Soldier A: Behind Iraqi Lines

by Shaun Clarke

  Cumbersome at the best of times, though always reliable, the Hercules shuddered even more as it descended, groaning and squealing as if about to fall apart. Eventually it bounced heavily onto the runway, bellowed, shook violently and rattled as it taxied along the tarmac, before finally groaning to a halt.

  Letting out a united cheer, the men unsnapped their safety belts and stood up in a tangle of colliding weapons and bergens. After a lot of noise from outside, the transport’s rear ramp fell down, letting light pour in, and the men clattered down onto the sunlit, sweltering tarmac of Riyadh airport.

  It was not the end of the SAS men’s long journey. Lined up along the runway of the airport were RAF Tornado F-3 air-defence aircraft which had arrived four months ago, shortly after the fall of Kuwait, flying in from the massive Dhahran air-base. There were also a dozen RAF CH-47 Chinook helicopters of 7 Squadron’s Special Forces Flight.

  The Regiment’s recently acquired, state-of-the-art desert warfare weaponry, including Thorn-EMI 5kg hand-held thermal imagers, Magellan satellite navigation aids – SATNAV GPS, or Global Positioning Systems – laser designators and other equipment, was unloaded from the Hercules and transferred to the Chinooks. When the transfer was over, the men, who had been milling about on the tarmac, stretching their legs and breathing in deeply the warm, fresh air, also boarded the helicopters and were flown on to Al Jubail, an immense, modern port on Saudi Arabia’s east coast, some four hundred miles from Riyadh and about five hundred from Kuwait City. They emerged from the Chinooks a couple of hours later, glad to be back on solid ground.

  Though originally built as a centre for oil and light industry, Al Jubail had never been developed properly and was now being used fully for the first time as a receiving port for the Allied equipment and supplies being brought in on more than a hundred ships, mostly from European ports, but also from Cyprus, Liberia and Panama. While some of the British servicemen in transit, mainly those of the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars and the 7th Armoured Brigade, were billeted in huts and sheds originally intended for the industrial workers, most were housed in the enormous, constantly growing ‘Tent City’ located in the port area and already equipped with camp-beds, showers, chemical toilets and a field kitchen run by the Americans.

  ‘Home sweet home!’ Sergeant Andrew Winston said, dumping his bergen on the floor beside a camp-bed in the sweltering late-afternoon heat of the space allocated to the Regiment for the duration of its stay in Al Jubail.

  ‘Having just come down from the trees,’ Geordie replied, ‘you’d be used to living out in the open. That’s one up to you, Sarge.’

  ‘You don’t like it, Geordie? Too hot for you, is it?’

  ‘You could obviously do with sweating off a few pounds,’ Geordie replied, tugging experimentally at the ropes of his lean-to tent to check that they were tight, ‘but me, I’m as slim as a man can go, so I don’t need melting down in this fucking heat.’

  ‘I’m relieved,’ Taff Burgess said, laying his M16 out carefully on his camp-bed and gazing out over the rows of tents divided by paths that led in one direction to the port and in the other to the airstrip, other accommodations and the guarded compounds containing the armoured transport and tanks. Hundreds of thousands of troops, British, American and French, crowded the spaces between the tents, eating, drinking, writing letters, taking open-air showers and going in and out of chemical latrines. Their constant movement and the ever-present desert wind created drifting clouds of sand and dust that made them look ghostlike in the shimmering light.

  ‘I wouldn’t fancy being in one of those huts in this fucking heat,’ Taff said. ‘It must be like a Turkish bath in there. At least we can breathe out here.’

  ‘All I’m breathin’ is dust,’ replied Jock. ‘That and bloody sand. I’ve got sand in my boots, in my eyes, in my mouth, and even up the eye of my fucking dick. This place is just like Oman.’

  ‘You’re too old to remember Oman,’ Paddy ribbed him, stretched out languidly on his camp-bed, hands folded beneath his head, acting really cool in the sweltering heat. ‘Relax, boys, you’re gonna have a good time here. Compared to what’s to come, it’s probably Paradise.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Geordie said.

