Sniper in Helmand: Six Months on the Frontline

by James Cartwright

  On returning to the hill, we resumed the routine of two hours on sentry and six hours off. I always asked to be woken up half an hour before I was due to go on stag so that I could sort myself out beforehand. I was woken up and made my way over to the ‘piss tube’ that went deep into the ground. Dressed in boxer shorts and flip flops, I stood there looking out over the incredible landscape of large flat planes of desert, flanked by the beautiful mountain ranges as the sun was slowly coming up and the morning peacefulness surrounded me. All of a sudden, I heard the distinctive whistle of an incoming mortar bomb as it flew over and landed around 400 to 500 metres in front of me. The area of ground in front of me exploded in a maelstrom of dust, dirt, stones and shrapnel which rained down as I ran back up the hill where everyone was shouting, ‘In-coming, in-coming! Stand to! Stand to!’ Snowy was shouting to everyone to get their helmets and body armour on as I ran back to my kit. As I did so, I lost a flip flop, as another bomb landed only around 200 to 300 metres away. I reached my pit, quickly pulled on some trousers and my body armour, and grabbed my .338 rifle along with my laser rangefinders and ammunition.

  When I emerged, Faz was on stag and searching through binoculars in an attempt to locate the enemy position. As I sorted out my rifle and rangefinder, I heard the whistle of another incoming bomb and observed a faint dust cloud right near what we knew to be the Taliban headquarters in the area. I shouted to Faz, ‘Firing point seen’ and zapped the position with my rangefinder to obtain the distance and bearing while he pinpointed the location on the map, using my figures. He reported this over the radio and immediately afterwards Jacko, our MFC, appeared and took the information from Faz. Lance Corporal Mick Auckland then ran down with a Javelin and command launch unit (CLU). The Javelin is a ‘fire and forget’ missile, the CLU providing target data to the missile before it is launched and thereafter tracking it to the target until it detonates. Sergeant Major Snow gave the order to fire as soon as Mick shouted out that he had a position lock. Unfortunately, I was standing directly behind the CLU and so received the back blast directly on to my bare feet, which had me dancing around swearing my head off. Mick had set the Javelin to top attack rather than direct, so instead of flying directly towards the target, the missile flew into the air and tracked the target from above. We watched as it went up and up in to the sky until we couldn’t see it anymore and then waited until we saw and heard the explosion.

  Snowy gave the order for our mortars to open fire and bombard the target area and the anticipated Taliban fall-back positions. They carried out this fire mission so rapidly that they had eight mortar bombs in the air before the first one hit the target; after a few minutes of this, they ceased fire and there was silence. We found out later that we had killed four Taliban and wounded another three.

  During our time there, I took part in three or four patrols during which we patrolled to the south of Nowzad up to the edge of the town itself and then pushed in. I remember going up to what was the old hospital which still had the medical posters up with doctors’ names and notes written up there. I positioned myself up on the roof along with a few others to provide fire support for some engineers who had been tasked with picking up an old air conditioning unit which they were going to try and repair for us to use in the DC.

  We received a few more incoming mortar bombs over the following period, but they were always from a single mortar; on each occasion the Taliban would quickly disappear again, almost as if they were just letting us know they were still there. On one occasion, I was sitting down by the side of the hill chatting away with Faz when the JTAC came over and sat himself down with his radio and kit. He was talking to some American F-15s which were on standby for an American operation that was going on somewhere in the distance. They were doing a circling manoeuvre up high in the night sky and we could hear them as they flew around. The JTAC said that if we looked carefully, we could make out the engines as the glow from the heat was just about visible. The Americans had called in some air support and from seeing a few faint little dots, we could now see glowing triangle shapes as they turned on their afterburners. They were circling around way above us for about five or ten seconds and then they were gone, their afterburners roaring as they headed off towards Musa Qalah.

