Fighting for the French Foreign Legion
Page 17
The siege was having another strange effect on the women of Sarajevo. In an attempt to maintain family morale, they made considerable efforts with their personal appearance. Hair stylists were kept busy, they took great care with their make-up and dressed smartly. It was their way of showing defiance. The death rate in the city was so high that the football stadium had to be used as a graveyard, but despite all of this there was an air of determination about the population. Everything was in ruins. There was no public transport, the tram system had long since ground to a halt and any private cars left running had been commandeered by the Bosnian militia. They cut sheet-metal plates and fixed them to the sides in an attempt to protect them. All glass was removed but there was so little fuel available that the only way to move about the city was on foot.
By now I had compiled an extensive dossier about both sides. Apart from the intelligence I gathered myself while driving Captain D about, both the Brits and the Americans provided me with whatever I requested with no questions asked. The Americans had a Hercules which was fitted with a camera pod. It was based in Ancona in Italy and flew in to Sarajevo on a regular basis. The pilot must have been one of the worst in the Air Force because he kept overshooting the runway, forcing him to fly low over the Serbian barracks and most of the city as he circled back to make another approach. On the next visit he would bring me copies of the photographs he had taken during his aborted landings. These helped me build up a picture of the trenches and, more importantly, gave me the chance to see certain areas and objects from different angles. For example, a tank position might be totally hidden from the front but exposed from the rear. He also had a thermal-image camera which would show men and equipment hidden in the trees above the city.
The Serbs in particular protested about these fly-pasts and threatened to shoot down the aircraft. They even gave away anti-aircraft positions by locking on to him with acquisition radar. When this happened the aircraft would fire off their anti-missile defence systems, called chaff. It was always spectacular as the decoys flared out behind the aircraft, rather like an upside-down firework display.
Quite a few of the aircraft were hit by small-arms fire as they approached or took off from the airport. Some of the crews had armour installed in the cockpit for protection. Fortunately there were no disasters in my time but I do know that one of the Russian aircraft suffered major damage a few years later and can still be seen lying on the grass at the western end of the runway. I must pay a tribute to the Russian crews – they were the only ones who continued to fly when everyone else had suspended operations because it was too dangerous.
The British Forces HQ was in the small town of Kiseljac, which is about 30 miles north of Sarajevo. This was in territory controlled by the Croatians and was deemed not to be a combat zone. The unit was based in a hotel with all the normal amenities one associates with hotels: rooms with baths, a proper restaurant, a bar and a nightclub. They even had an outdoor tennis court and there was a riverside path they used for jogging when they felt like it.
I am not bitching or saying that they had it easy. It was just that the contrast from the hell-hole we were living in made it hard to accept that we were only 30 miles down the road. It was like being in another world. In fact, it was another world. To get there we had to pass through two Serbian, one Bosnian and then finally a Croatian checkpoint. At the latter two you only had to slow down to let them open the barrier, but at the main Serbian checkpoint it was a completely different situation. As this was the only supply route into the city, every single aid convoy was checked again and again, lorry by lorry, box by box. They would insist on counting every round carried by each member of the UN peacekeepers, then note the number against each name, then double check it again against the manifest supplied by the UN. It could take hours and in some cases days for a convoy to pass.
Captain D and I had to go to Kiseljac almost every week and were always escorted by a unit from the CRAP. The first couple of times we suffered the same delaying tactics as everyone else, but this is not how the Legion works and it was time for a change. Normally there was a young teenage girl armed with an AK47 manning the barrier. This was a psychological game the Serbs were playing to show that even a teenage Serb could bring the UN to a halt. No one had seen fit to dispute the point but that was about to change. The convoy drivers didn’t care – they could only do one mission at a time and if they spent it sitting at a roadblock they didn’t care.
On our third visit to the checkpoint we encountered the tail of the queue about half a mile from the barrier, but Captain D told me to overtake the waiting vehicles. The usual girl left the lorry she was checking and came over to us, shouting and waving her rifle about. Captain D got out of our VBL and in quiet, broken English, told her that if she didn’t open the barrier there and then, the only bullets she would be counting would be coming out of the end of his rifle. The guys from the CRAP were out on the road and I heard the sound of their weapons being armed. It was no contest. There were only four of them at the checkpoint and ten of us looking as if we meant every word. The girl almost fainted and went as white as a sheet. She started to speak then thought better of it and turned to walk to the barrier. Captain D caught her arm and told her quietly but firmly that in future when we turned up at the crossing he expected the barrier to be opened with the minimum of delay. She was asked if she understood. She nodded and walked over and raised the barrier. She even half saluted as we drove through.
From that day on, whenever we appeared, the barrier was opened with the minimum of fuss and we were waved through. We always slowed down, smiled at her and gave her a wave. On one occasion I had to stop beside her as we waited for the road to clear. She was a pretty girl and had a nice smile. As I pulled up I opened the door, said hello and smiled back at her. In heavily accented English she said, ‘Are you French legionnaires?’ I told her we were and that was the end of the conversation as she briskly walked off to speak to one of her colleagues. I had no idea what she said but it looked like ‘I told you so.’