  He was right. Their accommodations were close to the Royal Corps of Transport’s Force Maintenance Area, or FMA, and the constant noise, combined with the heat, made for irritable days and sleepless nights. Since they were there for five days, waiting for the rest of their equipment to be brought in by ship, the lack of sleep was no joke. To make matters worse, they were ordered to take NAP tablets, which were meant to reduce the damaging effects of gas in the event of a chemical attack, but also gave everyone diarrhoea.

  ‘My shit comes out like piss,’ Paddy informed the others. ‘And I hear these tablets also contain a lot of bromide, so say goodbye to your sex life.’

  Already running non-stop to the latrines, they felt even worse after the biological vaccinations against whooping cough, which they received at the same time and which knocked most of them out for twenty-four hours.

  ‘Say goodbye to your fucking sanity,’ Jock said groggily, as the others moaned and groaned on their camp-beds. ‘Christ, I feel dizzy!’

  Scarcely recovered, they were nevertheless made to spend a large part of each day on the Jerboa Range of the training ground at Al Fadhili, inland from Al Jubail, where they shot at targets and markers while being bellowed and spat at by the aggressive camels of passing Bedouin.

  ‘Those bastards on camels are straight out of Lawrence of Arabia,’ Geordie announced to all within earshot. ‘A fucking good film, that was.’

  ‘I never wanted to be in the movies,’ Andrew replied, ‘and those camels stink. What the hell are we doing here?’

  ‘Waiting for the rest of our equipment, coming in with the Navy. Need I say more?’

  ‘Fucking Navy!’ Taff spat.

  Soon sickened by the repetitive, useless training, which they had done many times before, they were all pleased when, on the fifth day, the despised Navy finally arrived at the port with their missing supplies.

  By this time, with over half a million Coalition troops and the greatest air force ever assembled in history clogging Al Jubail, the space being used by the SAS was desperately needed. The Regiment was therefore hurriedly packed up and driven back to the airstrip. From there, Hercules transports flew the relieved men to a forward operating base, or FOB, located at a Saudi airport in the desert, a day’s drive from the border of western Iraq.

  ‘We operate from here,’ Major Hailsham told the men the minute they stepped off the planes into another sea of flapping tents on a flat, barren plain. ‘Welcome to hell.’

  It wasn’t quite hell, but it was certainly no paradise. The FOB was a dense throng of lean-to tents divided by roads filled with brightly painted ‘Pink Panther’ Land Rovers, Honda motorcycles, Challenger tanks, and other armoured vehicles and trucks, many of which were being used to support the tents and their camouflaged netting. On all sides of the makeshift camp there was nothing but desert, stretching nine hundred miles from the Red Sea to Kuwait and the Gulf, southwards to the Arabian Sea beyond Oman – more than a million square miles in all. It was a very big area to cover. Also, it was surprisingly cold, especially at night.

  The first thing the SAS men learnt was that they could not phone home, their mail would be censored and normal radio transmissions were restricted. And, of course, they could not drink alcohol – not even here in the desert, for the Bedouin still often passed the camp on their camels. Similarly, the men had to respect Muslim customs and not flaunt their Western habits or religious preferences, except in the privacy of their tents.

  ‘Should this make you resent the fact that we’re here to defend the Kuwaitis,’ Hailsham said, ‘I would remind you that we have our own interests at heart. In fact, we’re here to safeguard Arabian oil, which furnishes over two-thirds of the world’s needs, including ours. To lose it to Saddam would have devastating consequences
for the West, including Great Britain. I’d also remind you that there are approximately thirty thousand expatriates in Saudi Arabia who need our protection. To give them that, we need the trust of the Bedouin. Please don’t forget it.’

  In their view, the men were not compensated for such restrictions by being treated like lords. On the contrary, their living conditions were basic, with portable showers, chemical toilets and meals consisting mainly of sausages and baked beans, sometimes curry with rice, spooned up from mess-tins as quickly as possible to stop sand or dust from getting on it, then washed down with hot tea.

  The freezing nights were long – about eleven hours of darkness – and the men, stretched out beside their tanks and armoured vehicles or huddled up in their slit trenches, could do little to pass the time other than listen to the restricted programmes of Forces Broadcasting or study the brilliant stars over the flat, featureless, seemingly endless black desert.

