Bomb Hunters: In Afghanistan With Britain's Elite Bomb Disposal Unit

by Sean Rayment

  The time was now 8.30 p.m. and Lieutenant Shephard moved onto the roof of Crossing Point One, where Sergeant Dave Claxton and Sergeant Thomas Loader were watching and waiting, armed with highly accurate Javelins. More insurgents moved into known firing positions but the Grenadiers were waiting. Shephard went on, ‘When the Taliban showed themselves, Sergeant Claxton and Sergeant Loader began to do what they do best. There was a whoosh, followed by a cheer – all the soldiers knew that a rocket was on the way. Two Javelins were fired, killing four enemy. Sergeant Claxton fired another missile through a murder hole, killing at least one more. Back in Compound 26, a sniper killed another insurgent. It was now the turn of the guns [heavy and medium machine guns] to join in.’

  Red tracer fire from 7.62-mm and .50-cal machine guns streaked across the night sky, with flares and the occasional explosion silhouetting insurgents against compound walls. There was no hiding place for the Taliban. Those who hid inside compounds risked being blown to pieces by Javelin missiles, while those who chose to stand and fight or run were cut down by machine-gun and sniper fire.

  ‘By the end of the evening we had accounted for ten enemy dead, W even managed to shoot through the hole in the wall caused by our fake IED blast. Everyone made it back to XP1 [Crossing Point One] safely. It was a fantastic result. Ten enemy killed and two IED finds. We were all suitably chuffed. It was the best possible response to the dreadful events of just a few hours earlier. You could see by the look on the soldiers’ faces that this was the best possible response to what had happened at Blue 25. It was a case of “roll on tomorrow”.’

  When the men of 5 Platoon eventually made it to their beds, they slept well, exhausted by the fears and excitement of battle. But, unknown to the men of No. 2 Company and especially 5 Platoon, it was not the end but just the beginning of one of the most intense periods of fighting of the entire six-month tour.

  At that stage, in early November 2009, a large force of Taliban, al-Qaeda, Chechen and English-speaking south Asian fighters had come together in the Luy Mandah area with the aim of disrupting the second round of Afghanistan’s presidential elections, but when these were cancelled the insurgents turned their attention to the British.

  Initially No. 2 Company had occupied two checkpoints in the area, Crossing Point One and Checkpoint Luy Mandah, both of which had been attacked several times earlier in the tour. Major Green decided to close down Checkpoint Luy Mandah because it served little purpose, and the troops from 6 Platoon would be more useful bolstering the force at FOB Waheed. But that was not how the insurgents viewed the development. As far as they were concerned the decision to abandon Checkpoint Luy Mandah was the result of Taliban attacks. So now Crossing Point One became their target instead.

  On the morning of 5 November, after what the soldiers called ‘the night of nights’, Lieutenant Shephard and Sergeant Bailey set off at 8 a.m. on a short clearance patrol into the southern area surrounding the base. The Grenadiers were still buoyant from the previous evening’s success and were keen to get back on the ground. The patrol moved out in two groups of nine, one led by Shephard, the other by Bailey. As the soldiers left the safety of the base, the Taliban Icom chatter started. Somewhere in the surrounding countryside the insurgents were watching and reporting the movements of the British troops. The patrol’s route led south across a deep irrigation ditch and into the fields beyond. It was a warm, sunny morning, there was little wind, and the birds were singing as the soldiers pushed south. Without warning, the firing started and cracks of RPGs and machine-gun fire tore the air. The fire was heavy and accurate. The tables had been turned and it was the Grenadiers who now had unwittingly walked into an ambush.

  Shephard’s team dashed for cover and took up fire positions in a tree line as Taliban bullets sliced through the air around them. The platoon was now split, with Bailey’s team hiding in cover some 150 metres to the west. Before the attack the soldiers had seen what they had assumed to be three farmers working in one of the fields, who had abandoned their trailer when they saw the British moving into the area.

  ‘I remember thinking, we were observed moving out, so is this the start of some sort of planned retribution for last night?’ recalled Shephard. ‘Sergeant Bailey was fixed in a ruined compound, taking fire, so I moved my team back 150 metres towards him with the idea of creating all-round defence. So we had Sergeant Bailey’s men facing east and south-east and my guys facing west and south-west.’

