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19 - 22 NOVEMBER 2002
Evidence heard
This week, the Tribunal heard the evidence of INQ1901
and of Brigadier MacLellan, the commanding officer officially responsible
for the military operation on Bloody Sunday.
A full transcript of the proceedings is available at http://www.bloody-sunday-inquiry.org.uk.
1.
INQ1901’s evidence
At the time of Bloody Sunday,
INQ1901 was a Major on the staff of 8th Brigade, responsible for
supervising the operations room at Ebrington Barracks and ensuring that the
Brigade log, kept by watchkeepers, was an accurate representation of information
received at 8th Brigade Headquarters.
During the course of any given operation, he would also provide HQNI with
frequent telephone updates concerning the events on the ground.
His evidence centred on issues such as the methods used for compiling
Army logs at the time and he was also asked to comment on specific entries made
by him and his staff in the log during the course of the day.
He had no specific recollection of
why he had not personally informed HQNI that the order for one subsection of 1
Para to launch an arrest operation (the most important order given on the day)
had been given, but presumed that somebody must have told him that they were
already aware of the fact. He also
told the Tribunal that, although the only possible interpretation of the order
as recorded was that only one sub-unit of 1 Para had been ordered to enter the
Bogside, it was his personal interpretation that this could not have been the
actual order given on the day as one sub-unit alone could not have performed the
arrest operation as envisaged in the operational order for the day.
INQ1901 also confirmed that he had
not heard mention of the need for separation between marchers and rioters prior
to the operation and had therefore not focused on this factor when relaying
information between Brigade HQ and HQNI.
2.
Brigadier Andrew mAClellan’s
evidence
Brigadier MacLellan (who now holds the rank of General)
took over command of 8th Infantry Brigade in Derry in October 1971.
He directed the Bloody Sunday operation from 8th Brigade
Headquarters in Ebrington. This meant that he had no view of events on the ground in the
build-up to the arrest operation and during the shooting that ensued, although
he was in communication with regiments on the ground and the Army helicopter
circling the area. He has always
assumed full responsibility for the concept and broad planning of the Bloody
Sunday operation.
2.1
Meeting with Chief Superintendent Lagan prior to the march
Brigadier MacLellan told the
Tribunal that, at the time of Bloody Sunday, his working relationship with Chief
Superintendent Lagan was good and that he trusted the balanced advice provided
to him by the Superintendent. However,
relations between the two men became subsequently soured owing to a difference
in opinion concerning their discussions prior to the Bloody Sunday march.
As contemporaneous documents record,
it was Chief Superintendent Lagan’s view (expressed in a meeting between him,
his deputy Patrick McCullagh and the Brigadier on 24th January) that
the march should not be halted, as he forecasted that this would “shatter such
peace as is left in the city, create intense violence and remove the last
vestiges of moderate goodwill”. Rather,
the Chief Superintendent urged that the march should be allowed to proceed and
that those breaking the marching ban be photographed and identified on the day,
leading to subsequent prosecutions. It
is both Mr Lagan and Mr McCullagh’s evidence that the Brigadier had agreed
with them concerning the course to be taken.
Indeed, in two contemporaneous documents, the Brigadier reports Mr
Lagan’s view with no criticism or disparagement and concurs that the
consequences of halting the march would be very serious and outside the
capabilities of the permanent force levels in the city.
However, it is the Brigadier’s evidence that he strongly disagreed with
Mr Lagan’s suggestion, believing it to be ‘pie in the sky’, due to the
difficulties experienced in carrying out arrests in the Creggan.
He was adamant that he had expressed his disagreement clearly at the
meeting on 24th January and said that he had therefore been
‘mystified’ at the Chief Superintendent’s evidence to the contrary before
Lord Widgery.
Indeed Mr Lagan’s evidence to the
Widgery Inquiry prompted the Brigadier to write a letter to General Ford in
which he vehemently denied having agreed with the Chief Superintendent’s
proposal that the march be allowed through on the basis that subsequent arrests
would have been ‘impossible’ and, more importantly, that the main reason for
stopping the march was to demonstrate that the ban on marches would be upheld so
as not to provoke a backlash within the Protestant community.
