Andrew Welsh Obituary by The Times August 2023

Paratrooper known for his ‘coolness under fire’ and his exoneration after shooting two, possibly three, ‘gunmen’ on Bloody Sunday

Wednesday August 02 2023, 12.01am, The Times

Welsh served in 1 Para, who were brought in as reinforcements for the protest march in Londonderry in January 1972

In the course of 20 minutes on Sunday, January 30, 1972, during rioting that followed an illegal march in Londonderry, 26 people were shot by members of 1st Battalion, The Parachute Regiment (1 Para). Thirteen were killed, and one subsequently died of wounds.

By his own account Andrew Welsh, the mortar platoon sergeant of 1 Para, shot two and possibly a third.

“Bloody Sunday”, as it became known, had enormous strategic consequences. That evening, Jack Lynch, the taoiseach (Irish prime minister), rang Edward Heath, the British prime minister, “in a very emotional state”. Heath related in his memoirs that he reminded him that the march had been illegal precisely because Lynch had called for all such marches to be banned to reduce tension in the province. When Lynch protested that the situation had arisen because of the existence of Stormont (the Northern Ireland parliament), Heath responded tersely: “It arises as a result of the IRA trying to take over the country.”

Twenty-six people were shot on January 30 1972

ALAMY

In the aftermath, a crowd in Dublin burnt down the British embassy while the Garda Siochana (police) stood by and watched. In the United States, contributions to Noraid (Irish Northern Aid Committee), which supported the IRA, soared. The following month the IRA took their campaign to the British mainland, detonating a bomb at the officers’ mess of the Parachute Brigade headquarters in Aldershot, killing six civilians and a Catholic padre. In March a huge IRA bomb exploded in the centre of Belfast, killing six and injuring 150. On that occasion a young lance corporal from 1 Para was photographed cradling in his arms a young woman who had been seriously injured in the explosion.

Intercommunal violence spiralled. On March 30 the Northern Ireland parliament was suspended because of its inability to restore order, resulting in direct rule from Westminster.

Two days after the taoiseach’s call Heath set up an inquiry into the circumstances of the deaths, chaired by Lord Widgery, the lord chief justice and like Heath a wartime artillery officer. Welsh gave evidence. Widgery’s findings were published on April 19, largely exonerating Welsh and the other soldiers who fired the rounds, though not without reservations: “At one end of the scale some soldiers showed a high degree of responsibility; at the other, notably in Glenfada Park, firing bordered on the reckless. These distinctions reflect differences in the character and temperament of the soldiers concerned.”

More than 100 rounds had been fired, all of them by Welsh’s company.

Welsh was known for his sense of humour

“None of those killed or wounded is proved to have been shot whilst handling a firearm or bomb”, continued Widgery, “but there is a strong suspicion that some others had been firing weapons or handling bombs in the course of the afternoon and that yet others had been closely supporting them.”

It would indeed have been extraordinary if the IRA had not opened fire.

The report was widely condemned as a whitewash. The Sunday Times Insight team published a lengthy article on the events of the day: “Insight reporters have been in Londonderry ever since the shootings. They have interviewed 250 witnesses including the IRA. They have studied the army’s evidence as revealed in the half-million words of the Widgery tribunal. They have collected 500 photographs taken on the day. Their conclusions differ in some respects from those of Lord Widgery, his critics and his admirers . . . The Widgery findings are at points at variance with the evidence given.”

Inquests were held into the circumstances of each of the deaths, a protracted process, and the coroner, Major Hubert O’Neill, formerly of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers, returned open verdicts. At the conclusion of the hearings, in August 1973, he gave his opinion that the deaths had been “quite unnecessary”, that the army had “run amok” and that innocent people had been shot and killed: “I would say without hesitation that it was sheer, unadulterated murder. It was murder.”

The coroner’s statement was challenged as being an improper exercise of his powers by the barrister for the Ministry of Defence, Brian Hutton QC (later Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland). The Reverend Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, called for O’Neill to be dismissed.

1 Para had been in Belfast since September 1971, one of the three “province reserve” battalions. Welsh, as mortar platoon sergeant, had the dual responsibility of maintaining the efficiency of the battalion’s fire support capability in case of sudden deployment overseas, and for its readiness as a rifle platoon in case of deployment for security duties anywhere in Northern Ireland. Internment without trial was introduced that year for men suspected of belonging to the IRA. Tension mounted and a widespread campaign of civil disobedience began. By the end of 1971 barricades had been erected in Londonderry, many of them impassable to army and Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) vehicles. The nationalist area known as the Bogside had been declared “Free Derry”, openly policed by armed and hooded IRA men, the Irish flag flying over “Free Derry”, a “no-go” area on Whitehall’s instructions, and to all intents and purposes no longer part of the United Kingdom.

