Virtually every man on the roof had been caught in the blast as the rocket detonated against the wall of the small building on top of the FSG Tower. The 1.2-metre-square concrete structure sheltered the stairs that led up from the ground floor to the large roof. The tower housed A Company’s specialist signals team, where corporals Thorpe and Hashmi were preparing to bed down for the night with their Afghan interpreter. On the smaller roof above them, the sniper pair made up of Corporal Hatfield and Private Nixon peered through the night sights of their .388 sniper rifles into the darkness of the night around them. Moments before the rocket struck, Sergeant ‘Emlyn’ Hughes had walked down the steps of the FSG Tower to have a smoke in the darkened bowels of the building. As he lit his cigarette the world two floors above him exploded.
Those who had merely been caught in the concussion of the explosion or hit by flying masonry were lucky. Private Brown had his leg broken as he was flung backward by the blast, Private Scott’s legs were struck by metal fragments and Corporal Hatfield’s eardrums were burst. Corporal of Horse Fry and Corporal Cartwright of the FST received more serious shrapnel injuries. Fry’s hand had been seriously gashed and his thumb nearly severed; Cartwright received a piece of shrapnel that travelled along the outside of his bowel and became lodged in his pelvis. Serious though the two NCOs’ injuries were, they were relatively minor compared to the carnage the rocket inflicted inside the sniper tower itself. Penetrating the wall, the warhead spread its lethal contents among those inside. Within the confined space of the tower, Corporal Peter Thorpe, Lance Corporal Jabron Hashmi and Dawood Amiery, the A Company interpreter, would not have known what hit them.
The attacks against the district centre had started shortly after the elder had come to warn Will Pike. They were intermittent at first; RPG rounds followed by AK fire from the compounds and the row of shops that ran alongside the north of the dry wadi. It initially started as a nightly routine. As muzzle flashes lit up the darkness, men would scramble from their sleeping places on the dusty floor to don body armour and helmets and rush to their stand-to positions. They would return fire with all their weapons systems, including two .50 Cal heavy machine guns that had been flown forward to bolster the defences. The attacks would then peter out as 81 mm mortar illumination rounds were fired into the air, their flares casting an eerie light among the shadows as they drifted back to earth under small parachute canopies.
After the first few tentative attacks, they soon started to occur during the day as well. The company took to sleeping by their sangars, often wearing their webbing and body armour in an attempt to catch an hour or two of fitful sleep until the next attack started. But in the first days the Taliban were only testing and counting the defenders’ guns; gradually their attacks became bolder. On 30 June two pick-up trucks full of Taliban suddenly drove into the bazaar among the empty market stalls at the other end of the wadi. The GPMGs and .50 Cals kicked into life, sending streams of red tracer rounds into the insurgents and killing several of them before they could get close enough to open fire on the district centre.
On 1 July the Taliban launched a coordinated two-pronged assault. A group of up to twenty fighters attempted to fire and manoeuvre their way across the dry wadi bed, while another group assaulted down the narrow track christened the Pipe Range that led to the gates of the main compound from the east. The attackers were cut down by the company’s GPMGs and .50 Cals. Caught in the murderous fire of the open wadi and the confines of the Pipe Range, the insurgents didn’t stand a chance. The survivors retreated back into cover leaving their dead behind them. Above them a 500 pound precision-guided Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) was released from the weapon rack under the wing of a circling A-10. The bomb’s onboard GPS automatically adjusted the tail fins as it vectored through the air towards its target. They would guide it on to the target coordinates that the pilot had received from the JTAC on the ground and had pumped into the computer in his cockpit seconds before he released the weapon. It found the surviving Taliban in their hiding place with pinpoint accuracy, spewing a fireball and greasy black smoke into the air. Mortar rounds and cannon fire from the Apaches added to the death and destruction visited on the insurgents and they attempted to make good their withdrawal. The attack had been fanatical and daring, but it was amateurish and suicidal in its conception. Coming several days later, the use of the 107mm rocket demonstrated that the Taliban had learned the lessons of costly frontal assaults. It also meant that the ensuing fights around the district centre became less one-sided.
