Alex Duncan - Sweating the Metal

‘When we arrived back, the troops on the ground were surrounded and taking fire from 360°, so we knew if we didn’t get them out we’d be leaving them to die. It was like the Alamo – there’s no way they could have withstood the weight of fire ranged against them for much longer. To make matters worse, the Apache was almost out of ordnance and close to bingo fuel – he reckoned he only had enough for another ten minutes on scene.

‘The Apache crew were awesome. Even while laying down suppressing fire, they’d scoped out a routing that would provide us with maximum cover on our run in – a wadi running towards the village. The HLS was an L-shaped compound at the end of the wadi on the right. So, as before, the Hip went in first and we stayed at height orbiting while the Apache led him in. That was impressive and way beyond the AH crew’s call of duty – Apaches almost always stay at height. Not this one – it dropped down to low level and led the Hip right in to the HLS, then overshot to act as a bullet magnet, flying a low orbit to draw Taliban fire. Despite that, the Taliban still opened up on the Hip as it made its descent – small arms fire, RPGs and about three or four mortar rounds too. Luckily they all fell short, landing just outside the compound. If it was hell for the Hip crew, it was no picnic for us either, knowing that we were next up to be the Taliban’s target practice.

‘The Hip was only on the ground for about a minute but as he climbed out, he routed to the south – and took yet more fire as he overflew another enemy position. By now, we were making our run in. The Apache called us and said, “We’ll lead you in,” and I dropped us down into the wadi at 150kts flying 20 on the light, 10 on the noise – as low and as fast as I dared.

‘I left it right to the last minute to scrub off my speed, standing the aircraft on its tail. Booting it left and right, I flared on the approach into the compound; we were coming in along the upright of the “L” with the horizontal bit out to the right. As I came in, there were some trees about 25ft high, so I had to get us over those and then drop down. The compound had recently been dug out and I thought for a moment our blades would hit the walls and that’d be it for us, but as our wheels settled on, the blades ended up sitting just above the walls on either side! That in itself was pretty scary!

‘I’ve never seen British troops move so fast! They were on the cab within thirty seconds, which really highlights the benefits of the Chinook’s ramp against the Hip’s side-opening door. Quite a few of the soldiers had taken rounds, which indicated the ferocity of the firefights. It was bullets to their legs mostly, although they weren’t “through-and-throughs” – they were mostly grazes. That said though, the guys were pumped up on adrenaline and running as fast and hard as the rest of them! Three stayed on the ramp with Daz Beattie, one of the crewmen, and he said over the intercom, “Morris, if they open fire, I’m going to open fire as well!”

‘The lads we’d loaded on said they’d seen us taking rounds on the approach, but as it was daylight and noisy as hell, we hadn’t seen or heard anything. They said they couldn’t believe the weight of fire and we’d got pretty much the same as the Hip when it came in. I was amazed – one, that we hadn’t noticed; but two, that we hadn’t been hit. After watching the Hip taking fire, I’d been worried about following him in, but once I started the run I was so focused on the flying that I didn’t have any spare capacity to feel scared.

‘We were so lucky not to lose any vital systems and I can’t believe they missed us! I’d been worried that the mortars we’d seen landing short while the Hip was on the ground had been zeroed in and would be raining down exactly where we were sat, but they all missed us too. There was a kind of irony in that the walls around the compound afforded us protection from small arms fire once we were on the ground, but by being where we were, the blast from any mortar rounds that might have landed inside the walls would have been amplified.

‘I was away as soon as the ramp was up. I lifted to the hover, and as soon as I’d cleared the walls I turned hard right and pulled power, the nose hard down. I flew north to avoid the enemy position to the south – no point giving them another bite at the cherry! The cab was squealing like a stuck pig. The NR dipped a bit at one stage because I was asking it for more than it had to give, in an effort to get us away as quickly as possible. I flew fast and low to the east of the village and once I was convinced we’d reached a safe area, I pulled power and climbed to altitude where I met up with the Hip for the transit back to Bastion.

‘Once we reached the Bastion perimeter, we were directed to a specific pan to offload our troops and then Bastion Ops came over the radio and said, “Yeah, Black Cat Two One, pick up the program at Serial 14,” and that was it, back to “normality”. We carried on with the program as if nothing had happened.

‘It took us a while to come down after the high of that extraction. The adrenaline had been running and I remember thinking as the Hip went in and started taking rounds that first time, “I didn’t ring my family yesterday because Op Minimise was on.” I did wonder then whether I’d ever get to speak to them again, although I quickly pushed that thought away – it’s not helpful to anyone to think like that, least of all yourself. I think it’s worse looking back though, and I still can’t believe that with the amount of ordnance being thrown at us, we didn’t take a single round.’

I didn’t know it at the time, but Morris’ experience signalled the start of a week I’d never forget.

May 17th started out so simply: a routine three-ship tasking made up of JP flying as captain in the No.2 cab, with Alex and myself in the No.3 and German in the No.1 as lead. JP and I were based out of Bastion, while German was operating from Kandahar. It was a straightforward mission involving my cab and JP’s meeting up with German’s over Lashkar Gah, picking up some pax and freight, and the three of us then doing a couple of runs to Musa Qala, then back to Bastion for us, and KAF for German. Easy as…

We launched early in the morning; it would have been around 09:00, just as the sun was arcing its way to its high point, so the temperature – although well on its way to the top – was still manageable. An Apache took off with us from Bastion and we flew up to Lash where we met up with Rich as planned. Each of us then landed on and picked up a load, together with some VIP passengers for Rich’s cab. Once we were loaded up, we launched and off we went as a three-ship.

We flew over Gereshk and out into the desert, but as we got there – I think we were probably about five miles north of Bastion – German’s aircraft had a Defensive Aids Suite problem. There are a lot of faults that we’ll carry on with, but a DAS problem isn’t one of them. With that out of action, you’re effectively flying naked and exposed to any ordnance that Terry Taliban has pointed towards you. So German peeled off towards Bastion, the nearest base to his position, and Alex and I carried on towards Musa Qala with JP as formation leader.

On the run in to Musa Qala, the Apache said there had been a ten-fold increase in ICOM chatter, but I didn’t think too much of it. The Taliban knew we could intercept their radio traffic – it’s not like it’s encrypted or anything – so they weren’t averse to trying to give us false intel. I registered it, but it was just there at the back of my mind and I wasn’t unduly concerned. We flew to Musa Qala without incident, landed on with JP and, after we’d offloaded our pax, lifted off again. On the way back, JP called me over the radio and said, ‘Look, Rich’s VIPs are stuck at Bastion so I think we’ll be a bit pro-active. We’re gonna do the tasking for his aircraft and take his passengers to Musa Qala.’