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Arms searches began immediately as troops fanned out to designated addresses. In Londonderry alone, they found nearly two tons of explosive chemicals, assorted bombs, 11,000 rounds of ammunition, and more than 50 guns, including three machine guns. Deep in the Bogside, armored cars roared up narrow Stanley Walk to a green-doored house that had served as the Provisionals' local headquarters. The troops ransacked the house and tore up the floorboards, but found only a radio, some maps and part of a Browning machine gun. The Proves had vanished. In the Creggan estate, weapons were found in hedges or buried, sometimes unwrapped, in the ground—obviously abandoned in haste. Whitelaw himself had broadcast the warning that allowed I.R.A. gunmen to escape, and received some criticism for doing so; but he made no apologies. "Reducing civilian casualties to an absolute minimum," he declared, "was my overriding duty." In the complete operation, only two people—a 16-year-old spectator who ran from his house and an I.R.A. private—were killed.
As always in Northern Ireland, one side's discomfiture was the other side's comfort—and in this case, the Protestants were overjoyed. Masked members of the Ulster Defense Association started pulling down barricades in their own no-go areas when word was flashed that the army was moving on Free Derry. Later, in Belfast's fiercely loyalist Shankill district, bonfires burned in celebration. Among Unionist Party politicians, who had recently been calling him "Willie Whitewash" and accusing him of appeasing Catholic terrorists, Whitelaw was suddenly immensely popular. One of his most bitter critics, former Ulster Prime Minister Brian Faulkner, promised the government his "full support and prayerful thought."
Most Catholics recognized that the Proves had forced Whitelaw's hand by their savage bombing attacks on "Bloody Friday." They were also angered by the explosion of three bombs —believed set by the Provos, despite their denials—at the tiny village of Claudy last week that took seven lives. Even the Dublin government endorsed Whitelaw's action. Said the Irish Republic's Prime Minister Jack Lynch: "Bombers and gunmen must be eliminated from the scene."
Buying Time. Many Catholics, however, were even further alienated by the army's action. "Limey bastards!" shouted one Bogside resident on the morning of the attack. Demanded another: "Why don't you go back where you bloody well belong?" The Bogside Community Association charged that residents were being "interned" in their own neighborhoods, and demanded to know "the duration of our sentence." The only immediate reaction from the I.R.A. Provisionals was a cry of defiance. The Proves' Dublin-based chief of staff, Sean MacStiofáin, bragged that I.R.A. tactics had always been to "step aside when they try to hit us with a sledgehammer," and in Belfast the Provos vowed that they would continue their struggle "in accordance with the principles of guerrilla warfare."