by Richard Kemp
Moments later battle group ops officer Captain Phil Moxey came on the Brent phone and confirmed that authority had been given to deny the vehicle.
Over the intercom to the tower, Broomfield gave Sergeant Dyer, the JTAC, the go-ahead to destroy the smoking vehicle.
Within minutes the Apache pilot had launched a Hellfire missile, reducing the Viking to scrap. Dyer then entered the ops room and confirmed, ‘We’ve denied the vehicle.’
As he spoke the Brent rang again. Moxey. ‘Task Force has changed their mind. Do not deny the vehicle until I get back to you. Repeat – do not deny.’
Broomfield simply acknowledged the instruction, knowing it was likely to change back again. In any case it was now too late.
In the aid post, Corporal Peyton was treating the less seriously wounded casualties. Captain Keene, the MERT medical officer, had joined the other two doctors working on Bailey, and the three spent a few minutes figuring out how best to keep him breathing. Bailey was now semi-conscious. His arm was hanging off, bubbles were coming from the hole in his neck, and he was mumbling and shaking. Corporal Parker stood next to him, holding his hand and shouting at him, shouting his name, trying to keep him from drifting completely away.
After fifteen minutes the doctors decided Bailey was as stable as he was going to get for the flight back to Bastion. But, as Keene ordered him to be stretchered across to the Chinook, none of them were sure whether he would survive the ten-minute flight.
When the helicopter lifted off, sending waves of dust and debris flying over the camp, Parker rejoined his section at the back of their Viking. The lads were unusually quiet. Even Thrumble’s iPod speakers were silent. They had just been told that two of the company’s engineers could not be accounted for, and a radio intercept had picked up Taliban fighters in Sangin bragging that they had ‘captured two cows’.
Code for British soldiers?
Fearing the worst, the OMLT team leader in FOB Robinson, Grenadier Guards Major Barnes-Taylor, instantly loaded his men up into their WMIKs ready to fight their way into Sangin to rescue the soldiers. The US Army detachment commander also mounted his men in their Humvees and started cueing up US air assets in support. And the B Company platoons were putting back on their body armour and helmets ready to face Sangin once more.
Near Parker’s vehicle, Sergeant Dyer, the JTAC who had called in the air-strike to deny the Viking, was in shock, sobbing and muttering, ‘I’ve killed a friend. I bombed a friend.’
In the confusion he thought his air-strike to deny the Viking had killed the engineers, accidentally left in the crippled vehicle.
Meanwhile Newton was tearing round the base, trying to confirm again that everyone was safely back in. It was only minutes later, but it seemed like an age, when Newton’s head count confirmed no one had been left behind. The chatter about ‘cows’ must refer to something else. Perhaps the burning Viking with its two compartments.
Almost immediately news of an entirely different sort came from the ops room, which sent Parker, Lee and the rest of the section scrambling to the roof of their Viking. The two Apache pilots now hunting down the enemy had spotted a group of Taliban ambushers who had survived the gun battle in Sangin. About eight men were making their escape across the river in boats, trying to get back north to the safety of their stronghold in Musa Qalah.
Word spread through the camp, and British and American soldiers clambered for a high spot to watch as the Apaches blasted the escaping Taliban. They could hear cannon and missile fire as the enemy were wiped out from above. The company’s mood briefly lifted as grey smoke from the burning boats rose from the water in the distance, and the two Apaches turned in a long circle to follow the Chinook back to Camp Bastion.
The men jumped from their vantage points. For the first time in hours things were beginning to calm down. But there was no time now for them to dwell on the critically wounded Bailey or their other wounded mates in the Chinook, or even to think about the nightmare they had just been through. The message from Aston, as always, was to crack on. The priority was to sort out weapons, ammunition, vehicles, equipment and get everything ready for the next task. Whatever that might be. Or whenever – it could be in five minutes or it could be tomorrow.
6
B Company had taken thirteen casualties in two days. The company was very close knit, and many of the men came from the same towns. To lose so many soldiers in such a short period was a real blow. The mood was sombre, but the junior NCOs got in among the troops and started doing their job – giving orders, encouraging, cajoling, checking, leading.