Company Sergeant Major Zac Leong had heard the almighty explosion when the rocket landed. He knew that it was serious before the first report came through the battlefield telephone system that linked the Ops Room to the roof telling them that there were casualties. He charged up the steps with a stretcher party taking Corporal Poll’s section with him. They were greeted by a scene of devastation and chaos when they reached the top of the stairs. The interpreter was already dead and the two corporals lay unconscious. Leong’s party set about treating and evacuating the wounded men. Sergeant Dan Jarvie rushed to the RAP where Harvey Pynn and his medics, Sergeant Reidy and Corporal Roberts, were getting ready to receive the casualties. Lance Corporal Hashmi was brought in first followed by Corporal Thorpe. Pynn and his team worked desperately to save them as the emergency helicopter was scrambled into the air from Bastion. But despite the medics’ tireless efforts, both men were beyond help.
I listened intently to the information coming in about the casualties by the side of the bird table in the JOC at Bastion. My heart sank as their medical categorization quickly changed from T1, which meant gravely wounded and in need of immediate surgery, to T4, which informed us that both men had died. I heard Matt Taylor swear as Huw Williams asked for confirmation. Back in the RAP, Dan Jarvie saw Corporal Cartwright stagger into the aid post doubled up in pain and watched as the medics began to treat his friend. Will Pike pushed for the helicopter to pick up the surviving wounded, but the base was still under fire and Pike knew that he could not guarantee a secure LZ for the helicopter. I asked for medical confirmation of their category status and for Pike’s assessment of whether getting them out immediately was critical, or whether they could hang on until a safer daylight extraction could be attempted. Pike responded that they were T2, which meant that they had non-life-threatening injuries, but would still require surgery. He also added that he had spoken to the wounded men and, given the threat to the helicopter, they were all willing to wait for evacuation. It was a tough call. Every commander wants to get his wounded men of the ground. But there was a very real risk of the helicopter being shot down. The lives of the men on board it had to be balanced against the survival of the wounded. With a heavy heart, I gave the word to order the helicopter to turn back.
It was a long night for the men of A Company, particularly for the wounded who waited patiently in the darkness for evacuation. I flew up with my Tac party on the helicopter when dawn broke. We landed in the field next to the district centre, the blades of the helicopter thumping the grass flat. Seconds after we got off the three body bags of the men killed in the rocket attack were carried on board. They were followed by the wounded. I managed to shout a few words of encouragement to Corporal of Horse Fry as he passed me. Then the helicopter was gone, leaving us in the settling dust and grit as it climbed away and headed back to Bastion. I spoke with Sergeant Major Leong who had earned his pay the night before; I noted the blood on his uniform as we patrolled into the district centre from the LZ.
Will Pike met me outside the Ops Room. He updated me on the detail of what had happened and gave me an assessment of his current situation. He had the look of a man who had not slept in days; his face was gaunt and his hair was matted with dried sweat. He was clearly agitated by the predicament he and his men found themselves in, but his words were clear and calm as he talked me through his concerns. I sat back and listened as he outlined how he felt that the company had become dangerously exposed and that mor
e men would die if they stayed in the district centre. He spoke of the porous defences of the compound’s perimeter and of the suspected perfidy of the ANP. Daud had still not sent reinforcements and the remaining ANP failed to contribute to the defence of the position. Pike was convinced that they were dicking the movements of his men by giving information to the Taliban. I shared his concerns and trusted his judgement, but I also knew what the political answer would be to any request to withdraw. As we spoke, intelligence reports were coming in that a large attack was being prepared against the compound. I left him to organize his headquarters to prepare to meet the threat.
