Testimony by several witnesses yesterday added to the accumulating evidence of intensive gunfire on Bloody Sunday from the Derry Walls, where British soldiers were stationed overlooking the Bogside.
Ms Teresa Cassidy said there was a heavy concentration of shooting as she threw herself to the ground at Free Derry Corner, and she believed the bullets were being fired from the walls. "I saw the bullets actually bouncing off the ground in front of me."
Some time later, at about 4.40 p.m., as she and members of her family made their way to their car along an alleyway underneath the walls, she again saw bullets bounce off the ground.
"The shots were definitely being fired from the direction of the Derry Walls," she asserted.
Mr John McLaughlin said he threw himself to the ground when he heard the first live firing. He realised immediately that it came from the left and from a height in front of him.
"I realised in that split second that the fire had come from the city walls," he said. "I was lying in gravel with my face on the ground and I could see the walls in front of me, but I couldn't see any movement on them . . . I didn't understand what was happening, but I knew that the army was on the walls shooting, everyone knew it."
Mr McLaughlin said he believed the firing of the first shots from the walls was prearranged. Those shots, he asserted, "signalled for the troops on the ground at Rossville Street to open up on the crowd".
Mrs Veronica Glenn said she looked up as she pushed her son in a pram along Fahan Street under the walls and saw many soldiers on the parapet. "I could see the soldiers because the visors on their helmets were reflecting in the sun," she said. "I didn't ask myself why (they) were there, only why was there so many. I had an awful feeling that I was being watched and felt very uncomfortable."
Watching from the window of a flat, she saw a number of young men fall to the ground when the firing started. There were bursts of gunfire. "Then it all went quiet and there was a sense of eeriness (and) a terrible stillness in the air. I was frozen," she said.
Mr John McDermott described how he was totally absorbed trying to assist the dying Hugh Gilmore near the gable end wall of Rossville Flats. "Whilst attending (to him) I was oblivious to everything else that was happening around me. I had not even heard any gunfire," he said.
The next thing he remembered was looking up and seeing another man lying a few feet away. This man, Barney McGuigan, had a wound on his head and blood was gushing from it.
"I have a vivid memory of the smell of cordite from the gunfire, mixed with the smell of blood as it pumped out of his body," said the witness. "It is a smell that I can still remember."
As the gunfire eased off, he "felt a sense of desolation and loneliness". He added: "Just then I saw the bizarre figure of a man (who) was a famous alcoholic in Derry and he was walking alone down the centre of Rossville Street near Free Derry Corner. He seemed completely oblivious to what was going on."
The inquiry continues today.