Bullets ricocheted around the Rossville Flats car-park and lumps of concrete were lifted in clouds of dust from the upper storeys, as civilians huddled in corners to avoid the paratroopers' intensive shooting, the inquiry was told yesterday.
Among the witnesses describing this firing, Mr Brian McGee said there was lots of panicking and screaming, and he remembered "naively thinking" that it was only a matter of time before the IRA arrived, but this did not happen.
The general feeling earlier on the march had been that "the boys" were "well out of it and were instead up in the Creggan". He added: "But now, as we were standing against the gable-end wall, we were willing them to be there and to return fire on the army."
They were not there, he said, as he would have remembered it. However, he did see a man move up to the corner of the wall and produce a pistol, from which he fired one or two shots "pretty wildly" towards the soldiers. This man was told by members of the crowd "to get the hell out of there" as he could get people killed, and he then disappeared from view.
Mr McGee recalled seeing bullets hitting the ground and also the walls of the blocks of flats. He said a couple of journalists were taking cover with the crowd of people at the gable wall, "and we all thought that if there were journalists there the army would not shoot at us".
However, a foreign journalist, whose name he now knew to be Fulvio Grimaldi, stepped out from the wall and faced the army. "He held his camera up, saying `Press' or `It's just civilians'," said the witness. "There was then a fusillade of three or four semi-automatic single shots fired in his direction . . . He was pulled back into the wall and was told by the people in the crowd in no uncertain terms the fact that he was a journalist wasn't going to save him."
Mr McGee said he saw Father Edward Daly go out towards the youth, Jack Duddy, whose body lay in the open. He also saw another man, believed to be Michael Bridge, walk towards the army with his hands in the air saying, "Shoot me, shoot me, why don't you shoot me too you bastards?" Three shots rang out, and he saw people drag this man back.
Later on, the witness said, at Free Derry Corner he saw Martin McGuinness among a group of five men. "I can always remember his face; he was shocked, looking disbelieving," said the witness. The men seemed to be standing around trying to make sense of what had happened.
Another witness, Mr Joseph (Ernie) Moore, told how he was huddled with others against a wall of the flats as shooting continued. Barney McGuigan, who was standing very close to him, ran out. "I called out to him something to the effect of `where do you think you're going?', the witness said. "He was running out, and he was probably about eight feet away from me when he was hit . . . Part of his face exploded in a whole mess of blood. He fell down onto his back. He must have died immediately".
The inquiry will resume on Monday.