Army officer 'annoyed' shock troops sent to Bogside

A senior British Army officer was “very, very annoyed” when he learned that paratroopers were being sent into the Bogside on Bloody Sunday and urged his superiors to think again, he told the Saville Inquiry today.

Colonel Roy Jackson, the Lieutenant Colonel 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.