General Sir Robert Ford: D-Day veteran who led British forces on Bloody Sunday but refused to accept blame for killings

Robert Ford was the most senior British soldier present on Bloody Sunday, when 13 people were shot dead and 14 wounded in Londonderry on 30 January 1972. Even after two inquiries have given their conclusions about the catastrophe, debate persists about the role he played in it.

The incident, in which men of 1st Battalion, the Parachute Regiment, advanced to arrest rioters on the edge of the city's Bogside, inflamed a fraught situation, in which the government had recently resorted to internment and near anarchy reigned in barricaded “no-go” areas. The Widgery Report of 1972 and the Saville Report of 2010 exonerated Ford, who was Commander Land Forces Northern Ireland, though Saville made minor criticisms.

Historians still argue about whether Ford exhorted the soldiers' commander by telephone to “get a move on”, and discuss the relevance to events of a proposal of his, in a secret memorandum written three weeks earlier, that the army should use rifles modified for less powerful.22 bullets, in order to shoot to wound rioters' ringleaders.

Saville never established whether the telephone call actually took place; as for the memorandum, there was surprise that an officer of Ford's seniority “could form the view that this course of action... should seriously be considered as something that could be done.”

In the memorandum, Ford told his immediate superior, the General Officer Commanding Northern Ireland, General Sir Harry Tuzo, that soldiers had been standing and taking hails of missiles like “Aunt Sallies”. At the time Ford's son was a soldier serving in the province.

Ford had concluded since taking up the post in 1971 that it was virtually impossible for the army to deal with gangs throwing bricks and stones, such as the “Derry Young Hooligans” who were extending the no-go areas under cover of snipers concealed in neighbouring buildings. He watched the civil rights march that began that day's events as an observer at Chamberlain Street, near William Street, and the now-demolished Rossville flats. The march had gone ahead in defiance of a ban.

Ford felt a strong responsibility towards his soldiers. He had written in his memo that “attempts to close with the DYH bring the troops into the killing zones of the snipers”. Immediately after the events he said his soldiers had not fired until fired on. Between 10 and 20 rounds had been fired at them, from the area of the Rossville flats. He was later to reflect that during his two years as second-in-command in the province, “we lost 120 soldiers killed, 400 wounded – casualties people have forgotten.”

Saville said Ford could not be criticised for deploying soldiers to arrest rioters, though his choice of 1 Para, known for its strong physical force, was open to criticism. Saville concluded none of those killed had posed any kind of threat to the troops. It emerged, however, that there was some firing by republican gunmen.

Ford told Saville he did not give the order and did not accept blame. He was “extremely sad” about the deaths. In an interview given in 2013 for members of his regiment, the 4/7 Royal Dragoon Guards, Ford concurred with a suggestion that Bloody Sunday had been blown out of proportion, and said of it: “Political.”

As a 21-year-old lieutenant, Ford himself had suffered an experience as harrowing to him as the Troubles would be to others. Second World War commanders, who had pushed men through hasty training and safety drill to man amphibious tanks for D-Day on 6 June 1944, discovered in a large practice exercise, codenamed “Smash”, off Studland Bay, Dorset, on 4 April 1944, that bad weather was fatal to their idea of the tanks “swimming” ashore.

Orders to abort the attempt failed to reach Ford's then-commanding officer, and their DD (Duplex Drive) Valentine tank was one of six that sank, losing three men of six who drowned. “We knew we weren't going to make it,” Ford recalled. “We were still floating and all four of us were standing on the top of the tank. Then a great wave crashed over the top and we sank to the bottom. The canvas enveloped and I knew we were trapped.” Ford broke free and rose to the surface, but the others, including his commanding officer, perished. A Royal Navy destroyer picked Ford up.

Ford went ashore at Gold Beach on 6 June with another crew in a DD Sherman and fought across North-west Europe to Bremerhaven, being mentioned in despatches. But for the rest of his life those earlier deaths haunted him. Enforced secrecy had prevented families' being told what happened; many years later, when the widow of one of them sought to know, he eagerly replied. She laid a wreath, and they remained in touch.

Neither did Ford forget being asked to quell a mutiny as the Second World War neared its end. Soldiers in Liverpool were refusing to board a ship to sail east to fight the Japanese. Men of the 4/7 Royal Dragoon Guards, including Ford, were also bound east, and waiting next to board after the mutineers. They were ordered to take rifles, fix bayonets and advance. Ford, by then a troop leader, recalled that as they got halfway, the mutineers lost their nerve, except for the leaders. The leaders were arrested, and, it is thought, hanged.

After the Japanese surrender in August 1945, the ship having arrived at Suez, Ford was posted to Egypt, then Palestine, amid growing Zionist terrorism, for two years, and was again mentioned in despatches. He returned home to marry Jean Pendlebury. They had one son.

Ford, who came from a military family and was educated at Musgrave's College, Gateshead, attended Staff College, then became Brigade Major, 20th Armoured Brigade, and by 1964 was General Staff Officer (Grade 1) to Lord Mountbatten, Chief of Defence Staff. He commanded the 4/7 RDG in Aden and Northern Ireland, and from 1968-69 commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade.

Following his command of Land Forces Northern Ireland, he became Commandant of the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst, and later Military Secretary at the Ministry of Defence, then Adjutant General and ADC General to the Queen, retiring in 1981. He later became Governor of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, and Vice-Chairman of the War Graves Commission.

Robert Cyril Ford, soldier: born Devon 29 December 1923; MBE 1958, CBE 1971, CB 1973, KCB 1977, GCB 1981; married 1949 Jean Claudia Pendlebury (died 2002; one son, 2003 Caroline Peerless (deceased); died 24 November 2015.