The I.R.A.'s "Great Escape"

By Louisa Wright

Britain is embarrassed as 38 terrorists break out of the Maze

The arrival of the food van at Northern Ireland's Maze Prison on Sunday afternoon was routine enough. It was carrying the 4:30 meal (corned beef, pork, eggs, cheese, bread and tea) for the prison's inmates, many of them convicted terrorists of the Irish Republican Army. Passing through two security gates, the van pulled up in front of No. 7 H-block of the prison, site of dramatic I.R.A. hunger strikes two years ago. There the routine came to a violent stop. Prisoners armed with smuggled guns and homemade knives had already overpowered their guards; now they commandeered the vehicle. Thirty-eight men, who had been waiting for the van for more than an hour, piled inside; one of them pointed a gun at the driver's stomach. The van gingerly retraced its path toward the prison's main gate. There the escaping inmates outnumbered the guards 4 to 1. A prison officer, who realized what was happening, swerved his car across the entrance. Another, James Ferris, 43, struggled with the prisoners who had streamed out of the van. Finally, the escapees ran off, leaving behind them Ferris, fatally stabbed, and six other guards, wounded.

Thus began what jubilant I.R.A. supporters quickly dubbed the "Great Escape." The 38 men--convicted killers, bomb experts and kidnapers from the I.R.A.'s militant Provisional wing--had broken out of the compound considered until then to be perhaps the most escape proof in Europe. The biggest prison break in British history triggered one of the largest manhunts ever seen on either side of the Irish border. In Dublin, Irish authorities ordered increased surveillance of the rugged border area to prevent fugitives from reaching traditional sanctuaries in the counties of Sligo, Donegal, Monaghan, Leitrim and Louth. In Ulster, security forces threw a tight five-mile cordon around the prison, while thousands of soldiers and police blocked roads, combed fields and searched houses throughout the week. It was, said one police officer involved in the search, "like trying to corner a pack of wolves."

By week's end the dragnet had yielded 19 fugitives, 15 by Sunday night, two more on each of the following two days. Many of those were merely sacrificial pawns, analysts believe, willing to be recaptured to cover the escape of some of the I.R.A.'s most notorious terrorists. Among those still at large: Brendan McFarlane, 31 Jailed for life for a bombing attack that killed five civilians in a Belfast bar; Kevin Artt, 24, jailed in August for the 1978 murder of Albert Miles, a deputy governor of Maze Prison; and six others with life sentences for murders. The dragnet's major find was Hugh Corey, 27, who was serving a life sentence for murder. Corey and Patrick Mclntyre, 25, were captured in an isolated farmhouse 25 miles south of Belfast after a two-hour siege. Corey is believed to have been the I.R.A. commander in Londonderry.

In the breakout from the prison gate many of the fugitives simply flagged down passing motorists and forced them out of their cars. One group of about 15 men stole three vehicles from a local farm, forcing a teen-age boy to explain the automatic controls of a car. Another tried to escape in a taxi. Police dragged four men, all of them either naked or clad only in underpants, out of the nearby River Lagan, where they had been submerged and were breathing through reeds. Another was marched away, blood dripping from a gunshot wound to his arm. The apprehended man grinned at Eyewitness Winston English and said, "It was worth a try."

It was also a major propaganda coup for the I.R.A. The escape came after a wave of arrests and convictions during the past year (thanks to the testimony of several "supergrasses," or onetime terrorists turned informers) that has severely shaken the organization. The slang term to grass means to tip off policemen. Evidence from just one supergrass, Christopher Black, has led to 35 convictions, including that of Kevin Artt. Largely because of the informers, political murders in Northern Ireland have fallen dramatically, from 97 in 1982 to 47 so far this year. That sort of success led Ulster authorities to expect some sort of dramatic I.R.A. counterstroke.

When it came last week it brought jubilation to the organization's supporters and outrage to just about everyone else. The Rev. Ian Paisley, the militant Protestant leader, called for the resignation of Nicholas Scott, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State in the Northern Ireland Office. Said British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, in Ottawa at the start of a visit to Canada and the U.S.: "It is the gravest [breakout] in our present history, and there must be a very deep inquiry." An embarrassed James Prior, Britain's seasoned, avuncular Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, immediately announced a high-level inquiry headed by Sir James Hennessy, Britain's chief inspector of prisons.

The investigation will have to answer some potentially damaging questions. How did the prisoners obtain guns? Why was the prison's alarm system so ineffective? How did the escapees avoid so many checks? How was the prison staff deployed? Did some guards contribute to the security lapse? And how could such a thing happen in a fortress like Maze, which has every security device available, including multiple 15-ft. fences and an 18-ft. concrete wall topped with barbed wire around each cell block? All gates around the 144-acre complex are solid steel and electrically operated. The prison is even built on solid concrete to foil tunnel builders. If last week's angry mood holds, the investigation could claim some high-ranking victims. --By Louisa Wright This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.