Apache

by Ed Macy

  Barricaded inside the DC and on the top of JTAC Hill (as they’d christened it), the marines replied with air strikes, heavy machine guns and 105-mm artillery called in from a gun line set up for them in the desert. Every enemy shooting position in the few square kilometres around them had been pummelled five times over.

  Garmsir used to boast a busy high street and bustling bazaar, but all the locals had moved out to escape the Taliban regime. After the schools were closed and rebellious farmers beheaded, its shabby streets were deserted. Skeletal buildings lay derelict amongst the debris. Whenever the shooting lapsed, an eerie silence fell. ‘Even the birds have left,’ its defenders said.

  Every so often, when Colonel Magowan’s southern battlegroup could cobble together the resources, the marines would push the Taliban back from their ramparts. And that’s where we came in. HQ Flight was rostered on Deliberate Taskings, so the job of giving close air support to one such counter-attack fell to us. It was the best kind of mission; going in dirty, shoulder to shoulder with the troops, was what made flying an Apache such a joy.

  The objective of the attack was to clear a square kilometre of farmland to the DC’s immediate south, up to a long east–west treeline. The marines couldn’t hold the ground; they didn’t have the spare men. But in the process they’d learn about the enemy’s routes of approach, kill those who were well entrenched, destroy their fortified positions, and perhaps buy the garrison a few days’ breathing space.

  Two Royal Marine companies were moved in covertly overnight, and the objective area was heavily bombed and shelled. At 10am, the two companies stretched along the main road and advanced slowly south. An RAF Harrier was on station to give them initial air cover. We were tasked to arrive forty-five minutes later.

  Trigger hogged the front seat of our Apache again. I didn’t put up a fuss. He was enjoying himself so much I didn’t want to take the smile off his face. We checked in with their JTAC, Widow Eight Three, and he told us it was going well. The enemy were not standing and fighting. Caught out by the size of the marine contingent and with no time to reinforce, they were falling back, offering only sporadic ‘shoot and scoot’ fire as they did so. The JTAC gave us the positions of all the friendly forces.

  ‘Ugly callsigns, we believe Taliban might be infiltrating a large compound 300 metres to the south of our limit of exploitation. I would like you to fix them there and destroy them.’

  I took us three klicks straight south on the western side of the river, and banked hard left to hook us in behind the target.

  ‘Okay, I’ve got five Taliban entering the compound now.’

  The Boss started to get excited again. ‘Looks like they’re trying to get into cover before the marines reach the treeline and catch them in the open.’

  ‘Weapons?’

  The Boss zoomed in his TADS.

  ‘Yes. The last bloke’s got an RPG. And they’re running.’

  I looked down at the MPD by my right knee. All five were now running diagonally through an orchard within the compound’s outer wall. They must have heard our rotor blades; we were only 1,500 metres off. Sunlight glinted off the working parts of their AK47s.

  ‘Affirm boss. They’re enemy all right. Get ’em.’

  ‘Five One, firing with thirty Mike Mike.’

  Trigger put three bursts of twenty rounds into the group. The RPG man and the guy in front of him were torn apart by the shrapnel, but the three leaders made it into a reinforced adobe hut in the south-east corner. The Boss put another two bursts onto the front wall, gouging great chunks off it, but these things were built to last and we weren’t sure how much was getting through.

  Billy had come round from the north. ‘Five Zero, I saw men running in the direction of that hut before you engaged the orchard. I reckon there could be quite a few of them in there.’

  ‘Copied, thanks. Let’s get a bomb on it.’

  Topman, the Harrier pilot, said it would be a few minutes before he could set up a run, so the Boss delivered a Hellfire through its letterbox whilst Billy pinned the Taliban inside it with harassing cannon fire. The missile collapsed half the roof, and we got the Harrier to stick a 500-lb GBU in there for good measure. By the time we’d finished, there wasn’t anything left of it.

  The marines had reached the treeline, clearing all enemy from the target area. Widow Eight Three told us to look into a few more isolated compounds south of them for any enemy movement. There was none. True to form, the Taliban had gone to ground in a plethora of well-prepared hiding places.