I went round the positions with Bish to see how the blokes were doing. Bish went one way and I went the other; we agreed to meet in the middle of the position to compare notes. I asked Sergeant Major Leong to accompany me and asked him for his assessment as we headed into the orchard. He told me that things had been hard, but he also made the point of saying that the company was okay and could hang on. They had been fighting off attacks for the last seven days out of fourteen. I doubted any had slept properly in a week. When they weren’t fighting, they would have been standing guard and forming work parties to build up their positions. If they tried to snatch a few hours, their fitful slumbers would be broken by the crash of an RPG or the snap of bullets heralding the next assault. They were doing a brilliant job in the most trying of circumstances and I told them so. Each man I spoke to as I walked round the bullet and rocket-scarred positions wore the stress of the last few days on his face. Apart from the lines of fatigue that were etched on their features they were unshaven and dirty. They had not washed properly since arriving and their combat fatigues were filthy; their sweat-drenched garments had dried on their bodies a hundred times and some were caked in the blood of fallen comrades. My men were exhausted and some were anxious, but morale was remarkably high in the knowledge that this was what they were bred to do. I asked them about what they were going through, listened to their views and reinforced the importance of our task there, however difficult. I thanked the sergeant major and asked him and his men to keep on doing what they were doing.
I met up with Bish and we talked on our own. He shared my opinion that, from walking round and chatting to the men, the company was all right. But he said that they would benefit from being relieved. I agreed and said that I would bring in B Company as soon as possible to give A Company some time out of the line. I went back to the Ops Room and spoke with Will Pike who had just finished giving orders to his command team about their tactics to meet the corning threat. I mentioned my intent to relieve the company and we discussed how the defensive position could be improved. I agreed with his request to bring in Engineer support to build proper sangars, excavate dugouts and build HESCO Bastion blast walls of earth-filled metal cages, which were capable of stopping bullets and RPG rounds. As we spoke men were already making minor makeshift improvements and I suggested to Will that Tac could lend a hand. We offered to finish the work started on a sandbagged emplacement on top of the main one-storey compound building while Will concentrated on completing the organization of his company. I grabbed one of the GPMG gunners to provide us with some local protection and then set of up the short flight of stairs with a spade in my hand.
The emplacement covered one of the southern approaches to the district centre along the canal and into a maize field behind the orchard. We dumped our webbing and weapons by the side of the partially completed sangar and began stripping out shot-up sandbags and refilling them. It was miserably hot as we humped them across the roof, the sweat running down our backs as we worked. The sun was sliding to the west and began to tinge everything it touched in a pink hue that comes with the fading rays of light before the onset of evening. I looked out across the gilded fields and hedge lines on the other side of the LZ and thought evocatively of England. I visualized the sunshine of a summer’s evening on leafy church parishes and the first hatch of mayfly that I had already missed.
My thoughts were interrupted by a sharp whip and crack as the first bullets split the air around us. We had positioned the GPMG gunner facing the wrong way. Suddenly I was behind the low wall of sandbags we had built, cocking and firing my weapon out into the field below us. The report of my first round was so close to Warrant Officer Tony Lynch’s ear that for an awful second I thought that in my haste to return fire I had hit the one man who was personally responsible for protecting me. I managed an embarrassed apology as he said, ‘Fucking hell, Colonel!’ and then grinned and started returning fire along with the rest of Tac. I looked to my right and saw Bish lying spread-eagled on the roof as rounds fizzed as they came unnervingly close. I was about to tell him to stop messing about and get behind the sandbags when I saw the bullets lick the dust around him. He was pinned down and the Taliban were trying to bracket him with their rounds. He shouted for covering fire. I changed my magazine and pumped bullets back across the field as fast as I could with the rest of Tac. Bish scrambled for the relative safety of the half-built bunker before picking up his weapon to join in the firelight against the small bobbing black figures obscured by the undergrowth of the hedge line 300 metres away.
The contact stopped as abruptly as it had started; the figures were gone. We all felt elated with the buzz of post-combat euphoria that comes when no one has been hit. But it dawned on me that it was one thing to be shot at once and get away with it. The men of A Company had been doing it day in, day out for the last week. They knew that they would be doing more of it and that some of them would be hit. But for Bish it would be his first and last contact of the tour as his two-year stint as the RSM was due to end. He had been selected for promotion and he was about to return to the UK.
