July 31, 1972 · Derry and Belfast Theater
July 31, 1972
In the largest British military operation since Suez, over 20,000 troops with armoured bulldozers moved in before dawn to demolish the barricades and reoccupy the republican and loyalist 'no-go' areas — including 'Free Derry' — that paramilitaries had controlled. The IRA largely melted away rather than fight, and the Army retook the streets with relatively little bloodshed.
Commanders