  ‘Ugly callsigns, come north-east of the treeline and hold there. We’re going to drop all the compounds with 105-mm.’

  Salvo after salvo of artillery rounds would dislodge the Taliban from their hideouts. They’d break for better cover and the fast air and Apaches could bomb the merry hell out of them; good old-fashioned scorched earth tactics – as effective for the marines today as they were for the Carthaginians 2,200 years earlier.

  There wasn’t a civilian within ten miles of the place; we could see that ourselves from the unkempt state of the fields – so the marines were keen to make the most of the firepower they had that day, and give the Taliban a licking they wouldn’t forget. I checked our fuel level. Ten minutes left on station.

  ‘Boss, we’re not that far off chicken. Might be a good time to RTB for a suck of gas, and to bomb up the aircraft again …’ Going chicken meant you only had enough fuel to get back to base within the legal limit. The marines were under good cover in the irrigation ditches, and it would take an hour or two to bring in all the artillery fire missions they wanted. The Harrier was pulling off, to be replaced by a US F18 Hornet, and an A10 had just come on station too. It was a perfect time for us to break off.

  Widow Eight Three agreed. ‘The commander wants all ground callsigns to go firm for a few hours while we fix as many enemy as we can. Can you come back down to cover their withdrawal?’

  We agreed with the JTAC that we’d stay on thirty minutes’ notice for his call to return. We’d go back to Camp Bastion, refuel and rearm, and wait in the JHF for his shout.

  The boys in Garmsir deserved to get the chance to give the Taliban what for. Until today they’d been in a living hell, just like the Paras had in Sangin during the summer. Siege warfare: their sole aim was survivability; pounded, probed, shot and wounded day in, day out, night in and night out. I smiled as I looked out of the window and saw them in the long treeline whacking the Taliban. It was a pleasure to help.

  We were sitting in the loading bays midway through the 30-mm upload when an urgent voice came online from the Ops Room.

  ‘Ugly Five One Flight, Zero. Rearm as quickly as possible. Do not close down. You are going back down to Garmsir immediately.’

  We didn’t want to clutter up the Apache net by asking why. We’d find out when we needed to. A more detailed order followed as we taxied onto the runway.

  ‘Ugly Five Zero, Ugly Five One; you are to escort a CH47, callsign Doorman Two Six, on a Casevac to collect a T1 and a T3. Then remain in support of Widow Eight Three, who is receiving very effective enemy fire.’

  A T1, a T3 and they were still getting nasty incoming? Jesus. Carl didn’t want to speculate over the radio so he sent a text.

  WHAT WENT WRONG … ALL CALM WHEN WE LEFT …

  A casualty was given one of four initial gradings by the medics on the ground. It allowed the recovery chain to know how best to prioritise their resources in response. T1 meant the casualty’s life was in grave danger; he had to be recovered by air immediately. Get him to the operating theatre at Camp Bastion’s field hospital within an hour and his chances of survival were significantly increased. It was what we called the golden hour. T2 meant the casualty could be stabilised but was in a serious condition and needed to get to hospital before he ran the risk of becoming T1. T3 was commonly referred to as the walking wounded – every other conceivable injury that was not life-threatening within twenty-four hours and required extraction. T4 was the least time-
pressing, because T4 meant he was dead. It was hard-nosed military risk management – designed to send a clear signal about whether the recovery chopper should risk jeopardising its crew, surgeons and medics to pick up our injured.

  The mighty Chinook’s blades began to turn.

  We still couldn’t make sense of it. When we’d left, the Taliban were in disarray and it was a turkey shoot for the marines. How could the tables have turned so quickly?

  MUST HAVE BEEN A LUCKY MORTAR BOMB … BOSS

  OR VERY UNLUCKY … BILLY

  There was no other way the Taliban could have got through the marines’ arcs of fire.

  We escorted Doorman down. The Chinook tanked it, low level at top speed, the quickest line from A to B. It landed in the cover of a berm north-west of the Garmsir bridge as we scoured the approaches. The two casualties were loaded on board and Doorman lifted again less than thirty seconds later. We checked in with Widow Eight Three.

