by Ross, Hamish
Fred’s execution of his one-man operation was worthy of his years in the SAS: patient, low-profile observation to begin with; emergence of a clear, simple plan; then skill and timing in extracting the Chief without resources or back-up. Indeed that morning, on the drive to Freetown, memories of some of his operational experiences returned. It began when his acute inner warning system was reactivated. This was an extraordinary faculty he discovered he had when he was on SAS operations – and it was of proven efficacy.
That morning it was triggered again. They were about five miles from Bo and were passing the burnt out Salcost crushing plant. Salcost was an Italian road construction company that was building a road with Italian government aid to Sierra Leone. Heavy plant, bitumen mining machines and burnt out trucks scarred the quarry site. Fred had been commenting that if the rebels destroyed the plant it would be a tragedy, not only for the company but for Sierra Leone. Whatever was Hinga Norman’s response, it was lost on Fred, because the road, at this point, went through a cutting, and suddenly the hairs at the back of his neck felt as if they were rising, and he had the overpowering feeling that they were being watched.
Images from past SAS operations returned as he remembered when he had had that feeling before. In 1965, his Squadron was in Borneo, and neighbouring Indonesia was sending insurgents across the border to destabilize the local situation. Indonesia, though, denied responsibility for the attacks and the British government, for its part, could not take overt action against that country. But the SAS were covertly penetrating its borders, tracking down the raiders’ bases. Once, Fred’s patrol was well inside the Indonesian border watching a track that was used by Indonesian soldiers. There were three army camps situated some distance from each other, roughly in the form of a triangle; and the routine was that from these three camps, in the morning, the soldiers would send civilians to check out the tracks. If they were clear, a shot would be fired from each camp at around 0900hrs. Traffic would then move between camps.
On this occasion, Lou Lumby and myself were to watch the track, lying alongside an old log a few metres from the track, camouflaged with our face veils and cream. We heard the sound of boots on hard compacted sandy track – a sort of toom, toom. Lou signaled to me with the thumb down and about 5 minutes later, a patrol of Indonesian soldiers passed by. Away and out of sight, we could hear them talking and the first thing that came to my mind was as if one soldier said to another, ‘Hey, did you have that feeling that we were being watched back there?’
Later that year, however, there was nothing whimsical about the way Fred’s inner sense took over: it saved his life. It happened on the 29 May 1965 in the Republic of Yemen. An initial contact took place in Wadi Sharkah at a place code named Crow. An SAS patrol came across a group of terrorists sleeping by a stream and a firefight took place. The patrol won the engagement but took two casualties and the remaining terrorists fled taking their wounded. The following morning the SAS checked the area for signs of blood, and Fred’s Troop found some heading towards a rocky outcrop above their own position.
Two of us, covered by our Troop Commander, followed the blood trail. Suddenly we lost the trail and on doing a cast, we found the track, but this time it was heading towards a little village below. I was on the left hand, sidewalking on the lip of the re-entrant and Ken and the Boss were on the right hand side. Suddenly, I sensed that there was something wrong and I stepped back off the top of the bank. A shot rang out. We hit the deck at the same time and as the other two fired, the bullets came over my head. I shouted to them to stop and to guide me to where the shot came from. I threw a rock and they told me to go left a bit. The second rock seemed to be in the right area, and I followed it up with a phosphorous grenade. When it exploded, I stood up and as the smoke cleared, I saw a figure in a little hole in the bottom of the re-entrant. I was just about to run down but then I realized that all he had got to do was to look up and put a bullet through me. Training took over and I double-tapped him at the back of his head. His black hair rose up and bits of brain spattered everywhere. It was horrible. But war is too. You either kill or be killed!
After searching the body, they buried it with rocks where it lay. Fred took from it a one Rial note of The Arab Republic of Yemen; he wrote the date on it – a sombre memento of obeying instinct and choosing, in a split-second, who would live and who would die.
