3 Para

by Patrick Bishop

  On this occasion the Taliban displayed lethal incompetence. But they were also capable of skill. The firepower available at the base was unable to stop their sniping attacks. Aircraft had been called in to bomb suspected sniper positions but this still did not solve the problem. One night the officer commanding Somme Platoon, Captain Mark Johnson, went out on a joint patrol with the Danes to clear some possible firing points. The Danes had explosives experts from their engineer detail with them who blew the back walls off suspect buildings to illuminate the rooms so that snipers could not shoot out of the cover of darkness. The patrol checked for shell cases that the shooters might have left behind but found none. Good snipers took any evidence away with them. The patrol did, however, discover a sheet hung across a doorway to mask the sniper’s comings and goings from his position. It was only 150 yards from the Outpost. The discovery suggested that this shooter had not only craft but courage.

  The Taliban were almost maniacally determined. The losses inflicted by the defenders did nothing to slow down the tempo of attacks. Nor did the regular pounding they were receiving from the air. The battle group’s tenure of Musa Qaleh appeared to be achieving nothing other than the steady destruction of the town, and the risks involved in staying there were high. Casualties were mercifully low, given the weight of fire that was hitting the place. That could not last. As always, the dark prospect of a casevac or resupply helicopter being shot down hovered in the back of everyone’s mind.

  The miseries of Musa Qaleh might have been more bearable if those suffering them knew when they were going to end. On 12 August, the Royal Irish underwent one of the ritual experiences of those who had successively manned the base over the summer. Major Lars Ulslev, the OC of ‘Camp Shit Hole’, as the Royal Irish had come to call it, announced that the camp would be evacuated in four days’ time. This buoyed everyone’s spirits until the date came and went and they were still there. The newcomers had yet to learn the bitter lesson the Pathfinders knew so well. Leaving dates from Musa Qaleh were very elastic.

  The precariousness of their situation was brought home on the evening of the ‘departure’ announcement when the base was hit by very accurate mortar fire. The snipers on the Alamo roof thought they had identified the firing point and two mortars were fired in response, but they had no effect. Five minutes later two more rounds came in. Groves decided to move his team away from the mortar line, which was stacked with high-explosive and phosphorus bombs and take shelter inside a shipping container while they waited for the location of the Taliban mortar team to be correctly identified. In the meantime an A-10 had arrived overhead so there was nothing for them to do. They amused themselves by writing on the inside of the container: ‘1 Royal Irish Mortar Platoon took cover here. We hid like cowardly dogs.’

  The mortars were doing a great job, as the Danes recognised. Lars Ulslev passed on to them an intelligence report that said the accuracy of their fire against the Taliban teams had led the insurgents to bring in a ‘high-profile commander’ with thirty years’ experience of mortars as well as 107mm Chinese rockets, which had a range of about ten miles. The enemy had fallen back on stand-off weapons because they were no longer comfortable attacking at close quarters, he said. Their firing points out in the desert would, however, make them more vulnerable to attack from the air. All this was a tribute to the efficiency of Groves and his team.

  This was all very welcome. But the mortars’ success had come at a price. A warning came through from Bastion about the amount of ammunition that was being used. Groves knew from 3 Para that in the previous four months their mortar teams in Sangin, Kajaki and Now Zad had fired more than a thousand rounds. He and his men had fired 100 in just a week. The pressure on helicopters meant that they could not rely on a steady resupply of ammunition. From now on, he would have this reality in the front of his mind whenever he ordered a fire mission. The Taliban were making sure that they needed every mortar bomb they could get. On 14 August, Groves recorded in his diary the outbreak of ‘World War III’.

  ‘We were woken early again at 7.30 with our ususal whoosh! bang! RPG alarm clock,’ he wrote. ‘Sangar 4 opened up and we began … to engage with the 81, neutralising a few enemy positions. Word was then passed that the Taliban were fanning out in the field to our east and there were a fair few of them getting ready for an all-out assault on the compound. By this time we were down to only 33 HE [high explosive] rounds per barrel on the mortar line.’ Normally they would have chosen to engage with the 81mm rounds. Instead they relied on the smaller-gauge 51s, which did not have the same effect. They fired about fifty rounds but the Taliban were not deterred. The attack faded out with the arrival of A-10 bombers.

