by Andy McNab
Throughout this incident, Loftus displayed a high measure of physical courage and, despite the very real risk to his own safety, a resolute determination to help his wounded colleague. The fact that the casualty survived is testament to this young Royal Military Policeman's fine performance under the most testing of conditions; a performance made all the more remarkable considering that Loftus has only been a Royal Military Policeman for 18 months and is engaged on his first operational tour. He is strongly recommended for the award of a Mention in Dispatches.
August 2008
Captain Nick Barton, DFC, Army Air Corps
I have never dwelt on how many I have killed [as an Apache pilot]. We debrief everything: you watch it all [recorded film] in slow time on a big video screen. You know if there is any doubt you don't engage. But once you have made the decision to engage, then you need to engage accurately and to kill. There is nothing worse than if you rush it and you can only get twenty rounds off. You want to be in a position where you get the whole hundred rounds in one pass and guarantee that the target is neutralized.
For perhaps 50 per cent of our engagements, you probably don't see anyone [the pilots are firing at buildings or treelines]. If it subsequently came out in an int [intelligence] report that five women were killed in a building you had fired on, you would feel absolutely terrible. Fortunately I have not had any of those. We [the British Apache pilots] have probably only had one example of it and he [the pilot] was completely right to do it [to open fire]. They'd had two guys firing a mortar out of one end of the building and, on the other side, inside the building, there had been two women. It was in self-defence under the correct Rules of Engagement and, prior to firing, he had checked the building and not seen any women. It would be difficult to take but I suppose one must console oneself in that he had done everything right at the time. We have good squadron camaraderie and attitude to debriefing. After a mission, we will debrief everything and we will talk about it. This helps with our drills and improving our support to the troops as well as dealing with difficult scenarios.
I have been in a night-time scenario in Nad Ali that, taken out of context, could be seen to be quite damning from our gun footage. Our guys had been contacted. They had been caught in an ambush, which they had pre-seen but could not get the Rules of Engagement to engage on. They were subsequently contacted and they swiftly dropped two 500-pounders from a B1 [bomber] because that was all they had on station. They were pretty sure they got one [Taliban], but they were still tracking another with an ISTAR [intelligence, surveillance, targeting, acquisition and reconnaissance] asset. They tracked him for over a K and a half through the fields. We were on high readiness from Bastion – a ten-minute flight time – and were woken up and launched as soon as the initial contact occurred.
When I arrived on station at approximately three in the morning, I had one guy in the middle of the maize-field. It took quite a while picking him up at night. When I actually saw him, I had no doubt in my mind that this guy was one of the original men from the ambush, still rapidly on the run in the middle of a field using the high crops as cover. I was flying at about 2,000 feet with night-vision goggles on. I had all the Rules of Engagement and fired, and I made sure I did it pretty clinically. That sounds shocking. I fired a burst of twenty [rounds], then readjusted and then I fired probably eighty or a hundred rounds at him. Once you have caught him, once he is on the run, you make sure you hit him really hard. You just want to be professional and clinical.
We video everything we do and watch it not only to improve our weaponeering, but also to record every engagement for any Rules of Engagement questions or investigations. Taken out of context, without the background, this footage would be quite shocking in its cold harshness. The fact that we video everything does put the crews under additional pressure in a way that, perhaps, the rest of the Army does not face.
August 2008
Major Jonathan Hipkins, Royal Military Police (RMP)
We have just had an incident whereby a British forces ground call sign conducted an offensive operation up near FOB Inkerman. During that operation, they received intelligence to suggest that a certain compound was being used as a formup point to launch an attack by enemy forces on them. They pushed a couple of snipers forward to reinforce the evidence they had got through intelligence. And the two snipers saw two individuals on the roof of a particular compound that they believed was being used as a form-up point and they saw the two individuals carrying long-barrelled weapons.
On the basis that they felt an imminent threat from that compound to them, they decided to launch a strike by GMLRS, the multi-launch rocket system. And they basically hit the compound as a pre-emptive strike to neutralize the enemy threat that was contained within that compound. Unfortunately it appears, and there is no way they could ever have known this, there were civilians inside the compound and unfortunately a female was killed. Two of her children were killed as well and two other children were put in hospital along with the owner of the compound's second wife, who subsequently lost a hand. His nine-month-old baby was also hospitalized and went up to Kabul and lost an eye in a subsequent operation.