Yet again in Yemen, when he was in the role of the hunter, his extraordinary sensitivity alerted him that he and his friend were no longer the hunters – they were the prey. And his anticipation of his enemy’s next move saved both himself and his friend. It happened in the district of Sheikh Othman. One terrorist tactic was to mingle in a crowded area and then lob a grenade at a patrol of British soldiers as it crossed a road junction. A variation on this tactic was for a terrorist to infiltrate the busy souk on the look out for a soft-centre target, an off-duty soldier buying trinkets to take home, and shoot him at close range. The terrorist weapon of choice for this type of assassination was the Czechoslovak Vzor 7.65 pistol. It fitted neatly into the hand, was easy to conceal and deadly at close range. Over the period, these tactics accounted for the death of about 13 British soldiers.4
In response to this danger, two-man teams of SAS soldiers, not in uniform but in Arab dress, and usually enhanced with make up, went out after dark to mingle in crowded areas, armed with a concealed 9 mm pistol in a shoulder holster. They were tasked to observe for signs of an assassin stalking his victim and then take him out. One particular evening, Fred was partnered with his friend Paddy Byrnes and they were approaching the junction they had to cover. Men assigned to this role had not only to look the part, they had to act the part and normally remain mute as they performed it. And so this evening, as Arab men quite often do in public, Fred and Paddy held hands as they made their way towards the junction they were allocated. They were approaching it when a patrol of the Parachute Regiment came into sight; as it was passing, one Para shouted to his mate, ‘Look at the queers!’ Of course the man had no idea that he was referring to two under-cover soldiers of his country’s army; but even if he had, it might have made no difference to his comment. However, the taunt was too much for Paddy and he muttered a few expletives in a low voice to Fred. Whether the expletives were heard more widely, or whether it was the body language of an ‘Arab’ in response to abuse in English that did it, something alerted another hunter, one armed with a 7.65 pistol. But then, he too, in his zeal to stalk them, betrayed his intentions. And Fred’s instinct picked it up.
How? His eyes were everywhere. On us and away from us, but most of all, his hands were in a footer pocket, a pocket almost like the sporran on a kilt. I told Paddy to keep an eye on him too. Next minute we lost him! Then suddenly, the hair of the back of my head seemed to stand up and when I turned around, there he was right behind us with his hands in the pocket of his footer. I started to scratch my left armpit where my 9mm was in a shoulder holster and he pulled out his hands holding a box of matches and walked away.
Fred has no doubt: the man was an assassin. Even to this day when he recalls it, he comes out in goose pimples.
Hence on the morning of Wednesday 4 January 1995, as he and Chief Hinga Norman drove through the cutting in the road by the wrecked Salcost plant, Fred had no doubts that his life-saving sixth sense was still operational. It was probably becoming clear to him too that he might soon be called on to take up a combat role again.
The mining Company put up Chief Hinga Norman in one of the rooms of a stadium in Freetown. And as he thought over what he had done in Bo, extracting Hinga Norman from a vulnerable situation, Fred realized that he was forming a commitment to the man. He responded to Hinga Norman’s integrity. He felt that Hinga Norman took his responsibilities as a chief very seriously and that his first priority was the well-being of his people. For example, the concession paid a small percentage to the local authority of the area in which it was sited, and that authority was the traditional tribal chiefdom; and Hinga Norm
an saw to it that the money went to the people – it was not to feather his own nest. In his political views he was forthright: he wanted parliamentary democracy restored to Sierra Leone.
Hinga Norman too was becoming aware that a bonding was developing. He and Fred often met for a meal together and one evening Hinga Norman questioned him about it.
He said, ‘Fred,’ and he looked at me for a long time, and he smiled and he said, ‘Fred, you have a country, you don’t need to get involved in this sort of situation; you have a country that you can go to. Why do you get involved?’ And I said, ‘Chief, if I was to turn my back on you, every time I heard something about Sierra Leone on the news, especially you fighting the war, I would feel very guilty for leaving you when you most needed me. I would carry that burden for the rest of my life and I would rather not.’ We both laughed and never talked about it again.
