It was a scene that seemed more typical of a police drama.
Two men were filmed loading a bomb into a car before a red-haired woman calmly drove it to its destination while music played in the background.
Moments earlier, he had warned the authorities, telling them from a telephone box: ‘We have just bombed Queen’s University Sports Club. It is scheduled to explode in 20 minutes.
The 1972 bombing was just one shocking moment captured by an American documentary team led by academic J. Bowyer Bell.
Bell’s images also showed the moment of the explosion, which left several people injured.
His documentary was lost for decades after being broadcast only briefly after its release, but has now been revealed in new BBC 4 programme, The Secret Army, after reporter Darragh MacIntyre tracked down some of those involved in his realization.
It was a scene that seemed more typical of a police drama. Two men were filmed loading a bomb into a car before a red-haired woman calmly drove it to its destination while music played in the background.
Bell’s documentary, also called The Secret Army, was made with the permission of senior IRA figures.
Irish broadcaster Tim Pat Coogan says on the show, which aired last week: “These seasoned guerrillas, who relied so much on secrecy, went before the cameras and, you know, effectively put their heads on the block.”
The criminals behind several attacks appeared without masks.
The documentary also captured secret IRA training classes for recruits, attempts to shoot down helicopters in Derry and a meeting in Belfast led by Seamus Twomey, who later became the organisation’s chief of staff.
The IRA allowed Bell to run the program in the belief that 1972 would be his “year of victory”.
They hoped the film would act as propaganda and garner more funding from American sympathizers.
Moments earlier, he had warned the authorities, telling them from a telephone box: ‘We have just bombed Queen’s University Sports Club. It is scheduled to explode in 20 minutes.
The 1972 bombing was just one shocking moment captured by an American documentary team led by academic J. Bowyer Bell. Bell’s images also showed the moment of the explosion, which left several people injured.
J. Bowyer’s film Bell premiered in a New York pub but his attempts to air it on American networks were rejected
The film premiered in a New York pub, but Bell’s attempts to air it on American networks were rejected.
Leon Gildin, co-producer of the project, says: ‘I showed it to Viacom; They loved him.
‘They offered me a contract for world rights. What happened after that? Viacom kept the worldwide rights and never sold a copy.
Bell himself believed that British intelligence persuaded the authorities to prevent his film from receiving wider attention.
His friend Roberto Mitrotti says on the programme: ‘The British government was too afraid of the repercussions the film could have on the Irish community in America, which was a very powerful and wealthy community.
“So the British government, the Foreign Office, decided to take drastic measures and put pressure on the US government to stop the film.”
MacIntyre traveled to Arizona in search of documents and anyone still alive who participated in the making of the 1972 film.
The film’s director was Zwy Aldouby, a Nazi hunter linked to Mossad, Israel’s feared intelligence agency.
Gildin added that Bell and Aldouby told him that British intelligence watched the film while it was being developed in London, before it was sent to the United States.
However, no one was arrested in connection with the film.
Also seen in the documentary is Martin McGuinness (right), who was then a senior member of the IRA. One photo shows him in IRA military uniform at a funeral.
Also seen in the documentary is Martin McGuinness, who was then a senior member of the IRA.
Clips show him driving around Derry with guns and preparing a car bomb. A photograph shows him in IRA military uniform at a funeral.
He then played a key role in the Irish peace process and served as Deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland from 2007 until shortly before his death in 2017.
The BBC first learned of the existence of a copy of Bell’s documentary in 2018, when a source gave a BBC investigator a box of old tapes.
The conflict in Northern Ireland, known as The Troubles, lasted from the late 1960s until 1998, when the Good Friday Agreement was signed.
Almost 2,000 civilians died in atrocities carried out by both republican and loyalist groups.
In early 1972, before Bell’s film was made, British soldiers shot 26 unarmed civilians in Derry on what became known as Bloody Sunday.