by Dan Mills
Praise for Sniper One
"A gritty, speedball run . . . strong, cohesive, and complete . . . it plugs the reader straight into the blood and guts of the action."
—The Times (UK)
"A highly charged, action-filled, adrenalin-pumped, page-turning read that, frankly, knocks the socks off all previous British accounts in this genre."
—Sunday Telegraph (UK)
"Full-on graphic detail . . . you can practically taste the dust and the cordite. . . . Quite simply, this is one of the best firsthand accounts of combat in the Second Gulf War that I've ever read."
—Daily Express (UK)
"The most vivid account ever of total combat on Iraq's front-line."
—The Sun (UK)
SNIPER ONE
SNIPER ONE
On Scope and Under Siege with a Sniper Team in Iraq
Sgt. Dan Mills
SNIPER ONE. Copyright © 2007 by Sgt. Dan Mills. All rights reserved. For information, address St. Martin's Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.stmartins.com
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mills, Dan, 1968–
Sniper one : on scope and under siege with a sniper team in Iraq / Dan Mills.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-4299-3342-1
ISBN-10: 1-4299-3342-9
1. Iraq War, 2003–—Personal narratives, British. 2. Mills, Dan, 1968– 3. Snipers—
Great Britain—Biography. I. Title.
DS79.76.M475 2008
956.7044'38—dc22
2008020438
First published in Great Britain as Sniper One: The Blistering True Story of a British Battle Group
Under Siege by Michael Joseph, an imprint of Penguin Books
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Chris Rayment and Lee O'Callaghan, who didn't make it home
Illustrations
View of Al Amarah city centre from above its southern edge, over a Lynx helicopter gunner's shoulder
The Cimic House compound beside the River Tigris
Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR. Back row, left to right: H, Smudge, Des, DV, Dan, Daz, Rob, Chris, Fitz, Ben and Ads. Front row: Pikey, Longy, Oost, Sam, Harry, Redders and Louey
Yours truly on the look-out for enemy activity on Cimic House's roof
Article picturing rogue cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, pinned on the wall of Sniper Platoon's living quarters
A typical roof-top scene post-battle
Cimic House's swimming-pool
Louey and Daz in the rear sangar
An L96 sniper rifle with a SIMRAD night sight
The view of the OMS building from behind the wall where Dan's men first returned fire at the enemy, on 18 April
RPG Alley
View of the OMS building from the neighbouring park, a favoured launch location for enemy mortar teams
Major Ken Tait on his return from a fighting patrol before he was banned from going out
The remains of Daz's burned-out Snatch after the 18 April contact
The awesome AC-130 Spectre Gunship
Chris, me and Sgt Ian Caldwell in the driveway of Cimic House, preparing to leave on an arrest raid
Chris snipes and Des spots while concealed on a roof-top in downtown Al Amarah
Ads snipes and Oost spots early in the morning from the roof-top of Cimic House – after a hard night's work
An F-16 drops a laser-guided bomb
Dale fires illume mortar rounds from Cimic House's roof – his birthday treat!
Best buddies: Chris Mulrine and US bodyguard 'Red Rob'
Chris supports his L96 in a tripod on the roof of the Pink Palace
The platoon's accommodation block after a mortar direct hit
The painful bruise left on my shoulder by an AK47 round during the OPTAG patrol
The hole left by the bullet in my body armour
Pte Daniel Crucefix, who got stuck at Cimic House for three days with a piece of shrapnel the size of a credit card in his nose
Pte Johnson Beharry VC poses with a belt of 7.62mm, a few days before he was critically injured
Pte Johnson Beharry's badly shot-up Warrior the day after his first Victoria Cross action
Chris with an L96 and Oost with an SA80 and underslung grenade launcher outside the Pink Palace
Concealed sniping. Chris is Number 1 and Des is Number 2, during a raid on an enemy house
Heavy metal. A Challenger II Main Batde Tank from the Queen's Royal Lancers
Mortar-damaged roof sangar. I left with Oost just ten seconds before a round came through the roof and exploded inside it
A US engineers' convoy burns after its huge ambush on 1 May
Bored snipers watch a DVD during the July ceasefire. Left to right: Smudge, Harry, Ads, Longy and Pikey
Snipers in the roof-top sangar, with the 'Royal Marine' team hard at work on the right
The 'Royal Marine' sniper team. Buzz, left, and John, right, at work in the roof-top sangar
Dan receives his Mention in Despatches silver oak leaf from Brigadier Iain Cholerton, the Army's most senior offficer in Wales
Dan's Mention in Despatches certificate
Picture credits
Front and back cover photos of Dan: copyright Dan Charity/News International
Page 1: top and bottom, copyright Tom Newton Dunn.
Pages 2 to 5: all pictures copyright Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.
Page 6: top, aviation-images.com; bottom, Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.
Page 7: top and bottom, Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.
Page 8: top, Aviation-images.com; bottom, Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.
Page 9 to 16: all images on these pages copyright Sniper Platoon, 1PWRR, Telic 4.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The publishers will be glad to rectify in future editions any errors or omissions brought to their attention.