We had called their bluff and it was another minor victory which would enhance the reputation of the Regiment. Word of what had happened seemed to spread quickly amongst the Serbs and everyone noticed a change for the better at all the Serbian checkpoints. They were more civil and the delays got much shorter, at least where the Legion was concerned. Since our arrival in Sarajevo we had been obliged to wear our flak jackets and helmets every time we went outside. We therefore felt very strange and vulnerable when we got to Kiseljac and were told to leave our flak jackets and helmets in our vehicles. It was a welcome return to normality, but you could sense that everyone was hesitant to relax just in case it wasn’t true. It was only then that we all realized just how stressed we had become.
The British Military Intelligence unit worked in the hotel and Captain D and I had obtained clearance to make full use of their facilities. The Major in charge was very helpful and, in particular, I was able to use their 3D computer mapping system. It was a system which let me visualize any given location from another in three dimensions. For example, I could put in the coordinates of any known Serbian tank position in the hills overlooking Sarajevo and the computer showed me the view the tank crew had of the city in 3D. I won’t go into all of the possibilities that this system presented, but needless to say I used it a lot. I can’t thank the Major enough for his help-he never once objected to my requests.
We also enjoyed the luxury of eating in the hotel restaurant. There was even a menu with a choice of starters, fish or meat as the main course, and not only were there desserts but a cheese board. Coffee was taken through to the lounge. We had to get back through the checkpoints and into the airport before dark, which was a shame because dinner was served in the evenings from 8.00 pm and included a wine list. You have no idea what psychological effect all of this had and how we dreaded the hour when we knew that we had to put on our flak jackets for the drive back to hell. Although no one said anything you could see it on t
he faces of my colleagues as we left the security of Kiseljac behind. I was convinced that the UN personnel working outside Sarajevo did not appreciate just how bad conditions were for the civilians and military living inside the boundaries of the city that were under siege.
One unusual supplement to our diet came in the form of Marks & Spencer Christmas puddings. The Brits had been sent so many as gifts from the UK over the festive period that they were sick of them. I was more than happy to ease their problem and loaded several boxes into the back of my VBL. They went down a treat with the lads back in Sarajevo, so much so that I was asked to try and get some more on my next visit. I was even able to find some custard powder to go with them. It was a small thing, but when you have been forced to eat nothing but ration packs for weeks because the Serbs had been delaying our supplies of fresh food, any little treat was gratefully received.
This reminds me of another comment by Jeremy Bowen in his book. He says that he bought bottles of Bordeaux at the back door of the Holiday Inn from legionnaires who, he claimed, were each getting a bottle supplied every two days and were then selling them on at £30 a bottle. To put the record straight, our six months in Sarajevo were totally alcohol free – not even a beer. If you think about it, there were 600 of us and if what he said was correct, that would mean we were receiving over 9,000 bottles a month. That’s a lot of transport space when we couldn’t even get basic food in. The Serbs would never have let all that wine through their roadblocks anyway. To our minds this was another example of ‘If it sounds good – print it journalism’. It doesn’t give you a lot of faith in the quality or reality of anything else being reported.
I have referred to the main road into Sarajevo being manned by a UN checkpoint during daylight hours. It was not uncommon for either side to open fire suddenly on each other using mortars, rockets and heavy machine guns. It was up to the person in charge of the UN checkpoint to decide when it became too dangerous to sit out there exposed to any stray rounds, and to make a tactical withdrawal to a more sheltered spot a hundred yards up the road.
I was duty controller one day when a couple of mortars exploded 20 to 30 feet away, showering the VAB with debris and shrapnel. Sometimes it was safer to sit it out and pull back into the semi-shelter of the armoured vehicle. You were then stuck inside the VAB for the duration of the shift and all personal needs had to be taken care of in it. You couldn’t even open the door to get some fresh air. Thank God they were fitted for chemical warfare and had a system for filtering and recycling the air.
After passing through this checkpoint on your way into the city, the road went under a flyover where the Bosnians had set up a heavily manned checkpoint of their own. They never stopped UN vehicles or an escorted convoy, but they had a fear that the Serbs might suddenly rush down the road and would be able to drive into the centre of the city before anyone realized what was happening. Once onto the dual carriageway there were three main buildings of strategic importance. The first was a ten-storey building which used to be the offices of the daily newspaper. It had been heavily shelled but they continued to print a broadsheet from the basement deep amongst the debris as a symbol of defiance. It had been the first building to be destroyed in 1992 when the siege began.