  ‘Ugly, Widow, we are being engaged heavily from the east–west treeline, the original limit of our exploitation.’ The treeline? Wasn’t that where the marines were?

  ‘Copied. Send friendly forces’ positions.’

  ‘Friendly forces are falling back from the treeline towards the main road now.’ He gave us their grids.

  ‘Also, confirm you can see an oval-shaped series of compounds on the western side of the farmland, halfway between the treeline and the main road.’

  ‘Affirm, I see friendlies.’

  ‘That is the location of the tactical headquarters. That’s where we were hit and took the casualties.’

  The casualties in the tactical HQ seemed to have brought a swift end to the scorched earth artillery plan. If the marines now thought the Taliban had accurate grids to mortar them, they needed to move out of there fast. As they exfiltrated, the initiative inevitably swung back to the enemy.

  The Boss and Billy swept the treeline with their TADSs, pouring long bursts of cannon at any glimpse of Taliban. They could see very little; these people were good. They used the trees and bushes over the irrigation ditches to follow-up unseen. The marines reported one new firing position after another as they withdrew; the Taliban had infiltrated the whole of the kilometre-long treeline and were harassing them all the way back to the main road.

  It called for some scorched earth tactics of our own. As soon as we were satisfied all the marines had pulled back far enough, we put pair after pair of Flechette rockets into the trees. The two Apaches took it in turns to run in, again and again, following up each time with cannon. We saw the Flechette darts strip through the higher branches, but the undergrowth was so thick we couldn’t see where they landed. It was impossible to confirm any kills.

  After half an hour of our bombardment, Widow Eight Three reported the two companies of marines had reached the relative safety of the main road without any further casualties. Our suppression seemed to have worked, and we were released to return to base.

  They would like to have stayed out for longer, but the marines had achieved all they could in the circumstances. The attack hadn’t been a failure by its own standards – despite the complete lack of territorial gain. It had been bitter and bloody stuff, with every metre of ground passionately contested then handed right back to the enemy. But this was business as usual in the hell that was Garmsir.

  It is extremely hard to measure success when we take casualties. Their aim was to clear the ground to the treeline and flatten the firing points that the Taliban used beyond it. This was achieved but at a high cost. This was technological warfare on a par with World War One: Tommy over the top after the guns and Tommy falling back to his original trench. It did allow Magowan to test the resolve of the Taliban and they were most certainly up for the fight. They were strong, well armed, well trained and ferocious. It was a costly but vital mission to know where the Taliban routes were, and where their firing points in the treeline were. It would now give the marines some breathing space in the DC whilst Magowan concentrated on the big plan.

  Six hours after we climbed into our cockpits, the four of us made our weary way into the JHF for the usual debrief. Alice’s expression told us an already bad day was about to get a whole lot worse.

  ‘Just so you know, it looks as though we’ve got a blue-on-blue situation down in Garmsir. Nothing to do with anything you put down; it was when you were on your way back to refuel. We think the F18 strafed the marines’ command post, and that’s what gave us the T1 and T3.’

  My heart sank. A blue-on-blue. Fuck. Suddenly it all made sense. The Taliban hadn’t managed to strike back at the marines after all. Our own aircraft had done that for them. Just when the guys were really nailing the bastards who were making their lives a misery, they got a smack from one of their own.

  ‘The Special Investigations Branch guys have already been in,’ Alice said. ‘They asked if you could hang around the JOC for them.’

  Every friendly fire was acutely investigated. Statements had to be taken from everyone who had been operating in the area. The SIB examined the circumstances in case of negligence then the Board of Inquiry tried to learn lessons for the future. The process often took years.

  We knew then that only two things could have caused it. The F18 would have been tasked onto its targets by Widow Eight Three or another JTAC, just as we had been onto ours. Either the US pilot had been given the wrong grid or he had mistaken the marines’ compound for the Taliban’s.

