by Ed Macy
The boss should have been extremely thankful that they’d managed to hold out. I wouldn’t have wanted to explain why we hadn’t been ready to Tootal. Without Apache cover they’d been sitting ducks, out in the open, nowhere to go.
When I finally got hold of them they were moving through the orchard 200 metres west of the compound Billy had just annihilated. Widow Seven Zero informed us that they had broken contact and were going to search the area they’d come under fire from. ‘Report any movement in the target compound.’
Saxon Ops at base gave us grid 41S PR 3957 8673. The target was a suspect white pick-up in the north of Now Zad. With the threat brief earlier, this target was deemed to be a direct threat. Billy handed it over to Nick and Jon because they couldn’t speak to the ground troops.
I kept a close eye on Jon as he peeled away to the north.
We couldn’t see anything moving or leaving the compound or the wood alongside it. We covered the lads through what seemed to be a cross between an orchard and open parkland.
They looked like ants from my vantage point, but I could see them employing good FIBUA tactics as they entered the compound. No surprises there; 3 Para were masters at Fighting In a Built-Up Area. Once inside they reported loads of blood and blood trails all over the place, but no human life.
‘They must have dragged the injured and dead into the trees, undercover of the dust and smoke,’ I said.
‘Lesson identified, lesson learned,’ Billy replied. We wouldn’t make that mistake twice.
Base told us intelligence was indicating a target in the north, grid 41S PR 3980 8648. They must have been listening to Taliban transmissions. While I looked out for Patrols Platoon, Billy checked the map. It was only 300 metres from where Nick and Jon had gone to search.
I told Saxon Ops we’d need a RIP in an hour. 3 Flight would be on the APU on thirty minutes’ notice to move. They’d have more than enough time to throw their engine power levers forward, taxi, fly out to us and do a full RIP. We were on an insecure radio, but we’d maintain full Apache cover. Better to risk keeping the Taliban up to speed than to leave 3 Para in the lurch again.
I spoke to all three Widow callsigns to see if they needed assistance. Our covering fire had quietened the Taliban down and our presence was keeping them at bay.
I told Widow Seven Two that base had given me intelligence on a target west of their target compound, because he was with the CO. We couldn’t wander off on our own little mission without confirming with the ground commander; we were here to assist him, after all. Widow Seven Two informed me that they had the same information and 2 Platoon of A Company 3 Para were already routing to the grid from the east.
Nick and Jon were still hunting for the white pick-up. They were over the area of the grid, knowing that this posed a greater threat to the boys on the ground than they perhaps realised. If it knocked us out of the sky, they’d have a helicopter rescue mission on their hands.
With that in mind we moved fractionally north, leaving them to hunt for the pick-up. I still maintained a wide-enough orbit to pass over our lads every couple of minutes; with a bit of luck it would keep the Taliban diving for cover.
Billy looked into the intelligence grid; all we could make out was the edge of a field, a north-south track bordered by a wall, and a compound about fifty metres due east.
We had no other information about the target. The obvious feature was the compound; the only fire we’d encountered in our short brush with the Taliban in Afghanistan was from a compound, and the blood trails must have led somewhere.
The area was totally enclosed, with a double wall on its eastern side bordering a wood which stretched 500 metres to the main wadi-our perimeter. Opposite it was a large white steel gate, the only access point to the compound. What appeared to be five open garages ran along the northern wall. I saw shadow movement in the furthest east, but couldn’t identify it. I needed to tell the CO’s men, and find out where they were.
Widow Seven Two said he had a few hundred metres to go; I requested another flash from his mirror.
The signal was easy to see; they were in a sunlit clearing in the wood, closer to the target than we’d anticipated, tracking directly to the intelligence grid. They’d break out into open fields if they continued. I instructed him to continue west then turn south ten metres short of the wood line and contour the edge of the wood until they reached the double wall. It should give them the element of surprise and afford them whatever cover was available.
Widow Seven Two called when he was at the wall. I talked them round the perimeter until they were on the track just west of the compound. They gathered by the gates and studied their maps.
I saw the JTAC look up.
‘Wildman Five One, this is Widow Seven Two. The grid we have is some fifty metres west, in another compound.’
‘Wildman Five One, there isn’t a compound fifty metres west. The wall you’re looking at isn’t a compound wall; it’s just got a track on the other side of it, and then a field. The field stretches about 100 metres to an orchard and that’s it. No buildings or compounds.’
Billy had called Nick and Jon to join us as the pick-up was nowhere to be seen and there was little else happening. Jon and I flew contra-rotating orbits around the whole area, with us high on the inside and them lower on the outside so we could both fire at the centre point without hitting each other.
I told Widow Seven Two that if they wanted to check out that area they’d have to follow the wall north initially then turn back down the track for fifty metres. From there they could look west and see the empty field for themselves.
We gauged our fuel and reminded Saxon Ops that we would need 3 Flight to leave in the next five minutes. I was pleased with our performance. We hadn’t killed anyone we weren’t supposed to and 3 Para felt safe enough to patrol around Now Zad looking for an intelligence target.
Saxon came back to me a minute or two later.
