 According to author David McKittrick, the British soldiers were lured to an open field after seeing smoke coming from the chimney of a derelict building.On the very first hours of 6 May, the exposed British position began to receive heavy fire from an IRA unit emplaced on the slope of a neary hill some 400 yards away.The OP was attacked with two 7.62 mm GPMGs and a Heckler & Koch G3 rifle; the latter used to cover the machine gun team's retreat towards Slatequarry road, where a vehicle was waiting to pick them up.