Timeline of Ulster Defence Regiment Operations - 1974

1974

• April - the regiment placed on selective call-out and each battalion instructed to provide 100 extra men per day to cover VCPs during a period of heightened Provisional IRA activity.
• 28 April - 3 UDR mounts a major search operation in Castlewellan and recovers 3 incendiary devices. In a follow-up three days later, two rilfes, ammunition and bomb-making equipment are found.
• May 3–6 UDR recovers a Garand rifle and 27 mortar bombs following an attack on its base at Clogher. 6th Battalion also arrests two men at a VCP, recovers two pistols and in a follow-up operation discovers a 500 lb bomb in the boot of another car at a farm in Tempo. Also recovered were more explosives in a milk churn, bomb-making equipment and five assorted weapons. 5 more men are arrested. 3 UDR called out to seal off the south Down border following UVF attacks in Dublin.
• June - 5 UDR stops a car on the Coleraine to Limavady road and finds a battery with a clock and wires attached inside. Two people are arrested and handed over to the police who later discover a bomb acting on information received from the two. Two men run away from a car at a 4 UDR checkpoint. Two bombs are found in the vehicle. 9 UDR intercepts a car bomb at Randalstown. 22 June - a 10 UDR patrol comes under fire in Belfast and, supported by a detachment of 4 Light Regiment Royal Artillery, returns fire. A gunner is killed. 3 UDR mounts a plain-clothes operation, supported by uniformed patrols, to catch an IRA leader at a dance in Castlewellan. The ruse fails and the man escapes.
• July 23 - Patrol from 5 UDR suffers a fatality in an operation to clear an area in Garvagh where a car bomb had been abandoned. 3 UDR intercepts a car bomb at Newcastle. 6 UDR finds 150 lb of explosive plus detonators, cordex and empty milk churns south of Strabane. A 6 UDR soldier drives a proxy bomb away from the base at Newtownstewart.
• 26 August - 3 UDR searches the hills around Newry and finds 400 rounds of ammunition.
• September - 2 & 3 UDR provide a section for a joint observation with 45 Commando at Drumuckavall overlooking the Dundalk-to-Crossmaglen road. The post comes under mortar and small-arms fire and the defenders fire 107 rounds in return. 3 UDR joins 45 Commando in a search operation in Crossmaglen. 3 UDR discovers 200 lb of explosives during a planned search in south Down.
• 7 November - 8 UDR foils an attack on the Dungannon base by driving a proxy bomb into an open pit designed for the purpose. The bomb exploded harmlessly. 3 UDR carries out a major operation in Newry supported by a platoon of 1 DERR, D Coy 11 UDR (Banbridge) and four Wessex and Puma helicopters. The 11 UDR company finds 56 lbs of Frangex explosives wrapped in newspapers dated three days prior and later in the day the same company found two Armalite rifles, a No 4 Rifle and ammunition dug into a hide in the grounds of the St John of God Hospital.
• 15 November - 1 UDR finds a Sterling sub-machine gun, a shotgun and bag of ammunition in the roadway near their checkpoint.
• 21 November - 8 UDR patrol finds 200 .303 rounds including 10 which had been filed to create "dum-dum" rounds, concealed in a hedge near Coalisland.
• December - 8 UDR assumes control of the permanent VCP on the Aughnacloy-Monaghan road border checkpoint. 22 December - soldiers of 4 UDR are called out to emergency duty to support the police at Kinawley RUC Station which had come under attack. They foil an IRA attempt to detonate a bomb by engaging the bombers with small-arms fire.