‘There will be no RIP, I spell, Romeo, India, Papa. On your return to base you are to refuel, rearm and go back to Now Zad immediately.’
Something must have flared up elsewhere in the AOR; 3 Flight must have deployed to support other troops in contact. We let Nick and Jon know. I felt a hollowness in my gut at the prospect of the ground troops being without Intimate Support again.
Nick and Jon hadn’t spotted anything suspicious and nor could we. I took advantage of the lull in activity to inform the CO of our predicament and asked Widow Seven Two if we should break station now and come back asap or wait until we’d reached chicken fuel. He told me to wait out while they asked the CO.
The Paras moved down the wall in single file. Billy scoured the area for Taliban while I maintained over-watch of the troops. I could see the lead soldier; he wasn’t much more than a boy. As he reached the end of the south wall he’d be able to see across open ground towards the orchard.
I heard Widow Seven Two’s microphone click open to reply as the lad and his immediate successor stepped clear of the wall. I saw the wall explode and heard a massive weight of machine-gun fire over the JTAC’s radio.
Dirt, rock and soil erupted from the trail and wall. I saw a figure tumble back towards the wall. A pair of legs shot up out of the dust. I knew it was the young soldier I’d just delivered to the Taliban on a plate.
SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED
SUNDAY, 4 JUNE 2006
I yelled across to Nick: ‘Contact. They’ve been contacted.’ I thought for a second. ‘There are no troops further west than the north-south track; watch and shoot.’
Someone shouted from the ground, ‘Contact. Wait Out.’ Someone struggling to make himself heard above the explosions hammering their position.
My mouth was dry. I had the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach that comes the second you realise you’ve done something extremely bad. My mind raced. I couldn’t see enough through the dust to know if the boys were still alive.
Was it me?
I could see men taking cover b
ehind the wall as it disintegrated above their heads.
Was it my fault?
No one was moving a muscle down there.
Why did they break cover by walking straight around the corner? I’d lulled my own men into a false sense of security. I couldn’t see any fire coming from the orchard. Where were they being contacted from?
I flicked my attention between the orchard and my fallen soldier. He’d been catapulted backwards at such a rate he must have been badly hit.
I needed to get on with my job or there’d be more blood on my hands.
Billy searched desperately for the enemy firing position.
The wall our boys were behind was still being smashed to smithereens. The fire could only be coming from the orchard, but where?
We could have hosed down the whole wood with rockets and cannon but we were not in the business of indiscriminate fire, and we’d raise such a dust storm we’d not know if we’d actually hit anyone.
‘Widow Seven Two, this is Wildman-can you see the firing point?’
‘Stand by to watch our tracer.’ The mayhem I could hear through my earpieces was outrageous. Why couldn’t we see anyone firing at them?
‘Standing by.’
I told Nick and Jon to watch out for the tracer indication.
I could see a couple of our guys firing through holes in the wall but couldn’t see a hint of tracer. Those that weren’t firing were down on their belt buckles, some in the foetal position.
I suddenly realised why we couldn’t see the tracer. They were less than 100 metres from the orchard. Tracer started to burn at 110.
‘Widow Seven Zero, this is Wildman. I cannot see your tracer or any enemy. Can you see the firing point?’
‘It’s 100 metres to our west.’ The sound of incoming was as ferocious as ever.
The orchard frontage was a few hundred metres long and we were running out of fuel. I still needed a clearer description. If we could pinpoint the Taliban position we could deal with it. If we simply hosed the place down our boys could be targeted again as soon as we broke station.
‘From the bottom of the wall…’ I said, ‘go 100 metres across the field with a couple of bushes in it…there’s a low wall on the forward edge of the wood…where’s the firing point from this wall?’
‘That is the area of the firing point.’
‘Gunner-Target-HMD.’ I brought Billy’s TADS into position.
Billy slaved to the area and quickly identified the wall. It was deep in the shadow of the trees and the enemy could have been hiding behind it. We asked Jon and Nick to keep eyes-on as we fired onto the target.
We were happy with the cannon’s accuracy but really concerned about the proximity of our lads. Any rounds that failed to explode could ricochet from the wall and the frag could also hit them at ninety. We decided to fire from behind our lads’ right and over their heads. All the rounds would be travelling away from them, blowing any frag or rock in the opposite direction. Or so I hoped…
Billy needed to make sure his range was stable and accurate; any miscalculation and our rounds would fall short. We were about to do what I had nixed in the simulator-unless there were absolutely no other options.
Without hesitation, Billy called firing and I broadcast the call.
‘Firing now…confirm splash.’
We were about 1,200 metres away as the cannon ramped itself backwards and the first few rounds pumped from the barrel. From this point onwards it was in its optimum position. The remaining seventeen HEDP rounds exited without pause and streaked towards the wall.
At the bottom of the MPD image by my right knee I could see the wall and our lads hiding behind it. The wall Billy was aiming at was at the centre of the screen; the top half of it covered the sunlit trees. I stopped breathing as the rounds flew in towards the target in an untidy conical pattern, in what looked like slow motion, each maintaining exactly the same distance from the next.
