To solve that problem they planned to make an initial ferry mission to the deserts of Jordan, where a small base designated “Tango-1” was established near the border of Iraq, about 425 kilometers inland, or half the distance to the airfield. The helo offloaded the first ten Marines, containers of aviation fuel, and reserve ammo before returning to the ship to run that same mission again. Zykov pulled the lead team duty with nine other Marines. They would wait for the main mission to land there before heading to Habbaniyah, and in this way they would still have two thirds of their fuel, which was more than enough to operate and still be able to return to Tango-1 to refuel before heading west again. The mission was well coordinated with the X-3s, which also had very long range, but they would need to ferry in ammo and fuel for their teams as well.
* * *
The tension that had led to the Iraqi artillery barrage at Habbaniyah had been mounting for some time. An independent “Mechanized” Brigade, with a light tank company, an armored car company, two battalions of lorried infantry, a machine-gun company, and 30 towed artillery pieces had moved to the plateau overlooking the British base some days ago. They vastly outnumbered the British garrison, which was composed of only 300 British regulars of the Kings Own Royal Regiment under Colonel Roberts, who had been Chief Of Staff of the 10th Indian Division, now en-route to Iraq. His small force had been rushed to Habbaniyah by air the previous day, flown in from airfields near Basrah in the south. Now they joined the Number 1 Armored Car Company, 18 old Rolls Royce armored cars and a pair of antiquated “tanks,” which were little more than Mark VIB MG tanks the locals dubbed “Walrus” and “Seal.” A few hundred native levees fleshed out the defense.
The British sent up a light reconnaissance plane to have a look at what they were facing, and soon knew that they were opposed by a force ten times their size, over 9000 men.
“They have at least twelve old Crossley armored cars up there,” said the pilot, referring to the 6-wheeled vehicles dating back to 1927. “And they’ll match Walrus and Seal with a fist full of what looked to be CV-35s.” That was an old Italian tankette, also armed with machineguns.
“What about the artillery,” said Roberts. “That’s our real worry. We’ve only a few mortars to answer them, and one good hit on the water tower or power station and we’re out of business here. We’d have no choice but to give up the ghost when the good water runs dry.”
“Let’s hope they’re just making a show of force, sir,” said the pilot, “and it’s a good one at that!”
Air Vice Marshall Smart was taking the report with Colonel Roberts, his eyes narrowed with the sun, skin browned by long months in the desert beneath his white pith helmet. “We’ll simply have to use the planes,” he said. “We’ll get every plane that will fly ready to go and arm them with anything we can find.”
“Should we hit them now, sir?” Roberts knew he was at great disadvantage here. He could rely on his own men, but the loyalty of the Assyrian Levees was as yet untested. One look at the list of guns noted by the recce pilot gave him a chill, even in the desert heat. “Look, they have at least twelve 18 pounders, a couple of 4.5 inch howitzers and several small 3.7s, but it’s enough to hurt us badly if they get to it.”
Smart was senior officer on base, and the call was his. “No,” he said after some deliberation. “Given our situation, I don’t think it would be wise to provoke them. We’ve a message in hand from their envoy stating this is nothing more than a training exercise.”
“Not bloody likely, sir. That’s a big desert out there, and they came all the way from Baghdad.”
“Of course, but we can play along for time if possible. They’ve also demanded we cease all air operations, but I’ve told them we have training to do as well, and any attempt to interfere with it will be treated as an act of war. Ambassador Cornwallis in Baghdad fully supported that response. Let’s see if they have the temerity to do anything more with those troops up there, but for the moment, we’ll keep to Middle East Command policy and not interfere with them.”
“Very well, sir, but we may regret our propriety here. They could be merely waiting for darkness before launching an attack.”
“Make any prudent defensive preparation, Colonel. If things take a turn for the worse we can still use the planes.”
“Yes sir, assuming they aren’t all blown to hell.”
Smart gave Roberts a nod, understanding his concern, but willing to give it time. Unfortunately, the situation was not winding down. They received a note from Baghdad stating that a protest had been made to the Iraqi government, and that the “maneuvers” were been looked upon as an act of war, which would require a response if the troops were not withdrawn. Realizing they already had the cat by the tail, the Iraqis would not back down.