  But an hour later, intelligence came through that another attack was planned. Groves wrote: ‘Just as we were planning a strategy to defend … and also to make the 81mm last longer, an RPG hit the Alamo watch tower.’ The next thing they heard was the familiar whistle of an incoming mortar. ‘Just as we were bracing ourselves for the loud crunch, all we heard was a thud as the round made contact with the ground. A blind [dud]! Thank fuck cos that was close.’

  While Groves and his team were trying to plot the Taliban firing point they ‘heard another whistling noise and the shout of “incoming!” This time, the round landed and detonated, ten metres to the right of the mortar line and metres from the Danish ammunition compound and just missing our trailer which was stacked with HE, Illume and WP [white phosphorus]’.

  One Dane was hit in the leg with shrapnel and one of the mortar men, Ranger Adam Dunlop, was wounded in the hand. The mortar team fired back but the Taliban continued to pound the base. ‘As we were failing to identify where the rounds were coming from,’ wrote Groves, ‘we had no choice but to take cover in the container again until the fast air arrived and as usual the Taliban fucked off.’

  After the attack subsided, a whisper of what appeared to be good news ran around the camp. Word had filtered all the way from Kabul to Musa Qaleh that the incoming commander of ISAF, the NATO-led force that had taken control from the Americans, ‘had decided that the outposts were a bad idea for whatever reason’. Troops were to be pulled out of them. And the first withdrawal would be from Musa Qaleh within the next four days.

  The ISAF commander in Kabul was General David Richards, a Brit who was well endowed with the multiple talents, military and political, that were needed to go to the very top. He had inherited the platoon houses when he took over on 1 August, and made it clear that he was unhappy with the legacy. But getting out of a bad situation was far more difficult than getting into it. It would be some time before the extraction could begin. And in the meantime, the defenders of Musa Qaleh would have to hold on.

  It would take a while for that realisation to dawn on the inhabitants of ‘Camp Shit Hole’. In the meantime, warmed by their illusions, they eagerly prepared to depart. Groves got the first inkling that the joy might be premature when he gave his daily sitrep over the net to the second-in-command of 3 Para Mortars, Colour Sergeant Stu Bell. Groves told him about his dwindling ammunition stocks but was reassured that resupplies would be flown in soon. Initially, Groves ‘was pleased that we would be getting some more ammo as we desperately needed it, but then I thought, “why do we need more if we’re out of here in a few days?”’ His doubts were confirmed when he ran into PJ, who was supposed to have flown out with his platoon earlier that morning. Later they heard, via Lars Ulslev, the reason for the delay. ‘The regional governor of Helmand Province had made a direct plea to the Prime Minister of Afghanistan not to let Musa Qaleh fall into the hands of the Taliban.’ They would be staying ‘for the foreseeable future’.

  Groves, however,

  couldn’t understand what he meant. As far as I was concerned, the town was in the hands of the Taliban. All we had was a 100 metre by 100 metre square dartboard, at which they threw darts in the form of RPGs whenever they fancied. We couldn’t patrol and dominate the ground as the casualty evacuation plan was shit and there was
no guarantee that they would get you out of here if you got hurt. Unless we got more ammo, more troops, guaranteed casevacs and a new strategy … how could the situation improve?

  Danny Groves’s analysis was based on bitter, direct experience. Political considerations, however, weighed more heavily with the decision-makers than the truth on the ground. It was fortunate that the morale of the Royal Irish was so resilient. Groves and his comrades were bound by bonds that were remarkably strong even by military standards. They were the ‘Musa Muckers’, and they took the bad news with the same good-humoured resignation and determination to carry on that infused everything that happened to them in Afghanistan.

  They needed all the fortitude they could muster. It emerged that the Musa Qaleh garrison would indeed be relieved. But this relief would not include the Royal Irish. The Danish government had decided it no longer wanted its troops in such a vulnerable spot. The Griffins were pulling out, and fast. They would be replaced by the Royal Irish’s Barossa Platoon and a rapidly formed Company HQ made up of 3 Para personnel. The Musa Muckers, however, were staying put. Together they would be responsible for the defence of Musa Qaleh, under the command of Major Adam Jowett of 3 Para. The new force would be the fifth company in the battle group and therefore took the letter ‘E’. It was soon known as ‘Easy Company’.