  Blue-on-blues from the air were nothing new. For every offensive aircrew, intiating fire on friendly troops was the worst nightmare of all. That day in Garmsir, the American pilot had been trying to save Coalition lives. But close air support was a dangerous and complex business, supplied in circumstances of great pressure for both ground troops and pilots. It was often very fucking close. The tiniest mistake – a number on a grid reference, the briefest lapse in concentration pulling the trigger, or the slightest movement of the TADS – meant the difference between hitting your enemy and your friend.

  By nightfall that day, the Union Flag over the JOC had been lowered to half mast. The T1 had become a T4. Marine Jonathan Wigley was pronounced dead in Camp Bastion’s field hospital; a mem-ber of Zulu Company, 45 Commando, he was twenty-one years old.

  The Apache force was brought in on Operation Glacier two days later. We hadn’t heard about it before, because we hadn’t needed to. Like all covert operations, it was kept very hush hush. The brigade were only bringing us into the loop now because they needed our help.

  Colonel Magowan’s southern battlegroup had been doing a lot more than just holding Garmsir. And they’d be doing it for a month already.

  ‘They’ve got a few jobs for us.’ Our Ops Officer briefed out the basics of the plan. ‘And they will take priority over all other Deliberate Taskings.’

  Everything was being thrown at Operation Glacier, because it was the most ambitious plan the Helmand Task Force had drawn up since our arrival. As far back as early November, it had been decided that Garmsir could not be held successfully by British grit alone – however steely it was proving. The periodic counter-attacks were only cutting off a few Taliban snakeheads, and they soon grew back.

  We needed to put a 7.62-mm high-velocity bullet straight through Medusa’s temple. That meant hitting the Taliban where it really hurt: smashing the long underbelly of their southern supply chain. They came to have a crack at us from Kandahar in the east, and the mountains of Uruzgan in the north. But the Taliban’s main supply route into Helmand was from the Pakistani border in the south.

  Not only would severing it reduce the pressure on Garmsir, it would also reduce the flow of men and arms to the other four contested locations, impairing the Taliban’s operations across the province: up to five birds killed – or at least badly winged – with one big stone. Of course, the Taliban would eventually recover and establish a new MSR, but that would take them time – and time is what the Task Force was most keen to buy. The harder the enemy MSR was hit, the longer it would take
to rebuild.

  Operation Glacier had two stages: quiet and then noisy. The first was a thorough and painstaking reconnaissance of the roads they used, the places they stopped to rest, their supply dumps and command centres. Their entire southern logistical structure had to be analysed piece by piece. Concentrations of enemy fighters were the most prized targets. Only once the main concentration points had been acquired would Brigadier Jerry Thomas give the order for them to be destroyed; methodically, one after the other, and with a massive display of force. The quiet reconnaissance stage was expected to take around two months. Nothing was likely to go noisy until January. Or so we were told.

  It had been no coincidence that Magowan’s Information Exploitation Battlegroup had been given Helmand’s southern stretch as their area of operations. The brigadier had obviously had a pretty good idea of what he wanted to achieve down there from the moment he arrived. The battlegroup was structured as a highly advanced recce unit, pulling together under Colonel Magowan’s command all the intelligence gathering formations the brigade had: 45 Commando’s lightly armed and highly mobile Recce Troop, C Squadron of the Light Dragoons in their armoured Scimitars, the Brigade Reconnaissance Force – the marines in-house Special Forces – and Y Troop, the expert signallers who eavesdropped on the enemy’s communications. As his muscle when he needed it, he also had two regular Royal Marine rifle companies: 42 Commando’s India Company and 45 Commando’s Zulu Company.

  The units had been discreetly sent out to track even further south of Garmsir. They would come off the desert into the Green Zone’s fringes, and probe for any reaction. Some areas were quiet, others a hive of Taliban activity. They would never stay in one place long enough to give the enemy the impression they had any special interest in it. Instead, everything they witnessed was logged. If the Taliban had engaged them or they had spotted sentries, it was pinged as a hot spot and an eavesdropping station was set up to intercept all radio transmissions and phone calls.