He also stated in the letter that Mr Lagan and Mr McCullagh’s
sympathies lay “entirely with the Catholic community” and that Mr Lagan’s
proposal was “patently a gesture… to maintain his position with his own
people”.
2.2
Planning the arrest operation for Bloody Sunday
2.2.1
Nature of the arrest operation
At a meeting at HQNI on 26th
January, Brigadier MacLellan was given a direct order by General Ford to launch
an arrest operation in the event of hooligan activity during the course of the
march, which would involve 1 Para getting behind the rioters in order to block
them at the Army barricades. He
said that General Ford’s plan to arrest 300 to 400 rioters was unrealistic in
his view, and that no such operation had ever previously been mounted in Derry.
However, it was his evidence that the tactics to be employed on the day
were a matter for the Brigade Major, Colonel Steele, and for Colonel Wilford and
had not been discussed in any detail with him.
He therefore felt unable to comment on whether the arrest operation as
planned by the Colonel Steele, was in fact incapable of a successful conclusion
in that it did not allow for troops to get behind the rioters.
2.2.2
Use
of 1 Para as the arresting force
The Brigadier said that he had not
been taken aback by the General’s selection of 1 Para for the task, deeming
them to be a very good and experienced battalion and could not recall a
conversation which Colonel Jackson (Commanding Officer of the 1st
Royal Anglians) claims to have had with him directly after the coordinating
conference dealing with the march, in which the Colonel expressed his belief
that 1 Para should not be used and that 1 Anglian should take over the role of
arresting force. He further added
that he would be surprised if the conversation had ever taken place as it was
not up to colonels to question generals’ orders.
In a statement to reporter Desmond
Hamill in 1984, Brigadier MacLellan said that, had the Royal Green Jackets been
conducting the arrest operation, he was “sure there would not have been the
same sort of result” on the day. He
now said that this was an ill-considered remark.
2.2.3
Need for separation
The Brigadier’s evidence concurred
with that of General Ford in that both were adamant that separation—to be
determined by the Brigadier on the day—was an essential part of the planned
arrest operation, in that the operation was only to be launched in the event of
separation between marchers and rioters. He
explained the absence of any reference to separation in the operational order,
saying that there was no need to record it as this would have amounted to his
giving orders to himself: what was
important was that he knew that he would only launch the operation if separation
occurred and this knowledge would have been based on reports from Colonel Welsh
who was in a helicopter flying over the area.
He made no arrangements with troops on the ground to report to him
concerning the occurrence—or non-occurrence—of separation.
He could recall no further
discussions regarding the protection of innocent marchers in the event of
shooting, such as the withdrawal of the Army from the area or the aborting of
the operation, saying that this was a matter for the commanding officer on the
ground, namely Colonel Wilford. He
said that nobody had envisaged that people would open fire in an “attempt to
murder soldiers” and that therefore the Army could not have given detailed
orders about a possible battle over which they had no control.
He further added that at the time the order to launch the operation was
given, the majority of marchers were either listening to speeches or returning
home and that anybody who “wandered into where the hooligans were stoning the
troops must have been aware that they were getting mixed up in something”.
2.2.4
Flaws in the operational planning
Brigadier MacLellan told the
Tribunal that he drew up no detailed plan for the arrest operation to take place
on Bloody Sunday, despite General Ford’s testimony that the detailed arrest
operation was his responsibility. He
said that he had left this to the judgment of Colonel Wilford and that on Bloody
Sunday itself, he remained unaware of the Colonel’s exact plan having never
discussed it in any detail with him. He
dismissed criticisms made by Gerard Elias QC of his operational order on the
grounds that it was unclear and incomplete, failing, for example, to provide
clear stoplines for the troops beyond which they should not penetrate into the
Bogside, and remained adamant that his operational order was an adequate one for
the operation which took place on the day.
