THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
WEDNESDAY, 25TH SEPTEMBER 2002

Bloody Sunday Paras were a 'jolly good' unit, says general
By Thomas Harding, Ireland Correspondent
(Filed: 25/09/2002)

The first British officer to appear before the Bloody Sunday inquiry said yesterday that the soldiers of the Parachute Regiment who shot dead 13 civilian demonstrators were a "jolly good" unit.

Gen Sir Frank Kitson, once the Army's principal expert on counter-insurgency operations, commanded 39 Brigade, of which the 1 Bn Parachute Regiment was one of 10 battalions.

He gave evidence on the first day of the hearings in London, to which the Saville inquiry has moved from Londonderry at a cost of £15 million to hear from 300 soldiers, civil servants and politicians over the next year.

Witnesses will include the paratroopers who opened fire on the civil rights demonstration in Londonderry on Jan 30 1972 and Sir Edward Heath, the former Tory Prime Minister. The paratroopers, some of whom will give evidence screened from the public and press, won an Appeal Court application that they should be heard, on security grounds, in London rather than Northern Ireland.

As he left Gen Kitson was bundled into the back of a people carrier, shielded from photographers by a red blanket, at the back of the inquiry's London base, Methodist Central Hall in Westminster.

For four and a half hours he had been cross-examined by a series of QCs representing the inquiry, military witnesses and families of the dead.

Gen Kitson, 75, who won the Military Cross and bar for pre-Northern Ireland exploits, was credited with influencing military thinking with his book Low Intensity Operations (1971) that recommended intelligence driven tactics.

He described the men of 1 Para as having a high reputation for "efficiency and effectiveness". "I felt that they came to be disliked by both communities, not because of any brutality, but because they were very good at sorting out these problems," Gen Kitson said.

"I do not think 1 Para went about their duties in an excessively forceful way."

Press reports from the period claimed that some regiments did not want the Paras in their areas as they would undo "six weeks of community work in 10 minutes", and other officers said they were "little better than thugs in uniform", the tribunal heard.

As the province's reserve battalion, 1 Para was sent to Londonderry to help assist in a "scoop-up" arrest operation in the Bogside which had become a "no-go" zone.

The paratroopers claimed they were fired on by IRA gunmen as they began the operation but the Saville inquiry, which was set up in 1998 after new evidence was produced, has heard from numerous civilian witnesses that the Army opened fire indiscriminately. The 1972 Widgery report into Bloody Sunday has been largely discredited.

Gen Kitson said he asked Lt Col Derek Wilford, CO of 1 Para, what had happened. The officer replied: "We were shot at, we got involved in a fight and killed some people."

A book, called Brits, The War Against The IRA by Peter Taylor, was produced and quoted Gen Kitson as being a "no nonsense" brigade commander.

It said that the men from Support Company, 1 Para, who fired all 108 shots on Bloody Sunday, were known as "Kitson's Private Army".

A passage, in reference to "no-go" areas, was also quoted: "The notion that there could be sections of the United Kingdom into which the Army could not venture was anathema to Kitson."

The general denied the former statement but agreed with the latter.