by Andy McNab
I then drove over to FOB Dwyer to pick up the rest of the troop. Dwyer is where the big 105mm guns are located and is basically a shit-hole in the middle of the desert. It's a pain to drive there but there is no heli landing site at Delhi and I doubt the pilots would want to land there anyway. The lads are in good spirits but some are a little apprehensive. After all, Garmsir is supposedly one of the worst places to be. To be honest, I think it has been built up a little and is not as bad as many make out.
I then went out on a foot patrol in the blistering heat of the afternoon but it was very useful to see the ground. We patrolled through Garmsir centre, which was once busy but is now nothing more than a ghost town, very eerie, almost looked like a Wild West town. The only people we saw were the Afghan National Police, who were too zonked out on drugs to care much!
15 May
We conducted our first patrol last night and it was a relatively successful operation. Purely in the fact that everyone came back safe and that will always be the main thing. I honestly believe that had we encountered the enemy there would have been problems. Luckily we didn't. There was a large contact at JTAC Hill before we left. You could actually see tracer rounds going over our heads in camp and hear the zip of bullets as they flew overhead. A lot of rounds were fired over about an hour and fighter jets flew in to try to find and destroy the enemy.
It was an odd feeling sat here knowing we would be out there very shortly. I was not as nervous as I thought I might have been, going into one of the world's most dangerous places at night. In fact, I was strangely calm ...
28 May 2007
McNab: A sad landmark. A mine strike caused the death of the fiftieth British serviceman killed since Britain moved into Helmand province. Corporal Darren Bonner, thirty-one, served with 1 Battalion The Royal Anglian Regiment. He was a committed Christian and had a fiancée. He had been seen by comrades reading the Bible the night before he died. Major Dom Biddick, the commander of A Company, was in the driver's seat when the mine hit his Viking armoured fighting vehicle, but the blast struck the rear. Biddick said of Bonner: 'He genuinely cared about the people of Afghanistan and it is a source of some consolation to those that knew him that he died on operations contributing to a noble cause.'
May/June 2007
Warrant Officer Class 2 Keith Nieves, The Royal Anglian Regiment
It was 16 May and we were carrying out 'shaping' operations on the edge of the Green Zone: trying to shape the enemy to let them know we were there. We were trying to push into certain pockets, certain villages where we knew they had enemy strongholds. It was a show of force. After pushing through in the day, we would then move back into the desert away from it at night. And the next morning we would push into another village. So we were fighting in the Green Zone but we were living in the desert [at night] by the Vikings. We were two platoons strong with company tac [tactical support group] and attachments – the [Royal] Engineers, etc., etc. We are talking about 120-plus men in all – there were 5 and 7 Platoons, and we had an ANA attachment as well.
For the whole trip, we had contacts. We pushed into the first village, Zumbelay, I think. We did a bit of firing and pushed back into the desert, rested up for the night and did exactly the same on the second day, this time in the village of Pasab. On the third day, we went to another town – Hyderabad. We set off at about 8 a.m. – we were running a bit late because we were having difficulty getting in with the vehicles. As we were moving through, I saw some locals and thought: This isn't so bad. At least there are some locals down there. I said to my platoon commander: 'Boss, you need to question that guy to see if there have been any Taliban in the area.' He [the local man] said there had been no Taliban in the area for a long time.
I remember pushing through this small pocket and coming out the other end and there was a massive bit of open ground rising upwards slightly. On the top of a hill there was a compound that stood on its own. And then there was a horrific contact. I'd heard nothing like it in my life. It had come out of nowhere. I got the boys down. But, in fact, the fire was not on us. It was on the vehicles on the high ground, which were over-watching our movement.
By now it was about 11 a.m. We decided to break into the compound on top of the high ground. Once we got into it, we started to take mortar fire onto us. We had broken in because we were keen to have somewhere a bit more secure, to get us out of the open ground and into some more adequate cover. Until then, we had had the platoon spread across the open ground. We pinpointed where the Taliban were and fast air came in dropping 500-pounders. We eventually cleared the compound that the Taliban were fighting from, and it all went quiet.
After that there was a lull. It calmed down so we got the orders from high to move through Hyderabad. The village went into a triangle with a bridge crossing at the point where the village ended. I had my platoon [5 Platoon] in a graveyard and 7 Platoon pushed further forward. Then they got ambushed at the river crossing. They took two casualties at that stage. And the fire-fight we had from there was horrific. We couldn't see the Taliban but they were out-flanking us and it was then we took the call that the Vikings were coming down and we had to get the casualties from the other platoon up. I had one medic with me, but I couldn't send him up because we were under fire from small arms. We didn't see the Taliban at all that day but we knew there were a lot of men.