A guarded night passed, with the men at the watch for long, sleepless hours. Thankfully, no attack came, but by dawn Air Vice Marshall Smart was having second thoughts. He stood on the tarmac, seeing the trainers of the 4th Service Flying Training School. With them there were three Gladiators, thirty Hawker Audax “fighters,” seven Fairey Gordon light bombers, a number of Hawker Harts and one Blenheim. He had eighty-four planes, but only thirty-nine trained pilots. The rest of the nearly 1000 R.A.F. contingent were service personnel. Yet now he learned that a squadron of Wellingtons had been moved to southern Iraq, and that they had received authorization to launch “air strikes” from Churchill himself!
“Help is on the way,” came the message. “If you have to strike, strike hard. Use all necessary force.”
With authorization from the Prime Minister in hand, Smart gave the order to begin operations, and the crews were rolling out the planes, the first fitful sputter of the engines greeting the dawn. He could get 56 planes operational, but would fly off squadrons of twelve at a time to try and keep near continuous operations over the enemy positions. The planes were to drop their small 20 pound bombs and strafe the enemy gun positions in the hope of driving them off. As the first planes took off, he got word that eight Wellingtons were on the way to add some real thunder to his planned attack, and he took heart while the troops under Colonel Roberts sat in their positions, continuing to sand bag and dig in.
The morning call of the Muezzin had been answered by the Iraqi troops that day, and many were still bent in prayer when the sound of the engines came rolling on the clear desert air. They were soon shocked to realize that the tiny garrison aircraft were attacking them, and the whole encampment soon erupted with the sound of battle. Men leapt up from their prayer mats and ran for their rifles, tents emptied as bleary eyed officers came out from their breakfast to see what all the commotion was. A troop of camels bolted when the first planes roared in, their small bombs opening what would become a century of oil wars in Iraq and the Middle East. The planes wheeled overhead, Lewis guns rattling and chewing up the dry desert loam as they made their strafing runs.
Men were running in all directions, but soon the officers managed to get crews to their artillery and they began to return fire on the airfield. Colonel Roberts flinched as the first 18-pounders landed on the flat, dry field. Then he saw a salvo land right in the midst of a flight of trainers, the explosions sending one plane cart wheeling up as the rounds came in. He tightened his helmet strap, running past a Vickers heavy machinegun position and down the line to the mortar teams. He had six 2-inch mortars and two 3-inch trench mortars which would seem a feeble reply, but he got them firing just the same.
That same day the news would reach the Grand Mufti in Baghdad, and he was so outraged at the British attack that he immediately spoke the word that would haunt Western powers for decades after—jihad! Hands were quickly on the wheels controlling the valve to the pipeline that stretched all the way to Haifa where the British took delivery of oil from Iraq, and it was shut down, stopping the flow. British pounds sterling would no longer be accepted for this vital resource. It would now have to be paid for in blood and steel. By nightfall the damage was tallied on both sides. The Britis
h had lost 22 aircraft, 8 dead, and 32 others wounded by the Iraqi shelling. It was news of this event that came to the fireside meeting with Churchill, Wavell and Fedorov, and galvanized the plans for Operation Scimitar.
“Another few days like that and we won’t have a single plane air worthy here,” said Roberts to Sergeant Jeffers. “To make matters worse, Air Vice Martial Smart drove out to the field last night, headlights off, and ran right into a ditch. He took a hard knock, and will have to be evacuated to India. I’m to assume overall command of the garrison. I hope your men are ready, Sergeant.”
“The men are digging in, sir. But there’s little in the way of timber available for top cover on the trenches, and those damn 18 pounders will be on us again at first light.”
“We took out three yesterday, but the Iraqis are bringing up reinforcements. Damn! We need artillery. What about those two 4.5 inch howitzers outside the Officers Mess?”
“Those date back to the Great War, sir. Haven’t been fired for decades. They’re just for show.”
