Drummuckavall Ambush The Drummuckavall Ambush was an attack by the South Armagh Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army ( IRA ) on a British Army observation post southeast of Crossmaglen , County Armagh , along the border with the Republic of Ireland . It occurred on 22 November 1975 and resulted in the deaths of three British soldiers . Background . During the mid - 1970s , the most violent decade of the Troubles in Northern Ireland , the monitoring of the border between south County Armagh and the Republic of Ireland by the British Army was carried out from several static observation post s ( OPs ) . The main goal of these OPs was to prevent attacks launched from beyond the border . These part - time manned positions were highly vulnerable to attack , as proved by a 1974 bomb attack which claimed the lives of two Royal Marines at the outpost of Drummuckavall . It was not until 1986 , when the first surveillance watchtowers were erected in operations " Condor " and " Magistrate " that the British Army tried to regain the initiative in the region from the IRA . The intelligence and control over the area relied until then , and for a lapse of ten years , mostly on mobile posts comprising small uncovered infantry sections . The ambush . A section of four soldiers from the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers , coming from Crossmaglen , mounted an observation post at 2 on 21 November 1975 . The OP was on a slope at Drummuckavall behind bushes overlooking a small stream that ran along the border . Unknown to them , locals had spotted their position and informed the IRA . At 16 : 20 the next day , an IRA unit of up to 12 members attacked the OP . Heavy gunfire killed three of the Fusiliers and disabled their communications equipment . A later inquest found that the IRA unit had fired from two positions inside the Republic . Those killed were James Duncan ( 19 ) , Peter McDonald ( 19 ) and Michael Sampson ( 20 ) . The only fusilier on guard duty was McDonald , who was manning a light machine gun . The other soldiers were resting or taking a meal . The lance corporal in charge of the party , Paul Johnson , survived the first burst unscathed . He remained flat on the ground but was seriously injured on the wrist , side and back by a second burst of automatic fire , after the IRA unit asked him to surrender . A second call to surrender was made , followed by more gunfire . The IRA unit then withdrew into the Republic . According to Johnson , they were shouting " Up the ' RA ! " and laughing . Johnson managed to slip away by crawling 25 yards towards a nearby road , where friendly troops eventually airlifted him to safety in a helicopter . One of the AR - 15 rifles used in the attack was found to have been used by the South Armagh Republican Action Force in an attack on the Tullyvallen Orange Hall that killed five civilians . Aftermath . Shortly after the attack , Merlyn Rees , then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland , issued a famous statement dubbing South Armagh " Bandit Country " . The next year , the British Government officially deployed the Special Air Service ( SAS ) into Northern Ireland to deal with the IRA . The secretive and undercover nature of this elite force made of them the best choice to infiltrate the South Armagh area , after the official report on the action exposed several flaws in the layout of the OP . As a complement to the SAS operations , the British Army also changed tactics . Major General Dick Trant established small teams of troops , called COPs ( close observation platoons ) , to gather information , often in plain clothes or camouflaged in the landscape . They were also able to set up ambushes , like the ill - fated Operation Conservation in 1990 .