A “civil rights” march — in effect a protest against internment — had been organised for January 30, and was expected to be much larger than usual, perhaps 10,000 people. For months, rioting and destruction of property had crept ever closer to the city centre. Three days before the march, the IRA had murdered an RUC sergeant and a constable. 1 Para were brought in as reinforcements.

While 8 Infantry Brigade formed a cordon to protect the commercial centre of the city, 1 Para were to be the “snatch” battalion to arrest troublemakers and IRA gunmen taking advantage of what was meant to be a peaceful march. The plan was to allow the marchers to proceed to “Free Derry Corner” to be addressed by various speakers, and then by a pincer movement 1 Para would deal with the troublemakers lagging behind the marchers and harassing troops on the cordon.

Welsh’s company, as support weapons men generally older and more experienced than those in the rifle companies, would directly take on the troublemakers while companies to the left and right encircled them to cut off escape.

When the commander of 8 Brigade, Brigadier Patrick MacLellan, gave the order, Welsh and members of his mortar platoon raced up Rossville Street into the Bogside in Humber armoured personnel carriers, known as “Pigs” for their snouty appearance, to begin the arrests. As they debussed they believed they had come under fire, both close and longer range. In his autobiography Soldier, General Sir Mike Jackson, then the adjutant of 1 Para, following up beside the commanding officer, recalls distinctly the “crack”, the displacement of air by the bullet, and then “thump”, the delayed sound of the high-velocity rifle firing.

Welsh told the Widgery Inquiry that he identified a man firing a pistol from behind a car about 50 metres away, returned fire with his SLR (self-loading rifle) and saw the man thrown backwards. He then saw a second gunman, armed with a US-made M1 carbine, about 75 metres away, fired and saw him too thrown backwards. Later, a third man appeared near where the second gunman had been hit, and opened fire, probably with the same carbine. Welsh returned fire but was not sure if he had hit him. The instructions for opening fire, the “Yellow Card”, specified “only aimed shots”, and “no more rounds than are absolutely necessary”.

Judging necessity fell to those on the ground, and the rioting had escalated alarmingly, even for seasoned soldiers. Nor were they wearing body armour. In total Welsh fired eight rounds.

Andrew Robb Welsh was born in Kilwinning, Ayrshire, in 1941, the youngest of three boys to Andrew and Agnes Welsh. His father served in minesweepers during the war. In 1961 he enlisted in the Parachute Regiment, unusually for that time as a married man, having met Alice Ponton, whom fellow Paras described as the love of his life, at the local ice rink. Alice died in 2018. Their son Stephen, formerly of the Royal Military Police, also predeceased him.

Welsh served in the Persian Gulf, Cyprus and on operations in the Radfan mountains against Yemeni forces and in Aden itself during the Emergency, where his “coolness under fire and irrepressible sense of humour helped to keep morale high and contributed to the survival of the sub-unit without any casualties”.

Welsh left the army in 1983 as a WO2 (warrant officer, 2nd class: “sergeant major”) and worked in security for an oil company in the Netherlands. He played football and was a keen walker, and later retired to Dartmoor, which he had come to love during training exercises there.

In 1998, as a result of continuing public clamour, Tony Blair, the prime minister, set up a second inquiry, led by Lord Saville of Newdigate, a lord justice of appeal and former National Service infantry officer. Welsh gave evidence again, identified only as “Sergeant O”. When Saville published his report in 2010, Welsh was astonished to be told that his shots had not hit anyone. Saville found that firing at the soldiers did take place, but not by any of those subsequently shot by them.

While Welsh acknowledged the inquiry’s thoroughness, he believed that “If Lord Saville had accepted that I hit two gunmen, then the entire theme of his report, that we just jumped out of our vehicles and started shooting innocent people, was undermined, and Blair did not get what he wanted.”

Welsh went to his death believing he had killed at least two gunmen, but much saddened by the loss of life that day. For his services in Northern Ireland subsequent to “Bloody Sunday” he was awarded the Military Medal, on the reverse of which is inscribed “For Brave Conduct in the Field”.

Andrew Welsh MM, Parachute Regiment soldier, was born on November 27, 1941. He died after a stroke on April 13, 2023, aged 82