  I spoke to Annie a couple of times through the satellite phone and told her that the hill was haunted and that a few people on sentry duty had heard footsteps behind them, shouted out things like, ‘Blimey, you’re early!’ and then realised that no one was there. This even happened to me a few times, but I still remain sceptical about all that stuff, so it did not really bother me. When I did speak to Annie, she told me that after being with me for a few weeks, she really missed me and felt quite lonely, so I told her to look out at the moon, which she did and told me she could see it. So I said that I was looking at the same moon, so despite the thousands of miles that separated us, in the greater scheme of things, we were both looking at the same thing so we felt close and together. It seemed to help both of us and it was that moment that I had decided to marry her. I remember phoning my brother Ben and saying, ‘I have made a decision that when I get back, I am going to propose to Annie and get engaged.’ He asked me if I was sure and then congratulated me. He was not enthusiastic about marriage after our parents divorced, but did support me and was genuinely happy for me.

  Teddy was now back from R & R, but had deployed directly to Kajaki as that was where we would carry out the final phase of our operational tour. C Company was already there and starting on MOGs to ensure the Taliban did not re-infiltrate Sangin, while we would be making sure that Kajaki was safe and not infiltrated by the Taliban from our side. On 20 July, we moved out of Nowzad and headed for Kajaki.

  CHAPTER 15

  Kajaki I

  We were picked up by Chinook helicopters that brought in a few guys from C Company to help man our positions in Nowzad. Before leaving, I saw Tom and Sergeant Head from the Sniper Platoon and showed them ANP Hill before we left, using the opportunity to obtain information from them about the Kajaki area. They told us about one village called Mazdurak which had seen some really quite serious action during which a lot of bombs were dropped, and warned us to expect an interesting time if we were deployed there. We also learnt that Kajaki was split between two regions to the north and south; to the south lay an area similar to the Green Zone which we knew so well. The main village to the south was called Kajaki Sofla, a name we recognized from the briefings we had already been given on the area.

  As we approached Kajaki, we could see the huge reservoir with its massive expanse of deep blue water against the orangey brown colour of the ground. The terrain was very mountainous, as was generally the case on the border between Helmand and Pakistan to the far south of the province. We flew in and out of a series of canyons and ravines as we approached the big blue reservoir, the pilot banking the aircraft sharply and then sweeping low as we went along. A Chinook had been bought down in this area during a previous tour, so he was ensuring that we did not share the same fate.

  As we flew over the reservoir, the RAF loadmaster test fired the aircraft’s weapons, firing down into the water. There was a 7.62mm machine gun on the back of the ramp and a multi-barrelled chain gun on the side of the helicopter. After that came the familiar pat on the shoulder and two fingers were held up signifying two minutes to land. As soon as the Chinook touched down, we jumped out and ran under the blades away from the helicopter, passing a few guys from C Company heading in the opposite direction to embark on the aircraft. After only around twenty or thirty seconds the Chinook was gone and out of sight, while we sat and waited to be ferried into Forward Operating Base Zeebrugge. Shortly afterwards, we were picked up by a Pinzgauer vehicle and driven past the dam, which we were there to defend, and then down a very steep valley with the Helmand River below us.

  Having settled into the base and talking to some of the guys about the area, we learned that that the surrounding area had three observation posts (OPs) positioned on the
four main peaks of the mountainous terrain known as Athens, Normandy, Sparrow-Hawk East and Sparrow-Hawk West. When the Marines first arrived, one of their main tasks had been to clear the Taliban from these locations as they had already taken control of Athens and Sparrow-Hawk East. The enemy had the advantage of knowing every inch of the area and were able to navigate the minefield on the way to the top and then once there, bring fire down on the camp below. The Marines gained control of the area and then manned it fully. On going up there ourselves, we realised what a difficult place to fight it was, being steep and rocky with an old Russian anti-personnel minefield on top. The metre-wide track that led to and from all the OPs had been cleared as a safe route but even this was not brilliantly marked out as all we could see was a rough footpath where the ground was slightly bare.

