by Mike Morely
Prelude to January 30, 1972: Forty years ago the Irish of Derry paraded in protest against the mass arrest and internment (without trial) and brutal treatment of 342 citizens throughout Northern Ireland. Of the 450 names on the original October 6, 1971 internment list drawn up by RUC Special Branch and MI5, not one was a Loyalist. Protestant murder gangs like the UVF were exempted. The British urged Northern Ireland Prime Minister Brian Faulkner to intern a few Protestant death squad members for the sake of appearance, but he refused.
Soldier 027, Granted the right to testify anonymously at Lord Mark Saville's second Bloody Sunday Inquiry, said he had done things he was "ashamed" of and that what he termed the "beasting" of civilians was common practice. "More men than I can remember took the severest of beatings at our hands."
The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was formed in 1967 to combat anti-Catholic discrimination. On January 22, eight days before Bloody Sunday, hundreds marched with NICRA to Magilligan, the worst of the internment camps, northeast of Derry. They were met by some 300 British Army Green Jackets and Parachute Regiment troops who beat protesters so severely they had to be physically restrained by their own officers. News reports showed people being savagely kicked as they lay on the ground and rubber bullets and CS gas canisters being fired at them from close range.
Saville counsel Christopher Clarke, QC said some witnesses had a sense of foreboding about the coming Derry march because paratroops at Magilligan warned them "with some belligerence" that they would: "see them next week".
Earlier that January Major-General Robert Ford, the Army's second in command in Northern Ireland, met with Derry merchants concerned lest rioting occur in the city center and damage shops there. Sir Robert penned a secret memo to his superior, Sir Harry Tuzo, General Officer Commanding, stating that soldiers were taking hails of missiles like "Aunt Sallies". Ford's recommendation: “I am coming to the conclusion that the minimum force necessary to achieve a restoration of law and order is to shoot selected ringleaders..."
Questioned at the Saville Inquiry, Sir Robert testified he was not recommending soldiers kill citizens, noting: "shoot and kill are obviously different words".
Six days before Bloody Sunday, Ford overruled objections by Derry commander Brigadier Pat MacLellan and local police chief Frank Lagan to his proposed use of the paras. Senior Derry-based officers expressed similar alarm. One officer even phoned a military contact in London to try to get Chief of General Staff Sir Michael Carver to intervene.
On Thursday, January 27, the Democratic Unionist Association in Derry, the youth wing of Ian Paisley's Democratic Unionist Party defiantly announced their intention to hold a public "religious rally" Sunday at Guildhall Square, the announced end point of the NICRA march. Their Vice-President, Free Presbyterian Church minister James McClelland declared: "The authorities will have to keep their word and stop the civil rights march and give us protection."
Friday, January 28, a British cabinet committee met at 10 Downing Street, London, and approved security plans for the march. Lord Gifford QC, representing the family of one of the victims, told the inquiry facts suggested there was a plan to shoot unarmed civilians and this was known by Prime Ministers Sir Edward Heath and Brian Faulkner. However the 2011 Saville Report issued its carefully worded conclusion: "Neither the UK nor Northern Ireland governments planned or foresaw the use of 
unnecessary lethal force
On Saturday the British Army and police issued a joint statement warning that any violence the next day would be blamed on NICRA. Rioting that day in William Street ended with two teenagers wounded by army gunfire. Soldier 027 testified that groups of paratroopers that evening boasted about getting “kills” when they arrived in Derry.
Sunday January 30, 1972: The Paratroop Regiment arrives in Derry. Morning papers announce the Protestant rally is called off at the last minute. Rev. McClelland says ominously: "We were approached by the Government and given assurances that the Civil Rights march would be halted - by force if necessary. We believe wholesale riot and bloodshed could be the result of the Civil Rights activities tomorrow and we would be held responsible if our rally takes place. We have appealed to all loyalists to stay out of the city centre tomorrow."
CS gas, water cannon, rubber bullets, internment and martial law had failed to stop Catholic protest. The stage was now set for a showdown between the British government and its Irish Catholic citizens.
10,000 began to march, their numbers doubling along the 3-mile walk to the Bogside. They are stopped by a British army barricade, and as they turn to move to Free Derry Corner, the paratroops unleash a barrage of gas, water cannon and rubber baton rounds.
General Ford, though he had no operational role that day, travelled to Derry and stood at the edge of the Bogside behind Barrier 14 shouting "Go on the paras!" as they charged through a barricade towards what became the Rossville Street killing ground. As Commander of Land Forces, Northern Ireland, Ford was the most senior officer on the ground on Bloody Sunday. The next year Queen Elizabeth awarded Ford the CB, Companion of The Most Honorable Order of the Bath.
Then came a hail of bullets. 17 year old Jackie Duddy, a young club boxer and uncle of now retired middleweight boxing champion John Duddy, is the first to be murdered. He was running alongside Father (later Bishop) Daly when he was shot from behind by Private R.
The above is excerpted from a longer article which may be viewed online at IrishAmericanNews.com/Mick
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