2.3
Decision to launch the arrest operation
At 3:55pm on Bloody Sunday, Colonel
Wilford signalled a request to Brigadier MacLellan that he be allowed to send
one sub-unit of 1 Para through Barrier 14 into William Street / Little James
Street to ‘scoop up’ the rioters in that area.
In his statement to the Inquiry the Brigadier recalled receiving a
message from one of the watchkeepers at 8th Brigade that General Ford
also thought that the time had come to launch the arrest operation.
He now claimed to have no confidence in this recollection and believed
that he had been mistaken when he told journalist Desmond Hamill in 1984 that
Ford had contacted the Colonel Steele on the secure radio, saying “why are you
not going in?”. His current
evidence was that he had no recollection of any communications with General Ford
at this critical juncture (although he acknowledged that he must have had a
lingering recollection of some form of message being relayed to him in order to
have put it in his statement) and could not explain how the General had come to
be mistaken in an identical manner, also telling Mr Hamill that he had contacted
the Brigadier at this stage.
The Brigadier told the Inquiry that
he had not been satisfied at this time that separation had in fact occurred and
so declined to ratify the Colonel’s request until he had received further
information from Colonel Welsh concerning the location of the marchers.
However, it would appear from the logs that no attempt was made at this
stage to ascertain from the helicopter or from regiments on the ground whether
or not separation had in fact occurred and no clear information on this crucial
factor was actually provided between 3:55 when he was dissatisfied with the
level of separation and the time at which he finally gave the order.
All he knew at the time of launching the operation was that there were
still rioters at Barrier 14 and that a group of approximately 500 people were
listening to speeches at Free Derry Corner.
He had no new information concerning what was happening in the 200 yards
between these two locations, save one piece of commentary from the helicopter
that “a lot of people feel that they have made their protest and are now
returning back to their homes” and, Counsel suggested, was in fact in no
position to know whether or not separation had been achieved.
The Brigadier was unable to explain
exactly how he had come to change his mind between 3:55 and 4:10pm concerning
the status of separation. It was
his evidence to Lord Widgery that the deciding factor was a message received
from the helicopter at 4:04, stating that separation had been achieved.
However, no such message was conveyed at this time as evidenced in the
recordings made on the day by James Porter.
Furthermore, in the Brigadier’s draft statements prepared for the
Widgery Inquiry he makes no mention of any such message.
It was his current evidence that he must have inferred from the various
sources of information given to him that the people who were in between Free
Derry Corner and Barrier 14 who were not going home or not attending the
speeches must have been “very interested in the hooligan activity”.
It had not occurred to him that some people might just have been standing
around talking as, Christopher Clarke suggested, “people do to a great extent
in Londonderry”: He said he had
formed the impression that separation had been achieved, separation which he had
been extremely patient and cautious in waiting for.
It was his evidence that he had also checked his own assumption with the
Colonel Steele, also at Ebrington Barracks, who confirmed that his own reading
of the situation was that separation had occurred.
The Brigadier added that he had
assumed that “they would not try and murder us while we tried to arrest
people” and that civilians would not have been placed at risk had the IRA not
opened fire. He said that he had
had to balance the different forms of risk:
on the one hand the risk of trouble in the city centre if the hooligans
gained access to the city centre and on the other hand the risk to people
attending the speeches. He also
said that they had been successful in eliminating the risk to those attending
the speeches as none of those at Free Derry Corner were in fact wounded or
killed.
2.4
Order to launch the arrest operation
It was Chief Superintendent
Lagan’s evidence to the Widgery Tribunal that Brigadier MacLellan had told him
at approximately 4:00pm of the Paras’ desire to enter the Bogside, at which
the Chief Superintendent had pleaded with him to ensure that separation had
taken place before launching any operation.
The Brigadier had then gone to the Operations Room, returning after a
short interval and saying “I am sorry, the Paras have gone in”.
