Danger Close
Commanding 3 PARA in Afghanistan
COLONEL STUART TOOTAL, DSO OBE
© Stuart Tootal, 2013
Stuart Tootal has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.
First published in Great Britain in 2009 by John Murray (Publishers), An Hachette UK Company
First published in paperback in 2010
This edition published in 2014 by Endeavour Press LTD.
For Jacko
Private Damian Jackson
3 PARA. Killed in action
5 July 2006 (aged 19).
Table of Contents
Author Note
Danger Close – Leading 3 PARA in Afghanistan
Colonel Stuart Tootal
Preface
Introduction
The Dawn of Battle
1 3 PARA Angels with Dirty Faces
2 Afghanistan
3 Mission Creep
4 Hearts and Minds
5 The Hornets’ Nest
6 Reaction and Proaction
7 Sangin
8 Incoming
9 The Manner of Men
10 Reckon and Risk
11 The Home Front
12 Crucible of Courage
13 Hell in a Tight Space
14 The Will to Combat
15Day of Days
16 Last Acts
17 Coming Home
18 Fighting the Peace
Epilogue
Honours and Gallantry Awards
Acronyms
Acknowledgements
Author Note
Danger Close – Leading 3 PARA in Afghanistan
Colonel Stuart Tootal
In April 2006, I was privileged to lead 1,200 airborne soldiers of the 3 PARA battle group into the lawless province of Helmand. We were the first UK unit to be sent to Southern Afghanistan to support our American allies already operating in the south east of the country. Our mission was heralded and resourced as a peace support operation, but in reality there was little peace to be kept and the fighting we became engaged in has been described as ‘the most intense level of combat the British Army has experienced since the Korean War’.
Everything was in short supply; helicopters, men, equipment and ammunition and our resources were stretched to breaking point, as we fought to defend several isolated Afghan district centres against relentless attacks by the Taliban, who were intent on driving British forces out of Helmand. But with the help of our American allies and their gunships and additional helicopters, my soldiers prevailed against the odds by holding onto an area that was later to soak up over 20,000 NATO troops. The award of over thirty gallantry decorations, including a posthumous Victoria Cross, is a testament to the ferocity of the fighting and the raw courage of my troops.
Danger Close is a unique insight from a commanding officer’s view of leading a battle group in action and the life the death decisions that I had to make. It is also about the nature of the manner of men who did the fighting; the austere conditions that we lived in and the challenges we faced. The book takes the reader into the sharp end of war and captures the sights and sounds of battle to provide a modern anthology of a unit in combat from the perspectives of its leader and those that made up the ranks of 3 PARA. It captures the ethos and esprit de corpsof a close-knit elite Para troop unit, examines what motivates men to fight and highlights the sacrifices they made.
Danger Close also provides a fascinating insight into the physical and invisible scars of war and its impact on the home front, as it covers how we coped on our return from Afghanistan, where we dealt with the issues of looking after our wounded, treating those with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and supporting the loved ones of those who were killed in action.
Seven years on from 3 PARA’s tour there, Helmand is a very different place. The Afghan security forces now take the lead in operations as the UK and US start to withdraw their troops. I always believed in the intent of what we were trying to do in Afghanistan and history will determine the results of our endeavours. But regardless of the rights and wrongs, our participation in that troubled country has been a testimony to the courage and fortitude of British and American soldiers and Danger Close is a worthy tribute to the professionalism of those soldiers that I led and fought with.
Preface
In April 2006 the 1,200 soldiers of the 3 PARA Battle Group started their journey to southern Afghanistan. They were the first British unit to be sent into the lawless province of Helmand. Forecast as the start of a three-year commitment to bring much needed stability to a country ravaged by thirty years of war, their deployment was heralded as a peace support mission. Some who made the decision to send us hoped it would be completed without a shot being fired, but the Taliban thought differently. During its six-month tour of duty, 3 PARA fired over 479,000 rounds of ammunition in a level of sustained combat that had not been seen by the British Army since the end of the Korean War. The action took place across wild desert plains and among the foothills of the Hindu Kush. In the oppressive heat of the Afghan summer, the Battle Group fought desperately to defend a disparate number of isolated district centres against relentless attacks. Undermanned and suffering from critical equipment shortages, the intensity of the conflict stretched resources to breaking point as 3 PARA became involved in a deadly battle of attrition against a resurgent Taliban determined to drive British troops from Helmand. But it was the raw courage and fighting spirit of British soldiers that forced the Taliban to blink first. After months of vicious close-quarter fighting they won the breakin phase of the battle for Helmand in an unforgiving campaign that larger British forces continue to fight today.