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank: Rowland White, for his faith, foresight, advice and enthusiasm from the word go; Tom Newton Dunn for the mountain of hard work, skill and dedication that made it all happen; and Carly Cook for her keen eye and excellent suggestions.
Sue for her unfailing support while I was in Iraq, and Sandra for her support and patience during the research and writing. Chris Mulrine and Adam Somers for when my memory began to fail me, Defence Public Relations (Army) for their honest advice, Rebekah Wade at the Sun for releasing Tom, and Mark Spicer for giving me the bug.
My daughter Elizabeth for watching over me, and my son Morgan and daughter Alexandria for giving me a reason to come home.
The men of fighting Y Company; in particular Captain Simon, Ian and Dalebert. Finally, all the chosen men of Sniper Platoon who I had the extraordinary privilege of leading and fighting alongside. Keep your heads down.
Dan Mills, January 2007
When you go home tomorrow, don't expect anyone to know what you have been through. Even if they did know, most people probably wouldn't care anyway. Some of you may get the medals you deserve, many more of you will not. But remember this. All of you are now members of the front-line club, and that is the most exclusive club in the world.
Lt Col Matthew Maer
Commanding Officer,
1st Battalion, the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment
Camp Abu Naji, October 2004
SNIPER ONE
Prologue
18 April 2004
'Gunman top window,' screamed H.
H was the first to spot him, from his position of height as top cover on the back of Daz's Snatch Land Rover.
As soon as I heard the call, my eyes darted to the gunman. The moment you hear a gun is trained on you, you scan for targets. And there he was, in the top window of
the sinister three-storey building inside a well-fortified compound. Unusually for buildings in Al Amarah, it had a fresh coat of white paint and bars across every window.
As my eyes found him, he began to slide an AK47 through the iron grille. The metal barrel glinted in the bright sunlight as the gunman moved slowly from side to side. He couldn't seem to decide which of the nine of us he wanted to aim at first.
I was already walking backwards to my Land Rover, the other vehicle in the small patrol, which was parked up 50 metres further down the road. But Daz's vehicle was just 15 metres across a road from the compound's front gate. If the gunman was anything like a decent shot, we were all sitting ducks.
He was in animated conversation with a couple of his other stooges; one older, one younger. All of them were bearded, dressed in black dish dashes and wore green canvas chest rigs. They seemed to be jabbering away, I could almost hear them weighing up the situation: 'Shall we, or shan't we?'
Then the compound's heavy gates slammed shut with a loud metallic clunk. The four angry blokes with the same heavy Islamic beards who had been shouting at Daz and I had abruptly scrambled back inside.
They're thinking what I'm thinking. This is going to kick off. I know it.
It was only the first time we'd been this far away from base. But I'd done enough tours of Northern Ireland to realize what was going on here.
The mood was changing very rapidly from bad to terrible. My brain scrambled to keep up with the pace of events. I had already decided to get the fuck out of there and told the boys to mount up. Now it looked like we'd run out of time already.
Immediately and involuntarily, my pace quickened as I continued to walk backwards. I wanted to turn round to look where I was going, but I didn't want to take my eyes off that clown in the top window.
Fuck it. How did we get into this mess so quickly?
I couldn't turn and run to the Snatch, because that would mean we'd lose face in front of these nutters, whoever the hell they were. And the British Army doesn't do that. But I also knew it was no time to hang around.
Don't get excited, Danny Boy. Keep the heart rate slow and concentrate, you're no good to anyone panicking like a big girl.
'I've got eyes on,' shouted Smudge.
'Seen,' said Ads, along with a couple of other blokes a second later.
It had taken no more than four seconds for the three other top cover boys in the two Snatches to focus their Minimis on the top window.
Good. At least the boys are all wide awake. Then again, it wouldn't have said much for my training if they weren't during a drama like this.
The boys' reactions calmed me down a bit. Anyway, weapons aren't exactly uncommon in this desolate and forgotten corner of Iraq. Even grannies are known to walk the city's streets with AKs slung over their backs. None of this means it's going to go tits up.
I had got to within ten metres of my Snatch, and all we needed was a few more seconds to get into the Land Rovers and shove off home sharpish. No problem.
That's when the grenade came hurtling over the compound wall. We all saw it at once. Half a dozen voices screamed 'Grenade!' simultaneously.
Then everything went into slow motion. The grenade took an age to travel through its 20 metres of flight through the air. A dark, small oval-shaped package of misery the size of a peach.
On its upward trajectory, the handle sprang off, landing separately on the pavement with a light tinkle.
Then, a small cracking sound. The handle's release allowed the hammer inside the grenade to spring down hard onto its percussion cap. That ignited the gunpowder fuse, which began to burn furiously creating enough heat to ignite the high explosive charge.
My second-in-command Daz was the last to see it. He had been standing behind his Snatch with his back to the compound. As he turned round, the still ticking grenade just cleared the Land Rover's roof and hit him square in the chest with a dull thud.