  Back at Crossing Point One, Sergeant Loader was already on the roof preparing the Javelins, searching out the insurgents’ firing points. Within a few minutes high-explosive missiles were smashing into compounds just a few metres in front of the soldiers who were trapped out in the open. But rather than withdraw, the Taliban seemed to intensify their fire. ‘We were fixed in our positions and taking masses of fire,’ said Bailey. ‘We couldn’t move, we could barely lift our heads to return fire. If we had tried to break away we would have been cut to pieces.’

  Once the first contact report had been sent, Major Green immediately crashed out the FST in the three Mastiffs, to help in the extraction of Lieutenant Shephard and his platoon. On their arrival, the Mastiffs began pounding the Taliban firing points and parts of Route Jupiter occupied by the enemy. ‘With the help of Lance Corporal Gaz Pendlebury, my Mortar Fire Controller, I planned to lay down smoke and use the Mastiffs to cover our extraction, with Sergeant Bailey’s team moving first,’ he said. ‘But then the Taliban opened up from the south. It was plain that we were being surrounded. Part of you thinks, they have got some balls trying this on, especially given the kicking they got last night. They were up for it. They wanted revenge and they had the momentum.’

  The Taliban had managed to get within 40 metres of Sergeant Bailey and began attacking both Grenadier teams with RPGs. The rockets at first fell short but then the Taliban found their aim. The real fear now was that a casualty at this stage would bring the extraction to a halt and lead to further casualties. Sergeant Bailey explained, ‘Where you get one casualty you can easily get two, then three, and then you can’t move and that’s when there is a real fear that you could get overrun.’ Smoke rounds were also dropping perilously close to the British troops and were becoming a liability. Bailey’s section successfully made it to a compound close to the base and were almost safe. But Shephard’s team were still out in the open and taking fire and had they remained in that position casualties would have been taken.

  Shephard scanned the area to his front and spotted an irrigation ditch 50 metres away. He gave the order for the soldiers to peel off one at a time and make for the ditch while others provided covering fire. It was a move straight out of the training manual and it worked to perfection – almost. As Shephard and the last two members of his team, Guardsmen Reiss McDonald and Shaun Darville, were bringing up the rear, the Taliban spotted them.

  ‘The weight of fire coming at us forced us to hit the deck,’ Shephard recalled. ‘The rounds were between us and above us, just inches above our heads. We had airburst RPG going off. I have to say that it was terrifying. The ground was alive with bullet splashes. We were trapped and I was amazed that none of us were dead.’

  The momentum of the battle had swung in the insurgents’ favour and there was a very real risk that the three soldiers trapped in the open could be killed or injured. It was now up to Sergeant Bailey to turn the tide of the battle. He recalled, ‘We hit back, firing at everything that moved or what we thought might be a firing point. There weren’t any civilians in the area, so we didn’t have to worry about collateral damage. It was a crazy situation – like something out the movies. The weight of fire from both sides was incredible.’

  The enemy fire began to subside and Lieutenant Shephard fired a 66-mm light anti-tank rocket at a group of Taliban fighters attempting to outflank his team. The rocket exploded among the insurgents, and no further movement was seen. Just when the 5 Platoon soldiers thought they had the measure of the enemy, the Taliban hit back and relaunched th
e assault. Shephard continued, ‘I told the other two soldiers to put down a huge rate of fire and then prepare to move – it was now or never. McDonald moved first, then me, then Darville. It was a textbook move from the Brecon School of Infantry but it worked. We all got out alive and moved quickly back into Crossing Point One.’

  But the battle was far from over. Although the soldiers had managed to get back into the base, the Taliban continued to press home the attack. ‘You couldn’t make it up,’ Sergeant Bailey said. ‘There were four sangars in the corners of our compound, all being hit at the same time. It was 360-degree warfare. It seemed that we were taking hits from everywhere. It was just like Zulu – that is what was going through my head at the time.’

  During the heat of the battle, and out of sight of the soldiers within the base, a group of enemy fighters began an audacious bid to break into the compound by using the cover of an irrigation ditch to move up to one of the compound’s rear walls. Fortunately one of the soldiers in a sangar spotted them and alerted Sergeant Bailey.

