by Jon E. Lewis
Afterword
For his bravery and leadership at Mirbat, Captain Mike Kealy was awarded the DSO. Tragically, he died on an exercise in the Brecon Beacons in 1979. Trooper Tobin and Corporal Labalaba were posthumously awarded the DCM and a Mention in Dispatches respectively.
THE RESCUERS
The origins of SAS counter-terrorism in urban centres date back to the “Keeni Meeni” (Swahili for moving unseen like a snake) period in Aden, during which the major commanding A Squadron SAS set up a Close Quarter Battle Course for a selected team of troopers. Thereafter, the evolution of SAS Counter Revolutionary Warfare (CRW) proceeded almost by accident; during a period in the early 1970s when the Regiment found itself without an active campaign it offered its service to the British government as trainers of bodyguards for VIPs. The government saw this as a means of raising revenue, and hired out the Regiment to overseas heads of state. At the same time, at the Hereford HQ of 22 SAS, Bradbury Lines (later rechristened Stirling Lines in honour of the Regiment’s founder), a special house was constructed to train marksmen in the skills of shooting gunmen in the close confines of a room without hitting VIPs or other hostages. Formally called the Close Quarter Battle House (CQB), it is more usually known as “the Killing House”. (One exercise involves a trooper sitting amongst dummy terrorists, while other troopers burst in and riddle the dummies with live rounds). To maintain and improve the Regiment’s new skill a permanent CRW Wing was set up. This remained a modest affair until the Munich massacre in September 1972, when seven Palestinians from “Black September” seized the dormitory occupied by Israeli Olympic athletes, killing two and taking nine as hostage. The West German government agreed to allow the gunmen and hostages safe passage out of the country, but as the party moved through Munich airport German security forces opened fire. In the wild gunbattle that followed all the hostages were killed. European governments became alarmed about their ability to deal with terrorism. The West Germans themselves responded by setting up Grenzschutzgruppe 9 (GSG9), an elite counter-terrorist unit. Britain, meanwhile, turned to the SAS who were given the resources needed to expand the CRW Wing to a cadre consisting of one officer and four instructors, who in turn would be responsible for teaching all aspects of counter-terrorist work to all troopers. In addition, a CRW team of about twenty troopers, drawn on rota from the four operational Sabre squadrons was to be available at immediate notice to deal with any hostage or terrorist situation.
In the aftermath of Munich, the SAS quickly established links with the CRW groups of other Western nations, including Germany’s GSG9. These links would benefit both units at Mogadishu Airport, described here by Jon E Lewis, and London, in 1980.
Their tense faces blackened with camouflage paint, the commandos of the crack German anti-terrorist squad GSG9 edged slowly through the dark tropical night to the rear of the Boeing 737. Some held automatic pistols, others the Heckler & Koch MP5A2 sub-machine gun. One group of GSG9 edged to take up position under the Boeing’s wings and nose, another crouched beneath its tail plane. Ladders were propped gently against the aircraft, and magnetic charges placed around the passenger doors. In readiness by the ladders waited two men from Britain’s 22 SAS Regiment on temporary attachment to GSG9. The grim faced leader of GSG9, Ulrich Wegener, watched all these preparations with anticipation. Many questions racing through his mind. But one question looped and looped – could he get all the 79 hostages and crew off the hijacked airliner alive? Or would it turn into another massacre like Munich?
Wegener had commanded GSG9 from its creation in 1972, and had striven from the outset to make GSG9, recruited from the border police, an elite amongst CRW units. Rigorously selected (75 per cent of candidates fail entry) and trained, GSG9 men were also equipped with some of the most sophisticated weapons in the world, Model 19.357 Magnum handguns and Heckler & Koch MP5A2 sub-machine guns, the latter often in its MP5SD silenced version. After years of painstaking rehearsal for the real thing, GSG9 was now having the chance to prove its value – the storming of a hijacked jet on the runway of Mogadishu airport on 18 October 1977.
Five days before, at 13.00 hours on 13 October, Lufthansa Flight LH181 had lifted off the runway at Majorca’s Palma airport and set course for southern France. It never reached its destination. Four Palestinian liberationists, two men and two women, had smuggled guns aboard in their baggage and had proceeded to hijack the plane in mid-flight. Their principal object was to force the West German authorities to release members of the armed revolutionary organization, Baader-Meinhof. The Palestinians also demanded a £9 million ransom.