The award of over thirty decorations for gallantry, including a posthumous Victoria Cross and George Cross, bears testimony to the intensity of the combat and the selfless bravery of an extraordinary band of brothers. However, as in all wars, there was a price to pay. Fifteen members of the Battle Group were killed in action and another forty-six were wounded in battle. This is their story, told both from my own perspective and that of many of those whom I was fortunate enough to know and command. It says something of the impact on their families and on those whose loved ones did not return. I have attempted to capture the essence of the fighting at the sharp end: the sights, sounds and smell of combat through a variety of different landscapes. I have also tried to provide an insight into the bigger picture issues and the difficult life-and-death decisions that were made. The following pages chart the highs and lows the Battle Group experienced and also deal with the consequences of doing the nation’s bidding, both on and off the battlefield. They say something of a peacetime society where the implications of war are often poorly understood and where there have been far too many incidents of poor treatment of those who suffer the mental and physical scars of battle. But ultimately this book is about the ordinary paratrooper and soldier in battle, their remarkable fortitude, their will to combat, the privations they faced and how they accepted risk and loss as part of the business that they are in. Having once been a soldier, writing Danger Close has been both an emotional and cathartic experience; my one hope is that I have done justice to those with whom I was privileged enough to serve.
Introduction
The Dawn of Battle
The engines of the twin rotors of the Chinook helicopter screamed for power and the fuselage vibrated violently as we lifted off from our base in the middle of the Helmand desert. We were a four-ship helicopter formation carrying 150 members of my Battle Group. Each man carried in excess of 6o pounds of equipment and was crammed into the tightly packed interiors. The American-built heavy-lift CH-47 Chinooks were the workhorses of our RAF helicop
ter fleet, affectionately known as cabs by the men who flew them. They were escorted by two Apache AH-64 gunships piloted by men of the Army Air Corps. The Apaches were our muscle, each capable of delivering a devastating fire of hundreds of 30mm cannon shells from its nose gun, explosive-tipped rockets from its side-mounted pods and Hellfire ‘fire and forget’ missiles which could flatten a small building.
The force being lifted consisted of my Battle Group Tactical Headquarters (known as Tac), two platoons of A Company, a fire support group of machine gunners, a Royal Engineers search team and a squad of men from the Afghan Army. Full to capacity, and with every seat taken, my men sat on the floor with their legs astride the man in front. Each man was festooned with individual assault gear, belts of ammunition, scaling ladders and automatic weapons. As we gained altitude and headed out across the open desert the thick fog of fine swirling sand kicked up by the rotor blades and the caustic smell of aviation fuel were blown from the confines of the fuselage. It was replaced by a perceptible atmosphere of enthusiastic apprehension. I could see it etched on the faces of my men as they nestled among their comrades. Encased in their combat body armour and wearing lightweight Para helmets, each man was deep in his own private thoughts as they set about mentally preparing themselves for the unknown of the lawless northern interior of Helmand Province.
As we flew over the security of Camp Bastion’s razor-wired perimeter and headed north across the empty desert, I ran through the plan in my head. Codenamed Operation Mutay, it was our first deliberately planned helicopter air-assault mission since arriving in Afghanistan a few weeks previously. It had been billed as a simple enough affair by our superior UK Task Force headquarters located in Kandahar. We were to conduct an operation to cordon and search a compound that a local Taliban commander was known to have frequented. We hoped to apprehend him, but, if not, a search of the compound might yield useful intelligence, as well as insurgent weapons and equipment. Intelligence reports indicated that the target area was expected to be quiet. This seemed to have been confirmed by the fact that we had recently occupied the nearby district centre (district administrative offices) in the town of Now Zad to prevent it falling to the Taliban. Since B Company’s arrival there a few days previously, insurgent attacks against the Afghan police garrison had ceased. B Company’s subsequent security patrols into the town had gone unmolested and I had been able to relieve them with a smaller force from the Gurkha Company originally assigned to guard Camp Bastion. This all seemed to support the assessment we had been given that the Taliban had withdrawn from the area.
As the assault group flew towards the target area twenty minutes’ flying time from Bastion, I knew that other members of my Battle Group would be driving towards supporting positions from the district centre in Now Zad. The Patrols Platoon and a platoon of Gurkhas would provide outer cordon depth positions around the general area of the target compound to provide additional security for the operation. Once in position they would allow the helicopter-borne troops to air-assault close to the compound and establish an inner security cordon immediately around it. Once cleared by A Company, the search team would then be able to search the compound. It was the sort of thing we had done on many occasions in Iraq and Northern Ireland and I remember thinking that it all sounded simple enough.
Five minutes out from the target landing zone (LZ) and the outer cordon troops reported that they were driving into position. The Gurkhas moved out of the district centre in Land-Rovers equipped with heavy machine guns. They headed north accompanied by a number of local Afghan National Policemen, known as the ANP. The Patrols Platoon moved to the south in eight other WMIKS, Land-Rovers so called because of the heavy .50-calibre machine guns fixed on Weapon Mount Installation Kits. Each heavy machine gun fired half-inch bullets that were capable of cutting a man in half. A bonnet-mounted 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun (GPMG) provided additional fire support from the front seat commander’s position.
