Bloody Sunday soldiers' rifles 'collected in handcart'
Up to 50 rifles were gathered from soldiers in a handcart after the Bloody Sunday shootings, it was claimed today.
Soldier INQ 1094, a former corporal in the Parachute Regiment, said he was certain this memory was of Derry on January 30, 1972 when 13 civil rights marchers were shot dead. A 14th man died later.
The soldier told the Saville Inquiry in London he had never seen anything like this before, which is why it stuck in his mind.
“I saw two soldiers wheeling or pulling a wheelbarrow or hand cart which had on it between 40 and 50 SLRs,” he said.
“The magazines had been taken off the rifles. I did not have any conversation with these soldiers and assumed they had collected the rifles from other soldiers and had, perhaps, distributed baton guns to the soldiers instead.
“I have, however, never seen weapons collected in such a way before and this stuck in my mind because it was so unusual.”
Soldier INQ 1094 also said he recalled an army operation in Derry in the weeks prior to Bloody Sunday which was intended to get people who may cause trouble at the civil rights march off the streets.
“Some of the men in the battalion were dressed in plain clothes and were sent down into one of the Derry housing estates,” he said.
“The idea was to try to tempt out the troublemakers from the estate, but no-one took the bait.
“I remember being up on a hill overlooking the estate when the regimental chaplain spoke. He said some of us may not return that day and we all knelt down and prayed together. This obviously worried me and stuck in my mind.”
Meanwhile, Soldier 164, a warrant officer in the Coldstream Guards, told the inquiry soldiers came under fire on Bloody Sunday.
He said he recalled a shot hitting a wall directly behind him as he was stationed in an observation post overlooking the nationalist Bogside area.
“The shot seemed to have come from the general area of the Rossville Flats but I did not form an impression as to precisely where it came from,” he said.
“As we didn’t see a target we didn’t return fire. However, I assumed at the time that the shot was fired by an IRA gunman.”
The soldier also said he later recalled two shots being fired at soldiers from the Royal Anglian Regiment, who were stationed nearby, but he was not sure where these shots came from.
The testimony of Soldiers INQ 1094 and 164 brought the number of witnesses to appear before the Saville Inquiry to 760.
The inquiry, which usually sits at the Guildhall in Derry, is currently hearing the evidence of military witnesses and others in London because of concerns for their safety.
Lord Saville of Newdigate and the Commonwealth judges accompanying him on the Bloody Sunday inquiry began their work nearly four years ago and are not expected to report back until 2004.