A wild career across the skies of Europe, the Middle East and the Horn of Africa then followed as the Palestinians sought a safe haven. Meanwhile, a minister of the West German government together with a member of GSG9 had flown to London. The minister wanted Britain to use its influence in Dubai, where the hijacked aircraft was about to land, to ensure diplomatic clearance for GSG9; the representative from GSG9 considered that the SAS might have some useful equipment and knowledge. It quickly became obvious to all that an SAS team attached to GSG9 for the duration of the hijack would be a distinct advantage. The two SAS men selected were Major Alistair Morrison, MC then second in command of 22 SAS and Sergeant Barry Davies, BEM, who commanded the CT sniper group. With them went a collection of “flash-bangs”, the SAS-invented magnesium-based concussion grenades which have the shock effect of stunning the enemy for valuable seconds.
Morrison and Davies flew out to Dubai, where they found Wegener and two of his men under virtual arrest. No sooner was this problem sorted out, than the hijacked aircraft flew on to the Republic of Yemen, where it for a time enjoyed sanctuary. Then the leader of the Palestinian gang, Mahmoud killed the captain of the airliner, Jürgen Schumann, for communicating with the security forces. Now flown by the co-pilot, the Boeing proceeded to Somalia on 17 October. Wegener and the two SAS men followed. Time, however, was running out for the hostages.
At Mogadishu, Mahmoud threatened to blow up the aircraft unless all his demands were met. To emphasize his seriousness he threw the body of Schumann onto the tarmac. From that moment on there was no possibility of a peaceful outcome. As a ruse to gain a few precious hours the negotiators told Mahmoud that 11 Baader-Meinhof members were being released. Even as Mahmoud was given this misinformation the main body of GSG9 arrived from Turkey and Wegener began putting the operation to storm the airliner, codenamed “Magic Fire” and based on a plan by Morrison and Davies, into motion.
At 01.00 hours on 18 October, GSG9 marksmen and troopers armed with grenade launchers moved out into the desert. Morrison and Davies began preparing their “fireworks”. The operation began at 01.50. While two hijackers on the flight decks were kept talking by the control tower, the assault teams and the two SAS men moved into their positions. At 02.07, 23 minutes before Mahmoud’s final deadline, a flaming oil drum was rolled onto the runway in front of the aircraft. Ladders were placed against the doors and magnetic charges carefully put into place. Morrison and Davies climbed silently on to the wing and along to the emergency passenger door. As the terrorists watched the fire, there was a massive explosion. The passenger doors at the rear and front of the aircraft were blow in. So was the emergency door above the port wing. Through this the SAS men threw in their flash-bangs which exploded with a deafening roar. The GSG9 assault teams waited a second or two and then kicked in the passenger doors and stormed into the aircraft. A fierce gun battle followed as GSG9 troopers neutralized the Palestinians at the front and rear of the plane. Mahmoud flung two grenades that exploded harmlessly under the seats before being cut down by a burst from a Heckler & Koch. One of the women Palestinians ran into a lavatory, where she was shot in the head by Wegener. As Wegener and the SAS men had guessed, the hostages strapped in their seats would be safe below the line of fire. No hostages were killed in the exchange. Of the Palestinians, three were killed, one was taken prisoner. One GSG9 trooper was slightly wounded. The storming of the aircraft had taken
just five minutes.
On their return to the 22 SAS camp at Hereford, Morrison and Davies extolled the virtues of the Heckler & Koch MP5A2 that they had just witnessed in action. Tests confirmed its superiority over the American Ingram sub-machine gun used by the SAS CT teams, and it became the choice of the Regiment. In addition to firing at a rate of up to 650rpm, the 9 mm Heckler & Koch MP5A3 can, if need be fire single shots. It is light (2kg) and short (32.5cm). The first time the “Hockler” was used in action by the SAS was just three years later, during the Iranian Embassy siege.
THE FALKLANDS WAR
William Aymes recounts the remarkable story of the SAS in the Falklands conflict.
