The start of C Company’s tenure in Sangin was no different to A and B companies’ previous tours of duty there. The fact that a new company had taken over in Sangin had not been missed by the Taliban and they immediately set about testing the guns of the new occupants. Corporal Graham Groves had just finished settling his men into the sangars that would be their home for the next six weeks when the attacks started. He looked at his watch; the last helicopter taking A Company out of Sangin had been gone for only forty-five minutes. Like A and B companies before them, Major Paddy Blair’s men faced a daily fare of mortars, bullets and rockets as they manned their positions and sent patrols out on to the ground. They were fortunate in having a third platoon with them in the form of 9 (Ranger) Platoon from the Royal Irish Regiment who were caught in the mortar strike in the orchard on 6 September. Since they had lost most of their commanders, Blair ordered Lieutenant Simon Bedford’s 7 Platoon to take over their more exposed positions. The men of Groves’s section looked at him when he told them that they were to occupy the more vulnerable area where one man had just been killed and five others had been wounded. Without a murmur of complaint they picked up their kit and followed Groves to the bunkers. Two hours later they were joined by volunteers from 9 Platoon who wanted to come back and give 7 Platoon a hand. To men like Groves, the Royal Irish soldiers may not have been Paras, but they were good blokes who had bonded and had become a strong part of C Company.
It took three attempts to get Bill Neely and Eugene Campbell into Sangin. The first two attempts had to be aborted because of the level of fire they attracted as they tried to land into the LZ within the perimeter of the HESCO. On the third attempt they got what they wished for in more ways than one. It was dark when they lifted and Eugene filmed the scene in the back of the helicopter through a night vision device one of the blokes had lent him. The door gunners check-fired their M60s as they flew out over the desert, their weapons spewing sparks and empty cartridges into the night as the Chinooks headed north to Sangin. To reduce the risk of being shot down, the helicopter made for a landing site outside the district centre as dawn was breaking.
The men of C Company were there waiting to meet them, but so were the Taliban. Bullets started to cut across the LZ as the aircraft landed. There were frantic shouts of ‘Get out! Get out!’ Eugene and Bill grabbed their kit and scrambled off the tailgate. Eugene kept his camera running as stores were hastily unloaded and C Company’s reception party poured fire back into the treeline where the Taliban were located. A Spartan armoured vehicle rocked backward as it spat a stream of machine-gun fire into the thick vegetation 250 metres away. RPG rounds, theirs and ours fired by the ANA, crossed in flight as the LZ party disembarked and personnel scrambled to gather equipment from the dust, take cover and assist in returning fire. Eugene’s camera was damaged in the chaos as the reception party covered the new arrivals’ move to the relative safety of the district centre.
ITN’s presence in Sangin captured 3 PARA’s exploits there. The footage and reports Bill and Eugene sent back were an instant news splash and provided a graphic expose into the nature of the fighting the Battle Group were experiencing on a daily basis. But their reports were balanced and the interviews they conducted with members of the Battle Group allowed us to put our side of the story across. It sent an important message back to the people at home: yes, it was intense; yes, the mission had changed; but we were there for a reason, to help the people of Afghanistan against the Taliban. The reports portrayed the mood and spirit of the soldiers; summed up aptly by RSM John Hardy in a powerful piece to camera when he stated, ‘It’s what we do.’
On 9 September we received intelligence reports that the Taliban were planning a ‘spectacular’ in Sangin. Two days later C Company called in extensive air support and dropped eleven JDAMs to break up attacks around the district centre. We were also receiving similar reports about Musa Qaleh and two mortar bombs landed outside Jowett’s headquarters building. With the majority of my forces fixed in position in the district centres we used the remaining light armoured vehicles of the Household Squadron and the Patrols Platoon to form Manoeuvre Outreach Groups. Known as MOGs, these patrols protected the one artillery battery we had in the desert between Now Zad and Musa Qaleh. Acting as a version of the older Second World War Long-Range Desert Patrols, they also formed mobile groups to interdict the Taliban’s movement between the two towns.
