“Unknown to the soldiers,” as Lord Saville reported, “John Johnston , who was a little distance behind Damien Donaghey, was also hit and injured by fragments from this gunfire.” Mr Johnston died in June that year, his death blamed on those injuries.
Very shortly after this shooting a member of the Official IRA – known by the pseudonym OIRA 1 – fired from across William Street at British soldiers, hitting a drainpipe. He and another Official IRA member – known as OIRA 2 – said this shooting was in reprisal for the wounding of Damien Donaghey, although Lord Saville believed the shooting was an opportunistic sniping attack, rather than an act of retaliation.I Para was under the command of Colonelwho was answerable to Brigadier Pat MacLellan.
At 4.07pm Brigadier MacLellan gave 1 Para orders by radio to mount an arrest operation by sending one company of soldiers through the barrier at William Street – known as Barrier 14 – but not to conduct a running battle down Rossville Street. This meant, said Lord Saville, “not to chase people down that street”.
Colonel Wilford did not comply with Brigadier MacLellan’s order. He deployed one company through Barrier 14 as he was authorised to do, but “in addition and without authority” he deployed a support company in vehicles through another barrier in Little James Street – known as Barrier 12.The vehicles travelled along Rossville Street and into the Bogside, where the soldiers disembarked. It was thereafter that the killings started.
Soon after soldiers opened fire in the area of the car park of the Rossville Flats mortally wounding 17-year-oldSix people were killed at a rubble barricade that had been erected across Rossville Street:
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