Eye of the Storm

by Peter Ratcliffe

  During the debriefings at Stirling Lines, there was mention of the patrol being involved in several firefight skirmishes with Iraqi infantry, and of returning fire as they fought their way out. There was no suggestion at the time, however, that they had accounted for hordes of the enemy. But in Bravo Two Zero, ‘McNab’ writes about having been involved in extremely heavy and dramatic contacts with Iraqi armoured vehicles and substantial contingents of infantry, actions far larger and more colourful than anything mentioned in the Hereford debrief.

  He also claims that intelligence sources later established that his patrol had killed or wounded 250 Iraqis in the few days before their capture or death, a figure taken up and repeated as fact in at least one book about the Regiment published subsequently. I find this difficult to believe, however, as the claim runs counter to the largely proven military theory that in most circumstances it takes a battalion of 500 men to take out a company of 100 enemy. Normally, therefore, it would require 1,250 men to take out 250 enemy – yet ‘McNab’s’ ‘intelligence sources’ claim his patrol accounted for that number with just 8. In fact, Bravo Two Zero’s kill rate goes against all the teachings of the Royal College of Defence Studies and other military experts. Coupled with the fact that no mention was made at the official debriefing of this number of Iraqi troops being accounted for, I consider it unlikely that 250 of the enemy were killed and wounded by Bravo Two Zero.

  What was much more serious, to my mind, was Bravo Two Zero’s disregard of ‘McNab’s’ own written orders, filed with Operations before the patrol’s departure for Iraq. These orders are always written, and are presented to the ops officer prior to deployment to outline a commander’s intentions during various eventualities in the field. ‘McNab’ wrote very clearly that in the event of serious compromise, and of his patrol having to resort to an escape attempt, they would head south towards Saudi Arabia.

  To their south were friendly forces in the form of the two half D Squadron and two half A Squadron patrols – a total of about a hundred and thirty men and more than thirty vehicles, carrying formidable firepower and equipped with powerful communications. Yet instead of complying with his own written orders, ‘McNab’ and his men headed towards the north-west and Syria, even though they knew that a major obstacle lay in their path – the River Euphrates. It does not take an Einstein to work out that more people, settlements, industry, farms, roads and military installations will be found along a major river. To head for one in hostile territory is a recipe for disaster.

  Had it only been their own lives that they were risking it would not have been so bad. But they were indirectly putting at risk the lives of all those who might be involved in attempts to rescue the missing patrol. Such missions were indeed organized by the CO once it was clear that Bravo Two Zero was in trouble, and involved both our own and American personnel. On two consecutive nights RAF and US helicopters searched for many hours in the desert area where Bravo Two Zero had been dropped and to the south – along their designated escape route. They were not to know that the reason they could find no trace of the patrol was because its members were by then miles away to the north-west.

  In the end three of ‘McNab’s’ patrol never made it back, two of its members dying of exposure and one being killed in action. He named all three of them in Bravo Two Zero, as did ‘Ryan’ in The One That Got Away, even though, true to its tradition of silence, the Regiment had not released the names other than to the families. I have to say that I find it insensitive, to say the very least, that both men should hide behind aliases to write their stories, but have the poor taste to identify their dead colleagues by their real names while almost everyone else in their narratives has a pseudonym.

  Both Serious (‘Cameron Spence’) and Yorky (‘Peter “Yorky’‘ Crossland’) also used aliases to write their own far-fetched versions of events on patrol with Alpha One Zero during the Gulf campaign, and both also revealed the real names of the dead SAS men. Since none of them are still serving, what possible good reason could these four men have for concealing their true identities?

