18 British soldiers were injured in the battle, 12 from gunshot wounds and 6 from grenades. In the battle four civilians were killed by the British army and about 60 civilians were hurt in the crossfire. Second in command of the Belfast Brigade Jim Sullivan organized a company of about 80 - 90 Volunteers to do battle with the British soldiers, they joined forces with a small unit from the Provisional IRA led by Brendan Hughes's cousin Charlie Hughes. The British soldiers carrying out the Curfew orders were extremely hostile and threatening to the local people. The Brigades first action against the British Army was during the defense of the Lower Falls during the Falls Curfew of July 1970. Shortly after the death of Official IRA Belfast "Staff Captain" Joe McCann in April 1972, the battalion structure of the brigade was done away with and command centralized under McMillen. The first Commanding Officer (CO) of the brigade was veteran Billy McMillen who fought during the IRA Border Campaign. The Belfast Brigade was involved in most of the biggest early confrontations of the conflict like the Falls Curfew in 1970, the battles that followed after the introduction of Internment without trial in 1971 and Volunteers joined forces with the Provisional brigade to fight the British Army and UVF during the Battle at Springmartin in 1972. The Brigade like the pre-split IRA brigade before the split had three battalions, one in West Belfast, one in North Belfast and the third in East Belfast. The "Officials" were Marxist-Leninists and worked to form a united front with other Irish communist groups, named the Irish National Liberation Front ( NLF). The Official IRA's Belfast Brigade was founded in December 1969 after the Official IRA itself emerged in December 1969, shortly after the beginning of the Troubles, when the Irish Republican Army split into two factions.
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