A senior British army officer was "very, very annoyed" when he learned paratroopers were being sent into the Bogside on Bloody Sunday and urged his superiors to think again, he told the Saville Inquiry today.
Col Roy Jackson, the Lieut Col commanding the 1st Battalion of the Royal Anglians in January 1972, believed that sending in the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment, trained as shock troops in Belfast, was a bad tactical move that could poison community relations.
Col Jackson, then the army's longest-serving commander in Northern Ireland, was so alarmed he broke ranks to complain to Brig Patrick MacLellan, Commander of 8th Brigade. Brig MacLellan told him the decision was made "at the highest level" and he was not in a position to change anything.
Col Jackson at a commanders' conference two days before paratroopers shot and killed 14 Catholic men on the January 30th 1972 civil rights march in Derry. This was a rare occurrence because junior officers do not as a rule question orders from their superiors.
"It was most unusual, but I felt that this time I had to so something. I was very, very annoyed," he told the inquiry, sitting in central London.
Deploying the Paras also angered frontline soldiers because "those with wisdom" and at "the highest level" were bringing in an outside battalion to do their job, Col Jackson said.
The 1st Royal Anglians should have been deployed in the operation for the mass arrest of rioters because "we would do a better job", he said.
His battalion was overlooked while 1 Para, who had never operated in Derry, were "going in blind" to the Bogside, he told the inquiry.
The decision to bring the Paras from Belfast was made by Major Gen Sir Robert Ford, commander of the Land Forces in Northern Ireland.
Col Jackson told the inquiry that 1 Para's deployment was a political decision rather than a military one.
Brig MacLellan has told the inquiry he does not recall Col Jackson's complaint.
PA