by Richard Kemp
‘Nothing I can do for him, sir, just get him back,’ said Boyle. ‘Before you go, have you got any more ammo?’
Ramm could not risk Peacock’s life by pulling him off the quad to get to the ammo boxes. Instead, he emptied his own pouches and passed all his magazines to Boyle.
Ramm was about to move off when there was an enormous blast, and the ground shook as a Taliban mortar impacted 30 metres away. A second explosion followed immediately, closer still. Boyle was knocked down by the third blast, which was directly in front of him. He lay on the ground, badly winded, clutching Ramm’s magazines, spitting out blood and fragments of shattered teeth. Something had pierced his tongue, which began to swell. The shock wave had hit him hard. He was dazed, and his whole body was shaking.
He saw blood around his left upper leg. A large, jagged lump of shrapnel had smashed through his knee-cap and chewed up his quad muscle. It didn’t feel too bad, but he thought, That’s the adrenalin pumping. That’s really going to hurt in a minute. He grabbed for his morphine autoject and, as he flicked off the cap and banged the needle straight into his leg, he gasped at Ramm, ‘Not the thing I’d teach others to do, sir, it’s not what we teach. Morphine comes later. But I know it’s really going to hurt. And it’s me. It’s me this time, and that’s different.’ He managed a sort of grimacing smile through bloody lips.
The consummately professional medic, he took a marker pen from his Osprey and wrote a large letter ‘M’ on his own forehead. Realizing he couldn’t write the time and date, he handed the pen to Ramm. Ramm scrawled on Boyle’s head then started to apply a field dressing to his bleeding leg. Boyle stopped him. ‘I’m a medic, I can do that. You need to get Peacock away. He’s the priority, sir, not me. I’m OK.’
Boyle was now on his own, lying on his back, covered in Ramm’s magazines. He shouted to Private Bates, in the firing line, ‘Come and get these mags and get them dished out to the lads.’
He took off the bayonet he had fixed a few minutes before, thinking, don’t fancy stabbing myself on top of everything else. He threw his magazine with the remaining few rounds to Bates, leaving one bullet in the chamber of his rifle. He thought, Don’t want to be over-dramatic, but you never know! He recalled Kipling’s advice to ‘The Young British Soldier’:
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An’ go to your gawd like a soldier.
With a long family tradition of service in the regiment, and as a keen student of regimental history, Boyle knew the poem was about the bloody retreat from Kabul in 1842, when the 44th Regiment of Foot, which had come to form part of the Royal Anglian Regiment following several amalgamations, had been brutally slaughtered.
He turned his mind back to his own treatment, wrapped his field dressing round his knee, pulled it tight and knotted it. Using his rifle, he struggled on to his feet and hopped and slid down the wadi side. The Pinzgauer containing the casualties was about to move off and as it went he managed to get himself into the back, squeezing alongside Peacock.
As the vehicle rattled and juddered across the wadi floor, the doctor started running a line through for Peacock and Townsend. Boyle held up the bag of fluids for Peacock. Peacock looked bad, very bad, and his face was white as a sheet. Townsend looked a bit better even though he had been dropped several times during the nightmare stretcher run out of Mazdurak. All the way back to Broadsword, Boyle was talking to Peacock and prodding him to keep him awake.
Waters and his men continued to give covering fire as the company broke clean from the enemy and began heading back towards Zeebrugge. Waters checked his own men before moving through the wadi, paralleling the rest of the company. He saw that Private O’Connor’s daysack had been ripped open by a piece of shrapnel from one of the three mortar shells. He pulled out O’Connor’s smoke grenade, which had retained the shrapnel, stopping it from taking O’Connor’s head off.
While C Company moved back to Zeebrugge, the Apaches and A10s continued strafing and bombing the Taliban in Mazdurak and Khvolehabad.
Ten minutes after they got clear of the immediate area of Mazdurak, Corporal Bomber Brown called back to his men, snaking along behind him, ‘Well done, lads, you all did really well back there. Now we all need to stay alert as we patrol back in. Heads up, cover your arcs, get…’
He was cut off in mid-sentence as a tremendous shock wave rocked the ground beneath his feet. It was the loudest and most deafening explosion he had ever experienced as a 2,000-pound aerial bomb landed in the centre of Mazdurak.