When the going gets tough the tough, as the adage has it, get going. On Friday 2 April 1982 Argentina invaded the Falklands Islands, two small British specks of land almost lost in the vastness of the South Atlantic sea. Immediately on hearing the news – via a BBC newsflash – Lieutenant-Colonel Mike Rose, the CO of 22 SAS, put the Regiment on stand-by and offered its services to Brigadier Julian Thompson of 3 Commando Brigade, Royal Marines. If there was to be a British counter-attack, Rose reasoned, it was a near certainty that the Commando Brigade, trained in amphibious warfare, would be in the van of the assault. It was Rose’s intention that the Special Air Service would share the burden of combat – and, dare say it, the future limelight of military history – in what might be Britain’s last colonial war.
The SAS appeal fell on favourably inclinded ears. On 4 April, after SAS soldiers had been frantically summoned back from leave, training courses, even patrols in the bandit country of Northern Ireland, an advance party from D Squadron flew south to Ascension Island. By the next day the rest of D Squadron, together with all their kit, was also airborne for Ascension, a telling tribute to the efficiency of the quartermasters at Stirling Lines, the SAS’s headquarters.
The Squadron’s landfall was the British-owned base in the middle of the Atlantic, just below the Equator. Although 3,885 miles from the Falklands it was the nearest British territory of serviceable use. Hot and cramped, Ascension had little to recommend it, so it was with small regret that the 90 troopers of D Squadron found their sojourn quickly curtailed. Injured British pride and morale required, the government of Margaret Thatcher felt, some form of immediate and dramatic military action. The chosen target was Grytviken, the former whaling station on the island of South Georgia, 870 miles south-east of the main Falkland Islands group.
The execution of Operation Paraquet – soon corrupted to Operation Paraquat, after the branded weedkiller – fell to D Squadron 22 SAS, alongside part of M Company, 423 Royal Marine Commando (“The Mighty Munch”), and 2 Section of the SBS, some 235 men in all. On 21 April the small assault force, carried in HMS Endeavour, HMS Antrim and HMS Plymouth, came in sight of South Georgia, an ice-bound mountainous wilderness which formed, before the Argentinian occupation, the base for the British Antarctic Survey. Since little was known about the deployment of Argentinian forces on the island, Major Guy Sheridan RM, the commander of the assault force, ordered covert recces. The Mountain Troop of D Squadron was inserted by helicopter in near white-out conditions of driving snow. Carrying 771b of kit and hauling heavily loaded pulks (sledges), the Troop inched down the Fortuna Glacier. After a night of hurricane-force winds, the Troop commander, Captain John Hamilton, had no choice but to request extraction. Three A/SW Wessex helicopters landed on the glacier and embarked the men, but on take-off one of the helicopters suffered a white-out and crashed. All the troopers and crew escaped alive and were redistributed to the other helicopters. On take-off another Wessex crashed, again without loss of life, but leaving 13 men stranded on the glacier. Overloaded and running low on fuel, the pilot of the third “helo”, Lieutenant-Commander Ian Stanley, RN, had no choice but to fly back to Antrim. Yet later that day, in a virtuoso flying display, Stanley returned to the blizzard-swept glacier, located the survivors and embarked them. The machine, dangerously overloaded, barely made it back to the ship, crash-landing on the deck. For his valour and professionalism, Stanley was awarded the DSO.
With the Task Force’s helicopter capability reduced by two-thirds, the planners decided to launch D Squadron’s Boat Troop. Two of their five Gemini inflatables suffered engine failure, but three crews managed to get ashore and set up watch on Leith and Stromness on the night of 22 April. Three days later Commander Stanley successfully inserted an SBS patrol a few miles from Grytviken. Flying back to Antrim he spotted on the surface of the sea the Argentinian submarine Santa Fe, which he immediately attacked, straddling her with a pair of depth charges. These inflicted sufficient damage to prevent her diving, and she was shortly afterwards attacked by helicopters from Endurance and the frigate Brilliant. The Santa Fe, listing badly, limped into Grytviken, where her condition and the sight of British helicopters in hot pursuit caused near panic in the 130-strong enemy garrison. Although Sheridan and D Squadron’s commanding officer, Major Cedric Delves, could only immediately muster 75 men they decided to exploit the Argentinian’s set-back. To the roar of supporting gunfire from Antrim and Plymouth, directed by a Royal Artillery commando offier, previously infiltrated ashore, an SAS composite Troop landed about two miles from the settlement, to be followed by two composite RM/SBS Troops.
