Fighting for the French Foreign Legion

by Alex Lochrie

  As far as our own casualties went, we had been lucky up to this point, although one young English Legionnaire had managed to get himself shot in the hand, and then in the shoulder, on two separate occasions. He was treated in our own hospital at the airport and made a full recovery, staying on in Sarajevo until the end of the mission. He was one of the legionnaires that Jeremy Bowen said was playing with those trying to cross the airport at night. His commanding officer refused to let him go back out on the crossing and assigned him to duties that kept him indoors well out of harm’s way. Everyone felt that the old adage about third time lucky should not be put to the test.

  We were now getting a clear picture of where the snipers were located. There had been a steady increase in the number of incidents reported of personnel working at the airport coming under fire and being injured. Our Colonel in Chief decided that enough was enough and issued orders which allowed us to take appropriate action to stop the attacks. This was a brave decision on his behalf as it was in direct contravention of UN standing orders. The UN ‘Rules of Engagement’ dictated that only weapons classified as defensive could be brought into ‘peacekeeping’ zones.

  A rifle known as ‘The Big Mac’ is made in the US. As can be imagined it has nothing to do with eating a hamburger. It is the Tac50, 12.7mm sniper rifle manufactured by the US armaments company McMillan and there is nothing about it that can be described as defensive. This rifle is aggressive in every way, from its range and power to the ammunition it fires.

  The problems we faced in Sarajevo prompted us to use a weapon that had the capacity to out-range the snipers, who up until now were operating with impunity. We had tested this particular rifle back at our base in Calvi and had a couple of them in the armoury back there. Two of the lads from the CRAP went back to Calvi to pick them up and brought them into Sarajevo in guitar cases. What kind of music they made was open to interpretation. The object of the exercise was to reduce the danger to our men from snipers by eliminating, or greatly reducing, their numbers. It was also important that no one knew what was happening or where the return fire was coming from.

  Special concealed areas were prepared in the terminal building, on a need-to-know basis. These posts were manned during daylight hours by the snipers from 4th Company and members of the CRAP. The weapons were fitted with lazer sights capable of working with pinpoint accuracy at long range. The rifles had an effective range of well over a mile and required forward spotters to identify and mark the exact location of the sniper with hand-held lazers. It was a bit like the technique we had used in Iraq when guiding missiles on to the target. Our sniper picked up the spot from the hand lazer and simply overlayed his lazer sight onto the target. He might not have been able to see the actual sniper from his location, but such was the power of this weapon that it had the capacity to penetrate a brick wall at these extended ranges. The results were spectacular and the enemy snipers had no idea what had hit them. None of them would survive to tell the tale and it took less than a week for the message to get through. There was a sudden lack of volunteers to take up sniping positions anywhere near the airport.

  Our weapons were returned to Calvi as soon as we were satisfied that all sniping against our personnel at the airport had stopped. Sometimes extreme problems require extreme solutions. The ‘rules of engagement’ have since been changed to allow for circumstances such as this and there is no doubt that our Colonel made the correct decision at the time.

  It was hard for us to sit back and not intervene when we saw blatant aggression from one side or another. We had the military capacity to stop attacks from either side, but our hands were tied by UN red tape. It must also be said that the competence of some UN military commanders left a lot to be desired. They were not prepared to take any decisions that might have an effect on their careers at a later date, and who can blame them when the political negotiators seemed to be on an ego trip. Most of the UN political mediators were well aware of the intense media coverage they could generate as soon as they set foot on the tarmac at Sarajevo airport. They were often more concerned about how they looked on camera, or came over on TV, than they were with actually solving the problems.

  One particular ‘chief negotiator’ always made sure that the press were aware of his arrival in Sarajevo for ‘secret’ talks. He would fly in wearing a helmet and full body armour, which was the right thing to do. As soon as he was inside the security of the terminal but out of sight of the awaiting press, the body armour would come off and he would change into a suit and a tie. Fine, but those with him had to keep theirs on, giving the impression that he was the only one brave enough not to be wearing any protective clothing.

  To the viewers, here was this brave, super-cool man, but we were instructed to form a physical screen around him, but never within shot of the press cameras. There was always a VAB right beside him with its rear doors open should anyone as much as sneeze in his presence.

  We had been having problems obtaining fresh supplies of food for ourselves. As a result, we had been eating combat rations for weeks. This very same VIP arrived from the UK at lunchtime and demanded a hot meal before chairing the negotiations. Our Colonel in Chief informed him of our situation and offered him a gas stove and a ration pack. He was so infuriated that he got back on his private jet and flew back to the UK. The negotiations had to be cancelled. You would have thought that he was a ‘Lord’ or something!

  He was not the only politician to behave this way. The majority seemed to have no moral fibre and were only out to advance their careers. A blind eye would be turned to the truth if it did not suit their own goals, regardless of the suffering caused by their inaction. The whole conflict was one big deadly game, being played out by everyone concerned. Both sides went to extreme lengths to hide their military capacities from the United Nations observers.