And part and parcel of my job was to look at whether or not British forces were at fault in the actions that they took that day. So I managed to get hold of the man who owns that compound, the father of the children, the husband of the wife. He was at Kandahar hospital. He was visiting his injured second wife, and his two injured children were there too. I managed to reach him through the International Committee of the Red Cross. So I had this thirty-four-year-old man in my office in tears talking about the incident where he had lost most of his family and the very serious wounds to the rest of his family. And for me, at that one moment in time, and even now just thinking about it, I felt a tingling down the back of my neck. This poor bloke had gone through a hugely traumatic experience and I had to basically try and find out whether he felt British forces were at fault, whether Taliban were present there that day and whether or not there was anything, in fact, that we could do to recompense him for the loss that he had suffered.
It's a very sad example of the nature of the conflict here in Afghanistan. And really it brought it home to me how these guys suffer no end. British forces always try and do what is right in terms of limiting collateral damage. But it doesn't mean that I am not acutely conscious of the fact that a number of individuals out there have died – innocent people have died – at the hands of British forces. Accidents will always happen, but it's still just as sad, still another person's life.
August 2008
Sergeant Hughie Benson, The Royal Irish Regiment
We were at Musa Qa'leh – Satellite Station North – when the base was attacked. The base was all Hesco bastion: metal crates that have a cloth on the inside and you just fill them with mud and whatever you want. The ANA had a small compound to live in inside our PB. We had two huge sangars, which were up on the high ground to the north: the northeast sangar and the north-west sangar. And, from there, you could see the whole of the north to the edge of the Green Zone and the urban desert as well.
The base was regularly attacked: depending on how they [the Taliban] were feeling, they would throw different things at you. In the space of about eight weeks, if you went two days without the base getting hit you were lucky. Some [incidents] were just some hero trying to make a name for himself, coming down on his own with an RPG. And then you had more co-ordinated ones where they were firing SPG9 – like an 82mm rocket that they fire at you. You get the odd mortar round – not very accurate. The closest they got was, after about three days of being mortared every day, a hundred metres away from the PB. That was not very good.
But on one day in August, it got lively. There were only ten Brits in the patrol base at this stage because we took two people back who were being extracted – they had finished their tour. The next day we were getting two more people coming up to us. So there were ten of us in the PB and about a hundred ANA. It must
have been about last light. The British sangar, which we manned, was engaged with small arms. The top two big sangars were engaged with RPG. One actually hit the front of the sangar but didn't injure anybody. And then that was followed by a full-bore attack. They wanted to have a go – they wanted to take the PB. One minute we were standing around chatting, and then we had to stand-to beside the sangar and start to engage the firing points. We all stood-to. And then everything slipped into place perfectly.
Due to previous attacks, all firing points and approach routes were marked and recorded for the 81mm mortars to engage. Everyone, including the ANA, was well practised at defending the PB. We are talking easily sixty Taliban attacking us – probably more. They came through the urban desert and the closest they got that day was sixty to seventy metres away. There was no chance of them overrunning us, but they were definitely trying to take the base. Later on, the ANA were telling us that they had heard through their local sources that they wanted to get in [to the base].
I was the PB commander in charge of the base, so I was coordinating the defence. But everyone knew what they were doing. In there, we had four GPMGs, a 50-cal machine-gun, a GMG [grenade machine-gun], a 51mm mortar, with 81mm mortar on call, which was used effectively, rifles, UGLs and LMGs. Everything was being fired. We had air [support] as well: an A10 American bomber.
This contact lasted three and a bit hours. The engagement finished just after half past ten [at night] – when our last round was fired. We didn't take any casualties. Unbelievable. They did, though. We got reports that they were collecting casualties. We could see them extracting their casualties through [our] night-vision. All the night-vision gets put on just before last light. We don't know exactly how many Taliban casualties they took. But I know for a fact that we finished fighting at half past ten and at three in the morning they were still trying to get casualties out of the canal. And whenever they were collecting the casualties, the ANA were engaging them.
1 September 2008
Captain Kate Philp, 17 Corunna Battery, 26 Regiment The Royal Artillery
I see myself as a front-line fighting soldier out here. I am two and a half weeks into a six-month tour. My parents [Donald and Susan] are extremely proud of me. They think it is a worthwhile career. They think the people they have met through us [their three children] are fantastic, sociable, loyal, hard-working, and have a big emphasis on teamwork.
Nothing has woken me up in a sweat [since arriving in Afghanistan]. I'm a lot happier now that I'm out here. I think the waiting to go and all the pre-deployment training is worse because, by the end of it, you just want to get on and do it. I would be lying if I said I wasn't nervous about going out and doing the job. No matter how well trained you are and how well your team works, going out and doing it for real for the first time is obviously something you can't fully prepare for.
