Sean Rayment - Bomb Hunters - In Afghanistan with Britain’s Elite Bomb Disposal Unit

The searchers had to accept that any further devices could contain little if any metal and as such they could no longer rely on their mine detectors. By now the sun was starting to rise in the sky and the bomb hunters were warned by intelligence officers from the battle-group headquarters that the Taliban were moving into the area. Staff Sergeant Hughes pushed on to the next device. Once again it was a pressure-plate, or victim-operated IED (VOIED), linked to what was a central power source. It immediately struck Hughes that he was dealing with a complex device not seen in Helmand before. He was now in a whole new dangerous world with only his wits and skill to rely on. All the bombs were laid out in exactly the same way and were composed of a pressure-plate IED which sat directly on top of a 20 kg main charge of explosive. There was every possibility that if one bomb detonated they would all explode at the same time.

Again Hughes conducted a Cat A neutralization, and again any error would have proven fatal. Less than two minutes after the second device had been neutralized a third was discovered near one of the dead soldiers. The device was located on the extraction route over which the casualties would have to pass. For the third time in less than twenty minutes Hughes carried out a Cat A task.

As the sun began to illuminate the wadi, dark patches of disturbed soil could be seen all around. Hidden beneath each site was a bomb. In an area of 40 metres by 50 metres the bomb hunters found seven bombs. In addition they identified the locations of another six devices from ‘ground sign’, disturbed earth left after a bomber has planted a device, and left these in situ.

Hughes was moving back along one of the cleared routes close to where a fallen soldier lay when a platoon sergeant asked him to remove the soldier’s dog tags. The soldier had sustained a triple amputation and his face was covered in severe lacerations. Hughes rolled the dead soldier onto his front and pulled out the two dog tags from beneath his body armour. He took one off, threw it to the platoon sergeant, and put the other back securely on the dead soldier so that he could be formally identified later. He rolled the body back into its original position and gave him a comforting pat on the back.

Before the wounded could be evacuated, two more devices which had been discovered on the extraction route needed to be neutralized.

Despite the carnage, Hughes managed to maintain his composure until a stretcher party arrived to collect the bodies. It was clear that one of the young soldiers on the team had been good friends with at least one of the dead. The fusilier began to sob uncontrollably when he saw his friend lying dead in the dust of the dried river. Suddenly the full enormity of what had happened began to dawn on everyone involved in the operation. Up until that point Staff Sergeant Hughes and his team had been wholly concentrating on locating and neutralizing Taliban bombs. His focus broken, he turned away, his eyes welling up with tears. No one spoke. The bomb hunters hung their heads as the young soldier was carried away. Everyone knew there were many more tears to come.

Just forty-five minutes after Hughes arrived at the scene, more than a dozen devices had been located and seven had been cleared, five by a Cat A action. After the bombs were neutralized, the injured and dead were removed. Fully didn’t make it – his injuries were too severe. The three other wounded soldiers all recovered. The team didn’t know it at the time but they had just completed what was later described as the single most outstanding act of explosive ordnance disposal ever recorded in Afghanistan, for which Staff Sergeant Hughes was later awarded the George Cross. By the end of his six-month tour he had cleared 118 bombs.

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