BLOODY SUNDAY INQUIRY: There was confusion among senior British officers over which unit of the Parachute Regiment was designated to carry out the arrest operation planned for Bloody Sunday and who was effectively giving orders on the day, according to evidence heard yesterday.
A former British army major, Adrian Stickley, described how he contacted various retired officers after he decided, in 1997, to research the background to the shootings in Derry on January 30th, 1972, in which 14 people died and as many more were injured.
Mr Stickley, a former helicopter pilot whose mother's cousin was Gerald McKinney, one of the Bloody Sunday victims, said he had served in the Royal Artillery Regiment for 16 years but was never posted to Northern Ireland.
After reading Don Mullan's book, Eyewitness Bloody Sunday, he set out to try to find the truth about what had happened. He read the historical report of the 22nd Light Air Defence Regiment, which was the city regiment in Derry at the time, at the library of the Royal Artillery Institution at Woolwich.
While there, he spoke to several retired officers, including a major, identified only as Inquiry No 1025, who said he was the assistant adjutant of the regiment on Bloody Sunday and had accompanied the CO, Lieut-Col Jimmy Ferguson, on the day, mainly in the vicinity of the army barriers.
The major said that both he and Lieut-Col Ferguson had believed that only one sub-unit of the 1st battalion of the Parachute Regiment - D Company - was to be involved in the arrest operation "and that they had no idea that the rest of the battalion was in Derry in force that day".
Mr Stickley listened to the tapes of army and RUC radio transmissions which took place on Bloody Sunday and he felt they indicated that Gen Robert Ford, the commander of land forces, "was influencing events on the ground . . . without getting directly involved".
"Major (Inq 1025) told me that on Bloody Sunday: 'Ford castigated Jimmy Ferguson for not using D Company. Ford wanted Ferguson to 'go in and sort them out', (but) Lt Col Ferguson stood his ground as he had not received any orders from HQ 8th Infantry Brigade." Replying to questions by counsel, Mr Stickley agreed that in the event, only A and C companies, and a support company, had advanced through barrier 14.
According to the brigade log, D Company was about 300-400 yards away on the Strand Road and was not used in the operation. He pointed out, however, that the historical report of the 22nd Light Air Regiment records that at 15.53 hours, "the CO called for OC D Company 1 Para to brief him on proposed arrest operation".
The log recorded (in unspecific terms) that, at 16.10 hours, "elements (of) 1 Para passed through barrier 14 for the arrest operation".
Mr Stickley said that major (Inq 1025) "told me that he had written the historical report and that he had done this so that it was in line with the official army view of events on Bloody Sunday".
This officer had also told him "that General Ford had been wearing jackboots (presumably riding boots) on Bloody Sunday" and had added: "Make what you want of that." He added: "I understood this to mean that Gen Ford was a hard man and that he would ensure that the Paras went in to teach the Bogsiders a lesson."
The inquiry continues today, when the Ulster Unionist deputy leader, Mr John Taylor (now Lord Kilclooney), is scheduled to give evidence. As junior minister for home affairs in the Stormont government in 1972, Mr Taylor presided over a meeting of the joint security council three days before Bloody Sunday.