We are all keen to do as good a job as possible. We have been training with the company for the last few months and obviously we want to be able to support them as best we can. And so I hope that we can do what we're trained to do [even] when we're under the ultimate pressure of being in contact and, perhaps, being tired and, perhaps, having taken casualties.
A move [from Camp Bastion to a front-line position] can take from between twelve hours to two and a half days for various reasons. On one occasion [on our move to the front-line], we had several vehicles break down but we also had a rocket come in and a sniper have a go at us, so we experienced quite a few things just on the move up here. But it was probably a really good thing that happened because you get here in one piece knowing that you got through that. You have to face it again but you've done it now for real and you've got through it.
We hope to push down the Musa Qa'leh valley and drive back the Taliban. Whether we stay in this area or move elsewhere, we're here for now, continuing the job the previous company did before us, trying to dominate the ground, providing that intimate support, certainly to the dismounted troops. The protection and fire-power that these vehicles [Warriors] give us is phenomenal, so we want to make the best use of that. If the call comes to deploy us elsewhere, then we'll do so. It's still a relatively new capability out here. We're only the third company to come out in the Warrior role and obviously we'll be going into a winter tour so we would expect our first couple of months to be busy, and then potentially quieten down again. But who knows? We've got to provide stability here for the country to be able to rebuild itself and get back on its feet. At the end of the day, we've got to help these people lead a better life.
The way we do business is to take every measure possible to minimize collateral damage and any civilian casualties. But, at the end of the day, we work under [rules of] selfdefence here. If we're being engaged from a building and we're being pinned down and the only way we can get out of that fire-fight and save our lives is to drop a bomb on it, then we'll do it. Then again, we'll look at dropping the most suitable bomb possible to minimize that collateral damage. Sadly, collateral damage is a fact of war and, unfortunately sometimes an acceptable risk that has to be taken.
I'm in a company of 130 men. When we go out on the ground on patrol, I'll be the only female. It's very simple, in terms of showering here, for example. On the first night we had shelters strung up with solar showers hanging off them. I went last, when it was dark. I said to the boys next door: 'You might not want to climb up on your Warrior because I'm about to have a shower.' And it's as simple as that. I'm not particularly uneasy about it myself, but I also don't want the guys to be uneasy about it, so I'll forewarn them. Also the guys in the gun troop over there have been very good and said I can go and use theirs [shower], if need be. It's being terribly practical and not making a big issue out of it and just saying: 'Look, we need to do this. How are we going to solve it?' It's a very easy thing to do.
To be perfectly honest, I never think of myself as a female captain in the Royal Artillery – I'm a captain in the Royal Artillery. Physical fitness is obviously pretty important and I aim to keep myself as fit as possible. And there's a good few of them [men] who I can beat, which is not me being competitive, although I am a little bit, but it's just one of those things that you will always [as a woman] be deemed to be less physically capable. So that [a physical challenge] is a big way to prove yourself, if you like.
I honestly don't try and prove myself as a female. I just try and prove myself as an officer alongside my peers and, hopefully, here, working for my guys as much as possible. I expect exactly the same from them as any other officer would. In the first exercise I did with these guys – in pre-deployment training – there was a reference made to: 'A normal FOO [forward observation officer] would do this.' I suppressed a small smile, and a wee bit later on I said: 'Look, I am a normal FOO. I may be female. I may need a bit of privacy every once in a while, to wash for example, purely out of practicality. Everything else is exactly the same. If a FOO normally sleeps out here, that's exactly where I will sleep.'
Being an officer is probably the most daunting and most difficult thing you do. That first appointment as troop commander is a challenge. You can be taught all the technical stuff but you can't really teach anyone how to react when you meet the guys for the first time and you're the boss. Yes, you're the boss, but you have to earn respect at the same time. That just comes with time. I remember being told during training that it's a process of hand-over really – from your troop sergeant who, in that interim period between the two officers, has been in charge of the troop and has obviously been with them for a long time anyway. Officers come and go, but soldiers stay, so it's a question of you gradually taking the reins. So even though you're the boss from the beginning, I don't think you actually earn that [respect] until you've been with the guys for a bit and shown them that you can do the job, that they can trust you and you've got their interests at heart. I was extremely lucky with mine [troop sergeant], that he was extremely good from day one. He would discuss everything with me and he would give me a lot of guidance as well,
as and when I needed it. But he let me make decisions for myself, which was what I needed to do. So I couldn't have asked for better support.
