Hellfire

by Ed Macy

  The protective ring was missing on my monocle and the high G had cut an arc under my right eye.

  ‘Nice work, Ed,’ Jon said. ‘Looks like you’ve had some much-needed cosmetic surgery.’

  Four days later, when Charlie Alpha was back in Bastion, we found out they’d had their first full night of peace after we’d fired the Hellfire. Icom chatter had been detected and a Taliban commander had been heard saying that the mosquitoes had a weapon that is silent and deadly. It comes from the sky without warning and kills everything.

  The DC hadn’t been shot at again from that vantage point, and for the next three nights there was no sustained fire against the DC. The Taliban had got smacked up a treat. The tables had truly turned in Now Zad.

  The troops hadn’t been able to patrol into that area to see what had happened to the AA gun, but between us we reckoned he’d fired somewhere in the region of eighty rounds per burst. It wouldn’t all have been tracer-it’d probably have been every other round-and he’d loosed off four of them. That was an absolute shed-load of ammunition, and he might have stopped firing simply because he’d run out. I liked to think it was because the rounds that I fired back made him run for cover.

  Because we never had proof we’d hit the gun or the gunner, we had to assume that they were both still operational. He wasn’t a known player, so intelligence couldn’t confirm if we got him or not. From that point onwards, everyone dreaded getting caught over Now Zad. If the gunner was still alive, he’d had his warm-up. He would have analysed what went wrong, and he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.

  The truth was that we’d got away with it by the skin of our teeth. The guy was better than anyone could have imagined. How he got to that level was beyond belief. I certainly didn’t want to fly over him twice.

  The Intelligence guy confirmed our suspicions about the night sight. In other words, we could be seen day or night, wherever we were. It was open season on Apaches.

  Now the pressure was really on. We knew that they wanted to bag one. They were constantly shooting the Chinooks on the ground but had failed to kill one…so far. They’d been taking potshots at us as well; Pat and Tony had two holes in their fuselage to prove it. Tony went on to collect a lot more too.

  Now they’d brought in the one weapon system that we couldn’t defend against. RPGs we could survive, assuming they were lucky enough to hit us. SAMs we prayed the aircraft could deal with. The geeks at RAF Waddington said it could, but it was yet to be proven. But an anti-aircraft gun could kill us.

  They could now do so, day or night. The Taliban wanted a spectacular-to break into a base or to take down an aircraft. They’d come within inches of both today. The charred remains of an Apache would do nicely, as far as they were concerned. We’d got away with it this time, but there was still a weapon out there that potentially had our name on it.

  Uppermost in everyone’s mind was the fact that, because the sun was so bright in Afghanistan, you couldn’t see tracer by day at 1,000 feet. We wouldn’t know the blind death was heading in our direction until it hit us. If our encounter with the AA gunner had taken place in daylight, the first clue to his presence might have been when we were hurtling out of the sky, breaking into small pieces as we went.

  SIEGE

  In March 2006, 16 Air Assault Brigade’s elite, twenty-five-strong Pathfinder Platoon deployed to Helmand province. Their primary role was to pave the way for the 3 Para battlegroup’s forthcoming deployment. The last time the Parachute Regiment had been involved in heavy fighting was during the Falklands conflict in 1982-two years before I joined up-and they weren’t expecting much of a ruckus this time round. Their only task was to provide security while reconstruction got under way…

  Travelling in heavily armed WMIK Land Rovers with Pinzgauer 4x4 trucks as support, the Pathfinders put in long-range patrols across the province. They were attacked almost immediately by Taliban, and engaged in virtually continuous combat for the rest of their tour. By the time they left the province, the 3 Para battlegroup had suffered the loss of fourteen soldiers, one interpreter and another forty-six badly injured.

  In June, US forces moved out of Musa Qa’leh and the Pathfinders, who had already spent some days in the town, were ordered to relieve them. What was meant to be a six-day occupation until relief by A Company 3 Para turned into a six-week nightmare.

  The compound they shared with local police came under daily attack from small arms, machine guns, snipers, RPGs, mortars and a sangar-busting 82 mm recoilless rifle. A Company were ordered to hold Sangin and CO 3 Para informed the Pathfinders that he did not have the resources to relieve them.

