Saville: British army chief rejects blame
The British army’s most senior officer present on Bloody Sunday today said “there was certainly nothing to be proud of” on that day.
Major Gen Robert Ford, Commander of Land Forces in Northern Ireland, said he was “extremely sad” about the 13 unarmed men that paratroopers killed on a Derry civil rights march but he was not responsible for and did not accept any blame for what happened.
His comment came under cross-examination at the Bloody Sunday Inquiry from Gerard Elias QC, representing several soldiers who allege that planning mistakes, loss of military discipline and misconduct may have contributed to the bloodshed.
It was Sir Robert’s decision to deploy 1 Para into the Bogside no-go area for a mass arrest operation at a 30 January 1972 march – but the detail of the plan was the responsibility of lower ranking commanders, he said.
Mr Elias said there were “substantial and significant flaws” in the military plan. Separation of the expected trouble-makers from the crowd, vital to cutting risk of injuring innocent civilians being caught in the crossfire, were unclear.
The soldiers were not given specific orders about how they were to go in for a pincer movement to arrest the rioters. When they hit the ground they did not have detailed orders about how they were to go in behind the rioters, to stop and pick them up, the inquiry was told.
Sir Robert, who was in charge of day-to-day army operations in the North, told the inquiry: “It certainly looks as if some aspects of the detailed planning, which presumably went on, were not covered“.
He said: “I accept full responsibility, of course, for using 1 Para, full responsibility.
“As regards down the line, whether there was detailed orders given out or not ... then that was really a matter for commanders below my level.”
A statement from Company Sergeant Lewis, an experienced Northern Ireland para, shows that lack of planning showed that the execution of the plan “totally failed“, Mr Elias said.
Company Sergeant Major Lewis, said “there was nothing to be proud of in soldiering terms” about what happened on Bloody Sunday.
His statement read: “I do not feel now there was a proper controllable plan to contain the march or a clear indication before we were deployed of what was expected or how the arrest operation was to take place.
“We were shown maps of the area where we were to deploy but did not know the city and did not know precisely where other soldiers were deployed or how they intended to seal off the areas in which arrest would be carried out.
“In the event, there was no sealing off of the area and this lack of containment meant that the rioters were not prevented from running away so soldiers ended up chasing them.
“The result on the day was that people were all over the place and there was a situation of confusion.”
