Bloody Sunday - it started with three shots

At 16.07 on January 30, 1972, Brigadier Patrick MacLellan, the commander of the Army brigade in Derry, picked up a radio at his headquarters and ordered the soldiers of 1 Para to start an operation to arrest young rioters.

What took place over the next hours became one of the most violent and painful episodes in recent British history. By the end of the afternoon, 13 people were shot dead, many others injured.

It inflamed an incendiary political situation and sowed bitter hostility towards Britain among many in the Catholic community.

As Lord Saville concluded in his report this week: "Bloody Sunday was a tragedy for the bereaved and the wounded, and a catastrophe for the people of Northern Ireland."

The killings came at a violent time in the Troubles. Spiralling violence had been met with the internment of more than 700 people without trial, virtually all of them republicans, at the insistence of the Northern Ireland prime minister, Brian Faulkner, against the advice of senior military officers. The result was more bitterness among Catholics and the growth of the IRA.

For the nationalists Londonderry was "Free Derry". "No-go" areas had been created in the city. There was daily fighting between "Derry Young Hooligans" and British troops.

At the beginning of January, the Army's second most senior officer in Northern Ireland, Major General Robert Ford, came up from Belfast and did not like what he saw. In a secret memo to his superior, Sir Harry Tuzo, general officer commanding, he wrote that soldiers were standing and taking hails of missiles like "Aunt Sallies" and the answer was to shoot the ringleaders of the young rioters.

It was against this background that 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment - which had a reputation for "hard" public order enforcement - arrived in Derry on the day the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association had decided to defy a ban on marches to protest against internment.

The authorities, against the wishes of Chief Superintendent Frank Lagan, the police officer in charge of Londonderry, decided the demonstration must be stopped.

Although authorising the arrest operation, Brigadier MacLellan told Lieutenant Colonel Derek Wilford, the commanding officer of 1 Para, who had wanted to carry out the arrests, not to enter the nationalist Bogside, to prevent soldiers chasing rioters into the path of the peaceful civil rights marchers. Wilford chose to ignore this stricture, sending his support company on armoured carriers into the Bogside. He did not tell brigade headquarters what he was doing. Had he done so, Saville pointed out, "Brigadier MacLellan might well have called off the arrest operation altogether."

Unchecked by their commanding officer the troops, which included the mortar platoon, drove their armoured carriers at the carpark of a council estate, Rossville Flats, in the process knocking over two people.

Attempts to carry out the arrests proved tricky and the Paras took recourse to firing plastic baton rounds. Only six people were arrested, none of them important for the security forces, at a cost of provoking the local people by being in Bogside.

Some of those gathered tried to wrest back one of the arrested men and Lieutenant N - granted anonymity by the inquiry, as were other soldiers - fired three shots over the heads of crowd in an attempt to disperse them. Perhaps, as Saville suggests, fearing that they were under attack, other soldiers in the mortar platoon opened fire with their SLR 7.62mm rifles at the carpark.

Among victims were 17-year-old Jackie Duddy, Margaret Deery, 38, Michael Bridge, 25, and 22-year-old Michael Bradley. Some of the bullets went into the flats, hitting 40-year-old Patrick Brolly. Jackie Duddy, by all accounts, was running away from the soldiers when he was shot. He "probably" had a stone in his hand but there was no evidence he intended to attack the troops.

Michael Bridge was shot as he walked towards soldiers. According to the tribunal "it was probably" Lt N, the first one to open fire, who shot him. He was to claim his target was about to throw a nail bomb, but no such bomb was found on the victim.

Other troops had gone to the Rossville St area where they opened fire, fatally wounding Michael Kelly, 17. Then followed what appeared to be concentrated fire hitting Hugh Gilmour, John Young, Kevin McElhinney, William Nash, Michael McDaid and Alexander Nash.

Nash, 52, was carrying out a frantic search for his son William. He found him lying next to a barricade or rubble and as he cradled him, he himself was shot.

The atmosphere in Bogside now was one of confusion and fear. Screams echoed across the streets and groups of people appeared waving white handkerchiefs to try and find the dead and the wounded. The shootings continued. Within a few seconds of arriving at the Glenfada Park North area, soldiers opened fire, hitting William McKinney, 26, Joe Friel, 20, Michael Quinn, 17, Patrick OiDonnell, 41 and Joe Mahon, 16. Jim Wray, 22, was already mortally wounded when he was shot again.

Gerard McKinney, 35, was shot in the Abbey Park area, the bullet passing through his body and hitting Gerald Dogherty, 17, killing both men.

The Paras afterwards claimed, always, they were responding to shots fired at them. Saville concluded that that none of those killed on the day had used a firearm or posed any kind of threat to the troops.

However, and it has emerged that there was some firing by republican gunmen. Martin McGuinness, who was the commander of the Provisional IRA's Londonderry Brigade, told the inquiry he "engaged in paramilitary activity during the day".

He was, Saville reported, "probably armed with a Thompson sub-machine gun" at some point in the day. Saville concluded: "Although it is possible he fired this weapon, there is insufficient evidence to make any finding on this, save that we are sure that he did not engage in any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire."

