Attack State Red

by Richard Kemp

  Map 11. Final Assault

  Final Assault: 29 August–1 September 2007

  1

  Major Calder’s Mastiff assault, a series of subsequent offensive operations led by Major Messenger and the killing of Farouk and his team by Lance Corporal Mann and Private Gent, had all damaged the Taliban’s offensive capability. But the effects were only temporary, and there were continuing signs of a further Taliban build-up in the area, threatening the security of Sangin and reconstruction efforts in the town and district.

  Lieutenant Colonel Carver realized that another battle group offensive against the Taliban in the Helmand River valley north-east of Sangin was going to be needed. He was determined to prevent the Taliban gathering enough strength to lay waste again to the town, destroying the remarkable reconstruction and confidence-building work that had been accomplished by A Company since the end of Operation Lastay Kulang back at the beginning of June.

  It was now late August, and Carver also had in mind that 40 Commando Royal Marines would be arriving in just a few weeks to take over from the Royal Anglians in Helmand. He did not want to throw a newly arrived unit straight into the deep end. They needed a chance to find their feet in the demanding battle zone around Sangin. Clearing the hard-core Taliban out and knocking them off balance before the marines arrived would at least buy some time for them. Carver wanted the operation to be complete before they arrived.

  Carver and his staff planned an offensive in which A and C Companies would clear the valley from south to north, driving the Taliban into a block provided by the Estonian armoured infantry company and the Brigade Recce Force. The Recce Platoon, with a powerful armoured group of Viking vehicles and Mastiffs, would screen exits from the Green Zone into the desert on the east side, preventing enemy reinforcement and dealing with any Taliban attempting to escape in that direction. C Squadron of the Light Dragoons, allocated by Task Force Helmand to the Royal Anglian Battle Group for this operation, would carry out the same function on the west flank of the advance, operating on the other side of the Helmand River.

  D-Day for Operation Palk Ghar, which Carver expected to be the Royal Anglians’ final battle group offensive of the tour, was planned for 30 August.

  Carver’s intention was to mount the entire infantry operation on foot, to increase the element of surprise, with A Company carrying out a demanding approach march to bring them up to a start point near Inkerman. From there the company would advance north through the Green Zone with C Company on their right. Carver believed that several crossing points on the Helmand River would be heavily defended by the Taliban, and would have to be cleared.

  Major Biddick had kept A Company at the peak of fitness throughout the tour. Much of this came naturally through the endless, grinding foot patrols, sweating through desert and Green Zone under huge weights in the soaring summer temperatures. But he made sure fitness levels were kept topped up by running around the base, doing circuits on the improvised gyms the troops had put together and by boxing training. Biddick made it absolutely clear to his men that weak links would not deploy on operations. They would become a liability to the rest of the company, and he wasn’t prepared to risk the life of a Chinook crew and MERT team with a CASEVAC into the Green Zone for a heat casualty that could have been prevented by a higher level of fitness. He knew Operation Palk Ghar was going be one of the most physically demanding tasks he would ask his men to undertake, and he wanted to be certain everyone was up to it. Despite months of acclimatization, heat illness was still a threat that loomed large, and he didn’t want men on this operation who were not physically up to it.

  His greatest concern was for soldiers who had twisted ankles or were recovering from other patrol injuries. He knew that every man in the company would try to conceal an injury rather than be left back in the DC while his mates were out facing the enemy. Biddick admired the bond of loyalty that this represented but he also knew that it could put other men’s lives at risk. As they had learnt in the last five months, evacuating just one casualty – be it from enemy action, accidental injury or heat illness – was extremely manpower intensive and sometimes caused patrols to be curtailed or abandoned.

  Biddick’s solution, as for previous operations, was to conduct physical fitness tests for the whole company before they deployed. As in everything, he led from the front and was the first to undergo the demanding exercises. The men hated being put through their paces in this way, and those who had the slightest leg or ankle problem dreaded the prospect of failure. That would mean staying behind in the sangars, and was seen by them as letting their mates down.