The next building was the UN Headquarters which has already been described and along the roadside were several high-rise housing estates which had been built in the late 1970s as the city expanded on the lead up to the Winter Olympics. They had been austere, clinical places before the war, but now they were half burned-out ruins where people lived a miserable existence under a constant fear from snipers and shelling. At first glance the buildings looked abandoned, but they were actually full of life. However, no one walked the streets, there were no children playing in the open spaces and there was nothing to indicate that whole communities were eking out an existence here. All the sounds you associate with a lively city were missing: traffic, people talking on street corners, the sound of feet on pavements ... nothing - and yet an entire city was living within the confines of these buildings.
It was a different thing when you walked through the sandbagged entrance to one of the blocks. Suddenly you were surrounded by noisy children playing within the relative protection of the stairwell. Women chatted loudly at doorways. It was like something out of a science fiction film where humanity had moved below ground to avoid the aliens. Suddenly someone would dash from behind a building heading for the cover of the next, quickly followed by the crack of a sniper rifle. Sometimes they made it, sometimes they didn’t.
I didn’t live through the horrors of the London, Coventry or Clydebank blitz during the Second World War, but this had to be as bad, if not worse. At the end of February, I was driving on my own into the city centre down snipers’ alley to pick up Captain D from a meeting. I had just passed the Holiday Inn where all the armoured TV Land Rovers were parked. If the press had known just how ‘unarmoured’ their vehicles really were they would never have gone out in them again.
Suddenly a smartly dressed woman made a dash across the junction. This was a particularly wide and dangerous crossing which was clearly visible from the Serbian sniper positions overlooking the town. She wasn’t even halfway across when she seemed to be picked up by an invisible hand and was thrown backwards onto the road. I braked automatically and came to a halt alongside her, keeping my vehicle between her body and the sniper. Without giving it a second thought I got out of my VBL to go to her assistance. As I rounded the front of my vehicle I was aware that something had just passed close to my head. It was immediately followed by the sound of the bullet impacting on the bonnet of the VBL - then I heard the shot. It was like rewinding a film. There was a second impact and my reflexes made me look behind me. The window of my door had starred due to the impact of the second shot, but hadn’t broken. I remember thinking ‘Shit I’ll have to replace that.’
I turned my attention to the woman who was lying at my feet, crouched down behind the VBL for protection and felt for a pulse. She was barely alive. The bullet had entered just below her right collar bone. I was surprised at how little blood there was at the point of entry and couldn’t see an exit wound. I applied a field dressing to the wound and did the best I could for her under the circumstances. Her only chance of survival was if I could get her to the UN hospital in the basement of the PTT building.
This meant I would have to radio for assistance, but as I half stood to open the door, another shot rang out followed by a second about five seconds later. The sniper was obviously using a bolt-action rifle. Fortunately two VABs were making their way back to the airport and pulled up to give me assistance. One of them was fitted with a 20mm heavy gun which could be fired from inside the vehicle. When another shot from the sniper rang out, the VAB opened up with a long burst of deadly accurate fire into the sniper’s location. I don’t know if he was hit or not but no more shots came from that particular position. Within seconds we had the woman inside one of the VABs and lost no time in getting her to the hospital, but she was dead before we got her into theatre. Closer examination of her body showed that the single shot had deflected off the collar bone, severing her spine before exiting from the small of her back. She was better off dead and just became another statistic of the conflict. There were so many similar incidents every day that there was a strong chance that her body was never reclaimed by her family.
This was only one of the tragic deaths I would witness over the coming months. Although you don’t think about it having an effect on you, it obviously does. Some cope better with this kind of stress than others. You build up a kind of immunity to it over the years and I had had a head start on many of my younger colleagues having had my share of dramatic situations and dead bodies during my time as a police officer. I can understand why so many ex-soldiers suffer from post traumatic stress. Being confronted with this sort of thing without warning can cause many people to suffer problems at a later date.
It has been interesting to hear doctors and surgeons
in the UK, who have suddenly had to deal with the dying and injured out on the streets of London, after the Underground bombings, speaking about the horror and stress they were feeling. Normally they only have to deal with the victims after they have been removed from the carnage surrounding the incident. It is normal that the people in the front line, the Police and emergency services, will experience conditions that anyone would find stressful. The military in war zones have to deal with the same kind of problems, but have the additional problem of performing effectively while under fire. I am no expert in psychiatry but I can see that we are going to have a huge problem caring for the members of our armed services coming back from present-day conflicts. Some of these problems are due to the fact that they are not fighting in a classical war, army against army. We are asking them to be peacekeepers, instructors, builders and suppliers of humanitarian aid.
At the same time we expect them to fight terrorists without the backing of the local civilian population. In fact, they don’t even get much support from the civilian population in their home countries. Is it any surprise that they come back from a tour of overseas duty confused and troubled by their experiences? There are few organizations at home willing to put the money and effort into helping them. Those who do work on a voluntary basis get very little help from the government. If politicians saw some personal gain from publicly backing such organizations, they would be right in there smiling at the cameras at every opportunity, and no doubt the money would be flowing.