We had used the MOGs since July, but we could only launch them when not committed to Battle Group deliberate operations and they were not immune to attack or the ever present danger of mines. On 11 September one of the I Battery’s WMIKs supporting the Household Cavalry MOGs to the east of Musa Qaleh ran over a landmine. The WMIK was blown apart injuring three of the gunners who manned it. The most badly injured member of the crew was Bombardier Ben Parkinson who lost both his legs and sustained serious injuries to his head and torso. On 13 September the MOG was attacked with mortar fire and RPGs when they approached an isolated village. There were also attacks against the district centres and Kajaki, but for the first time there were no attacks against Musa Qaleh.
The day before I received a phone call from Ed Butler; it came late at night just as I was about to leave the JOC. He told me that there was a prospect of doing a deal with the local elders in Musa Qaleh. Fed up with the destruction of the Taliban’s attacks on the district centre, the people wanted the Taliban to leave the town and were offering to force them out and take responsibility for their own security if we were prepared to withdraw Easy Company. Butler said there was a very good chance of a ceasefire and that a deal was being thrashed out between Richards, President Karzai, Daud and the elders. He wanted me to be prepared to fly out into the desert and secure an area for a shwa with the locals the next day. The unexpected developments explained why there had been no attacks against Easy Company and stalled the plans we were working up to either withdraw or relieve them depending on the political direction we were waiting to receive. I spoke to Adam Jowett and directed his men that they were only to fire in self-defence if they came under attack; otherwise they were to hold their weapons tight.
It was a strange turn of events, but we had noticed the beginnings of a general lull in the level of enemy activity in other areas too. Attacks still came in, mainly against Sangin, but since 11 September they were lacklustre affairs that quickly petered out shortly after they had started. It was highly likely that the Taliban were finding it difficult to sustain the level of activity that we had witnessed over the last four and half months. They had lost hundreds of fighters attacking the district centres. The fighting damaged property and had disrupted the lives of the local people who had become increasingly less willing to support the Taliban. The insurgents’ credibility had also been damaged. They had not driven the British out, we had held fast and showed no indication that we were about to give up. The locals also wanted to gather in the summer crops, the poppy planting season was already approaching and the continued fighting threatened the ability of the local people to prepare for the coming winter.
I flew out with B Company the next day to the allotted area where the shura would take place. Ed Butler came with us and we landed in an LZ secured by the Patrols Platoon and the Household Cavalry. A large camouflage net was set up to provide a meeting place and shade from the fierce desert sun. B Company took up positions around the area from where they would be out of sight from the makeshift pavilion. With everything in place we watched and waited until a distant column of dust heralded the approach of those who came to meet us. They arrived in twelve Hilux pick-up trucks, forty-odd elders dressed in turbans and shalwar-kameez that caught in the wind as we greeted them and ushered them to where our council would take place. The younger age of the men and the black colour of their dress distinguished the Taliban commanders who followed them. As the direct protagonists, neither they nor I spoke. The talking was left to Butler and the elders. The men of age and wisdom said that the Taliban would leave and the elders would guarante
e the security of Musa Qaleh if Jowett’s men also withdrew. They spoke of the destruction and their desire for peace. Butler proposed a ceasefire between the two sides. If it held and the Taliban left, he said that we would also withdraw our troops. There were no raised voices or threats as we drank tea and the elders accepted the water that they were offered to ease the midday heat. I marvelled at the courteous and surreal exchange of two very different cultures after weeks of fighting and death. The shura broke up with handshakes and farewells as the guns of both sides in Musa Qaleh 15 kilometres to our west remained silent.
