When was the Ulster loyalist who attacked an IRA funeral and killed three people born?
Corporals killings British Army corporals David Howes and Derek Wood were killed by the Provisional IRA on 19 March 1988 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, in an event which became known as the corporals killings. The off-duty soldiers were wearing plain-clothes when they were killed by the IRA after encountering the funeral procession of an IRA member whilst returning from Belfast to Lisburn. Three days before, loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone had attacked an IRA funeral and killed three people. Believing the soldiers were loyalists intent on repeating Stone's attack, dozens of people surrounded and attacked their car. During this, Corporal Wood drew his service pistol and fired a shot in the air. The soldiers were then dragged from the car, beaten, and taken to nearby waste ground where they were stripped and shot dead.
Gary Smyth (loyalist) A native of Belfast's Shankill Road, David Lister and Hugh Jordan state that Smyth joined the UDA for the first time around 1980 but left again in 1981 after a disagreement with his superiors. William "Bucky" McCullough, a leading figure in the West Belfast Brigade, was killed at his Shankill home by the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) in 1981 and Smyth hatched a plan for shoot up a bus stop on the republican Falls Road in retaliation. When the plan was Vetoed by Smyth's superiors he left the UDA in disgust at what he perceived to be their inaction.