Daz was left momentarily frozen to the spot, open-mouthed with shock. It bounced off his body armour's breast plate, and down onto the pavement before slowly rolling into the road and right under the Snatch itself.
In a desperate scramble, everyone else instinctively threw themselves down and covered their faces.
Another whole second of total silence.
Then BOOM.
A blinding flash of light, a pulsation of shock wave and deafening bang; all at once. Shrapnel flew in all directions; hundreds of red hot tiny pieces of metal whizzed through the air, pinging off the metal gate, the stone walls and my Snatch. Simultaneously, an instantaneous whirlwind of dust and detritus whipped across the filthy street, coating anyone within 10 metres with a thin layer of grime and spots of engine oil.
All I could hear was a ringing in my ears, worsened by an immediate secondary echo as the furious tirade of noise bounced off the surrounding walls and back down our battered ear canals.
At last, silence again. So I dared to look up. It had gone off right under the Snatch's bonnet, blowing the engine compartment to pieces.
Fuck, that was close.
For a few seconds, it looked like we'd got away with it. I looked up again to see the Snatch on fire. But nobody was screaming, and everyone was still on their feet.
The next thing I heard was Daz.
'Fuck. I'm hit, I'm hit. Fuck it,' he shouted again and again.
He half ran half hobbled down the pavement towards me and my Snatch. With a massive release of adrenalin squirting into his nervous system, it had taken him a few seconds to realize what had happened.
Both trouser legs were heavily ripped, and a dozen claret-coloured blood spots had started to grow on the Combat 95 desert camouflage material from his belt to his boot soles. As he hobbled, blood also began to leak out of his right boot and leave a small trail of red on the road behind him.
He made it ten metres before he stumbled off the pavement and sank to the ground right in the middle of the road. His body had obviously told him it wasn't going any further.
Remembering his first aid drills, Daz rolled onto his back and started to wave his legs around in the air to restrict the flow of blood out of his wounds.
'Fuck, fuck, fucking bastard,' he carried on, as he shook them about violently.
Unfortunately, Daz had decided to collapse in full view of every available firing position inside the compound.
I looked over to it. Most of the building's window grilles were now filling up with gunmen and at least a dozen AK barrels were pointing at us. And just as he started the upturned beetle impression, the rounds started to come in. The gunmen had taken the grenade's explosion as their cue to open fire.
Jesus fucking Christ, we've just entered another world here.
The seriousness of our predicament hit me like a smack in the face. This was for real, and it could only get worse.
Bullets smacked into the road all around Daz, kicking up small puffs of dust. They also pinged off both Snatches' armoured sides. They were spraying off whole mags on fully automatic straight at us. One whizzed just over my head with a crack as it split the air. Totally undisciplined fire, but there was enough of it to cut us to pieces.
Daz lying in the open air like that painted the perfect target for the gunmen. We had to get him out of there, but that meant running right into the bullet storm.
Shit and bollocks. No time for any more thought. I sprinted from the Snatch and, with Ads beside me, made the 30-odd-metre dash to Daz in record time.
Taking an arm each, we dragged him just as quickly face downwards back behind my vehicle and out of the direct line of fire. He screamed out in total agony as his wounds rubbed against the tarmac, but there was no other way to do it.
Somehow we reached the Snatch without taking any more hits. But still my two top covers, Louey and Smudge, weren't returning any fire. They'd trained for this moment all their military lives and they had two bloody great Minimis in their hands. But they were still in shock at what they had just seen.
Seeing
anyone blown up in front of your eyes isn't pretty, let alone a good mate. The two twenty-year-old privates were scared out of their wits, and they weren't going to hang around up there in the full face of that bullet storm for any longer.
All nine of us were now sheltering in or behind the Land Rover, which had become a dirty great big bullet magnet for the gunmen. We hauled Daz into the back of it, as its armoured sides gave him just a tiny bit more cover from ricochets behind us.
Inside, I got the chance to give him a quick once-over examination.
He was in a proper mess. The shrapnel had pepper-potted both his legs with puncture holes from the top of his thighs right down to his desert boots. There were around a dozen serious wounds in his flesh. His right foot in particular had been torn up very badly, and was just a mess of ripped boot and blood, bubbling and congealing through his matted and shredded white sock.
Inside the puncture holes a host of different-sized grenade fragments that had torn through his skin were still embedded, along with any other debris from the gutter that the blast had picked up on its way into him. The pain must have been excruciating.
He gave off a strong smell of gunpowder and burnt meat. His face had also lost a lot of colour. His eyes were all over the shop, and he was going in and out of coherence.
'You stupid jack bastard, Daz,' I said, in an attempt to keep his spirits up. 'You could have collapsed in cover rather than in the middle of the fucking road, mate.'
He managed to pull a smile. For a man in that shit state, he took the criticism well. But his time was swiftly running out and we were pinned down.
Bullets were still pinging off the Snatch's sides with sharp high-pitched twangs thanks to the regular bursts of automatic fire from the compound in the background.