  Living conditions were grim, with dust, temperatures of nearly 50°C, and dwindling supplies of food and water. Even the rules of engagement were against them. They were prevented from firing until they had physically seen a weapon being raised against them. To make matters worse, some of the ANA and ANP they were working with were either high on drugs or tipped off the Taliban, the Americans had a habit of carrying out operations they didn’t tell their allies about, and directives kept coming back from the top brass in Northwood that they were using too much ammunition.

  The Pathfinders must have thought we were on a bungee cord. I lost count of the number of times I’d been crashed out to Musa Qa’leh. I had every firing point committed to memory and knew the place as intimately as Crossmaglen. The fighting was just as ferocious as at Now Zad and Sangin but luckily for the Pathfinders, they never had that many serious injuries; lucky, because it was impossible to get in and out safely by air.

  One Chinook trying to pull out injured lads was shot up four times and the crew had to go back for another bird. It was so dangerous the lads were told to ration themselves because they would not be resupplied by air.

  Finally, after over a month and an average weight loss of a stone each, they were reinforced by a bunch of Danes in armoured vehicles. The Danes took five days to get into the town because of the tenacious resistance of the Taliban. Unfortunately, the Norsemen brought a new problem with them. Once they were in they couldn’t get out, and they began to eat the Pathfinders out of house and home.

  A huge operation to resupply Sangin and to build up its defences was mounted by 3 Para. Once this was complete all efforts were directed towards pulling out the now emaciated Pathfinder Platoon and replacing them with two platoons of Royal Irish.

  Yesterday that mission failed badly.

  We lost three soldiers trying. Musa Qa’leh has a high concentration of Taliban and a long Green Zone in which they could move virtually at will. It was in the Green Zone that the Taliban ambushed the armoured recce cars, killing a JTAC and two members of the Household Cavalry. We flew our arses off in support of the beleaguered troops. Jon and I had to swap aircraft because we had flown the arse off the one we started in.

  After firing the Hellfire just over two weeks ago, we were sent to KAF for three days to sort out the broken aircraft. The technicians worked us hard at KAF. The Apaches were getting a bit ragged and the techs needed us to test them morning, noon and night. It wasn’t without risk either.

  We had a four-hour lull late one night and decided to go for a pizza instead of having a late dinner at the all-night American Dining Facility (Dfac). We stood outside the arctic-trailer that was Pizza Hut on the boardwalk-a large wooden walkway with trailers scattered around it acting as shops.

  The place was mobbed with soldiers of every nation. Weapons were being handed over to each other so photographs could be taken-this is me with an Armalite-and it all seemed a bit surreal.

  ‘It’s like leaving the jungle in Nam and going to Hanoi on R&R,’ Jake said as he waited to be served. As he did so I heard something that reminded me of my days as a paratrooper in remote outposts of Northern Ireland. It came very quickly and the pitch change made me squat before throwing myself under the Pizza Hut trailer.

  ‘Hey dude, it’s not—’ Jake was cut off mid-sentence as I covered my head in the foetal position.
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  There was a huge crash followed by two more in rapid succession only a couple of hundred metres away.

  I crawled to the edge of the trailer and as I started to get up everyone else was diving for cover.

  ‘I think you’ve got it the wrong way around, lads,’ I laughed. ‘You’re supposed to take cover before the rockets hit.’

  The sirens sounded and everyone ran off to the air-raid shelters. To me it was all a bit too late really. I was left alone except for a shadowy figure about fifty metres away, sitting on a bench, smoking a cigarette.

  ‘Nice Para-roll, crap-hat,’ he shouted.

  When I moved closer I realised he was an ex-Para mate now working for the boys in black.

  We shot the shit for thirty minutes until the sirens sounded the all clear. We’d missed our pizza but I felt lucky that the three Chinese 107 mm rockets had missed me. Not by far, but they had; they’d landed in the Dfac a couple of hundred metres away, killing and injuring late diners.

