by H. C. Tayler
By early afternoon we had arrived at the RAF Mounting Centre at South Cerney. Any serviceman who has travelled through this place will doubtless have a tale of woe to tell. I have had the misfortune to pass through it on numerous occasions and whenever I make the mistake of thinking it cannot get any worse, the RAF defies me by lowering its standards once again. For somewhere that most visitors are destined to spend many hours, South Cerney offers facilities that a Scottish Methodist would approve of. A couple of tired vending machines spit out cheap coffee and chocolates, an odd assortment of TVs play worn-out videos, and the waiting areas are equipped only with uncomfortable plastic chairs. Worst of all, there is no segregation of officers and men, so from battalion commanders down, everyone is thrown in together, all at the mercies of a bunch of jumped up little Hitlers sporting Air Force uniform, enjoying their one moment of authority in this life. How I haven’t punched one of them yet, Lord only knows. All in all, it’s a far cry from the British Airways club lounge at Heathrow. And so we waited. And waited. And waited. Day turned to night and our RAF friends announced that dinner awaited us in the cookhouse (no segregation and certainly no chance of visiting the officers’ mess). Through the night, the waiting continued. The following morning, another announcement, this time breakfast. Post-breakfast, more mindless waiting. Then another announcement: lunch. By the time we returned from lunch even the most stoical among us were beginning to make threatening comments to the movements staff. Finally, a mere 24 hours after our arrival, some much-needed progress: a string of buses drew up outside. We were on our way to the airfield at RAF Brize Norton, a half-hour drive away. Unhappily, the waiting game continued at Brize, although this time it was only for a couple of hours.
Eventually, bleary-eyed and unshaven, we traipsed aboard the waiting 747 shortly after dusk. A charter aircraft, its livery told us it was Icelandic but the decor inside sported logos from at least three different airlines. In any event it was manned by an Icelandic crew who handed out more sandwiches and carbonated drinks, and steadfastly refused numerous repeated requests for booze. I dropped into a fitful sleep, awaking some hours later when early morning sunlight streamed through the windows. The aeroplane was banking steeply, so I peered down, surprised to see a sizeable mountain range beneath us in place of the expected Middle Eastern desert. A quick word with one of the hostesses confirmed that we were over Iran, not an especially comforting thought given their propensity for shooting down civilian airliners. The terrain looked spectacular but I was more concerned why we had not already touched down in Kuwait. Even the most rudimentary schoolboy geography told me that we had overshot the target and that Iran lay too far to the east.(7) The 747 completed its long turn and from the position of the sun I deduced that we were now headed west, which was at least the right direction for Kuwait. As the Arabian Gulf came into view beneath our wings we began our descent and a short time later touched down smoothly at Ali Al Saleem airbase.
Spirits rose as we disembarked and I realised that the temperature outside the plane was a balmy 23 degrees or so, not the blistering heat I had expected. Of course it was only January and it would get inexorably hotter during the coming weeks but for the moment it was pleasant enough. My initial burst of morale was soon crushed as we were escorted away from the concrete pan and into the British disembarkation centre, which was a dusty patch of rough ground festooned with row upon row of off-white tents, with queues of soldiers emerging from each one. It was essentially the Kuwaiti version of South Cerney, where logisticians and clerks processed piles of documentation, stamped endless forms, and lost the luggage of countless servicemen. I made my way into a tent marked “Officers Waiting Area”, and grabbed a cup of watery tea from an urn perched on a folding chair. Asides from dozens of identical folding chairs, this was the only piece of decor in the tent, so I made my way back outside and sought directions from one of the dozens of loggies floating about. The fellow in question directed me to the back of one of the many queues and so I began the long, slow process of being booked “into theatre”. There followed hours of form-filling, ID checks, medical documentation checks, local area briefings, mine awareness briefings, road safety briefings, etc. etc. After much hunting amidst a pile of identical looking items I managed to locate my bergen and grip, after which we were segregated into groups depending on our eventual destination. I found myself in amongst the reprobates from 3 Commando Brigade Headquarters once again, our numbers swollen by the addition of numerous ranks destined for 539 Assault Squadron- 59 Commando Engineers, 29 Commando Artillery, and various augmentees belonging to 42 Commando. Weighed down by bergens and baggage we were ushered towards a long line of scruffy-looking coaches and lorries by an escort group of Marines sporting weaponry of all kinds and driving civilian hire cars with darkened windows, which gave the whole convoy a slightly mafia-like appearance. I asked one of the Marines why they were equipped in this manner and immediately regretted asking the question.
