Spoken from the Front (2 page)

In April 2006, the troops of 16 Air Assault Brigade started to
arrive in Helmand province as part of Operation Herrick 4.
The entire force totalled around 3,300 troops. This was a
journey into the unknown for British soldiers because they
were taking over from US forces. However, it soon became
clear that the hope of John Reid, the defence secretary, that we
would be able to leave within three years without a shot
being fired was unrealistic.

The main combat power was provided by 3 Battalion The
Parachute Regiment supported by 1 Battalion The Royal
Irish, the Apache attack helicopters of 9 Regiment Army Air
Corp, Chinooks from 27 Squadron RAF, 7 Parachute
Regiment Royal Horse Artillery, a battery of Desert Hawk
unmanned aerial vehicles from 32 Regiment Royal Artillery
and Royal Engineers from 51 Parachute Squadron. Other
support roles were assumed by 13 Air Assault Regiment RLC
(Royal Logistic Corps), 7 Air Assault Battalion REME (Royal
Electrical and Mechanical Engineers) and 16 Air Assault
Medical Regiment. Harriers from the Joint Force Harrier
detachment, which had been operating from Kandahar since
September 2004, provided troops with vital close air
support; 34 Squadron of the RAF Regiment offered Force
Protection.

Colour Sergeant Richie Whitehead, Royal Marines

Colour Sergeant Richie Whitehead, of 42 Commando The Royal
Marines, is thirty-five. The son of a civil engineer, he was born in
Ipswich, Suffolk, and has a brother. His family moved to
Chatham, Kent, when he was eleven. Whitehead joined the Army
Cadets aged twelve and the Royal Marines at seventeen, a year
after leaving school. He has been on operational tours to
Northern Ireland, Bosnia, Iraq, and Afghanistan twice, the first in
2002, in the wake of the 9/11 attacks on the US, and the second
to Helmand province in 2006. Whitehead left the Royal Marines
in September 2008 with a medical discharge to work as a
regional director for a specialist asbestos company. He lives
near Dartmoor, Devon.

We arrived in Lashkar Gah at the end of March. But it wasn't
my first tour to Afghanistan. I had been one of the few to be
there in 2002 when the Marines were sent there as part of Op
Jacana. On that occasion, we ended up staying for five
months. It was seen as the big search [for Osama bin Laden],
the show of force, and to support the Americans in the hunt
for terrorists. It was all very new for us as a brigade. It was a
steep learning curve, which we took in our stride. There
wasn't anything really in and around Bagram [air base] but
there were a lot of operations going out into numerous cave
complexes and to the far south to places like Khowst. Back
then no one went that far south. It was eventful in that we
met a lot of people.

There were local villages around us. There were always
incidents. There were two villages near our little perimeter
track that we made through the minefields around the outside
of Bagram: in one village our track went through it and
so, obviously, the Americans gave them a briefcase of money
and said, 'Thank you very much for letting us use your field.'
So, those villagers were happy with us. But the other village,
which was approximately 500 metres away, hated them
because they [the first village] got the money but they themselves
didn't. So they used to mortar each other every night
and set traps for each other's kids and stuff like that. We had
to take charge of that and try to sort it out. But the locals in
Kabul, where the Taliban had fallen the year before, during
Op Anaconda, were generally very pleased to see us. It was
very quick how you saw a Western approach to everything:
the women started wearing jeans under their burkas and
things like that.

So it was strange being back in Afghanistan four years later.
Before we got out there, the advance party was caught in a
suicide bombing. The first multiple out there had to deal with
it. They got hit by a suicide bombing at the front gate at
Lashkar Gah camp, which shocked them massively. There
were a couple of injuries, nothing serious, just walking
wounded. Of course, the suicide bomber died. And the
vehicle was written off. So we were sat around on our
bergens [rucksacks] delayed, waiting to get out there and
obviously we heard about it.

It was a weird time because we had a lot of young lads in
the Army, and a lot in my multiple. They had never been
operational. They gave them to me because apparently with
my experience I could take care of them. So the anxiety was
quite noticeable, to say the least. Before we got there,
everyone was like, 'What are we going into?' Very
anxious.