  Private Kane Hornigold was extremely worried when he was called forward to do the test. He had just arrived in Helmand, having flown out from the battalion’s Rear Party in Pirbright just three days after his eighteenth birthday. Sergeant Major Stephen Clark, the Rear Party sergeant major, had been glad to see the back of him. Since he had arrived from Catterick Hornigold had done nothing except pester him about getting out to Afghanistan.

  However often Clark explained it, Hornigold never seemed to understand that until he was eighteen he simply wasn’t deploying – it was government policy. Hornigold had been beside himself. The mates who had passed out of training with him, who were all a bit older, were now in theatre. He was terrified the battalion would come back before he had the chance to get out and do some fighting alongside them.

  Palk Ghar was going to be his first operation. And this test was the first hurdle he would face in the battalion. He was physically very fit and had worked hard to get even fitter while being forced to wait in Pirbright between the time he passed out of Catterick and joing his company in Sangin. But he didn’t know what to expect. The idea that he might fail the test made him shudder. There was no way he could live that down at the start of his military service. And even worse was the thought he might not be allowed to deploy on Op Palk Ghar. He didn’t voice his concerns to anybody, partly because he didn’t yet really know anybody in Sangin. His mates from training had gone to other companies, and it takes time to settle into a platoon, even on operations. But Sergeant Holmes, his platoon sergeant, noticed the concern on his face, and said, ‘Don’t worry about it, Hornigold, I’ll go through the test with you. Just keep with me and you’ll have no problem getting round. Anyway, there’s no way I’m letting you get off this op, I need you in Platoon HQ.’

  Hornigold laughed nervously. Holmes’s offer to go through the test with him had boosted his confidence, but he was still dreading it. In the event, it turned out to be the hardest physical test he had ever done.

  2

  The run seemed to be endless, wearing boots, combat trousers and T-shirt, round and round the Sangin DC circuit, at Biddick’s pace. In fact it wasn’t at Biddick’s pace, because very few would have been able to achieve that. But it was fast. The squad kicked up dust as they ran, and Hornigold was half-choking on the fine Sangin sand that filled the air. The worst thing was the heat. He had never in his life experienced such oppressive, glaring heat, bearing down on him and giving him a headache even when he was standing still. It was almost unbearable even for the seasoned A Company soldiers who had been in Helmand for nearly five months. But Hornigold had arrived only four days earlier and hadn’t had time to acclimatize. Somehow he kept up, and at the end, fighting for breath, pouring sweat down his already soaked T-shirt, he did his best to stay standing up when all he wanted to do was collapse in a heap on the dirt.

  Biddick’s words, ‘Well done, Hornigold,’ meant more to him than anything he could remember. He was elated. He still had to prove himself on operations under enemy fire, but at least he had made the team.

  Biddick said to Holmes, ‘Well done to you as well, Sergeant Holmes. I’m slightly surprised you made it, but I suppose young Hornigold carried you round.’

  ‘Yeah, all right, sir, glad you could keep up too. Looked like you were struggling a bit towards the end there, sir.’

  ‘Thanks, Sergeant H, I appreciate your co
ncern.’

  He looked at Hornigold and then turned again to Holmes. ‘By the way that reminds me there was something I wanted to speak to you about.’

  Holmes said to Hornigold, ‘OK, lad, well done. Go and get yourself in the river and then get on with your admin.’

  Biddick walked over to a shaded corner of the dusty base. ‘It’s actually about Hornigold. Do you remember a while back, before he actually arrived, you asked me if he could be posted to 1 Platoon so you could keep an eye on him, because he was related to you? Can’t remember what you said – cousin or something, wasn’t it? And you said he was special to you. I think they were the words you used. I can remember the conversation quite clearly, because you interrupted me while I was shaving one morning.’

  Holmes seemed uncharacteristically nervous, looking from Biddick to the ground. ‘Yes, sir, something like that, sir.’

  ‘Yes, well, I happened to be chatting to young Hornigold yesterday when he was on stag and I mentioned the family connection. He didn’t know what I was talking about. I’m sure there’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, and I was just wondering what it was.’