The coming of the ceasefire was equally surreal to the men of Easy Company: Once the agreement came into effect, Jowett’s men didn’t fire a single shot. Men used to constant attack and being sick with the loss of sleep, suddenly had to be found things to occupy them. Jowett used the time to rebuild the fortifications, clear up the debris of weeks of fighting, and held inter-platoon sports competitions. The elders came to the district centre every day and talked with Jowett. Unflappable in combat, he turned his abilities to the role of being the commensurate envoy. They could tell that he was an honourable man and he won the elders over with his charm and humility. They were also impressed by the length and thickness of his beard, which in Afghan culture marked him as a man of true stature. The locals brought in fresh produce and goats, which were slaughtered by Sergeant Major Scrivener to provide the first properly cooked meal that the soldiers had eaten in over a month. But the agreement also meant that no helicopters would fly into Musa Qaleh and Jowett received supplies sent by us to the locals. Jowett walked about the town bare-headed carrying only a pistol. One day he came across the freshly dug earth of a mass grave. The elders said that over 200 Taliban fighters had been killed in the fighting and Jowett saw their bodies still being pulled out of the rubble of the town’s pulverized buildings two weeks after it had stopped.
The agreement held and its coming marked a continuing drop in the level of attacks. The nature of the operation was changing and it looked like it was the Taliban who were blinking first in the battle of attrition that had raged since June. Our quietest day was 18 September: there were only two brief attacks, one against the ANP guards on the Kajaki ridge and a single rocket fired from Wombat Wood at the district centre in Sangin. The hint of the coming winter was in the air, but the altering seasons and the lull in the fighting were not the only things that were changing. Elements of 42 Commando, who were due to take over from 3 PARA, had begun to arrive in growing numbers since the middle of September. The Royal Marines were different to Paras: they had an equally strong ethos bred from their tough training, but they were also more regimented in their approach and appearance. I noticed that they all wore the same issued regulation kit, unlike my men who were allowed to wear their own webbing, as long as it was serviceable and enabled them to do the job. They were itching to take over, but I also noted an understandable trepidation regarding what they were about to undertake. I would have been concerned had they not felt it.
Although there had been a perceptible drop in the number of attacks and the ceasefire in Musa Qaleh was holding, the Taliban had not given up. Now Zad, FOB ,Robinson and Kajaki still came under sporadic fire. The insurgents were also determined to shoot down a helicopter; as the insertion of the ITN crew had demonstrated, every mission flown into Sangin still entailed risk. Although the LZ next to the district centre had been protected by the 3-metre-high HESCO Bastion perimeter of giant earth-filled mesh cradles, the Taliban could still fire over the top of them from a compound across the canal known as JDAM House. It had gained its nickname thanks to the large number of bombs that had been dropped on it in an attempt to flatten it to the ground. But it remained standing and was a favourite location used by the Taliban to engage the Chinooks. Any inserting aircraft was vulnerable to enemy ground fire too as it swept low over the houses and treelines to make its final approach.
We attempted to reduce these risks by landing offset from the district centre further down the river line. But the Taliban had got wise to this and had dug in firing positions to cover all likely alternative landing sites. We had already handed over the positions in Kajaki to the Royal Marines as part of a phased handover of our responsibilities to 42 Commando on 26 September. But the handover of Sangin would require one last Battle Group operation to replace C Company with one of their companies and extract the Household Cavalry’s troop of Scimitars and Spartans, which would be replaced by the Marines’ own light armour. I also wanted to use the operation to clear out the positions the Taliban had dug in the trees along the river line and destroy JDAM House once and for all.
On 29 September 3 PARA launched its last Battle Group operation. We would hand over full command responsibility to the Royal Marines on 6 October, but I was determined that people did not see the operation, codenamed Sara, as the last match of the season. I reminded everyone that we needed to stay focused until the end. We still had six days to go and the tour of Helmand would not be finished until we handed over command. But the fact that it would be 3 PARA’s last major act was on everyone’s mind as we waited by the LZ in Bastion to board the Chinooks. The normal mix of apprehensive enthusiasm was still there, but it was compounded by the fact that it was likely to be the last major operational push. I told myself that nothing is ever as good or as bad as it first seems as I walked towards my aircraft. The exhausts from the Chinook glowed red-hot as I passed under them and felt the familiar claw tighten in my stomach. I completed the ritual of running the mission through my head as I slapped a belt of bullets in the port M60 and snapped the feed tray cover shut.
