GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
Approach under fire to extract troops during Operation Mutay
We’re running in to the target with a minute to go now. I can see the village building up below as more and more compounds appear closer and closer together, often linked one to the next. There are no women or children around and I feel the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.... We’re on the approach now... Andy goes in and there’s no dust whatsoever so we go straight in next to him. Craig flies in carrying a lot of speed but it’s tactically sound - it’s more aggressive and dynamic but a moving target is harder to hit.... We’re bracing ourselves for a dust cloud that doesn’t come. A slight bump as the wheels settle on and the suspension compresses slightly and a metre or so of run on. Craig applies the brakes, the rear ramp goes down and, in less than five seconds, all thirty of the fully armed and kitted up Paras who were sitting in the cab have charged off....
It’s the first time I’ve landed in an enemy compound and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest.... My eyes are darting all over the front and sides of the aircraft looking for threats - enemy gunmen or RPGs lining up or coming out of the wood line immediately ahead of us.
‘Come on,’ I say out loud. We’re a sitting duck here, except we’re loaded with ammunition for the guns and 1,600kg of fuel, so we’re like a duck sitting on a bomb. As soon as the Paras feet touch the ground, the radio sparks into life with calls of ‘Contact, Contact!’ as they’re engaged. So much for the intelligence that said resistance should be light to non-existent. There are enemy in various positions and the Paras are taking heavy fire from inside the compound. We’re immediately behind them so that means we’re taking fire too.
‘Scan your arcs, guys. If you see a threat, take it out,’ Craig warns the crewmen. It’s daylight, so tracer doesn’t show and you can’t hear the telltale ‘crack’ of rounds coming in over the noise of the blades. The only way you know you’re taking fire is either from the ‘tink’ sound that rounds make when they penetrate the skin of the aircraft, or the spiderweb of cracked glass that occurs when they hit the windscreen or chin bubble. Basically, you’re either going to be dead or wise after the event. I think the only thing that saves us that day is the fact that we are shielded from view of the enemy by the height of the compound wall.
‘Ramp up, clear above and behind,’ from the back. And not a second too soon.
Due to concerns over dust from Andy’s aircraft, the brief is for us to depart to our 12 o'clock for a sharp left-hand turn followed by a climb to fly south at height, but Craig decides that, as there is no dust, he’s going to depart with a right-hand turn and fly over a 1,500ft high range of hills to the East of Now Zad and hold in this area. It’s a spur of the moment decision, made on impulse, that quite possibly saves our lives. As we later learn, an enemy team were dug in with an RPG at around the point where, had we departed and turned left as briefed, we’d have been flying at 50ft at around 20kts. Had we followed our planned route, we’d have been low and slow, directly over them at the most vulnerable stage of our departure, giving the RPG firer unobstructed shot at the cab’s underside. It would have been like shooting fish in a barrel.’ (Ibid)
Having departed under fire, Duncan’s Chinook returned several hours later to extract the Paras and was once again exposed to machine-gun fire. The engagement, which was supposed to be short-lived, lasted over eight hours with approximately 20 Taliban fighters killed.
First British Casualty in Afghanistan
On 11 June, Duncan was in action again, this time on IRT duties with Craig Wilson as captain of aircraft. They received three calls that night to evacuate casualties from the same area, coming under rocket fire on both of the first two occasions. Having received the first call at 19:00hrs, the final call was made in the early hours of 12 June:
‘By now it is around 04:00 and all of us are done in... We’ve been up since the previous morning at 08:00 and flying since around 20:00 the previous night, so we’re beyond tired. My whole concept of time is skewed as I sit there. It’s a concept too far for a brain that’s been on the go for eighteen or more hours..... Woodsy appears. He’s not smiling. I look at Craig, who looks back at me, our faces impassive. This is Groundhog Day.
‘Guys, it’s bad news, I’m afraid. I’m really sorry but you’re going to have to go back to the same area. That patrol has got a KIA - Captain Jim Philippson.’
My heart sinks. It had to happen sometime - someone had to be the first; but why now, why him? He’s the first British casualty of our deployment to Helmand Province. It hits hard. It’s difficult to believe now, looking back across a sea of Britain’s dead in Afghanistan that numbers over 360 at the time of writing, but Capt. Jim Philippson was the first to die in Helmand from enemy action.
‘There’s more to it than the KIA,’ Woodsy continues. ‘There are a lot of guys bogged down in a firefight with enemy forces that have been there since the first T1 you picked up yesterday evening. We need to insert a company of troops in support so they can flush the enemy forces out. And don’t feel obliged or think you’ll be judged if you turn this down; you’ve all worked more than hard enough. I can always raise the other crew.’
www.dnw.co.uk
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