  On one occasion, satellite and aerial photographs arrived on my desk showing the location of tanks and mortars which were in place in contravention of the negotiated agreements. We headed out immediately to the location with a UN inspector, only to be delayed for hours at a checkpoint. When we eventually got to the location in question there would be nothing to be seen. On another occasion I received photographs of a mortar battery being set up in a grassed area in the middle of the Bosnian town of Butmir, just outside the airport boundary. Our inspection team was delayed as usual but when we got there we received an overtly warm welcome from the locals, who asked us to stay and take part in the school fête which was in full swing. From the fresh tyre marks in the grass we could see that the photographs had not lied. I showed them to some of the town’s leaders hoping that it might put them off repeating the exercise. They just looked at them with blank faces and shrugged their shoulders. I have no doubt that the mortar unit was back in place ten minutes after we left.

  As part of field tests, we were supplied with a high-powered electronic imaging system. I installed it in our observation post on the flat roof that joined the customs warehouses. It could be linked to a digital camera or a computer and let me photograph and download images of objects in great detail, at a distance of up to 10 miles. I hate to think about how much it was worth. I could even photograph the faces of the tank crews high in the hills, and in such detail that you could identify the individuals. The system could also be used at night allowing us to monitor troop movements after dark. When this information was collated with conventional intelligence we were able to draw up a fairly accurate map giving detailed locations and strengths of the opposing forces in and around the city.

  The aerial photographs drew our attention to one particular trench that ran up to an old farm building just outside the fence close to Butmir. There seemed to be an abnormally high volume of movement to and from this particular ruined building and it was not in an area close to any Serbian or Bosnian front lines. We had heard that the Bosnians had, or were, building a tunnel under the airport from Butmir to Dobrinja, but this was the first real indication that it might be true. It was in a
n area we had no real access to and so it was impossible to verify what was going on.

  The existence of the tunnel did not pose a problem to us, but it would have to pass directly under the runway, with the risk that it could collapse under the weight of the huge transport aircraft using it. If this happened, a vital humanitarian link into the city would be lost. A substantial part of the aid was flown in by air and could never be replaced by road transport. The Bosnians naturally denied the existence of the tunnel but they still refused to let us approach the building in question. We emphasized that our concern was structural safety and would say things to them like, ‘Hypothetically speaking, if such a project did exist, you could do this or that to reinforce certain parts where there might be a weight problem.’

  There was no doubt that the Serbs also thought that the project existed and constantly shelled the rather exposed building, posing another problem. The building was less than a hundred yards from the runway and we noticed that the trench was particularly busy when an aircraft was landing or taking off because the Serbs would stop shelling to let the aircraft land. It eventually got to a point where not only did the Serbs continue the normal barrage, but they would open up with everything they had. This put the aircraft at such risk that the pilots refused to fly and the airlift came to a halt. The only planes that continued to fly were the Russians as they needed the money.

  One Serbian tank position was less than 500 yards from the building in question and the rounds they fired would be at such a low trajectory that they would ricochet off the ground without exploding if they missed the target. The shells would scream across the runway before impacting on the earth banks protecting our base near the customs area. We never did resolve this matter satisfactorily but the Serbs agreed that the tank posing the greatest threat would hold fire while there were aircraft movements. It did mean that there was a huge chunk of the airport that became no-man’s land because of the risk of accidentally driving into the path of a tank shell.

  It was important that we continued to build a relationship with both sides outside the official meetings. To this end we visited the residential areas as often as possible, until our visits became part of their daily routine. We even got on first-name terms with some of the locals and the kids would swarm round us if we had chocolates or sweets.

  The children were always a great source of information and the sweets more than paid for themselves. We were aware, of course, that the children were also being used to get information from us. Every little boy wants to sit in a fire engine and it is the same with military vehicles. You couldn’t afford to forget that the radio equipment had nice illuminated frequency readouts. The children were told to memorize them and report back to Dad, so that they could monitor our frequencies. I always covered the dials with electrical tape before we went on these missions. For security reasons the frequencies were changed every day, but despite this I would see bits of paper, with the day’s frequency written down, taped to the dashboard.

  We had a direct landline laid into the headquarters of both sides in case of emergencies. Captain D had managed to develop such a good working relationship with a Serbian officer that he would call us on the landline to tell us that point X was about to be shelled and that we had five minutes to move out anyone we had in the area before the bombardment started. If we had passed this information on to the Bosnians, he would have simply stopped calling us, putting the lives of our men at risk. Sometimes it would prove embarrassing when we suddenly left an area and it was attacked minutes later. But it was all part of the game. On one occasion the message was relayed to me from our command post and, as I left, the first mortar bomb exploded exactly where I had been parked less than thirty seconds earlier. It wasn’t long before the locals realized what was going on and headed for the shelters as soon as we started to pull out, so in a way we were able to save their lives without actually telling them. I often wondered if this was why we were told in the first place - perhaps they weren’t all bad.

  ANOTHER CLOSE ENCOUNTER

  On 25 March 1993, I had my second and closest encounter with death. Our headquarters were still located in the offices of the customs area at the time. The administration office was on the first floor of the building and although the windows could only be seen from the last building in a row of small cottages in the Serbian area of Kasindolska, we normally did not use that particular office after dark. We knew that the cottage was used as an observation post directing fire onto the village of Butmir on the other side of the runway.