Our brief contact was the start of a night of other attacks as the promised assault against the district centre unfolded. The defenders hammered back at the enemy’s muzzle flashes as insurgents fired unseen from behind cover as darkness fell. A 107mm rocket passed overhead, making the sound of a large sky-borne zip as it parted the air above the compound. Rocket-propelled grenades wushed and thumped with a crash of flame and shrapnel as they landed around the position. I listened to the JTAC, Captain Matt Armstrong, talking calmly and with authority to the aircraft that had arrived to provide close air support. Pairs of A-105 flew in, dropped their deadly cargo on the grids that Armstrong fed them and then went off station to refuel. Apaches, mortars and the 105mm guns from FOB Robinson filled the gaps as they sought out the Taliban firing positions. The company headquarters received reports, ordered the resupply of ammunition to the sangars and passed back reports to Bastion.
It was another long night for the men of A Company as they kept the attackers at bay, each man alone with his private thoughts of whether another 107mm rocket might find his location. The air was filled with the staccato chatter of machine guns and the deafening boom of the two mortar barrels each time they fired from the courtyard. The 105mm guns from the battery at Robinson fired numerous danger close missions, where the blast of their shells landed close enough to spray the sangars with shrapnel. Against the cacophony of sound was the dull rhythmic drone of a US AC-130 Spectre gunship as it circled high overhead keeping a lone vigil over the district centre. At intervals the 105mm cannon mounted in its fuselage would boom against an enemy heat source that it had picked up. This lethal version of the four-engined Hercules stayed with us throughout the night, before finally heading for its base with the coming of daylight.
Dawn brought a new, more optimistic perspective that so often comes with the breaking of first light. The attacks had been beaten off and no more casualties were taken. After expecting to be in Sangin for several hours, A Company had been there for two weeks and they were now under constant attack. The defences were poor, promised relief had not arrived and three members of the company had died. Attacks came in day and night and virtually every patrol they sent out resulted in a firefight. At the time, I couldn’t promise them when they would be replaced and some talked of the untenable situation
they faced, but I knew that it would be politically unacceptable to withdraw. The credibility of the mission and our support for the Afghan government were now on the line. There was no going back. I had no doubt that more men were likely to die, but we would have to tough it out with only the thinly stretched resources we had to hand.
I had spoken of this as I moved round the position from sangar to sangar talking to small groups of my paratroopers. I had to balance my own concerns and their plight against the fact that we were likely to be there for the duration, with all the risks and challenges that holding the district centre entailed. It was my soldiers and not me who were the ones continuously on the front line on a day-in, day-out basis, but they took in what I said. They accepted that I could make no promises and that I needed them to hang on and continue to do just what they were doing. I hoped my presence made a difference, but I was conscious that I was only visiting; getting involved in the firelight the day before while filling sandbags and spending the night with them probably helped. I hoped it showed that, as their commander, I was prepared to lead by example and was willing to face the same risks as my men, however brief my particular exposure to danger had been. Difficult though the position had become, I left with a better confidence regarding the situation in Sangin. I hoped that my men had been able to draw the same level of renewed purpose from me as I had been able to draw from them.
I had been called to attend a meeting with David Fraser at KAF and headed back to Bastion on the helicopter that brought in the first relieving platoon from B Company. The events of the last few days were focused in my mind as I flew to Kandahar on a Hercules transport aircraft from Bastion. Now Zad was also under regular attack and we had had to reinforce it with a second platoon of Gurkhas and another version of French Force. Nick French had set up his mortars on a small hillock a few hundred metres to the south of the district centre which provided a commanding view over the rest of Now Zad. It had formerly been manned by the ANP, which gave it its name of ANP Hill. But its position also made it a target for the Taliban who had brought it under regular mortar fire as they prepared to begin assaults against the district compound. Kajaki was under attack again as well and the American Ambassador had ordered the US contractor personnel to withdraw unless we reinforced the dam with troops. French Force had already been given a warning order to be ready to relocate there on a permanent basis.
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