What they saw was approximately five minutes of speeches from Fitt, McCann and Betty Sinclair, followed by a simultaneous police baton charge from either end of Duke Street. Men, women and children were batoned to the ground, the marchers adding to the confusion by colliding with each other as they fled in panic from either end of the street. Those who succeeded in running the gauntlet of the batoning, and breaking through to Craigavon Bridge, faced another hazard. A water cannon, the first to be deployed in Derry, hosed them back across the bridge.
