Declan Daly - Borderline - An Oral History of the Brexit Wars 2020-2022

The recovery of the aircraft was hampered in the initial part by the weather, but also because of where it was, we were under observation from the northern side; and we knew we were being watched just because of where the wreckage was. So the security situation dictated a fairly brief accident investigation at that scene. There was a lot of security put down in order to let the civilian Air Accident Investigation Unit (AAIU), the civilian air accident investigation unit in to see it. That was considered important to have them there, to still maintain that transparency at a time when things were changing quite rapidly for the military and for the civilian population.

Once the wreckage was released to us, one of our Heli Handling Teams went in and prepared the load itself into what are called single use bags, these are essentially like builders’ bags and they were prepared into that for us to remove it. It's not as simple as it sounds. Due to the way modern aircraft are made and what they're made from, it's a hazardous enough environment for those teams to be working in, and obviously they helped with the removal of 2nd Lt Ratigan as well. He was taken off the mountain by a medevac aircraft with as much of a guard of honour as could be given under the circumstances. But the aircraft itself, that that was removed in what is essentially a small shipping container. An AW139 would cargo sling this container into position, the ‘builders bags’ would then be manhandled into this container and sealed.

Aircraft recoveries are notoriously difficult to carry out from mountains, especially as the wind had picked up that day towards 20 knots, there was a history in the unit of those loads being dropped, and that's where the box came in. It just flew like a box all the time, regardless of the wind or what was in it. So, yeah, the loads were just stuck in the box and away we went with it down to a field on the southern side, where it was unloaded and driven away by trucks. The main gearbox was a different challenge, that was 200 meters down the hill on the northern side, it had been substantially damaged in the impact and we ended up rolling that into single use bags and winching it out in the end,which was a more novel way of doing things. In a small tight unit like No 3 – we didn't lose as many over the Black Winter as some of the infantry units – but those kinds of things had a major, major effect on people and the unit going forward.’

Interlude: The Red Team: Origin and recruitment

It was raining. Capt David Heally was having a bad weekend. Forming up for an overseas trip was always busy and tough but this was by far the worst he’d seen in his twelve years and three trips. MREs were meant to train, test and assess each travelling Bn on the skills they would need in their respective AOs. By necessity, to get through all the different skill sets required, they could be fairly scripted affairs. This one was turning out differently. As an experiment, an extra free play exercise of 72hrs duration was added to the middle of the programme against an unspecified unit, which had free reign to operate as they wished with the resources they were given – roughly the same as what might be encountered overseas.

His Bn commander and most of the staff element had ‘died’ after 4 hrs. A feint attack on an outlying village had drawn out the QRF and their armour. Although frequently patrolled, the area around the main FOB on Cemetery Hill in the Glen of Imaal had been found clear and the remaining troops in the HQ were rotating in and out as they eased into the standard pattern of life that goes with any base. Sleep, patrol, plan, sleep, patrol.

This was observable, however, and at about noon, the suppressed noise of a helicopter could be heard behind a ‘cleared hill’. Shortly thereafter there was a series of thumps as the HQ came under fire from the mortar team that had just been dropped into position. As staff troops ran to their fighting positions, which were spaced out quite a bit by the absence of the QRF, the DS or Directing Staff said the three things every soldier in exercise hates to hear ‘Gas, Gas, Gas!’.

The simulated mortars now carried a mix of deadly chemical weapons which the DS were simulating with actual tear gas (this was new to most people on the exercise, you normally only saw real CS during training in the aptly named gas chamber in the Curragh). Anyone with red eyes was quickly being declared dead, including by this point the Bn Commander, who was a bit tardy with getting his mask on. To round things off, the noise of helis returned but closer this time. As two landed, one circled the camp, strafing with door guns anyone who had lingered in the open to fit their gas masks. It swapped with one of the recently landed helicopters and in this way, working in concert, a platoon strength force of enemy troops with one 80mm mortar had beheaded their Battalion in less than twenty minutes before fading away under cover of machine gun fire from above..

That was Friday. It had of course gotten worse, as the other companies were kept occupied in their areas by sporadic sniper fire and IEDS. This was Sunday evening and through a series of attacks, feints and misdirections, ‘his’ QRF company (the actual CO having been sniped along with the CQ on Saturday night) was now down to two dismounted platoons, no armour and no recce teams. The third platoon had gone to the rescue of the last of the recce element the previous afternoon only to join them in being decimated by ambushing enemy troops.

He led his Orders group through his plan to break out on foot back to Cemetery Hill where they would hold until reinforced. The sun fell low over the Glen and as the darkness enveloped the near slopes in shadow, coordinated sniper fire rang out just as he asked ’Any questions?’. As one, the TESS gear, a sensor system designed to detect a laser simulating a bullet, being worn by the O group squealed that they’d been hit and wouldn’t stop until they lay down flat on the dirt. As further volleys of fire echoed around the hills, the sound of helicopters once again joined the high pitched noise of more of his ‘dead’ soldiers.

Distinctly pissed off, Heally cursed into the dusk. The Red Team were winning. That wasn’t meant to happen .

Comdt Dave Heally

‘The origins of the Red Team as they came to be known were already getting fuzzy by the time I was recruited. The accepted version is that they were initially a bunch of exers brought in to lecture on the Command and Staff course in around 2014 or so, this being to make up for the experience that was already leaving the DF at the time. From guest lecturing, they moved on to acting as the enemy staff when the class would be doing their exercises – up to that apparently, some students were seen to take a fairly easygoing approach to them. They’d draw an arrow on the map and that was your axis of advance for your armour, never mind the state of the roads kind of thing.

All of a sudden there was a bunch of people in a different room responding and working against them and there were a few embarassing results. For those first few exers, it was all a bit of craic; they’d no worries about promotions or anything and it was all a bit of nostalgia and catching up with the lads. It was also a bit cool on your Linkedin page: OPFOR at Command and Staff School, Military College. They were the first ‘Red Team’ as they called themselves.

After a while, one of them during a debrief or a chat with the COS or something put up the idea of doing real world tests on the DF, the reasoning being that they were saying that most of the exercises they’d been on in their own time in uniform were overly scripted and lacked the chaos of freeplay that would challenge leaders in the field. They were given a company of reservists and a few supporting assets that they asked for and told to go squeeze it in to an upcoming MRE. That was 2016 and lo and behold, a super secret death squad was born. Allegedly. Rumour had it they were recruiting personnel onto their staff over the course of those MRE’s as well. Someone would get a text or an email towards the end of their subsequent trip saying, hey you should come hang out with us, you’ll stay in one place for a few years and won’t get moved from pillar to post as much. That would be enough to keep a lot of guys you know, a bit of stability at home. Anyway, I never got a call – probably ‘cos they killed me!