BLOODY SUNDAY TRIBUNAL/Day 315: The officer in charge of the British army's plans for dealing with an illegal civil rights march in Derry in January 1972 denied yesterday that he pressurised his senior officers into allowing his troops into the Bogside.
It was minutes after their deployment into the area that they shot dead 13 unarmed men and wounded 13 other unarmed civilians.
Lieut Col Derek Wilford also said he was unaware that his superiors expected soldiers from the 1st Battalion the Parachute Regiment, whom he commanded on Bloody Sunday, to arrest in excess of 300 people.
On his fifth day of evidence to the Saville Inquiry into the Bogside killings, Lieut Col Wilford said if he had been told in advance of Operation Forecast, the British army's codename for its Bloody Sunday operation, that he was expected to arrest 300 civilians, "I think I might have raised my eyebrows".
The retired officer told the inquiry that he envisaged arresting as few as 10 civilians on Bloody Sunday, rather than the 300 expected by the GOC, Gen Robert Ford.
"I was never asked," he said.
"If the general had actually discussed this with me, and there was a discussion, then of course I would have raised some kind of questions about it."
He rejected an assertion by barrister Mr Arthur Harvey, who represents most of the families of the Bloody Sunday victims, that he put pressure on his brigade headquarters for an early deployment of his soldiers.
Lieut Col Wilford said the soldiers under his command were "in perfect control", and he told the inquiry that he had not given any contemplation since Bloody Sunday that he and his soldiers "could have done something better".
Asked by Mr Harvey if, "even after a period of reflection" since the killings, it was still his belief that neither he nor his men did anything improper on Bloody Sunday, the former Parachute Regiment officer replied: "We did nothing improper."
The witness also told the inquiry that he did not believe there were any significant flaws in Operation Forecast, either in its planning or in its execution.
Meanwhile, a lieutenant who commanded a platoon of 26 paratroopers on Bloody Sunday said he stood by a claim he had made in a statement to the royal military police days after the killings that he heard between 20 and 30 high-velocity shots fired from an M1 carbine rifle and from a .303 calibre rifle as he advanced into the Bogside.
He told the inquiry he believed the shots were fired from the vicinity of the roof of the high-rise Rossville Street flats complex.
"My belief is that the shooting was coming from the roof area. They passed directly across our front."
The former lieutenant said that after the killings there was no feeling of elation among the paratroopers, rather one of relief that none of the soldiers had been seriously injured.
"There was sadness when we found out how many civilians had been killed, but there was also a feeling that it was our job to go into situations like these and deal with them."
The inquiry resumes this morning.