injured in the fighting. Some Bogsiders believed that Irish troops were about to be sent over the border to defend them. By 14 August, the rioting in the Bogside had reached a critical point. Almost the entire Bogside community had been mobilised by this point, many galvanised by false rumours that St Eugene's Cathedral had been attacked by loyalists. The police were also beginning to use firearms. Two rioters were shot and wounded in Great James Street. The Ulster Special Constabulary (or B-Specials) were called up and sent to Derry. This was a quasi-military reserve police force, made up almost wholly of Protestants with no training in crowd control. Residents feared the B-Specials would be sent into the Bogside and would massacre Catholics. After two days of almost continuous rioting, during which police were drafted in from all over Northern Ireland, the police were exhausted and were snatching sleep in doorways whenever the opportunity allowed. On the afternoon of the 14th, the Prime Minister of Northern Ireland, James Chichester-Clark, took the unprecedented step of requesting the British Prime Minister, Harold Wilson, to deploy British troops to Derry. At about 5pm a company of the 1st Battalion, Prince of Wales's Own Regiment of Yorkshire (who had been on standby at HMS Sea Eagle) arrived and took over from the police. They agreed not to breach the barricades or enter the Bogside. This marked the first direct military intervention by the British government in Ireland since partition. The British troops were at first welcomed by the Bogside residents as a neutral force compared to the RUC and the B-Specials. Only a handful of radicals in the Bogside, notably Devlin, opposed their deployment. However, this good relationship did not last long as the Troubles escalated. Over 1,000 people were injured in the rioting in Derry, but no one was killed. A total of 691 policemen were deployed in Derry during the riot, of whom only 255 were still in action at 12:30 on the 15th. Manpower then fluctuated for the rest of the afternoon: the numbers recorded are 318, 304, 374, 333, 285 and finally 327 at 5.30 pm. While some of the fluctuation in numbers can be put down to exhaustion rather than injury, these figures indicate that the police suffered at least 350 serious injuries. How many Bogsiders were injured is unclear, as many injuries were never reported. Rioting elsewhere On