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Christina Drummond

Private Richard Turnbull and Private Michael Harrison, 3rd Battalion, the Light Infantry


Remembering the Fallen: on this day in 1977, Private Richard Turnbull and Private Michael Harrison, 3rd Battalion, the Light Infantry, were killed in an IRA ambush in Belfast.

They had only arrived in Northern Ireland two days earlier for a four-month tour. The vehicles in which they were travelling, a Land Rover and an army lorry, had turned into North Howard Street in Belfast when they were hit by a hail of bullets. Private Turnbull and Private Harrison were both killed, and their commanding officer along with the regimental padre were injured.

Six people were arrested and charged with the murder; in 1979, 23-year-old Paul Peter McKenna was given a double life sentence for his part in the murder of the soldiers although it was determined that he was not the gunman. The remaining five people received lesser sentences.

Richard, from Gosborough, North Yorkshire, was 18 years old.

Michael, from Dinnington, Sheffield, was 19 years old.

Memorial wall photograph courtesy of Stuart Harrison.

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