THE story of the courage shown by Captain Robert Nairac of the Grenadier Guards — the victim of a brutal kidnapping and murder by the Provisional IRA in 1977 — has been published officially for the first time by his regiment.

The death of Captain Nairac remains one of the most horrific acts of individual violence in the history of the 30-year Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Now the Grenadier Guards have paid a special tribute to the young officer to mark the 350th anniversary of the founding of the regiment by Charles II, and disclosed that he made “repeated and spirited attempts to escape” from his captors during his ordeal.

Captain Nairac, who was 29 when he was killed, was abducted on the evening of May 14, 1977, from the Three Steps Inn, a republican pub at Drumintee in the heart of South Armagh, on the border with the Republic of Ireland. He had driven there from Bessbrook Mill military barracks armed only with a 9mm Browning pistol.

The regiment’s official account of Captain Nairac’s death states that on the night of May 14-15 “he was abducted from a village in South Armagh by at least seven men”.

“Despite fierce resistance, he was overpowered and taken over the border into the Republic of Ireland where he was subjected to a succession of exceptionally savage assaults in an attempt to extract information that would have put other lives and future operations at serious risk,” the history records.

The account goes on: “After several hours in the hands of his captors, he was callously murdered by a gunman of the Provisional Irish Republican Army who had been summoned to the scene,” the historical account records.

The IRA assassin revealed subsequently: “He never told us anything.” Six people were later convicted and jailed for his kidnap and murder. Liam Townson, from South Armagh, was found guilty of his murder and sentenced to life, but was freed after 12 years. The other five received sentences ranging from three years to life.

Captain Nairac, whose body was never found, is the only member of the Grenadier Guards regiment to have been awarded the George Cross in recognition of the outstanding bravery he showed when faced with his IRA killers.

Why he was in the pub in civilian clothes and pretending to be an Irishman from Belfast has never been explained, although it has often been claimed that he was either attached to the SAS or was undertaking a secret mission as a member of the Army’s 14th Intelligence Company, a covert surveillance team. However, the tribute to Captain Nairac that appears in The British Grenadiers, Three Hundred and Fifty Years of the First Regiment of Foot Guards 1656-2006, provides the first official clarification of the role he was playing at the time of his death.

It was his fourth tour of Northern Ireland, and he was at that stage “a liaison officer at the headquarters of 3rd Infantry Brigade, working with surveillance operations”. This would have drawn him into close contact with all the covert operators, but as a liaison officer his role would not normally have involved undertaking his own secret missions.

The official history draws a veil on this aspect of the story, although Henry Hanning, the author of the history and editor of the Grenadier Gazette, the regiment’s journal, writes: “He showed an exceptional interest in, and understanding of, the young people in the Province.”

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