A Bridge Too Far: 6–16 May 2007
1
C Company patrolled back into Mazdurak in the weeks following the raid in early May, and by a combination of aggressive action on the ground, and the violent use of air-delivered bombs and strafing runs into the enemy fighting positions, gradually weakened the Taliban’s grip on their stronghold. The fighting, often at close quarters and in the most difficult heat conditions, was very tough. Almost foot by foot, C Company were pushing the enemy back away from the dam and allowing the reconstruction work that held so much promise for prosperity among the community in Helmand and elsewhere in southern Afghanistan.
Further south, in the strategically important town of Sangin, the situation was not looking good. Sangin had suffered under a vicious Taliban siege for almost a year since June 2006, and was now almost a ghost town. The town was vital to the economy of the whole region, and its survival had much wider implications – President Hamid Karzai had said, ‘Lose in Sangin and you lose in Afghanistan.’
Brigadier Lorimer, the Task Force Helmand commander, intended to focus the efforts of much of his force on Sangin in the way he had in Gereshk with Operation Silicon. The siege of the town had been broken at the time the Royal Anglians arrived in Helmand, following a helicopter-borne assault by a battalion from the US 82nd Airborne Division supported by Afghan National Army troops, and forces from Britain, Denmark, Estonia and Canada, with support from US and Dutch aircraft.
In May, the British force in Sangin, augmented by Afghan troops, was based on A Company of The 1st Battalion The Worcestershire and Sherwood Foresters, the Task Force Helmand Reserve, under the operational control of the Royal Anglian Battle Group.
On 6 May a new district governor and chief of police were installed into Sangin. The imposing and proactive Governor Isatullah Wasifi was
Map 5. A Bridge Too Far
a former mujahideen commander who had fought against the Russians and was eager to work in cooperation with the British to restore normality to his town.
But since the US-led operation, known as Silver, the Taliban had continued to attack the town and intimidate its remaining residents. Understandably there was a reluctance to return on the part of those who had fled during the siege. Lorimer planned to turn the situation around, consolidating the gains of Operation Silver, improving security, encouraging people to return and boosting reconstruction efforts to help develop the local economy.
One evening in mid-May, the Royal Anglians’ B Company commander, Major Mick Aston, was wandering around his troops’ accommodation in Camp Bastion with Company Sergeant Major Tim Newton. Aston would often ‘shoot the crap’, as he put it, with the men, keeping his finger on the pulse and maintaining what he saw as the essential close relationship between company commander and soldiers. He also loved nothing more than just being with his soldiers and chatting to them.
For the brief periods that B Company spent in Bastion between operations they lived in a pod complex within Camp 501. This was the Royal Anglians’ section of the base, consisting of accommodation, cookhouse, medical centre and offices. The battle group’s joint operations centre, or JOC, was a short distance away.
B Company were only transient residents in their pod, which was also used by any other element of the battle group as they came and went from Bastion. The central spine of the pod was a long corrid
or without air conditioning, and always as hot as a sauna. Leading off one end of the corridor were launderette facilities and showers. Along the length of the spine was a series of half-cylinder-shaped tents with solid plastic floors, each housing ten men. Outside each tent was an air-conditioning unit that would pump in cold air. The men slept on American-style metal and woven nylon camp beds, and their possessions and equipment were jammed untidily into the small space between each bed.
A Battalion HQ signaller arrived in the room and told Major Aston that the CO wanted to see him in the JOC straight away.
‘OK, tell him I’ll be there in a minute. Hey – I’ll bet that’s the most sweat you’ve worked up on this tour, isn’t it, hanging around in that air-conditioned ops room?’
Well used to this type of ragging from the rifle company troops and grinning patiently, the signaller muttered a semi-audible retort as he hurried out before Aston could start piling on the customary abuse.