  Unlike the books by ‘McNab’ and ‘Ryan’, Serious ‘Spence’s’ Sabre Squadron (1997) and Yorky’s Victor Two (1996) are both about the Alpha One Zero patrol that I was sent into Iraq to take over. Not unnaturally, I feature in both books, generally in a pretty unflattering light. When I arrived to take command of the patrol I knew, of course, that some of its members were going to resent deeply my way of doing things. But I was equally certain that no one was going to come out and say so. Yet in both books – which are, it must be said, among the more fanciful personal memoirs of service with the SAS in the Gulf War – the authors describe how they would approach me for what seem to have been cosy little chats, often offering advice or telling me where I was going wrong. There are detailed accounts of the arguments they had with me and even mention of almost coming to blows when I failed to act out their wonderful plans. I may as well state here, categorically, that these accounts are as fictional as their authors’ aliases – besides, it is a simple fact of military life that no one argues with the RSM. Neither book mentions me by my real name, but by pseudonyms that are, if anything, even more ridiculous than those the authors have given themselves.

  Well, I can live with that, but the air of self-justification that hangs over both books also conceals the fact that much of what they contain is – to put it politely – extremely inaccurate. Memory can and does play tricks, of course, and never more so than among men who have been in stressful and often dangerous situations; even so, Yorky and Serious can’t both have been the first Allied soldiers to have fired a shot in anger in the land war, as both claim in wildly differing accounts of the ambush of the Gaz and the Iraqi officers in it. In addition, the Iraqis were shot before they reached the Land Rovers under their cam nets, although Sabre Squadron, in particular, has one of the enemy officers actually peering under the net before being blown away by the author himself.

  Various other miraculous things happened on that patrol, or so Serious would have his readers believe. Among much else, he claims to have played a major role himself in the blowing of the fibre-optic cables. He obviously didn’t feel that the fact that, at the time, he was more than 50 kilometres away, searching for a landing ground with Pat, should be allowed to interfere with his narrative. I have to say, too, that both Serious and Yorky’s accounts of our patrol become even more outrageous as their stories develop, but to go into every incorrect fact, every piece of make-believe or every exercise in wishful thinking would fill an entire chapter.

  I will add a footnote, however, to our attack on the Victor Two communications station by mentioning the highly colourful versions presented by Serious and Yorky. The former, alias ‘Cameron Spence’, writes that we knew before the attack that the bunker and fences were bomb damaged; that the situation went noisy before the demolition team reached the target; that four charges were laid to bring down the mast (in fact, it was three); and that he was personally involved in firefights against hundreds of Iraqis.

  Yorky claims that it was he who started the firefight by firing the first rounds which killed the truck driver, who was actually taken out by Major Peter – as Pat’s driver, Yorky was in fact with the fire-support group and nowhere near the trucks (although, in a neat twist, his book describes how annoyed he felt when Peter ‘claimed’ the first kill; mind you, ‘Spence’ also has Peter stepping to the rear of the wagon and emptying a whole magazine into the back. This didn’t happen, either). He too claims to have been involved in a hectic firefight with hordes of Iraqis, and writes of watching the mast fall just seconds after the explosions, rather than several hours later. As to his behaviour during the CTR just before our attack on Victor Two, he justifies this by claiming that we were in the midst of large numbers of the enemy, and that he was acting properly while I was behaving like an irresponsible idiot bent on getting everyone killed.

  I remain mystified as to why both authors felt they needed to embellish their st
ories, when the actual events were every bit as dramatic. I also confess to being irritated by the portrayals of me as a kind of dangerous fool, heedless of the advice of (apparently) much better soldiers around me, although I can’t say it bothers me too much, and I am content to let readers decide for themselves. What is most saddening, however, is that so many SAS books, all written under pseudonyms, have been published which contain deliberate lies, distortions and fantasies. Saddest of all, perhaps, is the fact that in reality some of these would-be supermen were far from actually being the heroes they proclaim themselves to have been in their Boy’s Own-style autobiographies.

  If there is to be any purpose to history, it has to be written as accurately as people can recall it – otherwise its lessons, good or bad, will be lost. It is for this reason that the Regiment held the debriefings of those of its members who had fought in the Gulf, to get at the truth and thereby learn what had gone right, and what wrong. To obscure that truth by trying to exact revenge for real or imagined slights, or by awarding oneself a greater and more heroic part in events, is not only to mislead – and thus defraud – the readership, it is to debase history itself. And I can see no reason, even for the sake of writing a bestseller, why the proud history of the Special Air Service Regiment should be dragged down to the level of cheap war fiction.

