An SAS hit squad tracked down the IRA terrorists who murdered Lord Mountbatten and were later involved in the mysterious death of a Republican cleared of the killing, The Mail on Sunday has been told.
Speaking for the first time, Graham Yuill, a former Army security expert, said SAS operatives launched missions targeting the assassins of Lord Mountbatten, the Queen’s cousin.
Lord Mountbatten’s fishing boat was blown up off the coast of Mullaghmore in the Republic of Ireland 40 years ago next week.
The Queen’s cousin Lord Mountbatten died when the IRA bombed his fishing boat off the coast of Mullaghmore in the Republic of Ireland in 1979. The SAS hit squad tracked down those responsible, according to an Army expert
A BBC documentary tomorrow night will also claim that Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness, who died in 2017, personally approved the operation to kill Lord Mountbatten in his capacity as an IRA regional commander.
Mr Yuill told this newspaper: ‘The Provos had killed the Queen’s cousin, do you think the British establishment was going to take that lying down? All bets were off, especially as just hours after Lord Mountbatten’s death, the IRA killed 18 British soldiers in two bomb blasts at Warrenpoint, County Down, just across the border.’
Lord Mountbatten was killed immediately in the boat blast, along with his teenage grandson Nicholas Knatchbull and deckhand Paul Maxwell, 15.
Lady Brabourne, 83, the mother-in-law of Lord Mountbatten’s daughter, Patricia, died from injuries the next day.
Mr Yuill told the MoS their lives could have been saved had senior Army officers followed his advice and ensured that Lord Mountbatten’s 27ft boat, the Shadow V, was guarded around the clock.
The IRA was able to plant a huge bomb aboard the boat when it was moored at Mullaghmore. Having studied Lord Mountbatten’s movements, they also knew when he went sailing with his family. The bomb was triggered using a radio device on August 27, 1979.
Louis Mountbatten with members of his family on his 30-foot boat, Shadow V, in 1975. Left to right: David Hicks, Lord Brabourne, Lord Mountbatten, Lady Brabourne, India Hicks, Nicholas Knatchbull (who was also killed in the bombing), Timothy Knatchbull, Ashley Hicks and Philip Knatchbull
An Irish police officer looked through the rubble remains of the Shadow V boat. The documentary will claim that Sinn Fein leader Martin McGuinness personally approved the operation to kill Lord Mountbatten
Bombmaker Thomas McMahon and alleged accomplice Francis McGirl were arrested the same day and a search was launched for an IRA surveillance team and leaders who sanctioned the killing.
McMahon was sentenced to life but released in 1998 under the Good Friday Agreement. McGirl was acquitted and died in an accident in 1995.
But Mr Yuill said: ‘Supposedly he was run over by his own tractor after drinking heavily. I’ve been told it was made to look that way and the SAS were involved.’
Martin McGuinness, pictured here in June 1972, when he was leader of the Provisional IRA in Londonderry
The BBC documentary – The Day Mountbatten Died – includes interviews with former terrorists who say McGuinness, who later shook hands with the Queen when he was Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, ran the IRA’s South Armagh Brigade.
Ex-director of IRA Intelligence Kieran Conway also reveals that Republican terror chiefs considered killing Lord Mountbatten in the mid-1970s.
Asked if McGuinness was in charge of the local IRA unit at the time and had approved the assassination of Lord Mountbatten, he says: ‘I wouldn’t have said it until Martin died, that McGuinness was chief of staff.
‘If you’re the boss, you’re the boss. You take responsibility for whatever goes on.’
McGuinness met the Queen herself in 2012 in Belfast when he was Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland
Mr Yuill has been interviewed for a new book by Andrew Lownie called The Mountbattens, Their Loves And Lives, published this week. In the months before Lord Mountbatten’s death, he was a corporal in the SAS-trained 177 Provost Company, Royal Military Police.
He was sent into the Republic of Ireland as part of a three-man team to provide close protection for Lord Mountbatten.
Mr Yuill offered recommendations on improvements to security for the former Royal Navy Admiral of the Fleet, including a round-the-clock guard on his boat.
He adds: ‘I concluded that the terrorists would likely chose one of two methods to kill Lord Mountbatten, either using a sniper… or by planting a bomb on his boat.
‘So I suggested watching the Shadow V and putting down a fine layer of powder on its deck and compartments to see if anyone had tried to board her.’
Lord Mountbatten’s death shocked the world and came as a devastating blow to Prince Charles as he was a close confidante to the heir to the throne.