  There was to be no let-up by the Taliban before they arrived. They hit the camp with mortars, RPGs, Chinese rockets and recoilless rifles. As the date of the Danes’ departure got closer the Royal Irish began to realise what they would be missing. They had hit it off brilliantly with the Danes, sharing danger, rations and a Northern, ironic sense of humour. Jan the quartermaster was especially droll. One day they were under a particularly heavy bombardment. They had requested artillery support from I Battery of 7 RHA, which had just set up in the area, but the fire was a long time coming. ‘What the fuck are they waiting for?’ one of the Royal Irish demanded. Slowly, calmly and in a serious voice, Jan replied: ‘They are waiting … for authorisation … from the Queen in London.’

  Nor, contrary to the view in Bastion, were the Danes short on aggression. Whenever word came through that a Taliban attack was imminent the OC would call a ‘Winchester’, a two-minute blast at known Taliban firing points with every weapon at their disposal.

  Now those weapons were disappearing. When the Danes left, the .50-cals would go with them. The new arrivals would be bringing only two .50-Cals and nine GPMGs, which, though useful, did not have the same destructive power and psychological deterrent effect. The twelve-strong Danish medical team would be replaced by an MO and two combat medics. Groves and his mates were not happy. ‘We were just about surviving, with more men, better weapon systems and better medical cover,’ he said. ‘We were getting worse weapons, lower medical cover and fewer men. We knew we would hold our own. But imagine the effect that had on the boys who had been in contact two, three or four times a day.’

  The Danes left quickly. Adam Jowett had only two and a half days to prepare for the insertion. Jowett was soft spoken, warm hearted and exceptionally polite. His self-effacing manner belied a robust approach to soldiering. He had got out of a staff job in order to go to Helmand. He had spent a month in Sangin, so knew the reality of platoon house existence. In the scramble to organise the deployment he took special care over the medical arrangements and insisted on taking a Medical Officer with a surgical background. He was given Captain Mike Stacey. ‘I wanted the best,’ said Jowett. ‘I found out from his chain of command that he was the best and I insisted on having him.’ Jowett also demanded extra supplies. ‘I then insisted on an enormous uplift to what we should have had – rubber gloves, saline, intravenous fluids, morphine, oxygen, antibiotics – anything like that, triple it.’

  The reinforcements arrived before dawn. The Chinooks carrying them landed in the baked-dirt landing site close to the district centre. Among those on board was Sergeant Freddie Kruyer, who came in with the company headquarters team. He was a thirty-seven-year-old Londoner and had joined the Paras in the late 1980s, intending to serve for only three years. His real name was Christopher. He owed his nickname to the razor-fingered anti-hero of Nightmare on Elm Street. He had acquired it on his first day in the Paras and no one thought of him as anything else. He was now a member of the intelligence cell. He had heard all about conditions in Musa Qaleh when in Bastion, and had mixed feelings as the helicopter took off. ‘I was looking out the back door and you could just see Bastion disappearing into the distance and I thought, that’s the last time I will probably see that.’

  When they piled off the back of the Chinook and into the base he was relieved to find that it was ‘quiet and peaceful’. There were plenty of shrapnel scars and bullet holes in the scabby masonry. But what struck all the house-proud Paras was the mess the Danes had lived in. There were empty ammunition cases and boxes of rations all over the place. The Danes had lived outside, next to their vehicles, adding to the general air of untidiness. Worst of all, the sangars looked shoddy and inadequate. Only one of them had any overhead cover. Nonetheless, Kruyer thought, ‘this is not too bad’, as he set off to find himself a room.

  The first task was to learn everything of value from the Danes before they left. As he stood chatting, ‘all of a sudden the place just erupted. A couple of cracks, and then all the machine guns started opening up’. It was the first of six attacks that day. The Danes had greeted their replacements with the gloomy salutation ‘welcome to Hell’. That had seemed to be a wind-up. Now the new arrivals were not so sure.

