Lads, it’s Tottenham

TODAY'S HEROES 🇬🇧 “Their names became known to the world through one of the darkest images of the #Ulster #Troubles. But behind the photographs were two #British #soldiers whose lives were worth far more than the terrible circumstances in which they died.” On 19th March 1988, #Corporals #DavidHowes and #DerekWood were travelling through #WestBelfast when their car entered the path of an #IrishRepublicanArmy (#PIRA) #Funeral procession. Within minutes, two serving soldiers of the Royal Corps of #SignalsRegiment were caught in a horrifying chain of violence that would shock Britain and be remembered for decades. 🇬🇧 This is one of the most #Horrific #murders that the PIRA ever carried out. They WERE NOT on a covert intelligence mission, as some later claims suggested. According to a statement made in the House of Commons, the two corporals had completed a routine maintenance task at a joint #Army and #Police #base in Belfast and were returning to their unit in #Lisburn. Why they entered the funeral cortege’s route was never established with certainty. What followed, however, was beyond dispute: nothing could justify their murders. The funeral was taking place during one of the most volatile periods of the Troubles. Three days earlier, #loyalist gunman #MichaelStone had attacked an PIRA funeral at Milltown Cemetery, killing three people. The violence and fear surrounding those events formed the immediate backdrop to what happened next. When the corporals’ car became trapped among the mourners, some in the crowd apparently believed it was connected to another attack. The situation escalated rapidly. The soldiers were #dragged #from #their #vehicle, assaulted and taken away. They were subsequently driven to a nearby area of west Belfast, stripped naked and #shot dead, by 3 different PIRA gunmen. The killers are well-knowm members of the PIRA's Belfast leadership. One ginger haired killer is on the PIRA's #NorthernCommand 🇮🇪 The ordeal was captured by television cameras and photographers. Images of the two men being seized became some of the most disturbing visual records of the Northern Ireland conflict. The photographs exposed, in stark terms, how quickly a situation charged with fear and hatred could descend into brutality. Corporal David Robert Howes was 23. Corporal Derek Wood was 24. Both served with the Royal Corps of Signals, a corps responsible for the communications that enable military units to operate and coordinate their work. They were soldiers carrying out their duties—not symbols in a political argument, and not figures in a photograph, but two individual human beings whose lives ended violently that day. The killings prompted widespread condemnation and a major criminal investigation. In 1989, men were sentenced to life imprisonment for their involvement in the murders. . That controversy forms part of the wider historical record, but it does not diminish the central truth: David Howes and Derek Wood were murdered, and their lives were taken in circumstances that should never be forgotten. In 2019, memorial plaques #honouring the two corporals were unveiled at the #NationalMemorial #Arboretum in Staffordshire. The Troubles left deep wounds across Northern Ireland and beyond. Remembering these two soldiers does not require forgetting the suffering of others caught in that conflict. It requires recognising the humanity of the men who died, acknowledging the horror of their murders, and refusing to allow their identities to disappear behind the history of that terrible day. David Howes and Derek Wood deserve to be remembered by their names, their service and the lives they were denied the chance to continue. “🇬🇧 Corporal David Howes and Corporal Derek Wood — two members of the Royal Corps of Signals whose lives were taken in west Belfast on 19 March 1988. Their names remain, and their memory deserves dignity, respect and remembrance.” 🌹 #BritishArmy #RoyalCorpsSignals #LestWeForget 🌺