That was the way that Fred described it to Hinga Norman, but at a deeper level he was committing himself to an action, which in the SAS, is called ‘Crossing The River’. Crossing the river is when someone – whom you have trusted with your life and who has trusted you with his – is in need of your help, you do not turn your back on that person, and that decision is irrevocable.
Rebel activity was continuing and getting bolder. On 18 January, apparently in an attempt to intimidate foreign companies, they attacked a rutile mine belonging to Sieromco (Sierra Leone Ore and Metal Company) and took hostages: five expatriates, including the company’s security officer, and three Sierra Leonean senior management. Rudiger (Rudi) Bruns, Honorary Swiss Consul-General to Sierra Leone, was in his office at the mine that morning. Three auditors of KPMG were checking the annual accounts, and two British computer consultants were cleaning the company’s computers. When they finished they left and drove to Bo, Rudi’s secretary, Brimah, going with them. Brimah then returned to the mine, and, as he approached it, rebels ambushed his car and he was killed. About lunch time Rudi and the Managing Director, James Westwood, were preparing a presentation for their board of directors at head office in Zurich, when they heard gunfire. As it came nearer, the Sierra Leone military and paramilitary who were guarding the mine fled. In a nearby residential compound were the living quarters, where there were wives and children.
When the gunshots came closer to our works’ compound, I had already packed my briefcase with documents, some cash and personal items, for example, my Nikon F3 camera – which I saw later in the hands of Foday Sankoh! I rushed in my company car, a Citroen 2CV, to the main gate to enter our residential compound, just next door, to support my wife. Too late! Groups of RUF ‘boys’ with red headbands, firing gunshots into the air, were blocking the main gate. What to do? Back to the office! Within a few minutes, about eight of my colleagues assembled in my office, probably because my office was the last one of the whole block and considered to be safer.
Suddenly, it was dead quiet. No voices, no shooting, no birdsong. This continued for approximately ten minutes. These minutes were terrifying; no way to escape; no place to hide. We had heard stories of RUF burning houses while people were inside, committing atrocities or just killing innocent civilians. Then we could hear the noise of breaking doors by force – we had wooden doors. It started at the other end of the office block. They were coming closer, door by door. There was no screaming or shouting! My wife called me from the residence, asking what to do and what to pack. ‘Just keep calm and pack what we enjoyed most, and things to remember.’ She did very well. My office door split within seconds. We were expecting the worst. In came a boy of about 15 years, an AK47 in his hands and obviously surprised to meet so many people in the room. We immediately raised our hands and whispered ‘surrender’. The boy looked at us and replied, ‘Don’t be afraid, I am your friend. Please come out and join me.’ This was the beginning of a ninety-two-day journey across Sierra Leone of about 250 miles, walking in the shoes I was wearing, mainly at night over long distances for 12 hours or more with no rest.5
During his time as hostage of the RUF, Rudi saw at close-hand the effects on children who had been abducted and brutalized, becoming boy soldiers with a Kalashnikov.
I tried to escape twice, hiding in the bush, but I noticed that two SBUs (Small Boys Unit) were taking personal care of me. No chance! I remember one boy saying, ‘Please Papa, don’t do it again.’ It also became clear to me that these SBUs had lost their childhood. The gun was the family. One of my ‘caretakers’ found a little toy car in the village; he looked at it for a few minutes, and then destroyed the toy.6
After his eventual release, it took years before Rudi felt he could put on paper his experiences without revisiting trauma. Fortunately, however, his friendship for Fred was the deciding factor, and as this work was in process, he wrote for it a fascinating account of being a hostage. It appears in full as Appendix I.
A week after the attack on the rutile mine, the RUF took seven Roman Catholic nuns hostage. The Sierra Leonean army response to the RUF was quite ineffective. At one point Chief Hinga Norman, through the channel of the British High Commission, wrote to the Queen asking for British military help. This was quite a logical move, for until 1961 Sierra Leone had been a British colony and was a member of the Commonwealth. However, there seemed to be no official response to this appeal. The stumbling block for the British government was that Sierra Leone was ruled by a military government.