  With little thought for his personal safety, and knowing that drastic action was required, Bailey, with two of his corporals, filled their ammunition pouches with grenades, fixed bayonets and charged 50 metres across a field to reach the wall behind which the enemy were preparing their attack. The three soldiers, separated from the enemy by the thickness of a high mud wall, listened and waited. On the other side of the wall a Taliban commander briefed his men.

  ‘I looked at the guys and pulled a grenade out of my pouch,’ Bailey went on. ‘The other two did the same. No one spoke. We all knew what had to be done. I pulled the pin and held onto the handle and waited for the others to get ready and then said, now, or something like that. We lobbed white-phosphorus grenades into the ditch from behind the wall. There was a crack and a fizz and a bit of screaming, then silence. It worked. We killed or injured them all. The threat from that line of assault was over. There wasn’t any sense of jubilation in knowing that we had killed them – it was just something we had to do. If they had breached the wall we would have taken casualties. So it was them or us.’

  Bailey returned to the inner perimeter, moved to the roof and began searching out more targets. After half an hour Apache attack helicopters arrived and began engaging the Taliban positions with their 30-mm cannons and Hellfire missiles. ‘We closed the TIC [troops in contact],’ Shephard explained. ‘I was emotionally and physically drained and just relieved that we had managed to get the platoon in safely. It took the whole company and good fortune to get us back. Amazingly successful the previous night and an amazingly lucky escape the following morning. Nevertheless, it was still successful in certain aspects. We got another twelve to fourteen KIA and captured two Taliban suspects. One had a battery pack and wiring while the other was found trying to delete all the numbers from his phone – my guess is that they were almost certainly Taliban. Despite the intensity of the fighting there were no civilian casualties. We fought ferociously, but everything was controlled and cleared through Major Green.’

  That afternoon Lieutenant Shephard patrolled back to FOB Waheed to discuss the morning’s events and talk about the accuracy of the Fire Support Teams, which had been a concern with the smoke rounds landing so close to the troops during the initial contact. It was a positive and friendly discussion, with egos put to one side so that everyone could learn from mistakes. Major Green had fostered an open and constructive debate where the theme was always ‘how to improve our fighting ability and save lives’. After the discussion Lieutenant Shephard moved to the operations room, only to hear his platoon sergeant, Sergeant Bailey, announce over the radio that Crossing Point One was ‘in contact’. ‘I thought, great! – they’re in contact and I’m up here. Major Green told Sergeant Rob Pointon, of Support Company, to deploy the Mastiffs to Crossing Point One and I jumped on board. Within a few minutes I was back and went straight to the roof.’ Major Green added, ‘I wanted Craig back at the checkpoint. I believed that it was vital for Lieutenant Shephard to return to XP1 so that he could respond to my orders, keep me informed of the situation, and ensure that the return of fire was proportionate and controlled.’

  The scene which greeted Lieutenant Shephard took his breath away. ‘When I got up on the roof, my first reaction was, “Oh my God!” There was this roar of battle which you could feel thumping in your chest. Sergeant Loader, Pearson, Shields and others were all engaging targets. Down below the Mastiffs opened up with .50-cals. But it wasn’t all one-way. We were taking rounds and ricochets on the top roof. Guardsmen Robert Chiswell and Reiss McDonald looked stunned. Rounds were passing between them.’

  Within minutes of the contact initiating, mortar rounds soon began landing on the Taliban fire positions and it wasn’t long before the FSTs were guiding attack helicopters and the heavily armed US A-10 Thunderbolts onto Taliban positions.

  Despite the weight of the twenty-first-century weaponry being used against the Taliban, they did not flinch but rather reinforced their attack. The roof of the base was now drawing fire from 360 degrees, with the Taliban using every weapon at their disposal.

  ‘It was terrifying,’ said Shephard. ‘But at the same time you’re thinking, gleaming! This is what I joined the Army for.’

  The grenade machine gun – a devastating weapon that can lay to waste an enemy position in seconds – was now brought into action and began belting out 40-mm grenades at a rate of 340 per minute. With unerring accuracy the gunner began launching the bomblets right into the heart of the Taliban strongpoint, where an enemy gun team was literally torn to shreds. The insurgents counter-punched with a seemingly endless supply of RPGs, while their machine guns peppered the British sangars with witheringly accurate fire. The thump of Taliban bullets slamming into walls reverberated around the compound. The two sides were slugging it out like two heavyweight punchers, neither giving ground. As the battle continued unabated, the news that every guardsman wanted to hear had arrived. A NATO combat jet equipped with a 500 lb high-exposive satellite-guided bomb was en route. Cheers reverberated around the base.