  The Danish Reconnaissance Squadron left the following day. A full battle group operation with air support was mounted to get them out. Jowett felt relieved as the huge convoy passed the point where Easy Company would have to go to their assistance if they took casualties. Now he could concentrate on the daunting task he had inherited.

  As the Danes left, a force of seventy ANP came in by road. Coco, the police chief in residence, who had caused the Pathfinders much amusement, had not been so popular with the Danes, who suspected him of collusion with the Taliban. He left with them, along with his men. The replacements were not Pashtuns but came from the north and were free of the tribal entanglements that made the local ANP such dubious allies.

  Their numbers did something to allay the sense of emptiness that had settled on the compound with the Danes’ departure. The extraction operation had been big and noisy. It had been closely observed by the Taliban. The intelligence reaching Easy Company suggested that the enemy believed they were watching a major pull-out and that the district centre was ripe for the taking. The early morning helicopter mission to insert the Paras and the Irish had looked insignificant. ‘We had a very good feel for what their intentions were,’ said Jowett. ‘They had seen this big convoy go out and nothing really tangible had come in. There were four old pick-up trucks with Afghan National Police hanging off them and that was that.’ Intelligence reports said the fighters were telling each other confidently that they would be ‘drinking tea in the district centre tonight’.

  Easy Company’s first full day opened with the usual breakfast-time RPG. An hour later five grenades hit the camp. Just before 10 a.m. the Outpost was hit by a Chinese rocket. Another struck later but failed to explode. As yet there was no sign of an all-out attack. Early in the afternoon, a large convoy of Taliban was spotted lying up in a wadi in the south. It was assumed they were planning an operation. An air strike was called in which dropped two big bombs and fired nineteen rockets, destroying seven trucks.

  The Taliban spent the first couple of days trying to gauge the defenders’ strengths and test their responses. They would creep in close, so close that grenades were needed to drive them back. One night Easy Company’s sergeant major, John Scrivener, hurled several at some gunmen lurking in the area of the disused mosque on the southern edge of the compound. After that, the Royal Irish nicknamed him ‘Michael Stone’, a blackly humorous reference to the Loyalist fanatic who had killed three people in a gun and g
renade attack on an IRA funeral in Belfast.

  Occasionally the men ventured out of the compound to try to map the alleyways and rat-runs and to reset flares that lit up the night when tripped by an advancing gunman. But most of their time was taken up with preparing for and responding to the next action. Most of the intelligence they were getting was coming from intercepts. ‘There was no contact with the public because there was nobody in the area,’ said Freddie Kruyer. ‘The town was completely deserted.’ The Afghan police in the camp would venture out occasionally and come back with information. The police were from outside the area and Kruyer tended to take their reports ‘with a pinch of salt. They were in the same boat as us and the fact that they walked outside the walls didn’t mean that they knew more than we did.’ They also ‘had alternative agendas – like wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible’.

  Conditions in the base were bearable. Nobody expected very much. There were two wells providing water that was potable when purified with sterilising tablets and blessedly cool, colder than what came out of the two freezers they had inherited. There were plenty of small rooms in the compound to kip down in. They slept four to a room on X-frame American-issue cots which previous tenants had left behind, underneath mosquito nets. When they were not sleeping or on stag, they brewed tea, smoked and chatted and played the occasional game of backgammon.

  Freddie Kruyer, the platoon house Mr Fixit, rigged up a shower. The men had to pick their time to use it, if they did not want their ablutions interrupted by the Taliban. ‘From about twelve to three was a good time,’ said Kruyer. ‘They would be getting their heads down because it was too hot for them. Then, after nine o’clock in the evening and before eight in the morning. It wasn’t a hundred per cent, but they were the safest times to go outside.’ The men crapped in communal ‘thunderboxes’, 55-gallon oil drums cut in half topped by a hardboard plank with holes in it. One of the least desirable jobs was burning them off with diesel every day. ‘We were pretty house-proud and despite everything that was going on, that was a tidy old place to live in,’ said Jowett.