“Yes? Well, we’ve a new great war to fight now laddie. Get them squared away for action. The Wogs have two bloody divisions in and around Baghdad, and this lot here is already more than enough to finish us off if we just sit here like this.”
“It won’t be the first time a British garrison has stood up under tough odds, sir. Shall I have the men tear down that old shed for wood to strengthen our positions?”
“No Sergeant, we aren’t going to sit here watching the planes fluttering about while we take another pounding tomorrow.”
“Then what will we do, sir?”
“We’re going to do just what well trained British infantry is paid for. As soon as the sun sets, we’re going to attack!”
Chapter 8
RAF Habbaniyah was a sprawling complex tucked away in a wide bend of the Euphrates River west of Fallujah, some 500 acres of land surrounded by seventeen miles of steel fencing, studded with block housed machinegun positions every 300 yards. Yet the base was very vulnerable to any determined attack, being dominated by a low plateau that was now seething with over 9000 Iraqi soldiers. The tiny garrison there was as far from help as any in the British Empire might be, or so they thought. The sign at the main gate to the base pointed in one direction to Baghdad, listing the distance at 55 miles. Below this another arrow pointed out the Mecca of the empire, reading: “London 3287 Miles.”
The base was laid out in typical British efficiency, between the river and a water canal that ran along its southern perimeter, and marked a thin boundary between the facility and the ground rising to the plateau. It had a Civil Cantonment for the service personnel families and wives, a hospital, mess halls for officers, sergeants and rankers, all laid out in a patchwork connected by roads with proper names: Grantham, Kenley, Cranwell, Andover. On Tangmere Road there was a cool cluster of shade trees known as the “Command Garden” near the HQ building, and opposite this, on the north side of the base near the river, was the Air House, now absent commanding officer Smart. There was even a racetrack, polo pitch, and golf course for recreation to finish off this little island of civility in an otherwise desolate and wild land. Now these open spaces had been used to disperse planes from the crowded airfield on the southwest quadrant of the base.
Colonel Roberts had men haul away the old WWI howitzers that had been sitting as show pieces out in front of the Officer’s Mess, and they had been put to good use that day. And the men of the Number 4 Flying School had an exhilarating day as well, proud that they were now renamed “Habbaniyah Air Striking Force.” They were pressing everything that could fly into the battle the following day, and dusk found the base still in a hustle of feverish activity.
Flight Lieutenant Maurice Skeet was in charge of a flight of old Vickers Valentia biplanes, a round nosed transport with an open cockpit and room for twenty people in the long enclose fuselage. He had been looking for Air Vice Marshall Smart to see if he could get permission to move his flight to a safer location on the polo pitch earlier, but in the heat of the moment he had gone away unsatisfied. The resulting Iraqi artillery bombardment that day had riddled his Valentias with shrapnel, rendering them all unserviceable. As the planes had been rigged out as makeshift bombers, they now were a liability sitting there with live ordnance.
“Come on then, he said to his crews. We’d best get those bombs off and back into the magazines. One of the Wogs might just get lucky and put a round right on top of us. Start with number 2792—that one has four 500 pounders—then on to the rest. Then it’s into the nearest ARP for the lot of us. We’ll get no digs in the billets tonight. Too much of a target.” The A.R.P. was short for the “Air Raid Precaution” trenches that had been dug all around the base.
The crews set to work, but down south on the perimeter, Colonel Ouvry Linfield Roberts had the men of the King’s Own Rifles,and several companies of Assyrian Levees, ready to go ‘over the wire’ and make a night attack on the plateau. The Iraqis had been bringing up reinforcements, occupying and closing the bridge over the Euphrates to the east at Fallujah, and even sending a small force of armored cars up to Ramadi to the west. Slowly but surely, they were sealing off the base to isolate it from all outside contact or supply.
Now Colonel Roberts had to decide what to do about the situation, and he had a mind to take aggressive action in spite of the disparity in force. They were lucky their air strike had not provoked a general attack by the enemy. Earlier that day eight Iraqi armored cars and three tankettes had approached the Fallujah gate, but when confronted with three of the British armored cars mounting AT rifles, they turned away. But they’ll soon realize that’s about all we have to stop them, thought Roberts. I can’t let them sleep on it tonight. We’ve got to move them off that plateau.