In the ‘Arm Pit’, an inhospitable dust bowl in the middle of the FOB that was the temporary home to soldiers and vehicles, Parker closed in his section. He began to organize the after-action routine of ammo checks and kit checks, and he detailed people off to help the Viking crew get their vehicle sorted out. There was a lot of blood in some of the wagons that had to be sluiced out, and the crews set about the urgent tasks of running repairs and refuelling to make sure the vehicles stayed on the road and were ready for further combat.
Parker said, ‘I know we’re all upset about Deano and the others. But whatever happened today, priority from the sergeant major is get everything ready so we can go back out and smash them if they start anything else. And we don’t know whether the CO’s got any more tasks for us. We’ve got to be ready anyway. Get your heads back up and get on with it. And Thrumble – get that horrible bloody music of yours back on, mate. I feel incomplete without it.’
Ruecker drifted across, wearing a clean T-shirt and combat trousers he had scrounged from one of the other lads to replace the uniform that had been covered in Bailey’s blood. ‘Josh, mate, give us another one of them Lamberts, I could get used to them.’
‘Not a hope, Teddy, I told you we keep them for special occasions, and that’s finished now. Officially. Here, have a Pine.’
Ruecker, who had been through even more horror in Sangin that day than most, already seemed to be back on track, though he was still a bit edgy and subdued. As he headed to the fire support group area, puffing on his Pine, Sergeant Woodrow appeared and spoke to Parker. ‘Everyone OK, Stu? Send Steve Veal across to me in ten minutes with your ammo states and we’ll sort out ammunition and water replens… Oh, and Lee, here’s my rifle. Get it cleaned. You fired all those bullets through it, lad, it’s filthy.’
‘Come on, Sarge, I’ve got my Minimi to clean. It’s totally minging; I fired even more through that.’
Woodrow grinned and walked off, shaking his head, SA80 in hand. He turned and called back, ‘Oh, and Stu, the OC’s having a debrief for the whole company in an hour. Get your section over to the Snake Pit at eighteen hundred.’
Outside the ‘Snake Pit’, the area of the ops block and aid post, Lee and Ruecker, and seemingly most of the company, sat smoking Pine Lights and gulping down water. A few moments later Aston arrived with Newton. Aston had not had a moment to spare since getting back into the base, and hadn’t had time to give any thought to what he was going to say. He looked around at his men, seated on the ground in a semi-circle. It was evident from the look in the eyes of all those who had been with him in Sangin that they had been through the mill.
He said, ‘I’ll be brief, boys, then go and get yourselves some scoff. What we had out there, that was a well-planned ambush. You can’t take it away from the Taliban, they set that up really well. But the idea of an ambush is you destroy all the enemy in it, or at least you cause them real damage. The initiative was with the Taliban today. Shouldn’t have been but it was. And they should have come out on top. But they didn’t. Yeah, we took a battering, we all know that, and we’re all hoping Dean Bailey will pull through, and the others will be OK too. But I reckon all the ambushers are dead now. The ones we didn’t get were killed by the Apaches. We’ll go through the BDA assessment when we’ve got time, but, talking to people so far, I reckon we took out at least ten to fifteen – probably a lot more too. And the JTAC reckons the Ap
aches confirmed another eight going across the river. The enemy came off worse because of the full-on aggression and the professionalism of every man out there today. Several of you did some really, really brave things – and that won’t be forgotten.
‘I can see some of you look pretty low. Like you’re at the bottom. I can understand that. But don’t forget what I always say. We are a team. A company team. You always hear that people like working with B Company. Why? Because we include them in the team. And we’re all in it together. No one’s on their own. So you take the good days with the bad. And we’ve had a couple of bad days. But let’s not lose sight of what I said a minute ago. We killed a lot of enemy today. And we killed eighteen yesterday in Heyderabad. And remember back in Silicon, our first big contact. That was the day for B Company. We killed lots of Taliban, and you all saw them dead on the battlefield. Think back to that. These last couple of days, particularly today, is just one of the bad days. That’s the business we’re in. You take the good and the bad and you just get on with it.
