Saville

I was going to try to avoid this. Because I'm a coward. And I don't want to start something else. The week after Bloody Sunday there was a big Rally where 76,000 people attended in Newry. I was one of them. A huge gun battle started at the Oldpark Road, Ardilea Street corner after we got off the bus from Newry. I never told anyone except my family about this. There were five British soldiers shot in front of my eyes at the top of Gracehill Street. A person with some kind of Rocket Launcher was behind the concrete barrells outside the pub on the corner. We got off the bus and crossed the Oldpark Road hoping to go to the Ex-Service Men's Club in the Bone. This massive gun battle started. At the top of the street there was an Alcove in the first house. I ran into it and lay there for at least five hours. I was terrified. I knew some of the loud banging was ordinary gunfire, small arms fire and army type SLR Rifle fire. But there were four or five huge explosions which I was informed were rocket launchers from the pub on the corner opposite to where I was lying. The Irish Press the next day reported that the British Army claimed they killed nine IRA men. The IRA made some claims too. What I seen was someone lying behind 44 gallon barrells outside the pub on the corner of Ardilea Street and the Oldpark Road. I was lying in the alcove. I tried to get into the house. No-one would answer. This house was the first house and as far as I know the only house with an alcove. During the time I lay there, there was the most terrifying explosions. Army Sarecens kept rolling up the main Oldpark Road. There was heavy gunfire without a break for at least four hours. Between that there was five huge explosions which were some kind of rockets

I witnessed personell dismounting from an army sarecen right beside the person who had the rocket launcher. I watched as one soldier was shot. He fell on the ground. His colleagues ran towards him and tried to lift him. Some of them were shot. But they kept going. Then many of them fell. The first one was dragged into the Sarecen. But some were left lying on the road. None of them cried out. I thought at the time they might have been dead but more sarecens came up the Oldpark Road and I didn't see the soldiers being picked up. When I reflect I think the second lot were decoys. They dissappeared. They were trying to identify the rocket launcher.

Some days later it was found that an IRA sniper was in a derilect house at the top of Ardilea Street and did shoot nine members of the British Army. None died. The British Army later used the same tactic by knocking a brick out of an upstairs room of a derlict building in the Ardoyne. They shot a 16 year old who the IRA had given a submachine gun to for training and practice purposes. The 16 year old died in the Mater Hospital 45 minutes later.