GROUPS AND SINGLE DECORATIONS FOR GALLANTRY
Fuck me, it must be bad; I’ve never heard of that happening before. I look towards the ramp and a scene of absolute bedlam greets me: six wounded British casualties and a wounded Afghan soldier on board - two T1s, four T3s and a walking wounded. I can’t even remember a time before when we had that many casualties in the cab. There are stretchers taking up every spare inch of floor space and almost nowhere for the QRF guys to go. IV drips hang from every point, the floor is awash with blood; I can almost smell it. It’s a scene of utter devastation - broken bodies and medics working like crazy in the dark, cramped dusty cab...’ (Ibid)
The Chinook was engaged again as it attempted to lift, with the DAS flares firing as a distraction. Amongst the casualties on board was Captain Hicks:
‘The team are trying to stabilise Captain Hicks. I ask Bob how he is. ‘He’s taken a head wound, Frenchie. They’re doing CPR on him at the moment.’
They manage to revive him, but I’m in awe of the crewmen. Already overworked with running the cab and managing the aircraft, they’re up to their elbows in all the worst aspects of conflict - bloodied, battered bodies of young soldiers. It’s hard enough for us looking in the mirror and seeing the guys working on them, but there’s no escape for the crewmen - they’re up close and personal. I look at the MERT team working on Capt. Hicks; he has multiple arrests but each time they perform CPR he comes back. I will him to hang on. We want him to live.
We run down as fast as we can down the east side of Sangin, along the east side of FOB Robinson, and once we clear that we do a right turn towards the south-west, north of Gereshk and a straight run for Bastion.... With the nose dipped, we are wringing every single ounce of power the cab has, flying at the aircraft’s VNE or Velocity Never Exceed. The ASI shows us at 160 knots - even more at times.... We try everything we’ve got. We’re flying faster than I’ve ever done before in a Chinook and it’s shaking like a bastard. We can’t fly a straight line back - the risk to the cab from ground fire is too great. We have to weigh up the options: save thirty seconds and risk losing the seven casualties, the crew, the medics and the cab, or go the longer way round? It’s a no-brainer. We can’t go as the crow flies so we take the quickest route we can. It adds maybe thirty seconds to our journey, but it feels like an age. I feel like we’re watching an hourglass and the sand’s about to run out.
Bastion’s in sight now. I can see the wire. Nightingale and the HLS are on the nose. We’re seconds away. Rich is working it like a madman; we’re digging deep to give everything we can.
‘How are things in the back?’ I ask. ‘I’m sorry mate, I think it’s over. He’s had a heart attack and they’re stopping CPR,’ says Bob.
I feel like the bottom has dropped out of our world. It’s absolutely heart-wrenching. But there’s still a chance, so we don’t stop. We don’t ever stop until we’re on the ground and we’ve done everything we can. We rip the aircraft all the way to Nightingale and the team are waiting for us. Rich stops the cab on a sixpence, we land on and the ramp goes down. The casualties are off, but we’re too late for David Hicks - sadly, he doesn’t make it.’ (Ibid)
Third tour, third time lucky - a D.F.C.
Duncan returned to the UK on leave at the end of his 2nd tour of Afghanistan in September 2007. After a period of pre-deployment training with 27 Squadron at R.A.F. Leuchars, Duncan was redeployed to Helmand in April of 2008. The Chinook Force was to once again support 16 Air Assault Brigade, with 3 Para to fore. This time Duncan had a formed crew, flying with Pete Winn, Mick Fry and Barry Fulton for the first part of the tour. They were engaged with similar taskings to before - resupply runs, underslung loads, troop insertions and extraction. By the end of April he formed up with a new crew, consisting of Alex Townsend, Bob Ruffles and Neil Cooper, all of whom would stay with him for the remainder of the tour.
The arrival of May was to test Duncan’s capabilities as a pilot to the limit:
‘The week or so following May 15th was unusual in the extreme but, at the time, there just seemed to be a marked increase in activity on the Taliban’s part. As it turned out, the series of seemingly unrelated events we experienced over that ten-day period were all part of a concerted effort by the Taliban to achieve a series of spectaculars; it was only down to an extraordinary degree of luck, daring, and some spectacular flying by the Chinook Force that they failed.
Over eight days, several cabs took rounds and an assassination attempt was made against Gulab Mangal, governor of Helmand Province, while I was flying him to Mua Qala. Also, the Taliban used a suicide bomber in a crowded market in a cynical attempt to lure a Chinook into a position where they could try and shoot it down.... (Ibid)
On the morning of 17 May, Duncan started the day on a routine three-ship tasking carrying freight from Lashkar Gah to Musa Qala. The two other cabs were flown by JP and ‘German’, with the latter also collecting some VIPs upon arrival at Lashkar Gah. Five miles north of Bastion, ‘German’s’ aircraft had a Defensive Aids Suite problem and was forced to put down at Bastion - thus leaving his VIPs stranded. Duncan and JP completed a trip to Musa Qala, before it was decided that they would take over ‘German’s’ tasking and take his passengers to Musa Qala.
In order to carry out the tasking both Chinooks stopped off at Gereshk to refuel. It was whilst this process was taking place that a huge fuel leak was discovered on JP’s aircraft. Duncan called his fellow pilot over the radio:
‘Black Cat Two Three, Black Cat Two Two. Seeing as you’re stuck here, we’ll fly on to Bastion with the Apache and take over Rich’s tasking. We’ll get the VIPs on board and I’ll speak to Bastion Ops to arrange for an armourer to come to my cab. I’ll drop him off here, en route to Musa Qala with Rich’s pax, so he can change your flares over.’
‘Black Cat Two Two, thanks for that, copied. We’ll stay here and await the armourer.’ (Ibid) Having arrived at Bastion:
‘Coops goes off to locate Rich’s VIPs and returns a short time later, a line of well-dressed passengers following him like he’s the Pied Piper of Hamelin. We wait. And wait.
The heat is stifling, the dashboard too hot to touch. A bead of sweat draws a path under my helmet down my forehead and I can feel it heading inexorably for my eyes - my gloved hand swipes it away. The rotors turn, fuel burns, but we’re going nowhere. Where the fuck is the armourer?
I check my watch; we’ve been sitting ‘turning and burning’ for fifty minutes now.... [Once the armourer has finally arrived] I look past him to the full load of VIPs. I don’t know who they are except they’re very formally dressed so they look a bit out of place. Their questioning glares and furrowed brows tell me they’re an unhappy group of suits. I’m pissed off and I’ve only been waiting for an hour; they’ve been sat in the cab almost as long as I have, and they were waiting in the heat for over an hour before boarding. No wonder they’re not smiling.’ (Ibid)
Duncan successfully deposited the armourer at Gereshk, before flying on for Musa Qala:
‘Ten more minutes and we’re about six miles from the target. I radio ahead to the Apache: ‘Ugly Five Zero, Black Cat Two Two. Inbound. Next location in figures five.’
‘Black Cat Two Two, Ugly Five Zero, visual. Be aware, enemy forces moving weapons along your route. Hold, we’re checking it out.’ We don’t have long to wait.
‘Black Cat Two Two, Ugly Five Zero. Enemy forces moving weapons to the south-west - suggest you try alternative routing. Guys, the ICOM chatter has got ten times worse. They’re up to something.’
www.dnw.co.uk
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