In preparation for the operation, elements of A Company deployed early to secure an Emergency Helicopter Landing Site and isolate compounds to the south of the route as part of the inner cordon.
Whilst conducting these preliminary moves the point section initiated a Victim Operated IED (VOIED) resulting in a very serious casualty.
During the casualty recovery that followed, the stretcher-bearers initiated a second VOIED that resulted in two personnel being killed outright and four other very serious casualties, one of whom later died from his wounds.
The area was effectively an IED minefield, over-watched by the enemy and the section were stranded within it. Hughes and his team were called into this harrowing and chaotic situation to extract the casualties and recover the bodies.
Speed was absolutely essential if further lives were not to be lost.
Without specialist protective clothing in order to save time, Hughes set about clearing a path to the injured, providing constant reassurance that help was on its way.
On reaching the first badly injured soldier he discovered a further VOIED within one metre of the casualty that, given their proximity, constituted a grave and immediate threat to the lives of all the casualties.
Without knowing the location of the power source, but acutely attuned to the lethal danger he was facing and the overriding need to get medical attention to the casualties rapidly, Hughes calmly carried out manual neutralisation of the device; any error would have proved instantly fatal.
This was a ‘Category A’ action only conducted in one of two circumstances: a hostage scenario where explosives have been strapped to an innocent individual and a mass casualty event where not taking action is certain to result in further casualties.
Both place the emphasis on saving other people’s lives even, if necessary, at the expense of the operator. It was an extraordinary act. With shots keeping the enemy at bay, Hughes coolly turned his attention to reaching the remaining casualties and retrieving the dead.
Clearing a path forward he discovered two further VOIEDs and, twice more, carried out manual neutralisation. His utterly selfless action enabled all the casualties to be extracted and the bodies recovered.
Even at this stage Hughes’s task was not finished. The Royal Engineers Search Team (REST) had detected a further four VOIEDs in the immediate area and stoically, like he has on over eighty other occasions in the last five months, he set about disposing of them too.
Dealing with any form of IED is dangerous; to deal with seven VOIEDs linked in a single circuit, in a mass casualty scenario, using manual neutralisation techniques once, never mind three times, is the single most outstanding act of explosive ordnance disposal ever recorded in Afghanistan.
That he did it without the security of specialist protective clothing serves even more to demonstrate his outstanding gallantry. Hughes is unequivocally deserving of the highest level of public recognition.
Glossary
AH – attack helicopter
AK47 – Kalashnikov automatic rifle
ANA – Afghan National Army
ANFO – ammonium nitrate and fuel oil – form of home-made explosive
ANP – Afghan National Police
APC – armoured personnel carrier
bang – plastic explosive
Bergen – Army rucksack
C-17 – transport plane
camp rat – Army slang for someone who never leaves the base
collapsing circuit – a secondary monitoring circuit designed to detect a change in a primary circuit and then to respond with an electrical output.
Counter-IED – counter improvised explosive device
det – detonator
det-cord – detonating cord
ECM – Electronic Counter Measures
EOD – Explosive Ordnance Disposal
FOB – forward operating base
helo/heli – helicopter
Hercules – RAF transport aircraft
Hesco – wire-mesh containers filled with sand, soil or gravel that may be stacked up to form a wall
High-metal pressure plate – a pressure plate consisting of high-metal-content electrical contacts such as hacksaw blades. Easily located with an in-service metal detector
HLS – helicopter landing site
HME – home-made explosive
Hoodlum – handheld metal detector
HQ – headquarters
ICP – incident control point
IED – improvised explosive device
IEDD – Improvised Explosive Device Disposal
ISAF – International Security and Assistance Force
KIA – killed in action
Low-metal pressure plate – a pressure plate consisting of low-metal-content electrical contacts such as bare wire. A device that proved challenging to detect with an in-service metal detector
Mastiff – armoured vehicle
MERT – Mobile Emergency Response Team
MFC – mortar fire controller
needle – EOD weapon used to cut wires
No.2 – second-in-command of the Counter-IED team – usually a corporal
OC – officer commanding
PB – patrol base
PE – plastic explosive
PP – pressure plate
PPIED – pressure-plate IED
PTI – physical training instructor
QRF – Quick Reaction Force
RC – remote control
REMF – rear echelon motherfucker – Army slang for someone not in the front line
RESA – Royal Engineer Search Advisor
REST – Royal Engineer Search Team
R & R – rest and recuperation
RIP – relief in place
RMP – Royal Military Police
RPG – rocket-propelled grenade
RST – Role Specific Training
SA80 – standard issue British Army rifle
SAT – Senior Ammunition Technician
snips – pliers
SOP – standard operating procedure
SSgt – staff sergeant
STT – Specific to Theatre Training
Terp – interpreter
Terry – Army slang for Taliban
UXO – unexploded ordnance
watch-keeper – NCO or officer who monitors the radio within an HQ
WIS – Weapons Intelligence Section
WO – warrant officer, can be Class 1 (WO1) or Class 2 (WO2)
List of Illustrations
1. Light scales kit – we only took what we could carry, and nothing more.
2. Working on a PPIED buried just in front of a small bridge. This was the first and last occasion in which I used the remote controlled robot called Dragon Runner, shown here on my left. My metal detector is positioned on my right. Note the stones, which were placed by the Taliban to warn locals that IEDs were laid in the area.