A few minutes later, still dressed in shorts, flip flops and body armour, carrying helmet, rifle and notebook, and sweating heavily after his brisk march up from the accommodation, Aston entered the half-divided section of the ops centre that served as the CO’s office. Carver was behind his desk. Phil Moxey, the ops officer, and Tom Coleman, the intelligence officer, were lounging on plastic chairs. Aston nodded at the two captains and said, ‘Evening, sir,’ to the CO.
‘Thanks for coming over, Mick,’ said Carver. ‘I know it’s a bit late, but I thought I might as well brief you now as I’m off to a meeting at Brigade first thing.’
‘Are we moving out straight away, sir? Will I need to send out a warning order to the company?’ said Aston.
‘No, what I want you to do isn’t for a few days, but I thought you might as well have plenty of time to think about it and start preparing.’
Having hoped he had been sent for to launch an immediate operation, Aston disappointedly waved away the runner he had brought with him to convey back any immediate instructions to the company.
‘OK, sir, shoot.’
‘We’re planning an op to try to put pressure on these guys who keep carrying out attacks in Sangin. The place is really going downhill again, and I’m not sure how much longer the ANA and the police will stay. We need to do something to back them up and deal with the Taliban who keep coming in to kill them and have a go at the locals.
‘Tom and I are trying to work out where best to attack, but it will be somewhere north of Sangin, because that’s where they’re coming down from. Maybe up in the Qalah-ye Gaz area. That’s where you come in. I want you to carry out shaping ops to help create the conditions we need for success. Essentially, you will do a demonstration. Get down into the south and create a diversion. Stir up trouble down there to make the enemy think that’s where we’re going to attack. That way they will hopefully reinforce themselves in the south, making our job of taking out the hard core in the north much easier. It will also get us some information about the enemy in that area. Tom?’
Coleman spoke. ‘I haven’t got anything specific, but I’m particularly interested in what enemy there is in Zumberlay and Heyderabad. The marines reckoned they are both a hotbed of Taliban, but we haven’t seen anything much at all from down there. Maybe they’ve all left and gone somewhere else. It’d be good to know.’
Carver continued, ‘Task Force 1 Fury are doing an op in the Heyderabad area very soon. You may want to hook up with them and take some of your commanders to look at the area before your demonstration. Phil will tie that up for you.’
‘Yeah that sounds like a good idea, Colonel,’ said Aston. ‘What assets am I going to get for the demonstration?’
Moxey said, ‘The CO wants you to leave a platoon in FOB Robinson to secure that, so you’ll have two of your own platoons plus company HQ with your fire support team. And you should be keeping your own fire support group under Sergeant Major Snow. You’ll have a marines armoured support troop, which will give you enough Vikings to lift the whole company. We may also give you some ANA and an OMLT. We’re planning to group with you an 81mm mortar section, engineers, probably a conventional munitions disposal team, an electronic warfare team and some medics. So that you’re completely self-contained we’re also giving you a log detachment with an Oshkosh CST.’
‘Phil, I kind of dropped off when they covered logistics crap at Staff College. What on earth’s an Oshkosh? Was that what you just said? I thought it was some kind of kid’s clothing!’
Moxey said, ‘It’s a sodding great wheeled fuel tanker. Made by the Americans. They carry 20,000 litres of diesel – should be enough to keep you going for a while. Brilliant across country.’
‘OK, Mick,’ said Carver, ‘let Phil know if you want any more assets, and he’ll get them for you if he can. Plan to start on the fourteenth and you’ll have about four days to do your stuff. After that I’ll probably want you to stay in FOB Robinson till the op begins, and maybe beef up the troops in Sangin during that time.’
2
Major Aston, the company 2IC, Captain Dave Robinson, and Sergeant Major Newton worked out the plan for the operation. Aston decided to leave 6 Platoon under Lieutenant Dave Broomfield, his most experienced platoon commander, to look after FOB Robinson. 5 Platoon under Second Lieutenant Ben Howes and 7 Platoon under Lieutenant George Seal-Coon would go with him on the operation. He would bounce the company in and out of the Green Zone, probing into likely enemy areas and withdrawing back out into the safety of the desert.