  To me, as to so many others who served in it, the SAS remains the finest fighting regiment in the world. To have been accepted into it was the proudest moment of my life, and to have served in it is an honour and a privilege accorded to very, very few. I know that I have been enormously fortunate, as I also know that, whatever the actions of a handful, I shall never lose my respect for the men of the sand-coloured beret.

  Glossary

  110 custom-built long-wheelbase (100 inch/279cm) 4x4 Land Rover deployed on active service by SAS mobile patrols. Sometimes also known as ‘pinkies’, short for ‘Pink Panthers’, a name given to the Regiment’s Land Rovers when they were painted in a pink desert camouflage

  2IC second-in-command

  A-10 designed and built in the USA, the Fairchild A/OA-A10A twin-jet, single-seat close-support aircraft, officially designated the Thunderbolt II, more than proved itself in the ground-attack role during the Gulf campaign, destroying literally hundreds of Iraqi tanks as well as other targets. Formidably armed and armoured, its odd looks have ensured that it is more usually known by the nickname ‘Warthog’. USAF A-10s flew numerous missions during the Gulf campaign in support of SAS patrols in Iraq, or acting on information provided by those patrols

  AAM see AIM

  adoo Arabic for enemy: Marxist-backed rebels of the People’s Front for the Liberation of the Occupied Arabian Gulf (PFLOAG), operating in Oman, principally Dhofar, to overthrow the Sultan and his government. The adoo were mainly based in, and were supplied and supported by, Oman’s neighbour, the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen

  Aermacchi MB-339 Italian-designed and built twin-jet, single-seat light ground-attack aircraft, based on the Aermacchi MB326 twin-seat trainer, and deployed by the Argentinian Air Force and the air arm of the Argentinian Navy during the Falklands campaign

  AIM air-intercept missile (or air-to-air missile – AAM)

  AK-47 Soviet-designed, magazine-fed 7.62mm automatic assault rifle, produced in many variants; built under licence in other communist states, notably China, the former East Germany, Hungary, Poland, and the former Yugoslavia, it is one of the most numerous shoulder weapons in the world. Also known as the Kalashnikov Model 1947, the ‘AK’ stands for Avtomat Kalashnikova (Russian: Kalashnikov automatic) after its designer, Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov (1919–)

  AP armour-piercing

  ASM air-to-surface missile

  badged to be accepted into the SAS, the point at which newly joined members, having passed Selection (q.v.), receive their sand-coloured berets with the famous ‘winged dagger’ badge

  bait Dhofari house or native hut (Arabic)

  basha shelter for sleeping; hence ‘to basha’ meaning to get some sleep

  belt kit soldier’s webbing and attachments, holding much of his personal equipment, ammunition, water bottle etc.

  bergen soldier’s rucksack

  berm man-made sandbank or dune, usually from 6 to 16 feet high, often with a ditch on the side facing enemy or unfriendly territory. The berm along the Iraqi/Saudi-Arabian border extended in places for many miles

  blue-on-blue an incident in which friendly forces mistakenly fire upon each other; a casualty resulting from such an incident. Also known by the euphemism ‘friendly fire’

  Boss slang for anyone in command, whether of a patrol, a troop, or a squadron or larger unit

  Browning M2 US-designed, Second World War-vintage 0.5-inch heavy machine-gun, mounted on some SAS 110s (q.v.) in the Gulf campaign. An air-cooled, belt-fed weapon with a rate of fire of 450–575 rounds per minute, it is capable of penetrating over 40mm of armour at ranges of more than 800 metres. Also known as the ‘50-cal’, the weapon first saw service with the Regiment in the Western Desert in 1942

  Browning High Power 9mm semi-automatic pistol built by the Belgian arms company FN. With a 13-round magazine and considerable stopping power, it has long been the SAS’s handgun of choice

  burmoil 45-gallon steel drum used to transport fuel; often reused for water

  burnous native goatskin coat; also known to the SAS in the Gulf War as a ‘bedou’ or ‘Al Jouf coat’

