Bloody Sunday troops face murder arrests 41 years after massacre

steddyeddy wrote: »

Indeed they were but they had little public support in the north judging from the 1960s border campaign. Bloody Sunday gave them tripled their support over night. You would have to be naive to think the murder of civilians attempting to get free rights peaceful would go down well. The British army effectively destroyed the peaceful option for decades.

Dont get me wrong. People should be punished for what happened that day. I just find it a bit rich that some people shouting for justice also defend the ira to the hilt, an organisation that cowardly murdered a lot of innocents, kingsmill, enniskillen, warrington etc.

Anyway im getting off the point of the thread so will leave it at that.

An IRA sniper fired on British troops at a church near the bogside hitting a drain pipe 10 minutes before the British firing started.
The British believed the IRA were armed with at least one high velocity rifle if not more because Rossville Flats was used as a platform in the past for sniper attacks on security forces.
So when the Paras were sent in to scoop up rioters they expected to come under gunfire and were prepared for battle.

Lieutenant N, the commander of Mortar Platoon of Support Company, 1 Para whose APC hooked into the area near Rossville Flats behind the stone throwing rioters on William Street to try and cut off their avenue of retreat found himself and his men under attacked by missiles from the crowds. It was he who fired warning shots into the air. His troops misinterpreted the shots as IRA gunfire and instinctively chose "targets" - under stress they feared the worst and interpreted the behavior of members of the crowd as that of terrorists:

A man with a mask to cover his face from CS gas becomes an IRA man with a mask.

A man stepping into open hankie or no hankie could be a potential gunman.

A man crawling on the ground becomes as an IRA man lying in prone firing position.

Men crouching behind the stone barricade become enemy taking cover and about to fire back.

A person picking up a smoking CS gas grenade becomes an IRA man about to throw a fizzing bomb.

A crowd fleeing into a neighboring courtyard become a group of terrorists trying to get away.

A wounded man on the ground becomes a terrorist trying to play dead who is shot before he can pull a gun or grenade. etc. etc.

It is easy to see how young frightened sh*t scared soldiers who to come home alive from a hostile country would react as they did on Bloody Sunday. The tendency is to shoot rather than risk being hit oneself and mistakes will occur.

Lance Corporal F who continued firing after an radio man screamed a ceasefire and who led three other men away from the platoon to shoot up rioters and civil rights demonstrators in Glenfada Park seems to have completely lost the run of himself when he shot several of the dead.
His aggressiveness appears to have been a major cause of the massacre.

Don't forget that at least one IRA gunman was seen to draw a weapon and fire at the British once the shooting started no doubt provoking more shooting.

When the British government and the British Army quickly knew the soldiers had landed them in the sh*t they decided to white wash it knowing the unsympathetic British public would swallow it.

Balaclava1991 wrote: »

An IRA sniper fired on British troops at a church near the bogside hitting a drain pipe 10 minutes before the British firing started.
The British believed the IRA were armed with at least one high velocity rifle if not more because Rossville Flats was used as a platform in the past for sniper attacks on security forces.
So when the Paras were sent in to scoop up rioters they expected to come under gunfire and were prepared for battle.

Lieutenant N, the commander of Mortar Platoon of Support Company, 1 Para whose APC hooked into the area near Rossville Flats behind the stone throwing rioters on William Street to try and cut off their avenue of retreat found himself and his men under attacked by missiles from the crowds. It was he who fired warning shots into the air. His troops misinterpreted the shots as IRA gunfire and instinctively chose "targets" - under stress they feared the worst and interpreted the behavior of members of the crowd as that of terrorists:

A man with a mask to cover his face from CS gas becomes an IRA man with a mask.

A man stepping into open hankie or no hankie could be a potential gunman.

A man crawling on the ground becomes as an IRA man lying in prone firing position.

Men crouching behind the stone barricade become enemy taking cover and about to fire back.

A person picking up a smoking CS gas grenade becomes an IRA man about to throw a fizzing bomb.

A crowd fleeing into a neighboring courtyard become a group of terrorists trying to get away.

A wounded man on the ground becomes a terrorist trying to play dead who is shot before he can pull a gun or grenade. etc. etc.

It is easy to see how young frightened sh*t scared soldiers who to come home alive from a hostile country would react as they did on Bloody Sunday. The tendency is to shoot rather than risk being hit oneself and mistakes will occur.

Lance Corporal F who continued firing after an radio man screamed a ceasefire and who led three other men away from the platoon to shoot up rioters and civil rights demonstrators in Glenfada Park seems to have completely lost the run of himself when he shot several of the dead.
His aggressiveness appears to have been a major cause of the massacre.

Don't forget that at least one IRA gunman was seen to draw a weapon and fire at the British once the shooting started no doubt provoking more shooting.

When the British government and the British Army quickly knew the soldiers had landed them in the sh*t they decided to white wash it knowing the unsympathetic British public would swallow it.

i don't buy it, any of it, they weren't "frightened" they knew exactly what they were doing and enjoyed every minute and every murder

end of the road wrote: »

i don't buy it, any of it, they weren't "frightened" they knew exactly what they were doing and enjoyed every minute and every murder

Can you prove it? Because you can't convict people of murder based on feelings.

The paras are naturally going to say they were under stress in a conflict zone that they expected to come under sniper fire at anytime and they reacted to what they perceived at the time was a threat to life.

Balaclava1991 wrote: »

Can you prove it? Because you can't convict people of murder based on feelings.

The paras are naturally going to say they were under stress in a conflict zone that they expected to come under sniper fire at anytime and they reacted to what they perceived at the time was a threat to life.

I doubt they will ever see the inside of a courtroom. A case won't be brought unless there is a extremely high highlikelihood, almost a certainty, of a successful prosecution. To hear the case, have this dragged up again in public, and then the defendants be acquitted will be far more damaging than not bringing the case at all. As would any conviction being overturned on appeal. The burden of proof for a murder conviction is pretty high and you cannot take the findings of an inquiry and expect them to stand up when picked over by a high quality defence lawyer.

To be fair, if they can still hunt down former members of Nazi prison camps and get convictions, it's surely possible to garner enough evidence to support some level of a murder conviction?

I think it is too late. A soldier did his duty, rightly or wrongly, but under command at the time with orders to use force. They are not in the league of war criminals IMO and any attempt to prosecute them in the Courts is as big a travesty as the original orders given to these men.

Red Nissan wrote: »

I think it is too late. A soldier did his duty, rightly or wrongly, but under command at the time with orders to use force. They are not in the league of war criminals IMO and any attempt to prosecute them in the Courts is as big a travesty as the original orders given to these men.

By that logic, the only IRA man who ever did anything wrong was the faceless "P.O'Neill"
The rest were just following orders

Red Nissan wrote: »

I think it is too late. A soldier did his duty, rightly or wrongly, but under command at the time with orders to use force. They are not in the league of war criminals IMO and any attempt to prosecute them in the Courts is as big a travesty as the original orders given to these men.

They won't go to jail because there is people in Northern Ireland who should really be put before the Hague for crimes against humanity. Gerry Adams being just one.

Red Nissan wrote: »

I think it is too late. A soldier did his duty, rightly or wrongly, but under command at the time with orders to use force. They are not in the league of war criminals IMO and any attempt to prosecute them in the Courts is as big a travesty as the original orders given to these men.

Following orders can't be used as an excuses in the courts anymore.

When you read about British soldiers in places like Afghanistan or Iraq, and they are found to have murdered or raped locals, aren't they brought under a special type of Military Court, rather than the normal courts?