“Some of the locals have been shooting up the convoys,” he replied. “We think they’re Iraqis but nobody knows for sure. The idea is to keep the military profile to a minimum, so there’s no Land Rovers.” He held up his rifle, grinning. “At least this way we can have a conversation with them if they start anything.”
I hefted my bags onto one of the attending trucks and found an empty seat on a coach. Sure enough, all the curtains were drawn so that no-one outside could see that we were in uniform. I had hoped that, if nothing else, Kuwait would provide safe sanctuary during the coming weeks but now even that slender hope had been dashed. I slumped into a seat and dropped into a fitful sleep as the convoy trundled its way slowly along the desert highway.
By the time I awoke it was dark and we were moving along a dirt road - dust was creeping into the coach through the gaps in the windows and my smock was being gradually coated with a film of fine, grey grime. Looking out, I could see vehicle headlights illuminating billowing sand being kicked up by traffic moving on parallel dirt roads. We passed a series of checkpoints and I knew that we had entered a military encampment. It was evidently a sizable camp too, because we drove inside it for quite a distance before coming to a halt. One of the escorting Marines appeared in the doorway of the coach and announced that we had arrived at Camp Gibraltar. Like everyone else on board, this meant nothing to me. I had no idea who was accommodated at Camp Gibraltar or where it was situated within Kuwait. The coach emptied and we stumbled around in the dark until we found the contents of the baggage wagons piled in a heap on the sand. This is a great jape in the military, since everybody’s kit looks identical and sifting one bergen from another at night is a tedious and time-consuming job. It gets easier when the pile is diminished though, so I slid to the rear of the gaggle of bodies and cadged a cigarette from one of the multitude of staff officers, while the more eager in our party took on the hard graft of sifting through the pile of baggage and extracting their own luggage from it. After about an hour, all of us had been reunited with our bags and the various commanders in the group had taken charge of their blokes. The previously disjointed swarm of bodies had been transformed into military-looking groups, all stood in three ranks awaiting their next instructions. Somewhere amongst them were dozens of floating officers, myself included, also awaiting a spot of guidance on where to go next. Happily, at that moment, a Regimental Sergeant Major appeared and took charge of proceedings.
“Good evening all, and welcome to sunny Kuwait,” he bellowed at the assorted masses. “Since you have no idea where you are staying, I will now tell you. Some of you will be accommodated here, some will be in the next-door camp, and some of you are a few miles up the road, so you’ll have to get back onboard the buses.” Groans were heard from the audience at the prospect of another night-time move. “Listen in for your formation. 59 Commando ranks, you’re staying here.” A cheer came up from the engineers. “29 gunners, you are also staying here.” Another cheer. “42 Commando, you’re next door.” He gesticulated with his RSM’s stick. �
��It’s about 500 metres, so you’ll have to carry your baggage.” A groan came from the Marines of 42 Commando. “Lastly, Brigade Headquarters. You’re staying in Camp Commando, which is quite a few miles south of here. Back on the buses, fellas.”