  From the BBC they learned that back in England Wing-Commander David Farquhar had lost secret documents and a laptop computer containing an outline version of the American war plan. The fact that this news was conveyed by the BBC even before it was known officially to the Coalition Forces in the Gulf caused much sardonic mirth among the men. They also learnt that the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, had been replaced by John Major, whom many thought would not be as supportive of them as had been the Iron Lady.

  ‘Not my cup of tea,’ Major Hailsham said, summing up the general feeling among the men, ‘but at least she always stuck by her guns. She also stuck up for the Special Forces. I don’t know that John Major will. This could be a bad blow to us.’

  ‘We’ll survive,’ Sergeant-Major Ricketts replied.

  For the SAS, the first five months of the crisis had been a time of intense frustration. As Britain’s leading exponents of desert warfare, they were, by January, the only Regiment without a certain role in any war with Iraq, even though an FOB had been established in the Gulf since August, with D and G Squadrons carrying out intensive exercises in the desolate area of the Rub Al Khali, or the Empty Quarter, testing men and equipment. At that stage, their primary function was supposed to be the rescue of the hostages being used as a human shield by Saddam; but with the release of the hostages in the second week of December, that function had become redundant and left them with no clearly defined role.

  ‘At the moment,’ Hailsham explained to Ricketts, ‘with the cooperation of the American Special Operations Central Command, we’re working hand in glove with the 5th Special Forces Group, the Amphibious Sea Air Land, or SEAL, units, the US Air Force special force and the Psychological Operations and Civil Aid or, to be brief, Psyops and Civaid. Also, since it’s perfectly clear that the outcome of any war with Saddam Hussein will be determined by air power, we’re boning up on the use of lasers for target designation with the Tornado and similar bombers. Front-line reconnaissance, however, is still under the control of the 5th Special Forces Group and US Marine Corps recon specialists. This isn’t raising the spirits of the men to any great heights.’

  ‘Presumably we need the permission of our imposing US Commander-in-Chief, Norman Schwarzkopf, to take a more active role,’ said Ricketts.

  ‘Unfortunately, yes – though I have it on the best of authority that General Sir Peter de la Billière, our former SAS commander and now commander of the British forces here in Saudi Arabia, is putting in a good word for us.’

  ‘I should bloody hope so,’ Ricketts replied.

  ‘Apart from that we’re just twiddling our thumbs.’

  ‘There are worse vices, boss.’

  Hailsham grinned. ‘Anyway, it’s bound to happen soon and I think we should consider our course of action. My view is that we should revert to the kind of campaign David Stirling ran during World War Two – deep-penetration, hit-and-run raids behind enemy lines, destroying their planes on the ground, attacking their lines of communication, ambushing their patrols and causing general disruption and mayhem.’

  ‘In armed Land Rovers.’

  ‘Right. The Pink Panthers. In and out in clouds of dust with all guns firing. Personally, I’d love it.’

  ‘Then let’s hope we get to do it,’ Ricketts said. ‘Come on, boss, let’s go for chow.’

  They were just about to leave the tent when the telephone rang.

  Chapter 2

  ‘I’ve called you together,’ Major Hailsham addressed the troopers assembled outside his lean-to on the edge of the city of tents spread across the desert plain, ‘to tell you that plans for the liberation of Kuwait are already well advanced and the operation’s been codenamed “Desert Storm”.’

  When the men burst into applause and cheering, it hit Hailsham just how frustrated they had been during the past few days, not knowing exactly why they were here and fed up with the repetitive lessons on survival in the desert or the use of the latest high-tech equipment. While this FOB was busy and noisy all day, with helicopters constantly taking off and landing, aircraft roaring overhead and Challenger tanks and armoured vehicles being put through their paces, the activity was purely of a time-filling nature, albeit masquerading as practice. Meanwhile, the ‘Pink Panther’ Land Rovers and motorcycles were sitting idly outside the tents. What Hailsham’s men wanted, he now realized, was more positive action and a clearly defined reason for being here. Now at last they were getting it.

  ‘The basic plan,’ Hailsham continued when the men had quietened down, ‘is for battleships of the US Navy to bombard the Iraqi coastal positions and offshore islands of Kuwait while US Marines make an amphibious landing from the Gulf. At the same time, Arab elements of the Coalition forces will head overland, straight for Kuwait. Meanwhile, US Marine Corps will be engaging the Iraqis due north of them. The Syrians and Egyptians will push to the north, make a right-handed swing, and come into Kuwait City from the west – hopefully, if things go as planned – meeting up with the Coalition Arab forces already there. No Western forces will enter the capital until it’s been cleared by Islamic troops.’