‘I’m not wrapping you in cotton wool. I’m not going to ask the CO for a break and I’m not going to give you a break. We’re going back into Sangin tomorrow, or maybe the next day. But soon. And we will just get on with it and get it done.
‘OK, diggers, that’s it. I’m incredibly proud of you all. Keep your heads up, get yourselves some scoff and some rest, and get ready to go out again.’
Josh Lee headed back to the Arm Pit with the rest of the section. He sat in the dust and fixed up his food – twenty-four-hour ration pack Menu B. The only one the CQMS ever seemed to issue. Beef stew and dumplings plus chocolate pudding. He thought, That must be it. We can’t get anything worse than that for the rest of the tour now. That must be as bad as it gets. And I really don’t want to go through anything like that again. I just don’t.
7
Two days later, on 19 May, B Company went back into Sangin – up the same road. Carver wanted them in the town to provide reassurance to the local population and the Afghan Army and police. And he did not want to wait too long before his troops used that road again. It was the only way in, and they simply could not afford to see it as too dangerous to travel.
There was understandable apprehension among the B Company soldiers. But Carver deployed some ANA troops around the buildings at the most critical points, to reduce the risk of ambush. And the commander of the US troops based in Robinson sent one of his vehicles along with the B Company column. Aston was grateful. The American, whom he had barely met, didn’t need to do this, to endanger his own men. But he knew that having the US presence would enable Aston to call on the full might of American air and artillery support, which would not be available unless US troops were directly involved in the battle.
In the event, they arrived at Sangin DC without incident. The company conducted foot patrols around the town and into the Green Zone and were able to relax a little in the base and swim in the river that flowed through it.
The following day, Sunday 20 May, at 1220 hours, tragedy again struck B Company. Lance Corporal George Davey, a section 2IC in 5 Platoon, accidentally shot himself in the chest while cleaning his rifle. He was evacuated by Chinook to Bastion but died after four and a half hours on the operating table. The bullet had hit his lung, spleen and stomach.
The men of B Company were utterly devastated. When Aston heard the news of Davey’s death, he thought, After all that we’ve been through. God knows how we survived the fighting without anyone getting killed. And now this…
In Lieutenant Colonel Carver’s eulogy, he wrote: ‘Lance Corporal Davey was a popular NCO who, in true Royal Anglian style, always put his men’s interests before his own. His death is a tragic loss felt throughout the Battalion.’
The next evening in Sangin DC, B Company held a company memorial service for their comrade, the first of their soldiers to die in Afghanistan.
Map 7. Feat of Endurance
Feat of Endurance: 29 May–5 July 2007
1
Brigadier Lorimer’s first priority in Helmand had been to prevent Taliban attacks on Gereshk in order to enable better security, reconstruction and improved prosperity for the local community. Operation Silicon, in late April and early May, had succeeded in creating the conditions to enable the brigadier’s objectives to be achieved.
His next focus was Sangin, 30 kilometres north-east of Gereshk, along the River Helmand. With a population of 14,000, Sangin had traditionally supported the Taliban and was notorious as one of the central locations of the opium trade in southern Afghanistan. Since the first British deployment into Helmand in 2006, Sangin had been the scene of many bloody battles, and by the time the Royal Anglians arrived in theatre, thirteen British soldiers had been killed there. Like Gereshk, Sangin was critically important to Task Force Helmand’s overall goal of achieving security, prosperity and the rule of law in the province. It was the district’s principal town and main trading centre.
The Taliban recognized the importance of the town just as much as Brigadier Lorimer, and they worked hard to keep its population under their ruthless domination, desperate to avoid any hint of progress that could be attributed to the Kabul government, NATO forces or other international organizations. As well as attacking British, American and Afghan troops in and around Sangin, the Taliban threatened, attacked and killed locals and fired rockets and mortars into the town. Their assaults and threats had been so effective that the once thriving bazaar, or market, that was the cornerstone of daily life in and around Sangin no longer existed.