“Tossers,” muttered S02 Media, who was stood behind me. “They never get tired of the on-the-bus, off-the-bus routine.” Grumbling, we dragged our baggage back onto the awaiting wagons and clambered aboard the coaches once again. They bumped back down the dirt roads, again covering us with another film of dust, and eventually we turned back onto the black strip of the tar highway, heading south. In fact we retraced our route much of the way back to the airport, which was infuriating, before turning off the highway, through a Kuwaiti police roadblock, and into another, very different looking military camp. Unlike Camp Gibraltar, which was illuminated only by vehicle headlights, Camp Commando was lit up like a Hollywood film set. Chain-link fences stood 15 feet above us, topped with rolls of razor wire. A wooden watchtower overlooked the entrance to the camp, manned by a US Marine toting a belt-fed machine-gun. More US Marines appeared, checking the IDs of the coach drivers and the passengers. Eventually the barriers were lifted and limestone gravel crunched under our tyres as we entered the camp. Like most American military establishments, it was laid out on an impressive scale. Row after row of tents were interspersed with portakabin-style shower blocks. Hundreds of trucks and Humvees were parked in neat lines, with a similar number of civilian 4x4s also on display. Only one section of the camp remained shrouded in darkness but there was enough light spilling from the surrounding area for me to make out the silhouette of a ridiculously ambitious assault course. We drove past it and the coach drew to a halt outside another gate, this time manned by British soldiers. 3 Commando Brigade Headquarters was a camp within a camp - probably the most secure place in the Middle East, which gave me a much-needed sense of reassurance. I felt much happier at the prospect of being surrounded by British troops rather than their American counterparts, whose gun-toting antics have always made me somewhat ill at ease. Our coach rolled through the gate, proceeded along a gravel road for a few hundred metres, and turned into a large, empty square, bounded on all sides by neat rows of large off-white tents, each measuring easily 30 yards long. We debussed quietly, recovered our luggage from yet another heap of bags and bergens and were ushered towards the accommodation tents by an ill-tempered Warrant Officer who seemed thoroughly annoyed to have been forced out of his bed at that time of night.
“Officers that way,” he instructed us, pointing to the nearest tents. “Senior NCOs over there,” pointing to our rear, “and all other ranks in the tents along the fence-line. There’s no ceremony and there should be plenty of space for all of you, so find yourselves an empty bed and get your heads down.”‘
I fished a torch out of my webbing and set about finding a vacant bunk in the nearest tent. Fortunately there were several to choose from so I picked one that wasn’t surrounded by piles of baggage or festooned with damp sports equipment. I shoved my webbing and grip underneath the bed, retrieved my sleeping bag from my bergen, and collapsed into the bottom bunk. It was midnight. Incredibly, the move from Plymouth to Kuwait had taken almost 60 hours. I made a hollow promise to myself never again to rely on RAF movements staff, and promptly passed out.
NOTES
1. If you ever happen to pass through Exeter, keep an eye out for groups of seemingly half-starved youths with alarmingly short haircuts, an air of growing confidence, sporting clothes that any self-respecting football hooligan would be proud of - and you are probably looking at the latest products of the Commando Training Centre, which is located a few miles to the south. To be fair, they do turn out some pretty good soldiers from time to time - if they didn’t, these chronicles would never have been written.
2. 42 Commando RM, based in Bickleigh, near Plymouth, is housed in 1970’s prefabricated accommodation which is the antithesis of the grandeur of the brigade headquarters at Stonehouse.
3. The Reserves Training and Mobilisation Centre (RTMC) at Chilwell, where (at the time) reservists from all three services passed through as part of their mobilisation procedure before deploying on operations.
4. S02: Staff Officer, second class (a position usually held by a major).
5. Bootneck: Navy slang for a Royal Marine, which probably stems from the leather collar worn as part of a Marine’s uniform in the 18th Century.
6. Following complaints about the poor performance and shocking build quality of the SA80 rifle since its widespread introduction in 1985, the MoD finally admitted in 2000 that the weapon needed improving. The contract went to a German firm, Heckler & Koch, who replaced many of the parts with seemingly identical components machined to finer tolerances from higher grade steel. H&K and the MoD both claimed significantly improved performance from the A2 version of the SA80, but many soldiers who used it claimed it was only marginally better than its predecessor.