  On our return to Bastion we flew relentlessly every single day and I was feeling physically and emotionally drained.

  Colonel Wild came out to visit us and was shocked by what he saw. I’d flown for him when he was a major in charge of AAC’s Special Forces Squadron. We knew each other well and he couldn’t get over how haggard and old I looked.

  He made direct references to the fact we were killing-within the ROE-without blinking an eye, and treated death and destruction as a part of daily life. What shocked him most was the level of stress we were experiencing, from ROE to shooting far too close to our own troops to being shot at and shot up. ‘At times you have to play God,’ he said-a very poignant statement from a dedicated practising Christian.

  This leap into attack aviation took a lot of the top brass by surprise. I don’t know what they thought Apaches did, but Billy’s account of his introduction to the US Apache course should have been shared with the army’s high rankers: ‘If anyone here doesn’t think they can look a man in the eye and kill him stone cold dead, then he’d better get up and leave. This course is for attack pilots.’

  Wild had come out to explain the factors that were causing more and more battlefield helicopters to crash every year. He went home with a brand new agenda: to brief the AAC, JHC and MoD on how kinetic, fluid, ferocious and tiring being an Apache pilot was in the Helmand.

  It didn’t pay to think about the sleepless nights, or being crashed out to platoon house after platoon house, or the stifling heat of the tents. I was never one for counting down the days; that only made the tour seem longer. I threw myself into paperwork and kept myself busy unless there was something more interesting to do, like a good old knees-up.

  WEDNESDAY, 2 AUGUST 2006

  Camp Bastion

  We held a ceremony to claim ownership of the flight lines. We christened it Chinthe Lines after the squadron symbol on our flying badges, the lion-like creature that often guarded the entrance to holy places in South-east Asia. In local mythology, chinthes almost always travelled in pairs, and served to protect the pagoda or temple.

  After curry, poppadums and soft drinks, the youngest air trooper in the squadron, Emily Leggett, was to unveil the sign. All the boys sang the theme to The Stripper as she unwrapped the plaque in a fit of giggles.

  Lieutenant Colonel Tootal, the guest of honour, was presented with a flechette rocket mounted on a board. A rocket had misfired in one of the tubes so the lads had got the Ammunition Technical Officer (ATO) to remove the explosives and pull the flechettes out as trophies. Tootal gave us a few words.

  He said he’d been an outspoken critic when the MoD first bought the Apache, and didn’t mind who knew that he thought it was a waste of money. We should have bought something cheaper and we should have bought a hell of a lot more of them. The Apache was too role-specific and wouldn’t have the flexibility needed for modern warfare. He’d had no idea how he was going to employ it in this theatre, and had been totally in favour of buying armed Black Hawks instead.

  He was now converted, and made a point of telling every visiting military and parliamentary dignitary. He described the Apache and the crews who support and fly them as valuable assets that he couldn’t do without. They’d saved his men’s lives on many occasions. His men were always confident when the Apaches were above them. He also congratulated us on our jointery; the fact that we were purple air-joint service-and worked seamlessly together.

  It could easily have been mistaken for a sweetener for the nightmare to come, but he was much too genuine to play games. We would be going back into Musa Qa’leh in three days, and this time the Taliban wouldn’t stop us.

  We had our squadron, flight and aircrew photos taken, and then got stuck into a game of floodlit volleyball. The Apache crews opened up a can of Whoop-ass on their Chinook counterparts.

  FRIDAY, 4 AUGUST 2006

  The day started with bad news.

  Our IntO interrupted a briefing for a Special Forces job. A walk-in source had tipped them off that the Taliban were ready to bring down a helicopter with an anti-aircraft gun at Musa Qa’leh.

  The ANP in Musa Qa’leh had gone out on patrol in the Green Zone and came back unscathed. They should have been under fire within 100 metres of the gate. It didn’t add up; they were traitors in the eyes of the Taliban.

  The Pathfinders reported Icom chatter suggesting the Taliban had been reinforced to twice their original strength, and the newcomers had brought forty more 107 mm rockets with them.

