Surrey coroner Richard Travers has ruled the inquest into the 1974 Guildford pub bombings, which killed four soldiers and a civilian, should resume.
Soldiers Caroline Slater, 18, William Forsyth, 18, John Hunter, 17, and Ann Hamilton, 19, and civilian Paul Craig, 22, died in the blast at the Horse and Groom pub on 5 October 1974.
Paul Michael Hill, Gerard Conlon, Paddy Armstrong and Carole Richardson were wrongly jailed for the pub bombings.
They became known as the Guildford Four.
Original proceedings did not conclude after the Guildford Four were convicted over the bombings.
They were handed life sentences, but had their convictions overturned in 1989, and their case became one of the best known miscarriages of justice in British legal history.
Families of the victims of the bombings, as well as survivors and Mr Armstrong, called for the inquest to be resumed.
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The coroner said the hearing would seek to examine details such as the location and precise time of the blast, who was with the victims at the time, whether the victims died immediately and the response of the emergency services.
Mr Travers added: "This case is not of such antiquity that it should be considered ancient history."
He said the resumed inquest would not have the scope to explore who was responsible for the bomb, the composition of the explosive device or any claims police lied during the trial of the so-called Guildford Four.
Outlining the reasons for resuming the inquest, Mr Travers told Woking Coroner's Court: "I do recognise a number of key witnesses will have died or be very elderly.
"But the clientele (of the pub) were fairly young and so many will only be in their 60s or 70s."
Mr Armstrong who spent 15 years in prison for the bombing said he is "delighted for the families and the relations of people who were killed and injured".
He said: "I think they deserve to know what really happened. I'm happy for them, because although I done 15 years in prison, they lost people that were just going out for a drink".
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Mr Armstrong said the decision to resume the inquest is a "step in the right direction" and hopes it might lead to answers around the wrongful convictions.
He called for files that were part of Sir John May's inquiry into what happened to be released.
Mr Armstrong said: "Everybody knows, people know they sent us to prison. We're not asking them to look into what they done to us in the cells, because people know. All we want is the files opened. We aren't interested in what happened to the police. We want to get the files to see why they were hidden and why they weren't released".
Additional Reporting Laura Hogan
