The I.R.A. Rides Again

"Put up your hands," hissed an Irish voice out of the darkness. It was 2 a.m. and rainy, and the unarmed sentry at the gate of the British army's training center at Arborfield, 40 miles west of London, did as he was told. Quickly bound and gagged, the sentry watched a score or more dark figures flit through the gate and burst into the guardhouse. They pointed pistols at the sergeant of the guard and locked him up.

One by one, as the sentries checked in at the guardhouse on their rounds, the intruders overpowered them and trussed them up. "Consider yourselves prisoners of war," said the leader of the commando gang. The raiders were members of the Irish Republican Army, that outlawed, audacious nationalistic group which, in prewar days, used to plant time bombs in the British mails to reinforce its demand for the unification of Ireland. Swiftly, they went to work, loading rifles, Sten guns, light machine guns and 200,000 rounds of ammunition into a fleet of cars that rolled in through the main gate, then vanished into the night. Not until three hours later did one of the sentries free himself and send the alarm.

Sir John Harding, Chief of the Imperial General Staff, took personal charge of the chase; airfields and ports were guarded, roadblocks set up. Before learning of the alarm, a police patrol car stopped a suspicious-looking truck near the racecourse at Ascot, recaptured a load of guns and arrested three Irishmen. But the others got away.

"This is a matter of terrific national importance," said Scotland Yard gravely. "These men are desperate and will fight for their lives in trying to reach Ireland."

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