  The penny began to drop; they were being tipped off. The Taliban now knew that Musa Qa’leh was off-limits to helicopters and that the men were so desperate they had taken to drinking goats’ milk. They knew they had to be resupplied at some point, and it would have to be by road. They knew vehicles were an easy target in Musa Qa’leh because of their limited movement, and had had great success against us three days ago. They were preparing to defend Musa Qa’leh.

  Taliban morale was very high.

  SATURDAY, 5 AUGUST 2006

  0730 hours local

  Straight after breakfast, all aircrew were summoned to the briefing tent.

  The mission orders would be slick and make a point of everyone knowing what everyone else’s part would be. The tent was jam-packed. However, as big as it was, there still wasn’t room for all the participants, so only the head sheds appeared; for us that now meant all of the aircrew on the mission and everyone likely to support it on IRT/HRF.

  A lectern had been set up at the front, next to the usual briefing boards containing satellite images and the all-important scheme of manoeuvre-every individual’s part in the mission at any given time.

  We went and sat at the back with the Chinook boys. In front of us were the Mortar Platoon and Patrols Platoon commanders, a couple of company commanders, their platoon commanders, platoon sergeants-anybody, in fact, who had some control and could affect what was going to happen on the day. There was a buzz in the air. Everyone knew this was our last chance at getting into the DC at Musa Qa’leh. If this failed, we would have run out of options.

  ‘Yes, we’re going to attempt a resupply of Musa Qa’leh.’ Lieutenant Colonel Tootal nodded at the sea of expectant faces. ‘It will be codenamed Operation Snakebite. We have tried to get in there before, and failed. We must make this work at all costs.’

  He described the enemy. There were two distinct groups of Taliban, he said, with forty to fifty men in each, operating either side of the wadi on the approach to the town. Many of them were Arab fundamentalists who’d infiltrated through Pakistan. With these well-trained fighters there would be an untold number of additional fighters. We could expect a hard fight.

  Everyone would have his or her part to play. We had to push a convoy through so they could get in thirty DoS-Days of Supply-ammunition, fuel and food; enough to withstand any onslaught the Taliban could muster. We would pull the Pathfinders out and put in two platoons of Royal Irish. They would be backed up by more ANA and ANP, who were going to form the Afghan National Securit
y Force (ANSF).

  The Danes were going to stay in place. They would be responsible for securing the LS and providing the additional firepower.

  Tootal sat down. The Ops Officer of 3 Para got up and stood by the maps.

  ‘These are the orders for Operation Snakebite. It’s a resupply convoy mission into and back out of Musa Qa’leh on Sunday, 6 August. Tomorrow.’ He pointed at the map. ‘This is Musa Qa’leh town…’

  On its western edge was a huge north-south wadi. We’d need to cross it to get into the town. The wadi was wide open and we’d be very vulnerable crossing it.

  Bordering the western edge of the wadi was a north-south strip of Green Zone, about 200 metres wide, where the Taliban moved freely, fought and hid. We’d need to fight through this to reach the wadi.

  Just to the west of this Green Zone was an urban area about a hundred metres wide, where the Taliban would be waiting for us. We’d need to clear it before we could get into the Green Zone.

  To the west of the urban area was a long, forward-facing slope up to a plateau. The Taliban would have good fields of fire across it from the urban area, and we needed to advance down it.

  On top of the plateau was an empty desert and except for one wadi it spread as far west as the eye could see. This area was heavily mined during the Soviet invasion. We lost a vehicle when it drove over a mine in this piece of desert only four days ago during the first attempt at getting into Musa Qa’leh.

  ‘This is where we will start the operation,’ he said.

  You could have heard a pin drop.

  ‘Today, the Patrols Platoon and the mortars, with callsign Widow Seven Zero as their JTAC, will move out and overnight in the middle of this desert to the west of Musa Qa’leh, in preparation for the following day. At the same time, India Battery with their three 105 mm guns, and the convoy with the resupply, will move out into the desert too, and they will occupy their lay-up position.

  ‘Early doors Sunday the sixth, tomorrow morning, the convoy will leave the gun position and route to a safe area north-west in the desert, in preparation for being called forward to pass through a safe passage.