As soon as we got out there, we took over from the Americans.
The Americans had a very forceful, aggressive way of handling the local fraternity.
They would suit up, heavily armoured in their SUVs, and drive around Lashkar
Gah as fast as possible to get from A to B and back again. Our battery commander
had his head screwed on. He had discussions with all the multiple commanders
and we wanted to go out there with our arms open. But from day one it was
'Suck it and see.' We thought: Are we going to wear berets or are we going
to go too soft? Are we going to always have our weapons like this [he raises
his arms] or are they going to be down by our sides? These debates were going
on from the start, while we were out on patrol. No one knew what our approach
should be because we did not have any information to tell us how to do this
or that. So it was another steep learning curve. But we got to grips with
it well. The population loved us.

This time round [Operation Herrick 4 and into Operation
Herrick 5] I was a multiple commander. When we originally
turned up in Lashkar Gah, there were only 250 people [today
there are more than 1,500]. There was a nice fountain in the
middle and a volleyball court, all designed and made by
the Americans. There was a perimeter fence and inside there
were little pieces of hardened accommodation that the
Americans had built. I was lucky enough to have one of
these. It was a six-man room with three bunk beds but you
had your portable TV and your Xbox.

McNab:
This was a significant day. The Union flag replaced the
Stars and Stripes at Lashkar Gah as America formally handed over
the 'watch' of Helmand province to Britain. The first members of 16
Air Assault Brigade had been arriving there throughout April. The
military task was to keep the peace and to support development
projects organized by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and
the Department for International Development. The aim was to
bring Helmand into the ambit of the central Afghan government.
British efforts were to centre on bolstering the authority of the
governor and reforming the province's parlous police, judiciary and
penal system. But it was privately acknowledged that the Taliban
had been steeled by America pulling its forces from Helmand, which
produces most of Afghanistan's £1.6 billion-worth of drugs.

Captain Nick Barton, DFC, Army Air Corps

Captain Nick Barton, DFC, is an Apache helicopter pilot with the
Army Air Corps. Aged thirty-two, he grew up in West Sussex and,
after leaving school, took a gap year in New Zealand teaching
sport, and travelled the world. He graduated with a master's
degree in mechanical engineering with French. In 2001, he went to
Sandhurst for officer training, sponsored by the Royal Engineers.
After he had passed flying aptitude courses, he joined the Army Air
Corps. Following his eighteen-month helicopter pilots' course,
which started in January 2002, he joined 656 Squadron as an
Apache pilot. He has completed four tours in Afghanistan, serving
with 656, 662 and 664 Squadrons, and has since been posted to
instruct at Sandhurst.

The Apache is a clever aircraft. It has amazing technology. It's
robust, very durable and very capable. And it has awesome
fire-power. It can fly at 140 knots max. We – there is a crew of
two – can cruise at 120 knots. In Afghanistan, we have an
extra fuel tank. We carry twenty-four rockets, and a standard
load is two Hellfire missiles, although we can adjust the
weapons' load according to the mission. We sit one pilot in
front of the other. You can fly from each seat. The more
experienced person is usually the mission commander.
Ideally, he should be in the front seat, since it's the only one
from which you can operate the laser and control the sights.
For weapons' guidance, range, etc., that is a front-seat job.
Ultimately the Apache is an attack helicopter. The optics are
amazing – on a very clear day, at midday, you will be able to
break out a guy at about twelve Ks [kilometres], depending
on haze. A new sighting system is becoming operational at
the moment, which will greatly improve the night-time
capability.

Ideally, you want to get target rounds on your first burst
from your 30mm, probably your initial weapon for a point
target. There is always going to be some slight error in the
gun of, say, ten to fifteen metres when you're firing from two
K in a moving aircraft. Flying straight at the target is more
accurate. You then want to be able to adjust straight away so
you're looking for perfect second rounds hit.