As the sun set, Roberts gave orders to black out the entire base. Any light might only serve as a beacon for enemy planes, and the order seemed to produce good results. As darkness settled over the base they heard the sound of an aircraft overhead, but it passed on by uneventfully. Some minutes later they heard bombs falling and exploding in Ramadi to the west, which the enemy had mistaken for their own encampment.
Captain Cottingham came over from one of the native companies to complain about a gun position north of the river that had been shelling the Cantonment that day.
“Then take your company across and get after them,” said Roberts, sending No. 8 Kurdish Rifles to their first action of the war. For his own part, Roberts was taking two companies of the Kings Own Rifles, and he had the No. 4 Assyrian Company in lorries ready to sortie out should his small force get into trouble. The men assembled to either side of a perimeter blockhouse, moving out with all the stealth they could manage. It was soon found that the enemy had patrols out as well, and the chatter of a machine gun broke the hushed darkness.
Three British Armored Cars, nicknamed “Coffee Pots,” led the way out the Uxbridge Gate and across a narrow bridge over the canal. They then swung off to the right to find a way up onto the plateau while the Kings Own Rifles fanned out. No sooner had they assembled for the move up the furrowed gullies of the plateau flank, when they were taken under withering machine gun fire.
“Bloody Hell!’ said Lt. Colonel Everett. “They’re dug in, and with Vickers guns.” The British had armed much of the Iraqi army that was now made their enemy, and the attack planned by Roberts soon became a difficult situation, with men pinned down on the dry slopes and casualties starting to mount. Everett got to a telephone and reported this to Roberts, who quickly sent up a truck with a Vickers MG and a 3 inch mortar for support. The night was soon thick with the sound of rifle fire and machine guns, and Major Cooper was desperately trying to get the two old 4.5-inch howitzers into shape to fire again. It would take an artificer flown in from Basra to sort those guns out now, so for the moment, they had only a few trench mortars and anything they might capture from the enemy.
Two squads of A company made a rush on one Iraqi position, driving off the Wogs with a b
ayonet charge and taking possession of two 3.7 inch guns, which they promptly turned on the enemy farther up the slope. But it was clear that Colonel Roberts’ attack was not going to get up that hill tonight, and might not even make it safely back over the canal to the base.
“This is no good,” he said, exasperated as a runner brought in the casualty count. “We’ve too few men to see them picked off like this on that slope. Everything depended on our getting up there unseen.” At that moment there came an odd thumping sound in the distance, and he turned his head, listening.
“Those aren’t guns,” he said, first thinking he was hearing shell fire. Then he thought it must be bombs falling again on Ramadi, but he was very wrong.
Just south and east of the plateau, four helicopters were coming in very low over the waters of the wide Habbaniyah lake. Their lights darkened, they were heading for the wrinkled shore at the base of the plateau, where wadis and gullies had been cut into the dry ground. Thus they were below this undulating terrain, heard but not seen, when they reached the shore and hovered in billowing clouds of dust. Men in dark uniforms and Kevlar body armor leapt from the open doors, sliding down ropes on either side of the helos and then fanning out to immediately establish a perimeter on the LZ. The heavy weapons caches were lowered last, and what amounted to a light company in actual numbers was soon assembling into five man teams.
Troyak had command on the right flank with four squads of his Black Death Marines. Their faces were streaked and blackened with war paint, eyes mounting infrared night optics under their dark helmets. Two men were already setting up the 82mm mortars, and others were sorting out the remaining heavy weapons and getting them off to the rifle teams. On their right, squads of the Argonauts had deployed off the three X-3 helos, which were now loudly revving up to begin their attack from above. The helicopters were going to bring the considerable weight of their firepower against the enemy first, and the men of the King’s Own Rifles were soon treated to an amazing display.
Hammer of God (Kirov Series Book 14) Page 7