3. Brimstone 42 – Malley, Robbo, Lewis, Harry, me and Chappy relaxing in the Helmand river outside FOB Waheed, in June 2009.
4. Marijuana was grown by farmers and sold to the Taliban. The illicit drugs market helped fund the Taliban campaign against NATO.
5. Chappy and me on the only piece of grass we saw in our entire tour.
6. Lewis and me on Operation Panchai Palang. The Danish vehicle in the background was our home for the first part of the operation.
7. Bridge Micky – Day 2 of Operation Tufaan Dakoo. The hole in the foreground shows the position of the main charge, a 105mm illumination shell, of the command-pull IED. The bridge had been closed with rolls of razor wire, but the Taliban had managed to swim across and place the IED at the base of it.
8. These two metal rings made up the firing switch. When the string is pulled, the two contacts are forced together, allowing current to flow and causing the device to function. On this occasion the device failed.
9. Cutting off the Taliban’s line of sight with smoke.
10. Briefing a journalist during a clearance operation
.
11. Bomb-making equipment found during Operation Panchai Palang.
12. The Taliban used a variety of commercial, military and improvised detonators.
13. My search team clearing part of Pharmacy Road, one of the most dangerous areas in Sangin.
14. The various stages of uncovering an IED. The pressure plate is sealed with a plastic bag to protect it from the elements. The actual explosives are contained within a British 105mm illumination shell.
15. Painting the sand – the classic pose of an ATO using a paintbrush to expose an IED.
16. Speaking with Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, and Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary. Little did I know that my brief chat would be headline news twenty-four hours later.
17. Chappy and me checking a Taliban flag pole to see if it is booby-trapped. Taliban flags became popular souvenirs among the troops but the insurgents quickly exploited the situation and started to protect the flags with victim-operated IEDs.
18. 26 July 2009 – the damage caused by an IED to a Danish armoured vehicle. The blast occurred when the vehicle drove over a PPIED at the Witch’s Hat near PB Barakzai.
19. I was the only casualty, and a very reluctant one. Minutes after this picture was taken, I was airlifted off the battlefield by a US Blackhawk helicopter.
20. Receiving the George Cross from Her Majesty The Queen, 8 June 2010.
1. Light scales kit – we only took what we could carry, and nothing more.
2. Working on a PPIED buried just in front of a small bridge. This was the first and last occasion in which I used the remote controlled robot called Dragon Runner, shown here on my left. My metal detector is positioned on my right. Note the stones, which were placed by the Taliban to warn locals that IEDs were laid in the area.
3. Brimstone 42 – Malley, Robbo, Lewis, Harry, me and Chappy relaxing in the Helmand river outside FOB Waheed, in June 2009.
4. Marijuana was grown by farmers and sold to the Taliban. The illicit drugs market helped fund the Taliban campaign against NATO.
5. Chappy and me on the only piece of grass we saw in our entire tour.
6. Lewis and me on Operation Panchai Palang. The Danish vehicle in the background was our home for the first part of the operation.
7. Bridge Micky – Day 2 of Operation Tufaan Dakoo. The hole in the foreground shows the position of the main charge, a 105mm illumination shell, of the command-pull IED. The bridge had been closed with rolls of razor wire, but the Taliban had managed to swim across and place the IED at the base of it.
8. These two metal rings made up the firing switch. When the string is pulled, the two contacts are forced together, allowing current to flow and causing the device to function. On this occasion the device failed.
9. Cutting off the Taliban’s line of sight with smoke.
10. Briefing a journalist during a clearance operation.
11. Bomb-making equipment found during Operation Panchai Palang.
12. The Taliban used a variety of commercial, military and improvised detonators.
13. My search team clearing part of Pharmacy Road, one of the most dangerous areas in Sangin.
14. The various stages of uncovering an IED. The pressure plate is sealed with a plastic bag to protect it from the elements. The actual explosives are contained within a British 105mm illumination shell.
15. Painting the sand – the classic pose of an ATO using a paintbrush to expose an IED.
16. Speaking with Bob Ainsworth, the Defence Secretary, and Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary. Little did I know that my brief chat would be headline news twenty-four hours later.
17. Chappy and me checking a Taliban flag pole to see if it is booby-trapped. Taliban flags became popular souvenirs among the troops but the insurgents quickly exploited the situation and started to protect the flags with victim-operated IEDs.
18. 26 July 2009 – the damage caused by an IED to a Danish armoured vehicle. The blast occurred when the vehicle drove over a PPIED at the Witch’s Hat near PB Barakzai.
19. I was the only casualty, and a very reluctant one. Minutes after this picture was taken, I was airlifted off the battlefield by a US Blackhawk helicopter.
20. Receiving the George Cross from Her Majesty The Queen, 8 June 2010.
First published in Great Britain by Simon & Schuster UK Ltd, 2017
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Copyright © 2017 by Kim Hughes GC
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