He intended to go in well tooled up, ready to deal with anything that was there. But the initial approach into each area would not be with all guns blazing. Instead they would aim to move in, set up a shura, or meeting, with the locals, hoping to gain intelligence and at the same time push out the key messages about what they were doing there and how they were trying to improve security and prosperity in the valley. But if they met resistance they would respond aggressively, attacking the enemy and in doing so gaining information about his strengths and intentions.
Aston thought long and hard about one really important issue. How far to push the company into battle for this diversionary mission. He was not trying to take and hold ground. He was trying to deceive the enemy and gain information. He didn’t want to become decisively engaged, but if they got caught up in a fight they had to win. But how many casualties would he be prepared to take for this task? And how exactly would he measure when he had done enough? When to pull back would be a critical decision. Eventually he decided there were no answers to any of these questions. As long as he had thought it all through, as with pretty much any military operation, all he could do was call the shots as best he could on the day.
While B Company got themselves ready to head out, Aston together with Seal-Coon and Howes spent three days with Task Force 1 Fury, an air assault battalion from the US 82nd Airborne Division. They spent time in and around Heyderabad, getting to know the area. There was virtually no resistance, and Aston concluded that this would be a fairly quiet op for B Company. It seemed there wasn’t much Taliban presence in the area any longer.
On 14 May Aston led the 176 men of B Company Group out of Camp Bastion, mounted in twelve Vikings and a mixture of wheeled vehicles – in all thirty prime movers. Accompanying them was a platoon of Afghan troops, ANA, mounted in their familiar Toyota pick-up trucks bristling with machine-guns. Bringing up the rear was the lumbering but articulated Oshkosh with its 20,000 litres of fuel. Aston was pleased to see it looked more like a robust combat vehicle than the sort of thing you would see on a garage forecourt in England.
In line with Aston’s plan they pushed into Zumberlay later that day and then into the village of Pasab, 6 kilometres north, early in the morning of 15 May. As they entered each of the villages the company was fired on with automatic weapons and RPGs. They returned fire, killing a few enemy, and then withdrew before getting embroiled in a proper battle. The Taliban clearly had a presence here although, as Aston had anticipated, they did not seem to be in lar
ge numbers.
After Pasab, Aston moved the company back out into the desert. They spent the afternoon sorting themselves out and resting before the move late that night towards the town of Heyderabad.
In the flat, featureless and rocky desert the company formed a leaguer, two lines of vehicles, about 20 metres apart, with a few metres between each vehicle. At the front and rear of each line was a Fire Support Group Bravo WMIK to provide security. Each WMIK was permanently manned by a sentry, observing the desert, on the lookout for anyone approaching or watching their position, and ready to open fire if necessary. The FSG soldiers, as well as the men from the platoons, took it in turns to do sentry duty, or ‘stag’ as it was universally known.
The Viking crews went straight to work servicing their vehicles, checking oil and coolant levels and carefully inspecting running gear to make sure there was no damage that could cause the vehicle to throw a track or break down at a critical moment in combat.
Corporal Stu Parker gathered his section to the left of their Viking, where the vehicle hull afforded some protection from the relentless heat of the sun overhead. Most of the men were clacking hot water from dusty plastic bottles that had been stowed in the heat on the outside of the vehicle. Pouring sweat after leaving the sauna that was the Viking crew compartment, they would all have given a week’s leave for a cold drink. Water at this temperature was horrible, but like it or not they had to get it down their necks to keep dehydration at bay.
Standing in front of his men, Parker said, ‘Well done in Pasab, lads, a few close shaves there, weren’t there? Especially you, Stevie, and Josh, when that bullet almost gave you an extra parting. Glad it wasn’t me. I don’t know how long we’re going to be here, but probably till sometime just after midnight. The boss has gone to get a brief from the company commander, so we’ll know when he gets back. What we’re going to do now is clean weapons and sort our kit out. I expect Woody’ll give us an ammo resupply later, but in the meantime top yourselves up from the stuff in the wagon if you need to.’