IRA Broadgate Bomb 1939

I was 12 years of age, waiting outside the Hippodrome when the bomb exploded. People started to rush by in all directions. I really could not imagine what had happened, shouting things. My God, the explosion had torn the front out of shops, looked as if all Burtons had had been destroyed, bricks, glass everywhere. Police kept the crowds back, trousers, coats lay strewn about the floor among the rubble. Now the newsreels we had seen came alive, rumours spread, I went home dazed. Little did I know what lay in store for me, in the years to come.

From Dean Nelson on FB - new angle to me of the damage.

When did they realise it was the IRA? Did the IRA claim responsibility for it?

Hi, have you read through this link compiled by Rob? Plus there are other bits of information throughout the topic. Not my area of interest but they might help.

Yes. but it doesn't really answer my question. That day's Midland Daily Telegraph just talked about the devastation, a Home Office expert being called in...

What I gathered was that there warnings of attacks but not specifics. The bomb wasn't meant for that location but the police station instead, so there wouldn't have been an accurate call anyway. I didn't get the impression that the IRA claimed it but that it was assumed to be part of the wider campaign.

I had a chance to visit the museum in the basement of the Central Police Station in about 1978 and one of exhibits there was the remains of the bicycle on which the bomb was detonated. I don't know if the bicycle or the museum is still there but there were some gruesome exhibits on display as I recall. I don't think the museum was open to the general public at the time or indeed at anytime. An aside; I was involved in a charity pantomime, playing the part of a policeman. I borrowed an old uniform and helmet from the same Police Station and had to be very discrete on smuggling it out the building and back into it when the pantomime was finished. We even took the pantomime on the road to Hatton Psychiatric hospital where our dressing room was a store for all the straight jackets. It was an interesting experience!

I'd first like to say that I can't claim any credit for the wonderful article, which was written by Simon Shaw (Brother Joybert on this forum). However, among the hugely complex things going on regarding that campaign, if you start reading in detail from the third section on that page, beginning "In addition to the dead some 70 others were injured . . .", it's possible to piece together some of the reasoning behind the police's immediate suspicion of the I.R.A. - although admittedly there is a lot to get through and take in. If I remember rightly from reading the book The Trial of Peter Barnes and Others, the police had been tracking suspects like Peter Barnes for some time, so were pretty quick off the mark and, as Simon Shaw reports, were able to arrest Barnes in London on the same night of the Broadgate explosion. I hope this helps.

Thank you, Rob. Much appreciated.

I've had a quick read round and can't get an idea when warnings, coded or otherwise, started. Some warnings were deceptive and others were designed to lead the authorities into a trap. In terms of threat groups, they wax and wane in number and the police reaction has varied over the years too. There is less of a public assumption over which terror group might be responsible for an attack, although in private I'm sure the police jump to some early conclusions. Every family member has had a brush with a terrorism attack that were averted by chance decisions and my dad had three!