I leaned into the space between the two pilots in my cab. The sun shimmered through the cockpit window and I could see the two Apache helicopters take station in over-watch, hovering positions from which they would be able to deliver devastating firepower with their Hellfire missiles and 3omm cannons should we need their fire support. In the distance, and slightly below them, the other three CH-47s were stacked in a diagonal approach attitude one after the other and were beginning their run into the target area. As my helicopter remained in an offset holding pattern, I allowed myself a moment to savour the warm feeling of satisfaction associated with seeing a plan unfolding as intended. Everybody was in position and we would reach our planned H Hour, the designated time when an operation is due to start. I smiled to myself; things were on track and appeared to be going well.
The radio communication nets went quiet as the pilots in the other three Chinooks concentrated for a fast assault landing approach into the LZ. This was a critical phase of the operation: the aircraft would not only be vulnerable to enemy fire as they landed, but the downwash from their blades would kick up a dust cloud that would induce zero visibility for the last 40 feet of their descent. They would land hard, fast and blind. They were not only susceptible to being riddled by hostile gunfire or RPG rounds, but they also ran the very real risk of a collision with the ground, or each other, as they landed in the thick, swirling sand cloud known as a brown-out. I thought of my men in the back of the cabs; each would be tense with the last few moments to landing, eagerly waiting for the wheels to touch down. An instant later the rear ramp would be lowered, allowing them to clear the fuselage in seconds. They would be glad to get out on to the ground, their destiny finally decoupled from the dangers of being confined in the cramped interiors of an aircraft carrying several thousand litres of highly flammable aviation fuel.
Suddenly static burst into my headset and I distinctly heard the faint, but frantic, words of ‘Contact! Contact!’ Shit. Shit. Some of my troops were already in an engagement with the enemy. With the assault helicopters still in the process of committing themselves into the LZ it meant that things had already started to go badly wrong.
The picture was unclear, but I could hear snatches of one of the tactical air controller’s desperate appeals for close air support. From the call signs I could hear, I knew that both platoons moving to the outer cordon positions had been ambushed. The pilot of my aircraft was trying to talk to the Apaches, fly his aircraft and tell me what he was picking up over the radio, as I could only hear agitated snatches of radio traffic. I told him to overfly the area so that I could get ‘eyes on’ to see what was happening on the ground below me. Out of the starboard gunner’s hatch I could make out several of our vehicles in a wide, dry watercourse of a wadi. They were stationary and their positioning suggested that they had been halted in a hurry. But we were still at several thousand feet and I could discern little else. I desperately wanted to get lower to see more, but my pilot rightly wanted to maintain altitude to keep us out of the range of enemy small-arms fire.
I frantically thought about what to do. It was too late to call off the three CH-47s, as they had already committed themselves to running into the target area and we could not raise them on the net anyway. I wanted someone to tell me what was going on and what I should be doing about it. But I could only communicate over the intercom with the pilot and the snatches of transmission I could hear from the ground were broken and intermittent. Focus, think about your options! I grabbed Captain Rob Musetti, my fire ‘support commander sitting in a seat by the starboard door gunner. I tried to brief him over the roar of the aircraft’s engines. Despite shouting myself hoarse, I could barely make myself heard. I hastily scribbled a note on a small piece of card: ‘Both outer call signs in contact.’ But without a headset, Rob had even less of an idea about what was going on than I did. He looked bemused, clearly aware that something was amiss but it was obvious that we weren’t going to have a meaningful discussion.
My mind raced. Should we land and commit the one immediately availa
ble reserve we had into a confused situation? Should we stay on station and wait for the situation to clarify itself? Or should we return to my headquarters at Bastion to try to gain a better understanding of the situation and gather reinforcements?
Meanwhile the battle a few thousand feet below me was unfolding. The Gurkha Platoon had been ambushed in the wadi with RPG rounds and bullets glancing off their vehicles. One of their accompanying Afghan policemen had been hit and badly wounded. Leaving their radios behind them, and under withering fire, the Gurkhas had been forced to abandon their WMIKs to fight among the tight-knit alleyways and high mud walls in the compounds that surrounded the wadi. The Taliban were firing from dug-in positions that had clearly been prepared to cover such an approach. Two kilometres to their south the Patrols Platoon had also run into a series of ambushes. Returning fire, they fought through each engagement in an attempt to reach their cordon positions only to come under contact again. In the process Private Ali was knocked backwards by two enemy bullets that hit his magazines and ignited the tracer rounds inside them. A Company had landed and had come under sporadic fire on the LZ. They had initially fought off a number of Taliban who had engaged them and then managed to secure the compound.
But I was unaware of the precise nature of events on the ground, and my mind continued to race as I thought about the implications of the various options regarding the call I knew I had to make. Then I heard just what I didn’t need to hear from the pilot, Lieutenant Nichol Benzie, who was flying our aircraft: ‘Colonel, we are five minutes to bingo fuel. You need to make a decision about what you want to do.’ Shit. Staying on task circling above the contact was no longer an option. We were approaching a critical fuel situation and we either had to land into the fight below us or return to Bastion to refuel and gather reinforcements. Time was ticking by fast; I was blind and had no situational awareness of what was going on; I couldn’t communicate with anyone on the ground, but I had to make a decision.
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