Airey Neave (23 January 1916 – 30 March 1979) was Secretary of State for Northern Ireland from 4 March 1974 to 30 March 1979, succeeding Francis Pym and preceding Alec Jones. Neave was known as a war hero after escaping the infamous Nazi Colditz Castle prison on 5 January 1942 during World War II, and he became a UK Conservative Party politician and a friend of Margaret Thatcher. In 1979, he was assassinated by a magnetic car bomb near Westminster Palace by the Irish National Liberation Army.
Biography[]
Airey Neave was born on 23 January 1916 in Knightsbridge, London, England. Neave went to Oxford University before joining the British Army, and he served in the Royal Engineers during World War II; on 23 May 1940 he was captured at Calais by the Wehrmacht and was imprisoned at the Stalag XX-A POW camp near Thorn, Nazi Germany, but in April 1941 Neave and Norman Forbes both escaped, but the two of them were recaptured by the Gestapo and sent to Colditz Castle. On 5 January 1942, he escaped from Colditz by using a ramp under a stage during a theatrical production, the first British soldier to escape from Colditz Castle. Neave was promoted to Captain on 11 April 1945, and he contributed to the Nuremberg Trials. He was elected as a member of parliament for Abingdon-on-Thames by the UK Conservative Party, and he was a friend of Margaret Thatcher while in politics.
Assassination[]
The scene of the bombing
On 4 March 1974, Neave became Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, and he supported the replacement of British Army troops in Ulster with local constabulary forces. On 30 March 1979, he was killed by a magnetic car bomb under his Mark I Cavalier coupe after driving out of the Westminster Palace car park, with the Irish National Liberation Army claiming responsibility for his assassination. His murder led to the INLA being banned across the UK, and Thatcher tearfully stated that he was an "incalculable loss". The INLA released a statement about how they "blew him to bits inside the 'impregnable' Palace of Westminster" and agreed that he was an "incalculable loss", but to the British ruling class.