Lieutenant Colonel Carver and his staff planned an operation to achieve the same effect in Sangin as had been achieved in Gereshk. The idea was to clear the Green Zone either side of the Helmand River north-east of Sangin, to dislodge the Taliban and begin the process of loosening their stranglehold on the town and surrounding area. The major difference from Silicon, and one that made a similar operation north-east of Sangin much more difficult, was the Helmand River. In this area, it was virtually impossible for the Royal Anglians to cross, yet the Taliban had the ability to get over using improvised crossing methods such as small boats and rubber tyres leashed to wires strung across from bank to bank. They could easily escape or reinforce across the river.
Carver learnt that Task Force 1 Fury, the airmobile battalion from the US 82nd Airborne Division that had taken part in Operation Silicon, might also be available. The operation that he planned included the troops from the 82nd. He envisaged the Royal Anglians operating on one side of the river with the Americans on the other.
Carver proposed an operation to Lorimer, who liked the idea and ordered his staff to draw up a detailed plan – Operation Lastay Kulang.
The preliminary stage of Operation Lastay Kulang began on 27 May, when Carver deployed his Danish Recce Squadron to the north, in the vicinity of Musa Qalah, to deceive the Taliban into thinking the battle group would strike there rather than in the Sangin area. Once the operation began the Danes also had the role of screening the area between Sangin and Musa Qalah to give early warning of Taliban reinforcement southwards.
The following day, as A Company deployed from Bastion to take part in Lastay Kulang, the company commander’s Viking struck a mine. Corporal Darren Bonner, A Company’s Signals Detachment commander, who was travelling in the back, was killed outright. A committed Christian, only weeks before Daz Bonner had conducted a memorial service for Private Chris Gray, killed in action on Friday 13 April. As well as being a highly competent and respected soldier, Bonner was one of the best-liked characters in the battalion and the whole of the Royal Anglian Regiment. He was a fanatical Spurs fan and never let any of his fellow soldiers forget the fact. Physically impressive and covered in tattoos, he was a weightlifter and night-club bouncer in his spare time, but also a man of great compassion and ever willing to help and advise others.
Bonner’s death had a huge impact on the company and the battalion. The mine that killed him had been planted by the Taliban, and the power of
the blast indicated that two or three anti-tank mines may have been buried one on top of the other. There were three further mine-strikes during Operation Lastay Kulang, resulting in injuries to soldiers travelling in vehicles. The Taliban fighters had monitored the battle group’s movements, sending IED teams ahead to plant and camouflage mines.
Operation Lastay Kulang proper began on 30 May. In addition to A Company, all of the Royal Anglian Battle Group elements were involved, and there were numerous sorties by attack helicopters and strike aircraft. The planned Task Force 1 Fury assault across the river was delayed for twenty-four hours, and during the insertion into the Green Zone a Chinook was shot down with the loss of five American troops, one British and one Dutch soldier.
Lastay Kulang lasted for eleven days, during which an estimated 200 Taliban were killed. Although the enemy fired smallarms, RPGs, rockets and mortars at the battle group from a distance, the Taliban did not stand and fight. When the Royal Anglians arrived in an area, they simply melted away. Most of the enemy were killed from the air and by long-range or indirect fire.
That didn’t make the job any easier for the Royal Anglian infantrymen with their attached engineers, artillery and medics. They still had to sweat their way through dense Green Zone undergrowth, laboriously clear through compound after compound and patrol for kilometre after kilometre across exposed, rugged and angular desert. All in searing heat and carrying 30-odd kilos of combat equipment.
Despite efforts to try to stop them, many of the Taliban who had been fighting the battle group managed to escape across the river north to Musa Qalah.
To maintain long-term dominance in the area north-east of Sangin, on 2 June the Royal Engineers constructed Forward Operating Base Fox at Putay, and this was initially occupied by the Estonian armoured infantry company that formed a part of the Royal Anglian Battle Group.