However Barry soon came to command the West Cork Brigade's flying column and definitively made his name as a guerrilla commander at the Kilmichael Ambush on 28 November 1920, a turning point of the war, in which a company of 18 Auxiliaries was wiped out at the cost three IRA killed. The British alleged that Barry's men killed wounded and surrendering Auxiliaries and mutilated their corpses – a charge that Barry always denied, claiming that he had ordered that no prisoners be taken after the Auxiliaries faked a surrender resulting in the death of some of his men.