  C-130 Hercules long-serving 4-turboprop transport aircraft of great ruggedness, reliability and adaptability, and capable of short takeoffs and landings from grass, scrub, desert and other surfaces besides tarmac. Designed and built by Lockheed in the USA, and in service with, among many others, one of the RAF’s Special Forces squadrons (No. 47 Squadron)

  C-5 Galaxy giant American-designed and built transport aircraft of the USAF, manufactured by Lockheed. Powered by four jets, the Galaxy is capable of carrying, among other payloads, six Apache strike helicopters or three light tanks, as well as large numbers of troops, at jet speeds

  casevac military abbreviation for casualty evacuation

  chaff clouds of metal-foil fragments fired from a discharger by a ship, aircraft or other potential target, to confuse the radar of an enemy missile, aircraft, ground station etc.

  CH-47 see Chinook

  Chinese parliament discussion among a group of soldiers, regardless of rank, to agree a course of action

  Chinook giant twin-turboshaft, twin-rotor transport helicopter, widely in service with the USAF and RAF, and used by RAF Special Forces flights. Designed and built by Boeing in the USA, its official designation is CH-47; its RAF designation was originally HC1, with the uprated aircraft designated HC2 and dedicated Special Forces aircraft HC3

  CINCFLEET Commander-in-Chief, Fleet. During the Falklands War this was Admiral Sir John Fieldhouse, and the term was used to apply either to him or to CINCFLEET HQ at Northwood, on the north-western outskirts of London

  click slang for kilometre

  cross-deck to move personnel and/or stores from one ship to another by helicopter

  CO commanding officer

  CSM company sergeant-major

  CTR close-target reconnaissance: the final recce carried out just before an operation or assault is launched

  Delta Force US First Special Forces Operations Detachment Delta – formed in the 1970s, Delta Force is the US armed services’ equivalent of the SAS, and the two units maintain close contacts

  DPM disruptive-pattern material: cloth printed with camouflage shades and patterns and made up into uniforms etc.

  DS directing staff: those permanent members of a training establishment or course responsible for the programme and for those attending it

  DZ drop zone: the designated area for a parachute landing

  EW electronic warfare; early warning

  F-15E Strike Eagle fighter-bomber variant of the F-15 Eagle twin-jet, single-seat fighter. Designed and built in the USA by McDonnell Douglas, the
F-15E version first flew in 1986, and saw much service in the Gulf campaign. A front-line aircraft of the USAF, it is also in service with the Israeli and Saudi Arabian air forces

  F-16 Fighting Falcon fast and versatile single-jet, single-seat multi-role fighter aircraft designed by General Dynamics in the USA in the early 1970s, but now built by Lockheed after its takeover of the former. Extremely agile in combat, the F-16 has excellent visibility from the cockpit, and is equipped with advanced avionics; like the F-15, it was widely deployed during the Gulf campaign

  FAC forward air control or controller: soldier or soldiers equipped with radio to guide supporting aircraft on to their target

  FAV fast attack vehicle

  firqat Arabic name (literally, ‘company’) for an irregular unit formed, mainly from SEPs (q.v.), to combat the adoo (q.v.), the Marxist-backed insurrectionists of the PFLOAG (q.v.) operating in Oman, and especially Dhofar

  flash bang an SAS invention, on detonation these devices emit a blinding flash of magnesium coupled with a loud report, temporarily stunning and disorienting opponents, but without causing shrapnel or blast damage. Also known as a stun grenade

  forward mounting base a unit’s main base during an operation, from which it will move forward to the FOB (q.v.); for the SAS in the Gulf War the forward mounting base was at Victor in the UAE (q.v.)

  FOB forward operating base; for the SAS in the Gulf War, this was at Al Jouf in north-western Saudi Arabia

  FOP forward observation point

  friendly fire see blue-on-blue

  Gazelle a Franco-German design, the Eurocopter SA341 Gazelle is a single-turboshaft, single-rotor light helicopter used mainly for army/air cooperation, reconnaissance and light support duties