Mr Lagan told Lord Widgery that he had formed the impression that the
Brigadier had not personally ordered the Paras into the Bogside.
The Brigadier disputed Mr Lagan’s interpretation of his words: although he might have said ‘sorry’, he was only sorry
for Mr Lagan who was upset by the news and was not apologising for having
launched the operation.
In relation to the nature of the
order given, it would appear from the radio logs of the day that the order
issued by Brigadier MacLellan was issued in direct response to Colonel
Wilford’s request: it authorised
a limited arrest operation that would involve Support Company of 1 Para going
through Barrier 14 to arrest rioters at the William Street / Little James Street
junction and expressly stated that they were not to conduct a running battle
down Rossville Street. In fact,
however, the Paras did virtually the opposite, entering the Bogside through
Barrier 12 in vehicles and driving down Rossville Street.
Having initially held that he had
merely told Colonel Wilford to launch whatever plan he had prepared (without
having any knowledge of what that plan was), the Brigadier acknowledged that it
would appear on the face of it that, if the order recorded in the Brigade log
were an accurate representation of the order given by him on the day and
transmitted by Colonel Steele to Colonel Wilford on the secure net, the Paras
had gone further and done more than that ordered. However, he said that he had never formed the impression that
his orders had been disobeyed prior to giving his evidence before the current
Inquiry. He added as a further
potential explanation of 1 Para’s actions, that once a firefight had started,
the Paras would have had to react on the spot to deal with it, which might not
have been contemplated in his original order.
However, in relation to this latter point, he acknowledged that they
would not have had to react to any new circumstances had they not disobeyed his
orders in going deep into the Bogside.
He said that his evidence to Lord
Widgery in which he claimed that the order actually given was different to that
recorded in the log, allowing for three sub-units to be used through Barrier 12
as well as Barrier 14, had not been “deliberately” misleading.
However, he maintained that he had not regarded the use of more than one
sub-unit on the day as disobedience but acknowledged that Support Company’s
race down Rossville Street in armoured vehicles was in direct contravention of
his order given on the day.
2.5
Order / suggestion to withdraw
At 4:13pm an order was given to
Support Company to return behind Barrier 14 if they had not conducted any
scoop-up operation. This would
suggest firstly that the order to conduct an arrest was indeed accurately
recorded on the log (i.e., that the
Brigadier did in fact only order one
company to conduct a scoop-up operation rather than two or three) and that
Brigade envisaged that the arrest would be a rapid operation during which the
troops would not go any further than the junction of William Street / Little
James Street. It would appear that
at this time, some five minutes after the initial order was given, Brigade HQ
was unaware that Support Company had entered the Bogside and that they had
driven down Rossville Street. The
Brigadier confirmed that this was the situation as far as he could recall.
2.6
Effectiveness of arrest operation as carried out on the day
Brigadier MacLellan would not agree
that the soldiers stationed in vehicles behind Barrier 12 would not have been in
a position to identify those causing trouble. Firstly, he said, the soldiers were attacked as they debussed
from their vehicles in the Rossville Flats car park and in Rossville Street and
would have been fully able to identify their attackers; secondly, he said that
they would have been able to identify the backs of people as they ran down
Rossville Street as the Army vehicles entered the area:
the soldiers would have assumed that all those running away had been
rioting at the barriers for why else, he asked, would they be running away from
ten army vehicles racing down a main street in the area. Upon reflection, he
acknowledged that his second point was not entirely valid and also recognised
that the effect of Support Company driving down Rossville Street would have been
to destroy any separation which might have existed between rioters and marchers,
the very precondition of the operation being launched in the first place.
2.7
Shooting
It would appear from the radio logs
of the day that no information was passed to Brigade HQ concerning shooting
incidents during the key 10-minute period during which twenty-five of the
twenty-seven people killed and wounded on the day were shot by the Army, a fact
Brigadier MacLellan did not find surprising.
Indeed, it was only at 5:46pm that he received the first indication of
the number of casualties on the day.
SUMMARY OF
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