  Holmes couldn’t be sure whether Biddick was smiling or not. He said, ‘Yes, sir, I can explain, sir. I’m really sorry, sir…’

  When he was back in his home town of Great Yarmouth on R and R in June, Holmes had gone to the Vauxhall dealership with his father to order a new car. Speaking to the salesman, Holmes’s proud father mentioned that his son was in the Army, on leave from Afghanistan.

  ‘Shut up, Dad, we’re here to buy a car not tell war stories,’ Holmes said.

  But the dealer said, ‘Oh, that’s interesting, my son has just passed out of Catterick. He’s a Royal Anglian. He’s going out to Afghanistan himself soon. I’m really worried. I’ve heard they’re all getting hurt because they’re mixing it big time. I’ve seen it in the news.’

  Holmes told him he too was a Royal Anglian.

  Steve Hornigold, the dealer, stared at him. He begged Holmes to look after his son in Afghanistan. ‘I just want to know that someone’s looking out for him. He’s looking forward to going out there. But I’m really, really worried about him. I’m sure it’s not as bad as they say on the TV, but I am so worried.’

  Holmes didn’t want to tell Mr Hornigold the truth about what was going on in Helmand. The poor man, who obviously cared deeply for his son, would probably have a heart attack.

  ‘I’ll look after him,’ said Holmes, understanding the desperation in Mr Hornigold’s voice. He wondered how he was going to make good on this hasty promise. He had no idea whether young Hornigold would be posted to A, B, C or D Company. He could be going anywhere.

  Mr Hornigold shook Holmes’s hand, immense relief and gratitude on his face. He said, ‘Thanks, mate, thanks so much. I’ll tell you what, I’ll take my commission off whatever you buy.’

  Holmes finished his explanation to Biddick: ‘Sir, I’m sorry I told you he was related. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. It wasn’t the money off the car – he didn’t even say anything about that till I’d agreed to look after Kane. I just wanted to help him. He was so worried about his boy.’

  Biddick tutted, but he was smiling. He had guessed this wasn’t about a family relationship. He said, ‘Well, I hope you got a good deal, Sergeant H. What car did you go for in the end?’

  ‘It’s a Vauxhall Zafira VXR, sir, a people carrier.’

  Biddick laughed, ‘Really? Settling down then, Sergeant H?’

  ‘No, it’s pretty sporty. A turbo. Anyway I need it now we’ve got another baby.’

  Holmes went back to the finish of the run. Two more of his men, Privates Fabio Oliviero and Sam Hicks were just finishing their test. He slapped them on the back, ‘Well done, lads. Get down to the river and get yourselves sorted.’

  Oliviero, from Peterborough, was half Italian. He was a bright, confident soldier, who had the academic qualifications to be an officer. He considered applying for Sandhurst, but decided he wanted to experience life as a private soldier in the infantry. Straight from training in Catterick, in July 2004, he joined the battalion while they were deployed in Iraq.

  Oliviero, normally upbeat and positive no matter what was going on, was on a downer. A few days earlier, Operation Minimise had been called in Sangin. That meant someone had been killed or seriously wounded. Whenever Minimise was invoked, non-operational phones, emails and texting systems were all deactivated. The idea was that the rumours that would inevitably spread around the battalion in these circumstances did not filter back to the UK, causing unnecessary alarm among family and friends back home.

  Soon after Minimise was called, it became known among the troops in Sangin that casualties had been taken by B Company at Kajaki. Everyone knew people in B Company, and rumour and speculation about what had happened was rife. But it was not till days later that the details came out about the F15 attack that killed Privates Foster, McLure and Thrumble.

  Oliviero had been in the same training platoon at Catterick as Thrumble, and they had been close, seeing a lot of each other in the battalion over the years since they passed out. He was devastated by the news of his mate’s death.