Tac would land with B Company who would clear the Taliban’s line of trenches and surrounding compounds from the south. C Company would then advance with two platoons out of the district centre to clear the area from the north. The two companies would link up and form a defensive perimeter to allow the Household Cavalry troops to drive down the river line and ford the Helmand River to a crossing point secured on the other side of the bank by the Patrols Platoon. C Company would then hand over the district centre to the company from 42 Commando and B Company would clear JDAM House before the Engineers came in to blow it up.
The flight in was uneventful. But B Company was soon in contact as they pushed into the treeline of trenches and compounds as daylight began to break. Tac followed them through the tight patchwork of high-standing crops and irrigation ditches. It was difficult to keep sight of the man in front and those on the flanks. I thought of Corporal Budd as we heard the crackle of small-arms fire ahead of us. An RPG round split through the air in the fields above us and B Company’s snipers reported hits against Taliban gunmen stationed on a water tower. The fighting was intermittent and the insurgents seemed less willing to contest the ground, as they had been during the previous Battle Group operation at the end of August. C Company also met little opposition as they cleared from the north and linked up with B Company’s forward sections.
I heard the engines and squealing tracks of the Household Cavalry moving along the open riverbank behind us as they headed south to find a crossing point. I was relieved when they reported that they had found a fordable stretch of the river and made it across to the Patrols Platoon. It was the part of the operation that concerned me most. The depth of the river had dropped and the ferry bridge we had brought up the month before could now only reach a small island of shale in the middle of the river, but the last stretch beyond the island was still too deep for the armoured vehicles to ford. Had they not found an alternative crossing point in the south they would have been stuck in Sangin.
I ordered the companies to start moving back towards the district centre. Tac moved into the HESCO behind C Company. I moved to the roof to watch B Company’s attack on JDAM House.
The intensity of gunfire was already increasing as I climbed the first steps of the FSG Tower. By the time I got to the top Taliban rounds were cracking back overhead and they fizzed and whined when they passed close to the sangars. I heard th
e boom of grenades as the first sections of B Company went in. Then I heard the radio call of men down.
Corporal Atwell of 6 (Guards) Platoon was tasked with clearing one of the buildings. He pushed himself along the wall at the head of his section. Stopping at an open doorway, he pulled the pin of a grenade and tossed the small metal sphere into the dark of the entrance and flattened himself back against the building. Mistaking the explosion of another nearby grenade for the one Atwell had posted, Captain Guy Lock and Captain Jim Berry advanced on the doorway with their rifles set to automatic. However, Atwell’s grenade still fizzed just inside the entrance and then exploded as the two men approached. A fragment caught Atwell’s arm as he shot it out as a warning to his platoon commander, but it was too late. Shrapnel tore out from the doorway striking Lock in his arm and shoulder. One fragment hit Berry in the face and penetrated his right eye.
By the time I got down to the LZ a Chinook was already inbound from Bastion. Lock sat against a wall, pale and in shock. Jim Berry was being worked on by two medics. I held the drip they had already got into him as they stripped away his combats to look for more wounds. His right eye was badly cut and he was fitting. The cab came in with a thump 30 metres away and I helped them carry Jim’s stretcher to the helicopter.
I was angry that two of my men had been hit so close to the finishing line. I reminded myself that it wasn’t over until it was over. C Company was lifting out as the Engineers informed me that JDAM House was now set ready to blow. It had been packed with eighteen bar mines and hundreds of pounds of plastic explosive. I told them to confirm everyone was in cover and then to blow it before the helicopters came back to pick up B Company. I headed back to the roof, and the blast wave washed over me as I got to the top of the tower. A huge geyser of rubble and sand shot into the sky; JDAM House was no more. It would have seemed a more fitting way to end the operation had taking it not led to the wounding of two more of my men. As the last debris fell to earth and the rhythmic beat of the returning Chinooks’ rotor blades began to sound in the valley, Jim Berry was fighting for his life on a surgeon’s table in Bastion.
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