hour ahead of a bombing. After all, the same courtesy has not often been followed in the reverse.
True but with the IRA there is a clear pattern. They even apologized for Bloody Friday.
I’m convinced that there IS a hard and fast rule that the IRA follows.
I definitely agree that a whole number of things could have gone wrong. I don’t think that this specific IRA group acted according to their own personal beliefs- they have to report to someone of a higher rank. Among any military operative, there is a constant fear of what their superiors will do to them should they fail.
And I would like to introduce a much more extreme possibility of what happened: The facts were distorted. 21 people killed and 182 wounded. Who the hell wants to take the responsibility for that? So the police fib and say that the caller called at 20:11 when really he called at a much earlier time. Nothing to support this but I think it’s a possibility.
And what if, check this out, the third bomb failed to go off because the IRA pulled the plug? It’s possible that the bombers installed some kind of remote deactivation feature on the bombs. But then again, if that’s so then why didn’t they stop the first two from going off? Maybe they didn’t have good enough surveillance on the buildings. A million possibilities…
Oh comeon! There’s gotta be some bastard out there with some new info that’ll clean thiss whole thing up.
I told you what I thought and you pooh-poohed it. Now you are calling us names? I doubt you will get much of a response.
I say bastard all the time. If you knew me you’d know that I use that for my closest friends (playfully) as well as the people I don’t like. In this case its definitely the former.
I thought what you said was brilliant! My hats off to you my friend!
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