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GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
30/3/03 - After approximately 12 hours in contact, we pull back to reorganise due to Iraqi strength
(200 versus our 40). Photo taken minutes before ambush.
The Iraqis were in houses but that was providing them with next to no cover. The rounds from a GMPG will go through concrete and
keep going. Most of the time, I couldn’t see whether I was hitting people, but I was firing into machine gun positions and RPG points.
I’d see their tracer coming out, or RPG flashes, so I’d fire a long burst in there and everything would stop. Then it would start up again
somewhere else. I remember I saw a large group of enemy in a house so I let them have a really long burst; it literally demolished the
house, like sawing through the stone.
After a few moments, Gary Lancaster jumped up next to me and started feeding the ammo to me, which made me more effective… At
one point, I saw an RPG flash about 300 metres off, at about 11 o’clock from us. Like I say, there’s no time to react, other than to think,
Oh no. And this bloody thing passed right between me and Gary and exploded off in the distance behind us. We were only three feet
apart and I saw it pass. Unbelievable.
It was probably round about then I thought, F***ing hell, enough’s enough now…I’ve got to get down from here. It was getting stupid,
the amount of fire that was coming towards me and Gary, and I was just thinking, It’s only a matter of time. We were just a massive,
immobile target. It wasn’t just the RPGs, though more of them were being aimed at us. There was a machine gun I couldn’t find which
was walking fire towards us. I know about machine guns and if someone has tracer rounds loaded it’s only a matter of time before they
click onto the fact that they’re firing high or short or whatever. There were numerous strikes on the road and he was getting closer, and
we weren’t going to have any second chances if he found us. There were small arms as well, and a distinctive sniper weapon, single
shots, a bit louder than an AK, so it wasn’t really a tenable position for much longer.
We’d been lucky really. There’ve been plenty of people in history who have done that kind of stuff and been slotted straight away,
before they even touched a trigger. So I shouted to Gary and we jumped off and rejoined the section. By now, the rest of the lads had
started coming into it anyway, and the enemy’s weight of fire stated dropping. And it was hell for leather, then. We dropped a number
of houses with the Milans and called in a helicopter strike to hit the sniper’s building. That was destroyed, and it took the sniper with it.
And within a matter of minutes the fight had turned right around and it was game over.
I have no idea how long the whole thing went on. Time loses its meaning when you’re in that sort of situation. What I do know is the
ammo supply for the next day was 47,000 rounds of 7.62. That is a phenomenal amount of ammunition, and it takes a while to get
through that much; it’s not a quick thing, with stoppages and changing belts and so on. One of my mates, Andy Gibson, put down
about 11,000 rounds on his own. I think I used up 7,000 or 8,000 myself by the end.
To cap it off, the boss put in for artillery and some sort of air strike went in, Harrier GR7s I think. As soon as that was done, about half
an hour later, we were back on the wagons and went straight back up to where we’d been surrounded and started fighting again, and
we went on until 2am or 3am the next day. We were only a couple of hours short of being 24 hours in contact.
I think the whole day did show the Royal Marines in pretty good light. Initially, we had a team of US Marines with us, Forward Air
Controllers. I remember they were talking about bringing in a B52, rerouting it from Baghdad, believe it or not, and basically dropping
bombs. We were only 350 metres away from the enemy! They were virtually calling an air strike on themselves, and us. We said, ‘No
thanks…you’re having a laugh. We’ll enjoy the rest of the party on our own, ta.’ They couldn’t handle it. I’m not bigging our lads up
but, like I say, we were laughing half the time during the contacts….
In terms of the medal, I didn’t actually think I’d done anything all that special. I had a lot of people come up to me afterwards saying.
‘What the hell did you do that for?’ Lads were saying, ‘ I wouldn’t have got up there for the world.’ My opinion was….well, my mate
Gary Lancaster got up there of his own free will, with no means to fight back, and that was more amazing, in my book. The sole thing
in his mind was just to hand me ammunition in a totally exposed vehicle, with all the Iraqi attention drawn to us. So he had plenty of
time to think about all that, whereas I’d just gone and done it without thinking.
I knew a few of us had been written up for things though Gary didn’t get anything, which was a real shame. I thought I might get a
Mention in Dispatches and while, to be quite frank, it wouldn’t have bothered me if I’d got nothing to be awarded a CGC was pretty
amazing. The troup boss, Capt Lynch, and Cpl Pete Watts each received Military Crosses, and there was a DSO and a handful of MiDs.
I think that shows the ferocity of the fighting, where to a lot of people they think the invasion was a walkover. In the big picture, maybe
it was. But down on the ground, little units of blokes were fighting very hard indeed.
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