  ‘Very decent of us,’ Geordie said sarcastically.

  ‘Very sensible of us,’ Ricketts pointed out. ‘It shows that this war is for the Kuwaitis and we’re simply supporting them.’

  ‘Correct,’ Hailsham said. ‘The city must be liberated by Muslim forces to avoid accusations of exploitation or desecration by Christians. We’ll follow them in.’

  ‘So what’s the state of play at the moment?’ Sergeant Andrew Winston asked. ‘Are we ready to move?’

  ‘Not quite. As our heavy tank units haven’t arrived yet, all that stands between Saddam’s five thousand-odd tanks and the oil riches of Saudi Arabia are a few thousand US paratroopers and Marines …’ Jeers and farting noises from the SAS troops interrupted Hailsham, who went on, ‘… around twenty-four US Army AH-64A Apache attack helicopters, a few hundred Coalition aircraft, US special Forces Troops …’ – more derisory remarks and noises from the SAS troopers. – ‘… And, of course, us.’ Loud cheering. ‘However, while thousands more Coalition troops – British, American and French – are being flown and shipped in every day, the Gulf is filling up with aircraft carriers and their F-18 Hornet fighters, F-14 Tomcat attack fighters, A-6E Intruder bombers, and KA-6d tanker jets for mid-air refuelling. By the time the UN deadline for Saddam’s withdrawal is reached, the greatest army in history will have been assembled in Saudi Arabia and will be ready to move.’

  ‘What’s our new role,’ Danny ‘Baby Face’ Porter asked solemnly, ‘now that all the hostages have been released?’

  ‘A good question, Corporal. As you’re doubtless aware by now, on 2 December Saddam Hussein test-fired three ballistic missiles – similar to the Soviet-built Scuds – over four hundred miles of Iraqi territory, provocatively aiming them in the direction of Israel. It’s our belief that if the battle for Kuwait begins – which it will if Saddam ignores the Coalition’s demand for withdrawal by the fifteenth of this month – he’ll deliberately fire on Israel in order to lure it
into the war.’

  ‘So?’ Paddy Clarke said. ‘We can do with all the help we can get and the Israelis are sharp.’

  ‘I agree about the Israelis, but in this particular theatre of operations we simply can’t afford to have them taking part. In fact, their intervention would be an absolute disaster, losing us the Arab members of the Coalition and maybe even turning them against us. Our new task, then, is to help prevent Saddam attacking Israel.’

  ‘And how do we do that?’ Jock McGregor asked.

  ‘By locating and destroying the Scud bunkers, trailer-erector launchers, mobile units and support systems hidden deep in Iraqi territory.’

  ‘Can’t they be located by satellite?’ Andrew Winston asked. ‘I’ve heard that the Yanks have two orbiting spacecraft that can sweep the launch areas with infrared detectors every 12 seconds.’

  ‘They’re not all that brilliant,’ Sergeant-Major Ricketts pointed out. ‘In fact, they even failed to spot Saddam’s so-called supergun at Jabe Hamryn, north of Baghdad. That barrel was 170 feet long and sticking into the sky like a big dick – yet the satellites missed it!’

  ‘Ricketts is right,’ Major Hailsham said. ‘Aerial reconnaissance can be flawed. The recent Scud test shot, from a base near Basra, was in the final stages of its flight before a US satellite detected the flare from its rocket motor. The satellites, it seems, can only pick them up when they’re in flight – and that’s often too late. Also, the Iraqis are switching off their Squat Eye guidance radar systems, which further reduces our chances of finding them – so we still need good old-fashioned eyeball recces.’

  ‘From OPs.’

  ‘Yes, Corporal Porter, that’s the idea.’

  ‘How many Scuds do they have?’ Danny asked, as solemn as ever.

  ‘Present estimates vary from four hundred to a thousand missiles on thirty to thirty-six sites and maybe two hundred mobile launchers.’

  Andrew gave a low whistle. ‘That’s a lot, boss.’