Welcome to Spycraft, a podcast that tells gripping life and death spy stories and
the amazing devices and operations that made them possible. Now let's get started.
Operation Dirty Laundry. You might have heard of it, but this is actually
a two part story because we actually have another story within this story. It
was an operation that was carried out at the Four Square Laundry in Belfast and
was one of the most infamous MRF m I five operations. MRF, I'm
not sure if you folks are familiar with it as the Military Reaction Force which
operated in Northern Ireland and small teams of usually plain closed personnel. It's a
very controversial unit that has been accused of killing of innocent civilians and other illegal
activities. They claim it's just negative propaganda. Either way, it's not for
this podcast. Units like m I five and mr ort to ask with gathering
and analyzing intelligence. The little laundry Store at the Fourth Square Laundry was located
in the heart of nationalist Belfast. While at a function as a regular launder
rat, I guess you could say it was actually an undercover operation led by
the British Intelligence Services. The undercover operatives utilize the naturally large Bedford Commerce laundry
vans that conceal surveillance teams and equipment. These vans would travel to various Irish
nationalist strongholds in Belfast and offer laundry services at their cheapest prices around, as
they certainly weren't in to make a profit. As the van visited addresses,
the driver and Sarah Jane, who's going to be our protagonist in this story,
both of whom were native to Northern Ireland, would converse with the local
residents and gather seemingly insignificant information from them. Later, this would be analyzed
closer and used to complete missing leads and intelligence from other operations. As the
two undercover agents chatted away, the British intelligence officers hidden inside the roof of
the van in a compartment specially designed as an observation post, would gather photographic
intelligence of the area in the form of vehicles, homes and movements of known
IRA members. The laundry would then be sent to a British Army headquarters in
the town of Lisburne, where then the MI five and MIRAF operatives would analyze
the latest laundry lists with old ones. Sudden changes in closed sizes could signal
that there was another person in the house the team was unaware of. If
a woman whose husband was incarcerated who had been killed during the troubles handed in
male clothes to be cleaned, this could signal that there was an IRA militant
inside the home. Most importantly, all of the clothes were forensically analyzed for
blood, gunpowder and explosives an attempt to attract insurgeons. Before it was cleaned.
It was neatly floated and handed back to the customer. You can see
how so much information can be gathered just simply from clothes, but information and
from your house, your car, all that can provide a lot of details,
especially for INTEL services. But what are the stories that really stands out
in this operation was that the IRA uncovered the four Square Laundry operation through a
man named Shamus Wright on February fifth of nineteen seventy two. Right had been
arrested by the British Army has subsequently disappeared for six months before arriving home.
Unexpectedly, the IRA swooped on Right immediately and interrogated him. Right admitted to
being involved with the MRF and offered his services to the IRA as a double
agent. On the morning of September of October second, nineteen seventy two,
the four Square Laundry Van was carrying out its undercover operation and heading towards a
nationalist stronghold of Belfast known as the Twin Broke Estate, and this is where
our protagonist Sarah Jane Walkee left a van and visited a house to collect laundry
from a female customer. The two began small talk while the van waited.
Nearby, a SAS soldier named Stuart Telford was out the week. All of
a sudden, the van was ambushed by the IRA insurgents, who sprayed it
with assault rifle rounds and unfortunately, the SAS agent, Stuart Telford, was
killed instantly. The IRA claims that two British intelligence officers who were positions in
the hidden compartment under the roof are also killed, but this was never proven.
As Sarah Jane turned to face the heavily armed insurgents, she was two
was shot, but she was tough as nails and rather than go down without
a fight, she drew her concealed nine millimeter Browning high power handgun and engaged
the IRA single handedly, just like you see in the movies, until the
gunmen were forced to retreat to a waiting car and flee the scene. As
I'm telling you, folks, it's just like a movie. She was wounded,
but again she managed to get her weapon. The following year she was
awarded the Military Medal for Bravery under fire. Shamus Wright, who leaked the
information on the British operation, was abducted by the IRA and murdered with a
bullet to the head. For decades, he was a statistic of one of
the many disappeared people of the conflict in Northern Ireland until his body was recovered
in twenty fifteen. And Sarah Jane Workee was the first member of wra Ac
Women's Royal Army Corps to receive the military decoration, making here one of the
most deadly women in British military history. Thanks for listening, everybody,