The man in overall command of the Parachute Regiment's first battalion in Northern Ireland when its members shot dead 13 people in Derry 30 years ago has vehemently rejected claims that they were thugs.
General Sir Frank Kitson, a brigadier in charge of 10 Belfast-based battalions including 1 Para in 1972, was the first person in the witness box as the Bloody Sunday inquiry moved to London yesterday.
About 30 Derry relatives sat yards from him in Methodist Central Hall, Westminster, as he told them the soldiers who shot dead their loved ones were experienced professionals, dedicated to saving life. A 14th man died later in hospital.
"The Para were just jolly good and there was no conceivable way you could overlook the fact that they got there very quickly, they were ready to go at the drop of a hat and they were experienced," he said.
General Kitson, 75, who received a CBE for gallantry, served in Kenya, Cyprus and Malaya, has written books on warfare, including a study of counter-insurgency, Low Intensity Operations, in 1971.
He dismissed as "total rubbish" that tactics he discussed in that book were instrumental in the planning of military operations on Bloody Sunday.
He had never been to Derry and insisted his only role in the lead-up to the events of January 1972, was that he followed the orders of General Sir Robert Ford, commander of land forces in Northern Ireland, to send 1 Para to the Bogside.
But he defended the Paras against allegations, including an article by the Guardian's Simon Hoggart, that he had trained 1 Para to have a fearsome reputation, or that some other battalion commanders did not want them on their patch because they undid in 10 minutes the good relations the army had taken weeks to build up with local people.
He dismissed Hoggart's article, saying: "An unknown captain talking to some journalist on a subject of this sort does not seem at all convincing."
In his written statement to the tribunal, General Kitson said he was never asked for his views on security policy outside his own brigade area, and knew little about political decisions on security or military matters outside Belfast.
He said he had no recollection of discussing the general situation in Northern Ireland with Major General Ford nor had he carried out specific training of troops. But he had the highest regard for 1 Para.
He thought Protestants and Catholics disliked the Paras because they were highly effective at preventing violence. "I do not think that the Parachute Regiment in general or 1 Para in particular went about their duties in an excessively forceful way."
General Kitson is the first of around 300 military witnesses, most of whom will not be identified by name, who will testify in London over the next year.
The soldiers won their legal battle to give evidence anonymously against the bereaved families' wishes. They argued they would be at risk from terrorists if they returned to Derry, where the tribunal has been already been sitting for two years.