  The windows were taped and covered in paper to block the view, but after dark, if there was a light on in the office anyone moving about would be silhouetted in the window. The windows weren’t sandbagged but it was a fairly safe location. We didn’t wear any of our body armour inside the building as it was fairly cumbersome and we didn’t think we needed it.

  Darkness fell at about 4.30 and I had not quite finished with a report. Without thinking someone walked into the office and switched on the light. My American friend Joe was working at the computer and I was bent over behind him reading the screen when a single shot came through the window. The gap between our heads was only a matter of inches and we both felt the heat from the bullet as it passed between us before imbedding itself in the office wall. We were both showered with the glass from the window giving us both multiple superficial cuts to the side of our faces. By pure reflex we threw ourselves onto the floor landing in a heap, with Joe’s chair on top of us.

  After we had assured each other that neither of us was badly hurt, I reached up and turned off the light. There were no other shots. We edged forward and tentatively looked out of the shattered window towards the cottage. In the semi dark I could make out two figures standing out in the open next to the corner of the building. They were looking back at us through binoculars and laughing. One of them made a gesture with his middle finger before taking a slug from a bottle and walked back into the house. When we turned round there was a whole group of figures in the corridor outside the office. We confirmed that we were OK but had to go to our camp hospital to have our cuts cleaned and some small pieces of glass removed. Nothing vital had been touched which was lucky as some of the glass had scratched my glasses.

  An incident like this affects you more than you think or are prepared to admit at the time. It is the suddenness of it that gets to you. In combat you expect to get shot at, but the first time I was shot at, followed by the woman being hit at the junction – then this – does have an effect on you.

  A couple of days after the incident I had a chance to recount what had happened to the Serbian liaison officer. He said nothing at the time, simply raising his eyebrows. He asked me to point out the building where the shot had come from and half an hour after he left the cottage received a direct hit from a tank round. A coincidence? Who knows. At our next meeting he smiled and said, ‘No more problems, I trust.’ We never mentioned the subject again and I got the impression that a broken fence had just been repaired. It’s a strange world we live in.

  Both sides were aware that we had no authority to step in to enforce a ceasefire. As a result we were forced to play the roll of spectator to some of the more flagrant acts of aggression. One afternoon I was driving our Colonel in Chief back to the airport from a meeting at the PTT building. As we approached the entrance to the airport, a movement caught my eye in my wing mirror. The old Olympic village (Bosnian) and the Serb district of Kasindolska were, in times of peace, joined up by the road we turned off to get into the airport. A Serbian T72 tank had pulled out into the road behind me and was using our VBL as cover to get nearer his intended target. Seconds before I turned into the airport the tank opened fire, the round passing only feet over the top of our heads. The ground shook and there was a clap of thunder as the round screamed overhead to explode in the building directly in front of us. I put my foot to the floor, shot past the open barrier and the guard room and in behind an earth bank. The tank came to a halt opposite the gate the
n opened fire again, before reversing back up the road. Its heavy machine gun was pouring a constant stream of lead into the buildings as it went, preventing anyone from even thinking about firing back. Minutes later it was back from whence it had come. Not a shot had been fired in return. Everyone had been caught on the hop, including ourselves.

  The damage to the targeted building was extensive and a cloud of dust hung over it. As it cleared we could see people scrambling out of the debris. Later we learned that twelve people had died in the attack. Our Colonel made a formal complaint about the incident and thankfully it was never repeated. We had no authority to open fire on the tank as we were not being targeted directly. We had the ability to destroy the tank and one of our Milan missile units had it in its sights throughout the incident. It was another example of the political restrictions the UN enforced on us.

  The Serbs also had an old Russian four-barrelled 40mm anti-aircraft gun which they kept in a garden shed just across the road from the entrance to the airport. The Bosnians could not see where it was kept, but every night after the road into the city was closed, the Serbs would pull it out of the shed into the garden and open fire with it onto the high-rise flats less than half a mile away. This would continue for fifteen minutes before it was pushed back into the shed for the night. The gun’s crew would then go home for their tea and probably watch TV. Again we were powerless to do anything about it and could only sit and watch the firework display, knowing that people were being killed at the receiving end. It was a crazy situation.

  As described earlier, aid convoys were subjected to long delays at the Serbian checkpoints. Despite the humiliation being experienced daily by UN personnel, during my entire stay in Sarajevo, I never saw or heard of any senior UN official turning up at any of the checkpoints to complain. When the aid convoys eventually reached the outskirts of the city, they had to report to the airport to get permission from both sides to drive down the last stretch of road past our checkpoint and on into the city. Many of the convoys were from charities that had collected aid in their home countries for the people of Sarajevo. Although well meaning, the convoys posed a particular security problem for the civilians who accompanied them. These convoys consisted of lorries from all over Europe, including the UK. Most were ill equipped for the extreme winter conditions and the drivers and their helpers had no idea how to conduct themselves in a war zone. Until this final stretch into Sarajevo, they had been able to drive at night, but once here it was strictly forbidden.