Some in the military dispute Saville's version of what happened.

But General Sir Michael Rose, who commanded United Nations forces in Bosnia, was a young officer in Londonderry on the day and insists: "Of one thing I am certain, it was the IRA who started firing: It was the IRA who started firing with the Thompson machine gun, and inflammatory as it may sound, I believe they started firing with the express intention of causing civilian deaths. I soon found myself taking cover beside a paratrooper lying in a gutter in a corner of a building. As I lay in the gutter, I could see bullets hitting the wall on the building above me."

The inquiry stated: "When shooting breaks out in an urban area it is difficult or impossible to establish who is firing, or where it is coming from. The same applies to baton rounds and we have little doubt that sound of baton rounds could have been mistaken for sound of explosions. In Londonderry these factors were magnified by the 'Derry Sound', the echoing effect created by the city walls and adjacent buildings."

The inquiry stressed none of this confusion could explain why Bernard McGowan was shot in the head and killed instantly when he was waving a white cloth; or when Patrick Doherty was shot in the back as he was crawling away while wounded; or when Patrick Campbell was also shot in the back as he ran away. One soldier, Lance Corporal F, the inquiry concluded, shot Doherty and McGuigan. It was also "highly probable" he also shot Campbell and McGowan. The report identified L/Cpl F and three other soldiers, Corporal E, Private G and Private H, as those who could not justifiably claim some of the men they shot were about to use bombs or firearms and nor could it be said that they were in a "state of fear and panic".

Of all the casualties on Bloody Sunday, only one, Gerald Donaghy, was overtly linked to a paramilitary group, the Provisional IRA's youth wing. After being shot he was taken to an Army first aid post where four nail bombs were found in his pocket. Donaghy's friends had claimed that the bombs had been planted. The inquiry rejected that but stated: "We are sure that Gerald Donaghy was not preparing or attempting to throw a nail bomb when shot."

THE SAVILLE REPORT

* CHAOS: 13 people were killed in Northern Ireland on Bloody Sunday.

* THE FIRING: Shooting by soldiers of the 1st Battalion, Parachute Regiment caused the deaths of 13 people and injured a similar number, "none of whom was posing a threat of causing death or serious injury". The report added: "We found no instances where it appeared to us soldiers either were or might have been justified in firing."

* NO RESPONSE: Despite evidence to the contrary given by soldiers to the inquiry, Lord Saville concluded that none of them fired in response to attacks or threatened attacks by nail or petrol bombers.

* FALSE ACCOUNTS: Saville found that a number of soldiers had "knowingly put forward false accounts" of what happened on the day to the inquiry. However, he said this did not imply that they had intended the shooting at the outset - rather the accounts were attempts to mitigate what had happened.

* SHOT FIRST: Members of the so-called Official IRA fired a shot at troops, but missed their target, though crucially it was concluded it was the Paratroopers who shot first on Bloody Sunday.

* NO WARNINGS: The report recounts how some soldiers had their weapons cocked in contravention of guidelines, and that no warnings were issued by Paratroopers who opened fire.

* IRA GUNMEN: Speculation that unknown IRA gunmen had been wounded or killed by troops, and their bodies spirited away, is also dismissed. There was no evidence to support it, and it would surely have come to light, the report said.

* SUBMACHINE GUN: Northern Ireland Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness, second in command of the Provisional IRA in Derry in 1972, was "probably armed with a Thompson submachine gun" at one point in the day, and though it is possible he fired the weapon, this cannot be proved. But the report concluded: "He did not engage in any activity that provided any of the soldiers with any justification for opening fire."

* NAIL BOMBS: Nail bombs had been found in the pockets of 17-year-old Gerald Donaghey, sparking claims they were planted by security forces. The report concludes the nail bombs were "probably" in his possession when he was shot, but adds: "However, we are sure that Gerald Donaghey was not preparing or attempting to throw a nail bomb when he was shot; and we are equally sure that he was not shot because of his possession of nail bombs. He was shot while trying to escape from soldiers."

* EXCESSIVE FORCE: Saville concluded the commander of land forces in Northern Ireland, Major General Robert Ford, would have been aware that the Parachute Regiment had a reputation for using excessive force. But he would not have believed there was a risk of Paratroopers firing unjustifiably.

* ORDER DISOBEYED: The commanding officer of the Paratroopers, Lieutenant-Colonel Derek Wilford, disobeyed an order from a superior officer not to send troops into the nationalist Bogside estate; while Lord Saville found his superior, Brigadier Patrick MacLellan, held no blame for the shootings since if he had known what Colonel Wilford was intending, he might well have called it off.

* MARCH ORGANISERS: No blame was placed on the organisers of the march, the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

* NO PLANNING: Neither the UK nor Northern Ireland governments planned or foresaw the use of unnecessary lethal force.

* NO RESPONSIBILITY: Saville said the organisers of the march bore no responsibility for the deaths. They must have realised there was going to be trouble, but had no reason to believe and did not believe this was likely to result in death or injury from unjustified firing.

- Independent