However, the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) had earlier established a non-standing military force, ECOMOG, which intervened in a peace keeping and security role in Liberia in 1990, and now, with the worsening situation in Sierra Leone and at the behest of the NPRC, a contingent of its Nigerian troops based themselves in Freetown.
As a consequence of intensified rebel actions, the Omai Mining Company discontinued its activities and withdrew its personnel from the country, leaving Fred behind to monitor the situation and report back if there was any improvement. Fred saw Hinga Norman quite often, and he discussed with him a very successful model the SAS had used in Oman in the 1970s. There, the SAS pursued not only a hearts and minds campaign, they also set up small training teams – and Fred was in one of them – to train cohorts of loyal local people, warriors in their own right, in proven military tactics and the use of modern weapons. And they moulded them into a highly effective fighting force that helped stem communist insurgency. The idea came to Fred when he was with Hinga Norman in the company of a cadre of local hunters that Hinga Norman was very close to, the Kamajors. The Kamajors were more than hunters however, they were a warrior cult, and they were characterized as being extremely loyal. Fred felt that a modified version of that SAS training in Oman could be made to work in Sierrra Leone, and that the selection and training of small numbers of men from the 149 chiefdoms could be carried out by a private military company, some of whose personnel would be ex-SAS. Hinga Norman was interested in the idea. But how would such a scheme be funded? The only possibility seemed to be by the government of the day, the National Provisional Ruling Council, headed by Capt Valentine Strasser. And Hinga Norman had the standing in the community that could bring about a meeting with Strasser to discuss the idea.
First of all though, its feasibility had to be explored, and so Fred flew to the UK and contacted his old Squadron Commander of SAS days, John Moss, who now worked for the private security company, Control Risks. Fred also wanted Alastair Riddell to be part of it.
Fred and I would have made the same committed team that we had always been. He believed, and he was prepared to commit with very little support. He wanted me in, but I could not keep pace with him and his absolute disregard for structure. He led and others followed in this situation. We visited John Moss. He knew Fred; I did not know him.7
Fred persevered, and persuading John Moss that this could be a good project for the company. A modified version of the original Omani model was worked out for the situation in Sierra Leone and priced. They would train a force of some 750 local fighters, drawn from all the chiefdoms of Sie
rra Leone. Each chiefdom, depending on its size, would provide between five and ten men, who would be put through a selection process. Training would last for nine months. The force would be divided into four troops: the Boat troop, the Land Rover troop, the Helicopter troop and a Heavy Weapons troop. With arms and equipment, which would include scout helicopters, that could be used as medivac, Land Rovers, four tonners and 81mm mortars, the overall cost was in the region of £2.5 million. John Moss agreed to fly with Fred to Sierra Leone and stay for five days during which time a meeting with Valentine Strasser would be arranged. If they were given the go-ahead, Fred and John Moss would then return to the UK and recruit a small team to carry out the training.
On 2 March, the pair arrived in Sierra Leone. Arrangements for a meeting were made through the good offices of Hinga Norman, and on Friday 10 March, John Moss met Valentine Strasser. But when he came back from the meeting John was not impressed: it seemed as though Strasser was high on marijuana. He was said to be a user. If he was, it was almost understandable that he sought refuge in a hallucinogen, because it was commonly believed that he was the accidental Head of State. He had been an army officer engaged in fighting the RUF, but in frustration at lack of support and non-payment of salaries to them, he led a group of soldiers to Freetown with no more ambitious an aim than to protest. However, on learning of their approach, the President panicked, deserted his post and fled the country; and Strasser, at the tender age of twenty-six, found that it was Buggins’ turn to be leader. Neither he nor his council, military though they were, had any real strategy for defeating the RUF. Whether or not Strasser took in the details of John Moss’s proposals, his body language suggested detachment. He was wearing dark glasses in a semi-darkened room; he would look up every now and then from his desk at John and then back to his desk. The conclusion of the meeting was that there was no money to pay for the training or the equipment. He said that there was not even £1.5 million to pay for the training of the Sierra Leonean army. So the following day, John left for the UK.