7. During the build-up to the Gulf conflict, Saudi Arabia refused permission for coalition aircraft to use its airspace. Many flights were re-routed northwards via Turkey and eventually approached Kuwait via Iran - an unexpected direction for those onboard, as Flashman notes.
3
My first morning in Kuwait, like every other one that was to follow, dawned bright and sunny, if a little cold. Like all new arrivals I had no idea of the layout of the camp and it took me a good 10 minutes of traipsing around in my towel and flipflops before I stumbled across the shower blocks. After shaving off two days’ worth of stubble and enjoying a warm shower, albeit in the company of tattooed oiks from 3 Commando Brigade, I felt a little more ready to tackle the rigours of headquarters life. I donned my desert trousers and a sandy-brown T-shirt, which had the effect of making me look identical to the thousands of other Brits in the camp. (The morning air was brisk but I decided to brave the cold rather than wear my green camouflage smock.) Back at the accommodation tent I bumped into S02 Media and several of the other Brigade staff officers and we followed the growing throng of individuals gravitating towards breakfast. The cookhouse (or galley, as the Marines insist on calling it, with their pedantic adherence to naval terms) was constructed from two of the accommodation tents joined end-to-end. For once the Corps had discarded its liberal attitudes and the top end of the eatery was set aside for officers, which made a pleasant change from being surrounded by the dozens of cockneys, Scousers and janners who seemed to make up the bulk of the Brigade Headquarters. The food, of course, was pure muck -lukewarm porridge, shrivelled sausages of indiscernible origin, scrambled egg which tasted largely of plastic, and a small pot of yoghurt. It was to remain unchanged for several weeks and was vile but there was no other choice, so I washed it down with several pints of coffee and set off to find the Operations Room.
The Ops Room (which was, of course, yet another tent) was situated at the top of the camp and sat adjacent to two identical tents. The first of these had a smattering of paratroopers coming and going through the main entrance, and would shortly be fully functioning as 16 Air Assault Brigade Headquarters. The second, which was for the moment deserted, would soon accommodate the headquarters of 7 Armoured Brigade. I looked forward to their arrival immensely - until arriving in this fleapit I had no idea that the three headquarters would be located next door to one another. I was yards away from a brigade staff which would doubtless house dozens of cavalry officers and which would provide much needed respite from the insane eagerness of the adjacent Marines and Paras.
Just as I was contemplating this stroke of luck the air was filled with wailing from multiple sets of overhead tannoy speakers. The camp erupted into temporary pandemonium, with men running in all directions and several diving past me into the nearest tent. The siren, I quickly realised, was a chemical attack warning. I ducked inside 3 Brigade Headquarters’ tent and donned my respirator as I went. (1) Unlike the scene outside, the headquarters was a sea of calm, not the reaction I had expected from a group of men facing imminent deat
h in the form of sarin gas poisoning. Wearing the black rubber gas-masks, everyone looked identical and most of the chaps were taking the opportunity to sit down and relax, with the notable exception of one of the watchkeepers, who was talking volubly into a telephone and trying to find out the cause of the alert. I looked around the room, conscious of the distorted view I was getting through the lenses in my respirator. It was just as I had imagined it - which was mainly because all ops rooms look pretty much identical I suppose. The walls of the tent were festooned with dry-wipe boards and huge maps of the area of operations. Underneath these were a plethora of watchkeeping desks and a host of workstations for all the individual elements that would or could be brought to bear by 3 Commando Brigade once the war got started. There were two Aviation desks one marked “Helo” and the other “F/W” (fixed-wing), an Artillery desk, the liaison officers from 40 and 42 Commando both had desks, Info, Media, etc. etc. And there, tucked between the G4 watchkeepers and Artillery, was an empty desk labelled “Armour”, prospective home to Captain Harry Flashman QRH for the foreseeable future and as good a place as any to see out a nice quiet campaign. (2) Just as I was contemplating my new place of work the watchkeeper put down his telephone, removed his respirator and announced: “Unmask!” Around the room, human beings emerged from behind the black rubber respirators and I was able to take a look at my new colleagues.