  ‘It was a relief when we were told that a 500-pounder was coming in. There was a boom and a cheer and jubilant whoops of joy,’ said Shephard. ‘But it was fairly short-lived. Once the dust had cleared, the shooting started again and it was more ferocious than ever. We were getting spanked and so were the Mastiffs. And you’re there thinking, what the fuck do we have to do to stop these bastards?’

  The soldiers on the roof readied themselves as the Taliban seemed to be moving forward in another seemingly suicidal attempt to overrun the base. Grenades were primed and bayonets fixed for the expected close-quarters battle. But the Taliban assault was met with a hail of murderous fire. Some of the enemy hit by the .50-cal rounds were cut in two, decapitated, or lost limbs. The ageing 66-mm anti-tank rocket which first saw service with the US military in Vietnam was also brought into action, scoring kills. Up in the sangars the barrels of the GPMG smoked with the heat of non-stop firing. Under normal battle conditions the barrels should be changed every 300–400 rounds to allow them to cool – but these were not ‘normal battle conditions’.

  The deafening roar of battle made communication almost impossible. It mattered not. Every man knew his duty and no one was found wanting. As long as Crossing Point One was under attack the soldiers returned fire.

  As the sun began to slip below the horizon, the fighting continued into the cool of the evening. While Lieutenant Shephard controlled the battle from the roof, Sergeant Bailey ran from sangar to sangar with cases of ammunition, food and water, constantly urging on his soldiers. Piles of empty bullet cases formed mole-like hills around their feet – in a few short hours thousands of rounds had been expended. But the soldiers stood firm. They were in the fight of their lives and they knew it.

  Then more good news arrived over the radio. Two A-10s were now heading into the fray. Slow and cumbersome, they turned their fire on Route Jupiter, the haunting groan of their seven-barrelled 30-m
m cannon echoing around the countryside. Burst after burst of high-incendiary cannon fire turned the route into a terrifying inferno, a sight which was greeted with unbridled joy by the embattled Grenadiers. When the A-10s’ ammunition was spent, two Apache attack helicopters joined the hunt and began picking off the Taliban with ease.

  Finally, as darkness fell, the insurgents faded away. The air was thick with smoke and dust. Flares were fired high into the sky, illuminating an empty battlefield. The enemy dead and injured had been removed from no man’s land. For a few moments there was an eerie silence. The soldiers, with the sound of gunfire still ringing in their ears, were too exhausted to speak. Another attack was expected and they began recharging their magazines. Caked in dust and dried sweat, they watched and waited. After fifteen minutes with no incoming fire, the soldiers, apart from those in the sangars, were stood down, some simply slumping to the ground. Some ate, a few chatted, but the majority slept. Among the soldiers there was no rejoicing, just relief that they had survived another day. Besides, everyone knew the Taliban would be back. The Grenadiers had been lucky: they had managed to kill another dozen or more Taliban fighters without taking a single casualty.

  That night Lieutenant Shephard wrote in his personal journal: ‘Since arriving at XP1 no day been dull. Be it good arrests, small-scale skirmishes to full-on 360-degree engagements. The guys passing through or permanently down there have been truly impressive. The guardsmen and non-commissioned officers’ work rates have been beyond measure. I have never been so happy, satisfied or impressed by the men and attachments No2 [Company] has at present. Nothing can compare in my 24 years to the last two months. Just knowing these guys has been a treat and a privilege, let alone commanding them. They are all exceptional. The last 48 hours have been remarkable and they have achieved a lot. The men remain humble and almost indifferent about it. Be under no illusion this is not because what happens at XP1 is insignificant, it’s because it has become normal for them. From the outside there is nothing normal about it. Commanders have come up with ideas and schemes that work. Forty-two enemy have been killed, if not more, and guardsmen have not been hurt in the process. Good timely decisions, a company supporting every man in it, level-headed commanders and luck have all played a massive part in the success of the last 48 hours. The biggest factor in our success in my mind is our guardsmen and senior non-commissioned officer standards – they are exceptional, they are brave and they are all determined to succeed here in Afghanistan. Parents, friends and my family should not worry – I could not be in better hands surrounded by these individuals.’