A Liverpool-born ex-serviceman told yesterday how bullets flew past him as he ran from paratroopers in the Bogside, carrying a mortally wounded teenager in his arms.
Mr Joseph Donnelly, who moved to Derry in 1964 and married a local woman, described how he was with a number of men who were carrying 17-year-old Michael Kelly across a courtyard after he had been shot at the rubble barricade in Rossville Street.
As they made their way across Glenfada Park North, three paratroopers entered the courtyard, and the group almost dropped the injured youth in panic. "I took him in my arms and carried him on my own. He did not seem heavy," said Mr Donnelly.
"Michael Kelly was still alive and my sole concern was to get him to safety. As I got hold of him, I noticed that one of the soldiers was taking up a firing position, kneeling on the ground with his rifle at his shoulder, and was aiming at us."
All three soldiers fired shots at the crowd. As he ran towards the exit from the courtyard, "bullets were flying past me and hitting the wooden fence which was splintering . . . I was in no doubt that I was running for my life."
Mr Donnelly, who served for almost nine years in the British Navy, said he got through the alleyway into Abbey Park and carried Michael Kelly into a house there. Shooting was still going on close by as he tried to administer first aid.
During a lull in the shooting another victim, James Wray, was carried in and was bleeding heavily from gunshot wounds which the witness said he tried to treat with a field bandage until a doctor arrived and took over.
Another witness, Mr Kevin McGonagle, said that as the body of Barney McGuigan was being moved from a house to an ambulance in Rossville Street, youths were shouting abuse at soldiers who were watching from the other side of the rubble barricade.
"This resulted in a volley of shots," he said. "They obviously didn't like what had been called at them . . . When the shooting started people took cover and left the body on the stretcher."
After this quiet returned and Father Anthony Mulvey accompanied those carrying the body to the ambulance. "The soldiers behind the barricade by the armoured cars were giving people the finger and laughing," the witness said.
Mr McGonagle said he knew of the Parachute Regiment's reputation. "They were trained to kill without it affecting their conscience." He described taking cover in a house after the shooting began in Rossville Street. Then he saw a tallish man wearing a heavy coat approach the bodies on the barricade and turn one over. "He became very distraught and distressed. He seemed to be pleading with the soldiers." He found out later that this was Alexander Nash, father of Willie Nash who had just been shot dead at the barricade.