An ex-serviceman who took part in the civil rights march on Bloody Sunday described yesterday how he watched from a short distance away as paratroopers took up firing positions in the Bogside and opened fire in the direction of the crowd.
Mr John McLaughlin said three or four Saracen armoured personnel carriers passed him at speed as they entered the Bogside. After the vehicles stopped in Rossville Street, the back doors opened and a number of soldiers got out. An officer with a loudhailer was giving orders for the soldiers to take up positions.
"The orders I heard given to the soldiers were to take up firing positions, identify targets, and fire," the witness said. The soldiers immediately started to fire south, towards the crowd at Free Derry Corner. "To me, there were no targets. There were people being addressed at a meeting at Free Derry Corner with their backs to the fire," Mr McLaughlin told Lord Gifford QC, for the family of the late Jim Wray.
Another witness, Mr Bernard Smith, who had a ground-floor flat in William Street, close to where the main army barrier was located, said at about 12 or 12.30 a.m. on Bloody Sunday he heard people on the staircase and when he opened the door to his flat he saw three or four soldiers from the Parachute Regiment and two RUC detectives. One soldier appeared to be an officer.
"The officer said he wanted to take over the [unoccupied] top flat, but I said to him it was not going to be used as a sniping post. I told them to get out and they left peacefully," he said.
Later, during the shooting in the Bogside, he had run from the Rossville flats towards the crowd assembled at Free Derry Corner. As he ran he could hear more shooting, which he believed came from the city walls. "I believe the shots fired from the walls were being fired towards Free Derry Corner," Mr Smith said.
"I ran south across Fahan Street towards St Columb's Wells. I was conscious of bullets hitting the ground near me as I ran, but I did not stop.
"I ran past the Wells and entered Long Tower Chapel for safety. Whilst inside [the church] an English journalist arrived who was visibly frightened.
"He told me nine people had been killed that day and he was clearly disgusted."
Mr Thomas Doherty, who was a teacher at St Joseph's School in the Creggan, said he went on the march with several other teachers. After hearing a commotion at the eastern end of William Street, he went across some waste ground to the south of the street.
He lost contact with his friends and heard one or two high-velocity rifle shots. The word went around two people had been shot nearby.
Then he saw a civilian gunman about to come out of the doorway of a house which he thought was at the north end of Kelly Walk, facing into Rossville Street. The gunman, who appeared to have a shotgun or a rifle, was immediately accosted by a group of men.
"I heard at least one of them say `There's no shooting today' and the gunman was physically pushed back into the house." At 4.15 or 4.20 p.m., after he had made his way to the speakers' platform at Free Derry Corner, he heard gunfire "which I am absolutely certain came from the city walls".
The witness was asked by Mr Gerard Elias QC, for a number of soldiers, why he had not mentioned seeing the civilian gunman in a statement he provided to NICRA the day after Bloody Sunday.
Mr Doherty said the reference had been made in his more recent statement because over the last 28 years debate had arisen about whether shots had been fired (by civilian gunmen). He had not thought about the five or 10-second episode until he remembered the man being told that there was to be "no shooting today".