According to Robert Kee the Catering Corps British army men were unarmed, but maybe the IRA didn't know that. Barry wasn't the youngest to die in the conflict, that "honour" belonged to a 14-year-old boy soldier in the British Army. I recall that Matthew Whitehead, killed in the ambush, was aged only 19 himself and this was used as an argument to proceed with KB's execution. A sad story.