They exploded bang-fucking-on, hurtling rocks and soil twenty metres into the air.
The radio burst into life. ‘One hundred metres north, 100 metres north.’
As we followed the JTAC’s instruction Billy adjusted and opened up at the tree line with another twenty-round burst. The wall had stopped further south.
‘Firing now.’
By the time the nineteenth and twentieth rounds were reverberating through my feet the first were impacting the dry soil and dirt at the edge of the orchard.
A dust cloud mushroomed out of the trees at the edge of the field.
‘Fifty metres further north, fifty metres further north, that’s where the firing point is.’
Jon came up on the radio, the pitch of his voice higher than normal: ‘We’ve picked up the Taliban firing point, just north of your last burst.’
I barked, ‘Put down a burst and I’ll confirm with the Widow that you’re in the right area.’
This was getting better. The Widow and Jon were talking about the same place. I looked down at the boys. They hadn’t moved and the wall was still being blown to bits. Whoever was in this wood wanted protection and had the means to do it.
Billy moved his sight fifty metres further north and Nick and Jon’s rounds impacted right over his crosshair.
‘Good rounds,’ The Widow shouted back. ‘Good rounds.’
‘Wildman Five Zero, Wildman Five One, we’re going to fire into the same area with you.’
I had the fleeting image of two men lying in the shadows behind the shit Nick had just kicked up, then Billy and Nick opened up in a coordinated attack. They took it in turns to pound the target, with no let-up between bursts-one, then the other.
My eyes darted between the devastation and A Company’s 2 Platoon. They weren’t going anywhere fast but I made out some movement between bursts onto the target. I counted four individual movements in the same vicinity before the dust storm closed in; they were either rolling or trying to crawl.
It dawned on me that we hadn’t updated Ops on our mission.
‘Saxon Ops, Wildman Five One. Both callsigns engaging Taliban in tree line as troops withdraw, out.’
After spitting 120 bundles of hell into the tree line, both Billy and Nick stopped when Billy transmitted, ‘Watch and shoot.’
The entire field and wood had disappeared under a dust cloud a hundred feet high. But the lesson we identified earlier was now a lesson learned. No one down there would live to crawl away this time. There would be no rescue party to drag them to safety.
I looked towards the end of the wall, expecting the worst.
‘Look at that!’ I pointed my crosshair at the lads as they got up, brushed off the dust and began to saunter back up the track. I could-n’t make out any stretchers, but I couldn’t see everyone from this angle.
Jon and I kept our orbits tight around the orchard so Nick and Billy could look for leakers-Taliban trying to escape-but we were hampered by low fuel.
‘Widow Seven Zero, this is the Wildmen. We’re going to have to RTB to get some gas. We’ll be back as soon as we can to assist in your withdrawal.’ I thought they might want to hang fire until we got back, considering what happened last time the Apaches left.
‘Widow Seven Zero, good shooting. Thanks, but we’re bugging out and look forward to your return.’ Jesus, these men were made of stern stuff.
‘No problem. Were there any casualties from that contact?’
‘No. Thanks to you we all got out okay.’
‘Thanks, we’ll stay on this frequency to relay any messages on our way back and will call you inbound later.’
‘Copied, safe flight.’
I was wondering how on earth the young soldier had survived. He must have been a bloody acrobat; those legs were upside down. Lady Luck must have been on our side.
The Taliban could not have escaped north or south because we would have picked them up. They had not egressed through the orchard. The rear of it was too open and they would have been easy to spot in the light cover. They must have died w
here they were hit, but we couldn’t wait around long enough to find out.
Our troops were safe.
Billy and I only had 510 pounds of fuel left and needed to get back asap.
We turned for home.
I flicked the MPD onto the performance page: ‘RANGE SPEED 117 KTS’. The computer had calculated the optimum speed to maximise our remaining fuel. I set our speed to 117 knots, put Bastion on the centre of the heading tape, triggered the height and attitude hold and let her fly us back home. As Scottie had taught me on my CCT course, she was a much better pilot than I was.
On our approach, we were confronted by the sight of the 3 Flight Apaches still on the ground. I confirmed with Ops that they wanted us to return to Now Zad. We were told to return asap.
When I touched down on the dusty HLS I had 350 pounds of fuel remaining-fifty pounds below the minimum, but what the hell. If I was put in the same position again, I’d bust my limits once more.
When we owned up to our misdemeanour during the debrief later that day, Jon announced he’d landed with just 200 pounds, half the absolute minimum. The price you could pay for preventing our troops from dying was an engine-off landing back at base if you were lucky, in the middle of the desert if the gods were against you. The chances of both crew members surviving one in an Apache were extremely high. Whether or not the Apache would fly again was another question altogether.
The problem with this job was that if you got it right after taking a risk, you were ‘reminded’ that you took a risk and got away with it. If you didn’t get it right, it was aircrew error-and you would be constantly reminded that you cocked up as you flew a desk for what remained of your career.
Taff plugged into the wing and announced that one of the other Apaches had been shot straight through the tail during the morning’s activities. He said that Pat had begged to go back but had been turned down.
After a quick suck of gas and a rearm we were ready to depart again.