Screened from Grytviken by a small mountain, the SAS struck out and began to advance on the port. Some elephant seals, mistaken for Argentinian troops, were shot-up and a suspected enemy position – demolished promptly by a Milan missile – turned out to be an ancient piece of scrap iron. These hazards negotiated, the Troop ascended to the top of Brown Mountain to find the buildings of the port below festooned with white flags. The garrison surrendered without a shot, Sergeant-Major Gallagher of D Squadron wasting little time in hauling down the Argentinian flag and replacing it with the Union flag. To their incredulity the SAS assault party discovered, from an enemy soldier who could speak English, that they had walked, blithely unaware, through a minefield ringing the Argentinian weapons pits. The next morning, 26 April, two troops from D Squadron, together with an SBS team, took the peaceful surrender of the Leith garrison. South Georgia was once again in British hands.
While D Squadron had South Georgia on its mind, another Squadron from 22 SAS, G Squadron, had been sailing towards the war zone on the RFA Resource. Since little in the way of aerial or satellite pictures of Argentinian positions on the Falklands was available, G Squadron was earmarked for old-style “eye-ball” reconnaissance. Beginning on 1 May, eight four-man SAS patrols were inserted by Sea King helicopter, an earlier plan to parachute them in being cancelled at the last moment. (Also scrapped was a plan to crash-land two C130 aircraft, packed to the roof with SAS troopers, on the runway at Port Stanley, the SAS troopers rushing out – so the planners hoped – to bring the war to a swift conclusion.) As ever, the SAS troopers went into action heavily loaded with equipment and weapons. Their bergens bulged with waterproofs, rations, communications equipment and ammunition, while everyone carried an American-made 66 mm Light Anti-tank Weapon (LAW) which, together with the XM 203 (an Armalite rifle with a pump-action grenade-launcher attached to the underside), was the flavour of the campaign. The recce teams were dropped up to 20 miles from their lying-up positions (LOPs), on reaching which they established a forward observation post (OP). This was manned by two men during the day, while the other two manned the main “hide”, often a mere shallow depression scraped into the featureless, windswept terrain and covered with ponchos. Life in the hides was unrelentingly grim, with little or no chance to brew up hot food or drink, and cold, wet weather that seeped into the bones. The record for enduring a hide was 28 days, set by Sergeant Mather and his team above Bluff Cove.
As well as discomfort, danger was always present. On 10 June an SAS hide was discovered by the Argentinians. Captain John Hamilton of D Squadron – who by then had rejoined the main Task Force – and his signaller were surrounded. In the firefight which ensued, Hamilton was killed trying to cover his comrade’s es
cape. For his bravery Hamilton was awarded a posthumous Military Cross. On several occasions, SAS and SBS patrols ran into each other, opening fire until both sides realized their mistake. One such “blue-on-blue” incident ended tragically, with the death of SBS Sergeant “Kiwi” Hunt.
The recce teams, however, achieved conspicuous results. One four-man patrol led by G Squadron’s Captain Aldwin Wight was tasked with observing Argentinian movements around Port Stanley, and accordingly established a hide on Beaver Ridge overlooking the port, an area heavily patrolled by the enemy. The SAS team discovered a night dispersal area for Argentinian helicopters between Mount Kent and Mount Estancia. When this intelligence was relayed back to the fleet, two Harrier aircraft attacked the site, destroying three enemy helicopters.
Besides reconnaissance, the SAS was tasked to carry out its quintessential activity of offensive raiding. An early target was the Argentinian airstrip on Pebble Island where, just before dawn on 21 May, 11 1A-58 Pucara aircraft were destroyed on the ground by the Boat Troop and Mountain Troop of D Squadron. The attack commenced with a blitz of LAW rockets, mortars and small-arms fire from the SAS, which was complemented by the guns of HMS Glamorgan. With the Argentinians forced into cover, the SAS moved onto the airstrip and fixed explosive charges to the planes. Within 15 minutes all 11 aircraft had been destroyed, with only one SAS casualty, a trooper hit by shrapnel in the leg. The SAS men were then picked up by Navy helos, who arrived on the dot, perfectly ending a textbook operation.