  The three OPs had excellent views of the whole area and we could see literally everything, including all the little villages and how Kajaki was split from north to south, with the north having almost no greenery at all but large numbers of wadis, the main one of which we called the A1 Wadi. C Company had managed to push the Taliban back through towards the north and having the four OPs now meant that we knew immediately when the Taliban encroached into our area. As a result, FOB Zeebrugge was very safe and hardly ever attacked.

  To the South, there was Olya village and then Sofla which was far more of a Green Zone with grass, trees and densely populated compounds. We could see where the Taliban headquarters was located, around a mile away from the OPs. They had a lot of women and children there, so we could not engage the headquarters itself; when we did engage them, we observed that they always retreated back into this area.

  C Company had carried out larger scale pre-planned operations during its time up there but was now conducting MOGs in the area to the north east of Sangin. A and C Companies were now giving the Taliban a difficult time, squeezing them hard in the Jucelay and Putay area. The Taliban were determined to keep Sangin under control because it was a pivotal area for them.

  Whenever the opportunity arose, we used to take spare vehicles down to the reservoir to swim in its ice cold water, a blissful relief from the intense heat of July and August when the daytime temperature was in the mid-fifties. Although the local Afghan police were there to make sure it was safe, we still needed to be alert and very vigilant with our vehicles ready to move at a moment’s notice.

  All too soon the time came for us to return to the arduous and dangerous business of going out on patrol. There was a small group of C Company who had remained to give us a full hand-over brief, Robbo from the Sniper Platoon coming out with us on one of our initial patrols. These were primarily for us to familiarise ourselves properly with the ground out there and so we took the WMIKs. We soon learned that the situation in this area was far more predictable and we could almost plan from a timing perspective how things would play out. The fighting was at a far slower pace than we had experienced already. We carried out some patrols in the early hours of the morning, which were more probing than anything else, but we made sure they were varied in timing and areas. We patrolled more frequently to the north, mainly because there was a greater area to cover than in the south, which was squashed between Sofla, the Helmand River and the high mountain range. There was really only one route in the south from which the Taliban could approach and that was covered by the Afghan police and Afghan National Army. Also the OPs could view the whole area and, if they observed the Taliban in any numbers, could attack with Javelin missiles and GPMGs from above.

  A typical day began at 3.00 am, with us carrying out radio checks and other procedures before moving out at around 4.00 am in the darkness when it was still cool. We would reach our lying up position (LUP), clear the area and then by around 9.00 or 10.00 am begin falling back. We would generally arrive at FOB Zeebrugge by around 11.00 in time for breakfast or brunch. We would go to our rooms in the main building to clean weapons and see Company Sergeant Major Newton to replenish our ammunition. We could also wash after our patrols because water was pumped up from the river to the base so we could have showers. There was unlimited untreated water for washing and a butt of clean drinking water.

  At around 5.00 pm we would receive our orders and then I would go on the text link to contact home, followed by grabbing some food which in this place was better than normal. When we were not on patrol and had some down time, we could relax in front of the television. As I was normally up in the early hours, I used to get to bed at around 10.00 pm after the normal routine of packing and preparing my kit for the following day.

  It was at that point that B Company had a new OC, Major Tony Borgnis, who arrived to take over from Major Aston. I remember the first time I met him when he walked over and said, ‘Hello, James. How are you?’ I thought, ‘How do you know my name? You are the new OC and I don’t know if this is a good or a bad thing.’ We all wondered what it would be like working under a new OC as we in the FSG had all grown used to working for Major Mick Aston over the last four months of the tour. Although, like all good commanders, he kept a boundary between the men and himself, he was hands-on and got involved with the men and was really down to earth. Little things like asking how you were. You could tell he was genuine about this, a good guy and a good commander.

