On 02 Sep 1942, nineteen year-old Tom Williams became the first republican "officially" executed in the Northern Ireland statelet and the last republican to be hanged in the Crumlin Road Gaol by the forces of the crown in Northern Ireland, despite appeals from the Pope, Eamon De Valera, Sean McBride, and then U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hall. Williams, then a two-year veteran in IRA activities, had led a raid designed to provide a diversion to enable a planned commemoration of the Easter Rising. The action went wrong, and after firing over an RUC vehicle, the team of six holed up in a house which was surrounded by the RUC. As the RUC approached the house, there was an exchange of gunfire in which Patrick Murphy, an RC member of the RUC, and Williams were shot. Murphy died at the scene and Williams and the others were captured. Told that he was dying anyway, Williams pled guilty to save his colleagues. The other five were reprieved three days before Williams was hanged.