My instinct was to get the guns up [fire] on the trees, which the Taliban were using as a firing point. We were firing GPMGs. From there, the Vikings came down and extracted the casualties under fire. We got the casualties back, but it was a frantic moment. Certainly, as platoon sergeant out there [in Afghanistan], I had two big fears – a mine strike and that I would [inadvertently] leave one of my guys on the ground. And at one moment [during the fire-fight], I couldn't account for all my blokes and they were getting thrown in the back of the vehicles to get extracted. It was quite an unsettling moment for me. I was responsible for thirty-four guys, but I didn't have a hand on how many had been extracted. I had my little book to tick people off with all the names on like a school register – for peace of mind for me – but I didn't really have a hand on it until I got back on top. But once I realized all the men were there I calmed down. I said to myself: 'I don't need many more days like this.'
We then took a call, which hit the blokes hard, that we [the British forces] had had our first two major casualties. One guy was shot by small arms in his stomach. The other had shrapnel wounds from an RPG. Then a Chinook flew in and the casualties were extracted. The guy who was shot had serious injuries, but they were not life-threatening. We then took a call that we were going to extract back to FOB Robinson to recoup the boys – give them a rest. It was now 2 or 3 p.m. So we all loaded up into the Vikings. At that stage, I took my belt off – the webbing with all the pouches. On the route back we had the WMIK in front. I was the lead platoon so I had the Vikings in convoy and we were moving across a desert. It was a big convoy: we had a good fifteen Vikings and six or seven WMIKs along with a refuelling truck. I was the fourth Viking in the packet. We were moving forward, and that's all I remember.
Suddenly I woke up as if I was in a dream: the cab was covered with smoke. I couldn't see anything, and I couldn't hear anything. There was a ringing in my ears. I sort of woke myself up. I looked down at the door – where the mine had hit – although I didn't know I had been hit by a mine at that stage. But the mine strike had blasted the doors ajar slightly, just enough to put an arm or leg out, but not to squeeze my body through. I initially went for the door because I thought: Fuck, I've got to get out of here quick. But I couldn't get out so I sat back down. I saw the whole engine block was on fire on my left-hand side. I just remember feeling the heat and I thought: Fucking hell! I have got to get out of this vehicle! We had four of us in the front cab: me, the driver, the gunner sitting on top and I had my 51 [mortar] man sitting on the seat behind me. In the back cab – because it's a twin cab – I had seven guys: five engineers, a medic and an additional sniper, but th
ey were essentially OK.
It was the right-hand door of the cab that I could not get open. The engine block was all ablaze. I saw my 51 man sitting on the floor in shock so I shouted to him: 'Get me out of this fucking vehicle.' Luke [Private Luke Nadriva] managed, with the driver, to squeeze the [crumpled] armour and I slipped out of the vehicle. As I slipped out, the door shut and all the skin peeled off my arm where it had been burnt. I took a couple of steps and fell over. I had a quick look to make sure my foot was there and it was. So then I started crawling back to try and get away. Being a reserve vehicle, it was full of ammunition. I didn't know where anyone was at the time. It all happened in a split second. And the casualties were starting to get extracted. There were four casualties in total because the front cab got the brunt of the blast. It was me and the driver, who were worst off. The 51 man behind me had minor burns to his arms and the gunner had burns to his arms and his face.
The Viking was smoking: there was thick black smoke. I got dragged to the rear of the sergeant major's vehicle. I was then treated on the ground by a medic and I got put onto the Chinook. I remember flying back. I had this pain in my right foot, but I was more worried about my bloody eyes. The blast had blown all my eyelashes off and I was getting dust in my eyes. I remember screaming out for a damp cloth so I could get all the dust out of them. After that I couldn't take my boot off. I wanted to check my foot was still intact. I didn't have morphine on the ground because I didn't want it. But once I got onto the Chinook and I knew everyone was safe, I had some. I could feel my right foot swelling up. I knew it wasn't right. It was bloody sore. The driver was more seriously hurt than me. He was having trouble breathing because he had a lot of inhalation burns so he was in a bad way.
The MERT [medical emergency response team] was on board the Chinook so it was a case of a paramedic giving me morphine. I don't remember much after that. I remember getting put onto the ambulance at Bastion on the HLS. I remember getting into the hospital. I then went in to have surgery to remove the shrapnel from my wrist and to treat all the burns on my arms. From there, I was fast-balled and got put on a plane [still on the same day] and taken back to Kandahar. I got stabilized and then put on a plane to the UK and I was in Birmingham within twenty-four hours, at Selly Oak Hospital. I didn't know the damage to my foot until I got to Selly Oak. By this stage, all my head had swollen up as well because of the flash burns. My eyes had swollen shut. I was put on the burns unit for a week and I had to wait for the swelling to go down in my foot before they could operate on it.
But I had a consultant look at it and I had the X-rays and everything. I knew it was repairable but I also knew it was in a pretty bad way and it would never be the same again. My heel had shattered and was subsequently reconstructed with a [metal] plate and many pins. I have had four operations: two on my right foot, another to repair a tendon in my left wrist and one to take out the shrapnel. Altogether I was in hospital just under a month. I don't feel it's the end of my Army career. I'm on the mend. I have another eight years' service left – so I might as well do them.