  The news from Kajaki also got Oliviero thinking about Operation Palk Ghar, due to begin in a few days. They would be going home in three or four weeks. Mixing with the Taliban in the Green Zone raised the stakes hugely. Was he going to die here in the last few weeks of the tour? Or any more of his mates? He couldn’t bear the thought. He looked at Sam Hicks, washing his clothes in the river next to him. He was one of his closest mates. And that meant a lot in Helmand, where the nightmare of intensive, toe-to-toe combat bound infantrymen closer together even than brothers.

  The two had been through so much together since that time on Friday 13 April when they had been up on a compound roof, exposed to intensive enemy fire, trying to support Sergeant Larry Holmes’s withdrawal back to safety. They had looked out for one another ever since and had saved each other’s skins a few times. Oliviero was full of admiration for the friend whom he had seen storming through Helmand over the past five months, breaking down doors and blasting his way into compounds. Hicks was often at point for the section, the platoon and frequently the whole company group. Oliviero thought he was one of the bravest men he had ever known.

  Since the end of Operation Ghartse Ghar, A Company had been in Sangin. They had conducted security patrols by day and night throughout the town and surrounding areas, talking to the locals in the streets and in the teeming market place. These patrols were designed to deter and disrupt Taliban activities, and also to support reconstruction efforts, gain intelligence and protect the developing market economy in Sangin. Some people were indifferent, a few overtly hostile, but the majority had become increasingly friendly towards the Royal Anglian soldiers as they got used to them. Biddick had demanded that his men treat the locals with the utmost respect, and that they should do whatever they could to help them, whether during a minor incident in the street, in a reconstruction project, or in the event of a Taliban attack. This approach had paid off, and as the patrols moved through the town there would be lots of handshaking, waving and the exchange of friendly greetings. With interpreters, they could have conversations, but Oliviero and the other soldiers also learnt quickly how to communicate, make themselves understood and even have a laugh with the locals using signs and gestures.

  Oliviero found the work rewarding. He had seen the market grow from virtually nothing when they arrived to the thriving district trading centre it had now become. He knew how much this meant to the locals. He also knew how tired the locals were of the fighting that had plagued their lives for so long, and how happy they mostly were that the Royal Anglians were there, doing their best to keep the peace.

  But while A Company was patrolling and protecting Sangin, Oliviero and all of the other soldiers knew what was happening just a few kilometres north at FOB Inkerman. They heard the reports, the stories and the rumours of almost daily attac
ks and vicious contact battles. And with their own eyes and ears, in the distance, they saw the Apaches screaming down on to the Taliban around Inkerman, the F15s roaring overhead on their way to dump their deadly munitions, the distant rattle of heavy gunfire and the dull crump of C Company’s and the Taliban’s rockets and mortars pounding each other.

  That was where Oliviero and all his mates really wanted to be. In the fight alongside C Company.

  Operation Palk Ghar therefore brought mixed feelings. Oliviero was energized by the idea of getting into contact with the enemy again. It was what he had joined the Army to do, it was what he had trained for back in Pirbright and it was what he had become extremely good at in the hard experience of battle after battle before they arrived at Sangin. And there was that electric feeling of living by the skin of your teeth, where every single action and reaction could mean the difference between life and death, and the heady adrenalin rush as the first rocket streaked overhead or the first bullet cracked into the ground.

  But then there was the worry in the back of his head about whether his or his mates’ luck would run out in the last few weeks of the tour, the timeless concern of every soldier in the history of human conflict…

  Two days later, on Wednesday 29 August, the men of 1 Platoon, with their medic and Royal Engineers attachments, were in Oliviero’s room waiting for orders for Operation Palk Ghar. Ten by five metres, and home to ten soldiers, this was one of the larger rooms in the block and normally used for 1 Platoon’s O Groups. They were on the top floor of a two-storey stone building, which bore many battle scars from the RPGs, 107mm rockets and gunfire that had peppered the base over the last year. There was no air conditioning to make the red-hot summer days bearable and no heating to take the edge off the sometimes freezing nights. The windows had no glass; some were sandbagged, others just gaping holes. On the roof was the sandbag and wriggly tin FSG tower, permanently manned by observers and machine-gunners.