Alex Duncan - Sweating the Metal

I always try and rationalise things but, if I’m honest, that’s one sortie I can’t explain.

August 11th 2007 is a day I’ll never forget. Rich and I, together with crewmen Jim Warner and Bob Ruffles, were on the third day of a four-day stint in Bastion, which had been dominated by trips to and from FOB Inkerman to extract a significant number of British casualties. The base, which was home to ‘C’ (Essex) Company Royal Anglians, is situated about eight klicks north of Sangin and acted as a buffer between the town and the Taliban for whom it seemed to be some form of ordnance magnet.

Every day was the same. Sometime between 13:00 hrs and 14:00 hrs, the Taliban would launch concerted attacks on the base, employing every weapon at their disposal. Those inside the base got used to a daily diet of recoilless rifle, RPGs, rockets, mortars and small arms fire, and in giving as good as they got, they took a number of casualties. In the two previous days, we’d recovered at least eleven troops, including the body of Private Tony Rawson, who had been shot dead while on patrol. His Company Commander, Captain David Hicks, had written a very moving eulogy for him.

Whenever a British soldier is killed in theatre, Brigade HQ immediately enforces Op Minimise, a blackout of communications across the entire country. Phones, email, Paradigm text and internet are affected simultaneously. When it happens, and it can be at any time of the day or night, an announcement is made to that effect by Tannoy at each base and FOB. If you’re in the middle of a call or surfing the net, you won’t get a chance to say goodbye – Op Minimise has the immediacy of a power outage.

Its purpose is to allow the next-of-kin informing process to begin and not be inadvertently or wilfully undermined by members of the casualty’s unit advising the family, friends or media before the military can track them down. How long that takes can vary – Op Minimise might last a few hours, it could last a whole day, or during summer (when the UK’s casualties are at their highest) Op Minimise can be called back-to-back, meaning we can go four, five, six or more days without being able to contact our loved ones. Of course, as soon as Op Minimise comes into effect, every Brit in Afghanistan knows that somewhere in the country a commanding officer is making the call that will set in chain the sequence of events that will lead to someone’s partner, parent or sibling getting the dreaded knock on the door.

The morning of the 11th had been quiet, so we’d taken the opportunity to enjoy lunch as a crew together at one of Bastion’s DFACS (dining facilities), although the radio was always close at hand. Sadly, life at FOB Inkerman wasn’t so sunny. At around 13:30, just as we were arriving back at the IRT tent, the Taliban had launched another attack on the base and a mortar round had landed on a fuel tank, causing multiple injuries. An RPG had also found its mark, hitting an observation tower in the middle of the base, severely wounding Captain Hicks. We got the call just after 14:00: two long rings, which by now sounded to us like the clanging chimes of doom. Like Pavlov’s dogs, we responded through conditioning; we hated the sound, but it produced a surge of adrenaline in all of us.

I’m captain, so Rich and Jim head straight for the aircraft to get her spun up, while Bob and I head for the JOC to get the details. There is no need for us to wait for the Apache on IRT duty to escort us; the crew is already overhead at Inkerman helping out the beleaguered guys inside with some close air support. As per usual, by the time Bob and I reach the cab, we’re pretty much good to go. The MERT is already on board, busily sorting kit out and hanging up IV drips. The QRF sit ready and waiting, their weapons resting between their legs, business ends pointing downwards – that way, any negligent discharges aren’t going to take out vital systems.

Back at RAF Odiham on a routine tasking, it takes us around forty-five minutes to start the aircraft and get airborne. On the IRT, we’ve got it down to just a few minutes. There are lives at stake and every second counts; we do everything we can to make a difference, and in the dynamic, constantly changing environment that is a war zone, getting airborne in the shortest time possible is one thing we can influence. I brief the crew as soon as I don my helmet and connect the pigtail.

‘It’s a bad one, guys. FOB Inkerman. We’ve got two T1s, four T3s and a walking wounded to pick up. The LS was still hot when I left the JOC and the Apache was letting loose with everything it has, so it could get interesting on the way in. Everyone okay?’

‘All good, Frenchie,’ the crew come back. German fires up the engines and with the all clear from Jim at the ramp, we lift into the afternoon sunshine and turn north.

‘OK, same drill as usual,’ I say as we climb to height. ‘No rank bollocks on my cab. I’m Frenchie or Alex, this is German, you’re Bob and you’re Jim. You have my authority to engage without reference if you identify a firing point. Clear?’

‘All clear, Frenchie,’ from the back.

Before we climb to height on the transit north of Bastion, there’s a linear feature which we know as the deconfliction line. With that in our six o’clock, the guys in the back can test fire the guns – aside from the Apache, they’re our last line of defence, so if they’re going to fail, you want to know before things heat up, not at a crucial life-or-death moment. Hence, on every sortie, the aircraft’s weapons are test fired.

‘Checking weapons,’ says Jim at the ramp.

‘Checking weapons,’ says Bob on the Crowd Pleaser.

‘Work away, fellas.’

Jim opens up with the ramp-mounted M60. It’s a gas-operated, air-cooled, belt-fed, automatic machine-gun with a maximum rate of fire of 550 rounds per minute; on its own, it’s pretty impressive as it fires a line of rounds out into the sky over Helmand. Then Bob lets fly with the door-mounted M134 Minigun – compared to that, the M60 sounds like an X Factor loser against Whitney Houston. The noise the Crowd Pleaser makes as it spits out up to four thousand 7.62mm rounds a minute has to be heard to be believed. A spout of flame erupts from the front as the six barrels rotate and fire a line of red-hot rounds earthwards. It’s a great weapon to have.

We come in through the Sangin Valley and fly a holding pattern over the western side, waiting to be called in by the AHs. The site is still hot as hell and we wait for a lull in the fighting so we can put down. The Apaches are doing everything they can to speed that moment along and are directing a huge weight of fire at the Green Zone. The 30mm cannon fire a stream of High Explosive (HE) shells earthwards and then they let loose with their flechette rockets. These weapons are truly awesome in their destructive power, especially against multiple personnel out in the open; once in flight, each rocket releases eighty six-inch tungsten darts travelling at 2,460mph. They’ll shred anything within a 50m spread and if they hit a human target, their supersonic speed creates a vacuum that will suck up everything in its path. They are just the thing for the fuckers who are causing all the misery at FOB Inkerman.

The site is still hot, but we know there are seven casualties down there who are depending on us. The AHs are raining fire down to suppress the enemy below in an effort to get us in, so it’s in our hands.

‘Guys, we could wait ’til the end of tour for this LS to go cold. Are we all happy to make a move with it still hot?’

All three of them agree. We’re going in. ‘Ugly Five Two, Doorman Two Four, request you keep the pressure on. We’re going in,’ I advise.