18 May 2007 [diary]
Captain Adam Chapman, The Mercian Regiment
Last night and today were significant in that incidents occurred which brought home the realities of war for the first time. I had a section on JTAC Hill that called on indirect fire from the 105mm guns to assist in destroying an enemy position. However, somewhere along the chain, a grave error was made. This resulted in a local village being shelled. Very soon after, a number of civilian casualties were brought to [Camp] Delhi for help, some serious. Unfortunately, some died. The rest were airlifted to Kandahar for treatment. [Chapman has asked for it to be pointed out that the error was not made by troops on the ground.]
The next morning a group of men arrived at our front gate in Delhi, obviously upset, angry and seeking answers. A few of us went out to speak to them and there were some heated debates. I stood back and John (a captain whose job it is to liaise with the locals) and an interpreter dealt with things as best they could. Shortly after this, a vehicle with more men and the body of a young child arrived. Not a very nice scene; emotions were running high and understandably so.
That afternoon my troop was tasked to go down to the village with John on a 'hearts and minds' patrol to see what we could do to help and appease the locals. After all, it's essential to maintain their support. We were worried how they would react so it was potentially a dangerous situation for us.
The patrol was successful: although extremely angry, they [the locals] eventually came to understand it was an accident, albeit a devastating and fatal one. They showed us damage to buildings and a cow that was killed by shrapnel. By the end, I was sat down on a rug with John and some senior local men drinking chai [like tea]. It's a very nice drink. I hope the opium fields and cannabis bushes around the compound had nothing to do with it!
The Afghans are hospitable and friendly, and I felt sorry for them. They live simple lives, in poverty by our standards, and wish only to live in peace. They don't want the Taliban and they don't want us. It's a difficult situation made even more so by dropping [a bomb] on them by accident. But unfortunately that is the reality of modern warfare. It is usually the civilians who suffer the most. But in Afghanistan the support, or at least the acquiescence, of the locals is essential. Without it, we won't succeed. I just hope that we avoid any other incidents. Tonight there'll be some individuals with a lot on their conscience.
I spoke briefly to Mum and Lisa [his girlfriend] last night as there are satellite phones I can use here. Both were surprised to hear from me, so it's good for them to know I am OK. Reassurance is all they can get really ...
22 May
Another busy and significant period. Yesterday there were a number of contacts on the check-points and a member of the ANA died on the Eastern Check-point, but not through enemy action. It's believed it was either a heart-attack or a drugs' overdose. His body is in the camp awaiting pick-up.
The troop also took part in its second major op as part of the company mission to stir up some trouble in Objective Snowdon, before air and artillery hit the Taliban. The plan was for my platoon to get into a fire-support position to provide cover for 3 Platoon's strike on the objective: air and artillery would then destroy any enemy in the area. All was going well until we got close to the fire-support location. We then spotted approx. seven to nine enemy in a wood-line to our south. I made the decision that it would be unsafe to move any further south. I got permission to engage the enemy and did so. My platoon fired a few hundred rounds – rifle and machinegun (I fired about half a magazine). But the real damage was done firing a Javelin anti-tank missile (costs nearly £70,000 and is heat-seeking) and four ILAWs (interim light anti-armour weapons – about £10,000 each). Total enemy killed was about five with many more injured in the follow-up mortar and artillery strike that covered our withdrawal. We got back to [Camp] Delhi and I was very happy. In my eyes a successful op: we killed and injured several Taliban whilst taking no casualties ourselves.
24 May 2007
Flight Lieutenant Christopher 'Has' Hasler, DFC, RAF
This was a special day. I went to Buckingham Palace to collect my DFC from the Queen. My folks came over from Canada. My parents, Michael and Mary Margaret, flew over from Ottawa. My younger sister, Olivia – we call her Livvy – who works in human resources back home, flew over from Halifax, Nova Scotia. I was so nervous that, even two minutes after getting my award, I couldn't remember a word the Queen said to me. But we all [including other decorated RAF men] went to have lunch at Claridge's. All the boys from work got on their number ones [their formal blue RAF uniforms] and we all got pretty drunk in town. It was a day to remember.
26 May 2007 [diary]
Captain Adam Chapman, The Mercian Regiment
Today is a very sad day here in [Camp] Delhi: the mood is sombre and quiet. Another young soldier [Guardsman Probyn] has died and two others have had to have legs amputated after there was an explosion o
n their patrol. Exactly what happened is unknown as yet, but 3 Platoon were on a routine patrol when it happened at around 0100. Over the next couple of hours everybody battled hard to get the injured to safety and to the helicopter, and then to Bastion. Everyone did what they could but it was chaotic and frustrating not being able to help more. I've got two soldiers who are a little upset and slightly shocked. They were personally involved in moving the dead and injured. Their angst is understandable: a young man shouldn't ever have to see the bloody and mutilated remains of another young man who was alive and well alongside us only a few hours before.