Most of the time you fly as a pair [of Apaches] so you have
four pairs of eyes looking out – and you have mutual support
if you develop a fault or problem. The patrol commander will
be mission lead and he will do the majority of the radio work,
and your wing aircraft will be the lower aircraft. The higher
aircraft is going to get a better line-of-sight comms, leaving
the wing to focus more on the targeting. However, some
patrol commanders do it differently. Our main role is attack:
providing close-fire support for the ground troops. Our other
role is providing escort protection to other aircraft, which are
going in to the tastier [more dangerous] landing sites.

I first went out to Afghanistan on 1 May 2006. We flew into
Kabul, over-nighted there, then went down to Kandahar.
Initially we operated out of Kandahar for the first month and
a bit – we used to deploy for the day and operate out of
[Camp] Bastion when it was a shell compared to what it is
now. So we were operating off a gravel pad – quite sporty
[challenging/dangerous] – and it was austere in comparison
to the runways and air-traffic control that we have now.

Afghanistan was pretty desolate. You were never quite sure
what you were going into. There's a certain amount of
tension about anyone's first tour. I certainly had a few
questions as to why we were there. But you can console yourself
by thinking: My job is to be as good as I can be, to provide
the best support to whichever call sign needs us.

McNab:
Our troops in Afghanistan received an early indication of
the scale of the Taliban resistance. More than a hundred people died
as Taliban fighters and Afghan forces clashed in the fiercest fighting
since Britain had arrived in the province. A wave of attacks left
some eighty-seven Taliban fighters and suicide bombers dead. The
battles also left about fifteen Afghan police, a Canadian soldier, an
American civilian and an Afghan civilian dead. Nine hours of fighting
had begun after reports that Taliban fighters had massed in
Musa Qa'leh a day earlier.

Flight Lieutenant Christopher 'Has' Hasler, DFC, RAC

Flight Lieutenant Christopher 'Has' Hasler, DFC, is a Chinook helicopter
pilot with the RAF. Aged twenty-nine, he is Canadian and was born in Jasper,
a town in the Rockies. He was brought up in Nova Scotia and went to New Brunswick
University to do a degree in international relations. However, he decided
not to complete his course because he joined the RAF. Initially he questioned
the value of his six-month training at RAF Cranwell in Lincolnshire, but he
knuckled down and fulfilled his ambition to fly military helicopters. After
a relatively quiet tour of Iraq, he served in the Falkland Islands, Northern
Ireland and Europe. He arrived in Afghanistan, as a flying officer, in May
2006 for a two-month tour. He has since been promoted to flight lieutenant
and has done a further five tours to Afghanistan. Hasler, who is single, is
based at RAF Odiham in Hampshire.

The Chinook is essentially a troop-carrying helicopter, used
to drop off and collect troops [including injured soldiers]. It is
about 100 feet long, 20 feet tall, and it can fly at up to 160
knots. It is armed with two mini guns and an M60D machinegun.
It is flown by two pilots who sit side by side. We also
have two crewmen, who do everything the pilots don't do:
loading and unloading and also firing the guns if needed. The
crewmen work the aircraft – we just fly it. If we're dropping
off light-ordered troops, just with their weapons and
ammunition, then we could carry thirty to forty max in
Afghanistan. But it also depends on the conditions – how
hot it is, how high we are. Thirty to thirty-five troops
would be a good, safe number. Flying helicopters for me is a
schoolboy dream that I've never grown out of.

Departed the Sqn at 2100L [local time] to pick up a few crewmen,
and headed to Brize [Norton] to catch our Tristar. For
once, the movers at Brize didn't fuck us around too much and
we were on the plane in quite good time.

I was pleasantly surprised when a girl from my Initial
Officer Training course [at RAF Cranwell] sat beside me.
Besides being a Harrier pilot, extremely pleasant and quite
clever, she is also very attractive. This had the benefit of
making the trip to Kabul seem much shorter.

As we approached Kabul, we were instructed to don our
Kevlar helmets and CBA [body armour]. This is a very
peculiar sight; being in a white airliner wearing combat gear
... funny maybe only to me.