  On patrol, I would carry my normal six litres of water, my L96 rifle, 200 rounds of ammunition, laser range finders, my 9mm pistol with two spare magazines, two HE grenades, two phosphorus grenades, a trauma kit consisting of one syrette of morphine, two first field dressings (FFDs) and a tourniquet. I didn’t have to carry a radio any more as Major Borgnis wanted to have as many snipers on the ground as possible. This meant that Teddy and I split up and would rely on the radios of whoever we were ordered to accompany. Sometimes we would work with the FSG, on other occasions we would be placed with the rifle platoons.

  The first proper patrol we conducted on this leg of the tour was up in a place called Shrine Hill, where there was a small shrine dug into the hill. On this occasion we had mine detectors bought up to us and, as we patrolled in the darkness, the guys were sweeping the track in front of them as they slowly walked up, all spread-out and looking down over Masdurak. We could see B Company down below us beginning to go through and get a decent look at the area, mainly reconnaissance for the commanders who wanted to obtain a good picture idea of the ground ahead. The first building was almost like a scene out of the film Stalingrad. It was just reduced to rubble and I recalled that Tom had been right when he had said that a lot of ordinance had been dropped on the area.

  Meanwhile, Teddy and I were in one of the WMIKs up on the hill and we set about positioning a ‘gun line’ up there on the top. We had three GPMGs on sustained fire (SF) mounts on tripods that provided greater accuracy over longer ranges. I was on one of them, Strikey was on another and Gill manned the one in the middle. While we had been setting up, the guys from B Company pushed around below and began to clear one of the villages across the wadi. The three of us laid down SF down from the hill across the wadi and then into the village – always in front of the guys as they pushed through. This proved to be successful and we managed to clear the village successfully with no casualties. As we were clearing the village, we had some air cover from some F-15s. One aircraft screamed down low to the ground in a show of force which was very impressive, before banking upwards and throwing off flares all over the place.

  On another occasion, I was patrolling with 6 Platoon and clearing two villages in the early hours of the morning. It was initially a pretty standard operation as we went in, continually upscaling and downscaling from code red to code green and then amber code while moving through. Soon we began to come under some pretty heavy fire from the north where there was a large area of open ground in front of us, forming a gap between the two villages. Jay, who had taught me on my sniper cadre and was now in B Company, asked for my laser rangefinders, so I passed them up to him on the roof. He could see some of the Taliban moving around and, having been a sniper for many year
s, he began firing at them. I then slung my L96, pulled my pistol out, found the platoon sergeant and told him that I would be his runner as Jay was up there using my rangefinders and there was no room for anyone else up on the roof. He told me to go and collect 51mm bombs for the mortar men.

  As I busily collected the bombs, the mortar man was firing away with what he already had. He was running low by the time I arrived with a fresh supply. Up to this point he had been firing and loading the mortar on his own, which is tough because you need two hands to operate the mortar. The noise of the mortar firing was incredibly loud, but he was unable to stick his fingers in his ears and fire at the same time. As a result, the poor bloke’s ears were ringing like mad while Sergeant Browning was shouting out ranges and where he wanted the bombs. I was relaying the information, but the mortar man was simply looking at me shouting, ‘What?’ I was reduced to mouthing what I was saying in an exaggerated fashion, whilst using hand signals, so it was like talking to a foreigner, ‘High angle, 200 metres on that line’, all done with hand signals and mouthing the words. He was saying, ‘What? Eh?’

  In the end I resorted to using my notebook and wrote the instructions in it, He read them and shouted at the top of his voice, ‘OK, but what line?’ I relayed his question to Sergeant Browning who came over and showed me, and I used my day sack for the mortar man to follow this line. As I tapped the poor bloke on the shoulder and put my thumbs up mouthing, ‘Fire now, fire now’, he winced as the next onslaught on his ear drums was about to come and fired. My fingers were in my ears but, as I took them out, I could hear his low moaning of, ‘Ahhh!’ A few moments later, the call again came over for us to fire another bomb but to add fifty metres, so I wrote on my note pad, ‘Add fifty.’ He lined the mortar up again, winced and fired while shouting, ‘Ow! You f...ing bastard!’ while wincing in pain. I could not help but laugh.